by Alex White
“I made Taitutian Royal Pearl tea,” he interrupted. “It’s your favorite. My simulations indicated I should’ve been worried, and I was correct.”
She scowled. “And what makes you think you know my favorite tea?”
“Oh, let’s not be silly, Miss Brio,” he said, his voice almost singsong. “There’s more information about you on the Link than any other member of the crew, and that’s saying something. Of course I know it.”
She sneered. “Well good job, mate.”
“That’s first mate to you,” he said, but his voice lacked the characteristic severity that accompanied reminders of his title. “Let’s chat.”
Armin’s quarters were messy, but they were a safer place to meet than Nilah’s, with the possibility of Orna bursting back in at any moment. He’d never bothered to clean up his cables, which were routed this way and that in long tangles across his floor. Twice, she’d nearly tripped over the arrangement on the way to her seat at his meager dining area. He settled in across from her in his datamancer’s throne—the one she’d helped him construct during the end of the Harrow mission.
“You’re remarkably easy to decipher,” he said.
Nilah took a sip of her warm drink. It wasn’t well brewed, but Royal Pearl wasn’t a mixture for novices. “I take it from your offering that you’re trying to make me feel better.”
“Not at all,” said Armin. “I’m merely attempting to improve my own emotional intelligence, and you make an ideal test case.”
“Oh,” she grumbled, sitting back in her chair and taking another greedy swig.
“Or,” he began, resting the cup on the arm of his chair, “I said I was practicing emotional intelligence so you’d mentally categorize this conversation as low impact, and be more willing to stick around.”
“You’re such a filthy cheat, Armin. You should’ve taken up cards.”
“You know casinos won’t allow my kind inside,” he said. “Not unless I work there.”
“At least we’re happy to put up with you.”
“You pushed Orna too hard on your last mission, and now you’re paying the price.”
The old Nilah, the one who stood on podiums, might’ve thrown her mug at him for such brazen familiarity, but the new Nilah was simply shocked at the first mate’s utterance. Fresh anger boiled inside her, and if he was going to abandon his officer’s rank to comment on her relationship, she’d show him the minefield he’d entered.
“So this is my fault?” she shot back, all trace of playfulness gone from her voice.
“Nilah,” he said, “there’s a difference between ‘your doing’ and ‘your fault.’ The problems in your interactions can rarely ever be chalked up to a single party.” He stood from his throne and went to lean on the edge of his workbench. “I’m concerned that if you two don’t reach some kind of parity, you could lose a good thing.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
He blinked at her with a strange look, like he was trying to work out a puzzle. “I wouldn’t suffer a woman my company.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Not interested.” He raised a hand. “And before you keep going, I don’t care for sex or romance at all. Never have.”
Nilah shrugged. “Then why would you have any advice about Orna?”
“Because we’re all just data points, and from those, I can create information, and from that, I create insights. You did something that Orna can’t abide, and I’m here to tell you what that is. Think of it as keeping our engines lubricated.”
Arching an eyebrow, she said, “You don’t lubricate arcdrive engines. They don’t have moving—”
“Try to bear with me,” he interrupted. “On a normal military vessel, your relationship—as well as Malik and Aisha’s—would be forbidden, and for good reason. You’d be vulnerable to nasty lapses in judgment that could cause people to get hurt or killed. You might favor one another over the other members of the crew, handing out preferential treatment such as promotions or even rescues.”
His face hardened, and she spied some of his famed shrewdness coming through. “And I promise, if that was the case, I’d have harangued the captain until one of you was dismissed.”
Nilah leaned back in her chair and set her saucer to one side. “But it’s not.”
“Correct. Military doctrine is largely based upon two cognitive biases: confirmation and survivorship. However, the data don’t lie: the couples on our ship are more productive and brave than we could’ve predicted, and the Capricious has survived far more encounters than he ought to have.”
Nilah swallowed a bitter look. “So … what? I should keep shagging Miss Sokol for the good of the ship?”
The first mate stood, tapped his console, and summoned a couple of trend lines into effect around their heads. “I hadn’t wanted to put it so succinctly, but I’m glad you grasp my thoughts.”
“You said that I’d done something to her.”
He raised a finger. “And I could tell you what that is, but you’re statistically more likely to accept my conclusion if you arrive at it yourself. So we need to start with your greatest fear.”
“Sirathica?” she snorted. “Because those bat things on Blix were—”
“Impotence,” he countered, tracing his glyph and slapping his palm to his personal aggregator crystal ball. Thousands of luminous particles filled the air, and when Nilah looked closer, she could see her own head and torso, clad in a racing fire suit. They were frames from her tons of trackside interviews.
“These,” he began, and most of the heads grouped into a tight, glowing cluster, “are the times you said you worried about technical difficulties before a race.”
Frowning, she made a quick survey of the remaining heads—not a lot. “Of course. Engine failures are ridiculously common, so we’re all afraid of that.”
“Compared to the remainder of the league in the last season, you mentioned car failure twenty-six percent more than the average racer. You were most afraid that circumstances beyond your control would cause you to lose sight of the car in front of you.”
“Did you know I fired my last sports psychiatrist?” she asked, her voice flat with annoyance.
“I wouldn’t doubt it. They probably suggested that your mind was currently beyond your control. That plays right into your worst fear.” He raised a hand to stop her speaking. “Those fears have enabled you to do incredible things. You broke out of your cell and took over our ship. You fought off a horde of springflies. You volunteered to remain on our mission to destroy the Gods of the Harrow, a charter deadly beyond measure. So fear is nothing to be afraid of, so to speak.”
She stood, peering through the interviews, trying to conjure up the memories of each one, but without context, it was hard to remember anything she’d said. “If you’re about to tell me I’m motivated by fear, and Orna is motivated by love—or any other flavor of the fear-love dichotomy—I’m about to tell you to stuff it.”
Armin waved away the face-shaped snowflakes, and they disappeared into nothingness. He picked up his tea and took a sip, pulling a face. “I didn’t do a very good job on this. Already bitter.”
Nodding at her own cup, she said, “It takes a lot of ceremonial training. It’s not for foreigners.”
“Orna has fought so hard to have a family of any stripe. Security and safety are—”
“Safety!” Nilah repeated incredulously.
“Yes. That’s important to her.”
“We reused a jump dump! She dropped into the Pinnacle in a crash pod!”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” said Armin. “Her view of what constitutes safety is light-years away from what anyone else would find acceptable.”
He twisted his hands over the crystal ball and the image of a grubby adolescent materialized, clothes tattered, face twisted in anger. Nilah realized with a pang of sadness that the kid stood hand in hand with Ranger.
This early on in its life, Ranger’s origins were easy to spot. It still bore
the battered paint of an emergency rescue armor, designed to extricate humans from extreme conditions. Those kinds of suits weren’t without some intelligence—if they sensed a threat to someone’s life, they’d charge in there and jam that person into the body cavity, whether they wanted to come along or not.
It was so easy to imagine what’d happened in the Arcan warzone: Ranger rescued Orna, and she hacked it so she could stay alive.
“Orna had to endure more than most of us could bear,” said Armin. “She doesn’t talk about her origins, but it’s easy for a datamancer to connect the dots. She lost a sibling, both parents, and last year, the most faithful friend she ever had.”
Nilah swallowed. Despite the fury her girlfriend had engendered, that smoldering anger couldn’t survive this picture of young Orna. Nilah wanted to reach out and hold the projection, kiss her forehead, tell her that everything was going to work out.
Armin interrupted her thoughts. “So now you need to understand what you did. Several times, you’ve … disagreed about the best ways to pursue a mission. In the Pinnacle, she wanted to cut and run, and you insisted on rescuing Sharp.”
She scoffed. “And on the Harrow, she wanted me to go on without her. If I’d listened to her, we’d both be dead.”
Nodding, Armin said, “I know. We’re talking about what you did, not what you did wrong. Despite not having a fixed chain of command, our unit cohesion remains excellent because of our exceptional crew. I wouldn’t change it for the largest, purest eidolon crystal out there. You need to understand, however, that Orna worries that she’ll lose you, and with good reason. She’s lost everything else.”
Nilah rolled that thought over in her mind as she stood and grabbed a cube of soda out of Armin’s food locker. She got one for him, too, and placed them both into cups, where they melted. She handed his over with a smile. “Sorry about the tea, chum.”
Armin thanked her and put the cup aside. “You like to go it alone, striking out whenever you want, and that’s hard for her. She thinks she’s going to watch you die … or leave. She’s distancing herself from you, getting ready for the blow.”
Looking Nilah dead in the eyes, he added, “Don’t let her. Show her how much you love her and get this worked out. For the good of this ship.”
Orna never much spoke about the early days on the ship, no matter how much Nilah had pressed her. Armin’s image of the young woman distorted and disappeared, leaving only empty space where there was once something beautiful.
Boots awoke with the taste of copper in her mouth, and the accent lights of the med bay faded up. She smacked her lips and licked them, her tongue catching on dry skin. A pleasant chime signaled her consciousness, and Malik sat up in a nearby bed, yawning.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, tracing his purple glyph and placing his hand to her shoulder.
“Bleh,” she replied, but the drowsiness drained from her system, replaced with an acute sense of her own body—not too shabby, considering she’d done a space walk in her pajamas.
He charged his spell again and touched his own chest, his eyes lighting up. “The Hemaflexin will do that.”
Boots frowned. “Your glyph can wake people up?”
“Don’t tell anyone,” said Malik, winking. “I’ll have half the crew down here any time they have a hangover.” He passed her a pile of her clothes and added, “You’ll want to get dressed.”
Boots nodded, testing her unsteady feet on the floor. They seemed to function just fine, so she stood and pulled on her clothes over her skivvies. After a moment, Malik crossed to the intercom and called the captain to inform him she was awake.
“Good. Have her report to the bridge,” was the captain’s only reply.
Taking his finger off the transmit button, Malik said, “Don’t let him push you too hard. Doctor’s orders.”
Boots finished fastening the clips on her shirt and smiled. “Oh, then I’ve got about twenty years of complaints to file.”
Malik chortled, and she took her leave. The corridors of the ship were deserted, and the quarters Boots passed were buttoned up tight. Whatever was going on, the crew were already at ready stations.
She made her way to the bridge and found Cordell, Armin, Aisha, and the twins at the orienteering console once occupied by Didier, patiently watching the projection in the center of the room.
“Glad you decided to join us!” said Cordell. “Sleep okay, or did you want another nap?”
Boots gave him a lackadaisical salute. “You ever stepped out an airlock, sir?”
Running his fingers over his curly hair, Cordell said, “Not after watching that, I won’t. I felt awful just looking at you.”
“Just tell me you got the intel, Captain.”
His eyes remained affixed to hers for a good long while, face stern, brow furrowed. She could see in his posture that they’d failed, and she’d jumped into space for nothing.
Then he cracked a smile.
Then burst out laughing.
“I’m just jerking you, Bootsie! We’ve got him!”
Armin nodded with a jovial grin that fit him like a cheap mask, then keyed on the projector, and the image of a space station scrambled into focus along with the word “Congratulations!” The twins clapped. Aisha raised her fist.
The barrister’s mark uncoiled within her, and the melting of that vast, unseen burden nearly toppled her over. Warmth suffused her body, like relaxing a muscle she hadn’t known was tense.
She’d told others what she knew, so her contract was void. She was free.
“I keyed in the coordinates from your memory, but what are we looking at?” said Armin, gesturing to the large, if plain, space station depicted on the projector. “This place is totally unregistered.”
“That’s the Masquerade,” said Boots. “The ultimate neutral ground. No fights. All organizations welcome. Identities are protected. That’s why the gods can’t just take the chalice from Stetson.”
“Who runs it?” asked Armin.
“It’s independent,” said Boots. “Funded by a trust. They make a point of not working for anyone at all, and it’s one of the best-kept secrets in the galaxy.”
“Well, that’s neat.” Cordell hooked his thumbs into his pockets and sauntered over to her. “I’ve got to admit, Bootsie, this is going to make a sweet story when we finally kill old Henrick Witts.”
Armin raised a finger. “And I can finally say we tossed you out of an airlock.”
Boots chuckled. “Good god, sir. Now that you’ve accomplished that dream, what are you going to do with yourself?”
“Maybe I can focus on throwing the gods out of airlocks,” he said, turning to face Jeannie. “Any word from the Prism?”
“Not yet, sir,” she replied. “We’ll keep listening.”
“The Prism?” asked Boots.
Cordell nodded to the blue sphere of Chaparral, broken by cracks of volcanic activity. “This is an uninhabited system. No Gate Cartel presence, which means no jump gates, so we’re doing the next best thing.”
“We hired a Flow freighter,” said Armin.
That couldn’t be right. Those ships had a dozen personnel and were carefully controlled by galactic logistics companies. Someone like Cordell couldn’t simply reroute one off its shipping lane.
“That sounds … expensive?” Boots ventured.
“It was,” said Cordell. “I don’t have the contacts to make something like that happen. Lucky for us, we know an ex-Fixer we can trust with our lives. Checo DosSantos may be a plastic surgeon now, but Fixers can get anything.”
“Miss Brio might disagree—” But a bright flash lit up the bridge and sucked away the rest of Boots’s sentence.
“Contact!” called Aisha.
As the shock wore off, Boots spied a massive cargo vessel at least half the size of the Harrow looming in their view. It had a used, industrial look, like it’d scraped across half the ports in the galaxy, and scarred paint down one side read Prism. With a vessel of that size
, they could move half a city from world to world.
“Looks like our boy,” said Armin.
Boots frowned. “Sir, uh … how … did you get a ship this size to come to us?”
“When she made disguises for everyone, Doctor DosSantos said she owed Nilah,” said Armin, “so she handled all the procurement and secrecy.”
That made sense, but it still didn’t explain how they’d moved a ship like the Prism. It wasn’t like he could be rerouted on a simple favor. “What about fuel, personnel, all that stuff?”
Cordell sniffed and looked away. “Remember all of those argent chits you recovered on Mercandatta?”
“You mean the only cash we’ve made on this haul?”
“We’re rich, Boots!” said Cordell. “We don’t need more money!”
“We won’t be if you keep throwing away all our loot!”
“Look …” said Cordell. “We expensed the Prism against everyone’s shares, so there isn’t much left.”
So even though they’d robbed one of the best-protected vaults around, probably getting onto a few most-wanted lists, they had no argents for it. “How much have we got?”
With a grimace, Cordell said, “We could probably pay your bar tab for one week.”
“The Prism is hailing us, sir,” said Aisha.
“Patch them through.”
A squat, imposing fellow with a bushy beard and brow lines like layers of sedimentary rock filled their projection, standing before Cordell.
“Captain Lamarr. This is Checo DosSantos.”
Not the lithe paragon of beauty they’d seen on Harvest, then. Boots liked their style—a gorgeous creature when they wanted to sell new disguises, a cantankerous old coot when they wanted to captain a jump freighter. Judging from Aisha’s reaction, she was similarly impressed.
“Glad to see you. Mind if we come aboard?” he asked. “We’ve got places to be.”
Checo turned off image and called to someone, “Marshall, let’s make this pickup and get paid, shall we?”
As they approached, the Prism looked like nothing more than a rough cobbling of container modules and linkages, but he unfolded into a magnificent docking bay like an ancient paper puzzle. The Capricious settled onto one of the hull plates as directed by approach, and the Prism reformed, enveloping them.