Ghost Pirate Gambit, page 20
Jay smiles. “Job we pulled for Nico about a year ago. He’d sent us there to escort one of his business partners back with a shipment. It was clear pretty quick the partner was going to double-cross Nico, so Lasadi tried to get out ahead of it. Confronted him. The guy rabbited before we could pin him down, and even though we made it back with the goods, it was six months before the guy came back to the surface — and when he did he took out a couple of Nico’s people. Nobody we knew personally, but I don’t think Lasadi’s forgiven herself.”
“If you’d gotten the guy back to Nico without tipping your hand, Nico would have handled him.”
“Yep.” Jay leans forward to answer a prompt from the auto-docking system.
“Are you okay?”
“What?”
“Anton,” Raj says. “You have a lot of history there.”
Jay frowns as though it hasn’t occurred to him to think about how to feel. “I wish I was surprised,” he finally says. “He was a powerful man to follow. So intoxicated by himself that it was hard not to be, too, you know? Like there’s still a part of me that thinks I’m the one who’s wrong for questioning him.”
He’s quiet a long time, and Raj lets him sit with his thoughts, both of them watching the Nanshe fill the screen.
“Blind faith feels good,” Jay finally says. “I miss believing in something so strong — the cause, and the man who represented the cause. I guess part of me wanted that again.”
“I get that,” Raj says.
Jay looks at him sidelong. “Did you believe in your cause? During the war?”
Raj considers his response to the unexploded mine in front of him, a dozen answers on the tip of his tongue and all of them lies he’s tossed off over the last few years. None of those lies come easily now, though. Even if they did, he’s going to tell Jay the truth.
“Wholeheartedly,” Raj says. “Until I realized how wrong I was to believe in any cause without questioning it.”
Jay smiles faintly. “Fucking Alliance scum.”
“You lost your chance to turn me in to Vasavada.”
“She’d’ve had to step over my dead body for you.” Jay reaches for the controls. “Hold on. The docking arm on this side is janky, I haven’t had a chance to fix it.”
The shuttle catches with a sharp lurch that sends Raj’s stomach reeling before they settle into the docking bay. “Holy shit, Jay.”
Jay raises his hands — I warned you, didn’t I? — then unbuckles his harness. “It was next on the to-fix list before Las took the Nanshe and went traipsing off across the system. But now we’re home, safe and sound.”
Raj engages his magboots and stands, following Jay to the shuttle’s exit; Jay stops short of the airlock door. He turns back to Raj and holds out a tentative hand. “We good?”
“We’re good.” Raj ignores the hand, hauling Jay into an embrace. The other man squeezes him hard before letting go.
“Glad to hear it,” Jay says. “Now go tell Las or she’ll lock herself on the bridge and not come out until we’re back at Ironfall.”
Raj hesitates — he knows the conversation needs to happen, but he’d wanted to give her time to sort her thoughts. And take the time to sit with his own.
“Yeah,” Jay says, waving away Raj’s hesitation. “I’m not living on this boat for the next five days with the two of you avoiding each other. Go sort out your shit and meet the rest of us in the galley for dinner.”
The bridge hatch is open, which he takes as a good sign.
Raj makes noise as he climbs the ladder, knocks as he pulls himself through. Lasadi stiffens when she glances over her shoulder, then turns back to silently plotting their course on a complicated stream of graphics on her screen.
He settles in the co-pilot’s chair and waits, watching her without being obvious about it, trying not to break her concentration any more than he already has. Her eyes are bloodshot, rimmed in red like she’s been crying — or trying not to. Her cheek is smudged with dirt — they’re all filthy, still — and her lips are bloodless and chapped.
The little Coruscan house god, the mixla, catches his attention from its nook on the dash. She’s put his cittern-string bracelet back in the stasis field at its feet, and he wonders if he should take it back. He’d left it there when they went to Auburn Station, a nod to Coruscan tradition to keep the wearer of the offering safe on their trip. He considers leaving it — not to tether himself to the Nanshe anymore, more as a way of tethering her to him. Even if it can only be as captain and crew.
He winces internally as he articulates the impulse to himself. Leaving something in Lasadi’s view to remind her of him every time she sits down to do her damn job — now there’s an arrogant thought.
Raj plucks the bracelet out of the stasis field, saying a silent, self-conscious prayer of thanks to the mixla for keeping them all safe this time around, then slips it back around his wrist. A muscle in Lasadi’s cheek jumps at the gesture, but she doesn’t comment, doesn’t look at him until she enters her last command and the Nanshe’s autopilot engages. The stars on the screen begin to glide smoothly as the thrusters fire to burn them out of orbit and start the long haul back up the gravity well to Durga’s Belt.
Lasadi leans back in her seat, watching the screen a while before she finally turns to him, lips parting to speak.
“I wanted to apologize,” Raj says as she breathes out: “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll go first,” he says; her jaw is clenched tight. “I haven’t been completely honest with you from the beginning. I didn’t tell you who my father was at first, and I should have told you he was posting bounties on me. It’s more or less been taken care of, but I understand it endangers anyone near me.”
“You apologized for that already,” she points out.
“But I wanted to make sure you knew it was real this time.”
“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “What do you mean it’s been taken care of.”
“Ruby’s got a script running to take the posts down. And I’ll deal with my father. I just . . .” He wants to say something reassuring and confident: I’ll call him up, I’ll do it when we get back to Ironfall. “I don’t know how,” he finally says.
“It’s okay. I’m not — ” Lasadi looks down at her hands as though trying to figure out how to word it. “I’m not worried about the danger. If we’re going to be a crew, we can figure it out together. But I can’t keep us out of danger if I don’t know what to watch for.”
His heart sings at us, but they’re a long way from things being all right. “Fair. I was deciding what information you needed to know, and that’s not my call.”
That seems to surprise her. “Thank you.”
“I’m used to keeping people out, not letting them in. I’ve had a hard time breaking the habit, and I’m sorry.”
“You barely knew me,” Lasadi says. “But I’ll do better to prove worthy of that trust.”
He starts to correct her — that’s not what he meant at all — but she holds up a hand.
“I’m sorry for what I put you through,” she says. “I couldn’t let Anton know I suspected him, which meant I had to almost believe it myself. It was . . . excruciating. But I’m sure it was worse for you.”
“Maybe next time I can be in on the joke,” Raj says — it’s meant for a laugh, to lighten the mood, and at the flinch in the corner of Lasadi’s mouth, it’s the wrong thing to say. He swallows, hard. Forces himself to tell her the truth. “It was devastating.”
Lasadi’s staring fixedly out at the stars.
“I was angry at you for not believing me. But I was angriest at myself that I was going to die without ever being completely honest with you. And Jay, and everyone. But mostly you.” She finally meets his gaze. “And maybe next time I can be in on it, because I’ll have proven you can trust me.”
“I did,” she says quickly. “I do. And I want to keep working together.” Lasadi reaches into her pocket. “I got you something in Icaba. I noticed these in the corner store before we left for Moie, and he still had them. You said you needed new ones.”
She holds out a package of cittern strings, and he takes them; their fingers don’t quite touch. Raj turns them over in his hand, a smile spreading over his face.
“You sure you want me making a ruckus on the ship?”
“I would like that,” Lasadi says. “And I think the others would, too.”
“Well, thank you. I’ll grab my cittern when we get back to Ironfall.”
“Raj.” Lasadi takes a deep, slow breath. “Will you forgive me?”
Raj blinks at her, almost ready to brush the question off with another joke; he can’t think of a time someone asked forgiveness from him, and he’s not sure what it entails. A healing of some wound in himself, he suspects. Not a simple papering over, not a simple forgetting or ignoring.
“Yes,” he says. “But I need to know that in the future you’ll always be straight with me. If you have a problem with me, tell me.” He gives her a gentle smile. “I can’t keep guessing where I stand with you, I go straight to the worst-case scenario.”
“I will,” she says, and something unclenches deep in his core; he feels at once exhausted and light. And starving. Ruby’s laugh drifts through the open hatch, along with the savory aroma of dinner from the galley. Raj’s stomach rumbles loudly; Lasadi laughs. A touch of color has come back to her cheeks, the live current of tension has eased in her shoulders. They’re back on firmer ground, and Raj should probably leave it that way — but they’ve agreed to be on the level with each other.
“Jay said to meet him in the galley for dinner,” Raj says. “But I thought I was going to die back there, and one of my deepest regrets was not saying this when I had the chance.” Raj clears his throat and forces himself to continue despite every terrified fiber of his being screaming at him to stop before he bares his soul beyond retreat. “I admire you. I respect you as our captain. I am also deeply attracted to you, and I think you feel the same way — but I can’t actually tell, so I apologize if I’ve made things awkward. If the feelings aren’t mutual, I understand and respect that. But I need to know.”
And he’ll live with it, though he can’t think of how he possibly could. It’ll be fine, he tells himself. He’ll scratch the itch with a fling next time they’re in port, and forget all about the woman who’s become a magnet so strong she’s begun to realign the core fibers of his soul.
“You make me want to be a better person,” he says when she doesn’t answer. “And that won’t change whether you’re my captain, or — ” He doesn’t dare put a word to that faint wisp of a dream. “We don’t have to talk about this now,” he says. “But I’m done lying to myself and you.”
“No, it’s fine,” she says. “But I’m sorry, Raj. I don’t know how to know what I feel about you.”
He frowns, trying to parse the sentiment.
“Anton . . .”
He braces himself for the inevitable, ready to hear how she still has feelings for Anton, how wrecked she is by his betrayal. How no Arquellian deserter could compare to the dashing revolutionary hero.
“Anton — what a fucking bastard.” She drags in a shaky breath. “I used to trust myself before I met him. It’s like that part of me is broken, and I can’t tell what pieces are real anymore.”
There’s so much he could say: You know he broke you on purpose. You can’t blame yourself. A partner is someone who helps you become more yourself, not less. But any of those feel presumptuous, and he’s not sure either of them are up for the emotional nuance those conversations might require.
“He did a number on you,” Raj finally says. “But you won in the end.”
“Yeah.” She sighs. “Raj. I’ll be honest. I want to tell you I share your feelings. But what I need right now is dinner, and a shower, and to sleep for three days. Until I get those things I’m in no state to parse what I feel.”
It’s not a yes, but his heart soars that it’s not a no.
“Take your time,” he says. “You know what I want, and if that matches what you want, great. If not, also fine.” He’s proud of how casual he sounds, of his easy posture and the nonchalant way he stands. “I’ll see you down in the galley. Oh, and Las?”
Curiosity softens her features.
“From what I saw the last few days, you know exactly how to trust yourself. Your instinct saved all of our asses down there, more than once.”
She frowns at his smile, returns his salute with surprise as he disappears down the ladder.
Jay, Ruby, and Alex go silent in the galley when he enters. Jay pauses at the rehydrator door, oven mitt on his hand. Ruby’s gnawing her lower lip, worry in her eyes. Alex’s leg is bouncing like mad.
“I have some bad news for you all,” Raj says solemnly, then winks and slips the package of cittern strings out of his pocket, waves them at the group. “The captain authorized me to grab my cittern once we’re back in port. I hope you like to sing.”
He ducks the empty drink bulb Ruby flings his way, catches it laughing as it ricochets off the wall, and turns to help the rest of his crew prepare dinner.
CHAPTER 28
LASADI
She can hear their laughter drifting up the ladder from the mess, but she’s told herself she needs to check a few more things before she can join them. Verify their course, run some quick diagnostics, see to a few incoming messages.
Instead she’s staring out the window, watching the stars through the Nanshe’s familiar screen, feeling Anton’s weight and obligation to the cause and Indira’s gravity falling away from her as she thinks about what Raj said.
She knew Raj had been hiding things before, but she doesn’t begrudge him. He had every reason not to tell her about his father, his court-martial record, the headhunters. He barely knew her, and anyway, she’s got no room to be upset. If anyone understands building up walls to keep someone from getting too close, it’s her.
She’d had close friends in the CLA — Henri among them; she still doesn’t know if Anton was telling the truth about him being alive, but she owes it to his memory to find out. Anton had been grooming her for leadership early, though, and he hadn’t approved of how friendly she’d been with people under her command. He taught her that leaders need walls and healthy distance. He taught her that leaders don’t show scars or weaknesses. He taught her to keep the vulnerable parts her soul so far under lock and key that she’s not even sure how to access them anymore.
He taught her to draw a line, knowing someday she’d need to put her friendships secondary to the cause.
The line’s still there between herself and Jay, she realizes. She’s appreciated that he doesn’t press her when she doesn’t want to open up, but what has silence gotten them? She still hasn’t had a chance to ask what happened between him and Chiara, and before meeting Raj and Ruby and Alex, she might have assumed he didn’t want to talk about it. But she can hear Jay joking with the rest of the crew in the galley, and she realizes with a jolt he’s been as starved for companionship as she’s been. Everyone else probably knows what happened with Chiara already. It isn’t that Jay doesn’t want to talk, he’s just been respecting the line she never bothered erasing.
What she’d told Raj is true. She’s starving, exhausted, and reeling from everything — the last thing she needs to do is make a rash decision in her current state. She needs time and space from the emotional turmoil of the last few days, and time and space from Anton before she’ll be clearheaded enough to understand what she really feels about Raj.
And that had been completely fine with him.
His simple acceptance of her need for space almost tore down her last meager defenses and had her dragging him to bed — forget about the rest of the crew waiting in the galley.
Except that the one thing she is certain of right now is that the rest of the crew are relying on them both to make a smart decision.
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath — whatever Jay and the others have put together smells divine, and she hasn’t had more today than a ration bar while they were flying from the River of Blood to Icaba. She doesn’t have to make any decisions now. All she has to do is eat, shower, and sleep until the autopilot tells her they’ve reached Ironfall in five days.
She opens her eyes, ready to head down, when a new message pops onto her screen.
Lasadi’s heart catches in her throat as she sees the name: Evora Faye Cazinho.
Her sister.
Lasadi’s fingers are ice as she swipes open the message.
Las,
I’m sure this message will bounce right back. Or maybe not, I guess — I’ve never written to a dead person. Does your address expire? Amit would say this is just another clue that I’m losing my mind. But here I am. Writing anyway.
Do you remember how we all used to watch races together? You probably do — you always said you’d be racing someday, and I believed you even though Amit made fun of you. The Star Run was this week, and you would have loved it — especially the bit at the end when the third-place winner, Peter Fangio, got all political about the Alliance and New Manila. They cut the feed, but it wasn’t fast enough.
Amit and I still get together every year to watch it — we started again the year you died. Like some sort of memorial, I guess. Neither of us mentioned it, but I saw he put a little folded paper plane in your part of the family altar yesterday. Grandma says your name more in the prayers this time of year — almost as much as around your birthday or the anniversary of your — I’m not going to say it. Olds, I still can’t believe you have a place in the altar, that’s for grandparents, isn’t it? Not for sisters.
I wouldn’t admit this to Serious Big Brother Amit, but every year when we watch the race, I’m looking for you. I suppose I can tell you — I mean, I wouldn’t tell you in real life, you and Amit both would make fun of me. You two always agreed on at least one thing: superstition and afterlife and all that stuff is nonsense. But I can tell you anything I want now you’re dead, haha, and you have to listen.
