Stowaway

by John David Anderson

  “This dump?” Kat asked. Baz nodded. “You want to buy a run-down drinking hole on a windswept backwater dust-covered planet in the middle of absolutely freking nowhere? And do what with it, exactly?”

  “Run it,” Baz said. “Own it. Settle down and grow old with it. You could handle the bar. Boo could be the bouncer. We turn Skits into a jukebox, let her play all those my-life-is-horrible-and-you’re-the-reason-why songs she’s always screeching to. We spend our days with our feet on solid ground rather than our heads in the stars. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds terrible,” Kat said. “And not just because of Skits’s screeching. Besides, there’s no way in a million years you’d ever do it. You’d probably have to sell the ship, for one.”

  Baz shrugged.

  “Don’t shrug at me, Bastian Black. You adore that ship. Plus there’s no way you could ever stay still for that long. Even if nobody came looking for the bounty on your head, you couldn’t do it. It’s not in your nature.”

  “One’s nature can change,” Baz said, taking another sip.

  “Not yours,” Kat said. “I know you. The stars are in your blood. Maybe you don’t have to be a pirate, but you’re certainly no barkeep. You have to be out there, looking for something. Always.”

  “Not if I’ve found the thing I’m looking for,” Baz mused.

  “Except I don’t think you even know what that is.”

  “You underestimate me.”

  “No. I wouldn’t make the mistake,” Kat countered. “I’m just saying that whatever it is, I don’t think you’re going to find it here. And certainly not at the bottom of that cup.” Kat nodded at the tankard in the captain’s hand.

  “Only one way to know for sure,” he said, taking another long swallow.

  “What about Leo?” Boo asked.

  Yes, Leo thought. What about me?

  “What about Leo?” Baz asked.

  “If we bought this place, and I was the bouncer and Kat ran the bar, what would Leo do?”

  “I don’t know. What would you do?” Baz’s eyes narrowed, pinning Leo to his seat.

  “Are you finished with your drink?”

  Baz examined his tankard. “Just about. One more swallow.”

  “In that case,” Leo said, “I would wait for you to take one more swallow. Then I would go and get my father back.”

  The two of them studied each other, the pirate and the stowaway. After a beat, Baz finished his drink, setting the tankard softly on the table. “I’m going to go use the facilities,” he said, reaching into his pocket and setting a five pentar piece on the table. “Don’t go anywhere without me.”

  “Aye, aye, captain,” Kat called after him. Leo kept his mouth shut.

  After a while Boo gave one of his tusks a thoughtful tug. “What’s a bouncer again?”

  “He’s the guy who picks up unruly customers and tosses them out of the bar,” Kat answered.

  Boo nodded. “I think I’d be good at that.”

  Before either Leo or Kat could agree, Bastian Black appeared from around the corner, moving much quicker than before.

  “That was fast. You must have really had to go,” Kat said.

  “We all have to go,” he shot back. The captain had that look on his face, the one Leo recognized from Kaber’s Point: pressed lips, creased forehead, worried eyes: the look of the chased.

  Kat grabbed the box of Twinkies and shoved it in Baz’s bag as everyone stood. “What is it this time?”

  “An old friend.”

  “You don’t have any friends.”

  “Not anymore I don’t,” Baz said. “That’s why we’re leaving.”

  As they wove their way through the somewhat wretched hole-in-the-wall, Kat fired more questions at the back of Baz’s head in a hissing whisper. He ignored her, moving quickly, eyes alert. Leo looked around, trying to spot someone who looked dangerous, but to Leo everyone looked dangerous. Instead, he looked around for someone who might have once been friends with a pirate. That didn’t narrow the possibilities.

  They made it to the exit and back into the blasting cold, Baz leading the way, Boo bringing up the rear. Leo glanced behind him. There were a few creatures huddled on the walkways, heavy cloaks or hooded coats cocooned around them. It wasn’t the best place for an ambush—right out in the open with so many witnesses. Then again, like Kaber’s Point, this planet was outside Coalition authority, so it really didn’t matter; there was no local law enforcement to run to. Leo had no idea what Baz’s former friend looked like. He probably wouldn’t know until the gun was pointed their way.

  It didn’t take long.

  They were halfway across the long metal bridge heading toward Dev and Mac’s tower when an energy bolt scorched past Leo’s head, burning a hole in the railing less than a yard away.

  “That’s far enough, Baz,” a voice rang, somehow clear and powerful against the howling wind.

  Leo turned with the rest of the crew to see a figure clad in brown body armor, her green hair cut severely short, a pair of tinted goggles masking her eyes. She looked at least six feet tall. The huge, deadly-looking rifle in her hands was pointed at Bastian Black’s head.

  “Hands where I can see them,” she called. “The Queleti’s too. All of them.”

  “Frag it,” Kat muttered, slowly raising her hands. “You didn’t tell me it was her.”

  “Because I knew what you would say.”

  “Her? Her who?” Leo asked, his own hands up as high as he could get them.

  “Zennia. Baz’s girlfriend.”

  “Ex-girlfriend,” Baz corrected.

  “Who also happens to be a freking bounty hunter,” Kat added.

  Baz shrugged. “We were really only together for, like, a month.”

  “Right. Because it’s hard dating a bounty hunter when you constantly have a price on your head.”

  “Little bit, yeah,” the captain admitted. “You let me handle this. If things go south, you get everyone to the ship. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Wait, you’re not actually going to try and talk your way out of this, are you?” Kat asked.

  “It’s gotta work one of these times,” Baz replied. The wind faltered for a moment, though it didn’t slow Leo’s shiver. The captain of the Icarus took a step forward and then another, his palms up in surrender. “Hey, Zen,” he called out. “Been a while. What are you doing on Vestra? Just here for some fresh air?”

  “It’s a business trip,” the bounty hunter called back. “I don’t normally shoot at people when I’m on vacation. Turns out, a certain already-wanted pirate decided to con a certain wealthy businessman out of five cores worth of V. Then he turned around and trounced a dozen security bots to boot before skipping town.”

  “Sounds like a real jerk,” Baz said.

  “Oh, he is. Thankfully said businessman had the foresight to put a tracker on that pirate’s ugly little yellow ship. Really, Baz, you’re getting sloppy.”

  “I’ve always been a little rough around the edges.” Baz gave Kat an accusatory, how-come-nobody-bothered-to-scan-the-ship-for-tracking-devices stare, then turned back to his ex-girlfriend with the rifle pointed at his head. “You look good, though,” he added, at least sounding sincere. “I like your hair.”

  “You’ve put on weight,” she fired back.

  “Twinkies,” Baz said, inching closer with shuffling steps. “I’ve still got some if you’re interested.”

  “Your head’s worth more, I think. In fact, Grimsley wants the whole lot of you and promised to pay handsomely. He’s especially interested in the kid.”

  Leo shook his head, certain the howling wind had distorted her words. Did she say kid?

  Baz, apparently, was just as confused. “You mean Leo?”

  “He’s worth almost as many pentars as you are,” Zennia said. “Except he has to be brought in alive. With the rest of you, that last bit’s optional.”

  Leo took in the questioning looks from Boo and Kat. Baz, on the other hand, kep
t his eyes on the barrel of the gun pointed his way. He took another calculated step. “What on earth does Grimsley want Leo for?”

  “I didn’t ask. It’s none of my business. The only thing I need to know right now is if you are going to come quietly or if it’s going to be like old times?”

  Baz took a moment to think about it. He scratched his head. It was clearly a sign. Kat and Boo exchanged looks. The pitch of the wind’s whine started to rise, the flutelike whistle that portended a stronger blast.

  “Get ready,” Kat whispered to Leo.

  Ready for what? he thought.

  Bastian Black shrugged. “You’re the one who always said I’d never change.”

  A giant gust suddenly kicked up, roaring across the bridge, nearly lifting Leo off his feet. It was just enough force to cause the bounty hunter’s rifle to lose its bead on Baz’s head.

  Which was just the moment Baz had been waiting for. He crouched and drew both of his pistols, firing in the direction of his ex-girlfriend, but the wind altered his aim as well, causing both shots to go wide. “Go! Get to the ship!” he shouted over his shoulder. The bridge was suddenly a battlefield.

  Leo felt Kat’s hands on his back, pushing him toward the other end of the bridge. He looked back to see Baz and Zennia trading shots, missing each other but managing to put a half dozen holes in the bridge’s siding. “Step on it, stowaway!” Kat shouted in his ear. “Can’t you go any faster?”

  Leo thought of his brother, the middle school track star. Of the races that seemed like they were twenty laps long, and how Gareth seemed to hold back sometimes, conserving his energy until the very last lap, when he exploded, his legs a blur, passing the kids in front of him who were already gassed. Leo had never been near as fast as his brother. But then he’d never been chased by a bounty hunter before either. He could see the end of the bridge and beyond that the tower and then the platform where the Icarus waited for them. He gritted his teeth, legs pistoning.

  Until he felt himself unexpectedly jerked backward by Kat’s claw, skidding to a sudden stop as three black floating disks dropped out of the sky in formation in front of him, small turrets protruding from their bellies. The disks hovered, struggling to stay stable against the wind, sensors flashing, choosing their targets.

  “Get down!” Kat screamed in Leo’s ear.

  Leo dropped, his belly hitting the cold steel of the walkway as the drones unleashed a barrage, blasting the metal all around them. Beside him Kat drew her pistol and returned fire, hitting one of the drones, causing it to spin wildly, trailing black smoke as it dropped out of the sky, spiraling to the red rocks below.

  Another wind gust howled past, accompanied by a growl and a blur of brown and gray fur, two giant feet stepping past Leo, four straining arms grabbing hold of the top metal rail of the bridge, already twisted and scorched from laser fire. The Queleti managed to wrench a length of railing free, a makeshift metal club almost twice his height, and with all four arms he swung it like a baseball bat—like Miguel Ramos himself—smashing it into the side of another drone, sending it careening off course, its scatter of blasts ineffectually fanning the sky. Boo’s second swing missed, however, the final drone it was aiming for swiveling and firing back.

  One of its shots hit home, burying itself in Boo’s shoulder, spinning him around. The furry alien lost his balance, stumbling toward the already broken rail, his growl of pain and fury mixing with the rage of the wind that struck him in the chest like a fist, sending him tumbling over the side.

  “Boo!”

  Leo scrambled across the grated floor of the bridge, frantic, finding the alien holding to what was left of the railing by only one hand, the wounded arm above it hanging limp and useless beside him. Leo braced himself against what remained of the railing as best he could and reached out, not thinking about how much Boo weighed or the shots Kat was trading with the remaining drone, finally taking it down, or the bounty hunter in a duel with the captain or the killer Vestran wind that threatened to brush them all over the side of the bridge.

  “Grab hold!”

  He could see the panic in Boo’s eyes as his robe whipped around him. Boo reached with one of his free hands, but another gust rocked him sideways, just out of Leo’s grasp. He could see Boo’s other hand slipping, losing purchase on its bit of railing. Another shock of wind would knock him loose, send him plummeting to the rocks below.

  Leo stretched as far as he could without pitching himself over the edge, reached as far as he dared.

  The wind suddenly changed directions, lashing back the way it came, sending the Queleti swinging the other way. He lunged again, this time one rough-padded hand locking on. Leo felt his muscles strain, certain the alien was going to pull him off, send them both into a free fall. Don’t let go, Leo thought. Just don’t let go.

  It was no use. He was too heavy. Leo couldn’t hang on. But as he felt the furry paw slipping free, another arm appeared next to Leo’s, its metal grip finding Boo’s last free hand.

  “Pull!” Kat screamed.

  Leo pulled.

  With a growl, Boo heaved himself onto the smoking, laser-blasted bridge, huge hairy chest heaving, afraid or unwilling to let go of the hands that held his.

  “Leo Fender!”

  Leo squinted through the stinging wind and smoke to see Zennia staggering toward him, less than ten feet away. She raised her rifle to her shoulder and Leo stared down the muzzle of the gun.

  A porch. A blade of grass. A breaking wave. A column of smoke.

  Leo stopped breathing.

  He wondered if he would see his mother again.

  Then suddenly the bounty hunter’s body crumpled, knees buckling beneath her, slumping to the deck of the bridge. Behind her stood her ex-boyfriend, in his jeans and Jordans, holding the pistol he’d just used to knock her unconscious, doubled over, trying to catch his breath.

  “Now you see . . . why we . . . broke up,” Baz said.

  The most significant difference between pirate and other ships was the manner in which the pirate company was organized, and the code by which the pirates operated. . . . A hundred years before the French Revolution, the pirate companies were run on lines in which liberty, equality, and brotherhood were the rule rather than the exception. . . . The crew, and not the captain, decided the destination of each voyage.

  —David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag, 1996

  A Unanimous Decision

  WITH KAT’S HELP, BAZ DRAGGED THE BOUNTY HUNTER to the end of the bridge, propping her unconscious body against the tower’s wall and out of the wind.

  “We shouldn’t just leave her here. She wants to kill you, you know,” Kat said, taking Zennia’s rifle for herself. “When she wakes up, she won’t be happy.”

  “I realize that,” Baz said. “But it’s complicated. We have a history. Besides, by the time she does wake up, we will be long gone.”

  He didn’t say where they would be gone to. There was the more pressing matter of the hole in Boo’s shoulder to attend to. “Clean shot,” the captain said, giving it a cursory examination. “We’ll get you patched up when we get back to the Icarus. Think you can make it?”

  The Queleti shrugged the non-blasted shoulder. “It’s just one arm. More where that came from.”

  Leo hoped if he ever got shot with a laser blast he’d have a sense of humor about it. Though he really hoped it never came to that.

  The bridge was easier to cross with no bounty hunters trying to stop them, though the crosswind still proved a worthy adversary. As they passed the second of the two drones Kat shot down, Boo kicked it through the still smoldering gap in the railing. “Next time,” he said, “we fight on solid ground.”

  “Since when do we get to pick our fights?” Kat asked.

  As they made their way around the tower to the landing platform, Leo couldn’t help but glance behind him every third step, though he wasn’t sure what he expected to see. More of Zennia’s drones? Gerrod Grimsley with a posse of refurbished security
bots? A band of Djarik soldiers? Three weeks ago the idea that he had enemies, that there were people out there set against him, Leo Fender, seemed absurd. Yes, there was a war. Leo knew it as well as anyone, and he had lost more than most, but it hadn’t really been his war to fight.

  This felt different. He felt cornered. Haunted. Hunted. Father taken. Brother gone. And now people were looking for him specifically.

  He’s especially interested in the kid.

  This is what it was like to live your life looking over your shoulder, he thought, always wondering if those standing behind you were really on your side or not. Living with this constant slush of dread churning in your stomach. But every glance behind him only showed Kat, hunched over in the wind, her new rifle slung over her shoulder.

  “Keep going, Leo,” she said. “It’s okay. I’ve got your back.”

  Finally they made it to the landing platform, though the Icarus no longer had the place to herself. “Well, kiss my grits,” Baz said.

  “I’ve done enough kissing today,” Boo replied.

  Leo studied the star-shaped fighter sharing the landing platform with the pirate’s ship, gleaming silver and studded with cannons and missiles, looking small and sleek beside Bastian’s busted yellow pear. It was obviously Zennia’s, guessing by Baz’s reaction, and it looked even faster than the Icarus. It was definitely prettier. Newer. And probably worth a lot more.

  “Are we going to steal it?” Leo asked.

  All three pirates looked at him.

  Kat grinned. “Leo Fender. Did you honestly just suggest taking something that doesn’t belong to you? A ship no less?”

  Leo shook his head, realizing his mistake. “No. No. I meant you. Are you going to steal it?”

  “It would keep her off our tail,” Kat suggested.

  “It would,” Baz replied. “But I wouldn’t be caught dead flying that thing. It looks like a toy, plus it’s not my color. I do like the idea of her not being able to follow us though, and we are out of V. . . .” He flashed Kat a look.