Page 22 of Star Champion

Her heart sank. “Alley pirates?” She thought of the gold card in Nico’s pocket. A gold! It would be devastating to lose it. Luckily there were other people out on the street. Usually, alley pirates operated in the dark and isolated maze of narrow alleyways that Baréshtis used as shortcuts.

His grip tightened. “No. Migel Arran’s toadies. Persistent rotters. They came looking for me the other day, but I outmaneuvered them.”

“Why didn’t ya tell me?”

“I can handle Arran, that’s why.”

She matched his long strides, the back of her neck prickling. “It’s because I played in Narrow Margin tonight.”

“Aye. And this is how Arran means to communicate his dislike of the matter.” Nico pulled her into another hard right turn, taking them in the opposite direction of home, knowing that leading Arran’s gangsters to the apartment would be a terrible mistake. It left her feeling like a plains-bunny in the badlands, zigzagging to shake off predators before reaching the burrow.

To her dismay, they ended up in North City, her brother’s swank-soaked stomping grounds and where she had beaten Black Hole a month ago in Rumble, one of Arran’s clubs. Nico knew the district like the back of his hand, whereas what Jemm knew of the area she would rather forget. In the bad times following Kish’s death, she would go from bar to bar to track him down and bring him home, hoping that when she found him, he would be alive.

“In here.” Nico pushed through a door to a stairwell, pulling her along behind him. They clambered up the narrow staircase. The steps were uneven, littered with spent vapes. It smelled like rotted food, urine, and exhaust fumes. From behind one of the closed doors came the muffled, frantic sounds of a couple having sex.

“Oh, that’s nice. I hope ya know where you’re going.”

He answered with a withering look.

She let him propel her along, trying to fight an increasing sense of hopelessness.I’ll never escape this place.

It was like being stuck in a bad dream; it started out with so much hope tonight, meeting Sir Klark and his pros, being invited to train. Now she was on the run, running in circles, unable to get back home, Nico pulling her farther into his world with every step until she would finally be in too deep to get out.

“Nico. We can’t run all night.”

“We’re not.” A moment later they emerged out on the rooftop. Moons swirled overhead, obscured by thicker than usual smog. It tinged everything brown. Nico backtracked, finding another staircase that led back down to street level but on the other side of the building. He looked both ways before he led her back into the crowds. It was a normal throng for the late hour. Jemm scoured the crowds, examining the faces of passersby. No one stood out as threatening. “They’re gone, eh?”

“Aye. Shook ’em loose again.” Downright proud of himself, Nico grinned.

“Eventually, we’re gonna have to deal with Arran,” Jemm said. “Avoiding his messengers is just prolonging the inevitable.”

“I’ll talk to him on Eighthnight, like I meant to all along.”

They walked the rest of the way home in tense silence.

Up, up the dark, dank, spiral staircase they climbed until they reached the seventeenth floor, the pointy tip-top of the building where the odors of raw sewage, burned cooking grease, and mildew were not as strong. Nico dug in his pocket. “The esteemed owner of Team Eireya wanted ya to have this. A salve for your arm, he said.” He dropped a small tube into her hand. “He seems a good fella. They were on the way back to the docks when Skeet remembered he had some on him, and yourVashmade them walk all the way back to give it to ya.”

“MyVash?” She lifted a brow at him then squinted at the tube. “Anti-inflammatory,” she read. An upper-class potion. It was good that the team owner thought enough of her to go through the trouble to get her the healing salve. He definitely was not what she had expected. Apparently not all elites were like the ones who ran Barésh.

Jemm slid the tube in her pocket before unfastening her work boots and setting the heavy things just inside the door. “Go clean up before Ma sees ya.”

Nico headed to the washroom while she tiptoed across the tiled floor in her socks, shrugging off her jacket as she went. It was warm inside, the air close, smelling like soap, hot wax, and the fading aromas from an earlier meal, a good meal. Better food was one of the side benefits of a scheme so fraught with risk.

Jemm followed her nose to the kitchen. The main, octagonal room followed the interior shape of the cone-shaped building. A small dirty window punctuated each wall except for one sparkling clean window she had purchased with her first bajha winnings. It allowed a sweeping view of the old city.

Curtains could be pulled closed to separate three bedroom areas and the cramped washroom from the living area. Only one bedroom had its barrier up, where her mother and Button slept.

After a day that was equal parts wonderful and horrible it was good to be home. In the kitchen, she rinsed off her face and hands. Her parents had always insisted on good hygiene even though filth reigned on Barésh. But then they were very lucky to live in the old city in a building with plumbing that worked (more often than not). Jemm gazed down at the small tube of salve cupped in her hand. It had come from far away, concocted by some chemist in theVash’semploy. Then she looked at her arm. There was a large lump where the rock had impacted bone and muscle. The skin was not broken but badly bruised, a colorful blotch of red, purple, and blue that would only get worse. Gingerly, she rubbed a film of cream over the lump. Right away, the pain began to subside.

Not because her skin grew numb, but due to the cream acting on the injury itself. It was a nano-salve. Microscopic computers, her father had explained, helping her to learn as much science as a child could absorb. Jemm examined her ointment-moistened fingertips as if she stood a chance of seeing the wee machines at work. Oh, the wondrous things the Baréshti upper class and the rest of the galaxy had at their disposal that the workers here did not. The miracle medicines that could make her mother well again. Would theVashhave anything on his ship for Ma? He must. Desperation pushed aside any reservations Jemm had about being cheeky enough to ask a man who owed her nothing.

A paper-wrapped bundle sat on the counter. Inside was a loaf of yeast bread. Jemm inhaled the intoxicating scent before using a knife to slice off two hunks, one for her and one for Nico.

“I bought fresh pen-fowl at the night market. I’ll cook ya both some.” Her mother’s voice ended in a muffled cough as she emerged from the bedroom.

“Ma, you didn’t have to wait up for us.”

Her mother waved a hand. Candlelight flattered her jaw-length wavy hair: dark red at the roots lightening to blonde at the ends, exactly the same shade as Jemm’s. Traces of the beauty she once was battled fatigue for precedence on her perpetually careworn face as she moved about the kitchen. “I’m assuming you’re hungry.”

---