Page 38 of The First Spark
“Whatever.” Vega dropped onto the table between the couches and removed a simple silver ring, taking a fat stack of gauze from Cybel’s outstretched hand. Pressing it against Wells’s wound, she looked up at Kalie. “Make yourself useful and grab us okul salve, yeah? And some more gauze, too. It’s in the top drawer by Cy.”
Despite the hot flush creeping up her neck, Kalie breathed easier as she washed her hands and joined the aibot at the drawers. Vega clearly didn’t know who she was, which was good. Right now, anonymity was safer. Wells must’ve honored their deal and kept his mouth shut.
She trusted Wells about as far as she could throw him, though, and if hehadtold Vega the truth, she had to know so she could do damage control.
“I suppose he hasn’t introduced me?”
Vega removed the soaked stack of gauze and snatched the last few squares. “He didn’t have to. You’re Princessa Hannover. Grab some saline, too.”
Kalie’s cheeks burned.
Cybel stalked away empty-handed, making a garbled noise like a synthesized chuckle.
She inhaled deeply and forced her irritation away. There were hundreds of planets in the Federation, each with their own rulingclass, and she was one princess from one world. It wasn’t fair to hold Vega’s indifference against her.
As the aibot rattled through cabinets behind her, Kalie yanked open the top drawer and grabbed a bag of gauze, a bottle of saline, and an expensive vial of okul salve. She raised her eyebrows. Okul only grew on four planets in the Federation, and the healing salve produced on Dali went for a thousand credits per ounce. Mira’s didn’t appear to be a knock-off, so the okul would eradicate Wells’s infection in minutes.
She handed the supplies to Vega, and her blood ran cold. A bandolier of gleaming knives coiled around the woman’s thigh.
Kalie stumbled back and glanced at the uncovered hatch, but Wells was right. Dropping from a ship, while in a stargate route flinging them forward faster than the speed of light, was suicide.
She was stuck here.
“Since you know who I am, it’s only fair I know who you are.”
Vega poured saline on a square of gauze. “I’m Mira.”
“Mira Vega?”
“No last name.” Mira flashed a smile, but it seemed strained. “I used a cybermod. New tech. Allows you to adopt someone’s appearance. I borrowed the real Sergeant Vega’s for a bit, but I’d rather be myself.”
“You two know each other, I take it?—”
“Dammit, careful!”
Wells’s face twisted, and he jerked his arm away from where Mira’s saline-soaked gauze had touched it. Kalie flinched. The bleeding wound looked awful.
Mira snickered. “You’re complaining about a pulser wound? Weak. You cut me open in a filthy bar, and I didn’t complain.”
“That’s because you passed out,” Wells muttered, digging his fingers into the cushion.
“But I did manage to walk four blocks with a chest full of shrapnel.AfterI fell three stories from a hovercraft.”
“I still don’t know how you survived.”
“You’re lucky I did.” Mira brushed his grimy hair back, smiling fondly.
Kalie pursed her lips, trying to reconcile the wounded man lying on the couch with the arrogant drunk who’d blackmailed her on theChimaera. It didn’t line up, unless Mira was his girlfriend, but she doubted that a woman who made killing a competition would tolerate a lover who made out with strippers in bars.
She cleared her throat. “Did he tell you I was on theChimaera?”
“No.” Wells winced as Mira dabbed at the blood crusted around his wound. “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t break our deal, not when you promised me Avington.”
“Acityin Avington,” she said. If he wasn’t so infuriating, she would’ve agreed to give him his father’s whole barony back, out of gratitude for the sacrifice Baron Wells had made for Aunt Calida. It made no sense that she hadn’t done so after she’d defeated Grandmother Madeleine. “It’ll take time.”
“Don’t take too long.” Wells tried to pull off a smirk, but with Mira cleaning the wound, it looked like a grimace. “I just risked my life to save you. You’d better get me my money.”
Mira tipped the vial of okul salve onto a fresh square of gauze. “Remember me when you’re rich, playboy. This contract’s only half a mil for me.”
