Time Bomb

by R. M. Olson

  He just stared at her for a moment, his entire body weak with relief, but there was no time for relief at the moment. They still needed to find a way to hide the children.

  He paused a moment.

  Behind the blast doors had been frozen for hours. Which meant everything in that sector would be freezing cold, including the first-aid kits.

  He looked up at Tanya. “The cabins,” he mouthed. “If we cover them with the reflective blankets, the cold should disguise our heat signatures, at least temporarily.”

  She glanced at the children, and there was momentary indecision on her face.

  Of course. Her children had almost died behind the blast doors.

  Then she nodded, her face set.

  They crept down the hallway on silent feet. Tae’s throat was dry, and his pulse pounded in his ears.

  There were footsteps in the corridor in front of them, and Tanya slipped into a small cross-hallway. Tae pushed the children after her.

  Ahead, the blast doors hung half-open. The power from Lena’s generators must have been enough to get the doors to open, but not to lock. If the power went out again, even momentarily, they’d slam shut, trapping them in the icy, airless cold.

  Still—it spoke to the desperation of their situation that this was by far the best option they had.

  They chose Ysbel and Tanya’s room. There was room in there for the four of them, if they packed in tightly. Once the children were settled beneath the double-cot, he rummaged around quickly in a hallway storage compartment and pulled out a kit. He yanked out as many of the heat reflective blankets as he could grab, then slipped back into the room and passed them down to Tanya.

  “It’ll be cold,” he whispered. “Make sure the kids are bundled up.”

  She nodded, her face grim in the reflected light of his com.

  “Hey, Tae,” came Jez’s voice into his earpiece. “Got your parts.”

  He looked around quickly. Tanya and the children were huddled back into one corner under the cot, out of sight, the heat blankets pulled over them. “Tanya,” he whispered. “I’m going to meet Jez to get the parts. We’ll deal with putting them in once I get back.”

  “Very well,” Tanya whispered from behind the blankets. “Go, quickly. We’ll be waiting.”

  He nodded and turned back out the tunnel. His teeth were clenched so hard his jaw ached.

  But Jez had the parts. Thanks to Lena, the Ungovernable had power again.

  And maybe, for the first time in a long time—they had a chance.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Lena’s ship, Lev

  “We got the parts, genius. Time to go.” Jez’s voice hissed through Lev’s earpiece.

  He glanced quickly at Ysbel. She didn’t look at him, but he could read her face. She’d heard it too.

  He shifted his arms slightly and held his breath.

  This was much more Jez’s specialty than his own. Still …

  He tapped his com against the chair, once, twice—there. There was a slight hum, and the cuffs loosened on his wrists.

  Tae’s key had worked.

  He glanced at Ysbel from the corner of his eye. She tapped her own com against the chair, and he saw her muscles tense—

  And then something hard and cold was jammed into the bruise across his temple, and he bit back a gasp of pain.

  “Looks like those cuffs are a little loose,” said the smuggler, the amusement in her voice cut with menace.

  Slowly, he turned.

  A guard stood at Ysbel’s side as well, heat gun pointed in a no-nonsense way at her head.

  Someone pushed his hands together and bound them tightly with cord, then slid the useless cuffs off and dropped them on the floor.

  “Up,” the guard growled. Someone un-cuffed Lev’s feet from the chair legs. “Good thing Lena called for you, I guess.”

  He cast a quick glance at Ysbel, but she was bound as tightly as he was.

  “Up!” the smuggler barked, jamming the gun harder against his temple. He tried to stand, but he ended up losing his balance and toppling awkwardly to the floor. His bruised cheekbone connected hard with the textured metal of the floor, and he winced. The smuggler laughed and grabbed him by the bound arms, dragging him painfully to his feet. He sucked in a quick gasp at the pain in his head and only just caught his balance as the smuggler let go of him. Beside him, Ysbel stood with much more grace, and much less incident. Although, in fairness, even cuffed, she was intimidating enough that it was unlikely even Lena’s crew would purposely antagonize her.

  “Come on,” the smuggler guard said again. “Lena wants to talk to you.”

  When he stumbled to a halt on the main deck, Lena sat in a chair at the back of the deck, waiting for them, a handful of her crew around her. This time, though, there was a faint smile on her face, and at the sight of it, unease stirred in his stomach.

  She’d been furious when she’d spoken to them before. But now she seemed to have resumed her good humour, and somehow that frightened him much more.

  “Sit,” she said, gesturing, and the smugglers shoved him and Ysbel into hard-backed chairs against the wall close to the port-side door. For a few moments she watched them calculatingly, then she stood and crossed over to them.

  “Lev. Ysbel,” she said at last. “The government gave me a file on all of you.” She shook her head. “You’re talented, sure. But even still—the government is willing to pay a hell of a lot to make you disappear. So tell me.” She leaned forward. “What do they want with you?”

  Lev frowned slightly. His palms were sweating, but he tried to keep his tone neutral. “Honestly, Lena, I’m not certain.”

  Lena smiled, but for a moment he saw behind her expression a flash of her former fury. “I thought you were smart, Lev. So I suggest you think about it very damn hard.” She stood. “Before they recruited me, the government sent people to kill me and my whole crew. They only stopped when I told them I could find Jez. And they were asking questions about a cargo-grab she did shortly before she ran off. So I want to know what’s going on.”

  She took a step closer, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Why is the government after you? I’m a crew boss. And I didn’t become one by letting people get away with lying to me.”

  He didn’t answer, just watched her. Something cold was spreading through his stomach.

  He expected her to hit him across the head again with her pistol, and he braced for the blow. But instead she stepped back with a faint smile. “You don’t want to talk? You’re more stupid than I gave you credit for. Almost as stupid as Jez.” She paused. “Funny, isn’t it—Jez, who lived through more crazy jobs than any other crew member I’ve had, stole my best ship and got away with it, stayed one step ahead of me for four years. Broke out of a prison ship, pulled a heist on Vitali Dobrev, broke into and out of a prison—and in the end she was killed in a core meltdown.” She shook her head in mock disappointment. “Honestly, I’m disappointed.”

  He didn’t have to fake the tightness in his jaw. “Lena,” he said, trying to keep his tone level, “I’m sorry. I’ll admit it, I wish Jez hadn’t died. But—”

  She smiled at him, a tiny sparkle of triumph glittering behind her eyes. “Well,” she said. “I did too. There was a hell of a lot I wanted to say to her. But I guess—” She straightened, glancing up at something behind him, and her smile broadened.

  He didn’t want to turn and look. He didn’t have to, really, because he saw everything he needed to know in her face, and something tightened around his chest, compressing his breath.

  But he couldn’t help himself. He turned, twisting to peer over his shoulder.

  The starboard door to the main deck was open, and armed smugglers shoved three figures through it.

  Tae.

  Masha.

  And Jez.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Lena’s ship, Jez

  The sight of Lena was instantly, sickeningly familiar. Like the sight of a place where you’d crashed your first
skybike, when the phantom ache of your broken leg hit you once again, the remembered sick feeling as you realized what you’d done. What had happened to you.

  Somehow, though, Jez still managed to keep the grin on her face.

  The main deck on Lena’s ship was the same semicircular shape as the main deck of the Ungovernable, but the similarities ended there. The floor and walls were cold metal, the artificial lights so white they were almost blue. Half a dozen smugglers leaned against the far wall behind the smuggler boss, weapons at the ready.

  She glanced around quickly, heart hammering.

  There, in the corner. Ysbel and Lev, bound to their chairs, guarded by three armed smugglers, but—alive. The unexpected rush of relief that flooded through her at seeing Lev alive was strong enough to almost make her legs wobble. Then she noticed the dried blood on the side of his face and his sick expression, and her heart rate jumped.

  How dare these bastards hit him? And how dare he not even plaguing mention it? She glowered at him, but he didn’t glower back, which scared her more than anything.

  Ysbel didn’t seem to be hurt. Her face was grim, and her eyes were desperately searching for someone other than Jez or Tae.

  They weren’t there, yet. At least, not as far as Jez knew.

  Then again, she had no real idea.

  She took another deep breath.

  Damn Lena to hell.

  “Hey Lena,” she drawled, hoping her voice didn’t sound as scared as she felt.

  Because she was afraid. Not afraid of dying. Not even afraid of the pain, although she was afraid of those things too.

  She was afraid of Lena, with a fear that was gut-deep and completely irrational, like a kid afraid of their dad even years after they were big enough that he couldn’t hit them anymore.

  Lena looked her, and for a moment her face twisted with hate. She took a step forward and raised her hand, and Jez flinched despite herself.

  Lena laughed, a hard, humourless sound.

  “Jez,” she said. The familiar cold amusement in her voice was almost jarring. “Look at you.” She ran her eyes deliberately up and down Jez’s body, then she smiled. “Beat to hell, half-dead, trapped in deep space. Your crew do this to you? I wouldn’t blame them. Never were as good as you thought you were, were you? Except at getting people to hate you, always were good at that.”

  “Yeah? Well, must be embarrassing, you bastard, four years to track down someone who’s no good.” She hoped her voice wasn’t shaking. “But I guess can’t blame you, seeing as I had basically the best ship in the system. Nicest thing you ever did for me, really.” Beneath the fear, the sweet rush of adrenaline was pumping through her veins.

  Lena’s smile dropped, and there was that familiar hint of fury behind her expression.

  Despite everything, Jez felt a warm rush of satisfaction. Nice to know that she still had it, even after four years.

  “Jez Solokov,” the woman hissed. Lena had to look up to look her in the eye, but somehow that didn’t make her any less intimidating, and for half a second, Jez felt the familiar urge to drop her gaze.

  Of course, she’d never listened to that urge. Might have led to her being beat up less often, now that she thought about it. Then again, it wouldn’t have made Lena nearly so upset, so probably worth it after all.

  She smiled lazily, even though her heart was going to beat itself out of her chest. “You ever manage to take out the wall-spikes I put through the thrusters on your ships when I left? Or did you have to shell out for new thrusters? Always wondered about that.”

  “You scum-eater,” Lena spat. “You can fly, sure. But you’re not worth spit. You were all talk, never had the backbone to face up to things. You were always going to run, I knew that from the moment I set eyes on you.”

  “Yeah? Well—”

  “Shut up!” This time, Lena did backhand her. Pain like lighting jolted through Jez’s broken jaw, and she swore through her teeth, blinking back tears. Lena watched her coldly.

  “You’re nothing, Jez. I read what the government gave me on you. Jumped from crew to crew, job to job, because no one wanted you enough to keep you around. Just like your family didn’t want to keep you around. Too much of a damn liability.”

  Somehow, Jez was still grinning, even though the words cut into her chest like razor-blades.

  “Nah. I left because I wanted to. Just like I left your damn crew.” Her hands were clenched into fists under the mag-cuffs, and she had to mumble the words through the knife-sharp pain radiating across her face.

  “You left because you’re a damn coward,” Lena snapped. “Too afraid to own up to your own mistakes. When the government hired me to come after you, I figured I had to work fast, because you wouldn’t be able to stick around this crew any longer than you stuck around anywhere else.”

  Jez couldn’t hide the sick acknowledgement in her face. Lena smiled, her expression cruel.

  “What were you going to run from this time? Got tired of your lover? Got into an argument with someone and didn’t know how to back down?”

  “Shut up,” Jez muttered. She could feel tears pricking at her eyes.

  Because the stupid thing was, Lena was right. Lena’d always been right. So had her parents.

  Unreliable. Stupid. Couldn’t deal with her own problems, so she ran from them, and got caught, and then ran from them again, because she was too stupid to learn.

  But that hadn’t really been the reason.

  She ran because she knew that one day, she’d screw things up. If she stuck around for long enough, no matter how much they said they liked her, no matter how much they told her she was part of them, she was going to screw up, and someone was going to get hurt. They’d start to depend on her, and she was undependable.

  And the thing was, she cared about this stupid, crazy crew. She cared about Ysbel, Tae, Lev, Tanya, Olya, Misko—even Masha, if she’d admit it. Jez might hate her, and the feeling might be mutual, but even so, Jez couldn’t bear the thought of the look on the woman’s face when Jez inevitably screwed things up for good.

  That was the real reason she’d decided to leave.

  Sometimes, if you cared about someone, leaving was always going to be your best option.

  She’d been too late, of course. She’d already screwed up, run away one too many times, brought Lena after them, wrecked everything, that’s why Lev was tied up in that chair, and Tae was cuffed somewhere behind her.

  Her stomach twisted with nausea.

  Lena was right. No matter how much she wanted not to, no matter how hard she tried, she was always going to hurt people, even if she didn’t mean to, because she just didn’t understand how not to. And then she’d leave them to deal with the consequences while she ran.

  No wonder Masha’d wanted her out.

  Lena’s face was cold triumph. “Doesn’t matter, does it? I got you, finally. You screwed everything up, like always.” She shrugged slightly. “We’ll find the other woman and the children soon, I have my crew in there searching. They can’t hide forever. And the best part is, it was always going to end like this. My little damn innocent.” She gave Jez that familiar, mocking smile, and something knotted in Jez’s throat, just like it had when she was a terrified fourteen-year-old. Lena leaned in slightly. “As soon as I guessed your lover-boy was lying to me, I knew. Because that’s the stupidest damn thing about you—you’ll always run before you face your own problems, sure. But I knew the moment you thought I might hurt them? You’d be back here like a tick on a swamp-rat. That’s the only thing I could ever depend on about you.”

  Jez stared at her for a moment, jarred out of her fear. “What?”

  Lena shook her head pityingly. “You remember the first job I sent you on? Flew there with Alexi? He was getting shot at, and Bratka told you to leave it, but you went back in there, got your ship shot to hell to get him out. Put you in junkers after that, because I couldn’t trust you. But I never could beat it out of you.”

  Jez just stared
. She felt, for a moment, like someone had hit her over the head, and she hadn’t got over the dizziness of it.

  Was it possible? That Lena had never thought Jez would leave the crew to get captured? That she’d known she wouldn’t, she never would? That she’d always come back for them, if they were in trouble?

  “I—I thought you said I was unreliable,” she said at last, her voice strangely hoarse.

  Lena shook her head. “You damn worthless innocent,” she said in disgust. “Look at this. Don’t know what you paid this crew to cover for you, but you couldn’t even follow through on getting out.”

  Jez blinked, hardly hearing the words. Something was choking in her throat, and the tears welling behind her eyes were pushing at the corners of her eyelids, trickling slowly down her cheeks.

  Lena thought—no, Lena knew—she’d never leave her crew to get hurt.

  She felt like she’d been hit with a shock-stick.

  “I might have worried, if it had been anyone else.” Lena was still talking, her voice somehow distant. “But I know you, Jez. I know you better than you know yourself.”

  Jez swallowed hard. She couldn’t seem to get her mouth to form the words.

  “I always would have come back for them,” she murmured, almost to herself.

  The thing was—the thing was, it was true. Lena was right. No matter what she’d told herself, she never would have left them in danger. Not the children, not Lev, not any of them.

  Unreliable.

  Unreliable, because she wasn’t ever going to leave her crew to get hurt.

  Tears were dripping down her cheeks now, and her nose was running, forcing her to sniff awkwardly.

  She hardly noticed.

  She hardly cared.

  She felt like someone had ripped away the floor she’d been standing on, and instead of falling, she was floating.

  She glanced reflexively over at Masha. Masha was studying her, her eyes sharp, her expression unreadable as always.