Chapter 2
Mercy had made some stupid decisions about cargo before. The less she thought about that time she decided to transport an entire herd of cattle, the better. The smell had lingered for months, and she'd found hoofprints in places hoofprints had no business being.
Lord Zane, though, might have been the least wise decision she ever made, period.
He hadn't been kidding about the wine cellar.
Exactly forty-seven minutes after he climbed aboard with four large trunks and one small bag slung over his shoulder, he had summoned her to his room and politely requested her finest vintage.
Who did that? Lords, apparently. Lords who wore silk shirts to travel through space and somehow made her cramped corridors feel smaller just by existing in them.
All Mercy had was half a bottle of something red she had picked up in a port she couldn't even pronounce the name of. The label had peeled off two years ago.
To Lord Zane's credit, he had drunk it down like the brave little lord he was.
No grimace, no complaint. Just a slight tightening around his eyes that said he'd rather drink engine coolant.
He hadn't asked for another glass with supper.
He'd also left the bottle on the counter with exactly two sips of wine still in it, because apparently that's what lords did instead of just finishing the damn thing.
She wasn't sure how lords were supposed to act. Spoiled, sure. Vain, of course. Demanding, that went with the territory.
But when she walked through the galley after dinner on the second night and it was sparkling clean—far cleaner than she normally left it—she'd been confused.
The metal surfaces actually gleamed. The recycler hummed contentedly instead of making that grinding noise that sounded like someone strangling a cat.
Even the stubborn grease stain she'd given up on three months ago had vanished.
Had he smuggled a cleaning bot in with all of those supplies?
The third morning brought another surprise.
Fresh bread. The smell filled the entire corridor, warm and yeasty and completely wrong for a cargo ship.
She'd found him in the galley, flour dusting his expensive shirt, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
He had a smudge of it on his cheekbone too, and she'd had to physically turn around to stop herself from pointing it out.
During lunch, she discovered more of his … helpfulness. "Where is the green spice?" she'd growled.
"It's in the cabinet right above the cooktop," Zane said, appearing at her elbow like some kind of silk-wearing ghost.
She nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning around, eyes wide and ready to lash out with the knife she had vowed to stop carrying two years ago. Her hand went to her hip where the blade used to rest, fingers closing on empty air. The movement was pure muscle memory. Old instincts died hard.
"You moved everything," she said.
"It makes more sense now."
Maybe to him. The old system had worked fine.
Spices on the left, dried goods on the right, emergency rations hidden behind the false panel he thankfully hadn't found yet.
She'd organized it during a three-day stint of insomnia, and the logic made perfect sense if you didn't think about it too hard.
"Things are where they are for a reason," she said. "You can't just go around moving things."
"And yet I did. Wine?"
He pulled out a bottle that she definitely hadn't seen before.
The label was in a script she couldn't read, all elegant curves and gold leaf.
It probably cost more than her fuel for this entire trip.
The bottle itself looked hand-blown, with tiny imperfections that screamed "artisanal" and "your credit account is crying. "
"Did you bring that with you?"
He shrugged. "I loaded up before climbing aboard. It was clear you weren't going to be honoring my demands about the wine cellar."
It wasn't a complaint. His mouth did this thing at the corner, not quite a smile, more like he was trying not to laugh at his own joke. Did he think it was funny?
What was this guy's deal?
She studied him. Three days in, and he still looked like he'd stepped out of some society holo.
His hair fell in perfect waves, his clothes remained mysteriously unwrinkled.
But there were shadows under his eyes she hadn't noticed before.
Tension in the set of his shoulders when he thought she wasn't looking.
And he had this habit of touching his left cufflink whenever he was about to lie or deflect. She'd clocked it on day two.
"So why did you need a ride?" she asked, taking the offered wine.
It was offensively good. Smooth and complex, with layers of flavor that made her usual rotgut taste like battery acid.
There was something in it that tasted like cherries, but also smoke, but also something else she couldn't name. It annoyed her that she liked it.
Zane shrugged and swirled his own vintage around in the tin mug he had scavenged from somewhere. "Life brings you to all sorts of places with all sorts of duties. I was summoned."
"Summoned for what?" She couldn't help but be curious.
He took a sip of his wine and didn't say more. His fingers found that cufflink again.
Okay, so that was off topic. But the way his jaw tightened at the word "summoned" told her someone had him by the metaphorical balls.
But he was a good drinking buddy. She found that out when he pulled out a deck of cards with edges so worn they felt soft as fabric and offered her more wine. He played with the casual confidence of someone who'd won and lost fortunes at the table.
His tells were subtle—a slight pause before a bluff, the way his thumb traced the edge of his cards when he had a good hand. She beat him anyway. Twice.
The next night, he set up the holo player, and they watched an old piece of media she'd been meaning to get around to.
He'd laughed at all the right parts, made sarcastic comments that actually improved the terrible dialogue.
For two hours, she'd almost forgotten he was a lord and she was just hired help.
He'd also fallen asleep in the last fifteen minutes, his head tipped back against the wall, mouth slightly open.
It should have looked ridiculous. Instead, she wanted to run her fingers down his cheek.
Not happening.
She had expected him to hole up in his room the entire journey and grit his teeth trying to get through this uncomfortable ride.
Instead, it appeared he didn't like to be alone.
He sought her out during meals, lingered in the cockpit asking questions about navigation, even helped with routine maintenance checks.
His hands might be soft, but he wasn't afraid to get them dirty.
Though he did have a weird thing about wiping them on a handkerchief instead of his pants like a normal person.
On the fourth day, everything went to shit. And surprisingly, it wasn't Zane's fault.
Mercy had just finished checking her daily readings when the proximity alarm went off.
The sound cut through the quiet hum of the engines, sharp and insistent.
The cockpit was bathed in a hellish flashing red.
She checked every sensor she could, but none of them were showing anything wrong.
Ghost signature. Either a malfunction or someone with very expensive cloaking tech.
Her gut said expensive cloaking tech. Her gut was usually right about these things.
Zane rushed into the room. "What's that?" he asked.
"We're close to something, but I don't know what. We're not near any sort of asteroid field or planet, and no ship should be close to us."
Her ship rocked, and the alarm got even more insistent. The Alto groaned, metal straining against forces it wasn't built to handle. She could feel the vibration through her boots. The kind of vibration that meant expensive repairs. If she lived long enough to make them.
"Strap in," she commanded him.
Mercy took over controls and tried to roll them out of whatever danger they were in, but no matter how hard she tugged on the joystick, her ship wouldn't move.
The stick fought her, servos whining in protest. The familiar responsiveness of her ship was gone, replaced by dead weight.
They were caught in some sort of tractor beam. And that meant only one thing.
"Pirates. Fuck."
Why would they target her?
She wasn't flying through dangerous lanes, and her ship wasn't exactly a prime target. The Alto looked like what it was—a working vessel barely worth the metal it was made from. She'd specifically kept it looking like shit for this exact reason. She looked over at her passenger.
Lord.
Yeah, that could be a problem. Everything about him screamed money, from his perfect teeth to the way he held himself. Even his fingernails looked expensive somehow.
"No one's after you, are they?" she asked.
"No," Zane insisted. "What kind of life do you think I live?"
The kind with silk shirts and hand-blown wine bottles, she thought but didn't say.
"We're already caught," she said. "Stay calm, and maybe they let us out of this. You might want to run and hide your valuables," she offered.
Of course, any pirate worth their career would take one look at him and realize just how valuable he could be. Ransom material. The kind that would set a crew up for years.
The ship rocked again, but Zane undid his security belt and bolted for his room.
Probably for the best. She needed to deal with this herself. Pirates responded to strength or submission, nothing in between. And she'd be damned if she was going with submission.
Her comm screen blinked with an incoming call. Close proximity. Her new friends.
Mercy accepted the call, and the screen lit up with a man she didn't recognize.
He was human with dark hair peppered with gray, maybe about sixty or so.
He had a mean scar on his face and a bulky build that told her he would be difficult in a fight despite his age.
The scar ran from his left temple to his jaw. His eyes were cold and calculating.
"This doesn't have to be difficult," he said. His voice carried the confidence of someone who'd done this a hundred times before.
"There's nothing of value here," Mercy told him. She wasn't about to panic, but she was very aware that they could blow her ship to smithereens at any moment. Her ship. Her home. The only thing in the universe that was actually hers.
"I'll be the judge of that," said the pirate. "You can call me Horris. Now, do me the pleasure of giving me your name."
"It's Mercy," she said, though she wasn't begging for any yet.
Horris narrowed his eyes. "Full name, lady captain."
So he wanted formality. Whatever. "Mercy Webb, captain of the Alto. This is a simple transport ship, and there's nothing you could possibly want."
For some reason, that made Horris smile. "Now, Captain Webb, you can open the doors for me and my men, or I can blast them off. It's your choice, but I will be boarding your ship. What's it going to be?"
Goddamn it. She was really hoping she could have talked them out of this, but maybe they needed to see that she was worthless for themselves. Her finger hovered over the docking control. Once she pressed it, there was no going back.
She punched the button hard enough to make her knuckle hurt. "There," she said. "Dock away."
Horris gave her a vicious smile and cut off the call.
Mercy sat back in her seat and cursed. She let out one more god-fucking-shit-damn before pushing out of her seat. The familiar sounds of her ship were different now, violated. She could hear them attaching to her hull. Parasites.
Should she grab her blaster? It was tempting, but Horris had the upper hand, and he knew it.
How many crew members did he have? She had Zane and had no idea if he could take a punch.
He probably had never taken a punch in his life.
Lords didn't get punched. They got "challenged to duels" or whatever.
She'd leave it hidden for now and hope she could get it later.
She got up and went to meet the pirate captain, every step feeling like she was walking toward her doom. The dock bay had never seemed so far away. She could hear the magnetic seals engaging, the hiss of pressure equalizing. The sound of her autonomy evaporating.
He was already on the ship when she got to the bay door, and Horris smiled when he saw her. Up close, she could see old burn marks and scars on his hands.
"This isn't exactly what I pictured when I met Rayden Webb's daughter," he said.
Her dad? The asshole who had abandoned her when she was a kid? What did he have to do with anything?
She hadn't heard that name in over a decade.
The bastard had walked out when she was seven, chasing some grand adventure, leaving her and her mother with nothing but debts and broken promises.
Her only gift from him had been a half-broken music box that played the same six notes over and over until she'd thrown it out at age fifteen.
Horris held up a hand and gestured forward, and four of his people boarded the ship.
Two humans, a Kellian with scales that caught the light, and something she couldn't identify under the environmental suit.
All armed. All moving with the coordinated precision of people who'd worked together for years.
"Take a look around," he told them. "We don't want any surprises. It's time for Captain Webb and I to have a little talk."