by R. M. Olson
“Believe me, Tae. I have every intention of honouring my word,” she said at last.
That was the best he was going to get from her, and he knew it. Still, it was more than he’d expected.
He was going to go back for Caz and Peti and the others. One way or another, he would. But it would be a lot easier with their crazy, ridiculous pilot, with Lev’s calm, calculating intelligence, Ysbel’s somewhat disturbing ability to blow things up. And Masha, of course. Somehow, he had a hard time picturing their crew without Masha’s calm, competent leadership.
And Ivan, and Radic, and Anya and the others.
Perhaps they weren’t as entirely alone in the system as he’d imagined them to be. Perhaps there were other people willing to risk prison or even death, if that’s what it took, to help a stranger. Even a street kid, like him.
Masha turned away, and he noticed a slight tension in her posture, a mild unease.
He shook his head and glanced back at the sleeping children.
He was likely misreading her. He’d never been good at guessing what Masha was thinking.
When he looked up again, she was gone.
Ysbel raised up on her elbow and looked down at her wife, lying beside her. Tanya’s head lay against Ysbel’s shoulder, one arm thrown around her.
“My Ysi,” Tanya murmured softly. Ysbel turned to kiss her hair.
“I missed you. More than I can say.”
“I missed you too,” whispered Tanya.
“I’m so sorry,” said Ysbel, at last. Her voice was heavy with tears. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help you. I’m sorry the children had to grow up in that place.”
Tanya looked up at her, shaking her head. “No, Ysbel. I’m sorry we were not there with you.” She paused. “I thought they’d killed you, when I heard about the explosion. I was sure they’d killed you.”
“I hoped they would,” Ysbel whispered.
“But not anymore.”
“No.” Ysbel smiled gently. “Not anymore.”
“Did you kill them all? Everyone who did this to us?”
“No,” said Ysbel. “Not all of them. Most of them, though. But I know there were others. There were the government officials who ordered the job. Three of them. I know their names. And there were two of the operatives who I was not able to get, and the site manager who had suggested they needed my help, whatever way they could get it. There was one more, as well. The person who planned it. I was not able to find their name. But I will, one day.”
Tanya smiled that small, wistful smile that Ysbel remembered so well. “But you don’t have to, anymore,” she said. And Ysbel smiled too. It felt good. It felt like it had been so long since she’d really smiled. Like this woman laying next to her was a piece of her, and she was broken without her.
“No,” she said. “I don’t. Because my time is much better spent with you and with our babies. Those others are not worth my time.” She paused, and turned so she was looking her wife in the eye. Tanya met her gaze. “But,” she said softly, “if I meet one of them, if I see them, I swear to you, I will kill them without a second thought.”
For just a moment, there was something bleak and hard in Tanya’s expression, something that hadn’t been there five years before. “That,” she said softly, “I will not argue with.”
Then she smiled, and the bleakness melted into the background, although, Ysbel thought, it might never go away completely.
The last five years had changed her. It had changed both of them, and they would never be the family they had been before.
Tanya laid her head back on Ysbel’s shoulder with a sigh, and Ysbel leaned her cheek against her wife’s hair and closed her eyes.
But then, maybe, that was alright.
Because they had each other again. And whatever family she made with this woman, whatever their lives looked like now—if she had Tanya, it would be something she would love with all of her heart.
Jez lay back in the pilot’s seat and ran her good hand over the control panel. She smiled to herself as she fired up the ignition.
Her whole body still ached. But sitting here, in the cockpit of the Ungovernable—it was better than medicine. It was better than whatever had been in those white pills Masha had given her.
It was better than anything.
“You strapped in, genius-boy?”
“Jez. I’ve flown with you before. I’m always strapped in.”
She grinned, at least, as well as she could with the damn boneset on her jaw, and pulled gently back on the throttle. The Ungovernable lifted into the air and pointed its nose towards the sky. She pulled back a little harder, and they shot upwards, and the controls trembled slightly in her hands, and the atmosphere burned around them, and then, finally, the beautiful, perfect blackness of space surrounded them. Behind them, the planet glowed a bright white and brown, and to one side the small sun glowed and burned. Ahead, the tiny brilliant specks of stars burned against the black of space.
“You love it, don’t you?” asked Lev softly, staring out ahead of him.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
“I think maybe I’m starting to see why,” he said, still looking ahead.
She turned her head to watch him. He was wearing a faint, wistful smile, and the light from the sun glowed off his regular, even features.
He was a soft-boy, yes, but maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world for someone to be.
He seemed to feel her eyes on him, because he turned and caught her gaze, and for a moment she was looking directly into his dark, intelligent eyes.
Her breath caught, ever so slightly, and she felt momentarily lightheaded.
She wasn’t certain she wanted to know why.
But it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling.
He smiled slightly. “I’m glad you’re feeling well enough to fly,” he said. “It wouldn’t have been the same with Masha in the cockpit.” He paused. “I’d be less likely to throw up, for one thing.”
“Damn Masha to hell. I’d be dead before she was flying my sweet beautiful angel,” she grumbled, forcing herself to look away from him.
“You very nearly were,” he said quietly, and there was something in his voice that made her breath catch again. She steadfastly avoided looking at him, even though she could feel his eyes on her.
“Nah. I was fine.”
“I was worried about you.”
“No need to be.” She hoped she sounded jaunty, instead of slightly breathless. Because that would be stupid, and she might be a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
Usually, anyways. She was pretty sure.
Very possibly she was being very stupid right at this moment.
“So. Where we going?” she said, staring ahead so hard she thought her eyes might start watering.
“Well, Masha suggested we lay low in deep space for a couple weeks,” he said. “And to be frank, I don’t think it’s a bad idea. I think we just made even more people angry with us than we did when we stole this ship, and that’s saying something.”
She tried to grin, swore, and glanced over, forgetting she wasn’t looking at him. He was watching her with faint amusement, and there was an expression in his eyes, tender and—something else.
She closed her eyes for a moment, fighting down the shakiness in her muscles.
This was not something she was prepared to deal with. Not right now.
“Well,” she said, “guess at least we got Tanya back. Bet she and Ysbel are pretty happy right now.”
“They probably are,” he said softly, and there was an unfamiliar tone in his voice, rueful and just a little sad. “You know,” he said, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell Ysbel.” He hesitated, then sighed. “I suppose now is as good a time as any.”
She glared at him. “You crazy? I mean, don’t answer that. I know you’re crazy. But give poor Ysbel some time. Figure she might want a day or two without anyone telling her anything.” She ma
naged a slightly lascivious look. “Maybe a couple days with no interruptions, if you know what I mean.”
He sighed. “Jez—”
She snickered, and he shook his head.
“I suppose you’re right. What do you think then, since you’re apparently the expert at this?”
“Damn right I am,” she smirked.
“Tomorrow then?”
“Nah. Give them a week. Can’t be that urgent, if you’ve been meaning to tell her for a while.”
“I suppose,” he said. There was still that odd tone in his voice, and a slightly wry edge to his smile. “A week then. And then I’ll tell her.”
“She’ll probably be glad to hear it,” said Jez flippantly.
“She probably will,” he said, voice quiet.
For a few minutes, neither of them spoke. At last, Lev said, “Well, Jez, we’re going to deep space. I’ll plot you a course. But in the meantime, why don’t you show me what you love about flying?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. Her body hurt like someone had beaten her with a metal pole, which, she supposed, wasn’t entirely wrong, and talking hurt, and one of her eyes was swollen almost all the way shut, and she couldn’t even grin properly, and she still had to deal with Masha, somehow.
But she was in the pilot’s seat, and there were controls under her hand, and she was out in space. And more than that. Radic was out there, somewhere, and Ivan, and a whole bunch of other prisoners. Even Vlatka.
Somehow, the thought made her happy. Happier than she would have thought, a few weeks ago.
And beside her, in the co-pilot’s seat, Lev was sitting, probably smiling that little smile he had. The one she didn’t want to think about.
But that she actually kind of liked.
Masha glanced down at the scroll of letters on her com, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of her cheek.
She should probably have been in bed a long time ago. But there was something nagging her about their time in prison. Something Lev had said.
Someone from the outside was looking for Jez.
No one in the system should have been able to look for her. They shouldn’t have known she existed, or if they did, they should have assumed she was dead. Masha had been very, very careful.
They certainly should not have been able to track her to the prison planet.
Before they’d left the prison, she’d gone up to the guard rooms and grabbed all the chips she could find. Never a bad idea to have more information. She’d pass them along to Lev as well, and he’d probably think he’d died and gone to paradise.
Still, there was one thing that she needed to check.
And here it was. Buried in the notes in the prison file.
A tag beside Jez’s prison number. And on that tag, buried deep, a name no one in the system should have access to anymore.
Jez Solokov.
And under the name, a notation, hidden well enough that you might not notice unless you were looking. “Currently sought. C level credit reward.”
C level credit reward. There were few people in the system who merited that sort of reward money. Certainly not a scrappy, irritating ex-smuggler pilot, no matter how good she might be.
And for that price, there would be a lot of people looking. Just as well they were going to deep space to lay low for a while.
And yet—they’d been in the prison for a mere two weeks. And somehow in that time, someone had managed to infiltrate the aliases Tae had set up, find Jez, and tag her.
She glanced through the small porthole window of her cabin.
They’d done a hyperspeed jump a couple hours ago. They’d effectively disappeared. There was nothing for her to be worried about.
Still …
She shook her head grimly.
Apparently it was past time to find out a little more about this pilot of hers.
The End
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