Heroes Adrift Read Online Free Page A

settee.
    Risa, having returned to her bedroom for a few moments, came back out without her black boots and tool belt and with a wine bottle. She fetched two mugs from the kitchen and sat in a chair opposite from me, filling the mugs with a golden fluid. She clinked her mug against mine. “Hardy health,” she said.
    I tasted the liquid. Not quite wine, it was a little heavier and sweeter than wine. It went down very nicely. “I like this.”
    â€œYou should. It cost a press.”
    I refrained from commenting on price.
    â€œSo, out with it.”
    I sighed, hating to be reminded. “There’s really not much I can say.” Although we had received no orders on the subject, Karish and I had decided not to tell anyone where we were going, or why. We didn’t know what the Empress wanted us to do yet. “We’ve been taken off the roster and called from High Scape.”
    â€œReassigned?”
    â€œPossibly. I’m not sure.”
    â€œCan they do that to you people? Just ship you around and not tell you what’s going on?”
    She was assuming the Triple S was behind the move. I wasn’t going to correct her. “Aye.”
    â€œDoesn’t seem right to me,” she muttered. “That they can control you like that.”
    I was surprised. Risa was a wonderful, generous person, but sometimes, I thought, a little resentful of me, and other members of the Triple S. She worked hard, and from what I could determine, gained little from her labor. She thought Shields and Sources were given too much and did too little for it. I didn’t think she blamed us as individuals. It was more like she held it against all of society, that we lived lives she thought so easy.
    Now, she was seeing a negative aspect to our lives. Perhaps for the first time. And I couldn’t correct her. “It’s one of our responsibilities, to go where we’re sent. Our lives can’t be made only of benefits. It wouldn’t be fair.”
    Risa snorted. “Life’s not fair.”
    Feeling depressed, I took another sip of the golden fluid.
    â€œGoing to miss you, girl,” Risa said.
    I couldn’t help feeling pleased. “Really?”
    Risa laughed. “Why are you so surprised?”
    I shrugged. I’d found it hard to make friends since leaving the Academy. Regulars had strange expectations that I didn’t know how to meet. “I’ll miss you, too.”
    After I’d finished the mug of liquor, Risa offered me another, and despite the temptation, I had to turn her down. There was someone else I had to visit.
    I had never been to Doran’s rooms before. He believed it was inappropriate, as a lady, for me to visit him. Asking around, I learned that such was a rule followed by many aristocrats, though not by the classes that had any real sense. I was a Shield, so I didn’t belong to any class, but I couldn’t make Doran believe that. One of his annoying quirks.
    Doran, like Risa, had company. In the room he used as a sitting room, four men sat around a small, round table, playing cards. Two of them I had seen before, though I had never met them. They were brothers, I knew, dark haired and dark eyed, stocky and stolid looking, and I had seen them in the street with Doran, at times when I noticed him, but he didn’t notice me. A third man was significantly older than the others, his hair silver and thinning, his softer frame ruining the close lines of his vest. The final man, a lanky blond, had managed to sprawl in a stiff, upright chair, and he was smirking at me.
    Doran didn’t look pleased to see me there, which irked me. He dropped in at the Triple S house often enough. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
    â€œI apologize for disturbing you at home,” I said formally. “Karish and I have been ordered away from High Scape. We leave tomorrow morning.” Maybe I should have just sent a note.
    My announcement knocked