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  “You said that with a straight face.”

  “Because I’m completely serious.”

  “But that’s insane!” Jack exclaimed. “Their security—”

  “Won’t be that big of a deal,” Alyssa cut in. “At least not with the aid of that fancy Thingamado in your head.”

  Jack crossed his arms. “This is all a joke to you, isn’t it?”

  Alyssa rolled her eyes. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

  “Says the woman who cut out my eye!”

  “I’ll admit that wasn’t the best way to start out this relationship. But keep in mind that I did save your life.”

  Jack scoffed. “Yeah, spared me so I could instead rot on a prison planet after we’re caught trying to steal a gizmo from what I can only imagine is a highly secure research facility. That was really considerate.”

  “MEC,” Alyssa corrected.

  “Oh, so you get to use ‘thingamado’ and I’m not allowed to use ‘gizmo’?”

  “Thingamado is literally the brand name. Clearly you didn’t hear the capital ‘t’.”

  Jack didn’t have a good response to that. “Oh.”

  “Anyway,” Alyssa continued, “we won’t get caught.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’m awesome.” She closed the hologram on the tabletop and the screen returned to its clear, glass-like state.

  “So I’m not doing this alone?” Jack clarified.

  “Oh no,” Alyssa laughed. “No, you’d most certainly be killed. Like, immediately.”

  “I thought security wouldn’t be a problem with my cool eye-thing?”

  She shook her head. “That’s only a small part of it. I mean, honestly, you’re just a tool for me to use so I didn’t have to do that to myself.”

  The words cut deep. “Ouch.”

  Momentary regret flashed across Alyssa’s face. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud.”

  “You think?” Jack sat down on one of the white couches, massaging his temples. “I do appreciate you stopping my execution and all, but I wasn’t trying to wrong any of you. One bad purchasing decision and my life has sort of been derailed in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “You were actually unconscious for three days but…” Alyssa shook her head. “That’s irrelevant. Look, we’re going to have to work together, so let’s just start over and get the job done.”

  “I guess I don’t really have much of a choice, do I?”

  “Not really, no. Unless you want Svetlana to shoot you.”

  “Still not liking that option.”

  Alyssa cracked a smile. “All right. In that case, I should probably show you to your quarters so you can get some real sleep—that anesthesia doesn’t make for quality rest, even if it has been three days.”

  “I was going to say, I feel like I should be way better rested.”

  “Well, you better be after tonight because we have quite the journey ahead of us.”

  “This isn’t just a simple theft?” Jack questioned.

  “Hopefully everything will be straightforward once we get there, but we’ll need to stock up on some supplies first, and some of those items won’t be easy to obtain.”

  “Such as…?”

  Alyssa winced. “A nano induction module.”

  “You have to be kidding.”

  “I know, I know. I have a plan.”

  Jack raised his one good eyebrow. “There isn’t any reasonable approach for dealing with the Winkelson Brothers.”

  “You know they hate that name.” Alyssa smirked.

  “Sorry, but I could never quite get on board with ‘Lords of Doom’.”

  “Right? They haven’t done one remotely menacing thing.”

  Jack flourished his hands. “Precisely. Frankly, I’ve just always avoided them because of the legendary stench.”

  “Which is not insurmountable,” Alyssa pointed out. “That’s why the first step of my plan is to catch them on a shower day.”

  “That’s what, once a month?”

  “Not if we make it a shower day,” she grinned.

  “And how is that accomplished?”

  “Soup.”

  Jack’s eye widened. Clearly she’d lost her mind. “Come again?”

  “Well, chili, technically. There’s this particular brand—they buy it in barrels. Apparently the shelf life is phenomenal.”

  “The stench is suddenly making a whole lot more sense.”

  “I know! So, I’m thinking there’s going to be a little mishap with the delivery.”

  “What kind of mishap?” Jack asked cautiously.

  “Perhaps a simulated eruption of an air bubble trapped during the packaging process, which would just happen to correspond to when the barrel is opened for a quality control check.”

  Jack smiled. “You’re quite devious.”

  “It’s a gift. Needless to say, soup everywhere and showers would be in order.”

  “That’s assuming they have any sense of decency—which is fairly well established that they don’t,” Jack countered.

  “I forgot to mention the defective feather pillows that will ‘accidentally’ be added to their order.”

  “Now we’re talking.”

  Alyssa grinned. “So, while they’re busy trying to remove soupy feathers without permanently destroying their plumbing system, we should be able to sneak in, crack their vault, and take a nano induction module.”

  “Or all of them, if we’re going to that trouble.”

  “Good point.”

  “But,” Jack raised his finger, “the safe-cracking bit…”

  “Yeah, that’s going to be tricky. That’s why we’ll need Finn.”

  “And where is Finn?”

  “In prison.”

  Jack sighed and shook his head. “Which prison?”

  Alyssa inched back on the couch adjacent to Jack. “Hellana,” she said under her breath.

  “Oh, come on…”

  “Look, it’s only hard to break out of. It’s plenty easy to get in.”

  Jack groaned. “But to get someone out you need to break out!”

  “It shouldn’t be a problem for Triss.”

  “And let me guess, Triss is—”

  “Watching a vid next door,” Alyssa interrupted. “She’s going ahead to get things prepped in the morning.”

  “Oh.”

  Alyssa smiled. “So, all we have to do is break Finn out of prison, steal the nano induction module from the Winkelson Brothers, and then gather a little bit of radioactive material from Thandor VII so we can break into the GiganCorp research lab. Easy.”

  Jack frowned. “You didn’t mention the radioactive part before.”

  “I didn’t? Probably because it’s barely worth mentioning.” She shrugged.

  “Alyssa, this is a terrible plan.”

  CHAPTER 3: Popular with the Ladies

  A proper night’s rest left Jack feeling much improved, but he couldn’t help reflecting on the disastrous turn of events. While things hadn’t been going great lately—or ever—he had at least maintained some sense of autonomy with his former dealings. Becoming a half-blind captive to a possibly crazed weapons dealer wasn’t part of his life plan.

  He decided the misfortune could be traced back to one fateful night on Raylen II, which had involved copious tequila bombs and anchovy-based finger foods. Granted, he couldn’t actually remember the night, but the gap in his memory seemed like a reasonable place to pinpoint for his decidedly downward trajectory as late.

  The sleeping chamber where he’d been deposited for the night was actually an empty closet with a blanket on the floor. He was thankful for the blanket and slightly less thankful that the floor was inexplicably sloped at fifteen degrees and he kept sliding into the wall while he slept.

  Nonetheless, he awoke feeling happy to still be alive, despite his itchy eye implant, and was ready to tackle Alyssa’s crazy plan.

  He was roused from his
blanket cocoon by a knock on the door. Without waiting for him to reply, the door swung inward and Alyssa peered in.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “After that talk about the Winkelson Brothers, I don’t suppose I could get a shower myself?” Jack asked.

  Alyssa nodded. “I was going to request it. This way.”

  She led him down the hall through the living room area to a sliding door. “Wait here a minute,” she instructed and stepped inside.

  Thirty seconds later, a different woman emerged from the room wearing only a towel. She gave Jack a look of distaste as she passed by.

  Alyssa exited right behind her. “It’s all yours,” she told him. “We don’t exactly get many male visitors around here.”

  “Not even for fun?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes and stepped aside. “Go clean up. I’ll be waiting out here.”

  Jack took a quick shower and ran his clothes through the ultrasonic cleaner. By the time he was re-dressed in his gray shirt, black flight jacket, and charcoal pants he was feeling more like himself, despite the missing eye. He took several minutes to inspect the surgical site and replacement apparatus.

  True to Alyssa’s initial assessment, the modification was a touch on the horrifying side. The metal eye protruded from his eye socket, revealing glowing blue lights. An artificial iris at the center was presently closed. The skin around the artificial eye was red and tender, but it appeared that the wound was healing. Knowing there wasn’t much he could do about the disfiguration at this juncture, he decided to invent an epic war story to tell the ladies about how he lost the eye—like saving an entire village from a meteor shower that happened to correspond with an attack from extradimensional aliens. Yeah, he was a hero.

  Smiling to himself as he thought about his fictional escapades, he left the bathroom and found Alyssa waiting on the couch in the common room for him.

  “Took you long enough,” she muttered, rising to her feet. She stepped over toward the corridor leading through the far wall. “We’re behind schedule.”

  “For the jailbreak?” Jack asked, jogging to catch up with her brisk pace.

  “More or less. Triss is waiting for us.”

  Jack beamed. “Look at you using ‘us’! It’s almost like we’re a team.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Alyssa cautioned. “I’m authorized to use deadly force if you so much as look at me funny.”

  “No need to get all defensive.”

  “I’m not—” Alyssa cut herself off and groaned. “I should have gotten you a muzzle to go with that freak eye.”

  “What happened to ‘us’?” Jack attempted to bat his eyelashes—normally a surefire move for melting hearts—but the singular eye made the move decidedly more difficult.

  Alyssa ignored him and walked faster.

  She led him down the corridor to a lift, which deposited them in another hallway. At the end of that, a large sliding door was marked ‘Shuttle Bay’.

  “We’re taking a ship?” Jack questioned.

  “Obviously. I think you’re familiar with it.”

  He perked up. “The Lucille?”

  “That was your name for it,” Alyssa replied. “Svetlana has always known it as the Little Princess.”

  “That name was never going to work with my image.”

  “Congratulations. Consider your image revised.”

  The Little Princess was somewhat larger than its name suggested—stretching fifty meters long and twenty meters tall. It was a mass production model with a generic central body, wide wing base, and three thrusters in the rear. He’d seen countless others like it in his travels. It was one of those ships that a traveler would come across in any corner of the galaxy while going on some crazy adventure or another.

  “You have exceptionally boring taste in starships, you know,” Alyssa commented as they walked across the nearly empty hangar toward the vessel. “Of all the ships to steal, you had to pick one of these.”

  “Again, I bought it,” Jack retorted. “Blame the thief for their bad taste. I just wanted something modest and affordable to get my business going.”

  “Were you seriously trying to do something respectable?”

  “Well, my grandmother’s housing costs keep going up, and I thought maybe if I could get my own venture going I’d be able to take care of her better.”

  “Oh.” A smile lit up Alyssa’s eyes. “That’s actually really sweet.”

  Jack shrugged. “She was there for me when I was growing up, even when my parents weren’t. All I’ve wanted is to give back to her, but then some new setback like this will happen.” He swept his hand to encompass the room and sighed. “Anyway, smuggling is pretty difficult with forged credentials, so I bought the ship. I needed the paperwork to look good in case I was ever questioned.”

  “You can fit maybe four people and a crate of food in one of these. That’s terrible for smuggling.”

  “Lemme guess, you haven’t been out to Corican, have you?” Jack asked.

  “No, why?”

  “Well, the engines are bulky on these guys. But, if you’re okay with slower acceleration, you can swap out one of the turbo tanks for an extra cargo hold—something that no inspector is looking for.”

  Alyssa’s eyes widened momentarily. “That is rather clever.”

  “I never got the chance to make the alteration, but it’s something Svetlana might be interested in.”

  “All right, I guess maybe you aren’t as clueless as we thought.”

  Jack smiled. “See? Live and learn.”

  She smiled back. “Let’s see what kind of score we can get to help your grandma.”

  They made the final approach to the vessel, and Alyssa used a control panel under a hatch on the side of the ship to input an access code for the passenger door. It chirped with acceptance and the door folded down from the side wall to form a ramp.

  “I think all of your things are still in here,” she said as they entered. “Based on the smell of feet, I’m guessing that includes your laundry.”

  “It’s not equipped with an ultrasonic cleaner—which is surprising given Svetlana’s apparent fastidiousness.”

  Alyssa eyed him with a hint of surprise. “That was a big word for you.”

  “That’s not the only big—”

  “I’m going to stop you right there. No.”

  Jack sighed. “Too good of an opening. I had to try.”

  She nodded. “Props for that.”

  Everything did appear to be in order based on how Jack had left it. He passed through the narrow hallway that ran the length of the vessel on the starboard side and entered into the compact living area amidships, which consisted of a couch, and couple of chairs, and a galley complete with a small dining table. He scanned over the contents of a cabinet on the back wall, secured by a plexiglass door.

  “It is still here!” Jack slid the door open and pulled out a slim, elongated metal case. It opened on a hinge along the long edge, and he extracted a piece of straw from the cradle inside the case.

  “Is that hay?” Alyssa asked with one eyebrow raised.

  “Only if you want to be all backworlds about it,” Jack replied as he placed the stalk between his teeth. “This is artisan straw.”

  Alyssa’s expression of profound distaste didn’t diminish. “And why is it in your mouth?”

  “It’s sophisticated and gives me character.”

  “Um, no.”

  Jack scoffed. “You’re just envious because you don’t have your own.”

  Alyssa let out a long breath between her teeth. “Did someone really tell you that holding a piece of straw in your mouth would make you look cool?”

  “She didn’t tell me—she enlightened me.”

  “She was messing with you.”

  Jack shrugged off the statement.

  “No, seriously,” Alyssa insisted. “Pretty sure this is how it went down: you failed hard while attempting to flirt with her, she had some quick wit and the kin
d of charm you can’t train, and she devised a delightful gag that she still jokes about with her friends to this day.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Alyssa grinned. “Oh, but I do. I see the doubt in your eye.”

  Jack faltered. “No, I mean… Maybe it was kind of strange how she smirked while she suggested it.”

  “Had you made any sort of lewd comment?”

  “That depends on your definition of ‘lewd’...”

  Alyssa nodded with satisfaction, snickering. “Yep, that’s what happened. She wanted to make you look like you had an oral fixation.”

  “A what? No.” Jack shook his head.

  “Yeah, and I don’t mean in the kind of way ladies would find alluring.”

  “Sucking on a piece of straw isn’t—”

  Alyssa could barely contain her giggling. “Lemme guess, she suggested that you find the longest, thickest piece of straw you can and slowly—”

  “Stop. Stop! Please.” Jack spat out the straw and stomped on it.

  She paused her cackling for two seconds and then burst into another giggle fit. “This is too good.”

  “No more straw. Happy?”

  Eyes tearing, Alyssa regained her composure. “You know, I actually kind of liked it.”

  Jack was trying to think of a witty retort when an alarm sounded in the hangar.

  CHAPTER 4: The Misadventure Begins

  “That’s not good,” Alyssa said with a frown.

  “What is that sound and why is it so alarming?” Jack asked, holding his hands over his ears.

  “The Luxuria has been breached.”

  “What?” Jack shouted.

  Alyssa removed his hands from over his ears. “The spaceport is compromised. We need to go—now!”

  Jack’s pulse spiked. “What happened?”

  “I have no idea, but that alarm means a decompression is imminent.” Alyssa’s previously unflappable demeanor was frayed around the edges. “Seal the door. I’ll get the engines warmed up.”

  Jack nodded and returned to the hatch where they’d entered. He used the control panel to raise the door ramp and then manually locked it down with a lever. The alarm in the hangar was nearly silent with the door closed, though it still reverberated along the hull.