The Complete Razia Series, page 55
They didn't return until all the beer was gone, and the sun was starting to hang low in the sky. After docking, Sage carried a passed-out Sobal off the boat while the rest stumbled drunkenly back up to the house. Lyssa and Lizbeth headed straight to their room, where Lizbeth crashed on the bed and was out immediately. Lyssa, however, was wide awake, and after a shower, decided to explore a little.
She quietly shuffled down the hall, pausing at the only other room on this floor where the guys had ruthlessly made their claim. Ganon was facedown in one of the beds, and Sobal was snoring loudly from a pile of clothes on the floor. Sage, still sober as he hadn't had a drop to drink on the boat, was probably down entertaining Billie and Joe.
She was about to turn out of the room when she noticed an electrical cord. She followed it from the outlet on the wall to a pile of clothes on the nightstand. With a slightly drunken grin, she sauntered over to the cord and tugged on it. Pushing aside the pile, she saw Sage's mini-computer alit with the charging symbol.
"Jackpot."
She unplugged it and settled on Sage's bed, a grin on her face.
On the other bed, Ganon snorted and she jumped a few feet. He flipped over and scratched his bare chest, his mouth opening as he snoozed on. She turned back to Sage's mini-computer and turned it on, ready to finally see the damage—
Locked
[]-[]-[]-[]-[]
Lyssa hissed and put the mini-computer to her chest. Ganon snorted again and turned his head to face her, and she saw a trickle of drool drop from his mouth. She picked up her head and looked at the floor, where Sobal was sleeping soundly, his skin rapidly turning red from sunburn.
She snuggled in deeper into the bed and stared at the empty boxes, trying to piece together what Sage would use for a passcode. She chewed on her lip and typed:
1-2-3-4-5
Access denied
Well, she should give him a little more credit than that. So she tried his birthday.
Access denied. One try remaining.
Closing her eyes, she pictured all of the different things about Sage that would inform her of his passcode. Obviously, piracy, bounty hunting—these didn't seem to be the phrases that defined him. Or really, a phrase he would use to protect his data. Something—or someone that he trusted. Ganon was an option, but that didn't seem like something Sage would do. Tauron was too long, and none of the other crew members were—
She popped open her eyes and smiled.
7-2-9-4-2
R-A-Z-I-A
But before she confirmed the entry, she paused. It was pretty obvious that she was Sage's friend, so that might not be a really good passcode—easy to break.
But…
5-9-7-7-2
L-Y-S-S-A
The computer switched on, showing her the breadth of applications at Sage's disposal.
"Am I good, or am I good?"
She cackled to herself as she found the pirate web application and the phone auto-logged her in.
She put the mini-computer to her chest and felt her heartbeat. She knew what she was going to find, the icy dread swimming in the bottom of her stomach was proof of that. But she needed to know, she needed to see it in person and then she'd be able to accept it and move forward.
She typed in the phrase "Razia" and held her breath.
***
"You son of a bitch!" she screamed, after nearly flying down the stairs. She hurled the mini-computer across the room at the object of her ire. Sage ducked just in time as his mini-computer exploded on the wall behind him.
"Lyssa, what in Leveman's?" Sage stood up slowly. But her screams awoke the rest of the house, and they all thundered down the stairs in varying stages of sobriety.
"Lyssa, what's wrong?" Lizbeth asked, grasping her head in pain. "Too loud for—"
"Ask him, ask him what's wrong!" Lyssa seethed, barely able to speak coherently.
"She found my mini-computer," Sage said, picking up the now destroyed piece of equipment. "I hope you're planning to pay for this."
"Told you ya should have gotten it insured," Ganon piped up from behind Lizbeth.
"How could you lie to me?" Lyssa barked.
"I didn't lie about anything—"
"You kept the truth from me, same thing!"
Lizbeth piped up behind her. "It is definitely not the same thing."
Lyssa whirled around, her anger soaring even higher. "You knew?"
"Of course I knew," Lizbeth spat, not even the slightest bit afraid. "But what good was it going to do, you sitting around here bitching and moaning the whole time? At least I got you to relax for a day."
"The last thing I need to do is relax!" Lyssa screamed. "And all this time, I should have called Dissident."
"It's not gonna do any good," Ganon commented with a disinterested look.
Lyssa's eyes widened and she stared at him wordlessly before her fury overtook her and she advanced toward him. But Sage stepped in front of her, drawing her anger back to him.
"Ganon, you aren't helping," Sage snarled at him. "Lyssa, we'll fix this, I promise. I'll even help—"
"Oh, like you helped by dragging me to the middle of nowhere?"
"I don't understand," Joe said, looking between the four of them. "What happened?"
Lyssa's shoulders slumped and she closed her eyes, defeated.
"I'm back on probation."
CHAPTER SIX
N/A) (No last name listed), Razia
Wanted for
N/A
Reward
N/A
Known Alias
None
Known Accomplices
Tauron Ball, Sage Teon
Pirate Web Affiliation
Dissident* (probationary)
17) (No last name listed), Razia
Captured by Jarvis Loeb.
She stared at the capture record and bounty poster on her mini-computer, now returned to her possession. There hadn't even been an argument to cut their "vacation" (she scoffed) short, the pure rage radiating off of Lyssa had been warning enough that dissent would not be tolerated. Once back on Sage's ship, Lyssa had holed herself into Sage's room while the owner stood outside the door and apologized for over an hour. She ignored his overtures and soon he gave up. None of his crew bothered to see her off when they dropped her off at a transport station, but she was glad for it. Lyssa could barely stand to be in the same universe as all of them.
The transport station station was loud and boisterous and full of people in stupidly obnoxious good moods. One such gentleman had the audacity to sit next to her and comment on the good day he was having, but one intense glare was enough to silence him for the rest of the ride to the Academy.
Once she got to her ship, she wasn't quite sure what to do, but for some reason she set a course for D-882.
She knew she would have to make the call soon, but she had wanted to be alone in her ship when it happened. No use in having an audience for her impending humiliation.
She looked up at the screen again, the word "probation" mocking her. When a bounty hunter first joined the web, they had to ask permission to hunt pirates until they proved their mettle. Most of the time, it was a matter of weeks. It was rare—no, unheard of—for a pirate to suddenly go from the top twenty to probation.
But she wasn't most pirates, was she? The unfairness of it all was infuriating.
With a deep, calming breath, she pressed the "call" button on her dashboard and waited, steeling herself for the inevitable.
"What do you want?" Although Dissident was never happy to see her, today he seemed, if possible, even more disgusted by the sight of her.
She decided to cut right to the chase. "So, how long until I'm off probation?"
"How long? How long? You are lucky that you remain in my web at all. Highly embarrassing to be captured. You know better."
She bit her tongue, not wanting to make the situation worse by arguing with him. Other pirates get captured every day, but that argument wouldn't fly with Dissident. He seemed pretty entrenched in his opinions of her and no matter what she said to him, he wouldn't listen.
Instead, she swallowed and asked, "So then who am I allowed to…hunt now?"
"Humph. Ask me again in a few weeks."
"No!" she exclaimed, terrified that he was going to give her the run-around for six months, like he did when she first joined the pirate web. "Dissident, I swear, don't pull this shit with me again."
"You are in no place to give demands," he seethed. "And if you try and threaten me again, I'll have you arrested the next time you set foot on D-882."
"Give me somebody," Razia pleaded.
"Fine…you can take Akiva Bienes." Dissident barely got the words of his mouth before the call ended.
She repeated the name in her head, unsurprised that it did not ring a bell. When she was on probation the first time, Dissident took joy in giving her the most obscure pirates he could find. Her question now was how bad it was going to be.
1000) Bienes, Akiva
Wanted for
Engagement in piracy, Petty theft, Burglary
Reward
40C
Known Alias
None
Known Accomplices
None
Pirate Web Affiliation
Protestor
"Son of a bitch!" she screamed, standing up and pacing around her bridge.
The last person on the bounty list?
There were other pirates worth less, of course, but the actual bounty list only numbered up to one thousand. When she'd been on probation the first time, she'd worked Dissident up to the seven hundreds at least.
And now she was back at square one.
Because she wasn't worth any better.
She let out a shaky breath, the thought entering her mind unbidden and unwelcome. For as much as she had felt like her life was going well, in the bottom of her soul, she had been waiting for the bottom to drop out. Because no matter how far she had come, no matter how much she pretended otherwise, she still knew that the Great Creator wasn't going to let her be happy. She didn't deserve good things that others received. While she swaggered and boasted about her new status as a top pirate, she knew in her heart it was just an act. She had been dreading the moment when her bounty would disappear, and because she had been stupid and stubborn, she hastened her own demise.
A dam broke in her mind and she began to think back to every conversation with Harms, every time she argued with Sage. And then, painfully, every time Tauron would drag her back to the Academy, ordering her to stay there. She'd been so eager to escape a life as Lyssa that she'd been blind to the reality as Razia. And now, with the cold, hard truth staring her in the face, she could avoid neither.
Was it time to just accept her fate and hang up her boots?
The answer did not come as easily as she wanted it to.
***
"Ah, haven't we been here before?" Harms smiled at her as she slunk into his booth, defeated. She wasn't there to ask for his help; there was no need for that. And she wasn't really there to get an idea of the current pirate climate regarding her reputation, although that was the excuse she made for herself. Rather, she just needed to see a kind face and get a little bit of sympathy.
Harms, however, seemed to find it all highly amusing. "So, you've had an eventful few days. How was jail?"
She glared at him and shook her head.
"Did you have a good vacation then?" His eyes glittered. "Heard you got to go on a boat of all things."
She couldn't help the eye roll as she replied, "Oh, it was fabulous. Just a riot. Does everybody know then?"
Harms chuckled. "Calm down. Nobody's really talking about it."
"About…any of it?"
"Nope. Most everyone's talking about this Pirate Ball."
She slumped lower in the booth. At least if they were talking about her capture, they'd be talking about her. But not to be in the conversation at all was terrifying. It's like they'd forgotten about her already. The mountain she'd have to climb (again) seemed insurmountable.
"Cheer up, Raz! Did Dissident at least give you someone to hunt?"
She nodded, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. "The last guy on the list."
"Well, he's consistent, I suppose."
Anger burned inside her. "How is this funny to you?"
"Calm down," Harms tutted at her. "I know you're pissed off, but don't take it out on the people who are on your side."
She folded her arms tighter across her chest and glowered so she wouldn't say anything she regretted. She couldn't afford to torpedo this relationship again. She wasn't sure how many second chances Harms was willing to give her.
"Sorry," she muttered.
"So I take it you aren't here to ask for help, then?" Harms asked with a smile. "Shouldn't be too difficult to find him?"
"I haven't even started to look," she admitted, unfolding her arms. "Every time I start I just get…" She sighed heavily. No use in sugar-coating it for Harms. "Depressed."
Harms tilted his head and she was struck with the familiarity of this—her at his booth complaining about Dissident and him unable to help in any way but listening. Two years she'd suffered through this humiliation.
The question returned—was it worth it to keep going? She clenched her jaw to keep herself from asking the question aloud.
"Are you still on this planet, Raz?" Harms was waving his hand in front of her face. "You zoned out there for a minute."
"Yeah, I'm here."
"I know it looks bleak right now, but you figured your way out before, and I know you can do it again. Just play the game for a few weeks and maybe Dissident will change his mind."
The question of, "will he?" was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't ask it.
She couldn't reconcile paying for more than a few hours of parking on D-882, so she set off from Harms' bar to find her bounty. It wouldn't take her more than half an hour to find the guy. Because he was the last person on the list, he wasn't taking very many precautions. He didn't even have another alias to pay his apartment rent, so she knew exactly where he lived.
She grumbled and stuffed her hands in her pockets, kicking the dust up in anger. What would capturing this bounty prove? Dissident was just trying to get her to quit calling him all the time. He was just throwing her a bone. Perhaps he'd just make it easy on himself and give her the last guy all the time.
He'd wait her out. The question was whose determination was stronger—hers to be a top bounty hunter, or his to keep her out of the limelight.
At this point, she'd put her money on him.
"I'm not giving up," she insisted to herself, needing to hear the words aloud so she would believe them.
Her bounty had just bought food at a small cafe near his apartment, and she found him chowing down without a care in the world. He was pudgy, with nubby fingers shoving a huge sandwich into his mouth. Every few bites, he'd smash a handful of chips in after the sandwich, or take a long sip of his drink. As she got closer, her nose turned up in disgust; he smelled like he hadn't showered in days.
She sighed as she sidled up next to him with a bored look on her face.
"Whatchoo want?" Bienes grumbled between mouthfuls.
She forced herself to sound somewhat interested. "I'm here to capture you."
His mouth fell open, crumbs of his sandwich falling into his lap.
"Look, I don't like it any more than you do, and I'll even let you finish your lunch if you'll come—" He tossed his drink in her face and scrambled out the door.
She sat at the bar, her eyes burning and her face sticky with cola as she considered just how far she had fallen in that moment. She pushed herself off the bar and walked out after him. He seemed out of shape, so it wouldn't take long for her to catch him. She felt the cola seeping into her shirt, and grumbled, realizing she'd have to take him to the bounty office and make it all the way out to her ship on the outskirts of the city before she could get a clean shirt.
"Asshole."
She heard him before she saw him, panting in an alley two blocks from the cafe. He was leaning on his knees, wheezing and puffing with exhaustion. When she approached him, she got a whiff of his terrible body odor.
"Leveman's!" She gagged, putting her hand over her face.
"Oh, come on!" he panted. "Not you. Anybody but you."
Her mood went from disinterested to furious in an instant. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
"Man, I won't hear the end of it. I got caught by the stupid girl—"
She reared her fist back and decked him, knocking him out cold before he could finish his statement. He fell backwards, eyes crossed, and lay splayed out in the alleyway. Hands shaking, she unclipped her floating canvas from her utility belt and tossed it on the ground. She held her breath as she bent down to him and rolled him onto her canvas, handcuffing him for good measure. The floating discs attached to each corner levitated upward, and she let out her breath, the smell of him still disgusting in her nose.
Grabbing the canvas' cords, she yanked him forward, praying that no one would be at the bounty office so she wouldn't have to suffer the humiliation.
***
Apparently, Razia had no luck.
The bounty office looked like Top Pirates on Parade, packed with at least twenty of the most well-known pirates. She steeled herself and walked to the back of the line, keeping her head down, hoping that she'd avoid attracting any unwanted attention.
Her bounty moaned as he awoke, turning and tossing from side to side as he became aware of his surroundings. When he grew more lucid, his face contorted into one of disgust.
"Well, this is embarrassing," he announced loudly, and catching the attention of the nearby pirates, Conboy Conrad, a member of Insurgent's web, and, in cuffs, Olvire Gongago, who was part of Protestor's web. They completely ignored Razia as they struck up a conversation with her bounty.
