by Layla Nash
After he strode off, she stood in the corridor and stared at where he’d gone. She hated that he’d overheard what she said to Maisy about it just being a one-night thing, particularly since Jess hadn’t entirely convinced herself it would only be one night. She never expected to feel anything real for him, but the devastation of watching him walk away — and his return to calling her Barnes instead of Jessalyn — made it clear to herself that she wanted more.
Jess dragged herself back into her quarters and stood in the living area, stumped. What the hell happened? It didn’t sound like he was just pissed about her saying he wasn’t going to be a long-term thing. The ambush and Heisenberg questions didn’t make any sense. Jess massaged her temples. She hadn’t had nearly enough coffee to figure out what the Xaravian yelled at her, particularly since his accent grew stronger the angrier he got.
She fished around in some of her luggage for backup communicators, and found one that would at least reach the Galaxos and the rebel base where they were still supposed to be docked. Hopefully someone there would be able to explain to her what the hell was going on.
Jess tried Griggs first, knowing that Vaant might pick up if she tried Isla, but the security officer didn’t answer. Neither did Isla. Jess paced more as she racked her brain. Were they ignoring her? Was it some kind of conspiracy? What if none of them ever answered her back? Would she be stuck as a prisoner forever?
She couldn’t deal with that. She wouldn’t let them accuse her of crimes she didn’t commit, just because she’d been an information officer. She’d done some terrible things, that was true, but that was in the past. The rebels were her future, since the Alliance clearly wanted her dead. Regardless of what Nathan promised, Jess knew the bounties would never completely go away. Even if the Alliance claimed the bounties were no longer valid, no doubt they would still pay if someone showed up with her head. The Alliance never forgot.
Jess finally turned the communicator to Rowan, hoping the engineer would at least have her device on her, and held her breath as the communicator searched for a connection. After an eternity, Rowan’s face appeared in the small screen, surprised and a little worried. “Jess? Is that you?”
Jess exhaled in relief. “Rowan. What the hell is going on?”
“What do you mean? What’s happening with your ... trip? Is something going wrong?”
“Not yet,” Jess said. “Well, sort of. Trazzak got some news from Vaant and now he’s freaking out. He locked me in my quarters. Do you know what’s going on? Is Isla there?”
The silence stretched and Rowan wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Well, there are some questions floating around, and Isla thought you might be able to answer some of them. But they didn’t want to bother you while you’re in the middle of this other mission.”
Jess’s heart sank. She’d known the time would probably come when everything came crashing down and the other Earthers cut ties with her. After she told Isla and Griggs, Jess expected that to be the moment everyone gave up on her. And she thought she was out of the woods when none of that happened. It just made it more painful to watch it happen right in front of her. Not just the cut ties, but the accusations of betrayal and treason... Those stung almost as much.
“Rowan, I need you to listen to me. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not my fault. I’m not doing any of it. I swear on Newton and Einstein and Hawking himself — I’m loyal to our crew. That’s it. I’m not working for the Fleet or the Alliance or the Information Ministry.” Jess cleared her throat to get rid of the emotional wobble; she didn’t have time for sentimentality. “Please have Isla or Griggs contact me. Please. I can’t explain what happened, but I can figure out who did it. I’ll figure it out. I’ll fix this. Somehow.”
The engineer looked uneasy but she nodded. “O-Okay, Jess. For what it’s worth, I believe you.”
“Thanks.” Jess sank onto the small couch as her knees weakened and the room tilted around her. “Just… have them contact me. Soon.”
Rowan nodded and then the communicator went dark. Jess’s heart started to pound and her hands trembled. She hid the communicator behind a cushion before someone broke in and confiscated it, and tried to still her breathing like Trazzak showed her. In and out evenly and uninterrupted. It didn’t work.
Instead, every disaster she’d ever imagined crashed down around her: abandoned by her friends, hunted by the Alliance, accused of treason by her crewmates, and poisoned by bounty hunters. Dying a slow death, alone and confined. They didn’t even give her the option of disappearing on a neutral planet. She’d face a court martial at the rebel base, no doubt, and the rebels had no tolerance for even a hint of someone betraying the rebellion.
Nausea gripped her stomach and she raced to the bathroom just in time. Jess knelt on the cold floor and stared at the remains of her breakfast — and some blood. She frowned, holding her head, and tried to stand. She’d never thrown up blood before. That couldn’t be a good sign. Her heart stuttered and skipped, and the small bathroom turned even more claustrophobic. Everything fell apart. Everything good in her life was burning to ash and disappearing in the smoke.
Tears stung her eyes as she dragged herself back to the living room. She didn’t want to die next to a toilet. Jess reached up to the emergency alert button even as her body weakened and her vision blurred. She thought she hit it, but no alarms sounded to alert Maisy to her predicament. Maybe Trazzak disabled the alarms.
Jess lay back on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. No telling what kind of toxin this was. At least it didn’t hurt too much, just an odd cramping and ache in her stomach. And the taste of bile and blood on her teeth. It could have been worse, all things considered. Once, years ago on a poorly-planned mission, she’d been stabbed and left for dead on a hostile planet, in a back alley filled with garbage and animals. Another mission left her stranded in a desert until the thirst made her mad, until she hallucinated a perfect life with a perfect family. Waking up, sunburned and dehydrated in a Ministry hospital, to realize it had been a dream was crueler than the desert itself. Ever her bracelet hadn’t helped.
She exhaled and some of the pain disappeared. Everything grew quiet and still. She thought she heard running feet in the corridor, but it faded into the beating of her heart in her ears.
Trazzak
The fury hadn’t abated as Trazzak guided the ship to the coordinates Yurik sent. Trazzak considered calling off the mission entirely, though he knew getting their hands on the technology might give the rebels leverage over the Alliance, if the Alliance wanted it so badly. Those greedy bastards wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off the new weapons system; Trazzak didn’t think they’d get the full pardons that Jessalyn expected, but there would be something in it for the Galaxos crew.
He landed the ship in what looked like a deserted dump, filled with rusting spaceships and satellites and space trash, and rechecked the coordinates, just in case. Trazzak trusted Yurik, and had worked with him in the past. That didn’t mean the location was entirely safe.
Just as Trazzak considered relaunching the ship and getting off the planet, a metal door moved and a small blue flag waved from the darkness. That was the sign. He summoned Frrar to monitor the bridge and get the ship out of there if anything happened to Trazzak, and ignored the sidelong look the engineer gave him. Trazzak didn’t ask about Jessalyn.
“I want a report on the contents of that relay as soon as I get back,” Trazzak said. “We might have to change plans before we go forward.”
He took a small tablet as he headed for the escape hatch of the cutter, glad they were in a small enough ship that they didn’t need a departure pod or anything else to reach the surface. Trazzak checked his robes and gear and the monitors on the wall in the dock: the atmosphere and gravity were within acceptable levels, the temperature was not uncomfortable, and no threats appeared in the vicinity, at least as far as the ship could tell.
Before Trazzak dropped to the surface through the hatch, lowering a ladder
to aid him in returning to the ship, he heard a series of alarms going off inside the ship, near the living quarters. He hesitated. Jessalyn. What if the poison...? Trazzak pushed the thought away and gritted his teeth. Chances were Jessalyn had the antidote herself, so it was all more of the same facade.
Trazzak headed across the uneven ground to the metal door, checking his communicator to make sure Frrar could hear him, and ducked into the building. Yurik, a tall Xaravian with scars all over his face, waited just inside to shake his arm in the warrior’s grip. “Brother. Good to see you.”
“And you,” Trazzak said. He clapped Yurik on the shoulder and followed him into the interior of the large warehouse. “I was glad to hear a familiar name in this sector. I’ve got something of a problem.”
“That’s what I heard.” Yurik showed him into a small office filled with papers and invoices and flight manifests and everything else a space junker might need. He pulled out a bottle of liquor and two glasses. “Does your crew want to disembark the ship?”
“They’re fine on there, at least until we talk.” Trazzak took one of the battered sofas, low to the ground in the Xarav style, and stretched his legs out. “We have much to discuss.”
Yurik handed over a glass of liquor and a plate of red paste and pickled vegetables. “I’m sure we do. Business first, then we can try to drink each other to death. Agreed?”
Trazzak clinked his glass to Yurik’s. “Agreed.”
He explained as much as he could to Yurik, though Trazzak left out some details about Jessalyn’s recent betrayal until he had a little more evidence, as Frrar suggested. Trazzak could complete the mission himself and sort the rest of it out later. He showed Yurik the schematics for the weapons system, and the other Xaravian leaned back with a low whistle. “Something like that could change the game entirely.”
“Right.” Trazzak shook his head and reached for another drink. “Except the Alliance wants to get their hands on it through us.”
“You’re making deals with the Alliance now?” Yurik snorted, shaking his head. “I thought we all learned those lessons the hard way after training and the Ministry’s attempts to ... terminate us.” And he gestured at the scars on his face. Yurik hadn’t escaped as easily as Trazzak had, and it showed.
Trazzak rubbed his mouth, staring across the room but not seeing the messy desk and bucket of spare parts. He only saw Jessalyn’s face, distracting him and taunting him. “That’s a longer story.”
“A female, then?”
Trazzak looked at him sharply, but Yurik just grinned. “Why do you think that?”
“Your scales, man.” Yurik nodded in his direction, and Trazzak looked down to find some of his scales twisting with green and blue. Just great. Yurik laced his hands behind his head as he studied Trazzak. “So. She got you into trouble or you got into trouble for her?”
“The Alliance has a bounty on her head, and the heads of the five officers we liberated a few months ago. The one on the ship, Barnes, worked for the Ministry. They offered her freedom and a pension if she could get this particular weapons system, and turned it over to them.” Trazzak grimaced; no use trying to hide the rest of it. “Only problem is, now I can’t tell if she’s still working for the Ministry.”
Yurik’s eyebrows rose. “That’s a hell of a gamble to take — not just with your ship and crew, but my base as well.”
“I didn’t suspect her until after she’d heard the coordinates.” Trazzak shook his head. “She fooled us all.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Yurik said. When Trazzak shot him a dark look, Yurik held up his hands. “You’re too smart to fall for a female’s tricks. If she betrayed you, and you’re sure of it, then it must have been recent. Your instincts are better than that.”
“We’ll see.” Trazzak didn’t want to even entertain the thought that he’d been wrong about Jessalyn. “But for now, what do you know about the group that developed this system? How tough will it be to get in there?”
Yurik leaned to retrieve a catalog from the mess on his desk, and tossed the glossy brochure over to Trazzak. “They specialize in custom orders; too high-end for most captains to afford them, so normally it’s a big conglomerate that hires them or really rich pirates. They’ll occasionally do work on commission, but if the customer pays extra, the company won’t even admit that they did the work. Very hush-hush. High security.”
“So breaking in isn’t going to work, hmm?” Trazzak held his breath as the best plan they had — to sneak in and steal it — evaporated. The kind of company Yurik described wasn’t going to let them get in and out alive.
“Not unless you want to be buried here on Dablon,” Yurik said. “I doubt you’d be able to get in without a few months of work to track the security guards and figure out access biometrics and things like that. You’ll have to go through the front doors, like every other pirate with dreams of invincibility.”
Trazzak frowned at his drink and sipped the liquor. “I guess that simplifies things, then. From what you said, though, the company developed this technology for a specific buyer. They might not even admit it exists.”
“True enough.” Yurik studied the empty bottle and sighed. “What’s the rest of the plan?”
Trazzak had no idea. He wished he could talk to Jessalyn about it, to get her opinion on how to approach the problem, but any suggestions she would make would be suspect. Maybe Frrar would have a brilliant idea. Or Maisy. The doctor was smart, she might be able to come up with something unorthodox. Trazzak rubbed his jaw as he looked at his friend. “I walk in the front door and ask to buy it. Want to come with me?”
Yurik laughed and got up to retrieve more snacks and liquor. “Are you kidding? How sure are you that this isn’t an ambush? If the Alliance sent their agent to lead you here, maybe this is just an elaborate ruse to isolate you and ambush your crew.”
He’d considered it. Trazzak sank lower on the couch and accepted another drink. Great. Another trap to detect and evade. This mission kept getting better. If the weapons system itself actually existed, it would be worth almost anything to the rebels. If it was all a pipe dream or a Ministry fabrication... the Galaxos crew would pay dearly to find that out.
Jess
Jess woke up still in her quarters, although Maisy knelt next to her and fiddled with a bunch of gadgets. Frrar crouched near the open door, his expression troubled. Jess refused to be disappointed that Trazzak wasn’t there. He would have been such a comforting presence, and at least that would have given her the chance to apologize and explain. Jess groaned and closed her eyes again. It felt like a horrible dream, and yet there she was, on the floor of her quarters.
Maisy’s lips compressed in a thin line. “Can you tell me what happened? I came in here after the alarms sounded and you were convulsing.”
“My heart started beating really fast,” Jess said. Her tongue felt furry and too large for her mouth, and she wished desperately for water or something a little stronger. “Then I threw up. A couple of times. Some of it was blood.”
“That’s not a good sign,” Frrar said, then he frowned. “Right? It’s the same for you Earthers?”
“Yes, it’s the same for us,” Maisy said. She ran another scanner across Jess’s middle, checking the readout against something else. “There doesn’t seem to be any damage to your internal organs, Jess.”
Jess tried taking a deep breath and thought better of it as the room swam behind Maisy’s round-eyed face. “You can check the bathroom, Maisy. It’s all there.”
“I believe you,” the doctor said dryly. “Let’s get you on the couch.”
Frrar helped lift Jess up when she couldn’t do more than lift her head, and Maisy arranged some pillows so at least Jess could sit up. The Xaravian saluted and retreated into the corridor, muttering something about monitoring the bridge, and conveniently left Jess and Maisy alone.
After the doctor got her water and she finally got rid of the gross taste in her mouth, Jess sorted out her thoughts t
o find the most pressing issues. “Where are we? Did you hear from Isla?”
“We’re on Dablon Seven,” Maisy said. She eased to sit on the end of the couch, half-turning to face Jess. “And no, I haven’t heard anything from the Galaxos. What the hell is going on? Why was Trazzak storming around and throwing things?”
“There was a misunderstanding, after I misspoke in the mess hall.” Jess covered her eyes, wanting to sink through the couch. She didn’t know if she meant what she’d said about Trazzak being a one-night-only special, but Jess wanted the time and space to figure it out. “Someone has been giving away the beacon data on the Heisenberg, so the Fleet is able to ambush it. Trazzak thinks it was me.”
“That’s absurd.” But Maisy peered at Jess a little closer. “Right?”
Jess shook her head. “It’s absurd. I’d never do that. It’s a misunderstanding, that’s all. That’s why I need to talk to Isla. No one on the Galaxos will respond, and I don’t know how to prove to them that I’m innocent. I can’t even get Trazzak to listen. And this… this damn heart ...”
The machine Maisy attached to her started beeping faster and louder as Jess’s chest compressed and the room started to blur. “I can’t even think straight without feeling like my head is going to explode.”
“Maybe the toxin reacts to adrenaline.” Maisy frowned, adjusting something on the machine. “Although that doesn’t make sense, since there would have been plenty of adrenaline when you were... reaching critical mass with Trazzak.”
Jess scowled and concentrated on controlling her breathing. “Yeah, that wasn’t a problem. But I’m guessing I don’t have a whole lot of time left to figure this out.”