I fully deserve the pillow.
CHAPTER 10
I SET OFF on my own early the next morning, slipping into the streets as Isla starts its morning rituals. As a planetary capital in a borderworld system, it plays host to thousands of intersecting cultures that blur together across my senses as I move down the wide roads that sprawl through this part of town. I spot variations on noodles, flatcakes, tea, and even something that looks and smells suspiciously like my region’s own flatbreads and sauces. Corinth can’t match the richness of the Umber interior’s abundance, but from the variety available in the street food, it’s clear they’re a step above Archon’s thin soil. I resist the urge to investigate. We took those ration packs from the Ruttin’ Hell for a reason—we need every single Corinthian bit in our pockets.
Gal chose to stay behind today. He’s waiting in the safety of the room until I’ve secured a new ship. It’s an unnecessary risk to have him wandering the city, but I can’t help but think that leaving him alone is just as bad. He tends to fare better when I’m there to look out for him.
But—and I’m a total asshole for thinking this—I need a breather from being around him. We’ve spent five days locked up in a ship with nothing but each other’s company, and after what happened at the river, the tension between us has been reaching unbearable levels. Solitude lifts that burden from my shoulders, but it pinches as it goes.
I travel on foot, even as buses, trolleys, and wiretrams trundle past me, relishing the openness of these wide roads and the sky above and fantasizing about what I could be flying soon. With the 6K and change in our pockets, we won’t be able to get much, but we don’t need much. We don’t even need something with guns. Just a ship that can fly fast and true to the Imperial Seat.
I round a corner and find what must be this system’s heaven. Ships stretch along a dirt alley as far as the eye can see, prices written on their windows in colorful soap as dealers lounge in lawn chairs in their shadows, smoking heady cigars and shouting back and forth across the road. The air is filled with the dueling sounds of the haphazard, jazzy riffs Corinthians like to call music blasting valiantly from radios at each dealer’s throne. Potential buyers wander in and out of the lots, rubbing their necks from craning up at some of their prospects.
If Gal were here, he’d mutter, Keep it in your pants, Ettian. And he’d have a point. My eyes immediately find the slickest ships on the lots, speedsters and sun-sailers with no prices marking their windows. It’d probably cost what’s in my pocket just to sit inside those things for five minutes, and the worst part is I’m tempted.
But the fact remains: I’m here to buy a beater.
Those things aren’t readily on display. I duck into the first lot, summoning the willpower I need to walk past the fancy models to the back, where they stash the ones that barely fly. I feel the eyes of the owner on me, but I think I’ve made my agenda clear enough, and when I glance back at his lawn-chair throne, the man goes back to reading his newspaper.
My stomach sinks as I find what I’m looking for. Faringian Toruses with missing heat shielding. An Utar Feldspar that on first glance looks like it might be worth its price until I notice that it’s propped up on a rock in place of one of its landing legs. I scowl, knocking the hunk of granite with the toe of my boot. Even though logically I knew I wasn’t likely to find what I was looking for in the first lot, I didn’t anticipate my prospects being this dismal. If I’m going to get Gal back to safety, I need a ship that can actually get us there in one piece.
So lot number one is a bust. On to lot number two.
They start to blur together. I see the same flaws over and over again, my eyes getting far too used to picking out reasons a ship won’t fly. Interspersed here and there are a few likely candidates. Most of them are outside our price range, but I circle them carefully, marking the flaws I could start a negotiation over. Maybe I’ll take a page out of Adela Esperza’s book and take one of them for a harrowing test drive to knock a few thousand bits off the asking. The thought turns my stomach. All the Umber military training in the worlds couldn’t make me brave enough to fly one of these things the way she did.
My mood goes sour as the sun climbs, cooking the lots. I start to sweat through the loose shirt I’m wearing. Gal’s counting on me to find something by the end of the day, and the prospects are looking grimmer and grimmer as the time pressure mounts. We need to get off Isla, off Delos, into the black, and onto our vector.
And yet, there’s a part of me that’s imagining staying in Corinth. Somehow convincing Gal first that he doesn’t need to run home right away and then that he doesn’t need to go home at all. Here, we’re both nobody. And if we’re both nobody, there’s a chance…
A sly, guilty smile creeps over my lips.
“Like what you see?”
I blink, realizing too late that I’ve been staring. Not at the girl who asked, but at the ship behind her. It’s a skipship—an older model, built in Umber shipyards instead of Umber-controlled Archon belts, but it’s still sleek. No price on the windows. Barely any dust on the wings. Maybe it’s brand-new on the lot. It’s the kind of ship I wanted to fly out of the academy instead of the Beamer, and a twinge of annoyance rattles through me as I realize my job would be a whole lot easier if I’d had a ship like that to sell in the first place.
The girl clears her throat, and my gaze drops to her. She straightens in her folding chair, tipping her rainbow-patterned umbrella back so I can see her face. She wears a wicked smile as plainly as the ragged skin that graces the right half of her features. Burn scars, if I had to guess, and what isn’t burned is spotted with acne. Her narrow eyes shine in the afternoon light as she bats her eyelashes at me.
“I…uh.” Everything about her makes me lose my train of thought. I think back to my pilot training, to lessons on gyro control and how to keep a Viper oriented when you feel like your head’s about to spin off. “Sorry, not really…interested.”
“Of course you are. I’ve been watching you.”
“I zoned out. I wasn’t actually looking—”
She waves her hand, cutting me off. “You’ve been prowling these lots for hours, looking at beaters, and turning your nose up at every single one you find.”
“How—” There’s no way she’s been able to see me the whole time from her seller’s perch.
“You’ve got a good eye. You came here on a mission to stretch your money as far as it’ll go. I can make that process easier.” She snaps her umbrella shut and swings it backward, rapping its tip against the skipship’s hull. “This right here is the best ship in the Corinthian Empire, and I’ll give it to you for a price you should be weeping over.”