Chapter 21 #2
The comm station I’d picked was as abandoned as the one I’d used last time, located in empty crew quarters that had been turned into storage instead.
I wriggled my way to the back, a ration bar between my teeth, to stave off the hunger that missing dinnertime had caused.
Flack definitely wouldn’t object to me taking a moment to eat.
My hands trembled as I punched in the symbols, but I was calmer than I expected.
Perhaps I’d reached my stress threshold, and now I was just doing what needed to be done without truly thinking about how bad things really were.
As I listened to the call connect—which took uncomfortably long—I assured myself that Xathena wanted Flack alive.
At least until she had the diamond, but she’d indicated she wanted to keep him on a leash forever, stealing for her whatever her heart desired.
Pff, she was crazy if she thought that would ever work.
Nothing could ever contain him for long, so it was just a matter of time before he found a way to escape and make her pay.
I just planned to hurry up that process.
“Vidu, this is the Varakartoom. State your business.” The voice that suddenly issued from the comm unit at the back of the room was very different from the one I’d spoken with last time.
Still male, but this was a pleasant low voice with carefully modulated tones and a cultured accent.
He sounded businesslike, focused, and quite frankly, like I’d just hailed an actual spaceship—not called the local bar and gotten the rowdy drunk.
“Hi,” I said, wincing at how timid and shy I sounded.
Then I faltered. What if the guy I’d spoken to last time had just dismissed my call and said nothing to the rest of the ship?
What if they weren’t on their way to us at all?
“Are you Flack’s crewmates? We need help…
did the last guy I spoke to say anything?
” My heart clenched painfully in my chest as I began to dread the future again.
How long were we going to be stuck if they weren’t coming?
“Ah, are you Irena?” the voice asked, much more kindly this time.
I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see that, at least, I didn’t think he could.
He continued on as though he had. “We are on our way. How urgent is your need for help? We’re still three days out, but we can push the engines.
” That sounded hopeful, but not good enough.
I pictured Flack in that cell, possibly wounded, and how angry Xathena could be.
The way she liked to play with the men on this ship—hurt them—just because she could.
My own position was precarious too, though not as bad as before.
With the rat-like alien dead and the internal sensors broken, I was pretty hard to track.
Xathena might wait for me to slip up, while pretending to Flack that she still had me under her control.
Which meant… I had to let Flack know I was out, and I had to free him somehow.
“Flack is trapped in the brig. I’m hiding on the ship, but I don’t know how long I can keep that up before they find me…
” I admitted. The stranger had not given me his name, and he hadn’t asked if Flack was all right, either.
When he hummed to indicate he’d heard me but said nothing else, I held my breath and waited.
This was going very differently from last time.
I was nervous, shaking with it even, but I was not nearly as scared.
How this guy could help, I had no clue, but that hum… it felt like he was trying something.
“I am in,” he announced, though he did not explain what he’d gotten into.
There was a noise on the line that hadn’t been there before, very similar to the clacking of a keyboard.
I realized a moment later that this guy had gotten into the Vidu’s systems. A light on the comms console flared, and suddenly the text displayed there was readable to my eyes—actual English that I could understand.
“That should help. Didn’t Flack explain to you how to set the consoles to your human language? ”
I wasn’t going to question how he knew I was human.
I just shrugged helplessly. “There hasn’t exactly been time, we’ve been fighting for our lives, mostly.
Flack is in the brig right now. He’s possibly injured, and they pumped him full of something that keeps him from shifting.
I also think some kind of crimelord might be on his way to us to receive a payment…
” That seemed like key information to share, and Flack trusted those on his ship, and I trusted Flack.
Abruptly, a second voice came across the line that I did not recognize.
Sharp, sibilant; it was a voice that sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
The other guy had been terrifying because he was loud, brash, rude.
This guy? He called forth this primal instinct, this fear that I was hearing the sound of a predator.
Something primordial and ancient, like an alligator or a snake…
“What crimelord? Do you know?” that ancient, scary voice demanded.
“Ah… I think they called him Jalima? The pirates needed Flack to steal a diamond for them so they could pay their debt to him.” I was pretty sure I’d remembered the name right, but it hadn’t seemed like vital information to me before.
Everyone out here was bad, and at first, that had included Flack too.
I was still pretty sure the guys I was talking to now were bad as well, but I’d learned that some bad guys didn’t mean they were bad to me.
Flack wasn’t, and he was definitely a little morally gray.
“Aramon, Solear, figure out how to get there, now!” the vicious, snake-like voice snarled.
It made my heart leap into my throat, and the voice was so commandeering that I found myself looking around the crowded, crate-filled quarters as if I could personally assist with this.
Where was the nicer guy, with the direct but kind voice?
Was he still doing stuff to the Vidu’s systems?
“You must forgive our captain,” the guy said, as if he’d seen how scared I was.
“He’s got a grudge against Jalima that stretches back twenty years.
I’m Mitnick, by the way. You look a little banged up yourself.
Shall I guide you to some med supplies? There appear to be some stored two decks below you.
” I didn’t question how he knew that, but I shook my head.
Bruises didn’t count, and I had food and water, so I was good for now.
What I needed was a way to get Flack out of his cell so Xathena couldn’t harm him any further.
“Hi, Mitnick,” I whispered. “Can you figure out where the keys to Flack’s shackles are?
” I was growing faint-headed from how much I kept holding my breath.
This time, though, it was with hope. Was this stranger capable of finding the keys?
I was so certain that if I could just free Flack, he’d figure out the rest. He’d keep me safe.
Once, a lifetime ago, I was the girl everyone else relied on.
The trusted shoulder to cry on, the one who plied others with chocolate and ice cream to make them feel better.
I still felt too scared and brittle inside to channel that person, and perhaps she’d never been bold or brave in the first place.
What I wanted, needed, was Flack. I wasn’t even too proud to admit that, and I didn’t feel ashamed for needing another person to make me feel safe. So I needed those keys.
Mitnick was silent for a moment, his keyboard clacking, and in the background, male voices barking commands, perhaps even bickering.
It wasn’t as loud as when the scary captain had butted in, so I tried to see that as a positive.
The name Jalima had lit a fire under them, and now they were racing toward us as fast as they could.
Flack and I just had to sit tight a little longer.
“Hmm, there are no camera feeds from the brig. In fact, there are very few cameras active at all. Let me disable the rest so you can move freely.” That was good; that was my last big obstacle.
No cameras anywhere would make me untraceable.
“Now,” he continued, “here’s what you need to do.
” And then he outlined a precise plan for me, one of theft and sabotage, one that required me to be a little brave, a little bold after all.
I wanted to tell him I couldn’t do it, and then I pictured Flack hanging limply from the chains in his cell, at the mercy of the most volatile woman I knew.
“Yes. I can do that,” I told Mitnick instead.
It wasn’t a whisper, either; it was a loud, confident statement.
As I slipped from the room moments later, I even felt a bit of that confidence.