The last time overconfident thieves attempted to hijack a Timeship, the reward for their ill-conceived venture was a one-way ticket to a prison planet. The imbeciles spent the rest of their lives in one of the most dangerous jobs in existence: working as human canaries in the artificially oxygenated mineral mines on Mars where life expectancy is measured in weeks, not months or years.
At the far end of a row of time travel vessels, I find Nico. It’s amusing to watch him balance on tiptoes, his upper body wedged inside the rectangular opening of the aft nacelle of a small ship marked with the hull number VSC-1024. His feet reposition every few seconds as he struggles to gain more leverage to reach whatever it is he’s trying to reach. Soft grunts punctuate his exertions, echoing briefly inside the fiberglass casing of his narrow workspace.
The ship is different from the utilitarian vessels we’re used to. It’s larger and the skin of the hull is a color I’ve never seen on a ship before: a pearlescent white that seems to shimmer and reflect a rainbow of colors depending on how the light strikes it.
I stand for a moment watching Nico’s continued gymnastics within the nacelle until an awkward bump of his elbow sends a wrench clattering to the concrete floor. He doesn’t seem to notice. Instead of retrieving it, Nico wedges his upper body farther into the carcass of the ship’s power supply. His grunting segues into pleas to the ship to cooperate with his efforts.
“Dropped something,” I say, picking the wrench up and placing it back in its place.
Nico startles and backs out of the opening, swearing loudly in Spanish as he scrapes the back of his head on the metal frame. He emerges, sweating and flushed from being buried almost to his waist in his work. He rubs his crown and frowns at me. “Stop sneaking up on me.”
I smirk and playfully tug on his mop of curly black hair, tipping his head down and forward so I can assess the damage. “Didn’t even break the skin. Don’t be such a baby.”
“You okay?” He studies me with wary eyes. “I cleaned the trash can in the bathroom. Eat something that disagreed with you or was it something else?”
“Just nerves, I guess,” I say, not sure whether to tell him about the Elizabethan hologram files. I’m not sure what to make of them myself. Maybe I should just keep it to myself for now. “Fagin and I are still fighting.”
“Training wasn’t any better today?”
“Nope. She’s been distracted and cross all day. Got a call halfway through our session and she sprinted out of the Sim Room like her hair was on fire.”
“What d’you think happened?”
“No idea. She didn’t say a word.” Fagin’s not one to tell everything she knows, but given our current situation, her secrets are scaring the hell out of me.
“So you’re here to annoy me instead, is that it?” He gathers his tools, including the wayward spanner, and drops them into a toolbox, which he hauls up the walkway and into the ship’s main cabin.
I follow him inside. “You’re the one who left me a note. You have something to show me?”
As soon as we cross the threshold, he sweeps his arms open wide, gesturing to the opulent furnishings of the main cabin. The luxurious upgrade of the ship’s interior stops me in my tracks.
Instead of the dull, scratched Formica worktables and cabinetry of our typical transports, there’s expensive looking hardwood—cherry, I think—that gleams with a high-gloss shine. The cabin lights are intact and seem to work and I can stand in the middle of the aisle between two rows of luxury seating facing forward toward the cockpit with at least two feet of space between my outstretched hands and either wall. A rich, earthy fragrance hangs in the air, a mix of new leather and lanolin-polished wood.
“Holy Mother of—”
“I know,” Nico says, interrupting. He leans a forearm against a row of sleek cabinets above a pair of crew seats and beams a huge smile. “Not our typical junk ride, is it?”
“It sure as hell isn’t.” My fingers run across the tops of the high-backed seats—the fine grain leather is butter-smooth. I push the back of the seat until it swivels around and opens up to me, then sink down into the chair. The seat cushion is five inches thick and molds itself to my backside like the perfect pair of jeans. “My bed isn’t this comfortable,” I sigh. “Which big shot gets to travel around in this baby?”
“You,” Nico says.
“If you’re joking to get back at me for startling you earlier—”
“There are two things I never joke about, Dodger.” His face turns solemn for a moment, and he places a hand over his heart in an earnest gesture. “The beauty of an expensive ship and how to make the perfect paella.” He breaks into a wide grin again and his eyes sparkle. “This is our ship. We could christen her Redemption in your honor.”
“Smart ass,’” I say, giving him a smile. “Who the hell gave us a ship like this? Are they insane?”
“My Mami always said, ‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth.’ C’mon, I’ll show you around.”
He guides me through every inch of the ship. There’s a small ready room in the aft section behind the main cabin. It boasts the same hardwood and leather furnishings as the main cabin, complete with modernized replicators that dispenses gourmet food like Boeuf Bourguignon and fois gras with truffles, not those disgusting meal bars.
There are four private cabins, each appointed with feather-soft beds and state-of-the-art technology, including personal replicators for late-night
