by Kate Rudolph
The gathered group shot glances at each other. “What meeting?” Malax’s voice rumbled from deep within his chest. One of his tentacles was draped around his lover, Taryn, and she leaned into his side. Andie had walked in on them once and had seen just how he used those tentacles. She’d fled as quickly as her feet could take her.
Xandr grabbed a meal bar from one of the cupboards and crossed the room to place a soft kiss on her cheek. There was a collective indrawn breath from the rest of the room. Andie and Xandr tried to keep their hands off one another around the others, mostly because when they started they had trouble stopping. This was new. And when Xandr pulled away Andie grinned up at him.
New, but good.
“No meeting,” he said, turning to face the rest of the group while standing beside Andie and casually placing a hand on her shoulder. “But eat quickly. We have to drop the haul off before we take our leave. And with that little complication,” there was a round of grumbling at that and someone cursed someone named Nevys, “we’ll have to cut a few days off leave and get another job.”
Another round of grumbling, but no one argued. The team wasn’t exactly destitute, but life was difficult for outlaws with moral qualms. And since the Seventh wouldn’t touch the slave trade and didn’t offer muscle to petty dictators, finding lucrative jobs became harder with each passing day.
Xandr squeezed her shoulder one last time before leaving and everyone stared at her for a moment before the spell seemed to break. They got their breakfasts and took seats, breaking into the little cliques that Andie wouldn’t have expected on a crew so small. Malax, Taryn, Kiran, and Keana took the couch and Dr. Hayk took off after grabbing his own meal.
Andie watched the group on the couch and strained to hear what they were talking about. Taryn and Keana both shot quick glances at her but looked away so quickly that Andie wondered if it had been a mistake. Taryn had never warmed up to her, and Andie didn’t know whether things were improving or getting worse. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know. Keana was harder to read. She’d offered Andie a position on the ship and hadn’t tried to get rid of her since. But she was also Xandr’s oldest friend and was protective of him in a way that might have made Andie jealous if she didn’t know that there would never be anything romantic between them. Besides, she and Xandr were new and there was no way to know how close they might get. The whole thing could fizzle out at any moment.
“Did someone just murder your puppy?” Sayevi asked, nudging Andie on the shoulder to get her attention.
“What? Why would someone do that?” She didn’t want to imagine it. What kind of evil world was Sayevi from if she could say that so casually?
Sayevi’s face screwed up before her lips crinkled in a smile. “It’s just a saying. I guess you don’t have that one.”
“No, we don’t.” Translators were weird things, but generally worked well. At least until they started threatening cute, innocent creatures. “But I think I get the gist.”
“And?” Sayevi prompted, eyebrows shooting up and inviting comment. Then her gaze fell to the gathered group behind them and understanding dawned. “They’ll come around. It’s been so long since we’ve had a newcomer and they’re all still adjusting.”
“You didn’t need time to adjust.” Sayevi had accepted her from the first, showing Andie the ropes in those first days when she’d been tempted to get off at the nearest space station and make her way back to Earth.
“Not everyone is as great as me.” She stood up and tossed her finished plate in the trash. “Duty calls. Let’s go make some money.”
CHAPTER FOUR
STATION 163 WOULD HAVE had a catchier name if the construction had ever been completed. It sat at the edge of an unpopulated system where Oscavian terraforming had failed to take. Rather than waste money and colonists on the barren planets, the empire had abandoned the project, leaving behind a partially constructed space station and nothing else. Normally scavengers would have taken it to pieces within a year, but Station 163 had been so close to complete that when smugglers found it they’d rigged up a life support system and taken the place over.
It teemed with the worst kind of people space had to offer, and Xandr’s skin crawled whenever he brought his crew there. The criminals who lived on the station had body guards to protect them from the criminals they did business with, but the only law was that the strong thrived and the weak perished. Approaching the place was even more dangerous, as pirates liked to squat at the edge of the system and pick off the unwary.
But Sayevi had navigated them to their port with all the skill she possessed and now Xandr and Taryn walked through the darkened halls towards their goal, moving as quickly as they could without looking suspicious. Lansry wouldn’t be happy that Xandr couldn’t give him the full haul from the mission, but the man would have to deal.
The smoky little room they ended up in could barely hold three people, and if Malax had come with them no one would have fit, but Taryn was the quartermaster and one of the best negotiators he’d ever seen. If anyone could argue with Lansry, it was her.
The man sat in the shadows, illuminated by a little light set in the base of the wall. Xandr couldn’t quite make out his face, but that didn’t matter. It was a safety precaution. He couldn’t offer a description if any legitimate authorities demanded it, and the smoke and low light in the room made it nearly impossible to take a good image of the man.
“Rumor has it you ran into a bit of trouble.” Lansry’s voice was obscured by a modulator of some kind, too low and robotic to belong to a person. Xandr was almost certain the man was Oscavian, but he wore long sleeves, gloves, and a hood, his paranoia not constrained to the room’s decoration.
Xandr had once tried to get Lansry to trust him enough to at least take off the hood, but the man refused and had almost ended their relationship over the breach of etiquette. Xandr had made sure Taryn was with him at every meeting after that and had never asked again. He didn’t know who Lansry was under the hood, but it didn’t matter. The man paid more or less fairly and didn’t insist that Xandr take jobs he found abhorrent. They’d been working together for years and Xandr didn’t want to find someone else.
“Trouble ran into us,” Taryn said. Unless it was absolutely necessary that Xandr take over, Taryn was the one that spoke. It was better for all of them that way. “Seems more than one crew learned about what we were after.”
The pile of fabric and shadows that was Lansry shrugged. “It happens. Secrets aren’t meant to be kept.” He was looking right at Xandr when he said it, and Xandr wanted to shrink back into a shadow of his own.
Some secrets had to be kept or everything would crumble into dust and blaster fire. And the best way to keep a secret was to make sure no one knew it existed in the first place. So Xandr remained silent. He couldn’t even be sure that bait was for him, and rising to it would only lead to other problems.
“It was Nevys,” Taryn continued, as if Lansry hadn’t gone all cryptic on them. “He took a portion, and I’m sure he’ll be contacting his fence soon enough. But what we bring should be more than enough.”
“As long as I get my fee, you can do as you wish.” He waved his hand to a small table beside him. “If you’d place the items there for inspection.”
Taryn pulled a slip of paper out of her jacket and placed it on the table. “Let’s confirm that fee first.”
Lansry let out a sigh, but leaned forward and examined the document for several moments. His hooded head snapped up and turned toward Taryn. “My fee is not contingent on the size of your score. I’ll take what we agreed upon before you accepted the mission or I’ll take it all.”
“No one else could have gotten these jewels as cleanly as we did. And after our years of friendship, I’d hope you could work with us on this.” Taryn’s voice didn’t let any emotion out and a part of Xandr wanted to ask her if she’d ever had formal Oscavian negotiation training, but he’d save any questions for later. Or never. If he didn’t ask abo
ut her past, she wouldn’t feel comfortable asking about his.
“Are you ready to risk our friendship over a few credits?” Lansry asked.
“A friend would understand when circumstances change.” Taryn stared at Lansry for several long seconds and Xandr’s fingers itched to reach for his blaster, but pulling a weapon would take things from strained to deadly. Though Lansry didn’t seem to have any muscle protecting him, Xandr knew there were things in the shadows he couldn’t see, things that could fell him and Taryn in a heartbeat.
Lansry sat back in his chair. “Then in the name of friendship, let me pass this on. Nevys is due to land in a few hours. If you’d like to postpone our meeting until tomorrow, I could free up my schedule and we can both receive our full portions. Does that sound agreeable?”
Taryn looked at Xandr and waited for his response, her face blank, not even a hint of an opinion peeking through. Yeah, someone had trained her in schooling her opinion, he’d bet his heritage on it. “Tomorrow it is.”
A SENSE OF ANTICIPATION settled on the crew. Xandr had sent Sayevi and Malax away in the ship to monitor incoming visitors and pulled the rest of the crew off to wait. It would have been safer to do this thing in space, but the Seventh wasn’t designed for combat and could just as easily be torn apart if they engaged. Blasters and a shield were great when it came to outrunning law enforcement ships, but they didn’t stand a chance in a real battle.
He’d tried to be as subtle as possible in rolling out his plan. Petty theft was common enough at Station 163, but ripping off an entire crew was risky and could lead to more trouble. But they wouldn’t be outlaws if they ran away from a little trouble.
“We’ve got eyes on a ship, captain,” Sayevi’s voice came over their comms. “Should be docking within the hour.”
“Any trouble?” Sayevi was one of the best pilots he’d ever known, but she was sitting in dangerous space and things could go wrong at any minute.
“Clear skies,” she assured him.
“Good. Follow the plan.” Their comms were secure, but some of the crews that flew in and out of the station had the type of tech that could cut through any security and monitored other people’s comms with impunity. He’d never heard of Nevys having anything like that, but they weren’t getting lazy. Once Nevys docked, the plan was for Sayevi and Malax to disable his ship, then dock the Seventh and stand guard like they expected the Oscavian fleet to bear down on them at any moment. When the job was done, things were going to happen really fast and the crew would need to be off the station quickly.
Nevys was already an enemy, it wasn’t like he was making new ones. But this could spark something greater than the simmering animosity that had been between them for years.
“Everything alright?” Andie asked, idly placing an arm on his back. Then her head snapped down as if she’d just realized what she’d done and she jerked her arm back and held it at her side.
Xandr wanted to kiss her. He always wanted to kiss her, but right then the instinct was almost too strong to resist. They might have become more free with each other around the crew, but this was a job and they needed that air of professionalism. Not just because they needed to focus. If other crews caught on that he had a lover, especially someone so new to the outlaw game, she could be in even more danger. This life was dangerous enough and Xandr refused to make it any worse.
“It’s time to move.” Xandr almost bent down and kissed her. His shoulders stooped forward but he stopped himself at the last minute. If he was going to make a resolution he had to stick to it. He’d claimed the captain’s seat back for himself and he had to live up to the responsibility.
But missions were risky and he couldn’t just leave Andie with nothing. So though it was nowhere near satisfying enough, he placed his hand on her arm and gave it a slight squeeze. Their eyes locked and she offered a wry smile and touched two fingers to her lips before dropping them and turning away to retreat with Keana for their portion of the mission.
Station 163 wasn’t designed with comfort in mind and given its inhabitants, the place oozed danger from every pore. Fights and minor theft were ubiquitous, murder wasn’t unheard of, and angry words were the common tongue. But an ambush to snatch a haul out of another outlaw’s hands wasn’t something they saw everyday. There wasn’t an official security force on the station. Everyone was armed to the teeth and the people who lived on the station hired their own muscle. That muscle wasn’t likely to get involved in a scuffle between two crews, but if things got out of hand they just might.
So Xandr had to make sure that didn’t happen.
He, Kiran, and Hayk made for the docking area they expected Nevys to use. Keana, Taryn, and Andie would be a bit further back, ready to prevent anyone from getting away. This thing didn’t need to end in bloodshed. It probably would, but there wasn’t much Xandr could do about that.
Sayevi sent a warning when the ship got within docking range and Xandr let the calm of an impending mission settle over him. They were in it now and there was no backing out.
But it still took several more minutes for anything to start. A few people eyed them warily as he and half his crew casually lounged near the entrance to Nevys’s dock, but no one gave them any trouble.
“This might be more trouble than it’s worth,” Hayk said casually. He buffed his nails against his shirt and looked over at Xandr as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“You might have spoken up an hour ago,” Xandr shot back. No one had any objections when he and Taryn had laid out what Lansry had suggested, and Xandr wouldn’t pull out when they were minutes away from getting a full payment.
Hayk shrugged. He normally didn’t come into the field on their missions, but Xandr needed the extra body and he’d seen Hayk in enough fights to know that the man had hidden depths of violence. He didn’t know the doctor’s past and he wouldn’t ask, but just like with Taryn’s negotiation skills, Xandr was curious.
That curiosity would have to wait for another day. A warning bell sounded, indicating that a ship was docking. Nevys and their jewels were here.
CHAPTER FIVE
KEANA AND TARYN DIDN’T look happy to be on babysitting duty, not that Andie could blame them. If everything went to plan the three of them wouldn’t see any action and sitting at a dilapidated table in a frankly terrifying space station filled with the lowest of the low wasn’t exactly a fun way to spend a day. But it wasn’t Andie’s fault they were waiting here. She wanted to shout that she’d upheld her part of the last mission, she’d gotten out with the jewels she was supposed to steal. She was a certified, grade-A jewel thief now.
Damn, she hadn’t realized that before. Baby’s first crime and all. Wouldn’t her mother be proud?
“What are you smiling about?” Taryn asked, her face filled with doubt that Andie’s answer would be anything but stupid.
And Andie wouldn’t let her know she was right. “Nothing.”
Taryn leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “We get it, you’re well fucked. No reason to get all starry eyed about it.”
“I wasn’t thinking about Xandr.” Now it was Andie who was crossing her arms. “I have an existence outside of him.” And then a thought occurred to her. “Besides, it’s not like I haven’t heard you and Malax... you know.”
“Know what?” Keana asked, her smile all sweet and innocent.
Andie wanted to die. Or to somehow teleport herself back so she was on the ship with Sayevi. Taryn didn’t like her and Keana wasn’t exactly her best friend. And if she showed a smidgen of weakness they’d descend into mean girl bullshit that would have her ready to punch something in no time.
No. She had to take control of this. So what if Taryn didn’t like her? They worked together, they didn’t need to be best friends. Sure she hadn’t done anything to earn Taryn’s ire, but she hadn’t exactly earned her trust either. This was a bit of light hazing that would go away if she proved herself. When she proved herself. She wasn’t going to let Taryn ge
t to her.
So Andie would play the game. She leveled her best smile at Taryn and Keana. “Fuck. I’ve heard Taryn and Malax fuck. A lot. And seen things I never thought I’d see. I didn’t realize you were so... flexible.” Her cheeks were on fire, but the low light of the room and her dark skin made it impossible for Taryn or Keana to see.
The two crew members stared at her for a long minute before Taryn finally burst out with a laugh, followed shortly by Keana. “I think if she’s walked in on the two of you without fleeing in terror that counts as officially joining the crew,” Keana said, the words huffed out between guffaws.
Taryn shoved her and shook her head. “You’re just jealous.”
“You know it,” Keana grinned. “Does Malax have a sister?”
“Gender isn’t that rigid for Zusotids,” Taryn informed them with a haughty air.
“I definitely saw something rigid,” Andie said. “Like, really rigid.” That sent them into another wave of laughter. And a weight lifted from Andie’s chest. She wouldn’t fool herself into believing that a little banter would suddenly make Taryn like her, but it couldn’t hurt.