by R. M. Olson
“Jez—”
She brushed off her hands, glancing one last time around the cramped room.
She’d come clean the rest of this mess up later. Right now …
Right now, the Ungovernable was calling her, and she damn well planned on answering.
She made her way to the cockpit. Masha was there, and Tanya and Ysbel and the children. Olya looked up as she stepped in and grinned at her, and Jez grinned back.
Then she saw Lev, lying on the floor, and her stomach dropped.
“What the hell happened to him,” she gritted out, dropping down beside him.
He was breathing, at least. That meant he was alive. But the limp droop of his body, his slack face and closed eyes, the crusted blood across his temple, made her feel like she was going to throw up. She spun around, glaring at Ysbel.
“I said, what the hell—”
“He’s fine,” Ysbel said, and there was a wry, slightly amused tone in her voice. “He got caught in the gas. He’ll wake up in a minute or two, I imagine.”
She glanced back down at him, her heart rate slowing just a bit. Sure enough, his eyes were moving restlessly under his eyelids, and he stirred ever so slightly.
“Jez,” said Masha, in her usual calm voice, “I understand your concern. However, if you’d like him to remain alive, I suggest we get the ship running.”
“Yeah.” Jez didn’t take her eyes off Lev for a minute. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Reluctantly, she got to her feet.
“Got it,” came Tae’s voice over the com.
Jez took a deep breath and slid into the pilot’s seat. The familiar shape and feel of it was a little like stepping through the doors into your home. There was something right about it, something vital and comforting.
She closed her eyes and rested her fingers on the controls for just a moment.
“Ready?” she whispered into her com.
“Ready,” said Tae.
Gently, she tapped the power, and the ship hummed into life.
For a moment she could hardly move, her chest tight with a desperate, sickening relief. She’d almost forgotten, with everything that had happened, how much the lack of that soft hum beneath her boots, through her fingers, into her bones, had hurt. How it had been killing her, as surely as a knife between her ribs.
And now it was back, and for the first time in a very, very long time, she felt like she was being put back together. She felt alive. She felt like she could actually breathe.
Without opening her eyes, she pulled the thrusters online, gently, carefully. They hummed to life, and another part of her fell into place.
It wasn’t fixed yet, not really. This was temporary, and the parts they’d replaced wouldn’t work long-term. They still had to re-wire the hyperdrive into the newly-remodelled thrusters if they wanted to run it without tearing everything apart, and there would be plenty of work ahead of them to get her ship in proper running order. But right now, she hardly cared.
“Strap in, kids,” she murmured, and then she nudged the controls, and her angel shot forward. Her stomach lurched with the acceleration, the speed shoving her back in her seat, and she closed her eyes in bliss, revelling in the intoxicating whisper of the ship beneath her fingers.
She reached up to wipe away the tears that were running down her cheeks. Stupid to cry like this when everything was right.
Behind her Tae was swearing and Ysbel was picking herself off the floor, but she hardly noticed.
She couldn’t stop smiling.
“This is the Viper, paging the Ungovernable.” Jez recognized the voice over the com instantly.
Lena.
Even that wasn’t enough to cut through the haze of joy.
“May I?” asked Ysbel, gesturing to the com. Jez nodded, still unable to speak, and Ysbel stepped past her.
“Lena,” she said, her outer-rim accent heavier than usual. “You’ve lost this one. You sent someone after our pilot back on Prasvishoni, and I sent him away with a warning. Apparently, he didn’t listen. So you listen to me now.” She paused a moment. “You will leave us alone. You will leave Jez alone. You will never come after her again. And if you know what’s good for you, you will stay exactly where you are. You can page for help if you’d like, but I’m warning you, do not try to come after us.”
There was a momentary pause.
“If you’re stupid enough to fly with Jez,” said Lena at last, her voice cold with anger, “then I guess you’re stupid enough to think that you can just fly off. You have no idea how badly the government wants you. And if you think you can—”
Her voice cut off abruptly in a burst of static.
Jez frowned and turned to look over her shoulder.
Where Lena’s ship had been, there was nothing but a slowly-expanding cloud of space-debris.
She stared at the explosion, then up at Ysbel.
Everyone in the cabin, it appeared, was staring at Ysbel.
“I did tell her not to try to come after us,” said Ysbel, a faint note of satisfaction in her voice. “I suppose I could have also warned her I’d rigged explosives into her power core. But—” she shrugged. “I didn’t like the way she talked to Jez.”
“Well,” said Masha, after a moment. “I supposed that solves the problem for the time being.” She turned to face Jez.
For a moment, their eyes met.
Jez frowned slightly. Masha’s expression was as unreadable as ever, but there was something in her eyes that Jez couldn’t remember seeing there before. Something like—affection.
“Jez,” she said at last. “Why don’t you take us somewhere where we can get the Ungovernable put back together?”
Jez stared at her for a moment longer.
She was, for a moment, almost as disoriented as she’d been facing Lena.
But somehow, she felt herself smiling. Not the snarky grin she usually reserved for Masha, but an actual smile.
“On it,” she said, and turned quickly back to her controls so that no one else would see the tears filling her eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Afterwards
Masha glanced around the cockpit.
It was almost unnerving, the relief she felt at the sight of the seven of them, battered, bruised, slightly worse for the wear, but—alive.
And the realization that that was the part that relieved her. Not the fact they could still, possibly, pull off her plan. Not the fact that they were still, for the moment, a team.
The fact that they were alive.
Ysbel had turned to embrace Tanya, almost unconsciously, her arms protectively around the slender woman who, it appeared, was at least as deadly as Ysbel herself, their two children pressed between them. Tae, nursing a bruised shoulder and shooting the occasional glare at Jez, leaned up against the back wall of the cockpit, his dark hair tangled and the almost-permanent dark circles under his eyes accentuating his exhaustion, but there was a softness to his face when he looked around the cockpit. Lev lay back in the copilot’s seat, blinking at the aftereffects of Ysbel’s gas. He’d woken just in time to catch a glimpse of what was left of the smuggler’s ship disappearing behind them, and there had been a grim satisfaction to his expression that told her he’d heard every word the smuggler boss said to Jez.
And Jez.
She was leaning back in her seat, head tipped back, a hint of tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. She hadn’t really stopped crying since the ship had come back to life, and every so often, she reached up to wipe moisture from her cheeks. She seemed almost in a trance, stroking her hands unconsciously along the controls as if trying to reassure herself they were real. Since the ship had hummed to life, the only moment she’d allowed her attention to be dragged away from the controls was when Lev had pushed himself up on his elbows and asked, in a groggy voice, what the actual hell was going on.
Masha had thought the lanky pilot might actually kiss him.
She shook her head slightly.
Even Jez.
She’d stood on Lena’s main deck, and she’d watched Jez, standing in front of the smuggler boss as the woman used her words to rip Jez to shreds. And for the first time, she’d realized exactly what Jez had been willing to do to give the rest of them a chance to get away.
The thought made her feel almost nauseous, and she pushed the feeling away determinedly.
How long had it been since she’d allowed herself to look at people—this crazy, irritating pilot, the scowling street-kid who seemed to feel he was responsible for every single member of the crew, and simultaneously to believe that he didn’t have the power to save anyone or fix anything, the stoic, matter-of fact Ysbel, and Lev, with his dry humour and his brilliant intellect—and see people, instead of tools?
And why, in the name of everything holy, had she allowed herself to do that with this crew? Because they were, in the end, tools. They were the best tools she’d ever been able to gather. But now they were more than that. More than she’d ever wanted them to be.
And there would be no going back. She could never bring things back to the way they had been. Even if she’d wanted to.
And for the first time since she was seven years old, she wasn’t entirely certain that she wanted to.
“Jez,” said Tae at last, “you think you can take her through the wormhole?”
“Mmm,” Jez murmured dreamily.
“Jez,” he snapped, and she looked up.
“What?”
“I said—”
Jez rolled her eyes. “Yes, but it was kind of a stupid question. Of course I can take her through the wormhole. You could sit me on a piece of space-rock and I could take it through a wormhole. And now that my sweet angel is running again—” she broke off, running her fingers lovingly across the control panel. Tae sighed heavily.
“Do you need us to leave you two alone?” he said.
“Mmmm,” Jez responded, without looking up.
Masha smiled despite herself.
“Masha,” said Lev, turning slightly in his chair and looking up at her. “I believe there was a date under your name as well.”
She studied him for a moment, and at last she nodded. “You’re correct, Lev,” she said. Her voice was steady, but then she’d had years of practice keeping her voice steady.
“What happened on that date?” he asked softly.
“That,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “is something I’d prefer to keep to myself for the moment.”
He watched her for a moment, then nodded.
“I believe,” she continued, “that you have some theory. Am I correct?”
He nodded again. “Although,” he said, with a slightly rueful glance at Tanya, “it was slightly easier to formulate my theory before I was knocked out by Ysbel’s gas bomb.”
“I did wonder,” said Masha. “Why didn’t you put your mask on?”
There was a moment’s silence, and Lev looked faintly uncomfortable.
“Because there was a damaged mask,” said Ysbel at last. There was a strange tone in her voice. “It was a child’s mask, but I believe he noticed it, and wanted to ensure the child would be safe.”
Masha looked down at the small family group, huddled tightly together as if the thought of physically separating was too painful to contemplate, then back at Lev.
He looked embarrassed. “I—”
“Uncle Lev!” Olya’s voice was equal parts outrage and hero worship. “You told me—”
“I’m sorry, Olya,” he said, spreading his hands ruefully. “I didn’t think you—”
“You lied to me! You told me you didn’t think the big mask was going to fit you!”
“I—”
She glared at him. “You could have gotten killed!”
“I—” he glanced up suddenly, and for a moment he and Ysbel locked eyes. “I—am not completely sure why I wasn’t,” he said quietly, eyes not leaving Ysbel’s face.
“Because if you had, I think it would have broken my child’s heart,” said Ysbel softly. “And, perhaps—” she paused a moment, swallowing hard. “Perhaps mine as well.”
Lev stared for a moment, as if unsure of what he’d heard. And then he dropped his eyes, but Masha noticed him blinking harder than completely necessary.
After a moment, he cleared his throat.
“At any rate. Yes, Masha, to answer your question, I believe I’m beginning to have a theory.” He paused. “I don’t recall if I told you, but the date on my chip was the date that a professor of mine disappeared from the university. She’d been working on a project for the government. After I started working for the government, that was, in part, what motivated me to search for the records that landed me in prison. Still—” he paused slightly. “Still, no matter how far into the classified documents I went, every mention of her project was censored out.”
Masha nodded slowly, but there was something cold growing in the pit of her stomach.
It wasn’t possible.
Was it?
“And Jez,” Lev continued. “She told me what happened on the date on her chip. The apartment she was living in was blown to shreds, the entire building demolished. But she noticed one thing before she ran for her life, and that was the cargo that she’d stolen from Lena a year or so earlier was gone. Is that correct?” He turned to the pilot, who was still smiling dreamily out the cockpit window.
“Jez?”
“Mmm?”
“Jez!”
She looked up.
“I said, is that correct?”
“Is what correct, genius-boy?”
He sighed heavily, and Masha bit back a small smile. “At any rate,” he said, giving Jez a glare that was probably entirely ineffective, as she’d already turned back to her controls, “Lena was saying the same thing, that there was some job they’d pulled right before Jez left, and that’s why the government tracked Lena’s crew down. Then we have Ysbel.”
Ysbel looked up.
“You said your date was the date your family left Prasvishoni for the last time. That did confuse me for a while, because you were only a child then. But then I got to thinking—your father and mother were both war heroes, as I recall. So why leave Prasvishoni in the middle of the war?”
Ysbel was nodding slowly. “Yes,” she said, her voice quiet, expression nostalgic. “It wasn’t the war. I overheard them once or twice, talking after they thought I was asleep. My father had been working on the beginnings of a project for the government. I don’t know what it was, but whatever it was frightened him. He didn’t think he could quit the project, and he was terrified to continue it. I believe he and my mother thought if they could get away, the government would find someone else to finish it.”
Lev nodded slowly. “And Tae. I looked up your date. That was the day you hacked into Vadym’s system, wasn’t it? And you found something on that system.”
Tae nodded, eyes wary. “I don’t know what it was, though.”
Lev nodded again. “Nor do I.” He turned his disconcertingly-sharp gaze back on Masha. “But Masha. I believe you do.”
She took a deep breath and managed a small smile at him.
“Yes, Lev. As usual, you are correct. I believe I do as well.” She paused a moment, gathering her thoughts.
“As I told you,” she said at last, “I’ve worked with the government for some time. Seventeen years, to be exact. And I know much, much more about the inner workings of the government than you might suspect.”
“It might surprise you what I suspect about you, Masha,” Lev murmured, and this time she couldn’t entirely bite back her smile.
“Be that as it may, Lev, I assume it would not surprise you to know I had access to some very, very classified information.” She paused again.
“There was a government program. It was in the works, on and off, for over twenty years. I believe it was originally designed to help in the war effort, but at some point some government official decided it could be useful in more situations than just w
ar.” She sighed, trying to fight back the cold in her stomach. “I don’t know what it is, or what it’s designed to do. But I will tell you this—it is dangerous.” She looked slowly around the cabin, meeting each of their eyes. “Whatever it is, I believe Lena was sent after us because each of us have touched this. What Lev’s professor and Ysbel’s father was working on. What Tae found when he hacked Vadym’s system. The cargo that Jez stole off the ship from Prasvishoni, and then stole from Lena when she took the ship. Whatever it is, the government is determined that it not be discovered.”
“But why now?” Lev asked quietly. “These dates are from years ago. If this had been important, I assume the government could have easily contrived to kill each one of us in prison. It isn’t like they didn’t have the opportunity.”
Masha sighed. “I don’t know. I wish I could tell you that I understand why it has suddenly become relevant now, when it was not before. If it was something we’ve done that triggered this, there is a strong chance that the government assumes, considering we all have some connection with this project, that we know more than we do.”
Jez looked up from her control panel and grinned. “Guess pretty much everyone must think we know more than we do. Considering we basically know crap.”
“Speak for yourself,” muttered Tae. Jez rolled her eyes at him.
“If that’s the case,” said Lev at last, “then I suppose it would probably be prudent if we were to figure out what it is we’re all supposed to know.”
Jez gave him a look of mild horror. “Listen, genius, if you think I’m going to spend hours going through a bunch of documents—”
“That wasn’t exactly what I was thinking,” Lev murmured. “I was actually thinking of breaking into my old university. I believe there ought to be some files there still. I couldn’t get to them as a student, but if we went in as professors—”
Masha raised her eyebrows, impressed despite herself. “That’s not actually a bad plan,” she said.
“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” said Lev dryly.
“Wait.” There was a note of completely unconcealed delight in Jez’s voice. “You mean, break into a damn university? As professors? We’d sneak in and pretend to be professors and steal crap from the university?”