“Yes you do,” said Grace. “Be honest, Nate—”
“Captain Chevell,” said Nate. “Let’s start with that.”
“Captain Chevell,” said Grace, still a hint of a smile about her, “those men wouldn’t tell you anything. Not about the cargo. Not about the transmitter. And sure as stars, not about what’s going on at Absalom Delta.” She looked at his metal hand. “You look like you might know what the Republic lying to you feels like.”
Nate’s eyes moved to the door of the bar, a couple walking in. They were laughing, her hand on his. He bent to whisper in her ear, and they moved to the bar. The bartender with the glowing green braids put a couple of drinks in front of them, sweeping Republic coins away like they’d never existed, like it was a magic trick to make things disappear before your eyes. Nate watched Grace Gushiken watch those two enter, watched her watch them move to the bar, and then he watched as she pretended she wasn’t watching them. “So, Grace,” he said. “You seem to know the Republic pretty well yourself.”
“Better than you know,” she said, relaxing into her seat, which — not coincidentally, Nate thought — lowered her from view.
“And why should I take you on my crew?” he said.
“Because you need me,” she said.
“And because you need me,” said Nate, looking at the couple at the bar. They were still laughing, and talking, but their eyes were scanning the crowd. “Why?”
“I need to get off this rock,” she said. “An Assessor doesn’t make coin sitting in a spacer bar.”
That, right there, was the first time she lied to him. Not about her name, as near as Nate could tell, but about what she was. Not that she wasn’t a great Assessor; she may well have been. It was impossible to tell from the vantage of this fine spacer bar. Didn’t matter: it’s that she was so much more. Nate could feel it, feel it like he could sometimes feel the old pain where his left arm and leg had been burned away in cleansing fire. Feel it like warm sun on his face when they were on a beautiful planet like this Enia Alpha, a gentle 0.9Gs tugging at him, a yellow sun in the sky above. But he could also feel that there was something about her. She had tugged that tiger by the tail like she owned the damn tail, and Nate felt an instant like for anyone who could stick it to the Republic.
Nate looked at October. “Kohl,” he said, “do you want to fight?”
Kohl thought about it. “I don’t know, Captain. You and me? It’ll be hard for you to give orders without your teeth.”
“Not me,” said Nate. “Those two at the bar.”
Kohl turned around, the faux leather booth seat creaking under his weight. He turned back. “How much you want ’em hurt?”
“I want ’em hurt enough to let us get to our ship without being followed.”
“Great,” said Kohl, rising.
“Could you,” said Nate, “wait for us to go? You know how I love watching you work, but—”
“But you want ’em distracted as you go, so I can get ’em from behind,” said Kohl. “It doesn’t seem fair. I like it.”
Grace was already slipping from the booth seat, a dancer’s flow in her movements. She gathered the sword from the table like it weighed nothing, slung the scabbard’s belt over her shoulder, and gave Nate a glance. Something fearful behind the play. “You ready?”
“I’m ready,” said Nate, but this time he was lying to himself. Not that he knew it. None of them knew what was coming.
CHAPTER TWO
October Kohl was drunk. He knew it. That asshole who was eyeing him up knew it. The bartender knew it. The proprietor of the brothel he’d just been thrown out of knew it. The question — then — was not whether he was drunk, but whether it would hold him up any. He put a hand out in front of him, looking at the way it drifted in space.
It wasn’t waving all over the place, but it wasn’t steady as a rock either. That meant no guns, because Kohl wanted to drink here again, and shooting people who weren’t supposed to be shot was one of the best ways to never get back in. As Nate had explained to him, there were rules, and polite people didn’t shoot people who didn’t deserve it.
Kohl rose, taking a look around the bar. There were people here who deserved it, sure as ships flew, but he could already feel the look Nate would give him. So, no guns. He made sure his blaster was holstered, nice and secure, clip fastened over the top. It took him a try or two but he got there in the end. When he looked up, that asshole who’d been eyeing him up was right in front of him. Big asshole too, bunch of ink down one side of his neck, none of that glowy shit popular out here on the rim worlds, straight black needled right under the skin. Had a rivet in his forehead — a goddamn rivet, for fuck’s sake — planted above the guy’s right eye. Could be cosmetic, or could be because he had a bunch of metal in his head and that was the best way of solving the problem.
“Coins,” said the asshole.
Kohl swayed, put a hand on the side of the booth that Nate and wossername, Grace, Grace, that was it, had just left. Looked the asshole in the eye. “Fuck off,” he said.
“I—”
“No,” said Kohl, “really. Look,” and here, he realized he was slurring more than he’d expected, “I’m trying to work.”
“Work?” The asshole looked a little surprised.
“Yeah,” said Kohl. “I need to punch some fools.”
“I think you’re too drunk to—” started the asshole, before Kohl slammed a fist into his stomach. The guy, coughed, tried to stand, and that was just a bad move, because you should stay down when you’re outmatched, but not everybody worked that way. So Kohl grabbed fistfuls of the asshole’s jacket, and yanked the man forward into a headbutt. The impact was hard, but not too hard, which meant that rivet was cosmetic. He let the asshole slump to the floor, out like a cheap drive from Venus, and stepped over him en route to the bar.
Joni was behind the bar, those green braids of her glowing like a set of emergency beacons, and she saw Kohl on his way over. “October,” she said, “no.”
Kohl locked on to those green braids like lights guiding him in to land in a storm. The couple Nate had asked him to delay were already looking over, which was fine, because this wasn’t surprise work. He made it to the bar, jostling hard against the woman, knocking her a little sideways into the man and spilling her drink. Kohl got a good look at them. Trim and fit. Drinks untouched, holding right at the top of the water line from when they’d bought them. Dressed in dark spacer overalls, which meant they weren’t spacers at all, because no crew Kohl knew of kept their damn jumpsuits on when they were shoreside. It was like they’d seen a holo about spacer bars before going into this particular one, which meant two things.
First, because of how they were dressed, they were not spacers. No crime against that, rich people sometimes wanted to rub against the dirt, and Kohl was no particular judge on how people got their thrills.
Second, because of their untouched drinks, they were trying to keep sharp, because they wanted trouble, or because they were on duty, or both. That there meant the captain was right in wanting to delay them. Could be wrong too, if they were Republic agents of one shape or another, but Kohl didn’t much care.
“Hey,” said the woman. “Hey!”
“Hey,” agreed Kohl, and counted Republic coins onto the bar.
“October Kohl, no.” Joni tried to push them back at him. “Kohl? Are you listening to me? Not tonight. Not again.”
“It’s okay,” said the man, holding a hand up to Joni. “Man just wants to buy us a drink to apologize.”
“That’s not it,” said Joni. “October Kohl, you stop right now.”
“Sorry, Joni,” said Kohl. “Captain’s orders.” He examined the pile of coins, then tossed another on for good measure. “There.”