Thief (19 page)

“I should gamble you to that?” Jace was sickened that she wanted him to approach this with such a casual attitude. Like he shouldn’t care if she got hurt or died for she only cost fifteen hundred.

“Look at the odds on this job. You’d have to be blind or daft not to take them. It’s a good plan.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“Well, you don’t have to like it, but do you see any holes in it?”

“No, but—”

“Just leave it at no. Don’t give me any buts. This will work. When we pull this off, you could get real picky about taking jobs. You could even go legitimate if you wanted to.”

“That’s if your plan succeeds.”

“True enough.” Kraft nodded. “But if it doesn’t, you’re out a cook and one suit.”

He was appalled that she expected him to consider her no more valuable than that. “You’re not just a cook.”

Kraft groaned. “I’m a woman you paid a fifteen hundred for.” She looked like she wanted to shake some sense into him.

“That’s not what this is about. It’s not that you’re a cook I bought from Trickster, nor is it about how much I paid for you. It’s about you.”

“Fine. Let me be who and what I am. Let me fight, let me cook good food, and if you want, let me fuck.”

The vulgarity made him shoot to his feet. “Don’t swear at me. I don’t like it.” If he wouldn’t tolerate cursing from Heller, he certainly wouldn’t let Kraft get away with it. He slammed his cup to the table and strode over to where she leaned against the wall.

“I apologize, Captain Lawless.” She stood at attention and kept her gaze on the floor.

He had an overwhelming urge to pick her up and place her back on the kitchen counter. Her attitude about last night filled him with confusion and anger. If it didn’t mean anything, then why hadn’t she kissed him?

Sudden understanding filled him and he leaned close. “You know, I think now is the time to discuss the payout on your contract.”

“After this job, I’ll be able to pay you in full.”

“I never agreed to that.” And he knew she already had that amount from wagering up her take from the Runner salvage job.

Kraft looked up and frowned. “You want more than the fifteen hundred?”

“I don’t want money at all, because money doesn’t mean anything to you.”

“Then what do you want?”

“One night.”

Her breath quickened and her breasts rose and fell against the plunging V of her shirt as she looked up at him. “If all you want is one night of wild sex then I’ll happily pay you tonight.”

Stroking his finger over her lips, he said, “I didn’t say anything about sex.”

She swallowed hard and narrowed her gaze. “I don’t understand.”

“One night, you in my bunk, and all I want to do is kiss you.”

Turning her head, she closed her eyes. “I don’t like kissing.”

He believed that was the first lie she’d ever told him. He cupped her chin and turned her face back to his. “I guess that’s what makes kissing me a payment.” No matter what she said, he knew why she hadn’t kissed him and why she feared doing so. Kissing would make their liaison mean something. She could keep him at arm’s length and keep it casual as long as she didn’t share that sweet intimacy with him. Now that he understood, kissing was all he wanted from her.

“One night of nothing but kissing?” she asked, keeping her gaze demurely lowered.

“Are you afraid you won’t be able to handle it or I won’t?” He leaned closer. “After a decade of celibacy it might be a little difficult for me, but we can keep all of our clothes on, maybe even wrap ourselves up in separate blankets.”

“One night?”

“Eight hours. We can set a timer.” He couldn’t believe he was actually suggesting this, moreover, defining the particulars when he had no intention of ever forcing her. In the back of his mind he thought she might not ever leave if he made the payout difficult. But he knew she would leave. Eventually. And he would do everything he could to delay that day.

“Fine. I’ll settle my contract after the job is over.”

Pulling away from her, he returned to the table and wondered if she hoped she’d never have to pay because the job might go south. But he couldn’t believe she’d put herself in danger just to avoid kissing him. She had a solid plan with minimal risk to everyone but herself. Like a burr in his boot, the fact that Kraft could be hurt dug at him. He couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing her again. But whether he held her back or not, he couldn’t hold her forever. Eventually, she would have the script to start over and she would leave
Mutiny
.

The question was how long did he want to delay the inevitable? Would it hurt worse to let her go now or a year from now?

“You’re sweet on me.” Kraft frowned. “And I’m real sweet on you too. But that can’t enter into this. This is about captain and crew. You’re a good captain and you take good care of your people. Right now, I’m one of your people, and you don’t want to see me hurt, and I appreciate that.” Her hungry eyes pinned him. “This job is solid and will satisfy my needs, yours, and will also toss a snag into the IWOG machinery. It’s bonus all around.”

“You don’t just think this will work, you know it will.” She couldn’t be more convincing if she had proof in her hand.

“Again, I don’t have a psychic hat, but I’ve run this job once before. The damage to the bottom line of the IWOG was so minimal they didn’t bother to upgrade anything, especially since they thought it was an inside job.”

Jace considered. Kraft laid it out, step by blessed step, and for the life of him, he couldn’t find a single hole. Every job he’d ever run looked just as solid until real life showed up, and he knew if it looked too good to be true…

“You wanted the derelict Basic to be a cakewalk, right?” Kraft asked.

“You heard me say that?”

“We tapped the Basic a full hour before you showed up. We heard everything. Hell, we tapped your ship thirty minutes before you docked your shuttle. How did you think I knew all your names?”

He’d thought she’d read them by touching the ship. “With that kind of power, how—”

“My crew was skilled, and we had our tricks, but we weren’t perfect.” Kraft shook her head. “My point is, this job is a total cakewalk. It’s practically a skip to the bank. Another bonus is we don’t have to deal with Trickster or any of his ilk. I know someone who will take it all. Not full price, mind you, but we won’t have to worry about any deadly dancing with middlemen like Trickster or Kobra.”

Kraft could sell a glass of water to a drowning man.

“We’ll run it,” Jace said. For the life of him he swore he heard a tsunami approaching.

She grinned. “You won’t be sorry.”

As the tsunami crashed over his head, Kraft refilled his cup with swassing.

“That remains to be seen.” Jace plucked it off the table and hustled out of the room.

Whether the job went south or not, he would be sorry to see Kraft go, but he couldn’t hold her. He wondered how Fairing had coped with it. Surely, Fairing had not been in love with Kraft—the realization in his own head made Jace stop dead in his tracks. Swassing rolled from his cup to splash on the worn neospring of the main hall.

He heard Kraft returning to her work at the kitchen table as Bailey obsessively tuned his guitar on the bridge.

Jace stood in the dark hallway and listened. Bailey had been tuning his guitar the whole time he’d been in the kitchen with Kraft. He hadn’t paid attention to it until now.

Bailey tuned and tuned.

Kraft sighed, sharp. Once, twice. He could hear her stand and slap the galley com. With a rolling whisper, Kraft said, “Bailey? Play her or I swear, I’ll march in there and play her myself.”

The hall went silent.

“You don’t know how,” Bailey said. A honey-sweet chord made a trip down the hall.

“I know,” Kraft returned, her voice clear in the dark hallway. “I’ll march up to the bridge, open the ship-wide com, play her and sing. Now that would be just be ugly all the way around. If you’re going to help me build this False, you best play her and not tune her to death.”

Jace heard Bailey laugh as he plucked against the strings, making the battered guitar play like gold struck with a careless god’s hand. In the year Bailey had been pilot, Jace had no idea that he could make music better than he flew
Mutiny
.

Kraft knew.

Jace wanted to walk right back into the kitchen and demand to know what else she knew of his crew. What stopped him was the truth in his own heart. If she knew all the secrets of his crew, what must she know of him?

Waiting had been the hardest part. Kraft had almost two hours of air in the suit and it took almost an hour for the Dungslurper to finish and pull away.

Jace practically felt his black hair turning grey.

The twenty minutes it took Kraft to make her way from the sewage line to the control center seemed more like twenty years.

“She’s fine, Captain,” Garrett said as they all clustered on the blacked-out bridge of
Mutiny
. “Lady knows her stuff.”

“She’s a freak-show, but she’s our freak-show,” Heller said. It was as close to an endorsement of Kraft that Heller had ever gotten near.

“See? Even Heller gives her the nod.” Garrett slapped Heller’s wide back. “As a betting man, I’m all for this being the first time it’s gonna run easy.”

Kraft had been inside for ten minutes, halfway through the sewage recyc line. She had a com unit in the suit but she’d disabled it. They couldn’t utter a peep or they’d alert the IWOG crew.

Mutiny
hung just out of range, ten minutes off, hiding in the disturbance caused by the wake of the Dungslurper.

Jace waited for her screams. He shook his head. He wouldn’t even get that. Kraft was incommunicado for at least five more minutes. His breath came in pained gasps as he waited. He wished he’d had the guts to kiss her before she left. He’d thought about it, come close, but pulled back at the last second because of that deal he’d made with her. One night of kissing that might never be.

“She placed the False,” Bailey said.

On a com pan, Jace read what the two IWOG guards in the secondary security cell thought they were doing. They banged out commands that the False answered in perfect IWOG code. The guards locked down their room. The False kept them occupied as Kraft made her way up the main hall.

Bailey turned his attention to the console. “Everything looks good.”

“Too good to be true.” Jace shook his head. He couldn’t help but expect this job to go horribly wrong. He gripped the back of the pilot chair so hard he left permanent dents in the worn pleather.

“Relax.” Garrett pulled Jace’s hand off the back of the chair. “Everything’s fine.”

“It’s been too long—”

“This is IWOG transport station Delta Alpha Two Three Fifty-nine,” Kraft said, in a clear, delighted voice over the main com. “
Mutiny
may dock at the cargo bay.” She uttered that rolling chuckle of hers and his whole body sagged with relief. “The crew may sing, dance, or howl like banshees if they are so inclined.”

As
Mutiny
came to life and surged forward, Jace could well imagine her dancing around the main security cell of the IWOG transport. He wished himself beside her so he could sweep her into his arms and dance with her.

Bailey docked and locked the ships together. When the airlocks opened, Kraft stood in the jam-packed cargo bay. She stepped to a forklift filled with goods and drove it forward.

“Cakewalk,” she said, as she went past him and deposited a load of goods into
Mutiny’s
cargo bay. “We have about twenty minutes to do our damage. We can do it best with all hands.”

Jace’s crew didn’t need his command. They all came forward and tossed boxes into the mouth of
Mutiny
. Jace looked around the cargo bay of the IWOG transport. If the Basic was a treasure drove, this was ten times more. He tossed boxes and tried to clear his head.

“Just once, you wanted it easy.” Kraft smiled. “Pinch me or let me pinch you, neither one of us is dreaming.”

He nodded but thought back to the comment she’d made that nothing worth having comes easy.

In less than twenty minutes, his 2xBasic sucked down almost the whole total of a fully stocked 10xBasic.

With a grin, Kraft slapped the com of the IWOG transport then scampered aboard
Mutiny
. “They’ll never even know we were here.”

Garrett lifted his hand and Kraft high-fived it.

As soon as the airlock closed, Bailey piloted
Mutiny
off the transport. Gravity shifted and Kraft fell against him, giving him an enticing hint of her strong body and wicked scent.

Righting herself, she said, “Sorry, Captain. It’s a bit crowded in here at the moment.”

“We’re clear, Captain Lawless,” Bailey said over the com.

“I don’t care how big your boots get, girl,” Garrett said. “Let your toes stress that leather all they want, and I’ll give you my own hard-won leather to patch them!” Garrett swept Kraft up into his arms and twirled her in a dance around the crowded cargo bay.

She flung her head back and laughed like a delighted child. Her hair, forever bound in the twine of black linen, whipped out and almost hit Heller. He flipped it away with a grin.

Garrett saw the frown creeping down Jace’s face and carefully set Kraft away.

With shining eyes, Kraft turned to him. She went from happy to confused in the blink of an eye.

Jace left the cargo bay without a word, and made his way up the catwalk.

As he entered the hallway, he heard Heller ask, “Why is Jace pissed?”

Chapter Seventeen

Kraft didn’t say much about the world they traveled to, but she didn’t need to. All of them had heard of Windmere and Michael “Overlord” Parker. After insisting he was real and would pay a fair price for the goods, she refused to confirm or deny any of the gossip with a pointed, “He’s just a man, not a myth.”

Kraft knew Michael would be inordinately pleased by the rumors surrounding him. Beyond a doubt, Michael “Overlord” Parker could give the mythical Narcissus—he who fell in love with his own reflection—a run for his money.

Since Michael had bought the goods from the first transport job she’d run, she assumed he wouldn’t mind buying the goods from the second job. Unfortunately, the limited range of the com on
Mutiny
meant she had to wait until they were closer to contact him. If Jace had a Tasher on the ship, Kraft could have contacted Michael in real time, but the low-budget ship didn’t and she’d have to wait. Had she realized
Mutiny
didn’t have a Tasher drive, Kraft would have kept the one they’d salvaged from the Runner ship.