He chewed that over. He really didn’t want to budge, but money was money. Besides, he called it dangerous, but the tseyenni that lurked beneath the sands mostly hunted at night. Mostly.
“One-sixty,” he conceded and put out his hand. Jinx shook it with a smile that defused all the tension in the air, as was her gift. No one could be mad when Jinx was smiling. It was just about impossible.
Our driver whistled. The strider squealed, spread its legs in a wide stance, and then crouched all the way to the street so we could climb into the harness.
“Well, I’m Varreck,” the man announced. “And this sweet beauty is Vel. Climb aboard.”
We did just that. Jinx climbed in without effort, because she wasn’t hungover or injured. I came next, which was a struggle. So much so that Vel turned her head almost all the way around as striders could do and stared at me, as if telling me to knock it off. Sorry, I thought, my cheeks flushing.
After a few more painful attempts, Varreck grew frustrated and grabbed me under my armpits and lifted me higher so Jinx could grab me. That really made my cheeks redden. I was not a child, even if Varreck’s people liked to think that we were, just because they were tall and broad.
Last came Rowan. He was hungover something fierce, but he managed to get himself into the harness just fine. Once we were all seated in the leather seats, Varreck hopped into the saddle harness at the front.
“Have you ever ridden a strider before?” he asked.
“Yes,” we all said simultaneously.
He grinned. “Good. Sometimes you tourist types come in without experience.” He turned back around and grabbed Vel’s reins. “Okay, here we go.”
Varreck gave Vel a gentle tug, and then we were rising far too fast, the sandstone buildings blurring around us until we towered over them. From this height, we could see all the way to the palace. The sun was just peaking over the eastern skyline. It was a beautiful sight, the deep reds and oranges bathing everything in warmth.
Of course, I’d been on planets that orbited twin stars and those sunrises were something else. Still, this was nice.
Varreck directed Vel forward and we were off.
Striders were a native insectoid of Elarra but were so valued by many governments that they were routinely bred and shipped all across the galaxy. They were docile and downright lovable, with the added bonus that they could endure most conditions, except for worlds with extreme gravitational pulls.
They were fast and their legs were so strong that predators didn’t even bother with them. Another benefit. People good and bad recognized their value.
Vel galloped along the roads, her chitinous claws clicking on the stone pavement. The ride was smooth for a while, but as soon as we passed beneath the decaying metal walls of the Halla Sector, it got…bumpy. Here, the sands of the wastes zigged and zagged, feeling like the waves of an ocean. Most consumed any building at street level. Striders could move easily through the sands, but they had to constantly sway to do so—which was why we had the harness. We were all strapped in so we wouldn’t be thrown to our deaths, but that didn’t help with Rowan’s nausea.
Several times, he had thrown up over the side of Vel’s shell, though I knew that he was getting plenty all over her. Varreck wasn’t pleased with that.
“Hey, I thought you said you’d done this before?”
Rowan couldn’t answer, so I did. “We have, but Rowan is… Well, he drank half a bottle of quality yalen last night.”
Varreck scoffed and turned forward. “Oi, fecken Goons…”
I let those rude implications pass.
It took maybe half an hour to navigate our way through the shifting sands and crumbling buildings. There were plenty of shanties and slants and lean-tos, and some had even set up residence on refurbished grav-platforms. The outskirts had a flavor all their own. It was a widely lawless and harsh place that ringed the entire capital, and since the city was about a quarter the size of the whole planet, that was significant.
Here, there was crime, and mobs, and tseyenni, and other wasteland beasts. But the thumb of Elarri rule didn’t bother coming out this far. They were too busy policing the dozens of colonies throughout the nearby systems. So, they wouldn’t care about the many illegal spaceports that dotted the outskirts of the capital. Hallal was one of the smaller ones, but it suited us just fine.
The main port building was a massive sandstone structure that looked like a warehouse monstrosity studded with corroded steel and red iron. But it was sturdier than it looked. There were a few hangars in there, but last I knew, the two aside from our own were empty.
Vel came to a halt near the entrance. She squatted down and let us off. We climbed off, though as with everything, it was a pain for me, and Rowan almost fell face first. As I winced and put my hands on my knees, Varreck cracked a yellow-toothed grin and patted my arm.
“You should get some bio-gel, that’ll fix you up.”
I snorted. “Tell me about it.”
He pulled out his pipe and packed in some hunra. He lit it, took a long drag, and puffed a cloud at me before offering the pipe to me. “You partake?”
“I do, but I’m not one for sharing.”
“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug.
Once Jinx was off Vel, she paid Varreck what he was owed, and thankfully, he didn’t gripe about Rowan throwing up on his strider. He thanked us and we thanked him and then he was back on Vel and striding away as she cooed and sang a melody.
Of course that left us smiling.
Rowan took in some long breaths and straightened out. Jinx rubbed his back. “You okay, you big lug?”
“I’ll be fine. Just going to need a jug of water and a hot shower.”
“You might be out of luck on the latter. Last I checked, Pivek still hadn’t fixed the water heater.”
He groaned. “That’s just great then.”
We all laughed.
We made our way into the hangar through the rusty, hinged doors, too old for the sliding doors nearly universal throughout the stars. The place was a dump as far as hangars went, with bad lighting and faulty wires and foul air, but it was just a pitstop so it was fine.
Large hangar bay doors loomed over us, rusty and scratched and old. It was dark, the only light coming from an old series of fluorescents, which—as per usual—flickered like mad. On the far wall was a large panel with a single blue button in the center.
I actually didn’t know for certain what it did, I just assumed it would open the doors. So, I walked over and pressed it without a second thought. Jinx started to protest, but it was too late.
There was a click and some whirring and then it happened. The hangar doors opened with lots of creaks and groans that made my bones rattle and my teeth shake. The gearwork inside needed some oiling, for sure. Most hangars were lightyears ahead in tech, but this one, though ancient and crummy, was hidden and off the grid, and cheap.
And on the other side of the doors, bathed in sunlight and the orange glow of the gas giant Varra, was my ship. The Sanara.
She was a rangy little freighter, all sharp angles and pointy wings fashioned like the gliding raptors that the Torgorans revere. She was a non-descript gray and brown when I’d “found” her, but now she was a much livelier green, with plenty of orange trim and golden accent lights to give her some pop. Ketellin and Amara hated the coloring, and I knew plenty of others who thought it gaudy, but I liked standing out.
Which was a problem when we and our ship were wanted across the systems. But what could we do?
As we came into the hangar, the air warm and welcoming, the ship a glorious beacon in the light, I sighed, crossed my arms, and grinned wide. It was good to be home.
3
“I’m home!” I announced loudly as I strode up the ramp into the belly of the ship.
The Sanara was a light freighter, so there was plenty of storage space, and a bunch of extra rooms for cargo that we in turn changed into our own quarters. We didn’t fly cargo, at l
east not usually. For now, the cargo hold was mostly empty, but there were several workbenches set up to the left side with various bits and bobs that our chief mechanic Pivek liked to work on in his spare time.
And sure enough, there he was.
He hovered slightly over the cold ground as his retractable wings buzzed manically. He usually kept them in while he was on the ship, so he must have been excited by something. Even when he stood on his feet, he towered over everyone and had to hunch down in the other rooms and corridors. He was darn near twice my height.
He was a Bantiss, a tall insectoid race with segmented body armor and arms and legs. Similar to the Chytorri that the Bantiss shared a home world with, his beady black eyes missed nothing, given they could see for miles. He blinked at us, his vision no doubt zooming in on every last detail.
Pivek’s wings shuddered and retracted into his back. He landed on the floor with a clang, then strode over to us, which took all of one step.
He moved his arms rapidly in front of him. ‘You’re back. And late.’
His people, unlike the Chytorri, communicated at a frequency that most species couldn’t hear, so they mostly used Galactic Standard Sign Language to speak to the rest of us.
“Sorry, Pivek,” Jinx said. She patted his stomach and had to crane her neck to look up at him. “We decided to spend the night. The boys wanted to polish off a bottle of the baron’s yalen.”
Pivek made a clicking sound that was his version of a snort. ‘Of course,’ he signed. His eyes ran the length of me, and I was sure he wanted to smack me. He was not the type of person one made wait. But as much as I loved the big bug, I was not beholden to anyone’s time.
“Are the others in?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Are we stocked and ready to go? How’s my ship?”
‘Everything is good to go. Even fixed the water heater.’
Rowan almost cried. “Thank goodness. A hot shower is what I need. If you’ll excuse me.” With that, he left to take his shower.
Pivek watched him go. ‘He reeks. Too much alcohol.’
“You have no idea, Pi.”
‘You should go see Amara. Your wound smells.’
I frowned. “Is it infected? I thought Jinx did a good job.”
“I did do a good job.”
Pivek shuddered and returned to his workbench. ‘Probably just the yalen. Go see Amara. Then we take off.’
“And then we take off.” I nodded. He went back to work, and Jinx and I climbed up the ladder to the main deck.
The heart of the ship was just a crammed oval, with a rec room at the center filled with communications equipment, lounge ware, star maps, collections of data-pads, and heaps of screens, among other things. A narrow oval hallway ringed the central chamber, and around the hall were eight tightly-packed rooms crammed together, which were most of our quarters.
Jinx and I came up at the back end of the hallway, opposite from the cockpit where Ketellin was no doubt languishing, fussing over his controls and his own personal log of star maps and shipping lanes and which boom tubes were safe to use and whatnot. I let him deal with all that nonsense.
“Daddy’s home,” I called, my voice echoing down the halls. I could feel rather than see Jinx roll her eyes behind me.
“Hooray,” replied a sarcastic voice down the hall. Jinx and I took the right side and made our way to what constituted a med-bay for our ship. It was just an extra room, small with sloped walls and clean edges with a few cabinets for supplies and a meager little bed for the patient. That bed was occupied.
Rowan sat on it, hunched over as he guzzled down a tall glass of frothy orange liquid that almost seemed to glow with its own warmth. Sun’s Kiss—a terribly hot concoction that could cure headaches, fevers, migraines, and an assortment of other minor cranial ailments, including Rowan’s hangover. As nauseating as I found the drink, Rowan had no issues with it and finished it with an eager sigh.
“That’s much better,” he declared.
“Good,” I said, “Now get out of my spot.”
“He’ll get up when I say he can get up.”
My eyes flitted to Amara, our beautiful Zarthian medic and all-around weapons badass. Like most Zarthians, she was short and miniscule in appearance—even shorter than Jinx and I—but Zarthians, despite their size, had unparalleled strength. She could put me through the walls of the ship if she was in the mood.
And it looked like she was.
I couldn’t help prodding her, though. Bad habits and whatnot. “Well, I’m waiting, Doctor.”
She glared at me, and I glared back, one of our famous stare-downs. Though exceedingly kind in ways that I would probably never be, she was just as stubborn as I was. I thoroughly enjoyed butting heads with her. Jinx and Pivek tried to get me to not do that, but I could be an incorrigible ass.
I blamed that on my hard childhood.
Finally, I won our standoff once Amara’s eyes took in my haggard appearance and the blood stains on my shirt.
“You may go, Rowan.”
He hopped up and flashed a smile. “Yes, ma’am.” And then he was out of there with a swiftness he rarely displayed. That left me and Amara again staring at each other, with Jinx hovering against the door behind me.
Amara folded her arms and frowned at me, which made her cheeks dimple something fierce. Her jade skin glowed in the soft white glow of the lunar lamp on the table, and her amber eyes burned with annoyance.
“Why can’t you ever be careful, Yan?”
I threw up my hands. “I was! You try stealing from a ruthless mob boss in the middle of his own brothel surrounded by an entire squadron of guards.”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure there was a whole squadron.”
“Okay, there were six, but they were big, armed, and armored, and I’m—”
“None of those things, yes, I’m aware.”
I smiled. “I appreciate your concern.”
Amara rolled her eyes. “Okay, let me take a look at you.”
I stripped off my shirt, which of course was a struggle again, but I managed it. “Jinx wrapped me up. But Pivek said the wound smelled funny.”
“Pivek thinks a lot of things smell funny.”
She set to work unwrapping the wound as gently as she could, though it still pinched and ached as she peeled it free from my skin, but I’d suffered worse. Her lips stayed set in a blank line as she worked. When she finally pulled the last bit free from the gash, I yelped, despite how gentle she tried to be.
“Sorry,” she said, but she smirked as she said it.
“I bet you are.”
With the bandages free, she gave the wound a closer look. My back felt warm, and the dried blood made my skin feel sick and stiff. Not a pleasant feeling.
“Did you clean this, Jinx?”
“As best I could, yeah. We weren’t exactly in sterile conditions.”
Amara chuckled. “When are we ever when this one is involved?” Oh yeah, she joked with Jinx but got annoyed with me in a quick second. I knew she loved me, though. I was like a kid brother to her. She may have looked the same age as me or Jinx or Rowan, but Zarthians were long-lived. Amara had already seen well over a century.
“The wound isn’t so bad,” she finally declared, after a minute more of close inspection. That was the diagnosis I’d expected.
“Please tell me we still have some bio-gel?” I asked. I didn’t mind getting standard stitches if I had to, but I wasn’t a fan of needles, so I wanted to avoid that fate, if possible.
Amara stepped away from me and went to one of the cabinets. “We do, but not much. We’ll have to stock up soon.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Why couldn’t you have done that while we were here?”
She huffed, her back to me. “Elarri charge too much for it, and the quality is poor, compared to what you’ll find in the Free Systems or in the Hegemony.”
Amara knew that stuff better than I did, so I deferred to her judgement. “Fair enough.”
> “We’ll just have to not get shot, stabbed, or killed before then, okay?” She turned around with a cheeky smile and a clear tube filled with a cool, blue cream.
Jinx pushed off from the wall. “I’ll go round up the others so we can talk and get out of here.”
“Yes, yes. Good plan,” I said.
She snorted and left the room, a smile on her face.
Without any further words, Amara applied the bio-gel to my back. It was cold, as usual—too cold, like standing shirtless on a mountaintop as snow flurries whipped about, battering you left and right. I dug my nails into the soft cushion of the bed. The bio-gel wasn’t painful, it was just…different. It wasn’t a natural feeling, making the body heal so fast. It was a feeling I could endure, but not one I would seek out.
But it still beat stitches and allowing my body to heal naturally.
Once the gel was applied and settled, it got to work. It felt like an icy river suddenly rushed through my veins, sapping me of breath and making my heart race. That only lasted a matter of seconds, though. What came next was my skin literally stitching itself back together. Rapidly. The wound closed within a minute, scabbing over and becoming skin again. It itched and burned and made me grit my teeth and groan, but then it was over and all I would have was a long scar.
“Better?” Amara asked as she put the bio-gel away.
“Is it possible to hate something and love it at the same time?”
She turned around, crossed her arms, looked me up and down, and pursed her lips. “Well, that’s about how I feel about you, so I’d say yes.”
“Oh, ha-ha.”
Amara smiled widely. “Come on, Captain. Time to address your crew.”
“I wish you all would always address me as captain…”
“That wish will have to go ungranted, I’m afraid.”
Of course it would, but I could dream.
With both of us smiling and in good spirits, we left the infirmary and joined the rest of the crew in the hub of the ship. They were waiting for me when I arrived, at least most of them.
The Elarri Heist (Plundering the Stars Book 1) Page 4
