by R. M. Olson
And then she saw the moment he finally realized, the dawning look of disbelief and horror on his face. And despite everything she felt a quick flicker of fondness for him.
He’d always been very, very intelligent.
“No,” said Lev at last, looking up at Ysbel. His voice was a detached sort of calm. “I’m afraid, Ysbel, we aren’t leaving. Because that’s not all Masha did.” He turned to her. “Was that the plan from the beginning, Masha? Did you plan this from the moment we agreed to come with you to bring back Peti?”
“I gave you a choice,” she said quietly. “You chose to come with me.”
“Because we trusted you,” he spat. “Because we wanted to protect you.”
“What is it?” Tanya’s words were as sharp as razors.
“She’s marked us.” His voice was hard and deadly. “You knew we’d never agree to whatever you’ve planned next, didn’t you, Masha? And so you brought us here. Convinced Grigory that we’d help him. And then you double-crossed him. We intended to stop his coup, but if we’d pulled it off, he’d never have known why his plan hadn’t worked—it could have been any of a million small things. We had to plan it that way, because Grigory’s a man who’d have a man murdered for turning down his offer of work. His reputation is the only thing that keeps him alive. But what you did? There’s no mistaking that. Now that we’ve killed his people, it’s as much as his life is worth to hunt down every last one of us and make an example of us. If we split up, change course, we’re all dead, and believe me, I’ve seen what Grigory does to people he wants to make an example of.”
He gave her a bitter smile. “So, Masha. What have you planned for us next? Because I assume you have plans for us, correct?”
“I do,” she said quietly. “This, here—this was only the setup.”
“You killed fifty people—got us to kill fifty people—for a setup,” said Lev, his voice matching hers in quietness. “You put every member of this crew, including Olya and Misko, in the crosshairs of the mafia, for a setup. And what’s the sting, Masha?”
She gave him a slight smile, despite the sharp ache in her chest. “Lev. You spoke with Grigory. Stopping this—” she gestured around. “This was never going to stop him forever. This was always going to be temporary. If we’re going to take down the mafia—if we’re going to take him down for good—we have to take down what keeps him powerful.”
For a moment Lev didn’t speak, just looked at her, dawning comprehension on his face.
“We’re going to cut off his supply,” he murmured, staring at her. “We’re going to choke him out.” He paused. “You already crippled his weapons supply, with the Vitali job. So now—”
“The pleasure planet,” she said, nodding. “Since his contracts with Vitali were broken, he’s switched most of his business in that direction. It now makes up a sizeable portion of his income.” She could hear the hardness in her own voice, the bitterness, but again, it hardly mattered anymore what they thought. “After what we did to him here—not just embarrassed him, but took out all his government contacts—he’ll follow us anywhere. He won’t be able to help but take the bait now. And we’re going to run the biggest sting this system has ever seen. We’re going to take down Grigory Korzhikov so completely that in five standard years from now, no one will even remember his name.”
There was another long silence.
“And if we refuse to work with you?” asked Tanya. There was a hint of steel in her voice.
Masha shrugged. “I will not, of course, force any one of you to stay.”
“You couldn’t force us to stay if you wanted to,” grunted Ysbel. “In fact, if I wanted to kill you right now—”
“You are right, of course,” said Masha blandly. “You could kill me quite easily, I imagine, any one of you could. However, as intelligent as you are, not one of you have the information I do on Grigory—information I gathered while you made your plans, and, I might add, saved several hundred innocent people. Or, at least, as innocent as people who work with the Svodrani System government can be.” She glanced around the room. “So,” she said at last. “You have a choice to make. You could kill me, of course. You could choose to take off on your own, and do your best to escape from Grigory, scavenging a bare existence on the outer rim planets until he hunts you down. And he will hunt you down. Or—” she shrugged. “You can come with me. I believe our interests, in this case at least, converge.”
She paused a moment. “I—understand that you are angry. I don’t blame you. But please, believe me that I did not make this decision lightly. I swear to you, what I’m doing—” She broke off abruptly, her voice shaking, something sick in the back of her throat.
She’d expected that.
She hadn’t expected the desperate, aching need for them to understand.
She took a deep breath, and managed to plaster the pleasant expression back on her face.
Jez, though, was watching her, head cocked to one side, as if considering something.
“At any rate,” said Masha, forcing her tone back to its usual bland calm, “we have at least accomplished something. We came here to find a way to stop the Minister from going forward with the program that would certainly kill us. I was able to convince Grigory that the Minister and her two assistants should be brought back to his ship with the others if his plan didn’t work as intended. They died in that explosion. I’m certain Evka will be able to train a replacement, given time. But that is exactly what this has done—give us time.
“And Tae—” she turned to him, forcing herself to look him in the face. “There was a reason I chose the apartment building for your street-kid friends that I did. Besides having gate guards, the entire complex is shielded, and the group that the building managers pay off for protection is from Olyessa’s mob. It’s untouchable for any of Grigory’s people. They won’t be used as leverage. Additionally, the explosion that we set off in airlock two will have caused substantial damage to Grigory’s ship, and I believe that Jez and Lev caused substantial damage to his guard ships when they shot their way out of the hangar bay. He’ll have no choice but to find a friendly planet and lick his wounds. None of his people are left on this ship. We’re safe here, for the present, and we have time to rest and plan our next move. Really, our situation is almost ideal.” She paused a moment.
“Except for the fact that you betrayed us,” Lev snapped. “Except for the fact you may well have killed us. You set the mafia on us, and Grigory won’t stop until we’re dead, or he is.” He shook his head, a short, frustrated motion entirely unlike his normal calm, and turned to the others. “We need to discuss this. Figure out our next steps.”
“There’s a suite of connecting rooms next door,” said Tae at last. He was looking at Lev, and fixedly avoiding Masha’s eyes. “We can stay there tonight, at least.”
Lev nodded shortly and shoved back his chair. He stood, turning to Masha for a moment. “You’ve won this one,” he said, and the sudden calm in his voice was anything but reassuring. “But Masha—” He took a step closer.
She didn’t step back.
“There will be a round two. Believe me, sooner or later there will be. And you won’t fool me again.”
He turned abruptly and strode to the door.
When the door shut behind him, there was silence for a few moments. Then Tae stood, still without meeting her eye.
“I’ll come too,” said Ivan, standing. He did meet Masha’s gaze, his glance appraising, weighing her.
Tanya and Ysbel left next, with the children. Neither of them spoke, but there was a flat calculation in the look that Ysbel cast over her shoulder as they walked out the door, and despite herself, a slight shiver ran up Masha’s back.
She’d put this crew together herself. And everything she’d done, including this, had been done in full consideration of the calibre of people she was working with, and she had planned for every contingency.
But—these people were dangerous. Perhaps more dangerous than
anything she was fighting.
It behooved her to remember it.
Jez was still sitting at the table, chin in her hands, watching Masha.
Masha dropped into a seat, her legs finally unable to hold her up. Blood from her old wound, re-opened by the boyevik’s beating, seeped through her shirt, wetting her coat and spreading upwards and outwards.
She’d been injured enough times to know it wasn’t serious—at least, it wouldn’t kill her—but it was enough to make her head spin.
Finally, Jez stood and crossed over to her.
Jez, of course, was the wild card. She’d always been the wild card, and Masha had never quite been able to predict what she’d do next. And she’d tried to plan for that, tried to get rid of the restless, unpredictable pilot, before her unpredictability could cause problems.
And somehow, she hadn’t been able to.
She hadn’t been able to make herself.
Jez stood over her, cocking her head to one side, and for a brief moment Masha tasted a sharp, metallic tinge of fear. Because of all of the crew, Jez was the only one who might actually kill her, right here.
For a long moment, neither of them moved or spoke. Finally, Jez said quietly, “You alright, you bastard?”
For a moment, Masha wasn’t sure if she’d heard correctly.
“I said,” said Jez, “Are you alright, you dirty plaguer?”
“I’m—” Masha swallowed hard against something in her throat. “I’m fine, Jez. At least—” She grimaced slightly. “I’m as fine as can be expected, all things considered. I’m certainly not going to die from this.”
“Let me see.” Jez knelt, and Masha didn’t protest as she pulled her jacket open and untucked her shirt and pulled up the heat shield. Jez examined the wound critically. “Probably should put a bandage on it, you damn scum-sucker,” she said at last. She crossed to the corner of the room and pulled out the small emergency first-aid kit. She rifled through it, pulled out a bandage, and came back, kneeling in front of Masha again.
“Hold your damn shirt up,” she said. Masha did so, without speaking, and Jez sealed the bandage carefully.
“There,” said Jez, looking at it critically.
Masha took a deep breath and held it for a moment. Then she let it out slowly. “Thank you, Jez,” she said, and she was somewhat proud of how steady her voice was.
Jez considered her for a moment.
“Listen, you dirty bastard,” she said at last. “That was a scum-sucker move, what you did.” She paused a moment, not taking her eyes off Masha’s. “I don’t know what you’re after, Masha. I don’t know what you’re planning. But—but here’s the thing. I—trust you. For some stupid damn reason, I actually trust you. I actually think you’re trying to do something good, even though I wonder if you’d recognize good if it punched you in the middle of your damn face.” She paused again, for a long, long time, so long that Masha wasn’t sure if she’d continue. Then, finally, she said, “Look, you bastard. I’m not good at trusting people. Don’t do it very much. So don’t—don’t screw this one up for me, OK?”
There was a vulnerability in her expression that Masha had only seen there on the rarest of occasions.
Then she turned and left, the door clicking shut behind her.
Masha stared after her for a long time.
This was supposed to have been the easy part.
Seventeen years she’d worked in the government, worked for the very people who had been responsible for her parents’ slaughter. And she’d bided her time, been pleasant and patient and agreeable. And she’d found her crew, finally picked the perfect combination of people and found the perfect job to bring them together for, and she’d pulled them together into a team, and by some miracle they’d pulled the job off. And she’d worked with them, and gained their trust, and when she’d given them the opportunity to walk away, they’d chosen to come along. Each one of them had chosen.
That was supposed to have been the hard part.
But somehow, all of that seemed to pale beside the sick, betrayed look on Tae’s face when he’d realized what she’d done.
What she was doing—what she had done, what she was planning—needed to happen. She’d spent her whole life, ever moment of it since that day when she was seven years old, preparing for it.
Don’t—don’t screw this one up for me, OK?
She glanced down at the fresh bandage on her side, and closed her eyes for a brief moment.
Despite the bandage, she wasn’t sure she’d get much sleep tonight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TAE GLANCED UP as Jez stepped through the door and it closed behind her. She gave him a quick smile, then dropped down against the wall in the corner, not bothering to pull up a sitting cushion.
Ysbel and Tanya had herded the children to bed, but Ysbel came out again, and pulled up a seat at the table beside Tae. Lev, too, was sitting at the table. He was scowling, and Tae wasn’t entirely sure whether it was from what had happened with Masha in the room next door, or whatever had apparently happened with Jez on the ship.
Maybe both.
Tanya came out a few minutes later, and took a seat beside her wife.
“So,” said Ysbel. “What do we do now?”
Lev managed a small smile. “The first thing, I think, is to figure out how to survive the next few weeks.”
“She says she has a plan,” said Ivan quietly. “Forgive me if I’m not reassured by this, but—” he shrugged. “As she said. I’m not sure we have many options at this point.”
Lev leaned back slightly, his expression more weary than Tae had seen it in a long time. “At the moment, we’re at her mercy, because she knows more than we do about Grigory, and what his likely next move will be. And she’s right. We don’t have a choice now. We stop Grigory, or we die. But—” he paused a moment, and there was a hint of steel under his voice. “But that advantage she has won’t last forever.”
Ysbel nodded. “She put all of us in danger, purposely, to get what she wanted. She put my children in danger. And I will not be surprised if one day we have to chose between killing her, or letting her kill us. But in the meantime, you’re right. We don’t have many options right now.” She paused a moment. “Anyways, at least we have some time now, before the government fries our brains. How long do you think?”
Lev gave a despondent shrug. “Months, likely. It depends on how fast Evka works.”
They were quiet for a few minutes.
Tae wasn’t exactly sure when sitting around a table on a strange ship, as long as it was with these people, had become something comforting.
But somehow, nothing seemed quite as bad as long as they were still crewmates.
Not even Masha’s betrayal, not even the sick feeling in his stomach that it brought.
Finally, Lev stood. “I’m sorry,” he said, a trace of his usual calm returning to his voice. “I should probably get some sleep. I don’t think I’m going to be much use tonight. Let’s talk in the morning.” He pushed back his chair and headed into one of the rooms.
“I think perhaps we should get some sleep too, my love,” said Ysbel, glancing at her wife.
Tanya gave her a bleak smile. “Yes. We will have two very tired children to deal with tomorrow.”
They left for their room, Ysbel’s arm around Tanya’s waist, Tanya’s head on her wife’s shoulder.
A few minutes later, Jez pushed herself up from the corner where she’d been sitting.
“Hey tech-head,” she said. “You OK?”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing over at her. “I—think so. I—” He trailed off.
“I know,” she said softly. “I didn’t think she would either. I—well, I mean, but listen. I don’t—Maybe there’s more to it.”
He gave her a slight smile. “Yeah. Maybe. I—hope so.”
She gave him a faint smile in return. “Anyways, guess I’m going to wander around for a bit. Not quite ready for bed yet, I guess.”
He look
ed at her more closely, frowning.
She was drumming her fingers restlessly against her leg, her customary nervous energy spilling over into every movement.
“Jez?”
“Yeah?”
“If you—need something. Or get into trouble or something, just call me, for the Lady’s sake. OK?”
She cocked her head at him, then grinned. “Sure, tech-head.” She paused a moment, and dropped her eyes. “Thanks.”
She slipped out the door, and he sighed and dropped his chin into his hands, staring sightlessly at the table.
He probably should be feeling—something. But there were too many thoughts clawing for attention in his brain, and he couldn’t focus on any one of them long enough to feel anything at all, except a faint exhaustion, and a sort of desperate gratitude that the others were here, and he wasn’t trying to deal with this completely alone.
“Tae.”
He looked up.
Ivan pulled up a chair next to him. “It’s not your fault, you know,” he said quietly. “What Masha did.”
“I—know,” said Tae, and the words surprised him.
Ivan smiled at him. “You’ve changed since I met you in prison,” he said at last.
Tae managed a half-hearted chuckle. “A lot has happened since then.”
Ivan nodded, and for a few moments they sat in companionable silence.
“But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed,” said Ivan. Tae looked up and met his eyes, and Ivan held his gaze, his face suddenly serious. “You’re a good man, Tae. And you saved a lot of people today. Not all of them, I know. But a lot.”
And looking into Ivan’s face, Tae felt a sudden surge of warmth in his chest, and for some strange reason he remembered the way Dmitri had looked at him, weeks ago, and, oddly enough, that moment that he’d sat blinking up at the mafia boyevik from the couch, Ivan’s arms around him.
His face was growing warm, and he dropped his eyes, but he found he was smiling, unconsciously.
“You’re coming with us?” he asked at last. “To the pleasure planet, I mean.”