“What do you mean?” I said, leaving the open gun locker to go look over her shoulder. Or rather under it.

  The com readout in the airlock was a small pad, ten by twenty centimeters. It was filled with codes, or timestamps, or something. One kept blinking. Hao pointed to it.

  “That’s our money,” she said. “That’s the tracker ID I put on the cart.”

  “So you’ve found the cart?” I said.

  “No, I’ve found the money,” Hao said.

  “You just said you put the tracker on a cart,” I said. “Our money could be anywhere.”

  “But it’s not,” Hao said, her fists closing in exasperation. I took a half-step backward. A frustrated Hao was half a second from a madly punching Hao, and my wards were almost destroyed already. Of course, she didn’t have her crowbar, either.

  “How do you know?” I ventured.

  “Because it’s not on the Raist,” Hao said, keying in a different view.

  More numbers, but these ones I recognized as location parameters. Sixteen hundred meters forward, fifty up, on the axis the Bucket currently rested. Twenty out.

  Definitely outside the Raist. A ship, docked one level up, almost two kilometers away.

  “Maybe someone took the cart,” I said.

  “Already checked,” Hao said. “The tracker came on inside that ship.”

  She gave me a raised eyebrow, her too-blue eyes looking down on me quizzically.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Meaning that they took the bonded locker on board,” I said. “Then opened it.” The eyebrow flowed back to its original position, replaced by a feral grin. A void wyrm would have been proud of a grin like that.

  “You’re thinking we’d get it back,” I said.

  The idea appealed to me. I’d bet my crudmucking hat that the ship belonged to the Ladrian conglomerate. Anyone on board would be complicit. We could go in guns blazing, get some payback, clean some crud from the galaxy.

  More importantly, they might have Davan Radell. Uncle Caramon had said attempted murder. They must have hit Young Voice with a stun rod, or a chemical sedative, something that knocked him out without leaving lots of blood.

  Because if they’d cut him, the way I thought watching the recording, there would have been no question of him being alive. And there would have been no mistaking it. The amount of blood would have made it very clear.

  If it had been only the money, I would have considered running. You can always get more money.

  But Young Voice’s crudmucker grin flashed through my mind, riding the color of his garish, red jacket. I could imagine why they’d kept him alive.

  To secure their position.

  Get the license to the Bucket, find Young Voice dead in the hold. No question of blame, the evil pirates who stole the Bucket had done it, magistrate, and here’s your proof. Or maybe they kept him drugged, to haul out alive once they had the Bucket. It was a riskier play, but a more profitable one. They’d gain the gratitude of the Raist.

  We run, and Young Voice wasn’t useful any longer. They’d void him. Or if they had half a brain, they’d kill him then dispose of him in the ship’s recycler. No chance of anyone finding the body floating in space that way.

  I couldn’t leave the kid to die. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did. There were enough nightmares in my past already.

  But this time, I would stop them, and make those responsible pay.

  “Let’s gear up,” I said, ducking out from beneath Hao’s elbow and stomping for the gun locker again. “We go in and smash heads.”

  Hao’s long legs stomped up right next to mine. That was approval if I ever heard it.

  “I applaud your decision making,” Maia called behind us. “But I see a flaw in your plan.”

  “Oh?” I said, removing the top layer of foam and revealing my heavier weapons. “What?”

  “How do you intend to get to that ship?” Maia said. “Hauling armloads of guns and being on the Raist’s most wanted list, too.”

  I froze, my arm on the foil’s protective cover.