There was one more hatch, this one a closed blue one. Jem could feel his gut tighten and the acid in his empty stomach churning as they approached it. Normally the blue ones stood open. Why was this one closed? Why were there no people in the corridors? There had been a few, after that second hatch, the yellow one. No one had spoken to him, or even looked at him and Jade. Now, even those few were nowhere to be seen. He repeated his game of chicken. It wasn’t, Mags had told him once, a game about reflexes. It was about bluffing. The door whisked open as Jem’s toe tapped it. He caught his balance awkwardly and kept going. He was winning on the bluffing game. But that didn’t matter if Veo decided that he needed to make Jem disappear.
Jem was one man alone, a ship, and a dog. No, he corrected himself with a sideways glance. A man, an unknown quantity, and a ship... It was still insignificant on a galactic scale. His clients might notice he’d gone, but that would be a minor ripple at most. Ships did disappear into the dark, like the Gwar had. His ship was, most likely, the only thing still keeping Jem alive. It was hard to convert a ship to scrap, much less resell intact, if the buyer were even a little scrupulous. Not that there weren’t dark stations, pirates, chop shops and other scum. Just that this was Tianjin, and they did seem to have enough scruples. Or regulations, which wasn’t quite the same thing.
They walked around an angle in the corridor and could see the customs gates. Jem felt his mind empty of the useless speculation. He drew himself up straight, and marched forward with purpose. His tablet had gone... somewhere. That was going to be a pain to replace if Veo had taken it. The encryption should hold, if they tried to extract information from it, and he could wipe it remotely - once he was on the Tanager. In the meantime, he’d just have to try the bluff against a human, not a remote camera.
For the first time since they had left the small conference room, Jade touched him, a gentle hand on the arm. Jem stopped, surprised, looking down at her. She seemed... very small. Shorter than she’d been before. He was certain she had been eye to eye with him back there in the corridor. Her shoulders were stooped, and her back bent. She was leaning on the cane, and her face was slack.
She looked up at him, and winked. “Lemme at ‘em, Cap’n. You jes’ watch ol’ Jade work.”
Jem trailed behind her, bemused at her transformation. She’d looked... matronly, when he first saw her in the conference room. Now, she was a granny, frail and doddering. She leaned on her cane and wove, rather than walking a straight line to the officers standing at their stations. Jem trailed in her wake. There were people here. Not a crowd, but on any dock you had a constant flow of traffic. Jem did wonder what time it was, both ship’s time and station. He felt like it was his morning. Which made it... Jade’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
“E’ening, sonny.” She pitched her voice high, loud as a deaf old lady, and a trifle cracked. It was, Jem realized, a brilliant imitation. He was certain she wasn’t either deaf or elderly.
“Mother.” The customs officer bent a little, stiffly, at the waist. Jem realized this was a bow of honor to her apparent age.
“We’re to the Tanager. M’boy’s a mite discommoded, left his tablet.” For the last part, she’d leaned toward him and lowered her voice to the sort of surreptitious whisper that could be heard across the room. She shook her head, cackling a little.
To Jem’s shock, the officer cracked a smile in return, and looked over her head at him. Jem realized he probably looked as dumb as she was making him out to be, with his jaw hanging slack from surprise. The officer winked at him. Winked at him! And looked down at Jade, actually taking her hand and patting it gently. “So long as you vouch for him, mother.”
Jade pulled out a small tablet, fumbling. “Aye, he’s all I have.”
The officer scanned her identity code, then glared at Jem. “You look after her?”
Jem hung his head, trying to hide a smile. “Well, she looks after me...”
“Go on.” The officer straightened and waved them through. “Tsk.”
The last was more a noise than a word, but Jem got the disapproving message loud and clear. It was all he could do to hold back his laughter as they walked through the gates and into the dock. Jade kept up her old lady act, and he kept his position behind her, as befitting the chastened Elder Son role he’d been cast into.
The humor lasted him about ten paces. As they walked out into the cavernous docks, his shoulder blades felt as though they had a target painted on them. Jem had never been fond of Tianjin’s open docks, and now, as he looked up and around at the bay, he realized that it felt too open. He was vulnerable, out here... It didn’t matter that if Veo were going to kill him, he would have done it in private, where no one would see. It was more that...
Jem lunged forward, scooping Jade into his arms, a tangle of legs and cane preventing him from doing it neatly. He tucked and rolled, winding up underneath her. She was heavier than she looked. Jade jammed a sharp elbow into his stomach.
“Don’t stay down there, dummy!” she hissed. “Keep moving before they throw something heavier!”
Jem scrambled to his feet as she rolled off him and started running in a crouch, zig-zagging as she went. He imitated as best he could, but he was a bigger target. The projectile that had flickered into his peripheral vision and triggered his reflexive response had come from behind them, but there were others throwing... sticks? No, not sticks. Pieces of pipe, and refuse. Slipping on something he didn’t want to identify, Jem caught himself on one hand and saw a jagged piece of metal pass just over him through the space he had fallen through.
He could see the Tanager’s cradle, now, with the closed hatch promising a refuge. Jade was going to reach it first, not that it would do her any good. She didn’t have access. And their pursuers were closing in, now. Jem could see them flickering at the edges of his vision, one of them phasing in and out as a badly tuned chameleon suit failed to camouflage him. Or her. Hard to tell with all the facial paint. A pipe section struck him in the ribs, forcing a grunt out of him. It had been thrown, not swung, so it could have been worse. Philosophy under fire.
Jem grinned at Jade, who had fetched up in the lip of the cradle and was doing her best to press herself into the metal lip and keep a low profile. “I think I pissed someone off.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Captain. Can you please open the hatch?”
Jem caught a chunk of deck tiling before it hit his head. How had they even torn that loose? He palmed the hatch release with his free hand, leaning back out of the cradle to hurl it toward the figure in the bad suit. Jade slipped in, and he was right on her heels.
Chapter 22: The Black Tick
The inside of the Tanager smelled like home. Jem slumped against the bulkhead with a sigh. The outer hold was nearly empty, which he hoped meant that his client had been allowed to offload. Only his suit slumped on the deck near the far hatch, right where he had stripped it off. Eby was on the far side of that hatch, and he headed for it, pushing himself off the wall with an effort. The day might be young, but he’d been under a lot of stress, hadn’t eaten, hadn’t had a chance to piss... And he still had no idea what to make of Jade.
“We need to talk.” He told her as he walked past her, standing and looking around.
“Yes.” She followed him. “But first, file for departure.”
“What about you?” Jem slapped the hatch release, and the dog hurtled through it, yelping. Jem bent and hugged him, feeling the dog’s warmth and wriggles as the pup licked his face thoroughly.
Jade looked down at him, a small smile on her face. She’d shed the old lady facade, and looked competent and athletic when she’d made the last part of the run for the ship. “I’m your crew. And I think you need me here.”
“Where... no. Tell me later. I need to get to the bridge. This is a dog, he’s harmless. There’s a body in one of the cabins, don’t go in there, it’s probably pretty ripe by now.”
“I know what a dog is.” She stayed on his heels and didn’
t even turn a hair when he mentioned the body. Maybe she already knew about it. She knew what a dog was?
Jem slid into his captain’s chair and keyed the board on. It lit up the screens immediately, and he saw there were several message notifications. He ignored them, instead typing quickly to create a formal request for immediate departure. His mind was racing, and he dumped the pro-forma request into the queue for sending without re-reading it. If they - no, when they denied it, his next step needed to have enough weight to persuade them that holding him and his ship here would have repercussions. He didn’t know why Veo had allowed him to leave, or be taken by Jade, that bit of difference wasn’t clear yet.
Jem swiveled his chair and looked at her. Since they had met in the conference room, not even an hour before, he hadn’t truly looked at her, much less had a chance to do more than gather fleeting impressions. He’d already learned she was an excellent actress, knew more about him and his ship than he was comfortable with, seemed to have some power over Veo, and a certain respect from the station runners. The dockies, not so much, but that could have been related to the body in the Tanager’s cabin. Which he was going to have to deal with soon.
Jade let him look, just tilting one eyebrow in a quizzical look. She was dressed like an engineer, in pants covered with pockets, some of which bulged alarmingly. The form-fitting long sleeved shirt was made of a shimmery fabric he was willing to bet was flame and heat resistant, and the vest she wore over it was battered and oil-stained and covered with even more pockets. Her clothing was right; it was her face that didn’t quite make sense to him. The deep brown skin was smooth and finely-pored, a young woman’s face. The crown of closely-cropped white curls, on the other hand... Maybe she dyed it? But she did play the old lady beautifully.
“Did Moskvin hire you?” Jem asked, aware that he’d stared longer than was polite.
“No.” She said. “You did, Captain. It’s all in the records. Hired me remote, while you were three days out.”
“I did not.” Jem protested. “How...?”
She shrugged. “Moskvin briefed me. All you need to know. And I’m your crew to your next stop, at least.”
“You’re a spy.”
“We don’t like that word. Agent is better. Mmm... no, I’m not even an agent. You might call me a ghost.” She grinned suddenly and looked impossibly young. “Yeah, I’m a ghost in the machine.”
Jem snorted in spite of himself. “You’re too full of elbows to be a ghost.”
The board chimed with an incoming message and flashed an orange light, which meant it was tagged priority. Jem decided in a split second to trust Jade, and pulled it up on the main screen so they could both read it. Flight was denied. No explicit reason was given, merely a series of numbers which referred to station regulations. Jem took a deep breath and held it for a second, needing to regain his temper before he decided what to do next. He commed his client.
The man answered, surprising Jem a little bit. The last time he’d seen the man, Jem was under arrest. He might well have refused to take the Tanager’s call.
“Were you able to get your goods?” Jem asked.
The man looked over his shoulder, like he was afraid of watching eyes. “Yes. Please don’t call me again.”
“I see your payment cleared. Thank you.” Jem didn’t acknowledge the other’s request. “Please let the buyers know that the Tanager is assigning Tianjin a black tick on the route.”
Jem hung up before the other man could speak, but he’d seen the look. Stunned, mouth agape and eyes wide. Jem leaned back in his chair and pulled up the main screen again. Quickly, he made a note in the ship’s log, and then opened the route schedule, placing a single black checkmark next to Tianjin. Behind him, he could hear the swift intake of breath as Jade registered what he was showing her. Tianjin’s two black tickmarks were the least of it. He didn’t show her the whole route, just closed the file and opened a reply to the station.
While he was typing, she was nearly silent. He paused. “We’ll be leaving within the hour. We will not be waiting on a tugboat.” He said. Jem didn’t turn to look at her. “Would you like me to...”
“Nope. I know what to do.” She cut him off.
He turned to face her. “I... thank you. Um.”
She shook her head, her face serious. “You don’t have to explain to me. You’re on the right path, I think. Not all weapons go boom, Cap’n.”
He nodded and went back to his note. She walked away, her light steps fading from his hearing down the corridor. Eby came in and leaned against Jem’s leg. Jem finished the note, pausing to re-read it quickly before signing it ‘Captain J. Raznick.’ He pressed send, and leaned back.
If the station listened to the threat he’d just laid out implicit in his message, they would be granted clearance to depart. If not, they would just leave. He risked some damage to the Tanager that way, which would be expensive to fix, but Walter had plotted this out a long time ago, and that included the slip-hull which would slough off when Jem triggered the explosive bolts holding it - and the dock clamps - on. If he had to go that far, Walter had said in a steel-edged voice, then the third black mark must be placed on the route. The list of stations with three black marks was short. Jem had only seen Walter do this once since he had come aboard. Well, twice, but the first of those was done simultaneous with his arrival on the Tanager, so he wasn’t sure it counted.
There was a reason to do it so rarely. When the Tanager marked a station off, others followed suit. Jem felt like a child in an adult’s exosuit. The impact of his words was from the reputation of his ship, formed by Walter, not by his own word. Not yet. He had many years before him, before he grew into the boots Walter had left him. The message board chimed.
Jem leaned forward and pressed the intercom button, announcing to the whole ship and his crew of a dog, a corpse, and a mysterious woman: “Tanager will de-dock in fifteen minutes, ship time. Following this, we will thrust for outer orbital at full capacity, and should fold space seventeen ship hours later. Captain out.”
He wondered if they could hear him, out in the station. Veo and company had certainly had the opportunity to bug the Tanager multiple times. Jem stood, stretching. He hadn’t been sitting long, but the tension left him painfully stiff. Time to pay attention to his body’s demands. He would have to do something about the listening ears and watching eyes before he had a full conversation with Jade. This wasn’t the time, however.
Eby whined. Jem ruffled his ears gently. “I’ll be done soon. Then I’ll play with you.”
He’d also need to clean up, and the dog’s mess was the lesser part of the housework that needed to be done. Jem sighed. At least calling in accounts due and making sure the proper fees had been paid was easier than those messes. He was severing ties here, but not burning bridges. He felt his lips twitch in wry amusement at his own mangled metaphor. “Hopefully Jade doesn’t mind I talk to the dog. Better’n laughing at all my own jokes.”
Jem didn’t rush through the business paperwork. There would be several hours to finish this, and while he was trusting Jade to know how to undock the Tanager’s couplings safely, while he communicated with traffic control, he also wanted to be able to run and help if need be.
It wasn’t needed. Undocking was smooth, and he accelerated into the departure slot, eyeing the screen and wondering if the station had set him up for an ‘accidental’ collision. They were awfully close to at least two other ships... Jem checked the numbers and blinked. The Tanager was also boosting 14% faster than the norm. He clicked the comm to the engine room.
“Jade?”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n” she said. He thought he could hear a smile in her voice.
“Whatever you’re doing down there, keep doing it.” Jem grinned. “I’ll replot orbitals so we don’t hit anyone, ok?”
He could her hear laughing over the comm as he left it open. He opened a channel to the ships they had skimmed and apologized for their unexpected burst of speed. One of th
em, The Oathkeeper, wanted a private report on Tianjin. Jem could feel his eyebrows lifting in surprise. He’d never managed Walter’s eloquent trick of one at a time. Jem toggled a tight laser burst of data to the other ship.
They replied a few minutes later with the same method. Jem watched the short video. The other captain, an older woman with a long white braid, had a younger man leaning over her shoulder and into the camera pickup. Jem guessed they were mother and son from similar facial structures.
“Thank you for your candor, Captain Raznick. We don’t fly as tight a ship as you do, but we’ll watch our step on station. I’m letting my boys know they don’t get leave this stop.”
The young man pulled a comical face, out of her sight, but he was nodding agreement. She continued unaware.
“When, and you’ll note I don’t say if, because we share your concerns, you give the final black mark to Tianjin, send us a note.” She looked down at something out of camera, and sighed audibly before looking back up, her face softer and eyes moist. “My condolences on your loss. May the Tanager soar ever onward.”
Jem was surprised by his own prickle of tears in response to her sign-off. He wondered if he was doing the right thing. She seemed to agree with his decision making process, but then again, he didn’t know her. Could he trust that to be sincere? Not a competitor looking to step in when he stepped out? Jem shook his head. He had to trust someone. Walter had told him that, shortly after he came aboard the Tanager.
Trusting reminded Jem that he needed to have a long chat with his new crew member. And that he needed to figure out what to do with a body. He’d been carefully avoiding thinking too much about that body as a living, breathing person who had trusted Jem, and wound up dead because of it.
Chapter 23: Jade Star
Jem toggled his comm back open to the engine room. “Jade, can you come up to the bridge?”
Tanager's Fledglings (The Tanager Book 1) Page 21
