Kressa called Devin on board the Gamble as soon as she left Commander Vel's office, but there was no answer.

Concerned, she put in a call to the Conquest. "Connie, check with the city port and let me know if Devin's ship is still there."

"Garth's Gamble is still registered at the port," Connie reported after a brief pause, "and there is no indication that it isn't still there."

"Okay. Thanks, Con. I'm going over there to see what's up."

Perhaps Devin had gone back to bed to continue his recovery from Lauden's beating, she thought. If not, and he wasn't at the ship, she would wait for him. Once he returned, she would present him with all of the options regarding their future, as well as the complete truth about herself. Together they could—hopefully—come up with a plan for what to do next.

She climbed the Gamble's boarding ramp and pressed the announcer button. No one answered.

Kressa looked at the access pad. She'd seen Devin enter the code enough times to have learned it. What would he think of that? He'd done nothing to hide it.

With a shrug, she tapped in the numbers.

The airlock cycled open.

"Devin?" she called, stepping into the ship. "Hello?"

There was no answer.

She checked his quarters. Empty. The control room, maybe?

She made her way to the front of the ship.

Kressa opened the door to the Gamble's bridge and gazed with consternation at the ship's antiquated boards and jury-rigged controls, thinking only half jokingly how brave Devin must be to risk taking the ship into space.

As she continued to gaze in appalled wonder around the small, cluttered room, she noticed a data card in the reader. She ejected it, wondering if it was the card Lauden had given to Devin. It had no identifying label or markings, suggesting that it might be.

Was this why Devin left without saying anything to her? Was there some information on the card that might help her figure out where he had gone?

She slipped the card back into its slot and activated the reader.

It contained only two files.

She selected the first one. It was an excerpt from a local Vsunan news broadcast showing the victory rally after the uprising. One scene showed a close-up view of Vel and the other "heroes of the uprising." In the background Kressa saw herself.

What could it mean?

She selected the second file and watched with growing horror as the screen revealed an official Patrol report of her recent rebel activities and the raising of the bounty for her, as well as the newly announced warrants for Vel, Nait, and others she had worked with during the uprising.

Heart pounding, she began to search through the clutter in the room, looking for some clue to what was going on—although she feared she already knew. She located a flexprint with a United Galaxy Patrol emblem and a holo of a disturbingly familiar man with a gold star tattoo around his right eye. The printout identified the man as Tiode Sangrey and then went on to describe him in detail, including his habits and past crimes.

She tossed it aside and made her way toward the back of the ship. She stopped at the first door past Devin's quarters and opened it.

Beyond was a small room similar to Devin's—Garth's quarters, she guessed. It was being used as a storeroom now. Just inside the door was a small box partially filled with jewelry and other items.

She bent down and started going through it. There were gold rings, earrings, necklaces of thick chain, and two matching daggers with ornately decorated hilts. All of it had a star or comet worked into the design.

She looked at the bracelets Devin had given her, saw the star sapphires, the stellar motifs in the lacy gold filigree.

She gasped as her head suddenly flooded with the missing memories of two nights before.

"No…" she breathed, not wanting to believe it. "No. No, no, no."

She drew the pulse gun she wore hidden beneath her loose overshirt and hurried to the door at the end of the corridor. She punched the Gamble's access code into the lock mechanism with a shaking hand.

The door slid aside.

The room beyond was smaller than Devin's quarters, with a tiny open washroom on the right and a metal cot with a single rough blanket against the left wall. Tiode Sangrey lay sprawled on the blanket, eyes closed, face slack, still wearing a good portion of the gold satin and black leather Kressa now recalled from the night she and Devin had found him in the Vaxua nightclub. Security cuffs attached to chains just long enough to allow him to move around the room bound his wrists and ankles. Heavy bolts secured the cot to the floor.

She crept closer, her gun held ready. Slow breathing proved the pirate still lived.

What should she do now? Kressa wondered.

Commander Vel would know.

She removed her commlink from her pocket and keyed it on.

Without warning, Sangrey sat up and his shackled hands shot toward her. One wrapped around the muzzle of her gun. The other grabbed her left wrist and twisted, forcing her to drop the commlink.

She pulled the trigger of her pulse gun and tried to wrench it free. The shot burned harmlessly past Sangrey's head and he jerked the weapon from her grasp.

She started to reach for the knife in her boot before remembering Lauden's men hadn't returned it. She brought her other leg up instead, aiming a kick at Sangrey, but he took advantage of her brief moment of indecision and wrenched her left arm behind her back.

With a snarl, he pulled her down onto the cot beside him, and thrust the tip of her gun against her throat.

"I know you," he said, his angular face with its gaudy tattoo mere centimeters from hers. "You're the bitch who tried to seduce me so your partner could take down me and my people."

"No!" Kressa gasped, suddenly realizing that the image she remembered of Devin pressing a drug pad to her throat must have been real. "He drugged me. I didn't know—!"

Sangrey jerked her arm harder behind her back. "Nice try."

"It's true," she said, trying to keep her voice calm despite her thundering heart and gasping breath. "I wasn't working with him. Hell, he hit me with the same gas as he did you. If I were working for him, don't you think I—"

With a deft twist of his arm, Sangrey spun her around to face him, forcing her to her knees beside the cot, the gun now aimed at her head.

"If you aren't working for him, how'd you get these?" He held her wrist up to display the bracelet she wore.

"He gave them to me the next day," she said. "I didn't know where he got them. I didn't even know you were here."

"Right."

He pressed the muzzle of her gun against her temple, released her wrist, and took hold of her throat.

"Take off the bracelets."

She gave him a baffled look.

"Now!" he snapped. He tightened his grip on her throat, causing sharp pain and tunneling vision.

She removed the bracelets.

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"Put them there," he said, nodding to the cot beside him.

She did as she was told.

He adjusted his grip on her throat slightly and exerted pressure.

The room spun, her vision blurred, and she collapsed to the floor beside the cot, half conscious, and then watched in helpless amazement as Sangrey touched the bracelets to the security cuffs on his wrists and ankles, and they snicked open.

From the far end of the Gamble came the sound of the airlock opening.

Kressa started to call out, but Sangrey clipped her on the temple with the gun, making her head spin again, then he lurched to his feet and pulled her upright with him, her back pressed against him.

He held her in front of him as a shield, one arm across her chest, pinning her arms, the gun pressed up under her jaw. He started for the doorway, but halted as Devin appeared in the opening, pulse gun in hand.

Devin took in the scene with a single glance. His expression went from anger and concern to absolute stoicism in an instant, then he held Sangrey's eyes for a long moment. Finally, he shrugged.

"Go ahead and kill her," Devin said, his voice nonchalant. "She's worth plenty dead, and a lot less trouble that way."

Kressa stared in horror. "Devin…"

Sangrey pressed the gun harder against her throat, forcing her head back. She pulled weakly at the arm across her chest with both hands. He didn't seem to notice.

"You're bluffing," Sangrey said.

Devin shrugged again, readjusted his aim, and pulled the trigger of his gun twice in quick succession.

Pain exploded in Kressa's right side and, suddenly, she was falling. She managed to catch herself against the cot with her right arm; the other clutched at the pulse gun burn in her side.

A second shot sounded from close beside her, exploding against the edge of the doorway where Devin had stood an instant before. She turned her head to find Sangrey collapsed against the room's back wall, gun aimed at the door, a deep wound in his right side.

Sangrey swung the gun toward her. She dropped to the floor and rolled, struggling to ignore the pain caused by her movement. The pirate's shot burned close over her.

Devin thrust his gun into the room and fired blindly at Sangrey.

Kressa scrambled for the opening on hands and knees. Another of Sangrey's shots exploded just centimeters from her right hand. Devin continued to fire.

Kressa reached the doorway and lurched to her feet. She dashed toward the airlock, but a shot burned into the wall ahead of her. She stopped and looked back, holding her wounded side, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps as she struggled to ignore the pain of the pulse burn.

Devin had turned away from the hold. He held his gun aimed at her. "This time I will kill you," he promised, his voice and eyes mean.

She stared at him, decided he couldn't do it, and turned back toward the airlock. Another shot scored the wall.

"Don't make me do it, Kressa."

She looked at him again, left hand pressed tight against the pain in her side.

"You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?" Devin stalked toward her, his finger tight on the trigger of his gun. "And you couldn't tell me the truth."

"About what?" she asked and grimaced as another wave of pain flared from her side.

"About you. About who you are. About what you are."

"You're a bounty hunter," she said, finally able to accept the truth.

"Business," he said. "That's all it is. Legal business." He stopped a couple of meters away to stare at her, his expression going through several strong emotions in a few brief seconds. "We don't prey on people."

She stared at him, horrified to see nothing of the man she knew in his eyes or expression. "But you don't consider your bounties people, do you?" she hissed, suddenly angry.

She'd heard stories about bounty hunters who only accepted warrants for people like Tiode Sangrey, people who were truly dangerous, truly evil, but she'd lost enough fellow free traders and rebel fighters to bounty hunters who didn't care what their quarry had done to earn the price on their head. Clearly, Devin was one of them.

"We're just money to you," she spat. "A paycheck. No matter what we're wanted for, or why we did it."

"Bitch!" Devin cried and lurched forward. "You're a goddamned rebel! A smuggler! A gun runner!" He grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the back of the ship.

She cried out as the movement caused her side to again flare with pain. She stumbled and tried to catch herself against the wall, but slid to the floor instead. She curled around her wounded side, then looked up slowly as Devin approached.

He looked far too calm.

"Get up," he said.

She climbed slowly to her feet, her eyes never leaving his.

"Get in the hold." He motioned her toward the end of the corridor with his gun.

She shook her head and leaned back against the wall, her anger returning. She glared at him, thinking how close she had come to offering to take him on as a partner.

"Devin," she said, seeing a way she might be able to get out of this, "do you know why I came here?"

He watched her, expressionless.

"I came to ask you to be my partner. You can give the Gamble back to Imurha and we can work together to earn enough to pay him off. Then we can—"

"Don't, Kressa. I'm not that stupid, and neither are you. You'd never trust me."

She shook her head, her eyes pleading. "No, it was all a mistake. If I'd—if we'd been honest from the beginning—"

"Then I'd have both you and Sangrey alive. As it is, all I have is you and Sangrey's body. Bringing you in alive is going to make up for his lost bounty. As for my ship…"

He stepped forward, stuck his gun in her belly, and searched her until he found the key card to the Conquest's hangar. He held it up and took a step back. "My ship's right here. Give me the access code."

"It won't do you any good. I have to be there or Connie won't—"

He grabbed her by the throat and shoved her harder against the wall. "The code," he said, holding his gun close to her wounded side. "Now."

"I told you—"

He punched her with the gun.

She bit back a cry and started to double over, but his hand on her throat held her upright.

"Now, Kressa!"

She gave him the code.

He took her arm, hauled her to the end of the corridor, and thrust her into the hold.

Sangrey's body lay slumped against the back wall, pale eyes staring at nothing, several pulse blasts burned into his torso. Beside him lay the gun he had taken from Kressa.

Devin kicked the weapon back toward the doorway and pushed her down onto the cot.

"Put on the cuffs," he said.

With only a brief glare, she locked them around her ankles and wrists.

Devin checked them, picked up her gun, and then moved to the door.

He glanced briefly at Sangrey's body. "Enjoy the company." Then he stepped from the room and sealed the door behind him.

Kressa waited several minutes, taking slow, deep breaths, trying to force away the ache in her side, then she looked around for Sangrey's bracelets.

She found one under the cot beside the man's body. She bent over gingerly and picked it up. Clearly, a variable soni-key was hidden somewhere in the bracelet, which meant there must be some way to turn it on. One at a time, she tried to push or turn each of the sapphires. Finally, one of them depressed slightly and she felt, rather than heard, a brief buzzing from the body of the bracelet. She touched it to the shackle on her right wrist and depressed the stone again. After a moment, the cuff popped open.

She used the bracelet to remove the rest of her bonds, but had to pause again to allow the fire in her side to ebb.

Suddenly, the Gamble shuddered and the rising hum of the ship's engines filled the room.

What—?

Then she realized. Devin must be taking the Gamble to the commerce port, to get closer to the Conquest.

The ping of a commlink sounded from underneath the cot.

Gingerly, she lowered herself to her hands and knees and felt around for it. The commlink beeped again, and she followed the sound. Finally, her hand closed on the device.

She leaned back against the cot and activated the link.

"Kressa, Com—" Connie began.

"Connie, be quiet and listen. Link to the commerce port traffic control. Garth's Gamble should be approaching soon. Let me know if you pick it up."

"Linking in now," Connie said. "Kressa, are you—?"

"Not now, Connie. Just let me know when the Gamble's coming in."

Kressa waited, silent and tense, while the Gamble lifted from the city port. For a brief moment, she considered searching the room for some way to escape, but she knew what Devin used it for; there would be no way out. Instead, she used the time to plan.

After several minutes, she felt the Gamble's braking thrusters fire. Her commlink chirped again.

"Kressa, the Gamble is starting its descent. The port authority is relaying a request that the vessel be allowed to dock near the hangar."

"Fine," Kressa said. "Let him get as close as he wants. In fact, open the hangar's main doors so he can land right out in front. After that, Devin's going to try to get on board. He has the access code for the airlock. Here's what I want you to do…"

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