by R. M. Olson
Jez shrugged. “You didn’t ask. Anyways, I waited until you were all basically done getting what we needed. I thought you’d appreciate that.” She reached into her coat. “And, I got your credits back with interest. You should be proud of me.” She pulled out a gambling chip and tossed it to Masha. The woman caught it neatly without removing her gaze from Jez’s face, her eyes narrowed.
For someone who appeared so remarkably average, Masha could be surprisingly intimidating.
Jez, of course, was surprisingly difficult to intimidate.
“Besides,” the pilot said, reaching into her coat pocket again. “I saw Ysbel trying to buy this. I thought I’d give her a hand.”
She pulled out a small chip, dyed a bright orange, and held it up.
Lev stared at it, frowning. That was a transport log chip.
His heart beat faster, and he swallowed down the tightness in his throat, excitement or fear or guilt, he wasn’t sure which. He glanced quickly over at Ysbel. She was looking between Jez and the chip as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.
“How did you get that?” Ysbel asked at last, her voice slightly awestruck. “I offered that transport captain more credits than he knew what to do with for a five-minute look at it. He said it was more than his job was worth.”
Jez grinned. “Fool’s tokens. He had a good hand, but—” she shrugged. “I cheated.”
Lev shot her a faintly disapproving look. She winked at him, and he blew out a long breath.
Ysbel shook her head as she took the chip, her face still slightly awed. “You know, you crazy idiot, most days I can’t decide if I think you’re brilliant, or I want to blow you up.”
Jez grinned. “Couldn’t blow me up. You’d miss me.”
Ysbel looked at her with a flat expression. “And this is exactly what I mean. Most people wouldn’t talk like that to a mass murderer.”
“Yeah? Well I’m not most people.”
Ysbel muttered something that sounded like, “thank goodness.”
“Anyways,” Jez said, leaning up against the wall, “you threatening to kill me all the time is kinda hot.”
Ysbel shook her head in exasperation. “You remember how I’m married? And how right now, at this moment, as we speak, we’re going to find my wife? And how that was the whole point of getting this chip, to help me find my wife, who I’m married to?”
“Bet your wife would be jealous.”
“I bet my wife would think you have a death wish. I think you have a death wish.”
Masha opened her mouth, but Lev held up a hand. “Alright. Alright. We have our supplies, Masha, and no one died. And she did get Ysbel’s chip. Let’s call it a day.”
Masha turned and looked at him calculatingly. “Very well, Lev,” she said at last. “You’re right. There has been no permanent damage done, through, I can only assume, some minor miracle. But,” and here she turned back to Jez, “I am not impressed. I’m beginning to think I will not be able to leave you unsupervised.”
Jez was still grinning, but there was something sharp in her expression now. “Well Masha,” she drawled, “but here’s the thing. I’m a pilot. I’m flying this ship. And you are not my damn boss. So you can take your supervision, and you can shove it up your—”
“Jez!” Lev snapped.
She smirked at him, turned on her heel, and sauntered back to the cockpit. Masha stared after her for a moment, her expression cold. Then she turned and left out the other door, boots clicking sharply off the deck floor.
Tae, Ysbel, and Lev looked at each other.
“I don’t know how she’s still alive,” said Tae at last.
“I don’t know how none of us have killed her yet,” said Ysbel. She looked down at the chip in her hand. “I suppose I can’t kill her now, anyways. I can’t believe she got this.” Even through her usually-stoic expression, Lev could read the strain in her face, the faint hint of excitement or fear in her voice. “I’ll look through it, Lev, and I’ll let you know if there’s anything on it.” She turned, then paused, shaking her head. “I honestly don’t know how that crazy pilot does it.”
“She cheated,” said Lev. “At fool’s tokens. How do you cheat at fool’s tokens?”
“This is why I would never play fool’s tokens with her. Or anything else, for that matter.” Ysbel pocketed the chip. Even with the tightness behind her expression, she managed to shoot an amused glance at Lev. “Millions of people in the system, and that’s the one you go soft for,” she said, low enough that only he could hear. He glared at her, but she only gave him a slightly smug grin before she turned and left.
“What’d she say?” asked Tae. Lev took a deep breath and shook his head ruefully.
She was right. Millions of people in the plaguing system. Billions. And somehow he’d gone half-way soft for the idiot trigger-happy pilot who’d been responsible for landing him in jail. And who clearly had no time for romance at the moment, and at any rate, was likely the closest thing to his polar opposite he’d ever find.
So much for ‘genius boy.’
“Nothing. Come on. Let’s get back at it. Ysbel isn’t going to be happy until we come up with a plan to get her wife and kids out of jail.”
Tae nodded silently, and followed him back to their makeshift workroom.
Masha was waiting for them when they stepped through the door to the cluttered cabin-turned-office, sitting at the small ship’s table Tae had set up in the centre of the room. It was crowded with scraps of paper, chips, clipped wires, and assorted information tech, but she’d cleared off a space in front of her, and somehow looked much more comfortable there than by rights anyone should. Lev sighed, shoved a bundle of charts he’d found stored in the hull of the ship off another chair, and sat down. Tae hesitated, then followed suit.
“Lev, Tae,” said Masha, in her usual pleasant voice. Lev could hear, though, a trace of her earlier coldness. “What do you have for me?”
Lev paused. “I’m—still looking. I’m sorry. Not much. Tae?”
Tae shook his head, a frown creasing his forehead. “Not much from me either. Lev was able to find the prison sector, but even so I just barely figured out what planet she’s on. I’m having no luck hacking into the sector system. I’ll figure it out eventually, but it’s a system-type I’ve never worked on before. Most of what they use on Prasvishoni are linear systems with mods. This is—” he shook his head. “It’s a web-type system, I think. Every time I hit a fork I have to re-work the whole thing. It’s taken me two weeks just to get this far.” He let out a short breath, frustration clear on his face. Lev studied him unobtrusively.
Even before he’d met Tae, Lev had heard rumours about him. A street kid who was possibly the best hacker and techie in the system. And after working with him, Lev wholeheartedly agreed. The street-boy-turned-escaped-convict was a prodigy. If he was having trouble hacking in, it meant the system was next to impossible. But what he hadn’t said—what he hadn’t had to say—was the reason he was struggling so hard was that he’d been working blind. Lev hadn’t managed to get him specs on anything.
It wasn’t for lack of trying.
Lev had taken to splashing cold water on his face in the mornings after a sleepless night, to disguise the dark circles under his eyes.
Masha was watching them as well, her eyes sharp and calculating. “Are you certain this is what you want to do?” she asked softly. “I understand wanting to help Ysbel’s family. But unfortunately, I don’t have the information to help you, as I did with the last job we pulled.”
Lev gritted his teeth against the irrational surge of irritation and took a deep breath. “Masha. We’ve discussed this. We’re getting Ysbel’s family out, and I quite honestly don’t give a damn how long it takes, or how you feel about it. I hope I’ve made myself clear.”
She was still watching him, and for a panicked half-moment, he wondered if she knew, if she could tell what lay behind his reasons. Then he shook his head wryly.
She didn’t. S
he’d have mentioned it by now, if she had. Ysbel, Tae, Jez, even Masha—they all thought he was doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Because he was concerned for Ysbel’s wife and children.
None of them knew about the guilt that ate at him every time he laid down on his bed and tried to close his eyes.
None of them knew that he was the one responsible for this.
He’d planned the extraction, five and a half years ago, where Ysbel was kidnapped and dragged away from her home planet to work for the Svodrani system government. Where she’d watched her wife and babies burn to death in their cottage, collateral damage of the operation. Or she’d thought they’d burned to death, until two weeks ago when Lev had turned up a record of them alive, somewhere on a prison planet.
Still—
Two children, she’d said. Eighteen months and three years old.
Two children who’d watched their mother dragged away, who’d somehow survived a fire that should have killed them. Who’d spent the last five and a half years on a prison planet.
He knew enough about prison planets to know they were no place for children.
And the thirty-five people Ysbel had killed when she’d blown up the shuttle station she’d been hauled in to work on—he’d been indirectly responsible for their deaths as well. And for the five years Ysbel had spent in prison for it.
He hadn’t known, of course. He hadn’t known who the operation he was designing had been for.
He hadn’t even asked.
“Lev?” Tae sounded concerned. He looked up and tried to smile.
“I’m sorry. But Masha, that’s my final word on the matter.”
Masha was still watching him, and he couldn’t read her expression. “Very well,” she said at last. “We’ll do this. I’ll help you as much as I am able. It will not be as much as I’d wish—I worked in the government, but the prison sector was a world unto itself. But Lev, Tae. This—” she gestured around them at the long-haul ship they’d called home for the last two weeks. “This is an opportunity not many have had. We’re completely wiped from every database in the system. Two weeks ago, a hundred people saw our ship explode. As far as anyone in this system is concerned, we’re dead, or we never existed in the first place, as long as our pilot manages not to compromise all of that every time we stop in for supplies. And you know as well as I do, Lev, what this team is capable of. We can’t afford to squander that on unjustified risks.”
The thing was, a month ago he would probably have agreed with her. Back when he could still think rationally about the people on this team. Back when he hadn’t realized he was as good as murderer himself.
“This risk is justified,” said Tae quietly, and looking at him, Lev could tell he meant it.
He’d have to figure out a solution. Tae was working too hard on this. The circles under his eyes didn’t show on his dark skin quite as much as they did on Lev’s, but they were there. He was taking Lev’s lead on this. Treating it like he was the one responsible.
For someone who couldn’t be much older than twenty, Tae seemed to think he was responsible for a lot of things.
Masha nodded and stood. “Keep me appraised on your progress,” she said. “We’ll want to attract as little notice as possible before we get onto the prison planet, despite what our idiot pilot seems to think, and I hope we’ll attract little while we’re there—get in, get the woman and the children, and get off with no one the wiser. Once I have a timeline, I can calculate what we need so we make the least possible supply stops.”
Lev nodded. “I will, Masha. But I suspect this will be measured in months, not weeks. If we’re going to do this right, we’ll need time for Tae to get into the systems, and for me to get the information.”
Masha gave a small smile. “On that, at least, we agree. I’ll help the rest of you pull this off, but I expect there to be no surprises, and no unknowns. I know enough about the prison system to know that one mistake there would likely be the last mistake any of us would ever make.”
She turned and left the small cabin. When she was gone, Lev ran a hand over his face.
“Tae. You got me the name of the planet. Jez can find it on her charts. That’s a start. But you need to take a break. Get some rest. This will all go faster if you have specs, so let me find the specs.”
Tae shook his head, his dark eyes intense under his scowl. “No. You’ve seen Ysbel. She’s going crazy. We need to figure this out, and—” he half-shrugged. “I’m the only one here who does tech. No offence.”
“None taken,” said Lev with a small smile. “But I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Ysbel. Wherever they keep this information, it’s somewhere I never had access to when I worked with the government, and I had access to almost everything. And even if I do find the specs—” he spread his hands. “It’s going to take at least three months to plan and prepare for. We don’t have anything on this, so we have to move slowly.”
Tae’s scowl deepened. “Ysbel’s not going to be happy to hear that.”
Lev raised an eyebrow. “Trust me. She wasn’t. But three months planning for a job that works is still more efficient than three weeks planning for one that fails.”
Tae gave a heavy sigh and stood reluctantly. “I suppose.” He paused. “Do you think Jez and Masha will survive three months?”
It was a fair question.
“Get some rest,” Lev said at last. “It’s been a long day.”
For the first time, Tae gave a reluctant smile. “You could say that, I suppose.”
Lev tipped his head in the direction of the cockpit. “Never a dull moment.”
Tae yawned and chuckled ruefully. “I could use a dull moment once in a while. You’re right. We’ll try again in the morning. Maybe we’ll see something we missed.”
Lev nodded, and Tae turned and made his way out of the room.
When he’d gone, Lev tipped his head back and stared sightlessly at the ceiling. He smoothed his fingers absently across the worn tabletop and breathed through the tight fist of guilt constricting his chest.
Eighteen months and three years.
They’d grown up in jail. They’d grown up on a prison planet.
He sighed and pulled up his holoscreen.
He wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.
CHAPTER THREE
JEZ HUMMED TUNELESSLY to herself as she ran her fingers across the control panel, feeling every dip and divot, every smooth surface, every tiny imperfection.
She still could hardly believe this ship was hers. Well, everyone’s, technically. But it was her ship. It talked to her. It listened to her. It believed in her. And it would go to hell and back for her if she asked it to, she was certain of it.
And she’d barely scratched the surface. She could spend her whole lifetime trying to figure out what this ship could do, and she would love every single second of it.
There was a light tap at the cockpit door behind her.
“Come in,” she called, not bothering to look up. Whoever it was couldn’t be nearly as interesting as her perfect, beautiful, angel ship.
“Jez.”
She turned as Lev slipped into the cockpit, and smiled despite herself. Something about this soft-boy seemed to do that to her.
“What are you doing still up?” he asked. “I thought you’d set it on autopilot.”
She shrugged. “I did. What time is it?”
He tapped his com and peered at it. “It’s 0400 standard time.”
“What are you doing waking me up at 0400?” she countered.
He gave her a look of sorely-tried patience. “I didn’t wake you up. You weren’t sleeping.”
“Well, I could have been.”
“Not unless you hum off-key in your sleep.”
“Maybe I do,” she said with a smirk. “Bet you wish you knew.” She took her hand off the control panel reluctantly. “Sorry, beautiful,” she whispered. “Got visitors.”
He raised one eyebrow at her, but she could see
a tiny smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. She rolled her eyes, and he chuckled softly, sliding into the copilot’s seat.
“Glad the ship suits you.”
It was a little like saying, “glad breathing suits you,” or “glad eating food suits you.”
She glanced over at him. He looked tired, but then he always looked tired these days. “What about you? Why are you up?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Couldn’t sleep, I guess.”
She looked at him a little more closely. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and his face was paler than it usually was.
Not like she made a habit of looking at him. Obviously.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. It was something she’d found herself liking about Lev. Sure, he was an eggheaded scholar-boy softy, but he seemed to understand that she wasn’t much of a people person. And he seemed to not mind. Most of the time. He had looked a little irritated when she’d cheated that idiot out of the information chip, but honestly, that had been absolutely spectacular. If he didn’t appreciate something like that, his loss.
“How do you do it?” Lev asked at last, gesturing at the black expanse surrounding them. “I mean, you … seemed upset when Masha told us all to stay in the hangar bay, back on Prasvishoni.”
She grinned. “You mean when I smuggled in sump and got completely smashed? And Masha absolutely lost her crap? Is that what you’re talking about?”
He sighed. “Yes, Jez. Among other things.” He paused. “And now here we are in a ship in deep space. Nowhere to go. We’ve been here for two weeks, and yesterday was our first time off-ship. Why aren’t you going crazy?”
She studied him for a moment. Then she turned back to the cockpit window.
How did you explain something like this? How did you explain how it felt to breathe after weeks of no oxygen?
“It’s different,” she said at last. “Just … different.”
He turned to look at her. “I was talking with Tae last night. We’re thinking it will take a solid three months to plan Ysbel’s prison break. Maybe more. And we can’t spend much time planet-side between now and then. We’re off-radar, and I’d like to stay that way. You’re used to smuggling, which, if I’m any judge, is lots of action. This is … waiting. That’s all. Are you going to be alright for that long?”
