Spoiler! :
I pushed the last crate of supplies into place, then glanced around at the full-to-bursting cargo bay. Boxes of dehydrated food, tanks of water and air stacked up along the walls from the floor to the ceiling. Everything from the furniture, to the datascreens, to the battered old brass figurine from the corner of Neb’s desk. Everything I’d ever touched – and lots of things I hadn’t – in the two years since I’d joined Black Nebula’s gang.
And had he noticed? Nah. Even when I was dragging the sofa across the living room, making one galaxy of a racket, he’d never left the bare old attic storage room where he was working things out with the Unifeds. Must’ve been some pretty intense negotiations if they were takin’ this long. How much money was he askin’ for, just for turning in a fake?
The cargo bay doors hissed as they sealed shut, all ready for a long voyage. I dropped onto the asteroid’s surface, dust spreading out around my boots, and went to check the tether between the Hulker and the Skimmer one last time. It wasn’t exactly the intended purpose for the Snatcher claw that snaked out of the bottom of the cargo ship, but it was solid enough to tow the smaller ship for a short distance.
Steal Neb’s crud? Check. Steal Neb’s escape ship? Check. Now all I needed was the power source.
A sheen of sweat between my skin and the spacesuit gave me that clammy feeling I hated as I trudged toward the house, my gloved hands shoved into my pockets. It seemed ridiculous to be wearing the spacesuit now, with fresh air in my lungs and what felt like the warmth of a summer day washing over me, but I knew all that would disappear, once I grabbed one last thing from the house.
Now that I thought about it, the suit had been one of the first things he stole for me, back when I was just an ill-tempered maid working on a tourist cruiser full of rich folks I despised. I should’ve yelled the second I saw him and his crew loading stolen goods into their cruiser. Or the second I heard them call him Neb. The second he flashed me that crooked smile. He’d held the suit up to the light, scrutinizing it.
“Looks like a good fit.” He’d tossed it to me, grinning, then put a finger to his lips, warning me to keep quiet. The suit had been worth more than a year’s pay. And it wasn’t like the passengers on the cruiser couldn’t replace the stuff that was stolen. It was probably all insured anyway. And even if I yelled and brought security running, they’d be out of the hanger before anyone could stop them. That had been my thinking at the time, anyway. It had felt like such a good idea. To just stuff the suit into the big pocket of my uniform’s apron, and walk away. That’s what I should’ve done, if I couldn’t have just yelled for help in the first place.
But I just had to take it one step further. I’d fingered the edge of the suit, glancing at the pile of loot and acting like his scowling crew members didn’t scare me in the slightest. “Alright,” I’d said, finally meeting those blazin’ green eyes of his. “But you’re gonna have to throw in that data screen over there, too.”
He’d laughed. Maybe some of the others had, too, but I didn’t notice them as much. Even back then, Neb was always the center of everything. More like a black hole than a nebula.
“I don’t know about that,” he’d said, “but I might be able to throw in a free ticket off of this tub.”
One of his crew had laughed at that. Boris, I think. I remembered because it was that laugh that made my blood boil.
“Fine,” I’d said. And then, lifting the skirts of my maid’s uniform, I’d marched past them, into the spacejackers’ ship.
I should’ve called security. I should’ve walked away, and been content with the spacesuit and the story of my encounter with a wanted criminal. But that stupid part of me – the part that made me grit my teeth and clench my fists whenever someone told me ‘no’ – kept me going one step further. Always one step further…
It’s what kept me in Black Nebula’s gang even though the other spacejackers were thugs too stupid to plan a heist on their own. It’s what kept me stepping up, getting closer and closer to Neb, until I’d gone from just another member of his crew to his biggest partner.
It had been that part of me, and it had been Neb himself. He’d always known exactly what made me tick. He was the kind of guy who knew what made everybody tick.
I stopped for a minute, halfway between the Hulker and the creaky old house, looking around at the kingdom he’d promised me. It was one of the larger asteroids in the area, battered after so long hurtling through space but still holding a promise of security. Uneven bluffs loomed off in the distance, and the grass we’d planted was starting to poke up through the reddish dust, probably dipping a toe into the pool of life before deciding if it was going to stay for a spell. That bit of growth – plus the gravity, and the fresh air I was breathin’ – were all thanks to the crystal.
How did it work? No clue. Neb probably knew; he was smart like that. But little ole me just couldn’t be bothered with all the scientific aspects of the space junk that we stole. I was in it for three things. The excitement, the money, and Neb. But now that I knew what he’d been planning this whole time, I figured I could do without that last one.
“Bye bye, Izzie 2,” I addressed our ‘home’ with a lazy little salute as I continued walking. “I don’t think it’s gonna work out for the three of us after all.”
He’d named it after me, the loonie. ‘Isabella Slick gets her own asteroid named for her!’ That’s what he’d said when we were scoping out locations for our hideout. It’d seemed sweet at the time, when he’d talked about spending eternity rolling in the deep space together on little Izzie 2. Now it just seemed like overkill. How’d it taken me this long to figure out that he was playin’ me like a drum?
I clomped into the house and left the door open, shaking the dust off my boots onto the bare floorboards. I’d taken the rug, too. I smiled as I headed for the power room. Yessir, I’d taken the rug right out from under him, the way he was trying to sweep the rug out from under me. And he deserved it, the lug nut.
Still no signs of movement from the upstairs. I still had a little time left before he figured out that I’d accidentally tapped into his vid-conversation while trying to patch into my favorite show (the crystal could do a lot of things, but it still couldn’t come up with the latest season of Twisted Systems). Imagine my surprise at seeing Nebbie’s face come onscreen when he’d already told me that he would spend the day paintin’ the attic rooms with coats of insulator.
I’d patched in just in time to see him addressin’ the Unifeds’ tip line, claiming to know the identity of the elusive spacejacker, Black Nebula.
But Neb is Black Nebula. That had been my first thought. Hadn’t put it together yet. Had I really been so stupid such a short time ago? Why hadn’t I figured out before then that after the two of us skipped out on the rest of the gang, betraying me wouldn’t be such a step up for him?
“There’s a reason you’ve never been able to find him,” he’d said, face pinched with urgency. Nothing like his usual nonchalance. He wasn’t in his normal clothes, and he’d gotten a pair of old-fashioned glasses from somewhere. His blond hair was tousled, his eyes wide. The picture of innocence. A guy who’d bitten off more than he could chew and was looking for an open door to run through.
“And what’s that?” the bored Unifed agent had asked, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. He got a thousand ‘Black Nebula’ tips a day, I’m sure. We’d called some in ourselves before, to put them on the wrong track.
“The reason is, Black Nebula is a woman,” he’d said, serious as could be. “Isabel Roades.”
My real name, like a slap in the face. I hadn’t listened too much longer after that. Just long enough to really figure out what was goin’ on. Neb was calling himself ‘Devin Ferrel’, a small fry in the fearsome Black Nebula’s gang, who was willing to give up the location of his boss in exchange for enough money to buy the whole solar system.
So much for being content to spend the rest of his days hiding out on a measly little asteroid with a measly little penny-snatcher.
The Unifed agent had nibbled on the bait quick enough, and my first reaction had been to try and figure out how to interrupt the call and defend myself. Then I’d realized that the real Black Nebula – looter, scourge of seventy galaxies, and occasional murderer – was right upstairs and probably wouldn’t be happy if I interfered with his scheme that directly.
So I’d decided to interfere more indirectly.
The power room shone with a pulsing light like a heartbeat, electronics covering every surface. Thick cords led off to other parts of the house and the asteroid. At the very center of the mess was the crystal, plugged into the power-converting console we’d stolen a few months before Neb and I cast off the rest of the gang.
Luckily there was another stolen console in the Hulker; I was in no way tech-savvy enough to unhook this console from everything else without frying myself. As it was, I was really hopin’ the crystal was user-friendly enough that pulling it out of its little socket wouldn’t blow anything to kingdom come.
I pulled my glove tighter before putting it around the crystal. The gadget hummed pleasantly, and like a miniature sun it cast warmth onto my face.
“Oh, right.” I activated the helmet part of the suit and winced as a facemask slammed down, cutting me off from the elements. Dry air-in-a-can filled my helmet.
Safe. I yanked the crystal out of the console, stepping backward quickly as the light faded and the house’s electrical systems shut down, along with the artificial gravity and air simulators, and everything else that made Izzie 2 habitable. I figured that Neb – up in the sealed-off attic – had a couple of minutes to slide into one of the emergency suits hanging on the wall, and I’d left him an extra tank of oxygen. He wouldn’t die, unless he turned into an idiot on top of everything else.
Maybe the lack of explosions made me cocky, or maybe I wanted to see some explosions, but I had a grand couple seconds kickin’ the console over. Sparks flew as it crashed into another pile of electrics, and I took that as my cue to head for the door.
The emergency reserve power failed just as I got there, along with the gravity. My feet drifted just above the floorboards, but one good kick off the doorframe carried me all the way to the Hulker’s airlock entrance. I sealed it up behind me and eased into the cockpit, glancing out the window. Something must’ve been flammable back in the house, because smoke was coming from a window or two.
I felt a pang in my chest as I thought of Neb… But it disappeared pretty quick when he appeared at the front door of the house in his own spacesuit, air tank under one arm and a murderous look on his face. He could fend for himself, and the fire wouldn’t last long anyway. Just until it burned off the leftover air the crystal had been pumping out.
The Hulker powered up like a dream, purring at my touch as if to say, “I never liked him either, Izzie.” I waved cheekily as he tried to use his suit’s air compressors to maneuver toward the ship. The Hulker lumbered forward, picking up speed second by second. Adrenalin flooded my veins with each inch that went by. Little warning blips came up about the extra weight of the skimmer dangling behind; it seemed I’d have to let it go sooner than I expected, but that was fine.
If Neb dared to power it up – if he dared to power anything up on Izzie 2 without using the crystal’s independent energy – he’d have to pull off of the galactic power grid, and an unauthorized power spike in such a forsaken patch of space would sound enough alarm bells to bring every Unifed agent in fifty light-years.
I hit the release switch on the Snatcher just as Neb finally managed to grab onto the tail end of the Skimmer. I grinned as he dragged his heels in the asteroid’s dust, trying to slow the tiny ship before it followed the Hulker over the edge, out into space.
At my command, the thrusters kicked in, and the Hulker’s purr transitioned into a triumphant roar. Neb was angry already, but in a few more minutes he’d be downright furious. I let the Hulker fly where it wanted, not setting any course in particular aside from ‘away from Neb’ as I opened the communications windows and went to work.
I may not have been the most tech-savvy girl in the universe, but I knew how to make a conference call. And with the unlimited power of the crystal, it wasn’t too hard to figure out how to make a big conference call. To more or less everyone in the galaxy Izzie 2 called home.
“Hello, everybody,” I grinned at the integrated camera as my face popped up on every communications screen in the galaxy. It was a funny feeling, thinking about how many people could see my face. Every freckle, every copper curl, every scar I’d ever picked up from pulling heists with Neb. “I’d like to give a special shout out to the Unifeds who just received a call from somebody calling himself Devin Ferrel. Maybe that’s his real name, maybe it’s not, but I’m callin’ to tell you that you probably already know him as Black Nebula. I’m also calling to tell you where you can find him.” I rattled off the rough set of coordinates and described Izzie 2.
I almost terminated the mass-call after that. But then that feeling caught me by the ears again. The feeling of having to take it one step further. I’d just stolen pretty much everything from one of the universe’s best spacejackers. I’d beat him at his own game. And now that I wasn’t running with Neb anymore, what was I gonna do with the rest of my life? A girl needs goals, after all. And excitement… and money. Lots and lots of money. And I happened to know of a profession that had plenty of both.
“I’m the gal he was trying to set up, by the way,” I confided to the camera. “But I’m not Black Nebula. The name’s Isabella Slick. I’d remember it if I were you.” My smile grew. “You’re gonna be hearing it a lot from now on.”
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