She stared at it.
“I wouldn’t have noticed you, but a man in my employ today has a fancy for young men. He was saying to one of the others that he hoped he’d get a private moment with the pretty boy with the green eyes in the back of the shuttle before we found the girl and were en route to Mondi.”
“I’m not going to Mondi, but I wish you a good trip.”
He smiled, his round face looking cheerful and friendly. It was a common deceit of the magistrate’s.
“I’m not very interested in Mondi myself,” he said, gripping her thigh. He turned and leaned nearer to her, and then she felt it.
She tried to jerk away, but it was too late. The contents of the pressure syringe shot into her leg. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound never came.
* * *
When he entered the suite, Larsinc overheard the magistrate’s plans for the girl and would happily have killed him and all of his mercenary co-conspirators, but it wasn’t a good strategy. A dead banker-magistrate found on a luxury space-liner would lead to a full-scale criminal investigation that might interfere with his plans.
Two sharp blows to the head and a chokehold left the three in the suite unconscious. Larsinc lifted the drugged, unconscious girl and put her over his shoulder. He carried her to the small luggage shoot and deposited her and his pack in it, then popped over the side of the ascending escalator and dropped into luggage hold.
Linc retrieved his pack and his girl and put them into a covered cart. He moved swiftly to the cargo door he’d wedged open. He slipped outside, letting the door swing shut. After pulling the device from his pack, he used it to remove the implanted sensor from her forearm. Crushing it under his boot, he pushed the cart down the hangar.
There were only three ships that he tagged as possible smuggler’s vessels. He chose the one that smelled like mandenwood, which was a common spice used in soaps from Canypsco, birthplace of pirates and smugglers.
He pulled Gissandre and his pack from the cart and kicked it into motion, sending it several ships away. After climbing aboard the ship, Linc tapped along the wall. When he found a panel that made a hollow sound, he pried it open and found a compartment that was larger than expected. He climbed in with his contraband girl.
This time she can say I abducted her, and it’ll be the truth.
