by Alex White
“He’ll live,” Cordell said. “Now if you’ll pardon us, we’ve got urgent business to attend to.”
Sharp parted ways with the rest of the crew, shaking hands with each of them in turn, until he got to Nilah and the twins. “You three are some of the most resourceful people I’ve ever met. I hope we’ll meet again, but if not, I’ll always say I got to ride on board the Capricious.”
“You’d be the first one to be proud of this rusty tub,” Boots said, striding past them and into the waiting autocab.
“Maybe the captain ought to have you clean the rust off with a hand laser,” Aisha called after her, face sour.
Nilah grinned. “Take care, Sharp.”
He waved goodbye, and made his way toward the serpentine roads of Harvest. Nilah watched him go, certain she hadn’t seen the last of him. When she turned back to the cargo hold, she found Malik, Aisha, the Ferriers, and Orna ready to go.
Cordell folded his hands behind his back and squared his shoulders. “They’ll be analyzing any security footage from Pinnacle and Mercandatta, so your covers are blown. Let’s get rid of those stupid faces, shall we?”
“Gladly,” said Nilah. “The new look isn’t for me.”
“Miss Sokol,” said Cordell, “you and Missus Jan will go first, then return to the ship together. You’ll need to oversee the purchase of all our supplies. Mister Vandevere will be here handling comms while you’re out.”
Orna nodded. “Sir.”
“Dismissed,” said Cordell. “No shore leave. I want us airborne the second we’ve got everything on board. They’ll be following us, and I want to be long gone by then.”
It was good to have her old face back. Nilah had enjoyed her exotic fling with an old lover sporting a new look, but the shine had worn off since her time in the Pinnacle. Judging from the rest of the crew, they felt the same way.
They loaded up and made a short jump to one of the uninhabited sectors, one with few eyes on it and fewer police. The Gate Cartel never disclosed details of those using the jump gates, and the Capricious passed through unmolested. It felt like forever since Nilah had enjoyed the comforts of civilized space, but the thought of returning to Taitu, with all manner of secret intrigues brewing, churned her stomach. They wouldn’t welcome her back, anyway, after the way she’d left.
Once they’d safely entered the Flow again, Cordell summoned her to help extract Stetson Giles’s whereabouts from Boots. They’d convened in the mess, where they all took their places around Boots like a surgical team about to operate.
Nilah watched Boots sit in her chair in the middle of the mess hall, tapping her foot to some quick, unheard beat. She knew her part in the plan—distract Boots, let the twins come up and do their thing while she was surprised. It’d be just like Maslin Durand, except they’d be doing it to a friend.
“Is it going to be bad?” asked Boots.
“They just have to throw your defenses,” said Nilah.
“Even if I’m fully willing to collaborate?”
“What happens if you think about telling us where Stetson is?”
Boots winced and touched her forehead. “Yeah, that makes sense …”
“Just try and relax. Think about home.”
Boots shut her eyes, and Nilah knew exactly what was going through her mind: Try not to see the twins sneaking up on you.
Fried leeks and roasting chicken tainted the air, a traditional fare from Clarkesfall. There could be no questioning Alister and Jeannie’s plan.
Cordell strode over to Boots and whispered a few encouraging words in her ear. She looked up at him like he was a doctor giving her terrible news. Stetson’s curse had trained her to fear.
Nilah had been briefed on the script for Boots and awaited her cue. She’d ask a few disarming questions, then Jeannie would sneak up and hit her with a big one—and finally, Alister would ask the thing on everyone’s minds.
Where is Stetson Giles?
From the kitchen, Jeannie nodded for them to begin.
“Boots,” Nilah began, hesitantly, “I want you to concentrate on the sound of my voice. Are you ready?”
The pilot nodded, her lips pursed white. “I’m kind of nervous.”
“Don’t be. Remember what Alister said? He can get into anyone’s mind.”
“Yeah,” said Boots. “And I can tell he doesn’t like doing it.”
“You once said you had a cactus, back on Gantry Station,” said Nilah. “Did you name it?”
Boots narrowed her eyes. “What kind of a lonely spinster names a cactus?” Then she looked around at the assembled crew, their eyes expectant, and said, “Oh. Well, yeah. His name was Kevin.”
“Okay,” said Nilah. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Spatchcock, ale-roasted chicken, and fingerling potatoes,” said Boots. “What you’re cooking now.”
Time to up the ante. “How many, uh, sexual partners have you had?”
Boots grimaced. “Are you serious right now?”
Nilah nodded, gesturing to Cordell, Armin, and the twins. “It’s just essential crew right now. Please answer the question.”
She looked as though she was chewing a bitter kamaroot. “Five.”
Jeannie tiptoed toward Boots, carving out the first mark that would stun her.
Nilah took a deep breath. The questions had to get more personal, so they could throw off any accidental mental defenses. “Are you attracted to any members of the crew of the Capricious?”
Boots’s hearty laugh fell over the mess hall like a warm blanket. “No. God, no. One of you lot? I don’t think so.”
Cordell smiled. “That hurts, Bootsie. No love for a man in uniform?”
“Least of all you!” she laughed.
Then Jeannie grabbed her shoulder and said, “What was the happiest moment of your life?”
Boots’s eyes went wide, and Jeannie gave her a reassuring look.
“Come on, don’t tell them that,” the fighter pilot begged.
Nilah leaned in closer. As Boots’s friend, she was supposed to tease out the rest of the answers with Jeannie. “Tell us what, Boots?”
“Yeah, tell us what?” Cordell added, a long smile working its way across his face. If she was embarrassed, he was there to pile on and push her further off balance.
“Aw, come on, Jeannie, not him,” Boots begged. “Please not him. Captain, get out.”
“Oh, is it about me?” he crooned in response, resting an elbow on the table. “This ought to be rich.”
Jeannie had been right about Boots: with her intensely private personality, she was far more embarrassed by joy than shame. She rocked in her chair, unaccustomed to being the center of attention.
Nilah looked to Jeannie. “What did you see?”
“You were flying,” began the mind reader.
Boots shot her a murderous look. “And I do love to fly, so I guess that’s one mystery solved. Anyway, case closed.”
“What kind of ship?” asked Cordell.
“It was one just like the one in the hold. The, um, MRX … fifty?” Jeannie said.
“Twenty,” Boots corrected.
“And you only flew those under Captain Lamarr’s command, right?” asked Nilah.
“That’s right,” said Cordell.
“There were brown hills,” said Jeannie, “wide and rolling. You were flying over them as fast as the ship would take you. And then, you pulled back on the sticks and began to rise.”
Boots eyed her sidelong, but stopped interrupting, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps out of acceptance of the experiment.
Jeannie continued. “The atmosphere began to thin, going from cerulean, to navy, to star-studded black. You heard alarms in the cockpit. And then there was a voice in your ear saying—”
“‘You’re leaving the patrol area, Boots,’” interrupted Cordell. “‘Turn around before you get the Kandis’ attention’… but you didn’t hear me.”
“She deliberately keyed off something called the ‘alternate b
and hopper comm,’” said Jeannie, and Cordell scoffed. “You just kept climbing higher and higher, the thrusters at your back and the heavens ahead of you. And when the gravity indicator hit point two, you angled your cockpit to the planet and switched off your ship.”
Cordell stood up straight. “Are you kidding me? We were on the ground in the command center going wild, trying to figure out how we were going to rescue you! We were worried sick! Kinnard thought you were going AWOL!”
Boots nodded angrily. “Well, I wasn’t, Captain. We were flying three patrols a day waiting for a Kandamili assault and I was damned sick of it.”
Jeannie waited for them to finish. “You let your arms fall to your side, and took long breaths in and out, letting the weightlessness of space take your body. That’s when you saw it—a tiny speck of green island on the mirror of the ocean.”
Boots leaned forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees with a distant look in her eye. “Up there, I was just a piece of junk, you know? I wasn’t part of some stupid war. I didn’t kill anyone. I was just … at rest.”
Her gaze fell upon Nilah, then Cordell, as if looking for some kind of absolution. Nilah nodded, but said nothing.
“And there was, like … this oasis down below me, and everything in between was blood and fire and guts and fear, but”—Boots wiped her nose—“the ship and I weren’t in it for a minute. It was like dying. For a split second, I didn’t owe anyone anything. Didn’t have to shoot anything. Didn’t have any friends to think about. It didn’t feel like my brother and my parents were dead.”
“It’s just like you,” said Nilah, and Boots perked up. “Your happiest moment was disobeying orders.”
The pilot shook her head. “There was peace beyond measure out there. I don’t think I ever could’ve felt so free if I hadn’t been so trapped.”
Nilah could feel it—the grace of a pure moment in a dying world—and she almost missed Alister creeping up behind Boots, fingers charged with his spell.
He placed his hand atop her scalp and said, “Where is Stetson Giles hiding?”
They both screamed, clutching their eyes like they’d been blinded. Boots fell from her chair, banging her head against a nearby table, groping for any purchase to keep herself upright. Alister stumbled to his knees, dry heaving and pouring with cold sweat.
Of course it’d been too easy. Nilah rushed to their sides while Cordell called for Malik. The screaming wouldn’t stop. She rolled Boots over to the recovery position, cradling the woman’s head in her lap. Boots went still and her eyes flickered, but the agony returned, curling her into an even tighter ball.
“Think about the stars, Boots,” Nilah urged, stroking her hair. “Find that little green island in the ocean.”
Boots’s breath came in shorter and shorter bursts as she began to hyperventilate. Nilah mopped her brow and glanced at the door to find Malik rushing inside, carving his purple glyph out of the air. He was in a bad state, limping, bandages wrapped around his bare chest and shoulders. First, he laid his hands on the wailing Alister, who went slack under his touch.
Malik affixed Nilah with his piercing, golden-brown stare. “Please back away, Miss Brio.”
Nilah did as she was asked, though as she tried to gently push Boots to the floor, the older woman clawed at her to get her to stay.
“It’s all right, Boots,” said Malik, tracing another humming glyph. “No dreams for now.”
He pressed his palm to her cheek, and Boots’s eyes rolled back in her head. She let out a long sigh and fell still. At last, Malik winced and rested a hand upon his chest wound, sinking into Boots’s abandoned chair. Jeannie glared at all present, holding her brother down as his agony subsided.
“Is Boots okay?” Nilah asked Malik.
“She’ll be fine,” he reassured her, “just a little bruised.”
When no one else spoke, Jeannie shattered the silence with a sternness Nilah had never heard before.
“And how about Alister? Hm?” she said, lips white with anger. “You know, you’re all so quick to use him, but you don’t have to pick up the pieces after!”
Malik raised his hands. “Miss Ferrier, you do not want to wake them up right now.”
“I’m tired of seeing my brother hurt on your account,” she hissed, bringing down the volume, but all the malice remained. “He’s not just some tool to pull out every time you need an expendable—”
“That’s enough!” said Cordell, taking slow, deliberate steps toward her. “No one on this crew is expendable, and if I ever hear you say that again, you’ll be on your own.” He squared up to her. “We do what has to be done for the good of the galaxy and the survival of this ship. You want to protect him? Fine. I expect to see you jump into his place the next time I ask for volunteers.”
No one else dared to chime in.
“I’ve been briefed on every away mission, Miss Ferrier,” Cordell continued, his brow shadowing his furious eyes, “and not once have you taken a risk or performed a reading in hostile conditions. Yet, you gladly sliced your nanny’s throat to protect your brother. So where’s that backbone, huh? Where’s the fire in you?”
Jeannie’s lips curled into a snarl, but she drew her limbs in close, like she was expecting to be struck. A pang of guilt coursed through Nilah; at the chalet, they’d probably tortured her. Cordell’s tactics might’ve been appropriate for soldiers, but abuse victims—it was hard to watch.
“He’s my only family,” she spoke through bared teeth.
“Wrong,” said Cordell, looming over her. “We’re your family now. Take some time to get right with that or get the hell off my ship.”
To Jeannie’s credit, she didn’t back down until he added, “Dismissed.”
She left the mess like a receding storm, leaving only wreckage behind.
Once her footfalls quieted, Cordell deflated and said, “Well, this plan didn’t work worth a damn.”
Armin brought some gurneys and helped Malik take Boots and Alister to the med bay, leaving Nilah and Cordell alone together. He gave her a defeated glance and drew out his silvered cigarette case. Nilah wasn’t a fan of the captain’s habits, but at least it would cut through the smell of that poor, roasted chicken.
“Don’t tell Boots,” he said.
“Wouldn’t dare.”
“You know,” Cordell sighed, exhaling a burst of smoke, “I really thought we had that one in the bag.”
Nilah’s arm still smarted from where Boots’s fingernails had etched angry welts. “It was a decent plan, Captain. I think we just underestimated how strong that bleeding curse is. It’s not like we can disperse it. The barrister’s mark gets into your bones … into your mind.”
“You don’t have to worry about all that ‘captain’ stuff when it’s just us.” He blew a pair of rings into the air. They intertwined, dancing in helical turbulence. “That mark from the Chalice of Hana is powerful. I can see why everyone wants this Giles guy.”
“Just think: that could’ve been Boots writing the greatest contracts in the galaxy.”
Cordell smirked. “She’d have the whole place getting on like a house on fire by now.”
“Between the chalice and the Harrow, she’s something special.”
“You don’t have to convince me.” The cherry lit his face, and Nilah noticed a pair of sharp crow’s-feet around his eyes. Had he always been that old? “I feel like the twins are integral to getting the info from Boots. She’ll never be able to spit the words out on her own, not after years of paralytic pain when she tries. I just wish there was some way to suppress that damned spell. Maybe indolence gas?”
Nilah thought about it and shook her head. “I don’t think that’ll be enough. According to everything I’ve found on the Link, the barrister’s mark trains your mind to follow the spirit of the contract, so she’ll never be able to speak the words. We need the twins to read her mind, but they can’t be exposed to the gas when they do.”
Cordell looked around for a place t
o stub out his cigarette and, finding none, went behind the bar to wash his used stick down the drain. “So we can’t use dispersers,” he called over the running water, “because there’s no active spell to puncture. And we can’t use indolence gas, because then the twins can’t cast.” He shook his hands into the basin and flashed them in the dryer. “So … none of the tech out there will help us, unless you know some tech to suppress magic that I don’t.”
Nilah shot him a playful side eye, and started to make a joke—but she pulled up short.
She did know a way.
It was not a pleasant way; it would require careful positioning, split-second teamwork, and naked exposure to the vacuum of space.
“Captain Lamarr,” she began. “There’s a place where magic doesn’t work quite right. Remember?”
His eyes widened as recognition dawned. “You’re not suggesting …”
She wordlessly nodded her head.
“Holy hell. I’m going to need another cigarette.”
Boots awoke to a buzzing at the door to her quarters and blinked hard. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been out, but one minute she’d been sitting in the mess, and the next—
Had they questioned her? How had it ended?
“Boots,” came Cordell’s voice. “Open up, I want to talk to you.”
She looked down at herself, expecting to be anything but decent, but she was still wearing the same clothes as when they’d tried to extract Stetson’s location from her mind. How had she gotten to her quarters? Who’d tucked her in?
“Boots, come on. You’ve slept for a good long time.”
“Yeah,” she grunted. “Uh, come in.”
The door unlocked with her voice authorization, sliding aside to reveal Cordell with a plate of food. She’d never known him to do anything like that in his life. He certainly hadn’t cooked it. He held it out to her—a plate of spatchcock chicken and golden-brown fingerling potatoes.
“How long was I out?” she asked.
“Two days. You had a traumatic event. Malik came by and made sure you got some fluids, helped you with some stuff and put you back under.”
