Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy Box Set by J A Sutherland

Author:J A Sutherland [Sutherland, J A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Darkspace Press
Published: 2019-10-24T22:00:00+00:00

Seven

“Thank you, Captain Stansfield,” Kaycie said. “Your wine cabinet is quite fine.”

“If I do say so myself,” Stansfield agreed, nodding Kaycie toward the airlock and back to Elizabeth.

Dansby listened from his place a bit farther down the corridor, catching Kaycie’s eye only briefly and receiving only a curt nod and squint in return. She’d been speaking with Captain Stansfield in his cabin for more than an hour since Tyche’s crew had completed their inspection of Elizabeth, concluded that there was no contraband aboard, nor that she was involved in piracy, and Stansfield had invited Elizabeth’s master — for the moment, apparently, Kaycie — aboard for a drink and exchange of any news not included in the automated feeds between ships.

While she’d been sipping Stansfield’s wine, Dansby and the rest of Tyche’s crew had been set to putting the ship back to rights from quarters and eating their own, now cold, meal.

That Detheridge and — something Dansby found more than a bit outrageous — the big Swede Sven had joined Kaycie and Stansfield for wine while he was forcing down a slice of vat-grown beef turned cold and, more than usually, gelatinous by the wait was the first layer of his frustration, rather like a tall cake made on a foundation of shite. More layers were added with each passing minute that Kaycie was closeted with Stansfield and he wasn’t called in to be sent home to Elizabeth with a profuse apology. The final layer was put on with his realization that Kaycie was returning to Elizabeth without him, apparently not having told Stansfield that he had Dansby, a ship’s master and exempt from the Press, aboard as a common spacer.

And, while Kaycie’s ignoring him with barely a glance to …

“And thank you for allowing Elizabeth to follow along with you,” Kaycie said, reaching out to lay fingertips on Stansfield’s arm in a shocking breach of protocol that the stern Naval captain seemed not mind one whit. “Darkspace is so very empty and dangerous, especially here in the Fringe — it will set my mind at ease no end to know there’ll be no trouble from pirates or stray Hanoverese while you and your Tyche are about.”

Is she flirting with him?

Dansby’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared.

Well, that was the final layer on his shite-cake, sure. She must have some plan to get him loose, else why come after him like this, but he couldn’t help but feel she was also rubbing his nose in it with her attitude.

“You know them two?” Jordan asked him in a whisper and with an elbow nudge to his side.

Dansby followed the guncaptain’s gaze to Detheridge and Sven, both of whom were openly staring at Dansby with wide grins.

“No,” he whispered back.

Whatever plan there was to get him loose from Tyche apparently didn’t include simply telling Captain Stansfield who he was. Which, when Dansby thought about it, made a certain sense in light of how the Press itself had treated that information back on Penduli.

What

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