by R. M. Olson
She managed a shrug. “Didn’t look like it was working out for you.”
People turned to stare as they pounded past. Jez dodged around a man with two children in tow, and almost ran headlong into a startled woman pulling a load of boxes attached to an anti-grav.
“Sorry,” Jez grunted, sidestepping just in time.
“This may surprise you, Jez, but I did manage to survive for twenty-six years without you there to rescue me.” Lev still sounded irritated, if slightly breathless.
“What, in a university?” she shot back.
“More complicated than it sounds,” he panted. “Watch yourself. They’re going to be shooting us in a moment.”
“Use the EMP blocker.” She ducked down another alley, and he followed.
“It’s broken. Broke when she fell.”
She turned to glare at him. He shrugged.
“They didn’t know it was broken when I grabbed it.” He paused. “Up there. Go right. I saw a map of this place. There’s a back way out of town.”
Behind them, there were shouts and the sound of boots, approaching fast. She dodged down the narrow street, Lev hard on her heels. Behind them, a heat-blast left a charred scar on the building on the corner, and another scorched their heels.
“Back here,” Lev ground out, pulling her into a narrow alley and coming to a stumbling halt. She collapsed against the wall, swearing and panting, the smell of wet dirt and garbage filling her nostrils, and he twisted the heavy cuff down his wrist, posture tense.
“What are you—” she began. He held up a hand, breathing hard. Their pursuer rounded the corner after them, heat-gun drawn, and Lev stepped forward and swung his wrist out, the heavy cuff snapping sharply against the butt of the gun. The man’s hand dipped, but he didn’t lose his grip on the gun.
Damn, damn, damn. She wasn’t close enough to do anything, and the world seemed to slow, and the man raised the gun and fired point-blank into Lev’s face.
The gun clicked uselessly.
Jez’s heart re-started, and she lunged forward and drove her fist into the man’s sternum. He stumbled backwards, and she grabbed him by the greasy hair with her good hand and introduced his face to her kneecap. He dropped, momentarily stunned, and she snatched the spare pistol from his belt, spinning around just in time to plant the muzzle of it into the stomach of the smuggler leader as he rounded the corner. He stopped so quickly that he almost tripped over his own feet.
“Go on, ugly,” she panted, blinking back the tears of pain. “Get back.”
He did as he was told.
The man in the street stirred, blood streaming down his face, and she gestured him up to join his companion. He stumbled to his feet and obeyed.
“Thought you said the EMP blocker didn’t work,” she whispered to Lev. He raised an eyebrow.
“It doesn’t. But I happen to know that particular model of heat pistol is quite sensitive to percussive force.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but she was grinning.
“Alright you,” she said to the two smugglers. “What—”
“Jez,” said Lev from behind her. His voice held the sort of calm that meant something very, very bad was about to happen.
In front of her, the man who she’d assumed was the smuggler captain smiled.
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder.
The deserted street to either side of them was no longer deserted. Instead, it was now filled with at least two dozen grim-faced men and women that she was pretty damn sure weren’t innocent bystanders.
She shoved Lev out of the way as a heat-blast crackled through the air beside her ear, and again they ran for their lives.
The streets were getting smaller and dirtier as they approached the end of town, and the light rain was quickly turning into a downpour.
“This way,” Lev gasped, yanking her down another alley. “There’s an old back gate. I don’t know if it still opens.”
She jumped a puddle and landed in another, the wet soaking through the worn places in her boots, her teeth clenched. “Trust me. It’ll open,” she said, patting the butt of her heat pistol.
A laser blast ricocheted off the wall of an abandoned building in front of her, and she leapt to one side as it hit the ground at her feet, sending up steam and a scent of burnt mud. Lev’s jaw was set in a sort of resigned horror.
She slapped her com. “Time to go, kids! I found Lev, and we’re coming in hot.”
“What—” Tae began.
“Meet us at the ship. Ysbel, might want to have a welcoming party.”
She glanced over her shoulder.
It wasn’t easy to see through the rain, but it looked like more smugglers, or whoever the hell they were, seemed to have joined in on the pursuit. She tapped her com again.
“A big welcoming party.”
A shutter in one of the ramshackle houses twitched, but it looked like everyone on this side of town was smart enough to stay out of the street right about now. Everyone except her and Lev, and the whole damn army of smugglers who were chasing them.
A stray heat blast singed the hem of her coat, and she swore loudly.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Lev asked with breathless exasperation. She shrugged one shoulder.
“You get used to it.”
“I’m fairly certain that I’m not going to get used to it,” he said through his teeth.
She grinned at him. “Hang around me long enough and you might.”
At the end of the dirty, narrow street, lined with broken-down buildings and boarded up windows, the town walls rose up, wooden and too high to jump. She gritted her teeth.
“Hope you weren’t kidding about that door.”
Lev narrowed his eyes, frowning slightly. “No, it should be there.”
“Well, if it isn’t, we’re going to find out the hard way in about ten seconds.”
“Ah.” His face cleared. “There. It’s boarded up. Can you—”
“On it, genius,” she said, yanking the heat pistol out. Wasn’t easy to hold steady when you were splashing down a muddy street, and also when your entire damn ribcage felt like it was being cut open with a heat-knife, but still, it was a pretty big target. She drew in a shallow breath, let it out slowly, and squeezed off a blast. It didn’t have Ysbel’s mods, but it wasn’t a bad gun, and at this range it burned a respectable hole in the thin boards. She fired again, and even wet as it was, the flimsy wood ignited and sputtered fitfully.
“Stand back,” she panted.
“Jez. You have four broken ribs,” he said. “I am capable of some physical exertion on occasion.”
She sighed and fired one last time, and, with a look of extreme distaste, Lev rammed his shoulder into the weakened wood. It splintered, and the door swung reluctantly open.
“Go, I’ve got the gun.” She shoved him through the entrance as the first of their pursuers rounded the corner. The smuggler’s heat pistol was already raised, and as she dived through after Lev, the man slowed, aimed, and fired.
The bolt hit her squarely in the side, and she tumbled the rest of the way through the door, swearing through her teeth and biting back tears of pain. Lev’s face was bloodless as he dragged her clear of the entrance.
“Jez!” he was shouting. “Jez, are you alright? Jez, answer me.”
Her head was spinning, and it hurt like hell, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as she’d expected. She put a gingerly hand to her side as Lev pulled her out of the way and touched where the blast had seared through her jacket.
Then she gritted her teeth and swore more loudly.
“Jez, can you hear me? Answer me.” Lev’s expression was grim, and slightly terrifying.
“I’m fine,” she grunted. He grabbed the pistol from her hand, stalked to the entrance, and snapped off three shots. Judging from the cursing from the other side of the wall, his aim had improved immeasurably since she’d first met him.
She staggered to her feet, still swearing. He turned b
ack, grabbing her good arm to steady her.
“Jez. Where did it hit?”
“Hit something in my pocket. I’m fine. Come on, we don’t plaguing have time for this.”
“You—”
“Come on!”
He slipped an arm around her, and they set off at an awkward run. She stumbled slightly on the uneven ground and the long grass, and pain jolted through her ribs and the round burn mark on her side.
Lev tapped his wrist com against his thigh. “Jez is hit,” he said, voice grim. “Masha, get a kit ready.”
“Jez?” Tae sounded almost frantic.
“I’m fine!”
“You don’t damn well look fine,” Lev snapped.
They turned the corner, and despite everything, Jez couldn’t hold back a sigh of pleasure at the sight of her beautiful, perfect ship, its metal sides burnished to a dull polish, every old-fashioned rivet on it gleaming, it’s sleek, clean lines making it look like it was straining against gravity, yearning to get back into the sky.
“You can swoon over your ship later, Jez, come on,” Lev growled.
Ysbel stood on the loading ramp, wearing her usual flat expression.
“Duck,” she commanded as they approached.
Jez had spent enough time around Ysbel not to question, and apparently Lev had as well. They dropped, and Jez almost blacked out. Ysbel drew back her arm, and something small and cylindrical sailed over their heads and landed in the mud several metres behind them.
“Now, run,” the woman said, and they scrambled to their feet and sprinted for the ship.
They were half-way in when the ground behind them erupted in an explosion of grass and mud and dirt and deafening noise. Ysbel smiled in a satisfied way and stepped after them up the ramp. Tae was already closing it behind them.
“Jez,” said Lev through gritted teeth, “You need to—”
“Help me into the cockpit,” she grunted.
“Masha can—”
She turned to glare at him. “If you ever think you see Masha flying my ship, either I’m dead, or you’re drunk.”
He shook his head in exasperation, but helped her down the corridor and through the cockpit door. She dropped thankfully into the pilot’s seat.
“Strap in!” she called over the com. Then she hit the thrusters, the ship leapt forward, burning through the atmosphere.
And despite the pain throbbing through her body and the spots dancing before her eyes, as the surface of the planet receded behind them and the beautiful blackness of space opened up in front of them, for one perfect moment everything was right with the world.
Then Masha’s voice came over the com.
“Jez. Please do a small jump to get us into deep space. Then please come to the main deck, both of you. And I hope you have a very, very good explanation for what happened back there.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Gingerly, Tae released his harness strap and got to his feet, glancing around the cozy living quarters for something to grab onto if necessary. Ysbel, who was sitting across from him on one of the soft couches, gave him a small smile.
“Strapped down in time this time.”
He scowled at her. “If Jez didn’t treat every time she sat in the cockpit like we were trying to get away from an entire squadron of enemy ships, it might be a little easier.”
Ysbel chuckled and tapped her com. “Tanya?”
There was that strain on her face, and he could tell when Tanya answered by the relief that flooded her expression.
He shook his head slightly.
It had only been a few days. She’d be fine. But there was something haunted in the woman’s face, something he’d hoped would disappear when they finally found Tanya and the children.
But, he supposed, wounds that deep didn’t heal overnight.
Speaking of wounds—Jez really hadn’t been looking good when she’d stumbled up the ramp, leaning against Lev for support.
“Come on,” he said. “We’d better get in there before Masha and Jez kill each other.”
Ysbel gave him a reluctant smile and followed him to the main deck.
When he stepped through the door, Lev was lowering a swearing Jez against the wall. His face was grim, and hers—well, it was difficult to tell under the colourful mass of bruises, but there was anguish in her expression. Tae crossed the deck quickly and crouched beside them, worry twisting his chest.
Trust Jez to get herself in trouble. He wasn’t actually certain whether she could spend ten minutes anywhere in the system without getting herself in trouble.
“Is she OK?” he asked. Lev shook his head grimly.
“I don’t know. She said the blast glanced off something in her pocket, but—”
Jez touched her side and swore fluently.
“Jez, what happened?” Tae asked, his teeth gritted with worry. She looked at him with an agonized expression.
“I think the blast hit my damn speed capacitors,” she whispered.
Ysbel rolled her eyes, kneeling beside them. “Open your jacket and pull up your shirt, you idiot, or I’ll have to cut it off you.”
Jez did as she was told, for once. Tae swallowed, feeling slightly sick. The bruises she’d taken from her beating a few days ago had turned a dark purple and stood out in stark relief against the flexible white bone-set that the prison doctor had applied four days earlier, and there was a new, round, bright red burn-mark where the overheated capacitor had seared into her skin. Ysbel shook her head and held out a hand, and Tae jumped to his feet, grabbing the nearest heat-blast kit. She ripped it open and stuck it over the burn, sealing it carefully.
“Is that all that happened to you then, you crazy lunatic?”
Jez nodded without speaking. Her face had gone bloodless.
“Jez—” began Lev, in that steady tone which usually meant he was much more upset than he was trying to let on. Ysbel shook her head.
“I doubt whatever it was that you two were doing was good for broken ribs.”
“Yeah,” Jez whispered, with an attempt at a grin, “but you should have seen their faces.” She reached into her pocket and, with an effort, pulled out the damaged capacitor. She looked at it for a moment, shaking her head sadly. Then her eyes went unfocused, and her head lolled back against the wall. Tae’s heart stuttered in panic.
“Ysbel,” Lev snapped, but Ysbel shook her head, pushing herself to her feet.
“I’ll go get the scanner, but I think it’s just the strain.” She paused and looked at Lev’s face. “Don’t worry. I don’t think you could kill this lunatic with an ion gun. And believe me, there are days I’ve thought about trying.”
Tae blew out a faint sigh of relief and tipped his own head back. He wasn’t certain how Jez managed to earn the number of beatings she got—well, he supposed that wasn’t entirely true—but he could still feel the panic of four days ago, seeing the restless, irritating pilot who had somehow become something like a really, really annoying older sister, bloody and unconscious in the prison courtyard.
Ysbel returned a moment later with the medi scanner, took a quick scan, and nodded.
“She’s fine. I’ll give her something for the pain when she wakes up.”
“Yes, that would probably be a good idea,” said a cold voice from above them. “And then, I hope, she’ll explain exactly what happened back there.”
Tae sighed and opened his eyes.
This really, really wasn’t going to end well.
Lev turned, shaking his head ruefully. “Masha. I know how this looks. But this wasn’t—”
Jez’s eyes snapped open. “My capacitor! Tae, can we fix it?”
Tae turned and glared at her. “Jez, you just got shot. You’re lucky you weren’t killed. And you’re really lucky that the capacitor was non-reactive, or it would have burned a hole through the middle of you.”
“Can we fix it?”
“Jez—”
She scowled at him, and pushed herself gingerly up against the wall. “Look
, I spent three hours in that plaguing shop, and all I could buy were two capacitors, because someone—” she shot a venomous look at Masha, “loaded basically no credits onto my chip. And then someone damn well shot them!”
“Jez,” he said in what he hoped was a patient tone, “we’re on the Ungovernable. We have a hyperdrive, we have tech that no other ship in the system has, and I’m pretty sure even without hyperdrive no one and nothing could keep up to us. Why in the system were you buying speed capacitors?”
“I bet I could make it go faster,” she grumbled.
“Jez.” Masha’s voice had the icy tone it always seemed to take on when she was talking to the pilot. “Lev was just about to explain why the two of you were running back to the ship with what looked like half the zestava after you.”
Tae winced. Jez grinned, but there was something sharp behind her expression. “Well Masha,” she drawled, “Thing is, when someone tries to kill genius here, I get mad. Guess I don’t like it when people hurt my copilot.”
Lev gave her a rueful look. “I was fine.”
She snorted. “You were cuffed to a damn chair.”
“And you, Jez, were barely on your feet, and if you recall, you have—”
“Yeah, yeah, four broken ribs and whatever,” she said, waving her hand airily.
“For someone who just fainted, you seem remarkably unconcerned about it.”
She grinned. “What do you mean, fainted? I was resting my eyes.”
Despite everything, Tae had to bite back a laugh at the expression on Lev’s face.
“Is that what happened?” Masha asked Lev. Her voice was still cold, but there was a speculative look on her face. Lev looked up at her, shaking his head wearily.
“Yes, Masha. I was buying a couple information chips and someone pulled a heat-gun on me and hit my com with an EMP blocker before I had time to put a call out. I suppose I should have been expecting it, but—” he gave a slight shrug. “In honesty, I assumed this was one of the few places in the system where no one wanted to kill us at the moment.”
“That,” said Masha icily, “is apparently the one thing we can never assume, at least, not with our present company.” She turned her cold glare back on Jez, who gave her a cocky grin.
