[01] Elite: Wanted (25 page)

Ravindra walked into the common room. The conversation stopped. Orla looked up, spatula in hand. Ji looked up and then looked away, guilt written all over his face.

‘Want some breakfast?’ Orla asked. Ravindra nodded and sat down. ‘You okay?’ her first mate continued.

‘Tired,’ Ravindra told her. ‘But I’m good? You get any sleep?’ Orla shook her head. ‘You stimmed?’

‘A little,’ Orla said flipping one pancake and adding another to an already large stack. ‘Now you’re up I’ll crash.’

Ravindra felt like crap that she’d put Orla into the position of having to do stims. Then … she didn’t so much hear or feel as
sense
something outside the hull of the ship. She froze.

‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.

‘See?’ Orla turned to Ji as she stopped ladling scrambled eggs into a bowl. ‘Creepy, isn’t it?’

Ji smiled.

‘I’ve had a crew working on the ship,’ Orla said.

Alarm bells started going off in Ravindra’s head. They had always done the work on the ship themselves. Nobody touched the
Song
but them.

‘Who?’ she demanded.

‘Some of Harlan’s people. And the crew of the
Scalpel
, would you believe?’

‘McCauley’s crew?’ Ravindra asked, surprised. Orla nodded. ‘Part of me thinks that we’re more popular than we thought we were, the other part of me thinks that everybody just hated Merkel on account of having talked to him, but mostly I think they wanted the chance to see under a cutter’s hood.’

‘And we—’ Ravindra started.

‘No, we don’t trust anyone. I’ve been overseeing them. I only came in to make breakfast when the
Song
told me that you were awake. I’ll check the work once they’ve gone but, frankly, if we want the
Song
operating as close to peak as possible then we didn’t have much choice.’

Ravindra nodded. At this late stage in the game there was only so much difference it was going to make anyway. She would have to thank McCauley, his people and Harlan. Harlan had done so much for them, gone above and beyond what he’d been paid for.

‘How’re we looking?’

‘How much longer we got?’

‘There’s a couple of things that I need to sort. Thirty-six hours and it will all be in place.’

‘In thirty-six hours she’ll be ready to sing.’

They lapsed into silence and ate their breakfasts.

Orla had discreetly left the common room and left Ravindra with Ji, who still wouldn’t meet her eyes.

‘Hey?’ Ravindra said, gently. ‘Look at me. It’s okay.’

Slowly Ji turned to her.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ravindra went on.

Tears started to fill his eyes. ‘What are you sorry for, mum? I caused this. I …’

‘No. Who I am, what I am, where I brought you, put you in harm’s way. I wanted us to get clear of all this, but I was never quite satisfied that we had enough so I kept working. Always said that after the next job I’d quit, we’d leave. I almost did when Dane died, but this is me. I can’t get away from that. If I’m honest, I like it – but I was never going to let you into this life. That’s why Merkel took you, because inadvertently I let him. We’ve got money, we should be a long way from here.’ She reached over and ran her hands through his hair. Suddenly his tear-stained face, his vulnerability, made him look even younger than his seventeen years.

‘Mum, it’s all right …’ Ji was struggling for words.

‘You’re a pain in the arse but you’re intelligent, you can be thoughtful – though you wouldn’t know it these last few days – you’re sensitive. You can do anything you want to, but this isn’t the place for you.’

‘You’re sending me away, aren’t you?’ he asked. Ravindra reached up to wipe her own eyes with the back of her hand as she nodded.

‘I’m sorry I was so harsh on you, so distant. I thought I had to be, to protect you, but I was being selfish because I’d put you in harm’s way in the first place.’

Ji took her by the hand. ‘Mum, please don’t. I won’t be like this anymore, I’ll do what I’m—’

Ravindra was shaking her head as tears rolled down her cheek. ‘I’ve really done it this time, Ji. I’ve really fucked up, and there’s no way to walk away from it. We’ve … I’ve pissed off some very bad people and they’re just not going to stop.’

Ji threw himself into his mother’s arms.

‘Please,’ he said between the sobs.

‘You’re going to have to go in the other direction,’ she whispered to him as she held him.

‘You okay?’ Orla asked.

‘I’m really not,’ Ravindra said. They were both stood in the docking berth looking up at the
Song of Stone
. The station’s repair team had already left, and McCauley and the three-man crew of the
Scalpel
had just finished packing up their tools and were heading out of the docking berth.

‘Hey,’ Ravindra said. McCauley and his people stopped. Ravindra walked over to them. As she did, she noticed Ji come to the top of the
Song
’s loading ramp.

‘Thanks,’ Ravindra told McCauley. She held out her hand. The craggy-faced pirate took it. Orla was chatting with the rest of the
Scalpel
’s crew.

‘Nice to see under her hood,’ McCauley said, glancing back at the
Song
. ‘She’s a beauty. When you die, can I have her?’

Ravindra grinned. ‘When I die I don’t think there’s going to be anything left of her.’

McCauley nodded. ‘You need anything else?’ he asked seriously. Ravindra looked past him. McCauley glanced back at Ji. ‘Anywhere in particular?’

‘Somewhere that I don’t know about.’

McCauley nodded.

‘Good luck.’ He turned to walk away.

‘Captain McCauley?’ Ravindra said. McCauley turned back to look at her. ‘Why’re you helping us?’

‘I remember when I first saw her,’ he nodded at the
Song
. ‘She was a holy terror. She’d taken out Gipps’s Fer-de-Lance, the two Vultures that the Hammond sisters flew. Then I saw some young ex-con execute a fifteen gee turn, in a Mk. II Cobra no less, and hit the cutter’s engines with a laser so fast that the laser overheated and blew the front of the Cobra off, damaging it so badly she had to eject. I nearly killed myself in simulators trying to replicate that turn.’ McCauley pointed at her. ‘You’ve got some Simpson Town genes in you, haven’t you?’

Ravindra nodded. ‘I was still pretty much a bruise for a month, and I burst just about every blood vessel in my eyes.’

McCauley nodded. ‘I’ll get your boy away,’ he said after a moment.

‘Thank you.’

McCauley turned and headed for the door, his crew falling in behind them.

‘What’s the other reason?’ Ravindra called to his back.

‘I spent ten years in the Warren,’ he said, not stopping or looking behind him.

Ravindra watched McCauley leave before turning to Orla. ‘Look, we don’t both have to …’

‘I will slap you,’ Orla said and walked off.

There was only so much they could do. The
Song
was as ready as she was ever going to be. But they couldn’t act yet. The cracksman that Harlan had found them had to do his work, and they must wait for the alignment of stellar bodies on which their plan depended. Ravindra spent the time with Ji. Helped him pack. Given him access to some untraceable accounts set up in different systems under different aliases. Then they’d talked. Both of them shed many tears. After a while she started to realise, too late, that it was probably the best time she had spent with him since he was a small boy. She learned a lot about her son’s life. Some of it she didn’t want to know. Alice had been his first.

She remembered how frightened she had been going out on jobs with her little boy at home back on the station. How much she had wanted to be with him. How frightened she’d been that she might not come back, and he would be left on his own. She wondered when that had changed and she had started craving the scores more.

He had asked to come with her. She had said no. There had been an argument, but she wasn’t going to get her only son killed. Ji had said that they should meet up once she had done what she needed to do. Ravindra had not allowed him any false hope.

Ji didn’t have much by the way of real friends it seemed, but she couldn’t let him make his farewells to those he did have. She took him to the ship to say goodbye to Orla. Then they took the elevator up to see Harlan. Anywhere they went, Harrelson and Jonas accompanied them. They had been looking after Ji ever since they had helped get him back.

‘Got a good memory, kid?’ Harlan asked. Ji nodded. Harlan reached over his desk and touched his comp ring to Ji’s. ‘That’s not just a false identity, that’s who you are now. You don’t just need to learn it. You need to forget this life, all of us, and become that person. You need to convince yourself that that’s who you are, understand me?’ Ji nodded. Part of Ravindra was proud that he didn’t get upset. It was easy to scoff, but effectively the boy had just been told to annihilate his own identity and past. That was what it was going to take. The other part of her was depressed that she could see Ji toughening up in front of her. ‘Will you give me some time with your ma, please?’ Harlan asked. Ji stood up and left the room.

Harlan went over and poured Ravindra a brandy and himself a generous bourbon over ice.

‘My cracksman do the business?’ he asked, handing her the glass of brandy.

‘Yeah, he came through. Don’t know how, that was some pretty hardcore security …’

Harlan nodded towards the door. ‘That’s hard,’ he said, meaning Ji.

‘Yeah,’ she agreed bitterly.

‘We’ll look after him. McCauley’s a cold bastard, but he’ll do what he says he will. I’ve set up a meeting for Ji with a fence I trust, then he needs to be gone. He is a ghost.’ Ravindra, feeling numb, indicated she understood. Harlan watched her.

‘Thank—’ Ravindra started.

‘Let’s just enjoy our drink,’ Harlan said, looking down.

Ravindra felt totally wrung out by the time she finally got back to the
Song
. She found Orla down in the small engineering workshop. She was removing the warhead from one of the medium range missiles’ nose cones.

‘How many?’ Ravindra asked.

‘Two at the most. Wish we had the time to get hold of another E-bomb.’

‘How’re we going to detonate?’

Orla held up a comp ring. ‘It’s got to be a timer, because of the delivery.’

‘Wish we’d had time to find a replacement E-bomb,’ Orla repeated. Ravindra’s face indicated her agreement.

The statue of Ganesh was glued to a small shelf against the bulkhead at the rear of the
Song
’s bridge. Ravindra knelt before it and pushed her hands together and bowed to the elephant-headed god’s statue. She took some joss sticks and lit the end of them with the utility torch from her tool kit and placed the sticks into the putty stuck on the shelf in front of the statue.

‘You think that helps?’ Orla asked. Orla had grown up in a gnostolic anti-religious mining community.

‘I don’t think it hurts,’ Ravindra said. She climbed to her feet and both of them strapped themselves into their respective seats. ‘Drop the spoofing to the bounty hunter's Sly-Spy.’

‘You sure?’ Orla asked.

‘They’ll attack anyone else who turns up and there’s no way Eschel can get there before us.’

‘We can’t know that.’

‘They want that cargo so bad, and we’re going to the one place were you can get away with murder. The moment she shows, they’ll hit her. It might not put her on our side, but she won’t be on theirs. She’ll have to defend herself and she won’t want to pick a fight with us. We lay off her and she’s a pain in their arse, and that’s a good ship, and she can fly it,’ Ravindra said. Orla was looking at her sceptically. Ravindra turned in her chair to face her first mate. ‘We need every edge we can get. If you’ve got a better idea.’

‘What if she gets there before the Syndicate?’

‘We hide, negotiate or fight, do anything we can to stall her.’

‘It’s a big risk.’

Ravindra actually laughed and turned to look at Orla sceptically. ‘All we do is take risks.’ She left it unsaid that they were almost certainly dead anyway.

‘Calculated risks.’

‘We’re a little beyond Dane’s Law now. I need everyone, the bounty hunter included, looking at us, not at Ji.’

Orla thought about it for a moment, then nodded. ‘Dropping the spoofing and opening a secure sub-space link to the Black Mausoleum,’ Orla said, her fingers tracing patterns in hologramatic light to make it happen. Ravindra waited until the crackling, interference-heavy FTL comms link was connected.

‘Can you hear me?’ Ravindra asked.

‘Yes,’ the Veil answered, his voice distorted by the static.

‘The Cave, Jackson’s Lighthouse.’

‘When?’ If there was trepidation at the location of the rendezvous, Ravindra couldn’t pick it up across subspace.

‘As soon as you can get there.’ She cut the link.

‘He must know it’s a trap,’ Orla said.

‘I think he really wants the cargo,’ Ravindra responded. She pushed her fingers into the scan glove and ran it over her hair until she found the tiny Sly-Spy and picked it out. ‘What about you?’ she asked the tiny wriggling bot and then crushed it between her fingers.

Ravindra took the
Song of Stone
out of the docking berth for what was almost certainly the last time. She spun the ship through a hundred and eighty degrees as it rose, turning it to face the station, reversing thrust to push it out and away from mushroom head of the huge aerostat. She circled the station until she found the window to the Command and Control centre. Harlan and Ji were stood at the window. Ravindra brought the
Song
in close enough for Orla to have to switch off the proximity alarm manually and for them to get automated complaints from the station.

She was less than ten feet away from Harlan and her son. Separated by two feet of transparent hull and Motherlode’s thin, toxic upper atmosphere. She wasn’t looking at Harlan, she was just looking at Ji. She held the
Song
steady there, making incremental corrections to hold it in place. She didn’t think she had been a good mother, but there was only so much guilt to go around. She had done what she knew how to do. She was sure that he knew that she loved him. She hoped that was enough.