38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I suppose if there is any comfort in traveling with space pirates, it’s in knowing they will never judge or condemn one for acts of violence.
“Good for him,” Big Red declared, bringing down his fist on the tabletop for emphasis. “Serves those bastards right.”
I might have reminded him that not so long ago there had been a group of Brethren loitering outside my prison cell, threatening all sorts of harm to me.
But I didn’t want to be petty, and anyhow, I hadn’t known the Brethren well enough then to know who’d been part of that group. I didn’t like to think it was any of the men I knew by name now. Any who were my friends. Maybe it was easier to simply believe that much was true.
So I smiled back at him, though I couldn’t quite manage to keep the sadness out of my tone. “Is it awful for me to say, I think so, too?”
It was a purely rhetorical question, but sweet Jim answered it earnestly. “No!”
That earned him another smile, less strained this time. I shook my head ruefully. “I'm with you, Jim. But I’m afraid the Achaeans didn’t quite see it that way . . .”
In the end, I was the one to help lead Ursa to the brig. I was afraid of what might happen to him otherwise—what violence the crew might enact on him, or what violence he might enact on them. I’d also assumed that he and I would be sharing a cell until Tobago decided what to do with us.
But instead, when my guard was down, the door was pulled shut and locked, with Ursa inside the cell and me outside of it.
He roared and raged and pulled fruitlessly at the metal bars.
I pleaded and cried and begged, but to no avail.
Ursa remained in the brig, and I was escorted—none too gently—to Tobago’s quarters.
My old friend was pacing the room as I entered, but at the sight of me, he stopped dead in his tracks. The two of us stared at each other a long moment before he spoke sharply to the two men who’d brought me there. “Leave us.”
We waited in tense silence until the door slid shut behind them.
Then Tobago advanced toward me, his clothes uncharacteristically unkempt, his eyes a little wild.
He must have been helping the other Achaeans who were stowing the cargo when he’d gotten the news.
And what news to get—two crew members found dead, and Ursa and I embracing in a pool of their blood.
“What the fuck, Mina? What happened?”
But before I could even possibly begin to put into words what had taken place, Tobago started pacing again.
There was too much energy pent up inside of him, I could see in the agitated way he clenched and unclenched his hands.
He used to get like this often, back when we were in school.
It almost always led to him making a rash, impulsive decision, one that inevitably wound up with him getting into trouble.
But I was the one in trouble this time. I watched him warily.
“I brought Ursa on my ship because you assured me he was harmless,” Tobago reminded me as he strode the length of the cramped quarters, back and forth, back and forth. “And now two of my men are dead. Dead! What in the Havens could have possibly . . . ?”
The realization seemed to strike him all at once. He stopped mid-stride and mid-sentence, staring at me, aghast. My eyes flooded with tears. I couldn’t quite bring myself to say the words, but my small, jerking nod must have been confirmation enough.
Tobago’s face crumpled. He advanced toward me, pausing a few feet away, his hands raised in a show of no threat. Hesitating, he gauged my response before reaching out and pulling me into his arms.
There were very few people I would have trusted to touch me in that moment, and even fewer whose embrace I would have welcomed.
Tobago was one of them. Despite everything that had passed between us, he was still my friend.
He’d become part of my heart when it was still a wide-open, trusting thing, and he was still woven into it, even now that life and experience and Rawley had made it closed and guarded.
He held me as I wept and he cursed, and all we could do was cling to each other.
When we finally pulled apart, Tobago ran an unsteady hand through his hair. “What do I do, Mina? I don’t know what to do.”
The confession startled me, frankly. Tobago always seemed so self-assured, so certain of his path forward. To see him unmoored this way was unsettling. “Do you think, if I could explain to the crew what happened . . . ?”
He hesitated before shaking his head. Sorrow laced his features, along with some shame. “I don’t think that’ll work. Not after Croydon. There are some onboard—not all, but some—who’ll think . . .” He couldn’t seem to make himself finish the sentence.
So I did it for him. “That I was only getting what I deserved,” I said numbly.
Tobago looked away. “Fuck. Fuck. This is such a mess, Mina. They’re going to demand punishment. LeFleur and Alexei weren’t perfect—hell, they weren’t even good. But they were crew, you know?” He looked at me helplessly, as if begging for me to understand.
I didn’t. I couldn’t. But I was pragmatic enough to realize what this meant for Ursa and me. “You could just drop us somewhere—remote, barren.” Even if there was little chance of survival, at least there would be a chance.
It was a shot in the dark, and one I didn’t expect to land, but still my heart sank when Tobago shook his head again. “They’ll be pushing for him to take a walk out the air lock.”
Ursa’s poor, helpless body twisting and writhing in space, gasping for oxygen that wasn’t there. Bile rose in my throat. I grasped Tobago’s arm. “No, please. None of it is his fault. He doesn’t understand the way things work.”
If anything, it was my fault. I’d brought a tiger onto a ship, and we’d all been surprised when he didn’t behave like a house cat.
Desperately, I tightened my grip on Tobago. “We can go back to Earth. I’ll show you where the pool is.” I’d been so foolish not agreeing to it in the first place. What would any of it matter if Ursa was dead? “Think of all the money—your biggest score ever, just like Val said.”
“We’re eight weeks from Earth, at least,” Tobago reminded me grimly.
“Even if I convinced most of the crew it wasn’t your fault, that Alexei and LeFleur had it coming, even if I managed to persuade some of them it was in their best interest to keep you alive that long so we could get that kind of payout, I know my crew.
Someone will hold a grudge. Maybe a few someones.
You, or Ursa, or both of you will be dead by the time we make it to Earth.
Poison or a slit throat in the night. I won’t be able to prevent it. ”
“Ursa will be dead no matter what if you push him out the air lock,” I said stubbornly. “At least this way we’d have a chance.”
More than a chance, with Ursa’s strength, his honed senses, his agility. I’d like to see any of these men take him on and live to tell the tale.
As if he’d read my mind, Tobago met my gaze. “If they can’t get to him, they’ll go after you. But if I give them his death—a good, clean, fast death . . .”
Fifteen seconds, on average. I didn’t know that then, of course; I wouldn’t know the exact time until one of the Brethren told me later. But I knew if I watched it happen to the man I loved, it wouldn’t be a fast death at all. It would be both the longest and shortest time imaginable.
“. . . then maybe they’ll spare you,” Tobago concluded.
I blinked at him, uncomprehending for a moment, then astonished, then outraged. “Would it be sparing you,” I challenged, “if the crew killed Indy and let you live?”
Tobago winced away from the question, averting his gaze. “I’m just trying to keep you alive now, Mina. I don’t know what other options we have.”
I turned my back to him. “If you shove Ursa out of that air lock, you’ll have to do it knowing I’m going with him.”
I wouldn’t stand by and watch. I couldn’t. We had started this journey together, and we would end it together, no matter the cost.