“What?” Zane eventually asks after I’ve stared at the tablet for a whole minute without speaking.
I hand it to him.
“Wow.”
Lalia crowds over his shoulder and matches his grimace. Yvonne holds out her hand, stuck in her seat under Anya.
“I thought they had you on a private bounty list already?” she asks, scrolling through the listing. “Wow, you’ve got a ton of augmentations.”
No shit. “That was a private list. It was just for cyborgs. This is the same public charts where I found you all.”
Her eyes raise to mine slowly. I stare back. We’re both thinking the same thing. We must be. There’s not much else to consider.
Quietly, she says, “This is because of me, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
She sounds so remorseful it’s hard to glare too much. Though it’s definitely her fault. She spent a hell of a time getting me to help her rescue her little sister. I gave in, which was my own fault, but now I have my own public bounty sheet. For a solid million.
Anya is looking at me, which makes it extra hard to be pissed. I knew as soon as we got her out of there it was the best thing for her. Her eyes are shining, which is not something I can deal with at the moment.
“Guess I beat you two,” I say blandly to the siblings. Zane looks like he can’t decide whether to laugh or punch something.
“It doesn’t say what you did,” Lee inserts. He’s probably not thrilled about being the only one here not in on the situation.
“I, uh…” I think about lying, but he promised to let us go without a fight for the story of what happened. I don’t know why, but I’m afraid to push. “The easy version is that Yvonne here was trying to get her sister out of Amerov because Captain wouldn’t return her home in a timely fashion, I said no, but we ended up crashing on the planet and I kinda…gave in and helped her get the girl out.”
An array of emotions passes across Captain Lee’s face, settling on confusion. “Captain who?”
Right, not everyone is personally aware of Amerov’s leader. “Leader of Amerov. Heard of him?”
His eyebrows un-bunch. “Right, right. Haven’t heard anyone talk about him in ages. He have a real name?”
“Not in known memory.”
“You met him?”
Chills crawl down my skin despite how accustomed to it I should be. “Unfortunately.”
“So you broke into an Amerov base?”
“Facility. Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
Hmm? Great reaction. He probably thinks I’m an idiot, which is fair, but I already have Audra’s opinion to be overly concerned with. I’m not going to add Lee’s to it.
A knock on the door startles me half to death, a jolt going through my chest. I glare at the door as if the person on the other side can see me.
Lee answers, mumbles something to the person on the other end, and smoothly pushes in a sleek little trolly of trays. Fancy.
“Have at it,” he says, taking a seat. I’m the only one left standing, but the other humans just look between me and the food like I know whether or not it’s poisoned.
“Suspicious bunch.” Lee looks like he’s getting a kick out of this.
“They all have bounties. And apparently are stupid enough to trust my judgement.”
Zane rolls his eyes.
Lee inspects me. Looks under each tray until he finds the one he wants. Flips off the lid and digs in. Points his fork at Zane and Lalia. “Sit. Eat something. Tell me about these two. Or they can tell me, I don’t care.”
I repress a sigh. He’s being better to me than I anticipated. Which makes my radar go right off into space. But. Not much of a choice. I gesture at the humans to get their food, and grab the last thing left, sitting on the edge of the padded chair. Bat noses his way out of the backpack to sniff the food.
Lee is chewing, making direct eye-contact, a speck of something caught in his beard.
I start from the beginning.
Eventually, I start picking at the food too. I haven’t had a steak in ages, and my mouth is watering despite my discomfort. Bat picks away at anything I don’t.
When I don’t keel over and die, the humans look a little more comfortable with the meal.
I start with landing on Yayth, and lay out every detail I can remember. Leaving out the overly-emotional bits. Lee doesn’t need to know about all that. For some reason, I leave out ForceZero. It’s not public knowledge, and doesn’t feel right telling a relative stranger a team of highly-augmented super soldiers may or may not be after me specifically. It feels like knowledge he may be able to somehow use against me.
Once Lee gets the info about the possible family connection, his eyes go right to Zane and Lalia and inspect much longer. Lalia stares right back as if daring him to be an ass about it. Zane, usually the cheerful one first in line to make eye-contact, stares at his food. He looks like he’s stewing over something, which is odd for him, but I can ask later. When we’re out of here.
It’s a good two hours of a story even without the humans interjecting themselves just as I asked. It’s strange not hearing them speak for such a long period of time. Stranger still talking for so long. Lee pulls a bottle of wine out from the tray, and though it’s lunch for me, it’s dinner based on the their clock on the wall. I have a glass. It doesn’t relax me.
“Well,” Lee asks, long after the food is gone and I stop talking, mouth dry. “I thought you were exaggerating with that remark about the ship crashes and injuries.”
“You have no idea.”
He looks at my hand clasped tightly atop the table. I took off the layer of gauze I had on my healed knuckles yesterday, but wish I hadn’t. There’s still a pink mess of a healing wound becoming a scar over my knuckles and wrapping around my thumb. His staring makes my skin prickle.
After the week on Falla, I was feeling pretty good. Amazing how that ease goes to hell.
“That was the story,” I hint, when the silence begins to stretch.
Lee cracks a smile. “You’re very uncomfortable, aren’t you?”
“What was your first clue?”
Lee shrugs as if to say good point. “Calm down. I’m not stealing your bounties.”
It’s so blunt I don’t know how to respond. I try to reason why he would be lying about something like this after we’re already in the middle of his ship, armed but in a terrible position.
I end up only managing, “Why now?”
Another shrug. “Professional curtesy.”
“Bullshit.”
Lee snorts, pulling out an electric cigarette and lighting it up with orange smoke. “Well, for one thing: you’re right, I’m doing very very well for myself. I’d tell you the amount we’ve collected this year alone but I think it may hurt your pride.”
I make a face.
“And I never did pay you for all the work you did for me when you were a kid.”
I was a teen, but I get the term.
“So consider it a favor.”
Something in the way he says it seems like he doesn’t really mean I’m owing him. I don’t know why I get the impression—I never really got to know the guy all that well, and ran with his crew for less than a year, but his expression is easier to read than humans I’ve never met.
“You still don’t believe me,” he says when I don’t respond.
“I guess I’ll believe you when we’re back on our ships safely heading in the opposite direction.”
Another chuckle. “I suppose that’s fair.”
“Your crew isn’t going to be happy. Some of them would outright like to turn me in for a bounty separate of the amount of money.”
“I’m aware.”
Of course he is. The humans look confused, but now is not the time for the story. Never would be a nice time, but I know by now I’m not going to get out of it. They’re going to ask me, and I don’t have much willpower for stubbornly refusing.
“And?” I ask, still trying to understand where Lee’s coming from.
He shifts, looking at something out the broad window to my back. “You’re poking this an awful lot. Would you rather have to fight your way out of here?”
“No…” He doesn’t want to explain. I don’t like this at all. If he’s going to let us go, there’s no reason he wouldn’t want to explain unless there’s a problem.
“Are we heading into a trap?” I ask.
He looks so genuinely confused by the question I believe no such thing is happening. “No. Why would you ask?”
“Suspicious,” I mutter, pushing the leftover bone from the steak around the plate with my fork.
“I caught on to that.” The amusement has returned.
“Well, you asked why I’m alive. Got your answer, I guess.”
“That, and apparently you can bounce back from ship crashes no problem.”
I crack a smile.
“You should’ve stayed on.”
I stop smiling. The very idea makes my skin crawl. “We know that wouldn’t’ve been a good idea.”
“We do,” he agrees.
Another knock has me glaring at the door. I’m a little surprised no one interrupted us throughout the meal. I guess it couldn’t last forever.
“Come in!”
Kel steps inside, and whatever scraps of a good mood I’d been in disappear completely. I’m aware I’m hunching over my empty plate with a rather embarrassing lack of confidence, but I settle for glaring up at her like a tense animal rather than try to act like something I’m not.
She wanders in, takes a look at the humans, then back at me.
“What are we going to do with that?” She asks Lee, flicking a long hand to me.
I roll my eyes, but apparently Zane can only take keeping to himself for so long. “Who the fuck are you, exactly?”
His pulse is practically visible in his neck. Quite the change in attitude for the laid back guy. Hard to be worried about it when fire lights in Kel’s eyes at being challenged.
I can’t help it, I snort. Her eyes snap back to me.
“Congrats,” I say. “You’ve managed to piss off the nicest person I’ve met in my life, and he’s known you a total of about fifteen seconds.”
Zane shoots me a look, but Lee and Lalia both look amused.
“The question still stands,” Zane mutters.
“I’m the person who’s going to enjoy spending the bounty we get on you,” Kel snaps.
“Apparently not, ask your captain.” Zane’s tone is matching venom.
I kick him under the table. He kicks me back.
Kel’s eyes narrow into needle slits. Lee sighs.
“Aaron and I have come to an arrangement,” he says. “He’s taking his bounties—rather hard-won, I might add—and will be splitting the profit with me afterwards.”
He winks at me, and I keep my face smooth. The humans manage to catch on, even if Anya looks confused, but she was already frowning when Kel walked in.
“What makes you think he’ll pay you?” Kel asks.
“Because he gave me his word.”
“And who says his word is worth shit?”
Something in Lee’s eyes turn hard as steel. I’ve seen that look before, enough it’s stuck in my mind after nearly two decades, and I force myself not to squirm.
Lowly, Lee says, “I do.”
Enough warning is dripping in those words the atmosphere gets noticeably tenser. Zane presses his lips together, glancing at me. I crack a smile his direction, not enough for it to be noticeable to Kel—hopefully. I catch the patch on her coat for the first time. First mate. Well. Goody for her.
Lee just told off his first mate to defend me. I don’t know what his plan is, but I feel myself ease up towards him without meaning to. I’m going to still keep an eye on him, but it’s difficult to be distrusting.
Kel appears absolutely livid. But she keeps her mouth shut.
“Did you want something?” Lee asks, after the atmosphere becomes so tense Bat has ducked down under the table, ears flat, giving me the side-eye nervously.
Kel looks like she’s going to start twitching, but clasps her hands behind her back and says. “We need to re-route our course, that star is going supernova and they’re apparently evacuating the mines in the area.”
“What?” Zane eventually asks after I’ve stared at the tablet for a whole minute without speaking.
I hand it to him.
“Wow.”
Lalia crowds over his shoulder and matches his grimace. Yvonne holds out her hand, stuck in her seat under Anya.
“I thought they had you on a private bounty list already?” she asks, scrolling through the listing. “Wow, you’ve got a ton of augmentations.”
No shit. “That was a private list. It was just for cyborgs. This is the same public charts where I found you all.”
Her eyes raise to mine slowly. I stare back. We’re both thinking the same thing. We must be. There’s not much else to consider.
Quietly, she says, “This is because of me, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
She sounds so remorseful it’s hard to glare too much. Though it’s definitely her fault. She spent a hell of a time getting me to help her rescue her little sister. I gave in, which was my own fault, but now I have my own public bounty sheet. For a solid million.
Anya is looking at me, which makes it extra hard to be pissed. I knew as soon as we got her out of there it was the best thing for her. Her eyes are shining, which is not something I can deal with at the moment.
“Guess I beat you two,” I say blandly to the siblings. Zane looks like he can’t decide whether to laugh or punch something.
“It doesn’t say what you did,” Lee inserts. He’s probably not thrilled about being the only one here not in on the situation.
“I, uh…” I think about lying, but he promised to let us go without a fight for the story of what happened. I don’t know why, but I’m afraid to push. “The easy version is that Yvonne here was trying to get her sister out of Amerov because Captain wouldn’t return her home in a timely fashion, I said no, but we ended up crashing on the planet and I kinda…gave in and helped her get the girl out.”
An array of emotions passes across Captain Lee’s face, settling on confusion. “Captain who?”
Right, not everyone is personally aware of Amerov’s leader. “Leader of Amerov. Heard of him?”
His eyebrows un-bunch. “Right, right. Haven’t heard anyone talk about him in ages. He have a real name?”
“Not in known memory.”
“You met him?”
Chills crawl down my skin despite how accustomed to it I should be. “Unfortunately.”
“So you broke into an Amerov base?”
“Facility. Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
Hmm? Great reaction. He probably thinks I’m an idiot, which is fair, but I already have Audra’s opinion to be overly concerned with. I’m not going to add Lee’s to it.
A knock on the door startles me half to death, a jolt going through my chest. I glare at the door as if the person on the other side can see me.
Lee answers, mumbles something to the person on the other end, and smoothly pushes in a sleek little trolly of trays. Fancy.
“Have at it,” he says, taking a seat. I’m the only one left standing, but the other humans just look between me and the food like I know whether or not it’s poisoned.
“Suspicious bunch.” Lee looks like he’s getting a kick out of this.
“They all have bounties. And apparently are stupid enough to trust my judgement.”
Zane rolls his eyes.
Lee inspects me. Looks under each tray until he finds the one he wants. Flips off the lid and digs in. Points his fork at Zane and Lalia. “Sit. Eat something. Tell me about these two. Or they can tell me, I don’t care.”
I repress a sigh. He’s being better to me than I anticipated. Which makes my radar go right off into space. But. Not much of a choice. I gesture at the humans to get their food, and grab the last thing left, sitting on the edge of the padded chair. Bat noses his way out of the backpack to sniff the food.
Lee is chewing, making direct eye-contact, a speck of something caught in his beard.
I start from the beginning.
Eventually, I start picking at the food too. I haven’t had a steak in ages, and my mouth is watering despite my discomfort. Bat picks away at anything I don’t.
When I don’t keel over and die, the humans look a little more comfortable with the meal.
I start with landing on Yayth, and lay out every detail I can remember. Leaving out the overly-emotional bits. Lee doesn’t need to know about all that. For some reason, I leave out ForceZero. It’s not public knowledge, and doesn’t feel right telling a relative stranger a team of highly-augmented super soldiers may or may not be after me specifically. It feels like knowledge he may be able to somehow use against me.
Once Lee gets the info about the possible family connection, his eyes go right to Zane and Lalia and inspect much longer. Lalia stares right back as if daring him to be an ass about it. Zane, usually the cheerful one first in line to make eye-contact, stares at his food. He looks like he’s stewing over something, which is odd for him, but I can ask later. When we’re out of here.
It’s a good two hours of a story even without the humans interjecting themselves just as I asked. It’s strange not hearing them speak for such a long period of time. Stranger still talking for so long. Lee pulls a bottle of wine out from the tray, and though it’s lunch for me, it’s dinner based on the their clock on the wall. I have a glass. It doesn’t relax me.
“Well,” Lee asks, long after the food is gone and I stop talking, mouth dry. “I thought you were exaggerating with that remark about the ship crashes and injuries.”
“You have no idea.”
He looks at my hand clasped tightly atop the table. I took off the layer of gauze I had on my healed knuckles yesterday, but wish I hadn’t. There’s still a pink mess of a healing wound becoming a scar over my knuckles and wrapping around my thumb. His staring makes my skin prickle.
After the week on Falla, I was feeling pretty good. Amazing how that ease goes to hell.
“That was the story,” I hint, when the silence begins to stretch.
Lee cracks a smile. “You’re very uncomfortable, aren’t you?”
“What was your first clue?”
Lee shrugs as if to say good point. “Calm down. I’m not stealing your bounties.”
It’s so blunt I don’t know how to respond. I try to reason why he would be lying about something like this after we’re already in the middle of his ship, armed but in a terrible position.
I end up only managing, “Why now?”
Another shrug. “Professional curtesy.”
“Bullshit.”
Lee snorts, pulling out an electric cigarette and lighting it up with orange smoke. “Well, for one thing: you’re right, I’m doing very very well for myself. I’d tell you the amount we’ve collected this year alone but I think it may hurt your pride.”
I make a face.
“And I never did pay you for all the work you did for me when you were a kid.”
I was a teen, but I get the term.
“So consider it a favor.”
Something in the way he says it seems like he doesn’t really mean I’m owing him. I don’t know why I get the impression—I never really got to know the guy all that well, and ran with his crew for less than a year, but his expression is easier to read than humans I’ve never met.
“You still don’t believe me,” he says when I don’t respond.
“I guess I’ll believe you when we’re back on our ships safely heading in the opposite direction.”
Another chuckle. “I suppose that’s fair.”
“Your crew isn’t going to be happy. Some of them would outright like to turn me in for a bounty separate of the amount of money.”
“I’m aware.”
Of course he is. The humans look confused, but now is not the time for the story. Never would be a nice time, but I know by now I’m not going to get out of it. They’re going to ask me, and I don’t have much willpower for stubbornly refusing.
“And?” I ask, still trying to understand where Lee’s coming from.
He shifts, looking at something out the broad window to my back. “You’re poking this an awful lot. Would you rather have to fight your way out of here?”
“No…” He doesn’t want to explain. I don’t like this at all. If he’s going to let us go, there’s no reason he wouldn’t want to explain unless there’s a problem.
“Are we heading into a trap?” I ask.
He looks so genuinely confused by the question I believe no such thing is happening. “No. Why would you ask?”
“Suspicious,” I mutter, pushing the leftover bone from the steak around the plate with my fork.
“I caught on to that.” The amusement has returned.
“Well, you asked why I’m alive. Got your answer, I guess.”
“That, and apparently you can bounce back from ship crashes no problem.”
I crack a smile.
“You should’ve stayed on.”
I stop smiling. The very idea makes my skin crawl. “We know that wouldn’t’ve been a good idea.”
“We do,” he agrees.
Another knock has me glaring at the door. I’m a little surprised no one interrupted us throughout the meal. I guess it couldn’t last forever.
“Come in!”
Kel steps inside, and whatever scraps of a good mood I’d been in disappear completely. I’m aware I’m hunching over my empty plate with a rather embarrassing lack of confidence, but I settle for glaring up at her like a tense animal rather than try to act like something I’m not.
She wanders in, takes a look at the humans, then back at me.
“What are we going to do with that?” She asks Lee, flicking a long hand to me.
I roll my eyes, but apparently Zane can only take keeping to himself for so long. “Who the fuck are you, exactly?”
His pulse is practically visible in his neck. Quite the change in attitude for the laid back guy. Hard to be worried about it when fire lights in Kel’s eyes at being challenged.
I can’t help it, I snort. Her eyes snap back to me.
“Congrats,” I say. “You’ve managed to piss off the nicest person I’ve met in my life, and he’s known you a total of about fifteen seconds.”
Zane shoots me a look, but Lee and Lalia both look amused.
“The question still stands,” Zane mutters.
“I’m the person who’s going to enjoy spending the bounty we get on you,” Kel snaps.
“Apparently not, ask your captain.” Zane’s tone is matching venom.
I kick him under the table. He kicks me back.
Kel’s eyes narrow into needle slits. Lee sighs.
“Aaron and I have come to an arrangement,” he says. “He’s taking his bounties—rather hard-won, I might add—and will be splitting the profit with me afterwards.”
He winks at me, and I keep my face smooth. The humans manage to catch on, even if Anya looks confused, but she was already frowning when Kel walked in.
“What makes you think he’ll pay you?” Kel asks.
“Because he gave me his word.”
“And who says his word is worth shit?”
Something in Lee’s eyes turn hard as steel. I’ve seen that look before, enough it’s stuck in my mind after nearly two decades, and I force myself not to squirm.
Lowly, Lee says, “I do.”
Enough warning is dripping in those words the atmosphere gets noticeably tenser. Zane presses his lips together, glancing at me. I crack a smile his direction, not enough for it to be noticeable to Kel—hopefully. I catch the patch on her coat for the first time. First mate. Well. Goody for her.
Lee just told off his first mate to defend me. I don’t know what his plan is, but I feel myself ease up towards him without meaning to. I’m going to still keep an eye on him, but it’s difficult to be distrusting.
Kel appears absolutely livid. But she keeps her mouth shut.
“Did you want something?” Lee asks, after the atmosphere becomes so tense Bat has ducked down under the table, ears flat, giving me the side-eye nervously.
Kel looks like she’s going to start twitching, but clasps her hands behind her back and says. “We need to re-route our course, that star is going supernova and they’re apparently evacuating the mines in the area.”
