Chapter Thirty-Five

 

They pop the door, and Grundt pushes me through in front of him. The fish-smell residue hits me.

Grundt whispers, close to my ear, “It stinks like something already died in here.”

Already. Seems like an innocent word, no?

The bridge is empty. When I look towards the galley, the unbolted dining table is on its side, wedged up against the entrance. Two of the mercs duck down low and flitdash across the open space. They pull the table out of the way. Grundt marches me forward. The galley’s empty. Only… there’s a tiny bit of plastic sticking through the seal of the refrigerator door, quite possibly Brill’s assurance that he can get back out again. The racks from inside are stacked on top. I try not to look at them, pero Grundt still grins and focuses his men in behind him, all training weapons on the fridge.

Grundt opens the door… onto an empty space, save for a bottle of mustard and three bottles of white wine. There’s a noise behind us and a blur as Brill streaks for the door. Pero there’s an energy field across it, which he hits full speed. He bounces backwards and crumples to the floor.

I gasp.

“Relax,” Grundt says, pero he tightens his grip on my arm. “He’s not dead.” He gestures two of his guys forward. “Yet.”

The mercs haul Brill up and dump him onto one of the chairs, still bolted into their tracks where the table used to be. He seems stunned, pero he’s not unconscious, and his irises are black with terror as they bind him to the chair. After a minute or so, he comes out of it. “What do you want?”

“Where’s Johansson?” Grundt asks.

“Ga, su, I don’t know.” Brill’s eyes are still solid back, so it’s impossible to gauge if it’s a lie.

“Flip, burn him.”

One thug pulls a brulee-style torch out of his jacket and lights it.

I look up at Grundt. “Por favor, don’t do this. I can–”

My sublingual rings. It’s Tawny. Don’t offer him money.

Flip doesn’t even get the torch close to mi vida’s face before Brill says, “He’s in the smuggler’s hold past the head. The hatch is right in line with the door.”

Flip hesitates. “Boss?”

Grundt shrugs. “Go check it out.”

Brill says, “I’m really not a fan of torture.”

Que? I ask Tawny.

I know your mom’s loaded. You’re going to want to offer him the equivalent of Kaliel’s bounty to let him go.

I’ve gotten used to her cameras being all over me, pero how has she gotten inside my mind? So?

So. That makes you valuable. They kill Kaliel and collect the bounty, then ransom you and double their money. And they’ll make sure Brill’s in no condition to rescue you.

I swallow against a mouth gone suddenly dry. I don’t bother telling Tawny that Grundt made it clear we’re not walking out of here anyway.

Brill’s looking at me. “Lo siento, Babe.”

Grundt looks from me to Brill and back again. “Heartbreaking. But what did you expect when your security expert cracked through to our financial files? No one steals from us.”

“Wait!” Brill splutters. “We’re not thieves.”

“He’s talking about Chestla, mi vida.” I look up at Grundt. “I know how this looks, and sí, Chestla can get a little overzealous. If she was in your financials, she was just trying to prove who hired you to set up Kaliel.”

Grundt looks like he’s just bitten into a lemon. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Boss,” Flip says. “The hold’s empty.”

Brill’s eyes go a brilliant green with surprise. “He was in there a minute ago.”

“Kill the Krom,” Grundt says. He looks at me. “I hate liars.”

“No!” I jerk away from Grundt so hard I slip out of his grip. My hands are still cuffed behind me, pero I manage to get myself between Flip and Brill. “Por favor. Please.”

Flip shoulders me out of the way.

“He’s not lying.” Kaliel opens the door to the baño. “I slipped out of the hold and was hiding in the shower.”

He’s got a dart gun in his hand – the same one Brill used on him. While everybody’s still startled, he fires three times. A volley of gunfire comes back at Kaliel, who hits the floor, hands shielding his head.

Ten seconds later, Grundt’s three darted mercs fall.

Grundt draws a weapon, and Kaliel holds up his hands as he gets slowly back to his feet. “I’ve already promised a Galactacop that I’m turning myself in. You hand me over, that puts you in line for the reward. Let these two go, and I’ll walk out of here with you, right now.”

“You’ll be easier to handle dead.” Grundt fires at Kaliel, who ducks back behind the doorway. I leap behind the metal table.

Grundt turns to Brill, growling in frustration. No! My heart freezes. Esto no puede estar pasando. This cannot be happening. There’s a single kathud, followed by a metallic ping. Brill goes limp. I scream, before I realize what that second sound was. Brill’s still wearing the body armor. Pero, he’s playing dead.

And since he’s stopped breathing, it’s convincing.

The bullet must have bounced up towards the ceiling, because there’s a crack and then a hissing noise, and a half-bubble, painted white to match the ceiling, pops open. A tornado of confetti flies out, and a banner unspools. The lead weight that’s been attached to pull the banner open drops right toward Grundt’s cabeza. He looks up, tries to bat it away, and while he’s distracted, Kaliel barrels into him. There’s the crackpop of the gun hitting the floor. Kaliel and Grundt are fighting, and it doesn’t look like either of them are injured enough to give up.

“Mi vida, are you OK?” I race over to Brill, getting him untied from the chair using my still bound hands.

“Better than I have any right to be, Babe.” He turns to the fight, looking for a way to help, pero it’s almost over and when the confetti clears, Kaliel’s sitting on the merc, the guy’s arms pinned behind his back.

Brill starts picking the lock on the cuffs I’m wearing until they come free.

He twirls the cuffs with his good hand, then moves over and applies them to Grundt. “That should make a nice peace offering for Tyson. Kaliel wrapped up these guys with a bow.”

“Which just leaves the three watching Chestla.” I turn towards the door.

Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, Tawny bubblechatters. I forgot I’d left the channel open. Startled, I reflexively hang up.

“What does this mean?” Kaliel asks. He’s holding up the banner. “It says, How about now?”

Brill laughs. “Mertex must have done that. He was trying to goad me into a practical joke war. And I just never triggered whatever was supposed to set it off. Remind me to thank him for saving our lives – if this stuff doesn’t clog our air system.” Even as he’s speaking, though, the confetti starts to melt away.

There’s a feral scream from outside, and whatever mechanism has been netting the door breaks apart, and there’s Chestla, ready to charge inside. When she sees the bad guys already on the floor and the three of us blinking at her, she drops her sword arm, automatically doing the cleaning-the-blade swish before she puts the weapon away. “Ah, man.”

Brill’s looking at Kaliel, his eyes an embarrassed pink. “Look, su, I’m sorry I gave you up so easy. And then you turned around and risked yourself for me and–”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kaliel hands his captive – who is busy rolling his eyes at this bro-moment – over to Chestla. “You make Bo happy. And believe it or not, that’s all I want for her.”

Brill blinks a couple of times, and his eye color’s different each time he opens them. “I misjudged you, su.”

There’s a heavy banging sound from somewhere overhead. “Can somebody let me out now?”

Brill moves the upended table back into place and jumps up on it. He helps Tawny down out of a hidden hold up inside the ceiling. I thought I knew my way around Brill’s ship, pero even I’ve never seen that one before. While Brill’s busy sliding the panel back in place, Tawny sidles over to me. “Are you sure you can’t switch your affections over to Kaliel? It would really help sell the selfless, remorseful guy feedclip I just sent out. I’m having a hard time here, not being able to tell anyone why they should think he’s innocent.” She pinches my cheek. “Besides, like you said, Kaliel’s hot when he’s playing the hero.”

“I didn’t say that. Well, maybe I thought it, just for a minute–” With my sublingual channel open. Who knows what I could have been telling her. “You weren’t recording that, were you?”

Tawny grins. “I wish. That commentary track would have been perfect for the FeedCast.”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t you think Kayla y Kaliel plays better, as an example of forgiveness?”

“I don’t think we want to emphasize that Kaliel blew something else up in the past, or that Kayla is missing, do you? Team KayKay is played out.”

“You have to call them that? It’s going to break my brain. Kayla used to sign all her e-mails KayKay.”

“I know.” Tawny looks steadily back. “Where do you think I got the idea? But I for one am bored with KayKay and BeeBee. I’m still shipping hard for double KayBee.”

“I heard that,” Brill says, climbing off the table after fastening the panel in place. I hope he didn’t hear all of it.

 

While Brill’s ship might be grounded, the Fois Gras’s shower still works. I’m clean and dressed in fresh clothes, and I finally have a moment to myself, before I meet the others in the spaceport’s restaurant. But I can’t stop thinking about what Kaliel said about Jimena.

If she was infected, whatever she’d done or said to Frank hadn’t been her fault.

Pero, when I call Frank I can’t confront him about it. If he knew about the mindworms, he would have fought harder to keep Mamá from visiting Zant.

It takes him a long time to answer, and when he finally does, Frank looks like I woke him up. He’s rubbing at a layer of salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin, the hair on his cabeza spiked wildly. Oh, right. It’s the middle of the night on Zant. He’s standing in an unfamiliar kitchen, pulling out a package of coffee grounds. “Make it good, Bo.”

I do my best to explain without giving him details. “We found Kaliel, and he has confirmed the attack was on Minda.”

The vestiges of sleepiness fall away from Frank. “Did he bother to say why?”

Is Frank even going to believe that Kaliel had a space parasite? “That’s… complicated. Pero, por favor, talk to him before you put in a report about this.”

Frank pours coffee into a machine on the counter. “You believe everybody deserves mercy, don’t you?”

I nod.

Frank pushes the button. “Except me.”

I blink at him. “What do you mean, viejo?”

He sighs as the machine makes a similar noise, heating agua. “You have no idea how much your mother values your opinion, how hard it is for her right now, knowing that you don’t approve of me and her being together. She keeps telling me you’re going to come around, but if you don’t – she hasn’t said it, but I’m going to lose her. And there’s nothing I can do about it.” He turns and takes a mug off the dish drain. “I’m a man of action, Bo. You’re killing me here.”

What would it mean, for me to show him mercy? To give him something he doesn’t deserve but really needs? “Are you asking me to forgive you for mi papá’s death?”

He looks gobsmacked. I probably have the same expression on my own face. He swallows visibly. “I guess I am. Though I’ve no right–”

“I don’t know how to do that.” I study his eyes, which are steady, accepting. “Lo siento. I wish I did.”

He breaks the eye contact, watching the coffee brew. “That’s fair. I gave up a lot when I took this responsibility for HGB. I can’t expect you to understand how much.”

“There is one thing I’ve been curious about, viejo.” I hesitate. “How did you wind up with custody of Minerva?”

Mamá already told me Minerva’s other grandparents are in an assisted living place and aren’t in a position to provide for the kid long term. Pero, that’s not what I mean.

“You mean what happened to my daughter and son-in law?” Now he looks like he really needs that coffee. “I lost both of them in a pirate attack. I encouraged my girl to improve the galaxy in a more positive way than what I’ve had to do. Minerva was only two when Sam and Noni left to provide aid to the colonists at Sertai. We lost contact with them after four days. The cowards that spaced all the volunteers had the gall to sell the aid ship at auction six months later.”

My heart breaks for Minerva. I’d grown up without a father. I can’t imagine what it had done to her to lose both parents in a spacejacking. “Did you ever forgive them, viejo?”

He looks at me for a long time, considering. “They never asked.”

After I hang up, I walk out into the common area and find myself looking over at Brill, still wearing the jacket he stole from Jack. I understand a lot more about how Frank feels about mi vida, and anyone else who associates with space pirates. As everyone keeps saying, it’s a thin line between a gray trader and a bad guy. The thing Frank doesn’t realize, though, is that mi vida hasn’t crossed it.