“Wait a second,” said Nate’s voice. “Where are you?”
“It’s better if you don’t know,” said Hope. The actuators reached into the systems in front her, and she initiated a new program. There was an old-style optical computer — border worlds always got hand-me-down tech — and one actuator snicked into place against the diagnostic port. The bottom left of her HUD lit up, that section of the display now showing her what the little machine was thinking. She could imagine that it was passionate about its one duty, which was hold onto the Tyche until I’m told to stop.
There was a trick to this. She could tell it to stop. That was the easy part. What she needed was to do was a) tell it to stop, b) for a specific period, c) without telling Dock Control, d) and then forget everything afterwards. She could rivet the control system back together, walk away without visible evidence, but the visible evidence wasn’t important. Digital thumbprints were likely to get them blockaded faster than a couple missing rivets.
“Are you … outside?”
Hope looked up at the Tyche’s rear. Big drives dark and cold. Docking bay open to atmosphere, their cargo inside, roped down like a rodeo bull. A little carbon scoring here and there from planet crashing so often. The Tyche’s smiling face painted on the hull. Hope always found the winking woman on the side held up in her mind’s eye to what the ship should look like if she were a person. She could imagine Nate up in the cockpit, looking outside. He wouldn’t be able to see her — ship was facing away from her — but that would just make matters worse. “No, Cap. I’m in Engineering. Where else would I be?”
“If you were outside,” said Nate over the comm, “you could be identified.” He didn’t say, and arrested.
“If I wasn’t wearing a helmet, that might be true,” she said. “In this hypothetical future you’ve invented where I left the ship on a Republic world, that is.”
“Your rig has codes, Hope,” he said. “It can be identified.”
She made a pfft sound. Then a happier one, as she got what she needed. If she suborned the comm controller, she could install a timer in that to talk to the clamp controller. Make it look like a fault. She got the rig to prepare the program then flicked it across the diagnostic interface and into the live system. “My suit is in Engineering with the rest of me.”
“No it’s not,” said Nate.
She turned the visor of her rig towards the Tyche. Watched as the docking clamps disengaged, clanking open across all three points of contact, and smiled to herself. The rig picked up fallen panels, two arms holding in place, one fitting rivets in the sockets. She watched it work, thinking, thirty seconds and we’re off this rock. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m in Engineering,” said Nate. “There is no Hope, and Hope’s rig is also not here.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “I had to pee,” she said, then cringed. That was lame. L. A. M. E.
“That was … is that the best you’ve got?”
The last panel in place, the last rivet fired home, and she was running, rig jostling around her, breath loud in her ears. Damn, I need more cardio. Boots on the ramp up into the cargo bay. She turned her visor around to look outside. One last look at the spaceport, all ships still held in place. All except her ship, because the Tyche was born to fly. Born to be free. Hope looked out farther at the cityscape of Arlington. Where she could have been, for two days. If she hadn’t made mistakes, she too could fly. She could be free.
She slapped a hand against the door controls, and a red light spun in the top of the bay. An automated voice warned that the docking bay doors are closing, please stand clear. She looked around the bay, at the Republic cargo tied down, at the metal walls of the Tyche. Her ship. Her home. Probably for a long time. She didn’t like thinking too much about the future, because there was nothing but anxiety and more questions down that path, but she knew the Tyche was likely to be her home for maybe forever.
“It’s the best I’ve got,” she said over the comm. It was okay. They were okay. They would get off Arlington, away from the Republic standing on all their necks, and back into the freedom space. And that was the best thing for everyone.
Wasn’t it?
CHAPTER SIX
They were all afraid.
Grace was in the common area. These lifters were built to a spec, military design giving nothing away to comfort. But the Tyche wasn’t military anymore, and she’d had an overhaul. Or an underhaul. It wasn’t like the environment was built of lacquered wood, or even faux wood. The glass between them and the atmosphere outside as they climbed wasn’t diamond silicate, just an efficient polymer that sat a little on the dull side while still being strong. Not that dull would matter once atmosphere fell away. Out in the hard black, the heavens took most people’s breath away regardless of how you saw them.
She could always feel their awe, those who crawled up a gravity well for the first time. It was nice, that feeling, one of the few nice things she got from other people. It wasn’t what she was getting from the crew now.
The common area sat aft of the flight deck. In the flight deck, the captain—
Nate.
—and his Helm were side by side, coaxing the Tyche to reach for the stars. There wasn’t a lot of chatter between them, all efficient, like they’d done this before. She could feel the confidence off them, but also the fear. That fear bled back into the common area. To where the thug October Kohl sat, strapped into his acceleration couch like an angry sack. Angry, because he was scared too. And that fear from him bounced around, off the captain, and his Helm, back to October again, and washed over her. Fear was like that; even normals sensed it on each other. It might have been the sweat smell. For Grace it was pure feeling, her nerves vibrating with it, making her heart beat faster, her breath quicken, her eyes widen. She was sure her face would have been pale, and she could feel her fingers gripping the arms of the acceleration couch like the claws of an eagle. She tried to relax, to take in what was around her. So: no faux wood. Just some acceleration couches, a small galley, some windows that looked outside. Airlock doors: one leading forward to the cockpit, one aft to the crew, cargo, and engineering areas of the ship. There was a table in the middle of this room, not military spec. It had been welded to the floor; to Grace’s eye the welds looked neat, efficient, practiced. Not military spec, but not a back-alley conversion: someone had put that table there because they cared what happened on the table. Which meant this was where the crew ate, if they ate together. Back when it was Empire Navy, this area would have been for crew briefing, downtime, and being both bored and terrified about the next mission.
Maybe the military and civilian lives weren’t so different.
If she focused, she could feel the fear of the Engineer behind and above them. Fear and excitement, because she’d done something she shouldn’t have, and got away with it. Grace would have to remember that, try and work out how to use it, once they got away from this rock with its Republic rot to the core of it. It had been a long time since Grace had been on a ship with someone else who was being hunted, and things like that could be useful. If the hammer hit the anvil, she could throw Hope to the wolves and run in the aftermath of the noise it would make in her wake. She’d done it before. It got easier each time, and it wasn’t like they didn’t deserve it. Each of them desperate, each running from a crime. Except Grace’s only crime had been being born, and she’d been running for as long as she’d known how.