The Elarri Heist (Plundering the Stars Book 1) Page 3

  “I don’t need to be because I never get caught.”

  That made me laugh. “Now, that’s a cheap shot.” I slapped her arm. She laughed too and fell back beside me so that we were both staring up at that dang flickering light that made my head feel woozy. Or maybe that was the yalen.

  “Everything is okay though, right?” I asked.

  I could feel her eyes on me as she turned her head. “Yeah.” Her breath tickled my shoulder. Her head turned back toward the ceiling. “Yeah, everything went off without a problem.”

  “So, you got the uniforms?”

  “I just said everything went according to plan.”

  “Yeah, but you never told me what your plan was. You just said you’d get the uniforms.” I adjusted and laid on my side, propped up on my elbow, though it hurt something fierce. I endured it. “So how did you get it?”

  Jinx shook her head and smirked wickedly. “Nah-uh, a mescarren never reveals their tricks.”

  I grunted and rolled onto my stomach. “Ugh, that’s no fair. You have to tell me your secrets.”

  “I tell you plenty!”

  “But you know I love a good thieving story! It’s what I live for.”

  She scoffed. “Please. You live for drinking, shagging, and hunra. Thieving is a hobby.”

  I clutched at my chest. “Madam, you wound me.”

  “I speak the truth.”

  “Maybe, but thieving is not a hobby.”

  “Also maybe.” She giggled.

  We rolled onto our sides and faced each other, our noses only a breath apart.

  “If we finish this job and escape with our lives and the money, then all those things go away. We can start over, somewhere far from here. Other side of the galaxy even. No more drinking or hunra. Can’t promise no shagging, I’m just a man after all.”

  Jinx rolled her eyes but smiled a light smile that warmed my heart, as her smiles always did.

  “You, me, the crew, we can all start fresh. No bounties. No looking over our shoulders.”

  She stared hard at me, her eyes shaking from left to right as they often did. She burrowed into my mind, into my soul, with that stare. She could read me better than anyone, and she knew that was what I really wanted. A fresh start.

  “We’ll see,” she finally said, in a voice that was barely a whisper.

  Yes, we will see, I supposed.

  We stayed like that for a while before I sat up with a groan and grabbed the yalen off the table next to the bed, taking a sip.

  “Saints’ mercy, where is Rowan?” I exclaimed.

  “Who knows?” Jinx shrugged. “He had to go the farthest. Other side of the capital.”

  “Yeah, but he could take a tube here, or hire a strider if he found one that’s cheap. Or he could be dead.”

  “Yan…” She rolled her eyes again, something I made her do far too often. “He’s big, smart, crafty, and is a slick shot with a blaster. He’ll be fine.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  As if on cue, footsteps sounded outside, coming steadily toward the door. It could have been just another patron, or Rowan even, but that didn’t stop Jinx from pulling a knife from beneath her heavy shirt.

  The footsteps drew closer and closer before they finally stopped in front of the door. We held our breath.

  And then came the familiar knock.

  We sighed at once. It was Rowan. Jinx hopped off the bed and went to the door to throw it open.

  “Don’t worry, friends, I am alive!” Rowan exclaimed, arms wide, as if he knew what we were talking about. He had that uncanny knack for knowing things he shouldn’t.

  Rowan cracked a smile as he stepped in and locked the door behind him. He was a Goon, like me, so we shared the same pale skin and dark hair. Our eyes were similarly stormy, but that was where the similarities ended. He was all bulk and brawn to my thinness and lack of height. He was big and I was small, and he had a square head, big nose, and wide smile, whereas I was near gaunt-looking with slight features.

  One would think that his size would make him terrible at sneaking about and thieving, and one would be correct. That wasn’t where his particular talents lay. He was a conman, a liar, a cheat, and he could find out things when no one else could. I styled myself as a smooth-talker, but I was sure Rowan could convince me to sell him my ship if he really wanted.

  But that wasn’t what he wanted. What he wanted was to help us steal from a mob boss’s vault, and to do that, we needed the work schedule for all of Xarren’s manorial employees.

  “So, did you get it?” I asked. Judging by the fact that he was alive, wasn’t bleeding, and was all smiles, I assumed that he did. Although, in the four months that he’d been part of the crew, I’d rarely seen him do so much as frown. He was always smiling, always chipper, which was one of the main reasons we’d become fast friends. Not just with me, but with the whole crew. His attitude was infectious.

  He folded his arms behind him and dug into his pants for a moment before producing a small data-pad. “Of course, I never miss a mark.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you would never.”

  He punched my arm. “Never ever.” I couldn’t help but wince when he punched, even though I knew he didn’t mean to hurt me. He looked me over with all the bandages and had the same questions form on his lips.

  “So, what happened?”

  I groaned and relayed the tale for a second time, but Rowan enjoyed my misery a lot more than Jinx had. Shocker. He particularly liked how I handled the bouncer and the thugs in the office. He was so easily amused. I only wished that I had enjoyed it more in the moment. It wasn’t often I got to smash stupid mobsters’ faces with glasses more expensive than my clothes. I should have enjoyed the finer things.

  “Well, you got out in one piece and with the data.” He grabbed the yalen and took his own sip. He swooned almost immediately. I laughed. “And I got my data.”

  “And I got the uniforms,” chimed Jinx with a wide grin that made Rowan blush.

  “So,” I said, bringing my hands together. “I’d say it was a successful night.”

  We found some cheap cups in one of the cabinets and each poured ourselves some yalen. We toasted to good fortune and drank. Again, it was like a slap to the face for me and Rowan, but Jinx just sighed and grinned as wide as a canyon. We all sat on the bed together, her in the middle and Rowan and I on either side. She threw her head back and put her arms around us.

  “We’re going to be all right, you know?”

  It was hard for me to focus on anything through the haze of the yalen, let alone see or stand, but I heard her well enough…though she was muffled and distant. That didn’t stop me from smiling from ear to ear.

  “Yeah, I think we will.”

  And then the yalen took hold and punched me square in the face. I blacked out and fell into unconsciousness, giggling all the way down.

  I had some very pleasant dreams during my alcohol-fueled sleep, most of which involved a rainbow of Zarthian women and the most expensive top-shelf booths in the galaxy. Huh, maybe Jinx was right, maybe those were my true loves.

  But then I was awoken by whimpers.

  I cracked open my eyes and went to sit up, but a pounding headache and a swirling sense of nausea slammed me back onto the bed. I groaned and pressed a hand to my temple to soothe the pain, but yalen hangovers were never an easy fix.

  Still, this wasn’t pleasant, and we had to get going. The rest of the crew would be waiting. I didn’t need another lecture from Amara, as if she never got drunk and stupid. Though admittedly, I did it quite a bit more often.

  As my head cleared, the whimpering got louder and more frantic. I realized that Jinx was next to me, arms sprawled out and tangled in the sheets. Sheens of sweat dappled her honey-hued skin as she twisted and turned. I was beginning to think that it was just a regular nightmare, like what most people got. Not fun, but nothing to worry about.

  Then it took a familiar turn.

  Tears ran down her cheeks. She began
to moan and gasp for air as she clawed at her throat. She thrashed and cried and sucked on air, but it looked like she was choking. As it always did. She was relieving her worst memory—the moment the slavers put that coil of blazing hot metal around her neck. That wasn’t something that someone just forgot.

  Seeing her like that sobered me up quick. I sat up and pulled her into my arms, cradling her head in the crook of my neck. I held her tight while I whispered soothing prayers into her hair. Neither of us were much for religion, but I knew that she sometimes found comfort in the stories of the old gods of her people. And when I ran out of those to say, I’d recall things we did together. That always did it, and it did it here.

  She stopped thrashing and settled in my arms. Jinx still sniffled and tears still fell down her cheeks like tiny streams, but she was calm. Though asleep, she wrapped herself around me and nestled against me. I sighed and kissed her head.

  “It’ll be okay,” I whispered into her hair.

  And I had to believe that, though I knew that all the money in the galaxy wouldn’t erase the things that had happened to her. She never spoke of it, but I knew it would never leave her. Trauma didn’t leave you, you just had to learn to live with it. It could be overcome, embraced, used as strength or as a lesson, but it couldn’t be forgotten.

  I stayed like that with Jinx for another hour, getting no sleep even though my hangover demanded it. I wouldn’t leave her side. Not ever.

  But we couldn’t stay like that forever. We had to get back to the ship. So, when the glow of dawn leaked through the window, I eased Jinx off of me and roused her awake.

  “We need to get going,” I said firmly.

  Her eyelids fluttered before she focused on me. When they did, she smiled through her tears.

  “Good morning.”

  I smirked back, still drained but glad to see she was fine. “Morning.”

  She didn’t know that I eased her nightmares. She never did. The first time it happened years ago, I asked about it, but she was so embarrassed that we never brought it up again. But I still soothed her every time it happened, which wasn’t often now, thankfully. And each time I did, I didn’t tell her that I helped her. She was independent and deeply private about her past. She occasionally opened up to me and some of the crew, but only a little, so we gave her space when she needed it.

  “You look terrible,” she said with a mischievous smile as she rose and fussed with her hair.

  “Well, my head hurts, but the hangover distracts from the agony in my shoulder.”

  She snickered. “I’m sure it does. You’ll be fine once we get back to the ship.”

  I nodded and said nothing more. I stood with a groan and stretched, though that just caused even more pain. My bones and joints and muscles creaked and cracked and groaned. Stiff and sore. Yeah, today was not going to be a fun one. And we had a ways to go to get back to the ship.

  Rowan was slumped over against the wall, his vest unzipped, and his too-hairy chest exposed, with what looked like yalen stains all over. The bottle was empty in his right hand. He was going to be useless.

  I kicked his foot, which jostled him awake. He flinched and flailed.

  “Wah? Who! Oh, Yan. You know better than to wake a sleeping drunk— Ow!” He held the bottle to his head, which I was sure was pounding like an Elarri war drum.

  “You doin’ okay, bud?”

  He groaned. “Not in the slightest.”

  “Who is?” I bent over and offered him my hand. “Come on, we need to get going. We really should have gotten back last night, but we let the alcohol take the lead.”

  “Don’t we always?”

  “Far too often for my liking,” chimed Jinx from the lavatory.

  Rowan took my hand, and I hauled him to his feet. It sent a fire through my shoulder, but I gritted my teeth and bore the pain. Jinx was right, I’d get set right on the ship.

  I put on my torn shirt, though it was a pain to get on over the bandages, and I was ready. So was Rowan, who could hardly stand. We just had to wait on Jinx.

  When she emerged, Rowan and I shared a slack-jawed look. She’d shed her ratty clothes and now wore a knee-length orange dress. It was sleeveless but went all the way up to her neck, covering her scars. She was not one to show a lot of skin if she could help it. Even so, her skin glowed, and I swear she blushed when she noticed our staring.

  The dress was handsewn and very fine, not like the more generic outfits that most people wore. This was Elarri silk, very fine, and very expensive.

  “Where, uh… Where’d you get that?” I asked.

  Jinx shrugged. “I had to steal a uniform. You think I’m not gonna swipe anything else?”

  “I suppose not.” I couldn’t fault her logic. When we saw something we wanted, there wasn’t a lot that could stop us from taking it. Hence the bounties.

  “Well, if we’re ready to leave…” began Rowan.

  Jinx arched a brow and crossed her arms. “Are you ready?”

  He burped, and for a moment, it seemed like he might barf. But he held it down. “Hardly, but I’d rather lay in my own bed, so let’s get to it.”

  Yes, let’s.

  We left the hotel and walked south for several blocks, getting caught up in the morning bustle of the Elarri capital. The nights here were busy, but the daytime was another matter entirely. There were dozens upon dozens of different species, all jostling through the streets as ships boomed far overhead, and low, city-level gliders zoomed by just above the rooftops. People zipped by in tubes along every street, but with me and Rowan still hungover beyond belief, I would rather die than go in one, lest I barf up all my organs.

  Despite his ill condition, Rowan led the way, using his bulk to push us through. He garnered more than a few dirty looks from Elarri as he bumped them, but they didn’t do anything, and he did nothing to antagonize them further. Which was nice, because he was usually more than up for a good fight. That wasn’t what we needed this morning, though.

  We went farther south, into the bits of the capital that were dark, where the criminal element thrived in the rundown neighborhoods. It felt like home. The farther from the capital center one got, the more the surrounding Elarri wastelands encroached. The shifting sands swallowed buildings whole and turned whole streets into rivers of sand, but still, life went on.

  Before we got to that though, I saw a strider peeking out over a distant rooftop. It stood there, its blue shell shining bright in rising sun light. The large harness on its back looked worn even from a distance, but it would have to do.

  I pointed at it. “Strider. That will take us to the hangar.”

  Rowan saw it and nodded. “Okay.”

  “Will it make you throw up?”

  “Oh, almost certainly.”

  “Better than taking a tube,” added Jinx.

  “Lightyears better.”

  We swerved off the crowded main street and headed down some dingy side alleys, though I had to admit that the crowds had become much more manageable as we moved toward the outskirts.

  I kept my eyes on the strider. It would have been a major inconvenience if we got there only to have someone hire it away. We had no way to hold it or make a reservation or something, so we just had to be quick.

  Jinx took control. She grabbed our hands and pulled us down alley after alley, side street after side street. Rowan groaned the whole way, and it became clear he was getting worse. Yalen often took a very long time to work its way out of the system, so the more you drank, the worse the hangover would be. And judging by the empty bottle he’d been lying next to earlier, he was in for a long day.

  No way he got through today without vomiting up a lung.

  It took an agonizingly long time, but we finally came out of an alley into a sparsely-populated street. There were a couple of terribly low-budget bars across from us, lights on and still in service, but with broken windows, flickering neon signs, and a haze of hunra smoke so thick and pink that it would keep even me away. These were p
laces for addicts and the downtrodden.

  Tied up next to them was the strider. The massive insect with six long, spindly legs as tall as a building loomed over us. Its shell was pointier than most, as wide as any grav-glider, but it had a smaller head, so its big, black eyes made it look almost adorable. It crooned at us, a deep melody that sounded so peaceful and joyous that I had to smile. Striders had that effect on people.

  Its owner leaned on a lamppost beneath it, a pipe in his hand and pink hunra smoke floating about him. He was as scraggily as an Elarri could get, with a graying beard down to his stomach and a long, white tunic that covered his lanky arms.

  He cast us a curious gaze as we approached. He cocked his head toward the strider’s legs.

  “You looking to catch a ride?”

  I was about to speak, but Jinx took the reins again. She put a finger to my lips and stepped in front of me. “Depends on what your fare is.”

  “And that, pretty miss, depends on where it is you’re needin’ to go.”

  The man produced a data-pad that was set up for navigation. Jinx beckoned him with a wave of her hand, and he handed her the pad. She entered the coordinates for the hangar and tossed it back to him. His eyes stared at it for a long while, then back at us, then at the pad again, and back at us.

  He scoffed. “Hallal? You sure you wanna go out those ways? That sector is almost completely part of the wastes.”

  “We’re sure.”

  “Hmm.” He chewed on his lip, then cracked a smile. “Two hundred digits.”

  Jinx looked offended. Rowan too. He swaggered up to the man, though he nearly tripped and looked like the mess he was. “That’s ridiculous! It isn’t too far. One hundred.”

  “That’s a dangerous place to go even for a strider. And besides, the only people that go out those ways are those that don’t want to be found. My discretion will cost you.”

  Rowan growled. “A hundred and twenty.”

  “A hundred and seventy-five.”

  “We can take a tube out there.”

  The man laughed. “You? You look like you’d die in about two seconds in a tube. One-seventy-five.”

  Before Rowan could start another fight, Jinx put a hand on his shoulder and another on the man’s chest. “One hundred and sixty. Take it or leave it. We have other options, though they’re not so pleasant.”