Ghost Pirate Gambit, page 11
“Here!” she calls. Somewhere to his left, closer to the flames. He feels his way towards her, choking on the smoke, expecting the worst: She’s trapped under debris, unable to get away from the flames.
A blast of something humid and chemical cuts through the smoke as he approaches, and her figure appears in the gloom. She’s not trapped — she’s got the ship’s fire extinguisher and is spraying fire suppressant foam on the blaze. It’s working, but barely. Fire leaps, licks eagerly up her jacket sleeve. Lasadi drops the extinguisher, tearing off her jacket.
“Let’s go!” Raj yells over the roar of the flames, but she shakes her head, coughing.
“No,” she yells back. “Take the extinguisher.” She throws her jacket to the ground and stamps out the flame, then disappears into the smoke.
Raj scoops up the extinguisher she dropped, targeting the base of the flames as well as he can. He’s been through dozens of fire-extinguishing scenarios on ships, of course, and he assumes Lasadi and Jay have as well. But most of them practiced controlling a fire in a vacuum. There’s no flipping a switch on the Figment and venting the oxygen. The upside is you don’t have to burn with the ship if you can’t get the fire out — but Lasadi’s not leaving, so neither is he.
Something crashes behind him, and Lasadi is back, a wad of wet fabric in her arms. A hammock, by the flash of bright colors in the dull smoke. Together, she and Jay fling it over the fire, dropping to their knees to beat it back and smother the flame. White steam is beginning to replace the acrid black smoke, and with another strategic spray of suppressant chemical foam, the fire is finally out.
Raj drops the extinguisher and grabs Lasadi’s arm; she’s doubled over, coughing. “It’s out,” he says. “Let’s go.”
She lets him guide her towards the door and into the sweet, clean air outside, where she collapses on the foot of the ramp, panting. Raj drags in fresh air, hands on knees.
Jay’s hand falls on his shoulder, squeezes. “Stay with her,” the other man says. “I’m going after Bryant.”
Raj nods; his teeth, his tongue, feel like he brushed with toxic ashes. He spits blackened phlegm, then turns to Lasadi.
Her face is streaked with soot and sweat but he doesn’t see any blood. Her sleeve is blackened from the fire that had leapt up her arm — by the sharp tang of fuel emanating from her, her sleeve had been soaked in the stuff.
“Let me see,” he murmurs, taking her hand and gingerly peeling back the sleeve. The shirt’s ruined, but her arm doesn’t look as bad as he feared. Her pale gold skin has been licked pink and angry, but it’s not blistering. “Bryant did this?” he asks; he means the fire, he means her arm. He means putting her life in danger.
She nods and falls to coughing again. When she looks back up her jaw is set in fury. “Where is he?”
“Jay went after him. Give yourself a sec to — ”
Someone shouts from inside the dockyard; a gunshot cracks through the humid morning air.
Raj jumps to his feet as Lasadi stumbles to hers — she pulls herself up with a wince that says she’s hurt elsewhere, but she’s obviously not going to sit still long enough for him to ask.
“Come on,” she orders. “He’ll head to his ship.”
Lasadi seems sure of the direction, so Raj follows her, dashing through the forest of parked planes, emerging at the end of a row to see Sevi Bryant reach a squat Masali Viper, still almost fifty meters away. Raj bites back a curse. He’ll be inside before they can reach him, and there won’t be much they can do to stop him once he fires his engines.
Raj runs, leaving Lasadi behind him, lungs burning, leg muscles screaming after so much time spent off this world.
Bryant yanks open the door and hauls himself inside, turning back to pull the door shut after him. Even from this distance, Raj can see Bryant’s sneer of triumph.
Raj charges. The door closes.
And then freezes to a grinding halt when a tall figure ducks under the Viper’s wing, catching the edge of the door in his hands and wrenching it back open. Bryant’s eyes widen in surprise as Peter Fangio grabs him by his collar and hauls him out of the doorway to his plane. Fangio decks him in the jaw.
Bryant collapses in a heap at Fangio’s feet.
Raj pulls up short in his sprint, scooping up the pistol that’s fallen from Bryant’s outstretched hand and stepping back, covering the fallen pilot. Lasadi is behind him, but she doesn’t stop short. She spits a curse at Bryant, aiming a sharp kick at his ribs. Bryant howls and curls protectively around himself.
Fangio lets her get a second kick in before holding out an arm. “We’re golden,” he says. “You don’t need the assault charge, and he’ll get what he deserves.” Fangio stoops and closes a big fist around Bryant’s arm, hauling him to his feet; Bryant shakes his head, blinking.
“What the hell is going on in my dockyard?”
The dockmaster has arrived, with Jay at her side. She strolls up as though in no hurry, then stops with arms crossed, taking in each of the disheveled folks in turn before zeroing in on Lasadi and Fangio. “James? Fangio? Care to explain? I’ve already spent the morning dealing with hassle from the owner of Moie Dreams Adventure Company, so this better be good.”
“Smelled smoke,” Fangio says. He shakes Bryant. “Saw this one running, heard Tita yelling for someone to stop him. So I did, didn’t I.”
“He set the Figment on fire,” Lasadi says.
“We got it out,” Raj says. “But you should double-check.”
The dockmaster nods sharply, then stabs a finger at her gauntlet and raises it to her mouth. “Smoke’s coming from the Figment,” she says. “I need somebody there stat.”
“I couldn’t tell if anything major was damaged,” Lasadi says, her voice hoarse. “But it wasn’t burning too long.”
“Are you all right?” Jay asks her.
“Fine. Despite some asshole dousing me with fuel and trying to set me on fire along with Theo’s ship.” Lasadi coughs into her sleeve, and all Raj can see is her trapped in the middle of those flames, the fire snaking up her arm — he can’t chase it from his mind’s eye. It takes all of Raj’s self-control not to launch himself at Bryant and pummel that leer off his face.
“Arson?” The dockmaster lifts an eyebrow at Bryant. “A serious charge.”
“It’s not her ship,” Bryant snarls.
“It’s not yours, either,” says the dockmaster. “But I would have gone with denying the charges. Because I don’t care if you were torching the Figment on orders from Edan himself, that shit does not fly on my dock. Consider yourself banned from the Liluri Star Run, and every other race in this series once word gets out.”
“The race board makes those decisions!”
The dockmaster laughs. “And who do you think is on the race board?”
“Some fucking mechanic?”
The dockmaster’s smile turns sharp. “Some fucking mechanic is right. Fangio? Help me escort our friend Bryant here back to the sheriff?” She turns to Lasadi. “Any resources the dockyard has are at your disposal to help get the Figment flying by tomorrow. Any of my mechanics, too.”
“That’s very generous.”
She shrugs. “Edan’s good for it.”
Fangio nods. “I’m sure Nia would be happy to help, too. She’s already been over Kalliope’s Wager a dozen times, and she causes trouble when she’s bored.”
“You’d help a competitor?” Lasadi asks.
“I was looking forward to racing against that ship,” Fangio says. “Especially under the command of a captain who’ll give me a run for my money.” He ghosts Lasadi an overly familiar smile and she returns it with a shallow bow. Raj hadn’t thought Lasadi knew Fangio before this race, but clearly something’s shifted between the two since the pilot’s orientation yesterday.
Jay clocks it, too; he gives Fangio a wary look. “Thank you both,” he says. “I’ll go check the damage and let you know if we need Nia’s help.”
Bryant may have been quick, but he’s no match in strength to either Fangio or the dockmaster, and together they wrestle him easily towards the gate — and the gathering crowd of onlookers who’ve come to gawk at the Figment.
Raj, Jay, and Lasadi follow behind, more slowly.
“Everything good with you and Fangio?” Raj asks once the others have gotten out of earshot.
“He knows,” Lasadi says. “He knows who I am.”
Jay shakes his head. “Then we get the coordinates, and we get out of here before he tells anyone.”
“He won’t. He meant what he said back there, about looking forward to racing against the Figment. I gave him a line about how I’m helping train NMLF pilots, and this was part of a training mission. He and his crew bought it — or at least, they’re happy enough with the story not to press any more.” She stops, meeting each of their gazes in turn. “Anton doesn’t need to know about Fangio.”
“Understood,” Jay says.
“Obviously,” Raj says; the corner of Lasadi’s mouth turns up. “And we’ll keep a close eye on Fangio.”
“Thank you.”
She starts walking again, a wince at her first step.
“Don’t worry about the Figment,” Jay says. “We’ll take care of everything there. You get to the clinic.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re never fine.” Jay opens up a channel. “Alex? Qacha? Meet me at the Figment and bring every tool we have. Raj, make sure she goes to the clinic.”
“You need all the help you can get with the Figment,” Lasadi says, and holds up her hands to stop Jay from arguing. “I’m not saying I’ll stay and help, I’m saying I’ll go to the clinic on my own. I don’t need an armed escort.” Jay studies her suspiciously. “Do you want me to have the nurse call you when I get there as proof?”
“Yes, I do.” They’ve reached the gate, and the Figment of the North has attracted a crowd of gawkers. None of the damage is visible from the outside, though sooty chemical foam has spilled down the ramp and steam is still trickling out of the door. Several of the dockyard’s mechanics are yelling at people to stay back. “All right,” Jay says. “Let’s go check out that ship.”
“Thank you,” Lasadi says, then turns to Raj. “Thank you. For coming after me — and for staying to help.” She’s standing so close; Raj shoves his hands in his pockets to keep from pushing that strand of golden-brown hair behind her ear.
“Of course, Captain,” he says. It comes out easy, professional. “Any time.”
Every time, he thinks as she walks away. He’ll be there every time she’ll let him.
CHAPTER 15
LASADI
Lasadi shifts gingerly off her hotel bed at the knock, setting her feet on the floor with a wince at her new aches. The doctor at the clinic had given her a burn salve for her right arm and told her there wouldn’t be any scarring; she’d started laughing before he realized his faux pas. Any more scarring, he’d amended, with an apologetic grimace at the tapestry of burn scars on her bare left shoulder. And he hadn’t even seen the worst of it.
No one has, since the doctors who put her back together, and she’s been planning on keeping it that way.
She yanks open the door to her hotel room, stomach growling.
“Thanks,” she says. “That was fast — oh.”
Raj is standing a few steps back, hands shoved in his pockets. He’s changed out of the grease-stained clothes she last saw him in at the dockyard and is wearing twill trousers and a loose cotton shirt in a rich green that brings out the warmth of his tawny skin. The sleeves are rolled up to display fine-toned forearms, sculpted muscle and sinew.
“You seem disappointed,” Raj says, wry; Lasadi realizes with mortification she was probably ogling. “Expecting someone else?”
“Room service.” Lasadi makes a show of looking past him, hoping he can’t see the color rising in her cheeks. And, frankly, hoping to spot one of the staff heading her way with a tray of food. With the fight and planning, she’d forgotten about lunch, and now she wants nothing more than to eat her weight in fish and rice, then curl up for an early night’s sleep before the big day tomorrow.
“I wanted to explain,” Raj says. “For last night.”
“You don’t need to explain.” Even if she did want an apology, she’s not in the mood to talk about it now.
“I know you can fight your own battles.” The quiet weight in his tone, the intensity in his eyes, Lasadi stills, studying him. “But last night wasn’t just about you. Anton was trying to rattle you, and he was doing it in front of us to see if we cared enough to stop him. I needed him to know you had our respect.”
Lasadi’s surprise robs her of the easy Don’t worry about it she’d planned in response. She’d been expecting a half-hearted I got out of line. A non-apology about how he was sorry she took it the wrong way. But Raj’s explanation is simple, direct. And proof that he — like Ruby — sees and understands much more than she’s given either of them credit for.
“You should cancel your room service,” Raj says when she doesn’t speak. He clears his throat. “The whole town is out at the race kickoff party, and I thought we could go have dinner and watch some of the festivities.”
A spark flares in her chest before she realizes what he means — dinner with the crew. Another group dinner following rapid threads of conversation as they’re flung across the table: Anton’s veiled barbs and Ruby’s teasing and Jay’s inevitable preflight worrying and Alex’s showboating to impress Qacha. She’s exhausted thinking about it.
“We’re going to spend plenty of time crammed together over the next few days,” she says. “I’ll pass on dinner with the group.”
“Jay said you like to be alone before a big day. Said you like to study.” He glances past her. She had been studying, poring over Theo’s maps — which Jay and Alex had found in a secret compartment, and Qacha had deciphered quick based on Theo’s journal and her own expert knowledge of the region. They have the coordinates, they have the plane, and now it’s up to Lasadi’s skill and preparation.
She’s been trying to memorize the terrain, absorbing everything she can about handling a VTL-313 Garuda bush plane, watching accounts of older races to find anything that can help her settle the churn in her stomach. She set the room’s holoprojector to play a series of interviews with race champions, who have been chattering quiet in the background while she studies maps and ship schematics. Now a pilot is describing her winning run five years ago, hands dipping out of view as she mimes her flight.
“Jay’s right.” Lasadi puts her hand on the door, steeling herself to make her final excuses before Raj charms her into going out with the group anyway.
“The others all went out to dinner an hour ago,” Raj says. “And I get it if you’d rather spend tonight neck-deep in books and weird talking heads, but . . .” Raj shrugs one shoulder with a faint smile. “But even if this is just another job, tonight this whole town’s celebrating you. Come out and enjoy a bit of it.”
Lasadi studies him. Is he asking her to dinner, dinner? Wearing that new shirt unbuttoned at the collar, running those fingers through his black hair while he waits for her answer — she gets the sudden, electric suspicion the gesture is hiding his own nerves.
Raj is maddening. From the moment they met, he’s been a flame flickering on the edge of her vision. She’s caught him watching her — but he hasn’t made any overt gestures, not quite. Maybe he’s holding back out of respect for her position, or maybe she’s reading into his friendliness. He’s this charming with everyone, she tells herself. From Qacha and Jay to the hotel staff, he gives everyone that same easy smile.
Now, though, that easy smile has been replaced by something more raw. Vulnerable. Raj catches his lower lip in his teeth; heat flickers in her belly.
“I’m not saying you need to put down a whole bottle of jienja and dance on the table,” he says. “But don’t eat dinner in your room.”
“Is this a date?” Lasadi asks it before she can second-guess herself. She’s not hoping for a yes — she doesn’t dare to. The smart answer is no, and Raj is an intelligent man.
Color flares in Raj’s cheeks. “I would like to get to know you. Outside of work.”
It’s neither denial nor affirmation — it’s invitation. And it sounds so stiff and formal, like something out of an Arquellian period drama, that Lasadi laughs.
“Yes,” she says, quick to stop that flash of hurt in Raj’s eyes. She hadn’t meant to laugh. “I would love to. But I’ve never been to dinner with an aristocrat. I don’t know if I have the right evening wear packed.”
Raj glances down at his own outfit. “I think in Moie, fancy dress means it doesn’t have mud stains on it.”
“Good, because that’s as fancy as my dress ever gets.” She powers down the holoprojector and slips her comm into her pocket. The worries that had plagued her evening vanish as she locks her door behind her. “Let’s go get some food.”
Lasadi had expected the party to be set up in the same amphitheater where she sat for the orientation, but the party’s boundaries have spread to the entire town. Even though it’s not late, the streets are filled with revelers who must’ve started drinking early, tourists and spectators out in the streets hoping for a glimpse of one of the more famous pilots competing in tomorrow’s race.
Lasadi finds herself doing the same, she can’t help but get caught up in the atmosphere of anticipation, knowing her idols are gathered in town tonight.
“That’s Suli Charles,” she whispers to Raj when she spots a tall, raven-haired person in their signature neon yellow flight jacket signing autographs outside a bar. “They won three years in a row when I was younger. I can’t believe they’re still competing!”
“Do you want their autograph?” Raj asks.
Lasadi shakes her head quick. “I’m also competing,” she points out. “I’m supposed to be playing it cool, not fangirling over — oh, gods. The man beside Suli? Arley Ng.”
A nearby camera crew has noticed the pair, too, and a recording drone swoops in as the reporter — Joli Sainz, by the flame-red hair — exchanges good-natured banter with the pilots and peppers them with questions: “Any new improvements to your ship? It’s been a few years since the town of Dakori was on the manifest like it was the year you won, Arley, do you think it’ll show up again? Suli, last year you lost time in Howler Canyon — have you been working on your chicane moves?”
