“So,” Leo said at last, “did that convince you to stick around?”
Annie pulled back to look up at him. She drank in the sight of his dark, ruffled hair, the smile on his full lips, and the hopeful look in his beautiful gold eyes. It seemed strange that he would even bother to ask; there was only one possible answer.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I think I could stay for a while.”
Breakwater: Rick
Star Bears II
by
Becca Fanning
Dalos XI was one of the few cities that could boast to being as stunning as the stars around it. The capital of colony world, it seemed to consist entirely of glass and light. In addition to being breathtakingly beautiful, it was also famous for having a peerless security force resulting in very little crime, especially for a port-and-trade city. People travelled light years to explore the peaceful, picturesque metropolis. It was the sort of place one could look at and think “we did it, the future is here,” a shining love letter to human civilization in glass and chrome.
“Shit,” Zosha hissed to herself as she crawled through a vent in the anterior security station. “Shit, shit, shit, don’t be a dead end, don’t be a—oh, motherfucker.”
She rested her head against the rough material of her pack, trying to convince herself that she should keep moving instead of just giving up then and there. In the end, the horror stories she’d heard from duct runners back on Lytos about the dangers of staying still too long won over the desire to accept her fate. Carefully, she turned herself around and began crawling back down the tunnel, pushing her bag ahead of her.
“I blame you for this entirely,” she muttered.
“Are you talking to me?” a bored-sounding voice drawled over the comm link. “Because if so, I’d like to remind you that this mess is not my doing.”
“Me being lost in this fucking metal labyrinth is,” Zosha groused. “I wanted to take my chances with a forged ID, but no, you wanted me to do it the hard way.”
“As much as I hate to cast aspersions on your impressive array of unlawful talents, there’s no way you could have gotten yourself an ID capable of fooling even a rookie Sixer,” Spinner replied. “And with my current schedule I couldn’t have gotten you a workable one in time. Chin up, darling, you’re almost out. Take the next left.”
“See, you telling me that the first time would have made this a lot easier,” Zosha said, making the turn. “Honestly, if you’re going to force me into the vents you could at least make sure I don’t get lost. I think I’d rather just get my throat slit by Lan Doro than die in here.”
“Zosha, I am in the process of crumbling a regime,” Spinner said, sounding mildly affronted. “I can’t just drop everything to hold your hand because you picked the wrong man’s pocket. Besides, Lan Doro would never simply slit your throat. With what you stole? He’s going to make you an example. Turn right.”
Zosha grumbled but complied. “Is it too late to hitchhike to some agriculture world and settle down with a nice lumberjack?”
“You’d die of boredom in a week. Alright, see the light? That’s your exit. I’m going to put the cameras on loop until you’re in the clear. On my go.”
While Spinner worked whatever magic he used on the camera, Zosha made sure her gloves were intact after crawling around the vent and reached awkwardly around her bag, multitool in hand. She began to work on the screws holding the vent screen in place, wincing as the electric current hit her. On any other job she’d use an E-pulse to knock out the defense mechanism but she couldn’t risk security noticing that one of the vents was malfunctioning. Even if they assumed it was just a maintenance error and sent a handyman instead of a guard, she was in trouble. Anyone spotting her, no matter who it was, could get her killed. She couldn’t afford to relax until she was out of the system. As it were, she relied on her gloves to take the brunt of the electricity and worked fast. It was difficult because she was working from the wrong side, but she’d had plenty of practice and in short order the screen came loose. She grabbed onto it to stop it from falling and waited for Spinner to tell her to act.
“Okay,” he said finally. “The cameras from where you’re coming out to the port are all on a loop. You need to go fast. Go into the hallway and follow the blue light. You want to be in docking bay 7.”
“Got it.” Zosha was moving before he finished speaking. She pushed her bag forward and it fell out of the vent, taking the screen down with it. Next she wriggled forward until she was only in the duct from her knees down, her feet pressed to the top of the metal chamber as she slipped slowly forward. She took a deep breath and relaxed, tumbling completely into the hallway. She hit the ground palms-first and let herself roll. It was clumsier than she’d like, but nothing felt broken. Grabbing her bag, she dashed towards the hallway.
As promised, there was a blue light embedded in the floor that led visitors towards the docking bays. She ran along it, ignoring the odd looks she was getting from people. She skidded to a stop when she reached the end of the light path, looking around wildly for where she was supposed to be. She couldn’t see any signs and cursed under her breath. Her eyes fell on a lone security guard.
The guards out here don’t check ID, she reminded herself as she hurried towards him. It’ll be fine.
“Excuse me?” she called to him, trying to sound desperate. Given her circumstances, it came naturally.
He turned to her. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
Zosha nodded at him, widening her eyes and biting her lip. “Can you tell me the fastest way to D-7?”
“Sure thing,” he said, smiling at her. “Late to board, are we?”
She nodded again. “I just got so caught up looking at the kiosks in K-Ward I lost track of the time.”
“Happens all the time,” the guard chuckled. “Alright. See the elevator over there? Head towards that, then go down to the second level. The door is pretty clearly marked, you can’t miss it.”
“Thank you so much,” Zosha said as she spun away and made for the elevator.
“Of course! Hope you enjoyed your stay!”
Once she was in the elevator, she took a steadying breath and reopened her comm line to Spinner.
“Alright, I’m almost there. What next?” she asked.
“You want to get onto a ship called the Breakwater,” Spinner answered. “They’re smugglers. I don’t know much about them, so make sure they don’t see you. As far as I know they’re not in the skin trade but tread carefully anyways.”
“Okay,” Zosha said, stepping out of the elevator. The guard had been right; there was a giant glowing seven above a door several yards away from her. She walked towards it. “Well, this is me. Have fun crumbling civilization as we know it, Davy.”
“Zosha,” Spinner said over the line. The softness of his voice made her step falter. “I promise I’ll look into sorting this out. You have my emergency line if anything happens.” By emergency line, he meant personal line, something which Zosha may have been the only person in the universe with access to.
“Thanks,” Zosha said, swallowing thickly.
“And Zosha?”
“Yeah?” she asked.
“If you ever use my real name again I’m going to have you assassinated,” he said gently.
She laughed wetly. “Got it. Alright, time for me to get stealthy,” she told him as she entered the bay. “Wish me luck then fuck off and let me do my job in peace.”
“Good stars and good winds, you noxious hell beast. Don’t die out there,” he told her, his voice as aloof as usual.
“Back at you, you gingery shit,” she told him before cutting the line with shaking fingers.
Getting onto the ship was easy. Smugglers were, for good reason, notoriously protective of their ships. This meant they all had similar security measures in place, usually biometric scans and pass codes, all with one thing in common: no cameras. They couldn’t afford evidence of their own misdeeds, meaning they had to rely on other
countermeasures. This would trip up almost anyone else, but Zosha had grown up on Lytos, an asteroid colony of thieves and murders, and had been getting through this type of security for what seemed like her whole life. She was on edge for the whole process, chewing her already abused lower lip until it bled, but she was on board before anyone else showed up in the bay and made her way to the cargo hold.
Luckily, the crew of the Breakwater already had some cargo loaded, meaning there were plenty of crates for her to hide behind. She settled into one corner, making sure that neither she nor her bag could be seen, then took a moment to stretch out. Her back made at cracking sound and she could feel her knees creaking. She settled back, closing her eyes and preparing for a long, uncomfortable ride.
As exhausted as she was from running almost non-stop the past few days, she was too wired to fall asleep. The most she could do was even out her breathing and force her muscles to relax as she let her mind wander. She lay like that for about a half hour, feeling the tension slowly melt away from her body, when she heard the hiss of the door opening and several arguing male voices getting louder.
“…all I’m saying is, if we’d decided to run guns instead of medicine, we’d have already been paid. I could be getting a drink thrown in my face by a gorgeous broad right now,” one complained.
“Well, at least he’s realistic,” another commented, which garnered a few laughs.
“After the cluster-fuck on the Edge we can’t afford jobs that dangerous,” a new voice said. “We’ve been over this.”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” the first voice said. “Annie’s making you soft.”
“I can one hundred percent guarantee that’s the opposite of what Annie makes him,” someone snickered.
The first man gave a pornographic moan. “And who could blame him? God, her ass.”
“Custer.” It took Zosha a moment to place the voice as belonging to the third man who spoke due to the fact it was suddenly much lower and much more threatening.
“What? If you’re going to hog the only woman on board all to yourself, the rest of us should at least get to fantasize about her.”
“Custer.”
“I think,” a new voice said calmly, “that we should get out of here before someone with a badge decides to double check our clearance. Custer, you stay here with me and unload. Captain, if you wouldn’t mind getting ready to take off, I’ll join you as soon as we’re done here.”
There were a few grunts of agreement followed by the sounds of footsteps.
“Seriously, though, it’s not like I’m asking for a turn at her,” Custer grumbled.
“One of these days you’re going to annoy him enough that he sends you on a long walk out of a short airlock, but only if Annie doesn’t beat him to it,” the calm voice said. Zosha decided that it was a rather nice voice, deep and smooth. Listening to it hardly made up for being tucked away behind crates of dubious content, but it didn’t hurt.
“He’s totally whipped.”
“It’s Annie. We’re all whipped.”
“Speaking of, do you think they ever…” his voice trailed off and he made a sound like a whip cracking.
“Not all of us prefer our bedmates fully armed, Custer,” the other man said, sounding slightly exasperated. “Ugh, I need your help with this one.”
The conversation was momentarily halted as the two men grunted, followed shortly by a loud thud.
“Alright, tie those down and then we’re done,” the nice voice said.
“You got it. Also, you smell that too, right?”
“Of course, but avoiding the Sixers takes precedence right now.” The other man made a noise of protest. “Leave it. Captain’s not worried and we’ve got bigger issues.”
“Well if the Captain’s not worried,” Custer said mockingly.
“Get out of here. We’ll talk once we’re out of here.”
Custer grumbled but, if the fading footsteps were anything to go by, complied.
This left Zosha, as far as she could tell, alone in the cargo hold with the man who had a voice that was probably a lot nicer than he would be if he found her. Her skin felt tight and hot and she couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to wait a situation out, or even the first time she’d stowed away, but the stakes had never been this high before. After a few minutes of the sounds of crates being belted down and heavy breathy, a second set of footsteps retreated.
Zosha lay in perfect silence, hardly daring to even breathe, until several minutes without sound passed. Slowly she let herself relax. She was struck by the urge to call Spinner and let him know she was okay but disregarded it immediately. Her suit would protect her if someone scanned for heat or life signs, but that didn’t do shit if someone heard her. Instead she focused on one of the screws in the box she was facing, letting her mind slip into a trance as she stared at it. It was a good way to keep herself from going insane at the wait without being as vulnerable as she would have been asleep.
When she came out of the trance she had no idea what time it was, only that she was hungry. Slowly and quietly, she unzipped her pack and removed one nutri-pack, jabbing the attached straw into the foil. She took a small sip, face pulling into a scowl as the bland, faintly metallic-tasting mush hit her tongue. She let it sit in her mouth for a moment to adjust to the flavor, then swallowed and began to suck down the rest.
She was about halfway through the pack when a set of footsteps approached. Immediately she froze, straw still in her mouth, and listened intently. The footsteps grew loud enough that she suspected whoever had just walked in was only a few feet away, then stopped.
Someone cleared their throat. “Um, hello?” the nice voice from earlier said. Zosha felt her blood go cold. Who was he talking to? Had someone else walked in while she was in a trance? Had they heard her? “I just wanted to let you know that we’re about to eat and that if you’d like to stop hiding, you’re more than welcome to join us.”
The panic that had filled Zosha moments earlier at the thought of someone else walking in while she was in a trance was nothing compared to the all-consuming terror that hit her now. She forced down the wave of adrenaline trying to rise in her and forced herself to think. She couldn’t take on the entire crew in a fight, and taking a hostage was tricky when she didn’t know the ship, but maybe if she could force him out of the hold she could lock herself in, or find somewhere else to hide. The ship had to land eventually, and once it did… well. She had a lifetime’s worth of practice when it came from escaping tricky situations.
“Look,” the not-quite-as-nice-anymore voice said, “I can smell you. Hiding isn’t going to work, especially on this ship.”
Zosha stayed frozen, unsure of what to do next and praying that he’d just turn around and leave. Instead, he sighed and walked up to the pile of boxes she was hiding behind. Undoing the restraints on the stack, he removed the top box so he could lean over far enough to see Zosha, staring up at him wide-eyed with a straw in her mouth.
Distantly, Zosha realized the man was actually very handsome. He had messy chestnut hair and striking gold eyes. He smiled down at her, full lips pulling back to reveal straight, white teeth. If she hadn’t been absolutely terrified he was about to release her into the cruel vacuum of space sans breathing apparatus, she’d have been offering to buy him a drink.
His face scrunched up when he saw the nutri-pack in her hand. “Ugh, waste-paste. Seriously, most of our food was dehydrated at some point but at least it isn’t that shit.” He smoothed his features back into that charming smile. “I meant it when I said you might as well join us, by the way.” He reached his hand down towards her, clearly meaning for her to grab it so he could pull it up.
Bearly Christmas Page 52
