Killbox (Sirantha Jax 4)

Yes, I know how he feels about that, but I’m not changing my stance. Maybe I don’t know exactly what the mark means, but between Vel and me, it’s a measure of trust. He saved my ass on Ithiss-Tor, and I’ll wear his colors as proudly as I do my scars.

Other people join us on the floor. Dina twirls light and graceful in Hit’s arms; the taller woman moves with sinuous grace. Together, they offer such intensity that it feels slightly illicit to watch. With their eyes locked, I can see the love and longing circulate on a closed circuit, fed by proximity.

“You think that’s permanent?” I ask softly.

March nods. “I’ve never known her to stay with anybody so long.”

On some level, that makes me happy. Though our second visit to Lachion was disastrous, those two would never have met without that trip. So maybe it was worth it—everything we went through—just to see Dina this happy now.

I catch the station doctor regarding Dina with regret and yearning. It seems she remembers their fling with more than fondness; but our mechanic made a habit of having a girl in every port, before she met Hit. Those days are done now.

Doc’s dancing with Rose. Surge and Kora are nowhere to be found, so I guess they’re helping with the kids we rescued. I hope we’re able to get them home soon. They’ve adopted Tiera—the girl we saved the first time we visited Emry—as their own, and she seems to be doing well enough, despite the trauma of the Morgut attack.

Eventually Argus persuades the blonde to give him a shot, and that makes me smile, too, because she made him work for it. They seem impossibly young. At their age, I was still at the Academy, resenting Farwan’s leash. At their age, I had Sebastian.

“Who?” He has the grace to look slightly embarrassed at tapping my thoughts, but he doesn’t rescind the question. “It’s not the first time you’ve thought of him.”

“My first love.”

March misses a step. I suppose he thought he’d known everything about me, but a woman doesn’t reach my age without leaving a few men behind her. In my case, more than a few, but most of them didn’t matter. Sebastian did.

“Did he die?” he asks warily.

I know what he’s thinking: another ghost for him to fear, another man whose perfection he can’t touch.

“No.” I gaze over his shoulder for a moment, lost. Then I meet his gaze squarely. “At least not so that I know anything about it.”

“Then what did happen?”

“Are you going to tell me the names of all your lovers?” In fact, I don’t care. It’s best not to think about anyone who came before me, or I might drive myself crazy like March.

“I couldn’t,” he says quietly. “I didn’t know their names, only how much it cost for an hour of their time.”

That he’d paid more often than not made me hurt for him. Had nobody but his sister ever loved him, before me? I find myself hoping there might’ve been a woman who cared; maybe she just wasn’t brave enough to tell him so.

“Oh. Well, Sebastian was a musician back on New Terra. I ran off from the Academy every chance I got and found him playing the saxophone in Wickville. Remember, I came from money, and I’d never met anyone like him.” Years distant, I remember our last fight: his pretty face and wounded eyes. “Eventually, it came down to a choice between him and grimspace, as we always knew it would.”

“Poor bastard.”

“Yeah.”

We finish the dance in silence, then two more. To my surprise, I’m not tempted to drink to excess. I did that when I needed to forget, and for a change, I have things I want to remember. Despite the looming threat, there’s no shadow on the night. We all seem to realize this may be our last chance to be carefree before the war begins in earnest, so we seize it with both hands.

Hours later, the food is gone, the crew has departed, and the san-bots begin cleaning up the mess. Before we leave, I cut the music off, and it leaves a profound silence. I tug March by the hand, tipsy, but in no way impaired.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

I smile and say nothing.

It pleases me when he doesn’t ask again. Instead, his fingers tighten on mine, and he follows my lead. He’s genuinely surprised when I take him to the comm room instead of our quarters. Amusement stretches my smile—Mary, it’s good not to worry about offending anyone by showing my teeth.

“Constance pinged me earlier,” I say. “But I didn’t want to interrupt the party.”

She slips from ship to station and back again, riding the beams like a ghost in the wires. Has anyone ever used a PA like this before? For good or ill, she monitors all the information coming and going; she looks for patterns and presents her findings, as I asked her to on Ithiss-Tor.

His dark face becomes wary. “Tell me it’s good news.”

“She only said we’d already gotten a response to your broadcast.” I lean in and activate the message she’s left queued up.

An image flickers to life on-screen, good quality compared to the distress calls we’ve been watching. The man is a little older than March, skull-cut black hair and a darkly handsome face. At first I don’t recognize him, then he smiles. The two gold teeth are a dead giveaway.

“Hon,” March breathes. “I thought he was too smart to get blown up on station. He wouldn’t have trusted the Conglomerate to get close enough to kill him before he ran.”

The pirate looks older with his locks shorn off, but no less appealing. “Surprise,” he greets us. “I’m tired of lying low. Farwan destroyed most of my resources, so I’m willing to consider a truce, if you make a good offer. Let me know.”

I glance at March. “Do you trust him?”

“Not any farther than I can throw him.” He grins. “But he’ll make a strong ally. His name still has power in the Outskirts, and where Hon goes, others will follow.”

“He won’t like working for you, Commander.” I add his rank in a teasing tone.

“But he’ll like legal raids . . . and seizing property in an official capacity. What we’re talking about is Conglomerate-sanctioned piracy, turning smugglers to our purposes.”

“So you’ll tell him to come?”

In answer, he tells the computer: “Bounce a reply immediately: Record on.”

“Acknowledged.” To my surprise it’s Constance.

“My offers stands,” March says. “It applies to any captain and crew. Report to Emry for more details.” He pauses, then adds, “I’m glad to see you, man.”

Really? I wouldn’t have thought so.

He’s so much a part of me now that there’s no warm prickle because he’s almost always touching my mind lightly, so March answers aloud without even realizing what he’s done. “He’s one of the few people who remembers Svet. I could talk about her with him.”

Anyone who wasn’t a jumper would find that constant presence awful and invasive, but I’m used to it. Part of me wishes I could do that for him, too, outside the nav computer, so he could know that comfort, too.

“Didn’t Dina know her well?” She’s been with him the longest, as I recall.

Doc came later, after he finished his medical training off Lachion. Of us all, Keri has known him longest, but never met his sister. And despite her leadership of the clan, he doesn’t think of her as someone he could lean on. She always turns to him for help.

March shakes his head. “They met once or twice on Gehenna, I think, before Svet went to work for Farwan. But you know how Dina is when we put into port.”

I grin. “I know how she used to be. But I take your point—Hon’s the only one left. No wonder you want to see him.”

There’s weight in those words. People only live as long as someone remembers them, and for a while, March thought he was the only living soul with memory of his sister. Maybe there are ex-Farwan employees out there somewhere who knew her, but how would he find them? And what would he say if he did? You can’t reminisce with a stranger.

“This is a good omen.” March pushes to his feet and reaches for me. “Any other urgent messages I need to see before we retire?”

I smile up at him. “Nope, that’s the only one. But there will be more.” Leaning my head against his chest, I close my eyes for a moment, just enjoying his warmth. “Tarn couldn’t have done better than you for this job. I hope you know that.”

“You’re biased. Anything else on the agenda, Jax?”

My smile widens into a grin. “Maybe.”

“Shall we talk about it in private?”

But in our quarters, there isn’t much talking tonight.

.CLASSIFIED-TRANSMISSION.

.NEGOTIATION.

.FROM-SUNI_TARN.

.TO-EDUN_LEVITER.

. ENCRYPT-DESTR UCT-ENABLED.

Mr. Leviter:

I agree to your terms. In anyone else, I would call your confidence arrogance, but I’ve seen what you can do. If the royalists on Tarnus had the wit to employ you, I have no doubt they would still be in power. Your résumé is . . . impressive, to say the least. I hope you can turn the tide for us, because as Mary knows, we can use the help.

As you requested, I’ve set up an alias for you on world. You’ll be slipping into the identity of Corin Underwood, a minor Conglomerate official. He died off world, but I’ve managed to suppress that news, and when you arrive, you will take over his life. Naturally, you’ll need some cosmetic work to make it feasible, so I’m attaching an image. You’ll want to take it to your own surgeon; I trust you know someone who does good work. From the tone of your letter, I collect you’ve done this sort of thing before. I know—I’m not to ask about it, and so I won’t.

We’ll conduct the negotiations for your salary after you arrive. You’ll find I can be a very generous benefactor, but it would be wrong of you to assume you can get your way in all things simply because I have done what I must to get you on the Conglomerate payroll. The simple fact is: We cannot afford to have you working against us.

Corin Underwood has recently been appointed Minister of Diplomatic Relations in absentia. The position awaits your arrival. Is that nebulous enough? I thought it best to give no indications of your function, even in the title. That one should permit you to travel off world as needed.

I’ll expect your first status report once you’ve had a chance to get settled in your new life. Truthfully—and as you can probably tell by the image—Underwood was a bit of a nebbish. I spent no time with the little weasel when he was alive, so you and I will not confer in person either. I know you function best independently, and I’ll let you do so. Information will help us win this war, if anything can, and our fate is in your hands.

Mary grant you grace as you make your way, sir.

Tarn

.ATTACHMENT-CORIN_UNDERWOOD-FOLLOWS.

.END-TRANSMISSION.

. COPY-ATTACHMENT.

.FILES-DOWNLOADED.

. ACTIVATE-WORM: Y/N?

.Y.

.TRANSMISSION-DESTROYED.

CHAPTER 11

The days fall into a routine on station.