by R. M. Olson
Tanya was watching her.
For a few moments, they just looked at each other.
“I love you, Ysi,” said Tanya at last, quietly.
“And you believe we should do this,” said Ysbel. Her voice was choked, somehow. “Even though right now, if we don’t do anything, we get out alive.”
“I do,” said Tanya, even more softly.
Ysbel closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Then she turned back to Olya, who was still watching her.
“My love,” she said, trying to smile. “My Olyeshka. I can’t promise I can fix this. But—I will try. Alright?”
The glow on Olya’s face was sudden and brilliant, like the sun coming out from behind clouds.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JEZ WAS ALMOST vibrating with tension as the guards gestured them to their feet, slapped mag cuffs around their wrists, and herded them out the back way towards Grigory’s ship.
They’d relieved her of her heat pistol when they’d cuffed her—at least the one she’d had in her hand. They hadn’t found the one she’d shoved into the small holster in her boot, or the gutting knife slipped in the sheath on the inside of her thigh. Galya had shown her that trick—most guards would pat you down too thoroughly there, which gave you another chance to stab them in the gut.
Yet another reason she liked Galina.
“Go on,” the guard growled, and she realized she’d slowed, and that there was a small grin starting on her face.
She was still swallowing back tears, honestly. But something was spreading through her body, something like the feeling she’d had in the alley back in the slums, when she’d picked a fight with about five people and all their damn bodyguards.
Maybe she couldn’t fix all this crap, but she’d be damned if she gave up without a fight.
The ship was waiting for them outside the forcefield. The guards hustled them up the loading ramp and into the ship, and then closed the ramp behind them. Three more guards waited on board, and they shoved the Ungovernable crew into their seats. Jez ended up between Tae and Tanya. Tae glared at her as she shifted in her seat and managed to jab him in the ribs with her elbow, but honestly, he couldn’t exactly blame her. Not like she’d asked to be cuffed and stuck between him and Tanya.
“Would you stop?” he muttered as she shifted again, trying to get comfortable.
She rolled her eyes at him.
Are you ready?
It was basically impossible to tell who was tapping out the message in pilot’s code by listening to the clicks over her earpiece, but she turned and shot Masha a quick grin.
Remember, someone, probably Lev, tapped out. No one makes a move until we’re out of atmosphere. Tae, you can reactivate the blockers on the coms even with your hands cuffed, right?
Tae looked up briefly and gave a quick nod, but his face was tight with worry.
Don’t worry, tech-head, she tapped, because honestly it was easier than trying to lean over to whisper to him. Figure we’ll be fast enough that your buddy Zhenya won’t even know we’re coming.
Zhenya is not my damn friend. She could almost hear the annoyance through his quick taps, and she grinned despite herself.
The guards watched them coldly, guns loose in their hands.
She could feel when the ship started up, the faint humming in her bones, the slight jerk as they lifted off. She shook her head. Bit of a crap pilot, if you could feel liftoff. It was supposed to be so smooth that the only reason you knew you were in the air was the sudden drop of your stomach.
She glanced across the small deck at Ysbel. The woman nodded, and Jez’s grin widened.
Tae, are you ready?
Tae nodded.
Alright. On my count.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the concentration on Lev’s face.
Honestly, he’d come a long way from the soft scholar boy who hated being shot at.
Three he tapped out.
Two.
One.
Jez exploded out of her seat. The guards jerked to attention, swinging their guns towards her, but Ysbel was already up, and kicked the legs out from the guard closest to Jez. The guard went down, and Jez took three running steps forward, bowling into another guard and sending the heat-gun blast into the ceiling and the two of them to the floor in a swearing, struggling heap. Jez ducked, managing to turn aside enough that the blow the guard aimed at her jaw struck her cheekbone, but it wasn’t a huge improvement, to be honest. She rolled out of the way of another blow, but the guard grabbed her arm and jerked her back around.
Jez looked around quickly.
Ysbel had subdued the guard she’d knocked the legs from under by the simple expedient of a sharp kick to the temple, but the other guard was still standing, and was bringing her weapon to bear on Jez.
Jez twisted, trying to pull herself free of the guard’s grasp. He tightened his grip, swearing, then his knee slammed into her back. She grunted as the pain knifed down her spine, her legs going weak and tears blurring her vision.
Damn it to hell.
The guard in front of her smiled, and even through the tears of pain Jez could make out the dark, menacing shape of a heat-pistol muzzle pointed at her face.
And then the woman’s expression changed to one of faint surprise, and she collapsed gently to the ground.
Masha stood behind her, half-turned, a shock-stick in her cuffed hands.
Jez stared for a moment.
Hell of a shock stick to take someone down like that.
Still, if Ysbel could mod heat guns—
OK, she really needed to ask Ysbel to make her one of those.
Another jolt of pain shot through her side, and she yelped involuntarily.
Probably should focus on the fact that she was about to be killed by the maniac guard who’d gotten a hold of her arms, actually.
She braced her feet on the deck and kicked off, knocking the guard backwards. There was a satisfying crack as his head hit the deck, and then she slammed her own head backwards into the bridge of his nose. He gave a gargled shout of pain, then Tanya’s boot connected with the side of his head, and he went limp.
Jez rolled painfully over, panting heavily. Every part of her body hurt, and yes, hitting him in the face with the back of her head had been effective, but she was going to have a hell of a headache to show for it.
“You alright, Jez?” Lev asked in a strained voice.
“Define ‘alright,’” she grumbled, wincing as she maneuvered herself painfully into position to get to her feet.
Tanya had shoved the man over with her foot, and had her foot on the back of his neck. When he stirred, she pressed down a little harder, and he subsided. The other two guards were in similar postures.
“Tae,” said Tanya. “If you have the blockers set, would you trade me off, please? I’m going to go look for something to tie them up with.”
“If I didn’t have the blockers set, we’d damn well be in the process of getting shot out of the sky,” Tae grumbled, but he came over and did as Tanya asked.
By the time Jez had managed to get to her feet, gritting her teeth against the sharp jolts of pain shooting down her spine at every movement, Tanya had managed to retrieve the knife from her boot and cut strips off one of the guards’ coats. It was honestly pretty impressive, considering her hand were still cuffed.
“Did any of them get word off to the pilot?” asked Lev, glancing over at Tae.
“I don’t think so,” said Tae. “The blocker should have stopped internal lines as well as external, but I can check. Let me see your com, since I can’t get to mine.”
Jez snickered as Lev and Tae maneuvered themselves into a position where Tae could pull up the holoscreen on Lev’s com.
Tae looked up long enough to glare at her.
“Careful there,” she said. “Ivan might get jealous.”
“Jez—” he said through gritted teeth.
Despite the tension, Ysbel was clearly trying to hide
an amused smirk.
“No,” said Tae after a moment. “Looks like they didn’t get a call out.”
Lev breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Then I guess our next step is to hijack the ship.”
“Don’t suppose you thought about how to get us out of these?” asked Jez, lifting her cuffed hands.
Lev’s expression was grim. “I was counting on us using the maintenance tools. But unfortunately, it appears they’re stowed in the cockpit.”
Jez grinned. “Not like this is the first time I’ve escaped with my hands cuffed behind my back.”
“Jez, what are you—” Lev started, but she’d already turned towards the cockpit.
“Masha? You coming?” she said over her shoulder.
Masha was watching her with a bemused expression, but gave a small smile, tightened her grip on the shock stick, and came after her.
Jez had to turn and crouch painfully to hit the door switch, and when the doors opened with a hiss, the pilot and copilot had already half-turned towards them.
Looks of blank surprise crossed their faces.
“You know,” said Jez chattily to the pilot. “You spent a little more time learning your controls, wouldn’t have nearly as much of a problem with lift-off.”
There was a brief moment of dawning realization in the woman’s eyes, then Jez bent and kicked out as hard as she could. The heel of her boot hit the back of the pilot’s shoulder, and she slammed forward into the controls. The copilot halfway rose from his seat, then slumped as Masha’s shock stick connected with his thigh. The pilot struggled upright, blood streaming down her face, as Masha turned, shock-stick between her clasped hands.
Lev appeared in the cockpit door just in time to see the pilot slump, unconscious, beside her companion.
He drew in a long breath, blew it out again, and shook his head. Then, at last a slight, rueful smile formed on his face. “Well,” he said at last. “Remind me not to pick a fight with either of you. I’ll look for the maintenance tools.”
Five minutes later Jez’s cuffs were off, and five minutes after that she’d broken the rest of them free.
“Tae, I presume your blocker has prevented word of what we’ve done getting out,” said Masha, strain still apparent under her tone. “However, I imagine Grigory will learn what’s happened soon enough. We have until then to stop him. At the moment, Tae’s friends are safe. But as soon as Grigory finds out—”
She didn’t finish the thought, but then, she didn’t have to.
Jez cast a quick glance in Tae’s direction. His jaw was clenched, and he was breathing too quickly.
She remembered, for just a moment, the kid from the pleasure district, that small, far-too-light bundle in her arms.
She gritted her teeth.
They were damn well going to make this work.
“Well genius,” she said, turning to Lev. “Guess you better start making a plan. Because it looks like we’re going to go pay Grigory a visit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“IVAN. COME IN,” said Lev quietly over his com. “Come in, Ivan.”
“Lev?” Ivan’s voice was frantic. “Where are you? What happened? We found the dead guards, and the rest of you gone, and we thought—”
“We’re fine,” said Lev tersely. “Grigory found us, but we managed to get away. We’re on our way back now.” He paused. “Is Galina with you?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. Listen, tell everyone in the house to be ready to get out at a moment’s notice. They’ll need to be able to find a place to hide. Then bring Radic and Galina and meet us at the force-field entrance.”
“Is—is Tae alright?” Ivan’s voice was strained.
Lev glanced over to where Tae sat on the edge of a seat, glaring at his holoscreen, face drawn with strain.
“He’s … fine. Look, I’ll tell you everything when we get there. We should be there in—” he paused, glancing at the coordinates on his com. “Fifteen minutes, give or take.”
“We’ll be there.” There was strain in Ivan’s voice.
Lev tapped off his com. He closed his eyes for a moment, drew in a long breath, and ran a hand through his hair.
The number of lives riding on this ridiculous venture was growing too numerous to count—Tae’s street kid friends, Ivan, Galina, Radic, the ex-prisoners who’d come to join them in the mock pleasure house—and their own, of course.
And that wasn’t even mentioning the fact that, thanks to Masha, the Ungovernable was likely to be destroyed. Even if Jez survived their current absurd attempt, she might not survive that.
It seemed much shorter than fifteen minutes by the time the ship lowered gently onto the waiving grass in a dip between two hills that put them just out of sight of the city.
“Alright kids, time to get out,” came Jez’s voice over the ship’s com.
They gathered around the airlock, Ysbel holding Misko, Olya clutching her parents’ hands tightly. Tae’s face was grim.
Lev took a deep breath and hit the airlock, and light from outside flooded into the deck.
“What, we all just going to stand here for a while then?” said Jez, coming up behind him. She was limping heavily, and winced every time she had to move her right leg, but she wore that dangerous grin that usually meant whatever was coming, somebody was probably going to get kicked in the crotch.
Lev turned, and found himself grinning ruefully in return. “Let’s go, then,” he said.
Three figures waited for them just outside the gate. For a brief moment Lev felt a jolt of quick, irrational panic, because their hoods covered their faces, and for all he knew these were Grigory’s people, waiting to kill them—then one of the figures turned at the sound of their approach, and he recognized Ivan’s slender form and let out a quick breath of relief.
“Tae!” Ivan strode quickly forward, grabbing Tae by the shoulders and inspecting him for injuries. “Are you alright?”
“I’m—I’m fine,” Tae managed.
Lev wasn’t sure what it said about how much his life had changed that he recognized the shaky relief in Tae’s voice, the way his whole body relaxed, almost imperceptibly, at Ivan’s touch.
And the sudden memory of the relief flooding through his body at Jez’s touch, the concern in her dark eyes, was so unexpected and so sharp he almost gasped.
“Lev?” she said from beside him.
He had to close his eyes for a moment to regain his composure. “I’m fine,” he said.
It would get better, it just took time.
At any rate, if he didn’t pull himself together, none of them would likely live long enough for him to find out if that was true.
Galina had come up beside Jez. Jez turned to her, smiling, and said something in a low voice, then brushed Galina’s hair back from her face and kissed her gently.
Lev turned quickly away.
“What’s the plan?” Radic asked quietly. Ivan looked up as well, although he left his hand on Tae’s arm.
“We’re going to have to get to Grigory before he figures out what’s happened,” said Lev grimly. “The hope is that we can hold him hostage in exchange for Tae’s friends and the rest of our people at the pleasure house.”
There was a long pause.
Finally Radic said in a flat voice, “We’re going to try to kidnap Grigory.”
“What, too easy for you?” Jez said over her shoulder. “I mean, we could try it with our hands cuffed behind our backs if you want. Although to be honest, figure I’ve done that enough times now.”
“That—wasn’t what I was—” Radic stopped, shaking his head.
Ivan turned to Lev, his face grim. “Alright. I assume you have a plan for this?”
“As much of a plan as we ever have for these damn things,” Tae muttered.
Lev sighed. “We didn’t have a lot of time to plan things out, to be honest,” he said. “We’re leaving the kids with the others at the pleasure house. We’ll dress as servers, and try to sneak into the Stra
ni house. That’s where Grigory usually stays when he’s in town. And then—”
“Then we figure it out when we get there,” said Jez cheerily. “Figure that’s what we usually end up doing anyways.”
Lev sighed. “Yes. That is exactly what we usually end up doing anyways. In fact, I’m not certain why we bother with me making these plans.”
“Ah, don’t sell yourself short, genius,” said Jez, grinning. “Think of all the places we wouldn’t have ended up without your plans.”
“That’s my point,” he muttered.
Jez grabbed Galina’s hand and grinned. “Well,” she said. “We going to do this, or what?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
JEZ PULLED HER scarf over her head to form a loose hood as they made their way back to the pleasure house. Wouldn’t do much to hide her face, but that was the best they had at the moment. She turned to Radic and winked. “Hey skinny. You figure we’ll pull this off?”
He shrugged, grinning. “Can’t be harder than breaking out an entire damn prison.”
The street outside the house wasn’t any busier than it usually was at this time in the evening, but with the bustle in the streets, it would be hard to tell if someone was waiting in ambush.
She glanced over her shoulder at Lev. “I’m going in. If I don’t get shot, the rest of you come too.”
“No,” said Galina, stepping forward. Her face was grim. “I’m going. Jez, don’t bother arguing. You can hardly walk, for the Lady’s sake, and I almost lost you once already today. Stay here until I call.”
She let go of Jez’s hand and strode purposefully forward, heat-gun hidden in a fold of her jacket.
Jez stared after her, a wide, stupid grin on her face.
“I’m in,” said Galina a moment later over the com. “I didn’t see anything. Come on.”
Jez blinked out of her slightly salacious daydreams, and they crossed the street to the entrance casually, or as casually as they could when Jez couldn’t put any damn weight on her right leg.
Galina was waiting at the door, and she closed it behind them once they were inside.