Cagebird

by Karin Lowachee

  “Yuri,” he says, still sitting. I feel his eyes. “You look surprisingly—”

  “Alive? Yeah, it shocks me too.” I walk over to the seat directly across from him, unclamp it, and drop down. There’s a glass of water on the table, so I pick it up and drink. It soothes the rawness in my throat. “How’ve you been?”

  He doesn’t answer that idle question. He just picks up as if the length of time we’ve been apart in our separate deals is only as long as this table. “So Taja actually managed to spring you. I didn’t think she had it in her.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Why would she do that? I thought she wanted you dead, or at least out of the picture. Which you were on that forsaken planet.”

  I smirk. “Clearly she wants me to get my ship back in the game, since she’s effectively dealt us out. Right?”

  His smile stays longer than mine. “Right. But Taja’s known to have more pride than sense. And it must be a big insult, not to mention a threat, to have you on board.”

  He won’t let it go. “I don’t think you really understand how badly she’s doing.”

  “Tell me.” His face is as flat as his voice, but it doesn’t fool me. Of course he’s got his eye on my ship.

  “Well, for one, the crew’s divided.”

  “You’ve talked to your crew already?”

  “I talked to Rika.” So far I haven’t had to lie much. Truth is always easier to deliver. “And you know the geisha…”

  They often have sway on a ship, ambassadors and assassins for their captain, and generally respected by the crew. It’s the only reason Rika’s still on board. If Taja got rid of her and the rest of the Hanamachi, it would cause more problems than it would solve.

  Cal’s never had a Hanamachi. His smile is wry now. “So Roshan hasn’t got the balls to vent your whores, eh?”

  I know better than to take that bait. “Which is why she’s losing my ship and a good deal of cred that could, possibly, go partly to you.” If she had sense to swallow her pride and make a solid alliance.

  “I don’t need a captain like her.” A statement that provides an opening.

  “But you could use one like me.”

  He shrugs. “And here you are with an offer, hm? She was rather eager to set this up.”

  “I’m here for me, not for her.”

  “I’ll believe that when you can board my ship without a guard of your own crew.”

  It’s a mild insult, but accurate. I lean back and tap the table twice with a finger. “That’s just a matter of time. In the meanwhile I don’t want to waste yours. I do have a proposal.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “Just because Azarcon’s gone stritside doesn’t mean we’re in the clear, does it? If anything the carriers’re more pervasive because the strits’ve stopped attacking altogether. As long as the Hub doesn’t cross the DMZ. That’s what the Send Says.”

  He just looks at me because he knows this.

  “So right now we’ve got a whole lot of product and not a lot of opportunity to move it.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “What about our contacts in the Family of Humanity?”

  “They’re lying low,” he says finally, swinging his seat gently from side to side, hands laced on his stomach. “That Azarcon kid and his big mouth with the meedees”—his eyes pin me, because the kid is my fault—“has got the govies like Ashrafi looking hard and fast at the Centries and their playmates.”

  “So,” I tell him, “really the only way to get inside the Hub is to get ourselves on their side. And right now, for all Falcone’s military and senatorial buddies, we’re more outside than before. With him dead.”

  “I’m waiting for this proposal.”

  I go in for the kill. “You have a hold on the pirates, on this network. So far. I can give you the Hub.”

  Now he laughs. It even sounds genuine. “Kirov, you really are an arrogant son of a bitch.”

  “Who has the power there to change politics in our favor? Not Damiani and her wheezing breed. Not with Azarcon and his admiral papa focused on where she beds her ass. There’s still an organization on that side that not even Azarcon can penetrate. Because they hate the strits as much as we do. They don’t trust those damn aliens. They haven’t been fighting them for decades only to have one rogue captain with high ideals and a bleeding heart come roaring in to upset the status quo. And threaten the borders of humanity.”

  Caligtiera stares at me.

  “Taja didn’t spring me,” I tell him.

  “Clearly,” he says. “I ought to shoot you where you sit.”

  “It’s a different galaxy now, Cal. You know it. Everything changed when Falcone died on that dock. A lot of his old rules don’t apply anymore.”

  “What did they tell you? What lies?”

  I shrug. “Maybe a lot. But we won’t know that until we run the prog. Personally, I think they’re sincere.” About which part, my deal or Taja’s, that’s a guess. But to Cal: “I met the bloke. And he’s a bastard.”

  “That’s no qualification for alliance, even among our kind. For all I know you’re here on his orders because he wants to bring us down. Get you inside, steal our codes, our sinkholes, our allies? Expose it all?”

  He’s got a gun in his hand, under the table, and he won’t have to raise it to my face to kill me. He’s got accurate aim, even blind.

  “Cal.” I lean my elbows on the table. “You may have most of the pirates in your corner now, but you know as well as I do that it’s tenuous. With the deep-space carriers hopped up on Azarcon zeal, and pirates being what they are—we’re hunted constantly, and in the midst of it everyone wants your job, everyone thinks they can do what Falcone did. So they’ll kill you to get it, or everything will fragment and we’ll be nothing but a pack of hyenas fighting over EarthHub’s carrion. And how long do you think we’ll last in that environment? Wolves like Taja are just lining up to remove our asses. A solid alliance with a force like Black Ops will make the pack think twice. Because Ops won’t deal with anyone but you or me. They know damn well who the smartest ones are in this operation, who Falcone trusted the most. And they can get to our govie allies a lot quicker that we can, with a louder voice.”

  Laid out like that, even I’m convinced.

  “And what’s in it for them?” he asks, to the point.

  “A fleet of ships on the front line that won’t put up with Azarcon’s shit. Someone to do the dirty work for them when the Council or Hub Command squint too close at their corners. My contact would be able to explain it better to you, if you were to meet him.”

  “So they got you out of prison because you’re Falcone’s geisha with all the pretty words. Is that it?” His stare is hard.

  “They got me out of prison because next to you I’m the one with the most influence in the network. And you know it; that’s why you don’t like me. Aside from the fact I’m less than half your age and better-looking to boot.”

  “You’re a bitch of the first degree, Kirov.”

  “But I’m picky about who I bed. Geisha don’t spread for nothing, and you know it. Now are we going to dance or just get to the good part?”

  It pulls a smile out of him, but one with definite angles. He leans forward and removes his crumpled, half-empty cigret pack from his shirt pocket, tapping out a brown stick, then tossing the pack on the table. He snaps his fingerband lighter on the end, and a stinky volcanic smell wafts into the air. “I forgot what it’s like to spar with you, Yuri,” he says. Which I bet isn’t true. He takes a deep drag and blows smoke in my direction. “So get your captaincy back without dying, and maybe we’ll talk again.”

  Taja tries to grill me on the ride back to the Khan, but I don’t tell her anything. Not until she threatens to space me, then it’s almost funny. I look at her as the shuttle docks back in the bay, grappled and secured.

  “Go ahead and space me, and Cal will come for you next. You want to know what he said? You let me go free on my
own ship.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Kirov. Since it’s my ship.”

  I stand, ignoring her guards hovering like angels, and face her when she rises to meet my gaze. “He’s not going to talk to you, Taja. I may be geisha, but you were nothing but Falcone’s whore. Don’t think just because you sit in that captain’s chair that it earns you respect.”

  She tries to deck me, but I grab her wrist, then the guards grab me back by both arms and she hits me then, across the face with her fist. I tongue the bleeding inside of my mouth and just smile.

  “You were the biggest whore on that ship,” she snarls. “And worse still, you actually loved it. Geisha?” Her teeth show. “Not even Estienne bought that line as big as you. You thought it all pretty, and he knew it was just a façade. Wake up, Yuri.”

  “Oh I’m awake. Keep saying his name, Taja.”

  “Words. Geisha words.”

  “Cal listened to them well enough.” To bring it back to the point. When I want to kill her. “When are you going to realize that they played you? They told you what you wanted to hear so you’d get me back here, then get me to talk to Cal. There’s no deal for you, only me. And if you want to stay alive, you better listen to me. Cal will take this ship unless you let me go.”

  Her head tilts, like her frown. “I can’t do that. But I can let your bedbug go.”

  “Under guard, I bet.”

  “Just to make sure he doesn’t sabotage my engineering deck. And you can still have shagging privileges.” She grins like a death’s-head. “Although I might take a sample or two myself.”

  I don’t need to address that. “And I want Piotr to scan my quarters for optics. Thoroughly.”

  Her smirk disappears.

  “Or,” I tell her, with my face smarting, my gaze pinned to her face, “you can turn this shuttle around and go offer your services to Cal. On your knees.”

  That would earn me a shot in the head at any other time. But she knows I’m right. She knows she lost as soon as her ass got ordered to stay behind with the shuttle, but she still won’t let go that easily. So we drag it out. And I rub it in.

  “Piotr,” she says. “Fine.” Then she says to her men, “Take him back to his q.”

  And they do, rough. But I don’t feel it. Only my smile.

  Five minutes inside, then Finch comes in, allowed by the guard. I’m sitting on the floor poking my finger at Dexter in the cage, who tries to bite it off. The hatch slams in, Dexter screeches, and Finch rubs his ear, looking surprised that I’m still alive. I open the cage so my pet can fly out. Finch moves away and says, “What happened?”

  “We talked.” And now I have to plan.

  Soon enough Piotr comes in, holding a thin black case, singing like he often does. “Yuri!” he says, breaking off to engulf me in a large hug. He’s shorter than me but built twice as wide, solid muscle, and he picks me up off my feet.

  “Ah, put me down!”

  “I will. But you’re back! The nasty rumors are true.” He sets me abruptly on the deck. “Pity. Now you will come to my Engineering and order me around again, no?”

  “My ship. My Engineering.” It’s a familiar debate, and he shoves me in the chest until I fall back on the bunk.

  “You bother me still, runt. Now what is it you want me to do?” He looks at Finch but knows better than to ask. “Hopefully not him.”

  “Scan, didn’t she tell you? I want some privacy.”

  “Eh, no doubt.” He grins at Finch. Hawk-nosed and strong-jawed, Piotr isn’t pretty, but his smile makes up for it. He smiles a lot, and sings while he works as if all the ship were an opera stage. He knows he lives on a pirate, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. Maybe because he serves the captain before the work, and he’s always liked me.

  Finch folds his arms like he’s trying not to punch somebody for that innuendo. Probably me. Dexter knows Piotr and caws at him.

  Piotr says, “Still with that bird, eh.” And for a second he looks at me seriously.

  “He gave me this ship,” I answer. And I intend to get it back.

  “You earned it,” Piotr says, then sets his case on the cage and flips it open. Inside are his toys, and he takes out the detector and pokes at it before slowly walking around the quarters, aiming it at every available surface and into the air vents. Finch and I avoid him until he’s finished. “Nothing,” he says. Then eyes Finch.

  Two-legged optics. You don’t need a scan for those.

  “He’s clean.” On my side. If only out of necessity, like it’s been since day one. “Thanks, Piotr. Now I’m going to need your help.”

  He nods. “She rotated half the crew and dumped them on other ships. Meyers, Law, Christensen, Dacascos…”

  My department heads for medical, armory, environmental, and conn.

  “But not you.”

  Piotr grins. “Nobody can keep this ship running but me. But she did ditch half my staff.”

  “Rika’s still here. And Ville.”

  “Taja’d get nowhere without a Hanamachi, and she knows it.”

  They hold sway over most of my contacts. The way I intended it, if I wasn’t around.

  “Then get a message to Rika. I want Taja dead by next shift.”

  Finch’s arms drop to his sides. But his silence persists, smartly.

  Piotr says, “Done. But the crew she hired after you were gone will fight.”

  “Then we’re going to need guns. I’ll send Finch to the library, have—Angela, is she still around?—have her meet him. He was a lifesystems mechanic, so he can help with the environmental controls. I want a battle strategy done up in two hours, where we can cordon all her goons and get the bridge with a minimum amount of damage to the ship.”

  “She’s going to expect it.”

  I nod. “Yeah, she will. But she’s got no choice. Cal won’t deal with her, and she’s greedy for some action. She won’t try to kill me because she needs me, but she’ll clean house in lieu of that.”

  Piotr shrugs. “We know this. We are not a cruise line. Just tell us where to be.”

  I can’t buy loyalty like that. But when they’re willing to die for me, and maybe I wouldn’t for them, it’s a bittersweet taste.

  For long minutes Finch doesn’t say a word, sitting on the edge of the bunk with his arms folded against his chest as if he’s cold. I sit on the deck playing with Dexter, letting him grab my sleeve and wrangle it with his sharp, tiny beak.

  “You’re going to kill her,” Finch says finally.

  I keep my eyes on Dexter’s bright green feathers. “I have no choice.” And even though he doesn’t open his mouth yet, I preempt him. “No different from the man you killed.”

  “That was self-defense.”

  “So’s this. I leave her alive and she’ll always be after me.”

  He pulls up his feet then, cross-legged, and just stares at me.

  “You disapprove?” I glance at him. You’re naïve if you disapprove.

  He doesn’t argue with me. “What do they want you to do?” Black Ops. “Specifically, what are you doing?”

  A reasonable question, delivered in a reasonable tone. He’s not going to spin on me.

  I concentrate on the little bird. “It might be best if you didn’t know.”

  “It might be best if I’m not in the dark.” Calm voice.

  But you know too much already, I could say. About me. The way I feel him watching me. The way he must have watched me when I was asleep and talking.

  But this. I don’t need to tell him. This is business he doesn’t need to know. “Just follow my orders.”

  “I’m not your crew.”

  “You’re on my ship, you’re my crew.”

  “I’m not your crew, Yuri.”

  I look up. I’m not a pirate, his face says. His face says he’s an exception to the rules in my life, sparse as they are, and maybe he’s right. I’ve given him every indication that I’ll separate myself for him.

  But not in this. I can’t be think
ing of him when I have to kill Taja. I feel dirty enough.

  Somehow he reads that. “You tried to leave before.”

  This. Piracy. Maybe him. Maybe he means all of it. I don’t answer.

  “Yuri, why did you never leave before? Before all of this happened.”

  That ignites me, his curiosity where he has no business being curious. Because we shared a cell? Because I might feel bad for screwing him, and he thinks that makes me saintly? “Finch, don’t mistake what this is.”

  “What what is?”

  I make sure to look him in the eyes. “The fact you’re here and I haven’t killed you yet.”

  “Yet?”

  I cup my hands around Dexter, lean, and slip him back into his cage. Shut the door and watch him flutter. He’s safe in there. People think birds always want to fly. But Dexter goes into his cage when he’s stressed, when he wants to feel secure. Too much space is freedom for anything to grab you.

  “Yet?” Finch says again, a little sharper.

  “You wouldn’t be so calm if you knew how many people I’ve killed.”

  A beat. Then, “I know.”

  I stand and look down at him. Cramped quarters. “You know what exactly?”

  His hands tighten on each other, slow whiteness. He doesn’t blink, but it’s out of caution, not defiance. “I know you weren’t born into this. I know this ship—or the ship you grew up on—I know it hurt you.”

  The air seems too still, despite the whine of the vents.

  “I know,” he says, almost stumbling on himself as he stares at my face, “I know why you started to cut.” A beat. “Bo-Sheng.” And now his eyes drop to my arms. But not in judgment, and that feels worse.

  “You don’t know shit.” How can one look make me this angry. “You don’t know shit!”

  He gets to his feet.

  “Leave,” I tell him.

  But he doesn’t move.

  “Get out!”

  Dexter screeches. Finch raises a hand to his head as if to block it out, but his feet stay locked to the deck.

  Then, insanely, he says, “I’m sorry.”