The Price of Conquest

Devin Tyler gazed down at the fair-skinned, black-haired beauty before him and thought about how long he could lose himself in looks like hers.

He'd noticed her sitting alone at a table when he first arrived at the club. His gaze had lingered on her, not only because of her looks, but because something about her seemed vaguely familiar. But after a moment's study, he decided it wasn't familiarity so much as uniqueness that held his attention. Despite her obvious high-born ancestry, she did not belong in this place.

He'd needed to force himself to get back to his search for Tiode Sangrey, the man he came to Vsuna to find. But Sangrey was nowhere to be seen.

Tyler was neither surprised nor disappointed. Although he was sure Sangrey was on Vsuna, and almost certainly here in Vsatt, he'd been searching for less than a week. He had not expected to find him quickly or easily.

He returned his attention to the woman before him and realized fate might have offered him a consolation prize, a bit of distraction for the evening.

"Where would you like to go?" he asked her.

She started to answer, clearly intent on making some polite excuse to allow her to leave the club alone, but then she seemed to reconsider. She cast a scornful look around. "Anywhere but here. Maybe someplace out by the ports?"

"Those places can get a little rough," he pointed out. Yet the suggestion, coming from someone with her clearly gengineered looks, intrigued him.

"Good," she said. "I could use some real action."

He wondered what she meant by that, and then gave a mental shrug. "Let's go." He slid an arm around her waist and steered her toward the door. "My name's Devin."

"I'm Kressa. Thanks for coming to my rescue, Devin."

* * *

Kressa sat at a table in a dim portside bar and secretly congratulated herself, not only for getting out of the downtown nightclub and away from Vel's friend, but for having found someone as charming and attractive as Devin with whom to do so.

After leaving the club, they took an autocab to the area near the spaceports, exchanging pointless small talk on the way, then entered the first bar they came across and found an empty table near the rear of the room.

Now, only moments after being served her drink—Devin wanted only water—Kressa decided this dark, grimy, noisome establishment was immeasurably better than the flashy downtown club, although she was beginning to think they might be in store for a bit more action than she intended when she suggested coming here.

Two men were arguing loudly at a table near theirs, apparently upset over some business deal—legal or otherwise—gone bad. Their strident voices and threatening behavior had attracted a lively crowd that seemed a little too eager for a fight. Some of the establishment's less adventurous patrons had already started to leave. Kressa briefly considered suggesting that she and Devin join the egress, but the rowdiest members of the crowd stood between their table and the front door. She noted a second door on the barroom's back wall, close to where they sat. Although a sign beside it clearly stated it was not an exit, at least it could get them away from any potential trouble, should the need arise.

Careful to keep part of her attention on the gathering storm, she glanced at Devin sitting across the small table from her.

He, too, was watching the goings on with a cautious eye.

A brief moment later, the argument between the two men reached a peak. One of them reached across their table, grabbed the other man by the collar, and punched him in the face, sending him careening backward toward Kressa and Devin. They stood and scrambled in opposite directions as the man landed hard on their table and sent it crashing to the floor.

The man who threw the punch leaped after his victim, but Devin stepped into his path. Snarling, the man swung a fist in his direction. Devin effortlessly sidestepped his attacker, caught the man's arm, stuck a leg behind his knees, and dropped him neatly to the floor.

Two of the man's friends charged Devin.

Kressa started forward to help, but by then, an all-out brawl had begun. Shouts, grunts, and the crash of breaking glassware filled the room.

A motion out of the corner of Kressa's eye made her duck, and a fist sailed over her head. She kicked out to the side. Her foot caught her assailant on the hip and sent him stumbling away.

As she turned to look for Devin, a pair of fiercely grappling combatants stumbled toward her. She ducked aside, only to find herself facing a small man holding a big knife.

He clearly had little experience with the weapon; he was waving it far out in front of him in what he must think was a threatening manner.

Feigning concern, Kressa held her hands up as if to implore the man to let her go. He lunged for her.

She pivoted away and chopped down hard on his forearm. His blade clattered to the floor, and she drew her own knife from its boot-top sheath.

She looked at her assailant, knife held ready, brows arched.

The man met her eyes briefly, glanced at his dropped blade, and discovered a sudden interest in something on the far side of the room.

Kressa watched him hurry away, ducking through the brawl, and started to sheathe her knife.

Something touched her arm.

She spun around and brought the blade up again.

It was Devin.

He took a step back, hands coming up defensively, and started to say something, but there was no way he could be heard over the clamor of the fight. He looked toward the front of the room where four uniformed security guards armed with stun rods had appeared amongst the brawlers, then he gestured to the door on the back wall.

Kressa nodded.

They made their way to the door unnoticed and slipped through it into a short hallway that paralleled the barroom. The door closed behind them, deadening the sounds of the fight, and Kressa scanned the hallway. An interior door stood at either end, with an exterior door on the back wall.

Kressa sheathed her knife. The rush of adrenaline triggered by the fight began to subside, leaving behind an underlying tension that merged uncomfortably with the aroused feelings she thought she left at the club downtown.

Devin started for the exterior door, and Kressa followed.

"Wait," she said. "There's an alarm." She pointed out the sensor tabs that were just visible around the edge of the door frame, then scanned the hallway again.

Mounted at the far end was the alarm system control box. She went to it. A manual lock held it closed.

Kressa withdrew a length of wire from a fold on the underside of her belt, fitted one end into the keyhole, and quickly opened the lock.

The control box contained a touch screen with a full alpha-numeric keypad. All of the alarms and controls were plainly marked, but a code was required to activate any of them. Based on what she knew of such systems, the code would have six digits and she would have several chances to get it right before the system shut her out.

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She punched in the obvious code first. 123456. Nothing happened.

She searched the panel for some indication of who installed the system. A small sticker on the inside of the door gave the name, address, and local comm code of the company. She typed in the first six letters of the company's name.

Still nothing.

"Devin, what's the name of this bar?"

"Uh… Cassia's? I think."

"Yeah, that's it," she said, recalling the sign she saw when they arrived.

She entered the name. The controls unlocked. She deactivated the alarm on the back door, closed the panel, and joined Devin.

He looked at her curiously.

"You can open the door now," she said.

He did.

No alarm sounded.

He cast an inquisitive look at her and then stepped into the wide alley behind the bar. She followed and closed the door behind them.

* * *

Tyler studied Kressa as she joined him in the alley behind Cassia's.

"Do you do that a lot?" he asked.

She gave him a quizzical look. "Do what?"

"Bypass security systems."

She scoffed. "That was hardly a security system. Barely even passed as an alarm. I doubt it was intended to do anything more than keep the occasional dasher or drunken brawler from sneaking out the back."

"Lucky you weren't drunk, then," he said, thinking how useful it would be to have someone with her skills working with him again. For years, he'd depended on his partner, Garth Atkins, to deal with such things, but Garth was gone now, and Tyler had convinced himself he did not want to take on the sort of trouble a partner could cause ever again. Perhaps he should reconsider.

Kressa scoffed. "I could have cracked that system in my sleep." She scanned the alley. "We should get moving in case someone else tries to get out this way and leads those security goons back here."

"Let's go."

Several groundcars sat parked along the alley's sides, but there was no one in or around any of them. Tyler started for the alley's nearest end, and Kressa hurried alongside him.

They entered the street and walked away from Cassia's at a casual pace. Behind them, gawkers and security vehicles filled the roadway in front of the bar.

"Where'd you learn about dealing with alarms?" Tyler asked as he guided Kressa around a corner, cutting off the noise of the crowd.

"It's just something I picked up."

"Where does a prime look like you pick up something like that?"

She glanced at him with a hint of a frown, then her expression relaxed, and she shrugged. "Here and there. Mostly on Terra, in old San Francisco. That's where I grew up."

Tyler knew of only one place around that area where someone could pick up the kind of skills she displayed. "You don't mean the Territories, do you?"

She looked surprised, but nodded. "Yeah, I do, actually."

He studied her again, astonished. How did someone with her obviously upper-class origins end up on the earthquake-shattered, gang-ruled streets of old San Francisco?

"That's a rough place," he said. "How did you wind up there?"

"Let's just say I didn't like the school my parents put me in, so I ran away. How do you know about the Territories?"

"My partner was from around there."

"Really?" she asked. "What's his name?"

Tyler put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close as they continued down the walkway. The idea of taking on a new partner was becoming more intriguing with each passing minute. "Garth Atkins. Know him?"

She shook her head. "Where is he now?"

"Dead." He forced away a frown.

"I'm sorry. What happened?"

"He crossed the wrong people," he said, not adding that those people had then come to Tyler to insist he either straighten Garth out or get rid of him. In the end, the latter option prevailed.

"I know how that goes," Kressa said.

"He was usually more trouble than he was worth." Tyler tried not to think about all of the troubles that remained even with Garth out of the picture, not the least of which was a sizable debt owed to Allegos Imurha, an unsympathetic ship dealer here on Vsuna. If he could just finish the job he came here to do and then get one more out of the way, he should have enough money to get the man off his back, at least for a while. He shook away his despondent thoughts.

"What were you doing at that over-classed peep joint downtown?" he asked Kressa, eager to turn the conversation away from his former partner and learn more about his current companion.

"A friend introduced me to a guy she thought could show me around town. That's where he took me."

"Some friend," Tyler said with a smirk.

Kressa shrugged. "We haven't known each other for all that long." She rolled her head back to look up at him. "What were you doing there?"

"Looking for someone." He recalled his thoughts when they first met and realized Kressa might be far more than just a distraction for the evening.

"Who?" she asked.

Tyler stopped walking, turned to face Kressa, and let his gaze slide appreciatively over her. Desire flared within him. He took hold of her hand, led her into a nearby alley, and pushed her back against the wall, pinning her there with his body.

She made a pleased sound deep in her throat, slid her hands under his jacket, and pulled him tighter against her.

"I was looking for you," he whispered and pressed his mouth hard against hers.

She returned his kiss eagerly, but pulled away far too soon.

"We don't have to do this here," she said, her voice low and husky with desire, her pale skin flushed with excitement.

Despite her words, Tyler felt certain she would let him take her right there in the alley with little or no protest.

"We could go to my ship," she continued. "She's not far. And it would be more… comfortable," she added with a promising smile.

She has a ship? "Where is it?" he asked.

"The commerce port."

He shook his head. "Too far. We'll go to mine."

* * *

Devin's ship was only a few blocks away, at the main city port, for which Kressa was grateful. She couldn't remember wanting anyone quite as badly as she wanted him. Not for a long, long time anyway. Maybe it was just arousal left over from the nightclub, or maybe it was a result of the brief excitement of the bar fight, or perhaps a combination of both. Whatever the reason, it left her feeling spectacularly alive, something she hadn't felt since before the uprising.

His ship was a small, battered hopper that had to be at least seventy-five years old and must have originally belonged to his partner, judging by the name stenciled on the side: Garth's Gamble. But the vessel's age, basic configuration, and name were all Kressa had time to notice before Devin led her up the boarding ramp, entered his access code, and motioned her inside.

She stepped through the airlock and turned to face him.

His eyes played over her body. "You are so beautiful," he whispered, and then reached for her.

Under normal circumstances, Kressa hated to be reminded of her looks—looks her parents had purchased through the use of prenatal genetic manipulation—yet these were hardly normal circumstances, and, at the moment, his words were just what she wanted to hear; his touch, just what she needed to feel.

* * *

Much later, as Kressa lay in Devin's bed in the small, cramped room that served as his quarters on board the Gamble, with him dozing beside her, she considered the vagaries of fate that brought the two of them together, and wondered how she should react.

After her participation in the Vsuna uprising, she decided fate had controlled her life long enough. In an attempt to break that control, she made the conscious decision to look into getting a Gendzet teacher. But now fate had again intervened in her life, and if this night was any indication of what was to come, fate had found one hell of a temptation to draw her back into its embrace. Yet hadn't it been fate that led to her introduction to Nait and the recognition of her latent psi abilities in the first place?

Looking at it that way, she realized there wasn't much difference between allowing one's life to be ruled by fate and purposely choosing to accept or reject the opportunities that came along. Maybe there was no difference at all. Maybe it was all in how one chose to perceive one's reactions to what fate offered.

She pushed away the musings, aware that the answer—if there were one—didn't matter. Until Nait returned to Vsuna, there was no way she could pursue the course she had chosen. Between now and then, there was no reason she shouldn't enjoy herself and see where this latest opportunity might lead.