Reaching the elevator, I squeezed in with a large group of travelers, ending up pinned between an older woman and a tall man in a dark suit.

  “Nice day, isn’t it?” I said to the man, meeting his eyes as he glared down at me without speaking.

  The cab stopped on the fourth floor, and most of the passengers departed there, freeing up space. I moved to the side of the cab until it stopped again on the second floor. Lurch hurried off the ride ahead of me, going in the same direction.

  I fell back a little from him, wondering if he was a bad guy too. The icy glare he had given me suggested as much. Looking past him, I saw Matt rounding the concourse, coming toward me with the bag still in his possession.

  I wanted to ask why he was taking so long to dump it somewhere when I got my answer. A couple of men in long jackets were a little further back, trailing him.

  Closing the gap between us, Matt bumped his shoulder into me. Handing over the bag, he whispered, “I think they’re following me.”

  “I think you’ve got a pair of Jazzercise rejects watching you too,” I replied, taking the bag and moving toward the railing to avoid his tail. I leaned over it, keeping my peripheral vision on them as they stayed with Matt. “Shaq, I’ve got the bag,” I said, dipping my head closer to it. “If it gets rough in there, be ready.”

  He buzzed in affirmation.

  I turned around, leaning against the railing and looking at the storefronts across from me, searching for somewhere to leave the bag.

  “Hey kid, what’s in the bag?”

  The two leotards moved away from the other pedestrians, coming at me. One of them slid a small card from under her sleeve. With a quick wrist movement, it folded outward into a tiny gun.

  “Give us the bag, and we won’t hurt you,” she said, pointing it at my face.

  I didn’t have a chance to say or do anything. One second, the two women were threatening me. The next, they were on the ground. Knowing Alter had gone to the bathroom to change her persona, I didn’t know which of the passersby was her, but I was certain she was responsible for the save.

  I needed to drop the slab somewhere, fast.

  A shout from the floor above stole my attention. I started turning to look just as a woman in a red jacket fell past me, grabbing the bag as she did. I managed to get my hand on the strap, pulled to the railing as her momentum yanked hard on my shoulder, offering me a choice to let it go or hang onto it and either jerk my shoulder out of its socket or take me down with her.

  I didn’t get to make the decision.

  The strap snapped, the bag still in the woman’s grip as she continued the drop, hitting the ground and rolling to break her momentum. She leaned over the bag to unzip it.

  I barely saw Shaq emerge from the bag and dive back inside. One second, the woman was crouched over the package. The next, she was on her side, stiff as a board.

  And the slab was out in the open, unguarded.

  Someone on the ground floor screamed when they realized the woman was dead. I planted my hand on the railing, ready to vault over it, momentarily held back by the idea of breaking both legs. How had the woman managed the feat from higher up? I had to try. That tablet was my chance at survival. It was worth the risk.

  I had one leg over the railing when Matt appeared from under the overhang. He quickly scooped up the slab from inside the open bag as Shaq scaled the back of his leg and tucked himself under his coat. The two men following him appeared, still on his tail as security reached the dead woman.

  Where had Alter gone? She had the guns, and I needed one right now. Then again, there was no way to shoot the guys chasing Matt without causing a panic and risking security getting their hands on him.

  Matt reached the edge of the bridge, using it to cross to the other side of the concourse. The two men split up, one of them hurrying around the bridge to cut him off. Damn it, Matt had gone the wrong way, positioning himself with no means of escape. Nowhere to run.

  I left the railing, sprinting past a group of onlookers gathering around the downed leotards and shouting for the guards. Pushing my way past the other travelers, I went full speed around the circle, desperate to get ahead of the bad guys.

  A guard emerged through a door between two of the storefronts, his head immediately turning my way. I slowed my run, looking away and trying to appear inconspicuous as he started in my direction. Damn it again. Glancing back to the bridge, I saw Matt standing in the center, the slab in his hands. My guy had reached the bridge well ahead of me, the two thugs converging on him from both sides.

  Triple damn.

  “Alter, wherever you are, that’s your cue,” I whispered.

  Matt glanced one way, and then the other, identifying the thugs.

  Out of options, he held the slab over the side of the bridge.

  And dropped it.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  I watched the slab fall, end over end, my hopes of collecting the money and being cured falling with it. Hitting the pool with a soft splash, pushed under by the force of the waterfall, I lost sight of the device.

  I didn’t lose sight of the two men. They had frozen in place when Matt dropped the slab, and now they turned around, trying to get off the bridge to find the discarded slab. They shoved their way past upset pedestrians moving in the opposite direction, the traffic on the bridge slowing them down.

  Seeing them retreating, Matt smirked and followed the one on the far side, easing his way through the people.

  I didn’t waste time wondering what Matt was thinking. He and I had been best friends since we were in kindergarten. I didn’t need him to tell me why he had dropped the slab. I knew why, and that knowledge sent me rushing to the nearest elevator.

  We were supposed to drop the device somewhere the courier could find it. Somewhere it wouldn’t be taken by the other players in this game of four-dimensional chess before they could pick it up. Matt had sent it to the bottom of the waterfall, the rushing white water shoving it elsewhere in the large pool. Maybe it would surface near the edge where one of the two thugs could grab it. But not likely. Only the courier, able to directly track the device, would be able to find it quickly. Hopefully, he could swim if needed.

  I heard a splash and the murmur of surprise from a number of people just before I stepped into the elevator. Remembering the terms of our contract, I spun away from the pool, making sure I didn’t see the courier. I could only hope Matt and Alter, wherever she was, had done the same.

  The elevator opened on the ground floor a few seconds later. I risked a glance at the bridge when I stepped out, finding Matt had reached the far end, just behind the thug. The man must have sensed him coming, because he spun around and threw a hard right hook that should have connected with Matt’s jaw. Matt sensed the punch coming and sidestepped it. He grabbed the thug’s arm, using the momentum of the punch to throw the man onto his back. The thug however wasn’t going down that easily. He caught Matt’s leg as he tried to kick him in the ribs, twisting it until Matt fell against the bridge railing. The thug hopped back up, drawing his arm back to throw a punch as he yanked Matt back around to face him.

  Sliding my gaze to the other side of the bridge, I didn’t see if thug one connected with Matt’s jaw. My attention was on thug number two as he shoved a woman off the bridge and into the water.Breaking free, he reached into his pocket, withdrawing a gun and swinging it toward me.

  I froze, caught in the open, dead to rights.

  Except he wasn’t aiming at me.

  He opened fire, blaster rounds zipping past the elevator to where the courier had to be making his escape. The security guards who had responded to the dead woman were only a dozen feet away from the guy, but they didn’t react to his shots, even as the nearby travelers screamed and fell to the floor, trying to stay out of the line of fire. Whoever the thugs were, they were tight with security.

  A small blue blur caught my attention, charging fast along the bridge railing. Shaq leaped the twenty foot gap to the shooter, spreading his arms to allow his webbing to carry him through the air. The thug started to turn as the Jagger approached. Too late. Shaq grabbed onto his neck, teeth digging in.

  The guy didn’t have a chance.

  I looked back at Matt just as he planted a hard jab to his thug’s nose, sending him reeling. He followed up with a kick that sent the man into the railing, his momentum carrying him up and over and into the pool, temporarily out of the fight.

  I turned around, half-expecting to see the courier dead on the floor, the slab missing once more. Instead, I caught a glimpse of Lurch’s back as he opened one of the maintenance access doors and vanished through it.

  I knew he was the courier!

  And he had gotten away.

  Or had he?

  Before I could turn around again to regroup with Matt and Shaq to find Alter, a bald-headed newcomer in a long brown jacket approached the door, pulling it open and trailing the courier through it.

  Damn it.

  “You! Don’t move.”

  I swiveled my head in the direction of the order. A security guard jogged toward me, rifle aimed at my chest. I slowly raised my hands as the guard pulled up directly in front of me.

  “Shhhh,” the guard said, drawing the blaster and holding it out to me, grip first. Not a guard, then. Alter. “Help the courier. I’ll keep security off your back.”

  I took the gun with a smile. “On it.”

  Alter turned toward the other guards as I broke for the door, sprinting across the concourse as fast as I could, my seesaw emotions threatening another hard crash. Pushing through the door, I was confronted by a long, sterile, and unfortunately empty corridor, with an intersection fifty feet away. I charged forward, racing to the split and freezing when I reached it, head whipping in both directions. A pair of moving shadows against another wall to the right suggested the courier and his tail had gone that way.

  Rushing along that corridor brought me to another t-junction, a door on the left, another long and empty corridor on the right. Obviously, they had gone through the door. I opened it slowly and stepped into what I assumed were the inner workings of the spaceport’s HVAC system. Massive tubes surrounded me, dripping condensed moisture to form growing puddles on the floor. A low roar echoed from somewhere deeper in the system.

  Running footsteps splashed through the puddles further ahead.

  I moved more cautiously, trying to remain quiet as I continued the chase. While my heart pounded and my nerves were taut, I impressed myself with my overall ability to still think clearly and the knowledge that when I got the drop on browncoat I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. It was a big step up from my first hours on Caprum when Alter’s violence against Sedaya’s goons had ended up with me puking, and it lent me confidence now.

  Moving through the tight, damp passageways, I continued tracking the footsteps, winding through a maze of intersections in pursuit, hoping to gain on the pair while doing my best to stay silent.

  The footsteps ahead of me accelerated suddenly, and for the first time I heard the courier’s feet too, echoing from a spot too close to browncoat.

  “Shit,” I hissed, picking up my pace. At least they wouldn’t be able to hear me over their own noise. Of course, it got harder to hear them too. I raced along the passages, desperate to reach browncoat before he reached the courier. Everything was riding on making sure he got out alive. Not because I cared if he lived but because he still had to transmit the payment.

  Coming around a corner, I nearly froze when I saw browncoat in a silhouetted profile, hand outstretched, aiming his gun. I swung my blaster toward him, stifling a cry as he fired three rounds. He didn’t see me coming as he advanced between two thick pipes and out of view.

  I slowed down, moving quietly toward him, a lack of footsteps proof he wasn’t on the move. Peering around the corner, I found him hunched over the courier’s body, holding the slab in both hands.

  “Don’t move,” I hissed, pointing my gun at the back of his head.

  He froze in place.

  “Put the slab on the ground, stand up and face me. Don’t even think of going for your gun, you won’t make it before I put a blast through your skull.”

  He lowered the slab to the courier’s stomach, placing it there before raising his hands. He stood up slowly, head turning to look back at me over his shoulder.

  I nearly dropped my gun. “What the hell?”

  “Hey, kid. Funny meeting you here like this. Entirely unexpected. Badabing badaboom.”

  “Keep?” I said, staring at the man who’d sold Head Case to Matt and me and then stiffed us on the parking fees.

  The man who had just killed the courier and cost me eighteen million electro.

  The man who may have just killed me.

  “What the hell did you do?” I growled.

  “Took care of a potentially major headache,” he replied flatly, as if he had just finished mowing a lawn or changing a lightbulb. “Say, I know this probably isn’t the best timing, but how would you like to help me save the galaxy?”

  Thank you so much for reading Starship For Sale! For more information on Book Two, please visit mrforbes.com/starshipforsale2.

  Other Books By M.R Forbes

  Want more M.R. Forbes? Of course you do!

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