The Complete Razia Series, page 38
Lizbeth opened and closed her mouth, a sly smile. "Okay, seriously you are the only person I have ever told this to, and don't you ever tell my mother but….yes."
"What?" Lyssa sat up in surprise.
"Calm down, it wasn't…totally about the case," Lizbeth said with a devilish grin. "He was this hotshot executive of this jewelry company I was investigating—one of my very first ones, to be honest…and, well…" she trailed off. "He was gorgeous, I was young and naive, and it was damned near the best sex of my life. But it was completely stupid because he ended up screwing me over in the end."
"So that's the only one?"
"I flirt a lot, and I let them think they're going to get it. And then usually they just start spilling their guts to me." She tossed a small rock over to Lyssa. "You should try being nice once in a while with these bounties you capture. It would completely throw them off."
"I'll be nice when they start respecting me," Lyssa mumbled, her thoughts drifting to her own bounty, most likely still with Pymus' credits keeping her aloft in the rankings. She hadn't checked it in a while, but she wasn't holding her breath that it had changed. Especially since she hadn't captured anyone in a few weeks.
And yet, she actually didn't mind it too much. This investigation stuff was actually kind of exciting and fun, and she didn't hate Lizbeth as much as she did at first.
"Oh boy, all this chit-chat. We need a drink," Lizbeth sighed. "You got anything alcoholic on that ship of yours?"
"You know," Lyssa said, standing up to the protestations of her tired legs. "Hang on one second."
She trotted onto her ship, grabbing onto the ladder and hoisting herself up to the top level. She made a beeline for the front of the ship, bending down to remove the panel under her dashboard. There was her father's journal, right where she had left it the year before when they returned from Leveman's Vortex. Behind it was a small wooden chest, and, tucked between some wires, a bottle. She reached in and carefully unwound it from the cables before closing the panel.
"Well, well, well!" Lizbeth grinned as Lyssa came back to the campfire. "What do we have here?"
"Bottle of top shelf whiskey," Lyssa said, taking a seat next to her. The alcohol burned as it went down and she almost gagged.
"Let me show you how it's done," Lizbeth said, taking the bottle and swallowing at least a shot.
"Damn, Lizbeth!"
"My dad taught me how to shoot my whiskey," Lizbeth winked, taking a seat and handing Lyssa back the bottle.
Lyssa took another sip and tried not to retch. "He sounds like a guy I'd like to meet."
"You know, I'll take you to meet my parents sometime. My dad would love you."
"Oh yeah?" Lyssa asked, swallowing another drink. "Why's that?"
"He always gets mad at me 'cause all I do when we go out on the boat is drink. You'd probably be useful to him. You'd be able to skin a fish, probably."
"Not in a few years," Lyssa laughed. "Not since my planetary survival course."
"That sounds like a riot," Lizbeth said, taking the bottle and taking another swig.
"Loads of fun. Especially since Tauron told me he was going to come get me," Lyssa grumbled, the whiskey starting to relax her shoulders and her attitude. "Three months alone on a planet, and I brought no supplies, no extra clothes, no food, nothing, because I thought I was going to be there for a day tops. But no, Tauron decided it would be funny to not come get me."
"Why?"
"Oh, he said it was 'character building,'" Lyssa scoffed. "He was always doing crap like that. Making me work to find him on D-882. That's why I became so good at bounty hunting; I had a lot of practice looking for his smug ass."
Lizbeth watched her curiously, as if she wanted to talk about something else. Instead she said, "So, you call yourself a pirate, but all you do is bounty hunt?"
"Bounty hunting is piracy," Lyssa replied. "It's a punishable offense under the Piracy Act."
"But I mean, can't you be hanged for it?"
The memory of watching Tauron on the Academy monitor came rushing back to Lyssa in her tipsy state. She did her best to shove it back down.
"Maybe now. Since, you know, I kidnapped Jukin's brother and all."
"But...you didn't kidnap him," Lizbeth said slowly. "It was your little brother, I thought?"
"Details, details."
"So why risk it? I mean, what could possibly move you to want a life where you've got the constant threat of being executed over your head?"
"I mean, I'm in the web," Lyssa said with a shrug. "So there's really no threat. Dissident's not going to kick me out any time soon."
At least, he'd better not.
"But still," Lizbeth pressed. "Why do it?"
Lyssa took another long drink and looked down at the bottle, now almost half-empty and laughed to herself. "You know, I bought this bottle of whiskey when I was thirteen to replace the one I stole from Tauron."
"Why did you steal a bottle of whiskey when you were thirteen?"
"Because Tauron had pissed me off. He was hunting a pirate that I had found, and he refused to take me with him," Lyssa said, realizing now that perhaps taking a thirteen-year-old to capture a pirate may not have been the best idea. She took another long sip. "So I broke into his liquor cabinet and drank half of his best whiskey. Then spent the rest of the night with my head in a toilet."
"And if you don't slow down, the same shall happen tonight," Lizbeth said, taking the bottle from her.
"Tauron wasn't even mad," Lyssa said, staring into the fire wistfully. "Said that my hangover was punishment enough, but I wanted to replace the bottle. So I bought this one as an apology, but he wouldn't take it. Told me to hang onto it and we would drink it when I…when I captured my first bounty."
The ache returned in her chest and she wished she could stop talking about this, but the alcohol was speaking for her.
"My first bounty was worth one hundred credits," she whispered, her eyes focused on the mesmerizing fire. "It took me six months to convince Dissident to let me go after anyone. And it took another year and a half before he let me go after anyone worth mentioning, and that was simply to fetch his chocolates for him.
"And even now, my bounty isn't even real. My boss at the Academy put up the money for it, hoping that someone would capture me and he could blackmail me into telling him…stuff," she said, not drunk enough to divulge that secret. "So…even though I'm one of the most wanted pirates in the universe, I'm still no better than when I was in the low six hundreds."
"So why do it?" Lizbeth repeated quietly.
Lyssa closed her eyes, unable to keep the truth from coming out.
"He was the first person to ever give a crap about me. And when I'm out there, when I'm hunting bounties….I feel like he's still with me."
"What about your parents?"
"My parents?" Lyssa laughed hollowly, taking the bottle back and downing another swig. "My father left because I'd screwed up one of his experiments, and my mother told me she wished I'd never been born."
"I'm sure that's not true."
"I heard her say it herself, in front of the entire family," Lyssa said. "Last year."
"Why would she even…I mean…" Lizbeth shook her head. "I don't even know how anyone could say that about their own child…"
"Look, I can count on one hand the number of times I saw my father call her when we were gone, and we were gone for months at a time," Lyssa said. "I don't even know how she got pregnant twenty-four times. I never saw him kiss her. I never saw him even...acknowledge her. His entire world was his research, and nobody was allowed to distract him from it. She couldn't divorce him; that would be scandalous. She couldn't change him even if she tried. So she's stuck in this loveless marriage where her husband pays more attention to his daughter,"—she burped a little, the whiskey burning her throat—"than to her. Not that he ever really gave a shit about me either. Did Jukin a favor by not making him his assistant."
"Does it bother you that he doesn't recognize you?" Lizbeth asked.
"No," Lyssa lied, taking another long drink.
"Slow down there, champ." Lizbeth took the half-empty bottle from her.
"Please." Lyssa tried to get to her feet, but found her balance completely off. She tumbled face-first into the ground.
"Yeah, right," Lizbeth said, grabbing her by the arm and yanking her up with some protestations. "I hope there's nothing on this planet that's going to eat us or else we're screwed."
"Nah," Lyssa slurred, steadying herself on Lizbeth's arm. "But I would need the help to walk me to the ship bed. Gotta continue the excavation in the morning."
"Yeah, that's not gonna happen."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Some hours and a lot of painkillers later, Lyssa was leading Lizbeth through the bowels of the Planetary and System Science Academy station. She had sent a terse message to Dorst asking him to put her in the planet presentation schedule today, but hadn't bothered to check her mini-computer to see if he'd responded. She was more interested in finding her other brother and telling him about everything she'd been up to since she last saw him a few weeks ago.
Even though her head was still pounding and she was slightly nauseated, she was excited to see the little bugger. She assumed he was swamped with school work, and that was the reason why she hadn't heard from him in weeks (not that she'd noticed since she'd been so busy). Compared to Lizbeth, he was the preferable companion. As obnoxious as he could be, he was as smart as Lyssa, an invaluable second set of eyes on whatever problem she was facing. And she just liked his company, too, as he never got her drunk and asked her probing questions.
She was still slightly angry at herself for sharing such personal thoughts with Lizbeth, a veritable stranger. She'd already proven she wasn't above blackmail to get what she wanted; who knows how she'd use Lyssa's pain at missing Tauron against her?
"Where are we going anyway?" Lizbeth asked as they walked down another dormitory hallway, unaware of Lyssa's paranoid thoughts.
"Gonna go find my brother," Lyssa replied, counting the hallways as she tried to remember the path to Vel's room.
"Jukin?"
"No, the one I actually like." Lyssa smiled as she approached the door with his name on it. She turned the knob only to find it locked. Without missing a beat, she whipped out her universal key and jabbed it into the doorknob.
"Are you allowed to do that?"
"The answer to that question is normally no," Lyssa said, twisting and turning the key until the door unlocked. With a grin, she swung it open.
There was active movement coming from the bed, where a guy and a girl were tangled up in each other's arms, soft moans coming from both of them as they writhed together, half-naked in the darkness.
"Oh, sorry," Lyssa said, blinking and going to close the door.
Then she realized one half of the twisty, tangled mess was Vel.
"Lyssa!" Vel gasped, seeing the open door and nearly falling off the top bunk. The girl screamed and hid in the dark corner. He grabbed his pants from atop a nearby lamp, stammering excuses to the girl and to Lyssa.
"What in Leveman's Vortex is this?!" Lyssa gasped, horrified and hurt and angry all at once.
"Lyssa, I can explain," Vel said, sliding down the ladder bare chested and quickly retrieving his shirt from the floor.
"Who in Leveman's are you?" the girl screamed at Lyssa from her perch atop the bed. Lyssa thought she looked like a horse-faced brat.
"N-no, Isla, it's my s-sister," Vel said, slipping his shirt on and trying to calm the situation before it got worse.
"So this is why you couldn’t come out with me?" Lyssa seethed, as Vel struggled to compose himself. "You're screwing some whore?"
"HEY!" the girl screamed.
"Can we continue this outside?" Vel pleaded, brushing his hair off of his flushed face. "Please?"
"You’ve got something, right here," Lizbeth said to Vel, putting her hand on her own neck to demonstrate as Vel pushed them out of the room and into the hallway.
"Who is that girl and how long have you been banging her?" Lyssa bellowed, sticking her finger in Vel's chest as the door shut behind them.
"Banging? Really Lyssa, she’s my girlfriend," Vel said, adjusting his shirt nervously as two students walked by, giving them an odd glance. "We've been seeing each other since the start of the term."
"Y-you have?" Lyssa said, her eyes widening. "And that's why you didn't want to come hang out with me?"
"Lyssa, come on," Vel pleaded.
"You said it was because you didn't want to be a pirate!" Lyssa said, her voice rising to whining levels. "You said it was because—"
"Keep your voice down," Vel said calmly. "Yes, partially because I have a tough semester, and partially because I do actually see myself becoming a scientist one day, but I mean…I'm allowed to have a girlfriend."
"That's translation for: he wanted to get some action," Lizbeth offered, unable to keep an amused smile off of her face.
"But why did you lie to me?" Lyssa asked.
"I didn't want to, Lyssa, but you're always so touchy—"
"I am not touchy!" Lyssa screamed, her words echoing in the hallway.
"I was wrong to not tell you about Isla, and I'm sorry. But I didn't want you to freak out about it, and Sage said—"
Lyssa's face fell. "You've been talking to Sage?"
"He told me he'd keep you company," Vel said quickly, not realizing that he was making the situation worse. "I was worried about you being alone on your ship without me. You were already so upset when I went back to school."
"I was not upset."
"You called me an hour after you dropped me off," Vel said gently.
Lyssa mumbled something about never having done that and that he could get sucked.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth, Lyss," Vel said, taking her hand. "I truly am. I was going to tell you the next time I came out with you, but I kept having projects assigned on the weekends, and then you didn't show up for a couple of weeks and—"
"And you were too busy screwing your whore," Lyssa grumbled.
"Seriously, she's my girlfriend, and if you call her a whore again, I will deck you," Vel smiled, but there was an edge in his voice.
"I would love to see you try, seeing as I'm the one who taught you how to throw a punch!"
"Okay, okay," Lizbeth said, stepping between them. "Lyssa, you're overreacting."
"What?!" Lyssa gasped. "He's the one who—"
"And he's right; you are touchy."
Vel smiled thankfully as Lyssa's withering glare turned on Lizbeth, who didn't seem nearly as afraid of it as Vel was.
"Stay out of this," Lyssa snapped.
"How about," Lizbeth said, threading her arm through Lyssa's and Vel's and turning to walk down the hall. "The three of us get a bite to eat and calm down, and we can all catch up on what or who we've been doing." She winked at Vel.
"I'm still angry with you," Lyssa muttered to Vel, ripping her arm out of Lizbeth's and folding it across her chest immaturely.
"He'll survive," Lizbeth retorted.
***
Vel spent the entire lunch talking about his new girlfriend, but Lyssa refused to listen, mumbling comments under her breath. Lizbeth, however, was engrossed in the conversation, and even provided some pointers on dates and things to buy her, with underhanded digs at the sullen, brooding member of the trio. After lunch, they traipsed back to her lab so Lyssa could put together her planet presentation. Naturally, the conversation turned to Lizbeth's investigation. Vel was most interested in their adventures, staying silent until the mention of Razia's outfit at the pirate meeting.
"So wait a minute, you wore a miniskirt?" Vel laughed, his eyes nearly falling out of his head.
"And she looked hot in it too," Lizbeth added.
"Get sucked," Lyssa said, as Vel cackled happily.
"So this meeting was attended by everyone—runners, top pirates," Lizbeth said, "and they basically confirmed all of my suspicions up until that point. They were paying pirates to target specific ships so the cargo could be re-sold, except none of the pirates that I was tracking were even there."
"The deal was only good until the election," Lyssa interrupted, typing in a comment about the water quality that may or may not have been entirely truthful. "The two guys who led the meeting were supporters of General State and said that the deal would be over once the administration changed."
"He is ahead in the polls," Vel noted casually.
"After that, we followed a lead to see if the pirates have been dropping off cargo to S-6642," Lizbeth continued. "There was a contract to deliver goods to a nearby military-owned arsenal, but one of the transporters was delivering his cargo directly to S-6642. So in a stroke of genius, your sister was able to figure out a way to get us onto the planet."
"Yeah, remember that awful woman that offered me a job last year?" Lyssa replied to Vel. "She got hired by a planetary services company that owns that planet. So I went on a job interview." She paused, frowning. "I never heard back from her either."
"The planet was completely empty," Lizbeth said. "Except for one building. So we realized that Delmur couldn't have been delivering his cargo to S-6642, but then we saw a diner nearby—"
"Who's Delmur?" Vel asked.
"The guy I was hunting when I left you on that planet," Lyssa said nonchalantly. "Remember? You only keep reminding me every second you can."
"Well, I mean, you did leave me without food or water, and I did have to go to the hospital," Vel said. "And me being in the hospital did result in that whole business with the U-POL…"
"Are you going to let me tell him or are you two going to keep interrupting?" Lizbeth snapped. "After the diner, we found a tall drink of water named Royden Relleck"—Lyssa snorted—"and he took us all the way to S-864. Turns out he was transporting guns."
"Guns?" Vel blinked. "But pirates don't use guns?"
"He was transporting them for somebody else," Lyssa said, "which is why I'm now even more concerned. Especially considering one of the two guys at the pirate meeting was also at the warehouse on S-864. His company was providing security, I think."
