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Her Instruments, Book 1
Episode 3
Their least time path carried them through Sector Epta and most of Andeka. The engines that their mysterious benefactor had paid to refit six years ago cut the journey from sixteen days to eleven, and Reese spent all of them fretting. Kis’eh’t caught her in the cargo hold on the fifth day, walking the spindles in the reduced gravity that reminded her so much of Mars and her happier days climbing the few tall trees there.
“Guarding the bins isn’t going to stop the cargo from going bad,” the Glaseahn said.
“I know,” Reese said, then sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s anyone who could use twenty bins worth of overripe rooderberries.”
“Maybe a maker of rooderberry wine?” Kis’eh’t suggested.
“We should be so lucky,” Reese said.
“You’re worried,” Kis’eh’t said.
Reese stared down at the centauroid from her perch on the spindle. “Now why would I be worried?” she asked. “We’re only about to tangle with slavers.”
“Not necessarily,” Kis’eh’t said. “You borrow too much trouble, if I may, Reese. If you stopped, maybe you could use your money to buy yourself a nice dinner on the town one day, instead of dropping it on multipacks of antacids.”
“Dinner out sounds like just the thing,” Reese says. “Maybe if we get back in one piece from this debacle.”
“When we get back,” Kis’eh’t said. “I’m not planning to die on this mission.”
“Right,” Reese said. “Neither am I. I’m a survivor.”
Kis’eh’t only shook her head and left the cargo hold, which suited Reese just fine. She’d hired Kis’eh’t three months after the twins, and Bryer a month after… that was about three years ago now, when she’d realized she would never do more than break even relying on the ship’s automated functions and contractors to do the work. At first, she’d resented their intrusion into her solitude; while she’d had Allacazam for a good seven years, the Flitzbe hardly seemed like a normal person. He didn’t require conversation, food, a salary, maintenance. He never complained. He was like a pet, but smarter. Sometimes Reese thought he was smarter than she was.
But she’d learned to love the banter, the silliness, even the nosiness of her crew, and their help had made it possible to keep bread on the table. It was just that lately, they were all more nosy than usual. She wondered what was bothering them.
Reese resisted the urge to tour the entire cargo bay one more time before leaving. Rooderberry wine. She wondered what that would taste like.
The insistent chirp of the intercom roused Reese from a deep sleep several days later. She twisted in her hammock, fumbled for the controls and said, “Yes?”
“We’re here, ma’am. Over your stinking colony world. Bet they have nothing to trade us but sheep. How are we going to fit sheep in the cargo—”
“Irine! Enough! Find out where the city of Nurera is and get dressed to go down. Be quick about it, all right? The rooderberries are rotting.”
The com cut off the end of Irine’s snort. Reese sighed and massaged the bridge of her nose. The gentle rock of the hammock calmed her, reminded her of home, but her stomach still whined. Some part of her had hoped they’d never arrive at this Freedom-cursed world, but here they were. All she had to do now was find the Eldritch and pry him out of jail before anyone noticed her doing it. Then she could deposit him at some Alliance starbase and be done with the whole mess.
Reese rolled out of the hammock, the cocoon of felt blankets unraveling from her body as she raided her bathroom cabinet for chalk tablets, peppermint this time. She rifled through her closet for something unremarkable to wear while grinding up her breakfast. That she didn’t have any unremarkable clothes didn’t improve her mood. She pulled on a black bodysuit, long-sleeved and high-necked, a pair of soft black boots with flexible, quiet soles, and jerked on her utility vest with its bright blue ribs and orange piping.
She also tapped the intercom. “Irine?”
“Yes?” From the distracted purr, Reese decided it best not to ask what Irine was up to. The cats chose the oddest moments to get amorous, and as long as it wasn’t in Reese’s face she didn’t care.
“Is it cold down there?”
A pause. Then, “Moderately. Colder than the cargo bay but not as cold as engineering.”
Reese dragged a cloak off its hanger and slung it over her shoulders. With that, a belt with a sling for her data tablet, a handful of coins and a knife, she was ready. “Put us down outside Nurera, kitties.”
“Aye, captain.”
“Gentle as a cushion stuffed with feathers,” from Sascha.
“I’ll be up there in a minute,” Reese said. She made one last check of her cabin, then left for the bridge. Sascha was sitting at the pilot’s chair wearing the fur that his gods gave him and nothing else. Irine was leaning over his shoulder, eyes fixed on the view through the tiny windows.
“Oh for the love of earth,” Reese said, exasperated. “What have I said about piloting naked, Sascha?”
“Don’t break my concentration, ma’am,” Sascha said, his relaxed drawl at complete odds with his intent stare. “Driving this old crate in and out of a planet’s skies takes too much willpower.”
Having done it often enough herself, Reese couldn’t disagree. And Sascha was good—it was the reason she’d hired him. She’d grown tired of flying the Earthrise around herself. Still, she wondered what it was Irine whispered into his ear in their exotic language.
True to his word, their landing sent a bare quiver through Reese’s body.
“Good enough?” he asked her with a grin.
“Yeah,” Reese said. “Now get dressed.”
“Awww!”
Reese poked him in the shoulder. “I don’t want us to be noticeable. You nude is noticeable.”
“She’s got a point there,” Irine said, grinning.
Reese rolled her eyes. “Meet me at the airlock.” She leaned over and pressed the all-call. “Everyone to the airlock. We have a job to do.”
Fresh, warm air, redolent with spices and the scent of fecund soil and sun-warmed incense… Reese shuddered at the first whiff of Inu-case. She’d been born to recirculated air on Mars; from there she’d gone to the Earthrise. The freedom of the evening breeze struck her as unnatural and the varied smells alarming.
“And there’s where we’re headed,” Sascha said, pointing out the first of the buildings as they crested the hill.
“How far are we from the jail?” Reese said, choosing the moment to stop for breath. Inu-Case’s heavier gravity had sapped much of her energy on the ten-minute walk from the Earthrise’s position. They hadn’t wanted to land too close to town, just in case. Still, she envied Kis’eh’t, whom she’d left to guard the ship.
“Once we hit the buildings, we’ll be two blocks south of it,” Sascha said, studying his data tablet. The tip of his tiger-striped tail peeked from beneath his brown overcoat. “They didn’t want it too close to the center of town, I imagine.”
Irine squinted. “Looks pretty quiet down there. I guess we picked a good time to come by.”
“Let’s just hope someone’s there to take our credit and let him out,” Reese said. “Come on.”
Where’s Admiral Ackbar when you need him??
