“They’re not oddballs, though,” Nilah interjected. “They’re everywhere, and getting more acceptable. That’s the problem.”
“That’s a job for the politicians,” said Cedric. “Do you want the case or not?”
Cordell took the cube and pocketed it. “We’re on it.”
“Then we’re done here.”
“Ready to get out of this place,” said Boots. “Don’t like prisons.”
The Compass handler straightened his desk set and folded his hands together. “I expect you’ve narrowly avoided them.”
“It’s not that,” she replied. “It’s the prisoners.”
“Oh?”
Boots smirked. “A close friend of mine once said we should call them prisonees, don’t you think?”
To Nilah’s surprise, Orna laughed at the corny joke.
They loaded the Capricious in the rain and muck of an Agarwal hurricane. The planet was 90 percent covered by water and home to some of the largest storm surges recorded on any habited world, so it was the perfect place to have a prison. If the inmates escaped, where were they supposed to go? Directly into the frigid water, to be battered against the rocks surrounding the Ballantine Prison Complex?
Boots idly contemplated the best way to break someone out of the place while the rain slashed her face and ran down the back of her neck. Anti-air towers stood vigil as she pushed carts of supplies from the prison’s garrison across the loading dock. The place was as well defended as the finest military installations she’d ever visited.
“What are you gawking for?” said Orna, huffing past her with a cart of food cases. “I’d like to get out of here before I melt.”
She smiled to the quartermaster, rain dripping into her eyes. At least she was dry under her polybuff Rook Velocity jacket. “Truth be told, I was trying to figure out a way past their defenses. Got a taste for those sorts of puzzles after Mercandatta.”
The quartermaster nodded her approval. “I was going to chastise you, but… I’ve been thinking about it, too. Gets in your blood.”
Boots gripped the handle of her cart and put some muscle into it. “We’re turning into weirdos out here, Orna.” Then, she considered the statement. “Well, I’m turning into a weirdo. You were there a long time ago.”
“Yeah, Boots.” Orna gave her own cart a hefty shove. “You were real normal before we got you.”
They secured everything in the cargo bay, and Boots headed to her quarters to dry the water from her tired bones. The others had been complaining about a lack of action on the ship, but every mission had pushed Boots harder than the last—and she’d recovered a little less every time.
Malik Jan, the Capricious’s doctor, had noticed, too, and he’d prescribed a workout regimen, which she’d promptly ignored.
“Good morning, Lizzie,” said Kinnard, his voice richly rendered through the new speakers Boots had installed in her room. She hadn’t been ready to live in her mansion on Hopper’s Hope, but she’d grown accustomed to the lap of luxury and made some adjustments to her military accoutrements.
“Morning, Kin. Hang on a sec,” she said, and was momentarily deafened by her shower’s flash-dry function. Her hair fluffed comically large, before the antistat ionized it back onto her head. “What’s up?”
“The time is oh-four hundred.”
Her stomach dropped whenever he said the time. That was all Kin was allowed to say to someone without admin rights. It was a silly fear, but when she’d surrendered him on the Harrow, it’d hurt. “Uh, thank you?”
“Which means it’s time for your prescribed run.”
Boots scoffed, digging into her drawers for a bra and panties that had seen better days. She had all the money she could ever want and no time to shop for replacements. “I just took a shower, Kin.”
“Understood. I’ll remind you tonight before your watch.”
She pulled on her pants, hopping intermittently to keep herself from keeling over. “Or we could skip today. I’m all traumatized after witnessing an execution and stuff.”
“Okay. I’ll mark today as a miss for Doctor Jan’s logs.”
“Kin, come on. Don’t do that.”
“I’m afraid you don’t have proper authorization to override Doctor Jan’s orders.”
Boots’s arms flopped to her side midway through putting on her shirt, turning her torso into a bag of defeat. Compass had adjusted Kinnard’s authorizations to give access to the whole crew and make him the ship’s official AI. Despite the many years Kin had taken care of Boots, she was no longer the top dog in his user directory.
“You don’t have to put it like that.” Boots poked her head through the collar of her shirt, then smoothed the stray hairs back into her bob.
“Let me be blunt, Lizzie. Doctor Jan knows what’s good for you, and it’s not whiskey and donuts.”
“You didn’t tell him about the whiskey and donuts, did you?”
“No, Lizzie. Are you going to run, or do I need to record your fourth miss this week?”
The first lap wasn’t so bad. Well, the corridor to the stairwell wasn’t so bad. The Capricious, being a small ship, only had a few halls and a short track around the cargo bay—which meant that she’d have to jog it dozens of times to make a reasonable daily workout. Malik had a treadmill with projectors in the med bay, so Boots could’ve pretended to run outside during a country evening near her distillery, but then she’d have to deal with the ship’s doctor criticizing her form.
I’m simply trying to make you the best you, she could almost hear him say.
Boots had said they were turning into weirdos, but the crew of the Capricious was strange long before Henrick Witts and his Harrow conspiracy entered their lives. She passed the bridge, where Cordell and Aisha plotted out the next jump to Carré. The captain was a shieldmaster who’d survived crashing directly into the side of a mountain, and Aisha had managed to become a killer ace pilot behind the sticks of a cargo ship. Boots passed Nilah and Orna’s shared quarters; one was an ex-championship race car driver, and the other was a former slave pit fighter turned responsible quartermaster. What’s more, they were two mechanists who didn’t bicker constantly, which Boots had never seen.
Nilah came bounding out after her in a tracksuit. “Lovely morning for a run!”
Boots indicated she was very tired, language was hard, and this amount of cardiovascular exercise seemed excessive with the noise, “Ugh.”
A set of servos whined in time with their run, and Boots glanced back, nearly having a heart attack at the sight: Teacup, Nilah’s new battle armor, had fallen in behind them, mimicking their jog.
“Mind if she joins us?” asked Nilah. “I’m training her pathing algorithm.”
“Uh, sure?”
She had always considered Charger, Orna’s bloodred battle armor, to be a bit flashy, but she’d never seen anything like Teacup. Nilah had gotten her up and running two weeks ago, and Boots found it arresting. She kept looking back every time they took a turn to admire Nilah’s craft. Bone-white plates made up a polished exoskeleton, their glazed veneer covered in ornamental gold lines and floral designs. A pair of blue streaks wreathed the ocular imagers for a nice pop of color that reminded Boots of eyeshadow. Light poured from its arms in projected holograms, a stylized, luminous extrusion of Nilah’s dermalux tattoos.