Eyes in the Sky Read Free Page A

than the right.”
    Her final observation shocked him. He backed up. “I see.”
    “No, I do, now can I please see where I can sleep? It has been a very long and disappointing trip.”
    He withdrew all flirtation and became businesslike as he led her into the building and the quarters that were hers. Citadel Teklan had been built into the planet and her space was on one of seventeen lower levels. It was fine with her. She just needed a place to sleep.
     

Chapter Three
     
     
    Seeing was not a skill that she could teach, but she could teach interpretation of visual stimuli. Teaching was the only entertainment she got in the first few days.
    When her com unit pinged and told her that she was requested at the base, she nearly wept in relief. In seconds, her outer robes were on and she was headed to the base. The nice thing was that being a master of her talent let her wear the suitable robes for a mastered physical talent based on perception. She got to wear black.
    Might was the base commander, and he greeted her with a polite inclination of his horned head. “We have a request for your skills.”
    “Thank goodness. I was so bored.”
    He chuckled. “Don’t you want to know what the assignment is?”
    “Nope.”
    “You don’t want to know where you are going?”
    “Nope. I just want to go.”
    “Right. Well, here is the tablet; your flight is waiting. It is a shakedown for you, so you will be flying with Finder and Frost. They will monitor your skills and determine if you can go on solo missions in the future.”
    She clapped her hands in a gesture that alarmed Might.
    He waved her away. “Out to the tarmac with you. Look for the man with leathery wings and the woman kissing him.”
    Chortling, she headed out to the tarmac and did indeed find the couple making out next to a shuttle. She greeted them. “Please excuse me. I will just head on in.”
    They broke their liplock and the woman grinned. “I am Finder, this is Frost, and we will be your supervisors for this excursion.”
    “So, this is a test?”
    “Yes, indeed.” Finder waggled her eyebrows and gestured for her to enter the ship. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get home and you can consider your options.”
    “Options?” Riasa blinked in surprise.
    The man with the wings and the intense features said, “We can explain on the way. Let’s go.”
    Finder grinned. “Let’s go.”
     
    On the way, Riasa learned that she was a candidate for the Sector Guard. If this trip went well, she would be offered the position the moment that they landed. If it didn’t, she was stuck in the boring Citadel.
    When they landed on Truska, she knew what they needed, and she set out to find it. It was a simple assignment, to find a set of crown jewels that had been covered by a slick landslide.
    Finder and Frost stayed with the royals while Riasa grabbed a shovel and went skipping down the slippery muck that covered the hillside. She could already see the crown jewels, but they had moved dramatically from the point where the recovery efforts had been engaged.
    She continued on for three hundred meters and started digging while whistling a tuned that used to keep the goats quiet.
    Riasa dug for half an hour before she started to pull out the objects that had come loose, and from there, she uncovered the box that they had been in during the formal walk to the palace.
    Once it was all accounted for, she scanned the area and picked up one more ring to toss into the pile, and then, she hauled everything up the hill, dragging it behind her.
    The crowd at the top was silent. The hillside waterfall was nearby, so Riasa left the jewels at the feet of the royals, and she went to take a shower of sorts.
    She was wet but clean when she returned. “Apologies but that mud is sticky.”
    The grand duke asked, “How did you know where it was?”
    “I could see it. I can see metal under mud.” She inclined her head because the moment seemed to call for it.
    Finder