The Complete Razia Series, page 56
"Yeah, bad luck for you, mate," Conrad said, peering down at him.
"The funny thing is, she didn't even try very hard," Bienes replied, craning his head to look up at Gongago.
"Shut up!" Razia hissed down at him.
"Well, of course she didn't," Gongago said.
Conrad snickered. "Probably didn't want to break a nail."
"I'm only worth a few hundred credits anyways, wasn't prepared for a bounty hunter to show up."
"Who would be?" Gongago said.
"Knock it off!" Razia barked.
"Who would ever send a bounty hunter after me? Then again, I guess her runner wants to keep her in her—Oof!" Razia's foot connected with his face. If she hadn't knocked him out, she at least hoped she'd broken his jaw so he couldn't speak anymore. But his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fell back onto the canvas.
Gongago and Conrad snickered at her loss of temper.
"You know, that's super bad for you," Gongago said, "getting hit in the head like that."
"I'm sure I don't care." She prayed the minutes would tick by faster, but the line remained unmoving.
"I told ol' Max Fried the other day, I says, it's only a matter of time before that girl gets caught."
Razia glared at Gongago. "Aren't you the one in handcuffs?"
"Yeah," he smirked. "But when I get out, I ain't on probation, like you are."
She muttered a very foul curse under her breath.
An eternity passed before Razia deposited her bounty at the window. The man on the other side seemed less amused to see her now than a week ago and was happy that she was only receiving a paltry forty credits for her work. She, on the other hand, was just relieved to get out of the torture chamber.
She ducked into the alley and closed her eyes, hoping that somewhere in the bottom of her soul, she could find the strength to continue on. If it was going to be like this forever—the low bounties, the snide remarks, the effort it took to get to D-882 to find a bounty, capture that bounty, bring them to the bounty office for a mere few credits…
And the question returned—was it worth it?
Was she worth it?
A noise drew her attention and she saw a familiar shape appear in the alley. For whatever reason, Relleck was a welcome sight. She even forgot about what he said to her at Eamon's.
"Hey," She smiled, but he didn't look too pleased to see her. "How ya been?"
"Have a good vacation?" he asked bitterly.
"How did you know about that?" Razia asked, but then answered her own question. "Harms."
"You and Sage, alone for a whole week."
"We weren't alone," Razia said. "His crew, and Lizbeth, and…" She chewed on the side of her lip. Relleck had been interested enough in her to make out with her a few times, maybe he was still interested enough to get her to come over to Contestant's web. After all, Dissident seemed to loathe her, but Contestant might be less concerned about her gender and more about the way she'd plucked off nearly every pirate in his web.
"So…" She swallowed. "As I'm sure you're aware, I'm back on probation."
He snorted.
"And I was wondering if maybe…you'd put a good word in for me with Contestant," Razia finished, feeling dirty for saying it at all. But she was getting a bit desperate.
"Really?" Relleck said with a sly grin. "You want me to get my runner to add you to his web? When you aren't even worth a single credit?"
"It's just a technicality," Razia said nervously. "It's only because no one put any—"
"And the only bounty on your head was that damned scientist," Relleck continued, clearly enjoying this, "which, in my book, means that you were just a fluke."
Razia's heart thumped in her chest, and it had nothing to do with his memory of Pymus. "I've captured every one of the top pirates—"
"Contestant doesn't need any more bounty hunters."
"Are you serious? We… I mean, you… I let you…and you won't help me?"
Relleck smirked. "I don't know what you think this—" he pointed between the two of them in the same way she had, "—was, but that wasn't it."
Razia gaped at him. She was hurt and, at the same time, shocked at how much her own words thrown back in her face bothered her. "Relleck, I…"
"You can't have it both ways, Razia. Why don't you go ask your pal Sage for help?"
"Okay, really," she exclaimed, "what is it with you and Sage?"
"You know, for a while I thought you were just lying to me," Relleck said with a strangely sad look on his face, "but now I see that you're lying to yourself."
"…Again, what in Leveman's Vortex are you talking about?"
"See ya around."
"Relleck!" Razia called after him but he didn't turn around. She slumped against the wall, shocked and confused, and hurting somewhere in the bottom of her heart. She never really liked Relleck, but she thought maybe he would be a bit more helpful since she did let him kiss her, albeit in private and she had threatened him within an inch of his life if he told anyone.
But still.
Her back pocket buzzed. She pulled out her mini-computer and groaned loudly. As if things weren't bad enough.
"Yes, Dorst, what—"
"You know, Lyssa, I have given you a wide berth lately," Dorst began, his tone sounding like he'd been holding in this rant for a while. "I have allowed you to disappear for months at a time, no questions asked, because Vel tells me that you're doing good work. I've covered for you, I've excused you, I've done just about everything to protect you from the bureaucracy of the Academy. But now, now I need you to help me out."
"I—"
"I asked you to take our brother under your wing, to spend time with him," Dorst continued, cutting her off. "And yet, he's been here at the Academy without you for the past month."
"I haven't done any DSE stuff!" Lyssa sputtered, finally able to get a word in edgewise. "And besides, I don't know what you want me to do!"
"You can start by getting your ass back to the Academy and picking him up!"
"I'm really far away," Lyssa whined, although really D-882 was only three hours' hypermiling from the Academy.
"Get. Here."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lyssa arrived at the Planetary and System Science Academy a few short hours after her phone call with Dorst. She could have told her brother to buzz off; she could have continued to ignore him. But at the same time, there was a small Vel-sounding voice in her mind that pointed out Dorst hadn't been the worst supervisor. She couldn't remember the last time someone asked about Sostas' work, probably since Pymus, if she were being honest. And although he'd been bothering her for things like her licenses and physicals, that was coming more from the Academy than from him.
So, begrudgingly, she admitted to herself that she might owe it to him to make his job a little easier and not have him send the U-POL after her again.
She stepped onto her ship ramp and looked around the busy Academy docking station. Ships of all sizes filled the station, mostly research vessels big enough to hold the staffs and junior scientists of the more successful scientists.
She tried to picture herself with a staff. Considering the last two employees she'd had—one brother she had left on a planet and another brother she had left at the Academy for the past month—she wasn't sure she'd be any better with ones she wasn't related to.
She could throw Dorst a bone and take Heelin on an excavation, but that would mean she'd have to do it the old fashioned way—without the use of her father's proprietary sensors. He'd built them when she was a kid so she could gather data while he tinkered with his research on Leveman's Vortex. She rebuilt them from the schematics she found in his lab, thanks to Tauron's crew members who were much more adept at equipment building than she was.
The lift doors opened and she slowly walked down the long hallway, considering her years at the Academy. She snorted, considering the number of times she'd had to get creative to sneak out of the station, and, with a less amused smile, the number of times Tauron drug her back. Sage was right—it had taken a long time for Tauron to accept having her on his ship.
Again, she kicked herself for missing the signs. The look on his face when she found him on D-882 the first time should have been enough to dissuade her, but it only made her more stubborn. He had tried everything in his power to get her to remain at the Academy. He pretended to be her older brother to her professors, he tried bribing her with money. He tried reasoning with her the same way Sage and Harms and everyone else had all of these years.
Was she really that stubborn?
She looked at her mini-computer and wished Vel were there. He always seemed to know the right thing to say to her, even if she wouldn't admit it at the time. But he was far away on a deserted planet. She hoped he'd brought enough things to survive, unlike her three-month stint alone. That was true planetary survival, because she'd only expected to be there a night or two. She'd thought Tauron would come get her, but after a week of nothing, she realized Tauron wasn't coming. She'd yelled at him a long time for that when she returned.
"Damn it," she muttered.
She slowed her walk in a sort of Event Horizon-esque hope that the closer she got to the center, the slower time might pass, until she was infinitely never getting—
The doors to the lab slid open, and she was face to face with Heelin.
"Well, it's about damned time!"
She supposed she might have deserved that. "I'm here, I'm here," she muttered, stepping through the threshold into the lab. It was bigger than the one she'd inherited from Sostas. This one reeked of Serann money, and Sostas' was purchased before his widely-known marriage to the eldest of the Serann daughters. Even with their money, Dorst couldn't afford a lab of this size by himself, so he split the difference between siblings number four and seven—Hasidus and Kasan (Lyssa was thirteenth born from Jukin and Vel was a paltry sixteen in the long line of twenty-four siblings). Dorst was the eldest son still at the Academy, so he took it upon himself to hire the younger siblings who were still starting out, (except for her, of course). She noticed a couple of other blonds amongst the crowd of working scientists that could have also been her siblings or cousins.
She wondered if Jukin would have been so magnanimous if he'd remained in the Academy instead of ditching and becoming a police officer. Considering he didn't even recognize his own sister, she wasn't hopeful. She brushed aside her feelings about Jukin to remain stoic in the face of Hasidus and Kasan, who had joined her and Heelin in some kind of Peate family reunion.
"And here we thought we'd be done with you for good," Hasidus said with a sneer. He, at least, hadn't changed much.
"Your boss summoned me," Lyssa smirked, knowing that it would push his button.
Like clockwork, Hasidus bristled but Kasan spoke instead. "It's about time. You've been gone for months. Do you know how many times scientists have stopped in and asked for you?"
"Why would they want anything to do with me?" She couldn't fathom why, unless…
"Obviously, people are still very interested in Father's work," Hasidus said, finding his tongue again. "And your disappearing doesn't help things."
"I haven't heard…" Again, she realized how blissfully unbothered she'd been, no one had accosted her in the hallway, no one had sent her any nasty messages (that she'd seen, in any case). She supposed she'd just assumed that was because Pymus had disappeared, but was someone actually just keeping the deluge of curiosity from her?
The door opened and Dorst walked through, looking less angry than when he called her. He handed the file he was holding to Hasidus, who took with just a hint of disdain before handing it off to Kasan, who began thumbing through it. Dorst then looked to Lyssa and clamped his hand down on her shoulder forcefully, as if she'd run away if he let up, and he didn't relinquish his grip on her shoulder until she was seated in front of him and his office door was closed.
"You wanted to see me?" Lyssa asked, feeling a little nervous.
"About thirty times since you became my subordinate," Dorst said with a tight smile. "But no matter, you're here now and we have a lot of things to discuss."
"Surprised you didn't send the U-POL after me again," Lyssa muttered, relaxing a little bit and sitting back.
Dorst snorted and pulled a thick file from his desk drawer, thumping it down on his desk.
"What's that?" she asked nervously.
"Your file," Dorst said, flipping through each page with an unreadable expression on his face. "Discipline reports, overdue license renewal notices, missed appointments with me—you know, the usual litany of paperwork for a certified Deep Space Exploration scientist."
Lyssa shifted uncomfortably.
"And, of course, inquiry after inquiry from the DSE board. 'Where is she? Why hasn't she presented her findings on Leveman's Vortex?'"
"I'm…not finished with it yet?" Lyssa tried. Leveman's Vortex had been so far from her mind (with the exception of her foul language) that she was out of practice lying about it.
"To be honest, I could give a shit about that stupid black hole," Dorst said. "And whatever Father had you doing, or you continue to do, is your business."
Lyssa blinked at him, shocked. Not even a year ago, when he'd found out that Vel was interning with her, he'd sneered, "Don't think this will change anything" and could barely stand the sight of her. And now he was saying that he had little to no interest in what she was up to? Not even to ask about Sostas?
"I really can't spend half my time covering for you," Dorst finished, sounding exasperated. "You need to make a decision, Lyssa. Are you going to be a DSE or are you going to do…whatever else it is that you do with your time?"
"I…" The question caught her off guard, as it had been the one bouncing around in her head. As Razia, she struggled to get even a few hundred credits added to her name, but at the Academy she could make a name for herself. She could share Sostas' work with the UBU. Even if she just patented his sensors, she'd make more money than her inheritance and bounty hunting income combined. She was boxed into this life of mediocrity and embarrassment as Razia and it would be so simple to just give it up.
But planet excavation and scientist glory wouldn't bring her the kind of joy capturing a bounty brought. She was still addicted to the idea that she could find that glory as Razia, no matter how much she felt like she was screaming into a vacuum.
"Don't answer now," Dorst said with a small hint of a smile, "because now, you are paying me back for all the bullshit I've had to take care of for you by taking care of Heelin for me."
"Fine." She sat back, glad that they were off her life choices discussion. "So what, just take him on a couple of excavations?"
"I honestly don't care about that," Dorst said, surprising Lyssa even more. "What I need you to do is just spend some time with him. I think he needs a course correction."
"I don't follow."
"Well," Dorst sighed, pulling off his glasses, "I was hoping that you would be able to inspire him to quit the Academy."
Lyssa wasn't sure which shocked her more: that Dorst thought Heelin needed to quit or that he was asking her to help. "W..what?"
"Whatever it is that you do on your…down time," Dorst said, giving her a sly look, "Vel's always talking about how happy it makes you, and that I shouldn't press you to be here more than the minimum."
"Oh," Lyssa said, torn between affection toward Vel and shame at her own failures.
"And so, I thought that you'd be a good influence on Heelin, get him to realize that he's not happy doing planet excavations with me, and that if he wants to…well, follow his dreams, he should."
"What's stopping him?" Lyssa surprised herself at her genuine curiosity.
"I think you can probably guess," Dorst said. "Starts with an 'm' and ends with—"
"Bitch."
"That is my mother you're referring to," Dorst warned.
Lyssa's last encounter with Mrs. Dr. Sostas Peate ended with the latter telling her, in front of the entire family, that she wished Lyssa had never been born. "So? Tell the old cow to buzz off and go do what you want."
"We don't all have your gumption, Lyss," Dorst replied. "Of all the Peate kids, you are the only one who doesn't give a crap what anyone thinks of them. The rest of us…"
"I'm not…sure of…" Lyssa shook her head. "I mean, I just…."
"Mother was furious when Jukin dropped out and became a police officer. But, as you know, he always gets a free pass, because he's the first born." Lyssa was impressed with the jealousy Dorst displayed as he spoke. "And the rest of us, save you, have been too afraid to incur her wrath to step a toe out of line. But I think Heelin is…well, he's not happy here, I can tell you that. Mopes around all day, takes forever to complete a simple task."
"So, what does he want to do?"
"He won't tell me." Dorst shook his head. "If you ask him, everything is fine. But I did see an application to the Universal Police Academy on his desk once."
Lyssa gagged. "Heelin wants to be a police officer? Like…like…"
"Jukin, yes."
Lyssa wasn't sure she could handle two brothers in the U-POL Special Forces, especially since Heelin seemed a little quicker on the uptake. He might recognize her, given the opportunity. "And you…support this?"
"I think it would be good for Jukin to realize that he's not an island either. He barely comes home anymore—virtually never since the assassination attempt on the president last year. Mother's worried about him, but none of us can ever get to him since he's on that damned pirate planet all the time. I would like to have another one of us there with him to keep him company."
Lyssa stifled an ironic snort, but Dorst must have seen it.
"You're a lot like him, you know," he said.
That was enough. "I am nothing like that self-centered, egotistical—"
"That's what he said about you, too. You know, I went to go see him about your inheritance."
Her inheritance. It took all of her mental strength to keep her face from displaying the jumble of emotions buried underneath her skin.
