A snippet of Slip Point: Shayalin meets a pirate

A nibble from Slip Point, all edited and everything:

"Ah, there you are. And all ready for me." She aimed a gun at Shayalin and divested her of her pack.

"That's—"

The muzzle of the gun moved to point directly at her head. Shayalin shut up.

The woman deftly unfastened the pack with one hand and pulled out its contents onto the floor. Shayalin's clothes were shaken out for anything that might be tucked within their careful folds, even her undergarments. The gun never wavered, and Shayalin swallowed all of her protests.

When the pack was finally emptied, turned inside out and its seams thoroughly inspected, the woman let it drop. "There's nothing in there," she said, turning an accusing look on Shayalin.

That pack had held everything from Centuris she had decided to keep, now strewn about for anyone to see. Certainly more than nothing to her. "What were you expecting?" Shayalin snapped.

"Oh, maybe a special item to be delivered to Urioq. I seem to have heard of it from someone." Her smile promised unpleasant things.

Shayalin hadn't really planned this through. She parried with, "Who said it was tangible?"

To her surprise, a thoughtful look crossed the woman's face. Her eyes narrowed. "Speak plainly, girl. Why were you so worried about a pirate attack if what you have is in your head? Who would know about it—and what is it?"

Shayalin retreated to the truth. "I wasn't worried about the attack. I was worried it wouldn't happen."

This time the woman's eyes widened. Then she laughed—not in derision, but with the full-throated amusement of someone appreciating a good joke. "And so you fed me that tale. I didn't think to look past the surface with a Rim girl. You could hustle a few bets with that act."

"Thank you," Shayalin said dryly.

"Most people would call you stupid instead of clever for arranging this. So now the question is, why?"

Shayalin took a deep breath. "I'm looking for Kennick Bailey," she said. If this was some other pirate entirely, she'd just walked neatly into a trap of her own devising with no way out.

The woman eyed her with suspicion but not, Shayalin was relieved to see, confusion. "You look young to be a bounty hunter."

"I'm not a bounty hunter," she said. "I have…a business proposal."

"Something in your head after all," she mused. "Careful, little girl. Admitting to business with a pirate is as good as being one, as far as the law's concerned."

Shayalin bristled at the condescension. "But you're not the law, are you?"

The woman grinned. "We all have our vices."

—

I'll post the first chapter on my site once I've got a cover to show off.