He’d never seen that much money offered for anyone. Ever. If he was seeing this new post, other people were, too. There wasn’t a bounty hunter with access to this list that wasn’t pissing his or her pants right now with excitement, but Shade felt like he was about to throw up.
His shoulders tensed as he pushed away from his desk to pace. Those others, though, they didn’t know where she was. Theexact platformwhere her severely disabled ship was currently docked. They had no idea where to start looking forCaptain T. Baileyin the whole fucking galaxy, but he could walk right up to her, and she wouldn’t even wonder why he was there.
Shade swallowed the bad taste in his mouth.Two hundred million.He could buy back his birthright and live like a king forever on that. Never compete for another job in his life.
Stopping, he studied the picture again, impatient for the rest of the job info to pop up. There had to be more than this, something to go on.
The image filling his tablet wasn’t an exact likeness. He’d seen ones like it before often enough. Someone had taken a picture of a kid—less than ten years old, if he had to guess—and then used algorithms to transform it into an adult woman. The computer program had gotten the blue eyes, straight brown hair, and almost heart-shaped face right, but it had erased her freckles, like they’d never even been.
He scowled at the screen. The pinkish, uniform skin looked all wrong on her.
More text finally appeared.
Names may be false.
He snorted. Always a good place to start.
Shade glanced at the bottom of the screen to see who’d sent out the post. Captain Nathaniel Bridgebane, Galactic General,Dark Watch 12.
For fuck’s sake, this just kept getting worse. They’d brought out the big guns. Bridgebane was the Overseer’s right hand. His brother-in-law. And he either had no idea who Tess was, or he knew, and he didn’t want to tell anyone.
Captain T. Bailey.
Cargo Cruiser model 419—Endeavor.
Subject presumed dead.
Shade frowned. “Then why are you sending this out?”
Last seen in Sector 14 in possession of highly sensitive government materials.
His eyebrows nearly flew off his head. He’d seen hints of fragility in Tess, but she must have had balls of steel if she’d been zooming around Sector 14 with the Dark Watch on her heels.
The bounty will be doubled for recovery of the stolen goods. Live capture preferred—substantial bonus.
Shade’s heart stuttered to a stop. He reread. Holy Sky Mother, the galactic government wanted Tess and whatever she’d taken more than it had ever wanted anything since its inception, as far as he knew.
And they preferred her alive.
Some of the sick feeling inside him eased.
Unless they just wanted to torture her for answers?
The sick feeling grew again.
What had she taken? Bridgebane didn’t want to say outright; that much was clear. He was dangling bait, and the hunters had to figure it out for themselves. If they found her, they probably found it.
Tess’s coolly spoken “I’m not a petty thief” came back to him, and he almost choked. He’d teased her about stealing a box of bullets? When she stole, she obviously stole big.
The photo and information disappeared, and Shade lunged for the tablet, picking it up again. Bridgebane couldn’t have been taking down the job already. No one could have found her that fast.
A sort of rage-filled panic started drumming beneath his ribs, but then another window opened with a new image to take the first one’s place. Same text underneath. The photo was a mug shot from Hourglass Mile, one of the most severe and secure places in the galaxy. They’d traced her to where she’d been—he looked at the date on the prison photo—seven years ago.
Tess Bailey. It might not have been her real name, but she’d been using it for a while now.
He looked at her birth date, too. A quick calculation told him she was twenty-six.
He cursed and started pacing again.
