I smile as he continues going on and on about my lack of hygiene being strikingly similar to that of our pirate guest. I’m just too tired to fight back right now. I have to conserve my energy for dealing with Macon, the Alliance, and the stuff I just learned about Tremblay, my newest enemy in what promises to be a long line of them, if the past couple days is anything to judge by.
I’m brought back to the present when he shifts from insulting me to transmitting over the comm. “Yo, ginger boys.”
There’re some crackling sounds over the line before a response comes. “Listen, slant-eye, if you want us to continue to answer your transmissions, you’re going to have to chill on the insults.” Tam sounds as tired as I feel.
“Ginger’s not an insult. It’s just who you are. Can’t help that you wish you were a slant-eye too. Got orders from the captain. You ready?”
“Affirmative.”
“That ship we’re docked with? You gotta cut its comm lines. Nothing outside of the Anarchy can comm in or out, got it?”
“Yeah.” Tam’s voice is already perking up.
“De-arm the thing too. Junk blasters, the works.”
“We gonna keep it? Man, I’ll bet it has some sweet parts.”
I shake my head as Baebong turns to me for an answer.
“She says no.”
I link in to explain, figuring they’ll do a better job if they know what I’m up to. “He’s going to be an off-site prisoner until the Alliance shows up to deal with him. In the meantime, I don’t want him signaling any friends or using anything he has on there against us.”
“Oooh, okay. So you want a full electronics sweep.”
Gus’s voice comes over the link. “Did I hear someone say electronics sweep?”
I can’t help smiling. He reminds me of an eager puppy. “Yes,” I say. “Disable that mofo.”
“What about the vacuum cycle?” Tam asks. “You want me to work on that now or keep it on hold still?”
I shake my head while answering, even though he can’t see me. “No, let’s go ahead with it. Good idea. Cycle us up. The threat is removed for the moment, so I’m not worried about the power suck anymore.”
Turning my attention to Baebong, I drop my voice. “Bring up the holding chambers for me. I want to make sure Captain Boob makes it to where he’s supposed to be.”
A clearpanel to my left blinks and then formats itself into four separate screen blocks, each showing a chamber. One shows Macon standing in the float chamber, still looking out at the Dark; he doesn’t look as if he’s moved even a single inch. Two others are empty, but the last one on the bottom left shows Jeffers leading a limping pirate into his cell. At the entrance, Jeffers puts his hand on the man’s shoulder and leans in close to say something to him.
Baebong, reading my mind, brings up the comm link so we can listen in.
“Everything is going to be okay. Don’t worry. Just rest here, and I’ll be back with medical supplies to tend to your wound.”
“She’s crazy, you know. You’re not going to come to any good end flying with her. I’ve heard things.”
I stop breathing as I wait to hear my crewmate’s response.
Jeffers looks as though he’s going to say something, but then he twists his head around to look up at the video capture unit above his head. He slowly backs out of the door, shutting it behind him before he exits, not another word leaving his lips.
“He going to be a problem?” Baebong asks softly, his slightly disappointed tone telling me he’s referring to Jeffers, not the pirate.
“I really wish I knew,” I say, sad that I have to answer that way. An hour ago I would have said that I trusted Jeffers. Now, I’m not so sure I should. I doubt his confidence in me extends to a point that he’ll blindly follow when my tactics don’t agree with his sense of right and wrong. He might be battle-hardened and impressive with the way he manages prisoners, but that doesn’t mean he likes conflict.
I have a feeling Jeffers is one of those guys who’s seen too much and had to move as far in the other direction as possible to keep sane — from killer to healer. It happens. All it takes to succeed is a decision to do it and then consistent follow through backed by a buttload of willpower. For a guy like him, a girl like me could be a problem; I’ll definitely put that willpower to the test. I’m sure I already have.
“Better watch your back,” Baebong says.
“Please … I don’t even want to hear that right now.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got it. Your back, I mean.”
I smile vaguely at him as the pain from the anticipated headache starts to seep into my brain. “Thanks. That means a lot.”
“You okay?” He squints at me.
“Headache.”
“Migraine?”
“Not yet.”
Baebong talks into his comm unit. “Jeffers. Hey. We’ve got a migraine making its way up here to the flight deck. You got anything for that?”
I rest my head on my hand and close my eyes, not paying any attention to the answer that comes over the line. I just want to rest for a few minutes. Then I’ll get back to worrying about every single thing that can go wrong on my ship in the next twenty-four hours. My mind swirls with darkness as slivers of pain slice into my temples, making me vaguely nauseated.
Chapter Nineteen
JEFFERS ARRIVES TWENTY OR SO minutes later with an herbal tea concoction that sends me on my way to happy town. I don’t care that it’s causing me to feel a little bit loopy, because it’s also getting rid of the massive headache that was making me think a ten-hour nap was going to be the only thing able to keep me alive.
Gus walks onto the flightdeck as I’m taking the last sip of the slightly tree-barky flavored brew. “Good news! The vacuum cycle is finished!” He rubs his hands together. “And we’ve done a sweep of the PC Mahalo, and she’s all clean. Dead in the water except for a short-range link to the Anarchy.”
“What about the exercise equipment I asked you for? For the cargo bay?”
“Almost done. Just need another set of hands to finish up.” He looks over at Baebong. “You have a few minutes?”
Baebong gets up.
“Bae, when you’re done, do me a favor and go talk to Lucinda. See if there’s anything she needs help with.”
He nods, which is a nice surprise. I expected to get flack from him about turning him into a brownshins.
Baebong follows Gus out the door, leaving Jeffers and me alone. I put the cup down on the wide arm of my chair and smile at him. “Thank you, healer. That was just what I needed.”
His smile is not as warm as before. “I think what you need is more sleep.”
“That too. But no rest for the wicked, eh?” I stare at him, waiting to see if he’ll take me up on my invitation to judge me, to share his feelings about all the mistakes he thinks I’m making. I hate that my stomach tenses up in anticipation of receiving that information.
“Wicked? I wouldn’t call you wicked, Cass. Determined. Ruthless, maybe. But not wicked.”
A bitter laugh breaks free. “Ruthless? Excellent.” That’s exactly how people have described my father. It’s how I would describe him.
“What are you thinking right now?” Jeffers asks me, his head tilted very slightly.
I stare out the clearpanel before me. “Oh, I don’t know. That sometimes no matter how far and how fast you run from something, it’s always just right there next to you anyway. There’s no escaping it.”
“You’re speaking about your past. Your relationship with your father.”
“More like my whole existence.” I look back at him and see the face of someone who cares. It’s probably just the brew causing me to see and think that. I wonder if the concoction was designed to get me talking, but my curiosity about that is not stopping me from sharing, that’s for sure. I just want to get the words out of me and out of my head for good.
“I only knew one world for the longest time. And then … and then…” I think about Ma
con and can’t continue. I risk tears going further down that road, and I’m afraid once they start, I won’t be able to stop them. Not with this frigging tea in me.
“You left after your fight with Macon, is that right?”
I nod, clamping my teeth together to keep from saying anything else.
“He was your friend. A good friend, I take it.”
I nod once more. It seems crazy that it’s only now when it’s being pointed out to me that I’ve realized it, but it’s true; that fight with Macon was the last straw. That was the impetus that I needed to finally get myself out of there. I’d been thinking about it and planning it in the back of my head for a long time, but my actual departure was a last-minute decision fueled by my horror and sadness over what I’d done.
“That must have been very difficult. To be pitted against your friend and forced to take his life or lose your own.”
His statement doesn’t need a response from me. We both know he’s one hundred percent right. But the memory hits me and kind of wakes me up from my tea-induced stupor with its clarity. My emotions at the time were so out of place. “I remember thinking it was totally normal to be standing there in the pit with Macon across from me. We’d come up through the last several levels together. He was ahead of me at first, but I caught up. He’s older. Did you know that?” I look at Jeffers, on the verge of crying as the memory wraps me up tight.
“I suspected. He looks older.”
“He is. A few years. Before I came up to his level, I guess he was kind of uninspired. But then we got partnered in several rounds, some training pits, and we became friends. Then he worked harder, so we could stay together.” I’m finding it hard to swallow past the lump in my throat. I have to stop talking or I risk vomiting up my sadness.
“And then you had to fight him to the death.” Jeffers looks at the ground shaking his head. “What they’ve done and continue to do to our youth…it’s criminal. It should not be tolerated.”
I sigh long and loud, looking out at the Dark. It feels good to hear someone else say that. “Yes. I agree. Now I do, anyway. Back then … I just accepted it.”
“Everyone there does.”
A long silence follows before I speak again.
“And so here we are…,” I face my healer, slash cook, slash navigator, slash … possible leader of an eventual mutiny on my ship, “…me sitting here wondering if I can trust you not to stab me in the back one day, and you standing there revealing nothing that will change my thoughts on that.” There’s a bitterness to my words. I want to like him and trust him, but he’s refusing to be drawn into that place. I hate it when people won’t cooperate with my plans. He’s such an asset; I really want him on my side.
Now it’s Jeffers’ turn to stare out the clearpanel to the Dark beyond. He stands there for so long saying nothing, I figure our conversation is over. My mind wanders to the Alliance, wondering when they’re going to contact us, whether we’re going to have to pass some test to get in, or whether they’re going to just hear about me and decide I’m too big a risk. Will I tell them about the biogrid right from the beginning or use it to bargain with if they reject me?
“I was with the OSG from a very young age as well.”
Jeffers’ voice is so unexpected, it startles me. I sit up straighter to cover my reaction.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes. In fact, I was one of those people who sat in judgment, who chose which recruit would be pitted against another.”
“Oh. I guess you did pretty well there, then.” That job is reserved for the veterans, the men who are part of the inner sanctum. They report to the top brass. I knew he was experienced from the way he carries himself, but this kind of shocks me. Those guys are lifers. None of them ever leave except in a body bag. Is he’s the only one who’s ever escaped? Or maybe others have tried and their former colleagues just made it look like a natural death when they failed?
“If by pretty well you mean that the blood of many humans has run through my fingers, then yes.” His voice has gone cold and his body stiff.
“You left, though.” I find that hard to believe. Leaving at that level? It just doesn’t happen.
“Actually, I was shipped out.”
I frown. “How could you have been shipped out? You’re alive.”
Shipping out only happens in really rare circumstances, when someone’s so damaged from a fight or accident that no amount of MI is going to bring them back. It’s a term I never liked to use because it’s a lie; everyone knows it means floating. It’s just done where no one can see it. A dirty little secret the OSG likes to keep under wraps and no one talks about in mixed company.
“I have friends. Good friends who never let me down.”
I feel sick over that. I let Macon down. “Good for you.” I try but fail to not sound bitter. I hate myself more than I did ten minutes ago, and I would have thought that impossible.
“People make mistakes. I’ve made a lifetime of them. But when I was given a second chance, I knew it was more than an opportunity; it was a gift. I needed to atone for my sins, and the universe provided me with the perfect circumstances in which to do it.”
“Which was…?”
“A new life. I was reborn, to become the man you see before you today. I seek peace and harmony in all things, rather than conflict. I bring life, not death. I seek friendships with people who I can trust to live a good life with me, who wish to bring light into the world, not darkness.”
“Oh. Well.” He’s definitely not describing me, even though a very big part of me wishes he were. “I guess you’ll be getting off at the next station, then.” I can’t believe how sad that makes me. I feel like I’m the darkest of dark people, running my life on the blade of a knife, always ready to push my agenda through with the tip of it.
“Not necessarily.” He faces me more fully now, his head up and eyes alert.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I’m suspicious, like I am of any preacher who tries to show me the way down whatever path they claim is the one of righteousness.
“It means that I see who you really are, Cass. And I like that person. I would fly a lifetime with that woman.”
“I hear a but behind that declaration.” I smile at that, a sad type of smile, though. There have been a lot of those kinds of buts in my life. I love you, but…; I’d be happy to let you do that, but…; You could leave, but … then I’d have to kill you.
“There are no buts. I just wonder if you’re aware of how often you are not yourself.”
I have to think about that for a few seconds. “I don’t get it. I’m always me.”
“None of us are just one person all the time. We’re more complicated than that. Sometimes we are our best selves. Other times, not. I’m a healer and a cook. Sometimes I’m a defender and other times I’m an enforcer. But through it all, even though I am sometimes fractured, I am a man who is here to atone. To become better than who I was. The essence of who I am does not change. I seek to be my best self in every situation. The question is, who are you? Who is the real Cass Kennedy? Have you ever stopped to think about that? Have you ever just decided who you’re going to be —who your best self is— and used that as your guidance beacon?”
I shrug, almost amused by his attempt to dig into a deepness that just isn’t there with me. “I’d like to think I’m this amazing person who has all these facets, like you have, but I’m just not. I see what I want, and I go get it. If someone gets in my way, I go around them. If I can’t go around them, I go through them. And I give no mercy to those who try to hurt me or my friends.”
“Even when it’s you doing the hurting? What then?”
His words are like a knife pricking me in the heart. “Even then,” I say. “No mercy.” He’s right about me; I do cause pain and I don’t forgive, even when it’s me who’s to blame. But I’m okay with that. Why should I show myself any mercy? I’ve hurt people doing the things I’ve done, so I deserve to pay for that with regret and l
oss of friendships. That’s fair.
I’ve never believed one can atone for sins like I’ve committed. The hurt doesn’t ever go away, and people never forget what you’ve done to them when it’s left scars. It makes the view of Macon up on that clearpanel even more depressing. He was my friend, and I turned him into my enemy simply by not thinking things through. By not being my best self. I will never be able to atone for that. No one has a heart big enough to forgive on that level.
Jeffers isn’t done trying to save my soul. “You deserve mercy, just as anyone does. You just have to truly want it and be willing to earn it.”
I shrug off his touchy feely advice, not believing a word of it. But I don’t want to alienate him entirely, because I know he’s trying to help, so I offer up something I think he’ll like. “I need to get better at planning.” I’m imagining that I could kind of limit my sins in the future by being more careful. “At thinking before taking action.”
Jeffers nods, looking almost hopeful. “I suspect most people could use a little more of that skill.”
“Maybe you could remind me when you see me jumping into things that I should take a moment to think first.”
“I could try. I don’t suppose you’ll always listen.” His mouth quirks up in a smile at that.
“But I can try. If you’ll try, I’ll try.” Why I’m setting this guy up to be my monitor, I have no idea, other than it feels like the right thing to do. It could be the tea making me hopeful and willing to take silly risks. Ironically, this is probably one of those times I should think something through more thoroughly before I open my mouth. Why does life have to be so confusing?
“Cass, I trust that you will do everything you can to make this ship fly and fly well … to get along in the universe with others in a positive way. You left the OSG to start a new life, and I know from personal experience that this is no small feat. Anyone who manages to do it is usually very motivated to succeed. I also know that you have not yet begun to pay for that decision, and that the day you do, everyone around you will feel the pain with you. But even so, I’m here. I’m going to remain a part of your crew as long as you stay true to who you are, and as long as you remember the reasons why you left the OSG to become the captain of the DS Anarchy.”