by R. M. Olson
“What do you want, Lev?” asked Grigory, leaning forward. There was a tension in his posture that spoke of anger, controlled, but there.
Lev gave a deprecating shake of his head. “What’s talk of a price between people with a common goal?”
“But, I insist. If you are willing to work with me, I want to make it worth your while.” There was an edge of menace, and an equal edge of wryness, to his tone.
Lev paused again, as if considering. “I had a professor, once,” he said slowly. “She’s the mind behind this Vyernist Protocol. I don’t think we dare even risk inviting her to your conference—she’s brilliant, and she’s far too canny to be caught like this. But after this job is done? With your resources and your people …” he trailed off delicately.
Grigory smiled, a genuine smile this time. “Ah. Yes, that is something I could do for you, Lev. And I would do it happily. And furthermore—” he spread his hands. “If this goes well, I would give you an invitation to continue to work with me. I may be able to offer you a position here. Perhaps your friends as well. I think we could work well together. And I’m not an unappreciative friend.”
Lev raised his eyebrows. “That is a generous offer.” He paused a moment, taking a bite of his almost-cold food and chewing it carefully. He swallowed, and took another bite, aware of Grigory’s eyes on him.
He was probably as close now as he’d ever been in his life to being shot, but somehow the knowledge didn’t frighten him as much as it might have.
Because this was his kind of game, and he knew how to play.
At last, he looked up. “Your offer is kind. More than kind. And I accept. I’ll help you plan your conference with pleasure.”
“And in return, if all goes well, I will help you track down this canny professor of yours, and I will offer you a place in my leadership,” said Grigory, a smile spreading across his face. “The word of two free citizens.” He reached out his hand across the table, and Lev reached out to take it.
From outside the door, there was the unmistakable staticky hiss of a heat-blast, and the limp body of the server tumbled through the curtains. The dish he’d been carrying shattered on the floor, the bright red sauce of one of the dishes spreading across the dark carpet like blood.
Grigory jumped to his feet, and the bodyguards threw themselves in front of him as three masked figures ripped aside the curtain and stepped through. They were holding laser guns along with their heat pistols, and one of the bodyguards fell almost immediately, a bright line burned through her body armour, her strangled scream cut off almost before it began. Grigory jerked the platter from the dinner table up in front of him, and a blast bounced off it. Lev had to dive to one side to avoid it as it ricocheted across the room, burning a long black stain across the skylights. The bodyguards were already shooting, and the heat-armour on the guards’ chests and the attackers’ chests glowed and sparked as it disbursed the heat. Grigory fumbled in his pocket, and a moment later he pulled out a small pistol that Lev recognized instantly from months of being in close proximity to Ysbel. He threw himself under the table as the weapon went off, and for a moment his vision was nothing but white light, and he could hear nothing but the low reverberations of the gun.
When his vision cleared again, all three attackers were down, along with another of the bodyguards.
Grigory calmly holstered his pistol. “Are you alright, Lev?” he asked, raising his voice slightly.
Lev pushed himself to his feet. His hands were shaking slightly, but he managed to still them.
You’d think, after all this time, he’d get used to being shot at. He’d been friends with plaguing Jez for long enough that it was becoming par for the course.
“Yes,” he said, lifting his chair back up and resuming his seat. “I’m fine, thank you.”
Grigory walked around the table and stared down at their attackers. Then he bent and pulled the mask sharply from the face of the first of them.
“Olyessa’s people,” he said, and there was a tone in his voice that told Lev that he hadn’t always been a high-brow mafia boss. Before he’d risen to the position he was in now, he had been something else—a man who killed with his own hands, and who had been good at it.
Had enjoyed it.
He looked up at Lev, that cultured, vicious smile spreading over his face again. “I apologize. This is Olyessa’s doing. She’s been trying to kill me for some time now. If I had known, I wouldn’t have put you in danger. But—” he shrugged. “For a man of my position, going about my day-to-day life is danger enough. We must work with what we have.” He pushed himself heavily to his feet. “Well, Lev. I am glad you survived that unhurt.”
“The assassins?” asked one of the bodyguards.
Grigory made an impatient gesture. “Get someone in here to clean them up. I think one of them is still alive. Keep him alive. I’d like to talk with him for a while before I deal with him.”
The guard nodded and slipped out the door. Another bodyguard knelt beside one of her fallen comrades.
“She’s still alive,” the woman said after a moment, looking up at Grigory.
“Good, good,” said Grigory. “When they come for the bodies, get her taken into the med bay. She’s a good soldier, and she’ll be rewarded. You can put together a gift for her family, put it on my desk to approve.”
The guard nodded and straightened. Grigory turned back to the table and smiled at Lev, but there was something predatory under his smile.
But predatory, Lev could use.
He shoved aside the cold that had worked its way into his stomach and managed a smile in return.
“Now, my boy,” said Grigory jovially. “There is still plenty of food on our plates, and I believe the server was coming to offer us dessert. I hope this hasn’t spoiled your appetite.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I’VE BEEN TOLD you do beautiful work, Ysbel.”
Ysbel raised an eyebrow, scanning the room she’d been brought to with interest. It was not quite as well-insulated as the weapons room she’d put together on the Ungovernable, but what it lacked in insulation, it made up for in the sheer quality of the materials and tools.
“Well, that depends on what you consider beautiful. But—” She shrugged. “I am very good at blowing things up, and I understand that’s what Grigory wants. So—”
The woman nodded, a small, unreadable smile on her face. “As the krestnaya told you, he wants an explosive. How you make it is up to you, but he wants something powerful, like in the specs he asked me to send through to your com. He wants to see what you can do. I assume you’ve looked at the specs?”
She raised one eyebrow. “Of course.”
“And can you make what he wants you to make?”
Ysbel gave her a flat look. “As long as you’ve given me the correct materials, I can make whatever I choose to.”
She tried to push the morning’s conversation with Tanya to the back of her mind.
“Ysi. What are you agreeing to?” Tanya’s face still bore that unfamiliar hardness. The children had left the room earlier and were playing in the main suite, with Tae keeping an eye on them. It seemed like a very long time since she and Tanya had been alone.
“I’m doing what I have to to keep you and the children safe,” said Ysbel, keeping her words steady. Trying not to let her voice tremble.
“That’s not enough, Ysbel!” Tanya turned away abruptly. “You have not even asked what they want this for. You showed me the specs he gave you. You’re making something that could kill hundreds of people, and you’re making it for the mafia. And you don’t even care enough to ask.”
“I care, Tanya!” Ysbel snapped, and the harshness in her own tone surprised her. She took a deep breath, and softened her words slightly. “Tanya, I care very much. But what I care about is you. You, and Olya, and Misko. If this will keep you safe, then you’re right. What he uses it for is not something I will concern myself with.”
Tanya didn’t turn at her w
ords, but there was a stiffness to her posture, and Ysbel could see the rise and fall of her breath, far too quick.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
“Tanya,” she said at last, her voice choking slightly. “Please understand. I can’t lose you again. I can’t let the government hurt you, or my babies. I can’t watch—” She swallowed hard, unable to continue.
For a moment, she thought Tanya might turn towards her. But instead, she dropped her head.
“Ysbel,” she said quietly, still without turning around. “You are not the only one who was hurt when those people came and took you. You are not the only one who cares for our children. Once, you trusted me just as much as you asked me to trust you. I don’t know what happened to you.”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” said Ysbel finally, standing. She crossed over to where Tanya stood, but there was something about her wife’s posture that stopped her from putting an arm around her shoulders. “I lost you. I watched you die, you and the children. And I will give up anything in the world to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“Anything?” asked Tanya. “Even me?” This time she did turn, and her eyes found Ysbel’s.
There was a sadness there, a quiet vulnerability, that made Ysbel’s throat tighten.
“Tanya,” she whispered, and after a moment’s hesitation, Tanya stepped forward into her embrace.
Ysbel held her gently, her eyes closed.
She hadn’t answered the question.
Because—well, because the truth was, as much as she loved Tanya, as much as she needed her, like the very blood in her veins—if giving up Tanya was what it took to keep Tanya safe, perhaps she’d be willing to do even that.
“You should have everything you need,” said the woman. She paused a moment. “I assume you’re as committed to helping Grigory as you’ve said you were.”
Ysbel frowned slightly. “I am exactly as committed as I need to be,” she said. “Masha and Grigory agreed on something. I’m willing to perform my part of the transaction. That’s all.”
The woman raised her eyebrows. “Of course. I’ll leave you to your devices, then.”
There was the slightest hint of smugness under her words, and a calculating look in her eyes that made Ysbel glance quickly around the room again.
Only one exit. Useful if you were testing explosives, because doors were much harder to protect from a blast. The walls were padded with non-reactive material, and the floor and ceiling were painted with non-reactive coating. It would almost certainly withstand an explosion, even one from one of her explosives.
Also useful if you were planning an ambush.
And as an added bonus, one she was almost certain the woman had thought of before bringing her down here—it was virtually sound-proof. No one to hear you scream, or beg for mercy.
Of course, she thought reflectively, that advantage could go two ways.
She smiled slightly to herself.
If they really wanted to try to ambush her here, in the middle of a room full of explosives—well, that was their choice.
She bent to her work as the woman stepped out of the room, but every muscle in her body was on alert.
It was almost fifteen minutes before she heard the soft, almost imperceptible click of the door being carefully opened.
She didn’t turn. Not yet.
Let them all get inside first.
It wasn’t until the door clicked shut again that she straightened and turned to face the people who had gathered.
There were five of them. All of them looked like people who weren’t squeamish about violence.
She gave a slightly nostalgic smile.
It had been a long time, really, since someone had so blatantly tried to hurt her.
She’d almost missed it.
“Ysbel,” said a man she didn’t recognize. His voice was cold. “I understand you’re here because you’re helping your friend Masha. But I wonder if you might need some convincing as to your loyalties to Grigory.”
Ysbel raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you’re very frightening,” she said, making no effort to disguise the humour in her tone. “However, there is no need to convince me of anything at the present. I’m doing what your boss asked me to do. I believe that’s all that was required.”
“Maybe that’s what you understood,” said the woman who seemed to be the leader of the small group. There was a threat, poorly hidden, in her tone. “But I’m afraid that’s not how we do business on this ship. I’d like to hear you tell me about your loyalty to Grigory before we leave here.”
Ysbel was studying her. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t think I will. Because what you’re asking is stupid, and I don’t like to talk to stupid people.” She made as if to turn away.
“You’ll answer the question,” the woman snapped.
Ysbel gave her a long look, letting the emotion drain from her face.
A hint of uncertainty began to form in the woman’s expression.
“It was very brave of you, bringing your family on board Grigory’s ship,” said the man who’d first addressed her, stepping forward and putting a hand on her arm. There was a smile on his face, but it wasn’t a friendly one. “Your wife is a lovely woman, you know. And your children—”
She grabbed him, gave a short twist of her arm, and suddenly he was bent forward, whimpering, his arm twisted up behind his back. She pulled him around so he formed a barrier between her and the others with their heat guns.
“You see,” she said, in a reasonable voice. “This is an example. You come close to someone like that, someone you don’t actually know, and you try to grab them by the arm? Like I said. Stupid.”
She twisted harder, and he whimpered again.
“And you talk like that about my family?” she said, even softer. “That is very, very stupid.” She paused a moment. “I could break your arm, but then, that’s not a very big problem for you, is it? A few weeks, some boneset, and it’s healed. So no, on balance, I don’t think I want to break your arm.” She hauled him up. He bent over, rising awkwardly on his toes to take the pressure off his shoulder.
“I could break your shoulder, of course, but again, that’s hardly the sort of permanent solution I prefer.”
There was a look in his face, something that might have been pitiful if he hadn’t been so obviously used to pushing people weaker than him around.
And he’d mentioned Tanya, and the children.
No, she didn’t feel any pity at all for this man.
The woman had drawn a heat-gun, but she didn’t have a clear shot. Ysbel smiled.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a third man, who had sidled along the wall until he was almost in position to shoot her without hitting his companion. She yanked a heat-gun out of her pocket with her free hand and pointed it at him.
He froze.
“It’s funny, you know,” she mused. “I’ve listened to you all talking in the hallways. You think you’re very tough. You brag that you don’t keep track of how many people you kill.” She twisted the arm just a little bit farther, right to the point where he’d feel like his shoulder was about to snap in two, but where it wouldn’t actually be in danger of doing so.
Yet.
“But I do. At least, all the ones I remember.”
The three mafia thugs were all frozen, staring at her, and she smiled nostalgically. “You might want to ask around. I’m certain you had some friends we broke out of prison a couple months ago. In the mean time—” She paused a moment, and bent forward, so her mouth was close enough to her erstwhile attacker’s ear that she could practically whisper. “In the mean time, if I wanted to, I could take the limbs from your body one by one. If I felt like it. And that, you know, wouldn’t count as a murder. Because you’d still be alive when I was finished.” She paused a moment. “Well, for a few minutes, anyway,” she amended. “Now. Do you understand me?”
He nodded frantically.
“Good.
So. What is going to happen is, I’m going to let you go in just a minute here. And your friend, who thought it was such a good idea to try to get behind me with his heat gun, is going to move back to where he started, so I can keep an eye on all five of you. And then—” she smiled slightly. “And then, we can talk about my family, if you like, and why I felt safe enough to bring them here.”
She could almost feel him shaking in terror. She smiled to herself, then, with a quick jerk, yanked his arm up just a fraction more, let go, and shoved him forward. He staggered away from her, tears of pain in his eyes, and before the woman in front of her could re-calibrate her aim, Ysbel pointed her modded gun at the ceiling and pulled the trigger.
There was a blinding flash of light that left white balls of fire ricocheting across her vision, even though she’d known what was coming and closed her eyes, and the skin on her face felt stretched and raw from the blow-by heat.
For a few moments, there was no sound at all in the room, except for the slow ‘drip … drip …” of melted non-reactive coating puddling on the floor, and the high-pitched ‘ting’ and ‘crack’ of overheated material cooling.
When she could see again, she noticed, with satisfaction, that the five mafia boyeviki were huddled together in the corner, staring at her with what could only be described as terror.
The woman spoke frantically into her com, her voice low, and a moment later, the door burst open, and boyeviki flooded in. They were brandishing a mix of heat pistols and brass knuckles that were probably supposed to be frightening.
The posture of the woman in the corner relaxed, and a small smile spread across her face.
“Alright, Ysbel,” she said, when the boyeviki had assembled themselves around her. “You’ve shown me your toy pistol is impressive. But I’m not sure that’s enough to—” She frowned. “What are you—”
“As I told you. I care about my family very, very much. But do you honestly think I would have brought two small children onto Grigory Korzhikov’s ship if I didn’t think that this was the safest place in the system for them? And perhaps you want to know why I think that.” She paused. “It’s because if anyone even thought about touching them, that person would die in a very messy way. And then no one else would think about touching them, for as long as I was on this ship.”