CHAPTER THREE
Jaime sat facing an array of switches and blinking lights. The big guy — Rylan — still had a hand on the back of Jaime’s neck and his skin felt warm beneath it.
“Can you move your hand?” Jaime asked, looking up at him. Rylan blinked and looked down at his hand as though he was surprised it was there. “It’s for your own safety,” Jaime added, though he mostly found it distracting.
Rylan yanked his hand back and crossed his arms, his blue eyes glaring. Well, so much for Jaime being thoughtful.
“No fucking way,” the pilot was saying — and not in a way that seemed like she was impressed by Jaime. Her hair was shaved short on the sides, and an array of abstract tattoos swam in agitated patterns across her pale skin. “You’re not letting some black market mutant mess with my ship.”
“My ship,” the captain corrected. “And there no other options right now.”
“Let me trying asking Dub again—”
“So Dub is what you call the ship’s computer?” Jaime asked, figuring he might as well move things along before they got themselves captured.
“It’s what she calls herself.” Garcia sounded rueful. “Dub is short for ‘W,’ which is short for Wayward Prince, which is—”
“The name of the ship, got it. It sees itself as separate from the actual ship. Okay, that’s a really bad sign for AIs, you know? Like historically bad.”
“She,” the pilot snapped.
“What?”
“You said it. Dub is a she.”
Garcia shrugged. “She’s a very opinionated system.”
Jaime felt his stomach shift uneasily as he looked at the control panel. “She’s never killed anyone, has she?”
The older woman with the kindly face and the ruthless eyes, the one called Mags, spoke sharply from her post. “Sebastian. The other ship is hailing us. They want us to prepare for inspection.”
Rylan put his mouth next to Jaime’s ear. “This computer’s never killed anyone, but I have. Get on with it.”
Jaime straightened up in his chair and took a deep breath as he put his hands on the control panel. As he closed his eyes and felt his mind search out the other presence, he heard the captain speak: “How—”
Hello, Dub.
Jaime exhaled slowly and opened his eyes. The captain finished his sentence. “—long is this going to take?”
“There,” Jaime said.
“What?” Rylan growled.
“Done. We’re good.”
The others were all staring at him, but the pilot turned back to her controls. “Sweet fuck,” she breathed. “The FTL is coming back online.”
“Maybe we should use it?” Jaime suggested. “To, you know, flee?”
The captain gave a laugh. “Mags, tell the good agents of the Commonwealth that we will not be submitting to their inspection on this or any other day.”
“I think they got that,” Mags said. “Their weapons are charging.”
“Kaz—” the captain barked to the pilot.
“Just a second,” she said. “Our trajectory is still being calculated—”
“Evasive maneuvers.”
There was a sudden lurch as the ship shuddered and shook. Rylan and Garcia were thrown to the floor of the bridge, the captain yelling from under Rylan’s large form. “More evasive!”
The pilot cursed, and her hands danced over the controls, taking hold of the stick. Jaime could see the view out the window shifting rapidly and had a sudden, dizzying glimpse of the large and deadly-looking Commonwealth ship, but their own stabilizers were working again, and he couldn’t feel the undoubtedly sharp movements the ship was making.
Rylan got up and pulled the captain to his feet. A woman’s voice squawked over the comm. “We’ve been hit!”
“Yes, I know, Simi.” Garcia dusted off his jacket. “Can we still jump to faster than light?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then let’s do it.”
The pilot nodded, putting her hand on a wide lever, just as Mags said, “They’re about to fire again—”
“Fuck ’em.” The pilot grinned, pulling the lever down. “We’re already gone.”
Outside the view window, the stars blurred and streaked until they were alone in the dark.
The captain let out a relieved sigh. “By the skin of our teeth.”
Rylan glared suspiciously down at Jaime. “Did you actually do anything?”
Jaime felt a bit outraged. “What? I saved you! I had an involved chat with your deeply weird computer and convinced her it would be in everyone’s best interest to go.”
“It looked like all you did was blink.”
Jaime shook his head in despair. Really, this guy was as thick as a rock. “Computers are a bit faster at talking than humans, you know.”
Rylan’s expression hardened. “I wouldn’t know. Wouldn’t want to.”
Jaime felt his face heat up. He should have been used to people being disgusted by him by now, but the shame felt as sharp as it had when he was a little kid and got caught talking to the local automated farm equipment.
“Well, I for one am impressed,” Garcia said, grinning broadly.
The woman’s voice came over the comm again. “Sebastian? Remember how I mentioned we got hit?”
Garcia’s grin slipped off his face. “Yes…”
“Well, it’s not good.”
Jaime cocked his head. “Seventy percent loss to the stabilizers and the remaining thirty percent are overheating, trying to compensate. A pretty serious coolant leak. And three damaged fuel cells.”
The pilot hissed at him, “Don’t talk to Dub unless you have to.”
Jaime blinked. “I just asked.”
“Well, don’t. You’re not on the crew.” She looked at Garcia. “Is he?”
Garcia rubbed at his eyes. “He’s — traveling with us temporarily. As a guest with… extremely limited privileges. So yes, don’t talk to the ship unless requested.”
Jaime drew in a breath. “I’m a prisoner is what you’re saying? What about the deal?”
“The deal was to get you off that moon. We’ve done that. You didn’t specify what happened afterwards.”
Jaime started to protest, but Rylan put a hand back on his shoulder. Why was he always touching him? But Jaime couldn’t help but gasp as Rylan’s fingers grazed a painful spot.
“I’m barely touching you,” Rylan protested.
“It’s an old injury,” Jaime admitted. “Being dragged through the jungle and slammed into walls hasn’t exactly helped.”
“Have the doctor take a look at him,” Garcia said to Rylan. He nodded at Jaime. “See? We’re civilized. We just need a little insurance for the time being.”
“How long is that?”
“Until this job that we’re doing is finished. Why? Did you have somewhere you needed to be? Besides hiding in a ditch?”
Jaime dropped his eyes.
Garcia swept his gaze around the bridge. “Well, Mags, shall we let Simi tell us what we already know in person?” He spoke firmly to Rylan. “Do not let our new friend out of your sight.”
The captain and Mags left the bridge. Rylan made as if to grab Jaime again and haul him up, but he backed off to let Jaime stand on his own.
The pilot scowled. “We’re just going to let him stay on the ship?” she said to Rylan. “He could take control of Dub.”
Jaime gave an exasperated huff. “It doesn’t work like that with an actual AI. It’s way more sophisticated than—” He gestured at Rylan’s arm and was rewarded with a hard glare. “I can’t control anything, I just… talk. Besides, all of her safety protocols about protecting the crew are still in place. I checked. You’re welcome for that.”
She still scowled, her dark eyebrows drawing together.
“What’s your name?” Jaime asked.
“You can call me the pilot. Or O’Donnell,” she added grudgingly.
Jaime shook his head. “That’s not what Dub calls you.”
The swirl of her tattoos slowed. “Kaz. My first name is Kaz.”
“That’s it,” Jaime said. “She likes you, you know. Dub.”
Kaz’s dark brown hair was long enough on top that it hid her eyes as she looked down, but Jaime thought she was pleased. He hesitated, looking between Rylan and Kaz.
“What?” Rylan said. “What else you got to say?”
Jaime didn’t trust any of them, but the ship — Dub — had been genuinely worried, and afraid enough for her crew that she’d been unwilling to fly until Jaime convinced her it would be better for them to get out of the system. Like it or not, Jaime was stuck with these people for now.
“She likes you,” he said again. “All of you.” He glanced at Rylan. “More or less. But she doesn’t like whatever you’ve got in your cargo hold.”
Jaime wasn’t being dragged anymore, but Rylan still shadowed him closely as he pointed their way through the ship’s corridors. Those corridors were narrow enough, and Rylan’s shoulders sufficiently broad, that Jaime kept bumping into one or the other every few steps. Rylan rolled his eyes whenever it happened, but Jaime couldn’t help it.
He’d never been on a ship quite like this. It was from another time when tech was supposed to be all-powerful but discreet. Times had changed, though, so the once smooth-panelled walls were mended and mismatched, and the long corridors were divided by more recently added manual airlock doors. Everything was swept and, well, shipshape as far as Jaime could tell, but the wear and tear of a hundred and fifty years had left things looking a little grimy. It was still a rare and expensive ship, though, and Jaime wondered how Captain Garcia had got it. He doubted Rylan would tell him if he asked.
The computer’s constant presence was also unsettling. Jaime was used to ships’ AIs being way more shielded and a bit more detached. Quirkiness wasn’t unusual. Because computer systems had to be kept as closed as possible, to prevent them from being co-opted by the Singularity or starting their own insurrection, AIs tended to have odd habits and be a bit naive. Jaime had been able to stow away on the ship that had taken him to the moon’s outpost because he’d successfully convinced the ship’s computer he was a poultry inspector on a secret investigation. He’d had to spend days hiding out among smelly chickens in the cargo hold, but it worked.
Dub, on the other hand, seemed very aware of her crew and their interactions. She was cheerfully sanguine on the subject of smuggling — Jaime had to mentally cut her off before she started to give a dissertation on economics and unequal wealth distribution — and favorably inclined towards everyone onboard. Well, with one exception.
Jaime glanced up at Rylan. “So you haven’t been with the crew long?”
Rylan looked at him sharply. “Who told you—” Abruptly Jaime found himself up shoved against a wall yet again. He winced, but Rylan didn’t relinquish his grip. “Don’t be talking to the computer.”
“I just—”
“Captain’s orders.” He straightened up and repeated it loudly, like Dub couldn’t hear every word already. “Captain’s orders, Dub.”
Jaime felt the presence in his mind withdraw until it was just part of the low-level hum of working machinery. “She’s not talking anymore. And it wasn’t like I was snooping. I’m just trying to, I don’t know, make conversation.”
“Don’t make conversation with the computer.”
“With you, I meant.”
Rylan stared down at him. His jaw was very square under a few days’ worth of blond stubble, and Jaime could see that jaw set. “Don’t make conversation with me, either.”
“Fine.” He waited, expecting Rylan to lead on or drag him off.
“We’re here,” Rylan said, slamming a hand on a door panel. “Sick bay.”
Judging from the humid air and smell of plant life that came from the open door, it also doubled as a greenhouse. Jaime stepped inside. Plants were everywhere: hanging in graduated stacks under lights, growing in large tubs along the floor. Jaime could see vines dangling in front of medical cabinets, and there seemed to be some other kind of vegetables on top of a med table.
“This is your sick bay?” he asked.
A woman stepped out from behind a flowering tree. “We don’t get a lot of sick people here,” she said, “so I’m trying for preventive medicine by growing fresh vegetables. It gives me something to do while I wait for you lot to get yourselves shot or blown up.” She seemed to look significantly at Rylan at that, but then gave Jaime a professional up-and-down glance. “So you’re the wizard?”
Jaime stopped himself from commenting on the un-scientific term, but Rylan grunted, “Word travels fast.”
“It’s a small ship.” Her tone was mild but not exactly warm. She looked to be in early middle age, her dark skin unlined. Her hair was a short, soft cloud above her face, but that face was not at all soft. She regarded them both with a wary detachment. “I’m Dr. Stevenson, but everyone mostly calls me Lydia.” Her glance at Rylan suggested he was not “everyone.”
Jaime felt wary, too. Doctors to him meant tests and poking and prodding.
Rylan jerked his head in Jaime’s direction. “Captain wants you take a look at him, Doc. He’s complaining about some pains.”
Her voice grew a touch colder. “You hurt him?”
“I barely laid a hand on him! If anything, he attacked me with his… freaky mind powers.”
Jaime sighed. “It’s nothing, really. Just a sore shoulder.”
“Let me see,” Lydia said. She started to take plants off the med table. “Hop on and take your shirt off.”
Jaime hesitated. Lydia looked up from moving the pots. “Mr. Slate,” she said to Rylan, “why don’t you step outside?”
“Uh-uh,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m to watch him at all times. Captain’s orders. Besides he could do a lot of damage in here.”
Her eyebrows lifted a fraction. “The most dangerous things in here are my garden shears. The surgical equipment is all powered down.”
Rylan folded his arms and did his best impression of a rock.
“It’s fine,” Jaime said. He took off his mud-stained coat and dropped it on the floor, then lifted his shirt over his head. He glanced over, but Rylan’s eyes were fixed on a point on the opposite wall.
Jaime sat on the padded table. The doctor stepped closer, moving behind him, and he steeled himself against flinching at her soft touch.
“That’s a pretty bad burn,” she said. “Two weeks old?”
“Little more than that,” Jaime admitted.
“You didn’t seek any treatment for it?”
“I got some ointment.” He’d been able to steal some from a vending machine through a combination of confusing its electronic signals and old-fashioned kicking. Applying it to the gash across his back had been the hardest part.
“And how did it happen?” She added dryly, “I don’t need your life history, just what gave you the burn.”
“A piece of metal fell on me,” Jaime said and clamped down on everything else, not letting himself hear the screams or smell the smoke, just remembering the searing pain that had struck him. “It was… pretty hot. Obviously.”
“I should check to see if there’s been any muscle trauma or stress fractures. I’m going to turn on the diagnostic computer now,” she said.
Jaime appreciated the warning. Being this close to a fairly powerful system as it came online could be a little dizzying. He realized it also meant she had been around his kind before.
He tried to focus on something else while the doctor worked. “Are those runner beans?” he asked, looking at the dangling vines nearest the med table.
She sounded amused. “You know your plants. Most people think all food comes ready-made in chewy bar form.”
“I like the crunchy kind myself,” Jaime said. He thought Rylan gave a faint snort. Jaime added in a low voice, “I used to be — I lived on a farm. A long time ago.”
“Those things don’t leave you,” Lydia said. Her voice sounded a little warmer. “I’m starting the tissue repair. Don’t move for a few minutes more.”
He could feel the press of a medical instrument against his skin, and below that an itch, both from the presence of the machine and from the feeling of his flesh being repaired. To distract himself, Jaime let his eyes rove over the plants, some familiar, some not. Of course, right in the middle of the room was the immovable form of Rylan.
He’d put his shirt back on over the tank-top, but there was no disguising the power of his body. Jaime’s head just cleared the tops of the shoulders that he’d been bumping against in the ship’s corridors, and Rylan’s hands were big enough to easily circle Jaime’s throat. His posture and deference to the captain made it clear he was ex-military, but his unease with the ship and the rest of the crew made it seem like the “ex” part of it wasn’t sitting well with him. Jaime couldn’t hear Dub in the sick bay — the med computer was a closed system and well-shielded — but earlier she’d told him Rylan had joined the crew a few months ago, a development she didn’t seem to entirely approve of. Jaime wondered what had caused him to take work with a band of pirates, but then he himself was used to not having a lot of choices.
Jaime was wondering at the set and weary look of Rylan’s face — it didn’t seem to be age; he’d put him at only seven or eight standard years older than himself — when he realized those blue eyes were returning his gaze. Rylan raised a sardonic eyebrow, and Jaime hastily turned his attention to a plant.
“You’re all set,” the doctor said. “No infections or viruses. Though you really do need to be eating more. You traveling with us long?”
“As long as he’s useful,” Rylan said. “Or until this job’s done.”
“Oh, yes, the mysterious delivery,” she said. “The one you and your contacts hooked us up with so soon after you joined us, Mr. Slate.”
“Big part of the reason the captain hired me on is because I know people in the military,” Rylan said, sounding like he was trying very hard not to sound defensive. “It’ll be a big payday for all of us.”
“According to you,” she said, voice crisp.
“You’ll be thanking me when you get paid,” he said. “You all will.”
“I look forward to it.”
Jaime hastened to put his shirt back on as Lydia and Rylan exchanged frosty looks. This job the doctor clearly wasn’t happy about was likely the cargo that had Dub so worried, mainly because the computer couldn’t see what it was, stashed away in a completely shielded room off the cargo hold. Jaime was starting to wonder if maybe the Commonwealth ship hadn’t been chasing him after all.
Mostly, as he followed Rylan out the door, Jaime wondered how quickly his situation had managed to go from disastrous to bad to now possibly even worse.