Sophie was staring at him as hard as Talis figured she was herself. The girl reached out a tentative hand and pulled at a loose corner of the paper.
“Aw, no, Tisker,” Sophie said. Her voice cracked. “You didn’t…”
“Need it, don’t we?” He stuffed a piece of meat in his mouth, and chewed too long. It looked like he was having trouble swallowing.
Dug sat down then, lifted up the parcel, and finished unwrapping it. Nested in the paper, thick with old oil but otherwise in good condition, a double steam engine bi-clutch glistened like a polished gemstone in the half-lit cabin.
“It’s the right part, isn’t it, Soph?”
“Yeah,” she said. Voice cracked again, and she repeated, “Yeah, it’s the right part, Tisker.”
“Helsim strike you down himself.” Talis said. She put her cup back down on the table and leaned back, her hands resting heavy on her thighs. “You’re one hell-bound scoundrel, Tisker.”
He practically glowed under the compliment.
“Wasn’t necessary,” Talis said. Tried to say it gently, but she was struggling just to get the words out. She’d bought him some of that jewelry he’d pawned, when he first earned his spot behind Wind Sabre’s helm and she wanted him to look the part. He’d been so proud of the gifts, and so fearful of owning something of value after he’d been raised by thieves, that he’d worn them to sleep. And while she was out getting them tangled in business with the aliens, he was pawning every shiny thing he owned to buy a cheap refurb part. Guilt bit at her, and she couldn’t help but feel that the smatter of coin he’d managed to get for his prized possessions was worth double the contract she’d gotten. Talis felt her eyes burn, and turned on Sophie to avoid a spill of emotion over Tisker’s sacrifice.
“So why’d you lie about it, Sophie?”
Sophie swallowed the food she was chewing and looked from the engine part in Dug’s hand, to Tisker’s face, then down to her plate. “Well, I knew you’d be mad he went out, didn’t I?”
“Damned right,” Talis said. But what was Sophie going to do about it? “Dug, you let him walk off this ship, knowing his intention?”
“I only told Sophie,” Tisker said, jumping back in. “If Dug knew, he got it out of her.”
Dug opened his mouth to say something to Talis, but Sophie spoke again before Dug could confirm or deny any knowledge.
“It’s done, though,” Sophie said. “Isn’t it? He did good. Kept quiet when things seemed off, and found another way.” She reached out with both hands, and Dug handed her the engine part. She cast the paper aside, letting it fall to the floor away from their meal, and turned the part over. The dark grease got on her perpetually engine-stained fingers, and in the low light it looked like blood. “We needed this, no argument from anyone on that, and he got it for us.”
Talis chewed the inside corner of her lip. Mutiny, that’s what it was. Crew slipping off on business she was already about, and lying to cover for each other.
Dug took her silence as a chance to get his word in. “You have your own story to tell, Captain, do you not?”
Talis stared at him from beneath her furrowed brows for a minute, then gave up on getting a bite in while her food was still hot.
“All right.” She sat, pulling her chair back a foot and leaning forward. She rested her elbows on her knees. “Fair enough you should see what new business bought this dinner that’s going cold on us.”
Chapter 16
Dug and Tisker leaned toward Talis, and Sophie rose to come around to Tisker’s side of the table.
“So.” Talis said, sitting with the crate before her. “Talbot told me—and it panned out true enough—that word was out to scare off any buyers who might have wanted that ring. Each of you has already learned that, one way or another.”
Sophie and Dug exchanged glances at the shared memory. Talis closed her eyes against the vision of Jasper’s body, but it was waiting in the darkness behind her lids in full detail. She opened them again quickly, shifted her feet, and continued.
“So, Talbot didn’t want any piece of it, and I left our meeting thinking that was the end of the trail in Subrosa. With Jasper’s murder went any hopes of someone taking a chance on buying the thing. Even the pawnshops were looking unlikely, but that was my last shot in this port. Failing that, I figured maybe we could make for another territory on what fuel we had and find an archivist or collector who might buy it. Someone Hankirk couldn’t intimidate. Probably wouldn’t get much for it that way, but at least there was a chance we’d get something.” She put up a hand before Sophie could interject. “I know. That engine part. It wasn’t a good plan, but at the time it seemed like our only way forward.
“But the collectors found me first. They hired Zeela as an intermediary for the deal, and they bought the ring for seventy-five thousand.”
The room was silent for a moment. Then Sophie whistled low. “And the buyers… Your new friends out there?”
Talis nodded. “That’d be them.”
“Who are we talking about… ?” Tisker had missed her return.
“The Yu’Nyun.”
Tisker’s jaw worked up and down, but no sound came out.
“Do you think it wise, Captain, to sell them something apparently so high in value?”
She shot Dug a look for his cynicism. “So high in value as to prove completely untouchable? Now you think the ring has value? It was either sell it to them or let Hankirk badger us until we had no choice but to hand it over to him or drop out of the skies. So yeah, I chose the course that finally got us a payday.”
She held out her hand, open palm
