by Jaleta Clegg
His watery eyes bulged as he tried to focus on my finger. He nodded.
I didn’t like turning him loose on the ship, but I didn’t see I had another choice. I untangled the mess of netting. Leon slithered off the bunk, sidling around me to sit at the table. I shook out my blanket and pillow before stretching out on the bunk. I crossed my arms, fixing Leon with a glare. The dispenser beeped. The unmistakable odor of curry and fish filled the cabin.
Leon twitched nervously while he ate.
Jerimon joined him, yawning as he came out of the cockpit. I did my best to ignore his disheveled good looks. I found him much too attractive.
“The temperature stabilized,” Jerimon said. “Must have been an air bubble.”
Leon darted a glance at me, chewing a wad of fish curry. He swallowed before speaking to Jerimon. “Is the ship safe? I heard you talking about repairs. Shouldn’t we be stopping somewhere?”
“We’re stopping at Tebros.” I twitched the blanket over my feet.
“No.” Leon blanched. “Not Tebros. You’re just heading into worse trouble.”
“We don’t have a choice, Leon,” Jerimon said. “Unless you happen to know how to navigate?”
Leon shook his head so vigorously that sweat drops flew from his cheeks. “You can’t take me there!”
“Feel free to get out and walk, then.” I wondered just what kind of a mess waited on Tebros.
“She really isn’t that mean when you get to know her.” Jerimon leaned across the table.
“How would you know that, Jerimon? You’ve been on my ship for less than two weeks and most of that I wasn’t functional, thanks to you.”
“I apologized for that. I really didn’t think they would go after you.”
“I wouldn’t have hired you if I’d known anything about it.”
“What was I supposed to say? By the way, I think I’m being hunted by eight-foot-tall lizards, so don’t be surprised if they show up.”
“Do you always fight like this?”
“Shut up, Leon,” we said together.
“You never told me you were smuggling for Belliff. So we’re even. Let’s call it a truce, I’m too tired to fight.”
“Only because you’re losing.”
“You’re the one losing the argument.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You just don’t want to admit it.”
“I am not the one losing the argument. You’re the one losing.”
“Now you’re resorting to repeating things. Shows you’re losing.”
“You’re just saying it because you don’t want to admit you’re losing. I outrank you anyway, so I say I’m winning. Are you finished, Leon?”
He nodded quickly.
“Good, because your buddy Jerimon is going to tie you back up.”
“How about I lock him into the privy?” Jerimon suggested.
“Fine, I don’t want him loose in the ship while we see what other surprises Belliff packed for us.”
“You aren’t opening the cartons, are you?” Leon swallowed hard.
“Why shouldn’t we?”
“Because, because, because they’re not your property. You’re violating your contract.”
“As far as I’m concerned, I no longer have a valid contract. Belliff voided it when they used me to smuggle their goodies.” I kicked off the blanket, pushing to my feet. I leaned over Leon. He shrank back in his chair. “You know what’s in those crates, don’t you?”
Leon slid low in the chair, guilt written clearly across his face. “I didn’t know for certain, I suspected.”
“And that’s why you hijacked my ship. You knew what shipment I had.” I slammed a fist on the table before turning away in disgust.
“In there.” Jerimon pointed at the bathroom door.
Leon edged past, keeping as far away from me as he could get, which wasn’t far. The ship was barely big enough for two, three was really crowding it.
Jerimon clapped his hand on Leon’s shoulder. “Move it, unless you’d rather have her shove you in.”
“Head first,” I said and smiled, showing lots of teeth.
Leon tripped over the chair as he scuttled across the floor into the tiny room.
Jerimon shut the door. “How did you want me to lock it? There aren’t any locks on any of the doors in this ship.”
“Like this.” I fished a screwdriver out of the tool locker. I unscrewed the panel that housed the door controls. It only took a moment to disconnect the wires that opened the door. I left the panel dangling.
“I hope you know how to fix it,” Jerimon said as he watched. “It’s going to be a very long three days if you can’t get it back open.”
“Didn’t you ever hot wire doors?”
“I don’t think I want to ask how many times you did it.”
“I never got caught. My roommate used to lock boring teachers into stalls at the Academy. Until they finally rewired the system. Then she found ways to reroute the plumbing instead. I watched and learned.” I pocketed the screwdriver. “Want to come open some boxes with me?”
“Answer me a question first, Dace.”
“What?”
He was only a step away. The door to the cargo bay was behind him. He watched me closely, his blue eyes hard as glacier ice. “You went to the Academy. That means you come from money somewhere. Are you expecting someone to buy off the Patrol on Tebros?”
“I earned my way to the Academy on a scholarship. I don’t have any family to buy off anyone. I don’t want to mess with the Patrol because I have a record, I got involved in an investigation. I was lucky to get free before. I don’t want to push that luck, but I don’t see any way around landing on Tebros.”
“You think they’re going to believe Leon?”
“What other choice do we have? Do you have a rich father who can buy them off?”
He turned away abruptly, slamming the button that opened the cargo bay door. When he turned to see if I was following, his face was a mask.
“Truce, Jerimon. You called it. Did you mean it?”
“Are you agreeing to it? No more arguing?”
“It’s the only way we’re going to able to work together and if we don’t, we’re not going to live long.”
“Not with your flying.”
“I thought you just called a truce.”
“I’m teasing you.” He grinned. “You’re one of the better pilots I’ve ever flown with.”
“Just one of the better ones?” I pushed past him into the cargo bay.
“You weren’t kidding about guns, were you?” He’d just caught sight of the mess on the floor. “I see why you wanted Leon locked up. I thought you were just overreacting.”
“I never overreact.” I crouched down and righted a carton, then started dropping blasters into it.
“If this is what’s in two of the cartons, what’s in the rest?” Jerimon retrieved a blaster from the floor, checking the power strip. “No power charge inside.”
“Safer for shipping. We can say these cartons fell off and split open. We can say that what we saw made us more suspicious, after being attacked and hijacked by Leon. That’s why we opened some of the others. So we could see just what Belliff was trying to pull.” I folded the flap closed before handing the carton to him.
“I think you’re just curious,” he said as he stacked it with the other large crates. He pulled the netting over them.
“Something wrong with that? Maybe there’s something useful in one of those boxes. You never know until you open them.” I flipped open the bin where the smaller packages were stowed. I pulled one out of the stack then slit the seal with my screwdriver. The contents fell onto the floor—a big sheaf of papers and several small bags of loose gemstones.
“Jackpot.” Jerimon scooped up the gems. “What do you want to bet these aren’t registered anywhere in the company accounts?”
“I don’t take sucker bets.” I picked up the papers, quickly scanning through them.
“Why do you think Belliff would be sending papers detailing the shipping methods and schedules of other companies?”
“This isn’t just about smuggling.” Jerimon dumped the gems back into the packet. He took the papers, shoving them on top of the gems. “Don’t you see it?”
“See what? So they’re watching their competition. Only the blasters are illegal.”
Jerimon stuck the thin box in the bin, shutting the door as if he were locking a big poisonous spider inside.
“Think about it, Dace. Blasters, gems, details of shipping contracts. Lists of what cargoes and what routes the ships will be on. Belliff is paying off pirates to cripple the competition. In exchange, the pirates leave their ships alone. Other companies get attacked by pirates because Belliff is providing the pirates with all the information they need. It all makes sense.”
“So how do we convince the Patrol that we aren’t involved? I don’t know if Leon knows what’s really in here. I suspect he doesn’t.”
“If he knew for certain, he would either be dead or off with the rest of the executives.” Jerimon frowned at the crates of guns. “Are we going to go to the Patrol when we land on Tebros or are you going to run away again?”
“That depends on how much of my hide they want. I don’t know where we’d run to anyway. We’ve got the course between Tebros and Viya Station. Nothing else.”
“I think Belliff was setting you up. The Patrol isn’t going to let us out of this, even with Leon.” Jerimon thought furiously. I could almost see his brain working behind those deep blue eyes. “I think you were right to run.”
“What did you just say? You were the one who told me running away from Viya was a mistake.”
“How many pirate raids have you heard about in this sector in the last year?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t been paying much attention. Although I did hear a few rumors when I was on Rucal about increased pirate activity.”
“Doesn’t it seem a little strange to you that Belliff would start using a courier, an unarmed courier, to fly sensitive cargo in an area with active pirate raids?”
“So we look suspicious to the Patrol. Belliff didn’t make it secret that the cargoes were sensitive and expensive enough to justify special courier flights.” I smacked myself in the forehead. “How stupid can I be?”
Jerimon wisely said nothing.
“It doesn’t matter what we tell them or what Leon says. They’ll never believe we’re that stupid.”
“They’ll believe I’m that stupid.” The Patrol commanders would believe I was a complete and total idiot once they saw the record of my activities on Dadilan. Despite that, they’d never believe I was completely innocent of Belliff’s scheme. With charges of piracy, I was sure I’d be facing pretty much the same panel of judges as I had after Dadilan. I was still in their sector. “So what are we going to do? I don’t know if this ship will make it far even if we do manage to come up with a course that the computer will accept.”
“I’m not stealing a ship,” Jerimon said flatly.
“We may have to, but I doubt Belliff will complain. You take the cargo to the Patrol and say whatever you have to. I’ll bribe someone into programming our nav computer and get the engines fixed. We sneak out under the Patrol’s nose before they have time to file charges against us. But where are we going to go?”
“I’ve got a sister on Nevira who’s a navigator. If we can make it there, she can find us contacts.”
“We’ve got to find the Eggstone to get rid of the Sessimoniss, then find the executives of Belliff in exchange for the Patrol dropping charges against us. Either that or start looking for somewhere to hide. Neither sounds like it will work. How did I get into this mess?” I muttered, running a hand over my short hair.
“You’ve got blood in your hair. What happened?” Jerimon moved my hand. His touch sent shivers across my neck.
“It’s nothing. I just banged it when I was climbing around the engine.”
“It’s still bleeding. Let me get the medkit out.”
“Don’t touch it.” I backed away. “I don’t need you nursing me.”
“I didn’t do a good enough job before?” He stepped closer, backing me against the wall; the handle of the cargo bins dug into my shoulder blades. Jerimon looked cocky. “I don’t know if I prefer you sick and incoherent or well and argumentative.”
“I don’t know if I care.” I put my hands up to shove him back.
“Turn your head and let me see.” He grabbed my hands, holding them against the cargo bins on either side.
“No.” I squirmed, but not very much. I licked my lips, wondering what it would feel like to have him kiss me.
“I’m only trying to help.”
“Is that what you call it? What were you trying to do earlier when Leon interrupted us?”
“You mean when the ship was threatening to blow up?”
“Yes. It’s about time to check on things again. Let me go, Jerimon.”
“Why? The engine sounds fine to me.” He shifted closer. “This is what I was going to do earlier.” He leaned towards me. Our noses almost touched.
“Don’t you dare, Jerimon.”
“Don’t dare what, Dace?”
“Let go of me.” I twisted my wrists, but not very hard.
“Why?”
“Because I’m the captain and I told you to.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll have you shot for mutiny.”
“No, I don’t think you would.”
He leaned closer and our lips touched. It was like grabbing hold of a charged wire. I closed my eyes, giving in to the heady sensation. He ended it too soon, but not soon enough. I tried to slow my breathing.
“That isn’t where I’m bleeding,” I managed to say.
“You want to be kissed there?”
“No, I want you to let go of me.” But I didn’t.
“Why?”
“Because I can hear Leon trying to break down the door. And it sounds like the valves need adjusted again. And because I don’t know if I like you or not.” I found him attractive, very attractive, but that wasn’t the same as liking him.
He stepped back a pace, his smug look wiped away by his professional mask. He turned my chin to the side with one hand, prodding at the scrape on my head with the other.
“Do you want it bandaged?” His voice was cold, impersonal.
I wanted it that way, I insisted to myself. I wanted distance between us. The ship was too small as it was. “Has it stopped bleeding?”
“Just about.”
“Then leave it, Jerimon.”
“Whatever you say, Captain. I’ll let Leon out and check the gauges.”
“Fine.”
The door hissed shut behind him. I leaned against the wall. Didn’t we have enough problems without Jerimon complicating it even further?
The rest of that trip was a nightmare. What sleep I got was usually interrupted to adjust the engine valves. Leon slept through most of it.
He and Jerimon talked, heads bent over the tiny table. Both of them avoided me, which took some very creative maneuvering on a ship smaller than most people’s bedrooms. Every time I had to talk to Jerimon he was very cool and impersonal. We talked engine pressure readings and that was it. I tried to pretend I didn’t care. It was his fault, he should have been the one apologizing for his behavior. I would have been within my rights to slap him when he’d kissed me. It was maddening that he was the one acting offended.
I had a lot of time to think. I sat in front of the flickering yellow lights in the cockpit and brooded. I listened to Leon snore and Jerimon mumble in his sleep. I played solitaire until I was sick of it. I never knew four days could last so long.
I was in the middle of a shift, staring at the wriggling colors in the viewscreen and watching the engine pressure slide up and down when the reentry alarm suddenly beeped. I jumped, banging my elbow on the edge of the console. I rubbed at my stinging arm and sh
outed for Jerimon.
“What now?” He rolled slowly out of his bunk, yawning. “The valves acting up again?”
“We’re about to find out if the sublight engines still work.” I pulled on the headset as I pushed buttons. The beeping cut off abruptly as Jerimon took his seat.
“Is it really going to matter? Dead in space beats life in prison.”
“If we were important enough to send message capsules. Maybe they haven’t heard about us yet.” I pushed a final button, then waited for the countdown to reentry to finish.
“Do you want me to do the talking or the flying?”
I shrugged. Either was likely to get us killed. Shot down or blown up by our own engine, we would be just as dead.
“What’s Leon doing?” I asked. His snores cut off in mid-gurgle.
Jerimon glanced back as he pulled on his own headset. He grinned. “Hoping he doesn’t have to pay up when we land. He owes me three-hundred-twenty-two credits. Lousy card player.”
I said nothing. If I’d been playing, Jerimon would owe me more than that. He was terrible at cards. I’d watched him when he thought I was asleep.
The ship shuddered to the slow pulse of the engine. He fingered the edge of his board, flickering with yellow and red lights. I hoped my face wasn’t as white as his.
“You fly,” he said abruptly. “They train you for this kind of thing at the Academy, don’t they?”
“Didn’t you go?”
He shook his head and punched a few controls. “I got my license working as a shuttle pilot for a backwater shipping company. I took the commercial tests on a dare and passed.”
“Then you’re as good as most Academy pilots.”
The ship jerked wildly as the hyperdrive shut down. The bubble collapsed, pushing us through the transect boundary. Normal space twisted. We waited, we couldn’t do anything else, except maybe pray. The ship hung on the edge for a long nerve-wracking moment before finally slipping all the way through.
Every light on the board winked red and yellow. Alarms shrieked as I cut the sublight engines in and tried to dump speed. The ship wallowed unsteadily even as it hurtled across the system. More lights burned red as I tried to slow us with the landing thrusters. Nothing else responded.
