The Elarri Heist (Plundering the Stars Book 1) Read online

  “I don’t feel a thing if I’m being honest.”

  “Because the bolt burnt the nerve endings around the wound.”

  I cracked a grin. “Well, at least you don’t have to waste any morphine.”

  She snorted. “Like I’d waste it on you two idiots regardless.”

  “I love you too, dear.”

  Amara rolled her eyes and got to work. She applied the bio-gel to Rowan first, who gasped and gritted his teeth as she did. Bio-gel was never a fun experience, no matter how convenient it was. Then, while the new cells grafted to his back, she wrapped his ribs. Once that was done, our Zarthian doctor turned her attention to me.

  “Your turn.”

  “Hooray.”

  She dug out a small glob of bio-gel from the jar. It was a translucent greenish-blue, though it had a noxious chemical smell that drove me mad, so I had to hold my breath while she applied it. The immediate pain when it touched my skin was like a fire racing through my veins, fast and intense, but thankfully, that pain always died just as quickly, unless the wound was particularly gruesome.

  It was when the cells grew and grafted and became part of my skin that was a real discomfort. Like a hot itch, irritating, so annoying that any sane man would go mad with the urge to scratch at it, but you couldn’t do that. I had to sit still and grit my teeth while the healing process got underway.

  Amara smiled at me as it did. “What?” I asked her.

  “Nothing, I just like making you two uncomfortable.”

  I smiled back at her. “And you just earned yourself some retributory pranks coming your way.”

  “Bring it on, little Goon.”

  Once we were more or less patched up, we returned to the common area just as we felt the ship jump to the next system. That familiar pull in my stomach when it happened just made me even hungrier.

  Pivek and Jinx were still cooking, Pivek was chopping assorted meats and vegetables, and Jinx was mixing and adding spices to a roux or soup or something. The smell was heavenly. Ketellin, our stoic and silent Batoric pilot, climbed down from the cockpit, the water in his rebreather bubbling as he took in a breath.

  “You have us set for Kesher-88?” I asked him.

  “Yes, as planned. We should arrive in a few hours.”

  “Good.” I stretched, scratched my arm now that the bio-gel was finished grafting to my skin—which felt amazing—and took a seat in a torn leather booth on the opposite end of the little kitchen. In a few hours, we’d be meeting some contacts that could help us with the heist, and with the hack. We were well underway.

  We sat around in silence for a while, waiting patiently for Pivek and Jinx to finish the food. Rowan reached out to some contacts over the extraweb, though about what I did not know. Amara, our ever-obsessive weapons master, took apart one of her blasters and meticulously cleaned it before putting it back together. Something she’d learned in her “militia days” before we ever met. Ketellin simply rested his head against the wall and shut his eyes.

  Finally, Jinx smiled and clapped her hands together with a little flourish. “Okay, food is ready!” It made us all smile. She was adorable, and it was impressive how adept she was at picking up the mood.

  We lined up and each took a bowl, helping ourselves to the delicious-smelling bisque they’d concocted. And it was amazing. Creamy, chewy, flavorful. Jinx did not get enough credit.

  But our somewhat enjoyable meal soon came to an end.

  “So,” Amara began in-between bites, “are we going to talk about what happened on the station?”

  I squished my brows as I stared at her. “What’s there to talk about? We got the device, got shot at, and escaped.”

  “Yeah, pretty typical for us,” added Rowan with a chuckle.

  Amara growled with frustration. “No, it’s been typical for the last few months since we’ve become more bold and brash and stupid. Before you came along, Rowan, we were a lot more careful and low profile.”

  He narrowed his gaze, his body going tense. “Are you blaming me, Amara?” The way he said her name made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight. I sensed this topic of conversation going down a bad path. Not with a good ending.

  “No, I’m simply stating that we’ve been far more reckless lately, and now you just happen to run into a whole squad of Aaugor bounty hunters?”

  “It’s a coincidence. I was standing in front of a wanted poster of myself.”

  “Yeah, but you said he was looking right at you the moment you pulled down your hood, and he started firing immediately. Your posters are notoriously sad excuses of the real you, and Aaugor don’t typically have the best eyesight. That’s a fine coincidence, if you ask me.”

  “So, what are you getting at?” I asked. I dropped my spoon and folded my arms.

  She got in my face, her glare enough to make most men shrivel in fear. “I’m getting at the fact that I doubt this was just another coincidence. This is yet more heat on us, Yan. Between the bounty hunters tracking the Sanara, the ambush with Valrude, and now this? There’s too much smoke. We need to get out of the fire.”

  I huffed and looked around for some support, but the others were more than content to sit this one out. Figured. I put my hands on my hips. “Why can’t it be a coincidence? Why does everything have to be some grand plot to take us down?”

  Amara grumbled and threw her hands up. “You’re far too naïve for your own good, Yan. There’s way too much evidence to think that we aren’t being hunted.”

  “So what? You want us to back down, lay low, abandon this heist that we’ve already sacrificed to achieve?”

  “Yes. Not forever, but for now. Just until the heat dies down.”

  “We don’t have time for that.”

  “Rushing it could lead to death, Yan.”

  “And doing nothing will lead to it too.”

  “Yeah, for who? I’m sure your life of luxury and whores can wait.”

  Oh, that was the wrong thing for her to say. I fumed, my arms shaking. My face grew warm as I gritted my teeth. “My family!” I shouted.

  The room went silent. Amara backed away as if I’d slapped her. Rowan looked surprised, and Pivek and K both took that information in stride. Jinx gave me a sympathetic look. She was the only person I’d ever told of my family.

  “What?” Amara asked.

  “I don’t do all this for myself, or for you. My mother is dying, my father is an addict with a gambling debt that would make our collective bounties blush, and I have a sister stuck working endless hours trying to pay for them. I’ve tried to get them out, to help them, but all I can do is steal. This is the only way I know how to help them.”

  “Yan…” said Jinx as she came up to me and placed her hand on my arm.

  It wasn’t her fault and I wasn’t mad at her, but even so, I jerked my arm away. I didn’t look at her though, since I knew the hurt would be plain as day.

  “I can’t wait. They can’t wait. They’ve waited and suffered long enough.”

  Amara crossed her arms and sighed, dipping her head into her chest. “I’m sorry, Yan. I didn’t know.” But then her expression turned grim. “But we all have loved ones, all have something that drives us, and I will not have us all die needlessly. If we’re going to do this, we need to be ready. And without half the galaxy on our trail.”

  “How can you say that?” Spit flew from my mouth. “I just—”

  The ship came out of the jump with a violent shake, which we’d learned meant that we’d arrived at our final destination.

  I glared at Amara, my teeth bared and eyes full of fury. She matched it with a frightening glare of her own that would have ordinarily terrified me, but not today. Today, I would back down to no one.

  Without turning away, I said. “K, cockpit. Now. Take us to port.”

  He huffed and got up. I followed him up the ladder, finally breaking eye contact with Amara. This was not over. Not by a longshot.

  11

  Kesher-88 was in view as I c
limbed into the cockpit. K was already strapped in and flying. The trading post was more city now than simple backwater, but it still had its charms. Kesher-88 sat in the middle of a large asteroid belt that orbited a neutron star, which always cast the colony in eerily pale light.

  The city itself was a series of domed districts across several large asteroids held loosely together by gravity wells. Ships zipped between them, boom tubes throwing the smaller ones back and forth. As an extrasolar vessel, we needn’t resort to those.

  Kesher-88 was open to all and not beholden to any governing body, only occasionally paying fees to the Free Systems that she was a part of. Still, we had to pay a landing fee, which was annoying, but Ketellin paid it when the intercom buzzed asking for it. We set down on the left-most dome, the second largest, home to the entertainment district of Kesher—and the place to find an information broker or two.

  We adjusted to Kesher’s time, which meant it was time for most to go to bed, which was fine with me. I was exhausted after nearly dying today, and Amara had my blood boiling worse than any near-death could. Which probably said a lot about me as a person, but it was what it was.

  K landed us, and he and Pivek stayed with the ship while the rest of us checked into a nearby hostel for shipping crews. None of us spoke, and Amara and I needed the buffer of Jinx and Rowan between us. We thankfully were able to book a suite of rooms, though upon contacting the Diego, Pivek and K said they’d rather stay with the ship. That was fine. Less money to spend.

  I collected our keycards and led us up a flight of stairs until we came to the fourth floor where our rooms were. The hall was dimly lit and cold, but luxury was not something we could afford. I gave out the keys, and Amara still wouldn’t look me in the eye. Fine by me.

  “Get some sleep, everyone. Tomorrow, we go find my contact.”

  They grumbled their acceptance and went into their rooms, leaving me standing in the hallway, alone and still trembling with anger.

  I’d held it together for a long time. For years, I stole and stole and stole and conned and conned, accruing wealth, sending it back to pay for my father’s debts, never getting close because of the cursed interest rates. All the while, I put myself in harm’s way and garnered a reputation and a bounty that would get me killed one day soon if we didn’t pull off this heist. And if I died, well, my family was dead too.

  So no, Amara, I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I sighed and unlocked my room. It was a dingy sty with stained green carpet and a flickering lunar light that was a poor choice given the weak light of the neutron star and no moons. The walls were metal and cracked in spots, and there was a repeated dripping coming from the bathroom, just repeating… Drip, drip, drip…

  No bother, I’d lived in worse. I leaned my head against the wall and took a deep breath. It’d been about an hour since the fight, but my heart was still pounding, and my skin was still flushed. I hated feeling like this. I lived my life with blinding optimism and joy, because anything else was too depressing to comprehend. My family was in debt and dying and thinking about it hurt too much to bear. But I did everything for them, and for Amara to suggest we just throw this aside because of the danger? I couldn’t do it.

  She meant well, I knew. She loved me, as we all loved each other and wanted the best for us. This heist would save us all from our own personal hells. I wasn’t going to give that up. Amara would come around.

  A knock sounded at my door. I took another deep breath. “Come in.”

  The door slid open. Golden light flooded into the room, and a silhouette stood there, swaying as she looked at me, her shoulder leaning against the doorframe.

  “You’re just gonna sit in the dark and mope?” Jinx asked.

  I smirked, though my heart wasn’t in it. “Well, I was gonna drink myself to death, but unfortunately, I don’t have the money for that venture.”

  Jinx padded forward and found the dial for the light. She turned it up, but thankfully, just enough to see by. I didn’t want the brightness. I glanced at her. She’d showered, her gem-like hair messy and in wet strands. She wore a red tunic much too big for her that ate her torso and appeared almost like a dress. Her golden legs extended out of it.

  “You okay?” she asked, her voice low and tense.

  “You know, I’m usually the one who asks the stupid questions.”

  That got a chuckle. “I think everyone has to have a little stupid sometimes.”

  “Maybe.”

  Jinx sat beside me on the bed, her thigh and shoulder pressed against mine. She took my hand in hers and threaded her fingers through mine. Her grip was firm, warm, comforting. It made my heart race.

  “We’re going to make sure your family is okay, you know that, right?”

  I nodded. I could feel tears pricking at the corner of my vision.

  Jinx leaned her head against my shoulder, her wet hair pushed against my cheek. “Everything will be okay.”

  It was hard to say if she was telling me that, or if she was trying to convince herself.

  We sat like that for a while until my eyes grew heavy. Jinx must have felt the same, because her hand fell from mine as she stood up and stretched. I didn’t want her to go, but my lips didn’t part to speak. She turned back to me, leaned in, grabbed my face by the cheeks, and put her forehead to mine, our noses touching. She took a deep breath in through her nose.

  “Ashe vallicun en she trydi neo,” she whispered. I gulped. It was Old Torgoran, the language of her people, spoken rarely now. As a slave, she was forbidden from speaking it, but her and the others still clung to it, speaking it in the dark. It kept her alive when madness and despair threatened to drown her all those years ago.

  “What does it mean?” I whispered back.

  “It means, ‘Hold hope in your heart, for it can shield against all evils’.”

  “That’s a…beautifully loaded saying.”

  She smiled. “But true. We have hope, and that’s all we need.”

  I closed my eyes and breathed. “Thanks, Jinx.” She was the best friend I could ask for. For all the times I’d hold her at night, soothing her through her nightmares, it was nice to know she would do the same for me. She thankfully didn’t have the opportunity often.

  “Welcome, Yan.” Jinx breathed deep, and for a moment, we shared the same air. Her fingers ran along my cheeks, down my neck, and paused on my collar bone. Gooseflesh ran down my arms and neck. She then raised herself up, kissed my forehead, and took a step back.

  “Sleep well, friend,” she said.

  “And you.”

  Jinx went to the doorway and turned down the light until I was bathed in darkness again. She paused, once again a silhouette against the hallway light. Her head turned as she looked back at me. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could feel their intensity. Then she turned and strode out, the door sliding shut in her wake. My heart yearned for her to come back.

  But the words wouldn’t come up my throat. So, I did as she told me. I laid down, shimmied under the covers, and went to sleep, hoping the next day would bring me some renewed hope.

  When I woke hours later, I was feeling a lot better. Bitter, but better. Anger didn’t suit me, and though I was gonna have another talk with Amara later, for now, I could bottle my issues. So, I got up, took a disgusting shower—the water tank here needed to be cleaned, for sure—and got dressed. Then I went into the hall and roused the troops.

  And by rouse the troops, I meant bang loudly on their doors and yell obscenities at them.

  One by one, they came out. Rowan cursed as he rubbed the dream crust from his eyes. Amara scowled and made a very rude hand gesture at me that only caused me to chuckle. Of course, Jinx yawned and smiled and said her good mornings, because absolutely nothing I did ever fazed that girl.

  “Get dressed. We have things to do. I’d say shower, but take it from me, you’ll probably be dirtier after.”

  With some grumbles and eye-rolls, they returned to their rooms. Minutes later, they came b
ack out to find me lying on my back in the middle of the hall while I twiddled my thumbs and whistled a tune.

  “How are you so chipper, Yan?” Amara asked.

  Rising up, I smiled, crossed my arms behind my back, and leaned in so that our noses were inches apart. “Because, like any good sociopath, I am adept at hiding my emotions.” I bopped her on the nose with my pointer finger. “Silly.”

  “Ugh.” She looked disgusted and annoyed and every other emotion one could feel when dealing with my nonsense. But then I saw it: the slight twitch of her lips into a micro smile.

  I smiled. Victory.

  We left the motel. Pivek joined us after we stopped for breakfast, mostly because he was bored on the ship, which I found odd because he always had something to do. I led my friends through Kesher’s vast entertainment dome. Gambling dens lined the streets. There were hover-bike tracks and gladiatorial arenas, both lethal and non, between sapient species and those of less high-brain functionality. There were, of course, numerous brothels, centers for extraweb gaming, clubs of all variety, venues to see live music, and so much more. It was a fun place to be if you had the money and time to spend here. We, unfortunately, had neither.

  Hidden beneath it all was a vast trade network that was different from the trade markets two asteroids over. Here, they traded in secrets, in information both evil and benign, and favors. If you needed dirt on a politician, this was the place to go. If you wanted to know insider info on stock prices, they had that. And if you said you needed some help breaking into a vault of a notorious mob boss… Well, they could assist with that as well.

  For a price.

  We passed a glittering neon building with flashing screens all showing extraweb games being played, and near each were a list of stats and then some screens with odds. But the gaming center was not what we were here for. Between Li’yow’s Gaming Hub and the Red Rordan Arcade was a small, innocuous alley.

  I took my friends down the alley to the end, where there was a random brick wall. Both buildings were made of stucco and metal and not an ounce of brick. No, there was just this one patch of brick, and a very muscular Vespon with onyx skin and glowing eyes. He glowered at us, arms crossed, the muscles like rippling shadows.