by Mike Brooks
“How far away?” Drift asked.
“I believe no more than ten days’ travel,” Muradov replied, “although I have never been, myself. I believe I met Security Chief Han at a conference once, but that was held elsewhere.”
“Then we have the beginnings of a plan,” Drift said. Jenna was sure she didn’t imagine him glancing towards where Rourke habitually stood, but it was only for a split second before he looked around at the rest of them in turn. “Are we all on board with this?”
“You don’t even have to ask, bro,” Apirana said firmly. “There ain’t a one of us whose life she ain’t saved at some point.”
“You want us to go to a Chinese system and rob the Triax?” Kuai asked incredulously. “What sort of shén jīng bìng is this?” He looked over at Jenna. “How about you slice us half a million into a bank account?”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “Because it’s that easy.”
“Gotta be easier than robbing the Triax,” Kuai insisted. “You’re some sort of tech genius—why not?”
“Okay.” Jenna started counting points off on her fingers. “One, banking security systems are usually the tightest in the galaxy, because they’re the most obvious targets. Two, even if I could break in and just fabricate half a million stars, which I don’t know if I could, there wouldn’t be any trace of where it had come from and that would set off other alerts. Three, have you ever tried to draw half a million stars out of a bank account?”
Kuai snorted. “You think I’d be here if I had?”
“Exactly,” Jenna told him. “The reason we were taking money from Kelsier’s account a bit at a time is we didn’t have the authorisation to make a bulk withdrawal. To get an amount of money that large, you’re talking fingerprints, retina scans, and so on, which we’d have to give in the first place to open the account that we’d then mysteriously deposit half a million in from no identifiable source, and then try to withdraw it all.” She shook her head. “You might as well walk into the bank carrying a large sign that reads FRAUD IN PROGRESS.”
Apirana glanced around at her. “You looked into this, then?”
She felt her cheeks heating a little, and not from irritation at Kuai. “I may at one point have been an oversmart teenager with a get-rich-quick scheme that other, more experienced people thankfully talked me out of.”
“Still reckon it’s a better plan than trying to steal from the Triax,” Kuai said sulkily.
“You scared?” Jia asked her brother scornfully.
“Damn right!”
Jia stood up, looking at the Captain. “Ignore this nāozhǒng. I’ll get us there; you come up with a plan. Best leave him out, though, case he shits himself!” She stormed out of the canteen and turned right to head for the cockpit. Kuai bolted after her, shouting angrily in Mandarin. Drift watched his departing back for a moment, then sighed and turned back to Muradov.
“Do you have any siblings, Captain?” the Uragan asked.
“No.” Drift shook his head. “From what I’ve seen of the Changs, I didn’t miss much.”
“Likewise.” Muradov took a deep breath and exhaled. “So. We have around ten days to steal more money than I have ever owned in my entire life from one of the largest criminal organisations in the galaxy. I am wondering if remaining on Uragan would have been less painful.”
“That’s cos you’re thinkin’ about it wrong,” Apirana said, heaving himself to his feet. “An organisation ain’t a thing; it’s all made up of people. People make mistakes, get careless, get sloppy. Plus, criminals can be bribed just as much as anyone else. There’s always a way in.” He looked at Drift. “You need us, Cap?”
“I’ll pick your brains over the next day or two, see if there’s anything we can put together as a starting point,” Drift replied, waving a hand. “Go on; run along. Grab some time together while we’ve got it.”
Jenna raised an eyebrow as she stood. “ ‘Run along’?”
Drift snorted. “Well, ‘limp’ in A’s case.” He looked over his shoulder and down at Apirana’s ankle, which had been broken in a stampeding crowd on Uragan. “How’s the leg holding up, anyway?”
“Still sore, bro,” Apirana said, “but I can tell it’s mending well. Those circuitheads knew their stuff, I’ll give ’em that.”
“Glad to hear it.” Drift glanced up at Jenna. “Don’t tire him out, you hear? We might need him at the other end.”
Jenna felt her cheeks burn. “Excuse me?”
“I heard what you were up to the other night before we reached Medusa II; that’s all I’m saying.” Drift shrugged, turning back to Muradov, who looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Remember that I’ve got the cabin next to his.”
“We were watching holos!”
“Yeah, for like nine hours straight,” Drift groused. He looked back around again and Jenna caught the mischief in his natural eye. “With the volume right up too. I’ve never known A to watch them for that long in one go before. You’re a bad influence on him, young lady.”
So it was going to be like that, was it? Jenna leaned down until she was nearly nose-to-nose with him and tucked the strand of her red-blonde hair that always seemed to be misbehaving back behind her ear.
“Did you ever wonder why we had the volume so loud?” she asked quietly.
Drift’s left eye opened slightly wider, flicked up to where she knew Apirana was standing, then back to her face. Then he turned away from her again.
“This conversation is over.”
Jenna couldn’t help but laugh. “C’mon, A, let’s go watch some holos.” She turned and left the canteen, Apirana’s lopsided tread on her heels. It wasn’t until they were a few paces away down the corridor that she looked up at him. “Sorry, was that weird?”
“I, uh . . .”
Jenna couldn’t stifle a giggle. “Oh my god, are you embarrassed?”
The big Māori’s mouth moved for a moment before he gave an awkward, one-shoulder shrug. “Yeah, okay. Kinda.”
Jenna stared at him in amazement. “Why? You and I both know that we really were only watching holos.” She frowned. “You’re not embarrassed of me, are you?”
“Wha—wait, no, that’s not . . .” Apirana stopped in mid-protest, eyes narrowing in his heavily tattooed face. “Wait, you having me on?”
She smiled. “Yeah, sorry. I don’t really think that.” She looked back at the canteen door, now shut behind them. “I have to say, I’m surprised that the Captain, of all people, got all twitchy about the notion of someone having sex.”
“To be honest, I’m kinda shocked he’s never made a pass at you himself,” Apirana admitted. “Young, pretty blonde girl, you’re his type.” He frowned. “Hang on. . . . He didn’t, did he?”
“What?” Jenna hoped her face sufficiently expressed her surprise and mild nausea. She liked the Captain well enough, but . . . “No, definitely not. I didn’t think he’d go there with crew.”
“He hasn’t recently,” Apirana allowed. “Ain’t always been that way, though.”
“Huh.” They’d reached the door to Apirana’s cabin, and Jenna stood aside to let him open it. “I like how you say I’m his type. So far as I’ve seen, the Captain’s type is pretty much any woman, ever.”
“To be fair, most of that’s what you might call tactical flirting,” Apirana said, punching in his access code. The door hissed aside and he stepped through. “He’s good at it. Greases the wheels. But you’re sure he’s never come on to you?”
Jenna laughed as she stepped in after him. “Truly, never. To be honest, I think he almost feels kind of fatherly about me.” She gave Apirana a level look as he looked around incredulously. “I said ‘almost.’ ”
“Yeah, I was just remembering that I’m actually older than he is,” the Māori muttered. “Which don’t make me feel too good, given that comparison.”
Jenna rolled her eyes as he sat down onto his bunk, which creaked in protest. “Are you seriously still hung up on that?”
“Ain’t gon
na lie: yeah,” Apirana mumbled. “I’m twice your age, about three times your weight, and I’m half as smart as you. Don’t get me wrong: I think I came out ahead on this one, but—”
“First of all, you are not half as smart as me,” Jenna told him crossly. She was acting most of it, but there was a kernel of irritation at the core of it: Apirana wasn’t the sort to seek out pity, and the notion that he didn’t think he was good enough for her genuinely upset her. “Secondly, if I am twice as smart as you, then trust that I know what I’m doing!”
“Can’t argue with that, I guess,” Apirana chuckled, then sighed. “Thinking of smart people, and I hope you ain’t gonna take this wrong what with me thinking about another woman, but I sure hope Rourke’s gonna be okay.”
Jenna sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders as best she could. She wasn’t short, but Apirana was closer to seven feet than six, and broad with it, so it wasn’t that easy a task. “Yeah, me too. But if there’s anyone in this galaxy who can look after herself, it’s Rourke.”
He looked at her, their faces only inches apart. When she’d first met Apirana she’d barely been able to see beyond the moko, the tribal tattoos that covered his shaved head (and, as she’d more recently found out, much of his body as well). She barely noticed them now, and his face was as easy to read as anyone else’s—easier, in fact, because he usually wore his emotions close to the surface. He was worried, deeply worried.
“It ain’t what’s gonna happen while we’re away, so much,” he said slowly. “Tell me true: Do you see us coming up with a plan to pick up half a million stars, from scratch, in under two months?”
Jenna took a deep breath. “I don’t think it’ll be easy, but . . . we took down an intergalactic terrorist with not much more than bullshit and bravado. And that was even with me getting accidentally abducted. If the stakes are high enough, the Captain finds a way.”
“He has so far,” Apirana conceded, “but he’s had Rourke with him, always, even before I was on the crew. What are we gonna do without her?”
WORKING THE OTHER SIDE
Alim Muradov had grown up in the mining tunnels of Uragan. It had been seventeen years before he’d left that planet and gone into training to join the Red Star military, and another year before he’d stepped out of a hermetically sealed environment to stand, for the first time, under an open sky.
He’d hated it.
The roofs of even the largest of Uragan’s chambers had been a virtually uniform seven metres high. The military training halls had rarely been as tall, and nor had those in the orbit facility where they’d been taken to practice zero-G movement and combat. When he’d finally donned a rebreather mask and burst out of an air lock with his fellow cadets onto a reddish, rocky plain, he’d nearly stopped dead in his tracks at the sensation of emptiness above him. Throughout the rest of his training, and the twelve years of active service that followed it, he’d never been properly able to shake that unease. He’d learned to suppress it, though: You didn’t become a successful sniper if you were twitchy or unfocused.
All the same, he still didn’t like the dark-blue void that was now above him, despite the brightly lit skyscrapers that crowded the streets and minimised the sky overhead to a letterbox-like window. The Jonah, the battered Carcharodon-class shuttle that serviced the equally battered freighter he now found himself living on, had touched down on Zhongtu, the middle of the three planets around Guangming Alpha. Guangming Beta, the smaller and dimmer star of the binary system, was currently opposite its sister star in the sky, and as a result even Zhongtu’s nights were currently little more than twilight.
“It’s good to feel the wind again,” McIlroy the slicer said in English from next to him, smiling happily. Alim couldn’t agree. They’d landed in Zhuchengshi, the planet’s capital city, which sat several hundred metres up a mountain range in one of the desert zones. The planet’s original settlers had apparently decided that they didn’t want the scorching temperatures and frequent dust storms that would plague them at ground level, but also didn’t want to sacrifice any of the potentially cultivatable ground in temperate climes. Their compromise had been to construct a city between two towering peaks, and to get around the lack of flat ground by setting most of it on a huge level platform of superlight carbon fibre with plentiful bracing and support struts anchored on the rock a long way (sometimes a very long way) below. However, the altitude meant that the wind was not only strong but very chill, and Alim suspected it would remain so even when the primary star rose again and started to heat up the ground below once more.
“Did you grow up on a planet like this?” he asked. McIlroy turned her face to him to answer, and he was struck again by how young she looked. He still wasn’t certain what would drive such a clearly talented young woman to fly with this rather desperate crew barring some form of compulsive criminal psychological trait, but then he was hardly in a position to judge. One month ago he’d have been concerned with preventing large-scale thefts, not performing them.
“It had a breathable atmosphere, yes,” McIlroy was saying. “It wasn’t an agriworld, though. It was a bit more like Old Earth, I guess; some farming, but also lots of cities and industry.”
Alim frowned. “How strange, I had heard that the USNA was running short of farm space. I fought in a small war because of that, actually. I would have thought any suitable world would have been turned over entirely to agriculture.”
“The Franklin system was one of the first we colonised,” McIlroy said, “and I think back then we weren’t expecting to have to fight anyone else for what we wanted. By the time we realised we didn’t have the whole galaxy to ourselves, the Franklins had already been widely settled.”
“You are from the Franklin system?” Alim asked, his curiosity momentarily piqued. “Where the Universal Access Movement started?”
McIlroy’s face went from animated to stony so quickly that for a moment Alim thought he’d only imagined her previous chatty demeanour. The young slicer mumbled something that sounded vaguely affirmative and glanced around, then saw something that apparently required her attention and hurried off. She was almost immediately replaced by the towering presence of her boyfriend, if that was the correct term for someone about twice her age.
“Jenna really don’t like the Circuit Cult, bro,” Wahawaha said neutrally. “Not having a go at you, just making you aware. Y’know, for future reference.”
“I appreciate it,” Alim replied with a nod. He’d decided he rather liked the big Māori. The other crew members were a diverse, somewhat chaotic, and often rather forceful mix of personalities, but Wahawaha seemed sober and grounded. He was clearly aware of his size, too, and seemed to make a conscious effort not to loom over you. Alim wasn’t a tall man, and he appreciated the consideration.
He realised Wahawaha was looking at him curiously. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem,” the Māori replied, “but by now most people would be asking me what Jenna’s problem is with the circuitheads, that’s all.”
Alim shrugged. The Universal Access Movement and their provision of cheap, reliable prosthetics to the disabled or injured were not just necessary but widely welcomed on mining planets like Uragan. However, he could understand how their sometimes rather evangelical approach could be off-putting to outsiders. “I rather think that is her story to tell, should she wish. Given how quickly she ended that conversation, I do not think she does.”
Wahawaha’s heavily tattooed face cracked a grin. “Chief, I think you’re gonna fit in well around here.”
Alim nodded, scratching his moustache. “I must ask: Does it not bother the crew, having a former officer of the law on board?”
“Yeah, but ‘former’ is the operative word, right?” Wahawaha said. “It’s what you’re doing now that matters: We all got something in our pasts we don’t wanna be carrying with us anymore. Except maybe Kuai,” he added, “but he’s just a sourpuss because he promised his parents he’d take care of
his sister and . . . well, you’ve met her.”
Alim snorted. The younger Chang struck him as someone who would deliberately make her brother’s life hard for the sake of it, but even a groundrat like him could recognise her natural piloting skill. It went against all his military and policing instincts to let someone with such a toxic personality remain on a team, no matter what their nominal individual value, but he was rapidly coming to realise that his new life carried different necessities. For one thing, instead of being part of a chain of command that theoretically stretched all the way back to the Red Star government in their seat of power on Old Earth, his only superior now was a flamboyant, one-eyed Mexican with a fondness for whiskey.
Ichabod Drift materialised at Wahawaha’s shoulder, a few inches shorter than the big Māori and half his width, smiling the ready grin that seemed to be his default expression. Alim still hadn’t worked out if the Captain’s spontaneous, mercurial persona was a front designed to dazzle, a true reflection of his character, or somewhere in between. Alim prided himself on being able to read people, and the fact he couldn’t pin Drift down was annoying him.
“Are you ready, Chief?” Drift asked in heavily accented but understandable Russian. Alim blinked at him and responded in his mother tongue.
“I didn’t think you spoke Russian.”
“I used to not well,” Drift acknowledged, “but I more learned on way here. I thought would need it I.”
“You decided against Mandarin, then?” Alim asked. Since it was a Red Star planet the population of Zhongtu would speak both Russian and Mandarin, so it made little difference. However, it was generally accepted that you spoke the language of the branch of government that controlled a particular world.
“You ever heard him trying to talk this shit?” Jia asked in Mandarin, pushing past. “I swear, he’ll learn to jump into orbit before he works out the fucking intonations.”
