Providence

Part 2

Janet let out a luxurious sigh halfway through dressing, one designed specifically to tease and taunt the only other occupant inside the small shipboard flat that members of Clan Inoue's management staff could utilize whenever they came across one of their transports in the Tube. Toshiro groaned appreciatively, and Janet let out more of her trademark wicked laughter the mischief her gesture had managed. She finished dressing, somehow turning the utilitarian process into a lavish show, each piece covering more of the thing which Toshiro desired still. Twenty hours in each other's company had hardly been enough time for either woman. Toshiro would have to put in a sleepless night or two to make up for the lost paperwork time the privacy and lack of distraction aboard the transport had cost her. Janet's smile grew a little wider at the thought, and the kiss she planted on Toshiro's lips held promise of sweet wickedness yet to come.

She strode across the apartment, flourished a bow, and swept out of the apartment just as a laughing Toshiro threw a pillow at her retreating back. Janet's swagger was a story all its own as she made her way back to her transport. She even began whistling one of her favorite tunes, a habit after every pleasant encounter. She had no idea what Sir Mix-a-Lot had been lord of, but he was quite right about his song material. The swagger was also in part because Janet had caught Toshiro in one of the lovely, unrecorded private business alcoves that Clan Inoue was so very fond of. It might cause the occasional infidelity or two, but it also gave the Clan a chance to relax apart from one another from time to time.

Or a chance for me to spend time with such a wonderful woman. The playful thought doled out in time to phrases about buns and huns.

The small war cutter hummed back to life under her guidance, and she had slipped out almost three hours before the sedate transport would make the turn into the Osiris system's hallway off the main Tube line. It would never do for her to arrive after the transport carrying Toshiro. No amount of distance would convince her hawk-eyed wife that no foul-play had occurred. So almost immediately upon exiting the dock, Janet gunned her engines for all they were worth. It was time to prove the merits of her six-year long stranglehold on the top spot in underground racing. She let out a whoop as the acceleration pushed her back into her seat, easily outgunning all the craft near her. She swooped and dove, rolled and rose around and under and over everyone in her way. She flew with the poise and grace of the ballet backed with the cast-iron which girded her every nerve. More than once ships would begin a hasty maneuver, only to find she was long gone before they had a chance to do more than notice she'd been there. All told, she closed the three hour remaining travel time of the transport in a little under ten minutes. She was sweating from all the maneuvering, flushed from the adrenaline high of the flight, and more than a little smug at just how far she'd been able to push it.

One day her luck would run out, but until that day she knew how the game was played. Put all your chips on the table and simply refuse to blink.