“You left the military?” she asked Nic.
Nic looked away, staring out a viewport as if she saw something fascinating outside. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Okay, never mind. Come along if you want. Now who else do we have in this strange assortment of passengers?” She frowned. “Fade told me there would be five of you. Where’s the other one?”
“My brother didn’t want to come,” Lainie said.
“Smart kid. I suppose I should give Fade a refund for his passage.” She chuckled. “But I won’t. Even four of you is more than I want aboard my ship, so just stay out of my way.”
She moved close to Javen, looked him up and down, and then walked all the way around him. He stood very still. I could see a muscle in his jaw twitching.
“Hmmm … you are a pretty boy,” Divana said. “If I didn’t know Nic better, I’d say that’s why she is vouching for you. But there must be some other reason.” She glanced at Nic, who didn’t say anything. “I usually don’t like to take any passenger who is too good looking.”
“The rest of them aren’t too shabby,” the old woman said. She gave a smile that showed off her silver-capped teeth, common among raiders. She’d added an extra touch—each tooth had a ruby chip set into it, making it look like her mouth was covered in fresh drops of blood. I tried not to stare. I’m sure she had it done to intimidate people, but the impact was lessened by her small size and the strands and strands of colorful beads she wore around her neck. They made her look like a child playing dress-up.
“You know I don’t like the ones who stand out,” Divana said. “That can be a problem. Too memorable.”
I supposed Javen was good-looking in an intense sort of way, but it was ridiculous to turn it into a problem. “No one is going to see us,” I said. “We’re going to Fosaan. It doesn’t matter what Javen looks like.”
Divana ignored me. She stared at Mags like she had just noticed the parrot for the first time. “I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to this. Why is that creature on my ship?”
“It was a last-minute problem,” I said. “I didn’t have anywhere else to leave her. She won’t cause any problems.”
Mags picked that moment to come alert. She launched into her typical reaction to show she was upset, making loud incoming-missile noises interspersed with squawking, “Man the decks!”
“Mags!” Lainie cried. “You’re better!”
The missile sounds stopped. “The bird is hungry,” Mags squawked.
One of the other raiders, the girl who had been quiet up to this point, laughed and clapped her hands together. “How pretty!”
“Pretty bird,” Mags agreed.
I was afraid Divana would explode, but she just shook her head and turned away, muttering, “I should have charged more.”
Since Mags appeared to have been accepted as a passenger, I relaxed a little. One small hurdle overcome.
The ship ascended, and I watched the red cliffs disappear under the clouds. Lainie came over and linked her arm in mine. “Do you think we’ll ever see it again?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Now that we were aboard, a wave of tiredness swept over me. I needed some sleep soon.
“Are you going to introduce me?” the old woman at the pilot station said.
Divana raised an eyebrow. “That’s a new one. Children, meet Pixie, our pilot. Don’t bother her. She doesn’t like people.”
The woman cackled again and then began to cough, deep, harsh hacks that racked her whole body. The coughing made the beads around her neck shake and rattle so much she had to clutch them to hold them still.
It sounded terrible, but since Divana and the others didn’t seem concerned, I assumed it meant the woman wasn’t about to take her last breaths. When she finally stopped coughing, she said, “Divana exaggerates. Don’t believe her, my little dear hearts. I just don’t like people getting too close to me.” She gave one more cough and added, “I do make an exception if you bring me a present. I’m very fond of presents.”
I made a note to remember that. It wouldn’t hurt to have some allies among the crew.
“Where is Creak?” Divana said. “Pixie, tell him to get his stinking carcass to the engine room and find out what’s causing the sluggishness.” She waved her hand in the direction of the girl. “This is Wren. She’s our weapons specialist. She’ll show you where to put your gear. And she’ll tell you which areas are restricted. Pay attention to that.”
I didn’t know raiders came so young. Wren was maybe fifteen or sixteen. Unlike Divana and Pixie, she wasn’t bald, though her hair was really short. I noticed the backs of her hands were covered in small, brightly colored butterfly tattoos.
“Should I leave my station?” the girl asked. “What if a CF ship tries to stop us? You’ll need me to blast it.”
I thought I hadn’t heard her correctly. People didn’t just fire on Combined Forces patrol ships without a very good reason.
“Go ahead,” Divana told her. “I’m sure we won’t need you at the moment.”
The fourth woman in the cockpit had not given a sign she even knew we were there.
She was older than Wren, maybe in her twenties. Since she wasn’t bald and she didn’t have any space lines on her face, she couldn’t have been a raider for long. Her skin was a golden color, which really stood out against her red hair. At first I thought she was just engrossed in whatever job she was working on, but as I watched her, I noticed something a little off. I realized she had a faint glow around her. I glanced down at her feet. One of them was missing. It wasn’t a woman at all. It was an MI bot.
That explained a lot of things.
It explained how Divana had managed to get back on the planet the instant the coup failed. An MI could tap into any communication and get landing access codes. And it gave Divana an advantage on basically anything she wanted to do. We’d known she’d been working with Ansun to steal the MI technology. She had been on the space station with him when we’d tried to free the scientists from the raiders. Ansun had been working with the raiders to remove the equipment and the labs to set up their own manufacturing facility somewhere.
I hadn’t realized he’d let her have one of the completed MIs, though I suppose Divana may have applied some sort of force to get one.
“Quinn,” Lainie tapped my arm. Everyone was looking at me like I’d missed something. I’d been too busy thinking about the MI to listen to whatever had just been said. “Come on,” Lainie urged. “Wren is showing us our quarters.” I glanced over at Divana, who was glaring at me.
“This way,” Wren said. She had such a soft voice, I had a tough time making out her words. As we followed her I watched her odd way of walking, with her hands held out in front of her body as if she was afraid she’d run into something.
She led us down to the lower level to an area at the back of the ship, pushing the mark on the wall to open a door and then standing back so we could go in. “These are the passenger quarters.”
I had expected some standard bunks in a typical crew-quarters space. This wasn’t typical. The room was a jumble of stuff: containers, some wicker baskets (which I’d never seen on a ship before), and colorful padded furniture all stacked up.
“You’re joking, right?” Decker said, maneuvering around a stack of containers. “This is a storeroom and … and something else.” Large pieces of cloth decorated with geometric designs had been attached to the center of the ceiling and then pulled out and attached to the upper part of the walls all the way around the room. It gave the illusion we were in a giant tent.
“The previous owner was from Oamniq.” Wren reached out and touched the fabric. “The ship was a long-haul freighter, and I guess he got homesick. He used this as his own private space. The cloth is pretty, isn’t it? Since we only use the room for storage, Divana hasn’t bothered to change anything. There isn’t enough space to have separate passenger quarters.”
“Isn’t Oamniq a desert
planet like Reyet?” I said, examining one of the designs. “I suppose I can see why he wanted it, though it would have been a lot less work to use a scene setter to hologram some of it.” I could understand wanting to block out the constant reminder of being closed up in a ship.
“I’m sorry,” Wren said. “We don’t have passengers very often, and never on this ship. We sometimes had them on the other ship.” She looked over at me. She meant the one I’d blown up. She clearly hadn’t been on it at the time of the explosion. I didn’t remember much after seeing the initial explosion, but I doubted anyone could have survived that.
“So where do we sleep?” Decker asked.
Wren opened the lid of a large container. “There are popup hammocks in here, and some sleeping pallets too. You can move the containers around or stack them to make the space you need.”
“It’s no worse than our place on Reyet,” I said. “And unlike our space there, this is temperature controlled.” It was quiet too. Either the engines had smoothed out or the room was well insulated.
Decker walked around the space and sighed. “At least it’s clean.”
“You’ll have to eat after the crew,” Wren said. “The mess isn’t big enough for everybody to eat at the same time. Our cook is also the medic, and, um … I’d advise you not to make any remarks about the food unless it’s to say it’s wonderful. He’s a little touchy about critique, and if he gets mad, you aren’t going to want to eat the food he’ll set in front of you.” She had such a serious look on her face, I knew she wasn’t joking. The mention of food made my stomach rumble. I should have eaten some of that crizald.
“And you should stay off the back of middeck,” Wren added. “The crew quarters are there, and some of the crew like their privacy.”
I hoped the crew wouldn’t be a problem. I’d been brought up on stories that raiders were willing to slit a person’s throat just for looking at them the wrong way.
“How many are on board?” Javen asked. He looked as wary as I felt. Since he’d been one of Ansun’s followers for a time, he must have had plenty of contact with raiders when they were secretly transporting people off Fosaan.
Wren ticked off people on her fingers. “Besides the cook, there’s Manny, who is general maintenance. Then there’s Ryger, the quartermaster. Those three act as backup force when needed.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Lainie asked.
Nic replied instead of Wren. “Sometimes a group of large intimidating people can be very convincing in making someone do what’s asked of them, even if at first they don’t want to do it.”
That painted a clear picture. In other words, they’d break your fingers or your legs if you didn’t do what Divana wanted.
“And last, there’s Creak.” Wren’s mouth turned down. I saw her hands were trembling. “He’s new. He is the engine specialist.”
“Divana claimed you’re a weapons specialist,” Decker said to Wren. “How’d you pick that title up? It takes a lot of practice to get good at that.”
Wren looked down at her hands and twisted them together. “I don’t know. I like to shoot at things.” She didn’t look back up, and I could tell she was uneasy with the question.
“Never mind,” Lainie said. “We’re just being nosy. I could happily get through life without acquiring a title as a specialist of anything. It’s like a box you get put in and then you’re stuck. I don’t like boxes.”
“I don’t like boxes either,” Wren whispered. She clasped her hands together, her eyes looking up at the ceiling instead of at us.
“Divana calls Wren the human of the crew,” Nic said. “Raiders aren’t known for having the whole range of human traits, but Wren here does.”
“Goodbye,” Wren blurted. “I’ll be back in a little while and show you where to eat.” She darted out the door.
“What’s her story?” Lainie asked Nic. “She looks like she might break apart if someone so much as sneezed on her.”
“She’s shy, but she’s tougher than she looks. I don’t know how she ended up here, but it may not be a story she wants to tell,” Nic replied. “Raiders rarely do.” She frowned. “Now that the sweetness has left the room, we don’t have to attempt to be polite any more. Are you going to tell me why he’s here?” she asked, looking at me but gesturing at Javen. The dislike in her voice reminded me she was a Reyetan through and through. She’d never trust a Fosaanian completely.
“Fade arranged for him to come with us,” I said. “He doesn’t think we were capable enough on our own.” I didn’t add that I was beginning to suspect Fade wasn’t telling us everything he knew. I’d been the one to approach him about going after Mira, so I didn’t understand why he’d decided to get more of our group involved. If he’d really wanted results, he had enough money to hire a team of trained people to go after Mira. While we had managed to stay alive so far, it was more a combination of luck and a weird assortment of skills we’d pooled together. He knew as well as I did that we couldn’t count on that helping us in the future.
“You’re going to need me,” Javen said. “I’ve been to the palace complex. I know my way around.”
“So when Fade tells you to jump, you jump,” Decker said.
Javen glared at him. “The situation is very complicated. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why wouldn’t we understand?” Decker’s voice rose. “You Fosaanians are going to have to realize you can’t look down on everyone. You aren’t as superior as you think.” I saw Decker’s fists clenching and unclenching. It was a bad sign. I didn’t doubt Decker could knock Javen down with a punch, but I’d seen Fosaanians fight. Javen would bounce right back up, and when he did, Decker would get the worst of it.
Javen had a cooler head than Decker. “Fade’s reasons don’t matter,” he said in an even voice. “You’re going to need me. I still think this is a suicide mission, but on the off chance it isn’t, you need some people to survive and get Mira away.”
Decker didn’t reply. He stomped over to a hammock and pulled on it like he was testing it to see if it would hold.
“Well aren’t we a jolly bunch?” Nic said. She looked around the room. “There’s not enough room here. I’m going to find somewhere else to bunk. We’ll talk about plans later.”
After she left, the space felt a little less cramped. I took Mags out of the cage she’d been in because it was too small and made her another one out of one of the baskets. It would work fine because she didn’t like cages with doors, but she did like to be enclosed sometimes, and she settled down right away. The others began rearranging things, but I was so tired I settled myself in one of the hammocks, wanting a few minutes to rest my eyes. The pain in the injured one was a dull throb, but I knew it would get worse if I didn’t lie down for a bit.
It felt like I’d just gotten in the hammock when a jolt threw me out of it. I landed on the floor, a needle of pain jabbing my eye. I closed both, trying to let the pain wash through me, hoping it would subside if I held still.
From the sounds of cursing and cries of pain, I wasn’t the only one who’d been tossed.
Mags didn’t sound bothered. She was singing an old rhyme my little sister used to chant. “Dance till you drop! Dance till you drop!”
She was right. We had dropped. I just didn’t know why.
Chapter Six
I felt a nudge in my side. “Um, Quinn, you aren’t moving. Are you okay?” Decker asked.
I opened my eyes. The pain retreated to a dull ache in the back of my head.
“Not dead,” I said. “Not particularly interested in moving, though.”
“We’re going to go see what happened,” Lainie said. “Are you going to stay there, or do you want to come with us?”
I was afraid if I moved the pain would come back. “I’ll stay here for a while, thanks. The floor isn’t so bad.”
I closed my eyes again, concentrating on holding still. I was feeling fairly relaxed when the door open
ed again.
“We’ve got a problem,” Lainie said. “Divana says we might have to turn back to Reyet.”
I shot upright, the pain stabbing me again. Bad move.
“No, we can’t go back!” I wouldn’t be lucky enough to avoid Ronti a second time.
“If her engine person can’t fix the problem, we don’t have any other options,” Javen said.
I bent my head forward to relieve the pain. “What’s the problem?”
“She doesn’t know yet. Her MI, Tineg, is running diagnostics.”
I sighed. “Decker, would you give me a hand up?”
He pulled me up. I stood, feeling shaky but not dizzy. I knew the shakiness would go away soon enough. “I’m going to go try to help,” I told them. “I helped my dad repair basically every part of the Pelican at one time or another.”
“They may not want your help,” Decker warned.
“I’ll figure out a way. Anybody know how to get to the engine room?”
No one did, but it wasn’t hard to find. I knew I had to go down and aft. As I approached it, the ragged noise I’d heard on takeoff grew louder and louder.
I didn’t expect to see Nic. She came down a ladder from the upper deck that ended right outside the engine room door. I knew why it was there. It made for easy access when the ship was running on a skeleton crew.
“What are you doing down here?” she asked, not looking at all pleased to see me.
“I came to see if I can help,” I said. “Do you know about engines?”
“I know a little,” she said. “I learned some things before I did my Combined Forces training.”
I wondered if that meant she’d flown with Divana on raids. Interesting. “Okay, let’s see what we can find.”
The engine room was hot, which was normal, and it stank, which wasn’t. It had a standard layout, though the lighting was poor. Some of the lights weren’t as bright as they should be and others were out.
“There’s no one here,” I said. “I thought the ship’s mechanic was supposed to be checking things out.”
Paradox Hunt Page 6