Treasure Inside

Rain Stormcloud hissed as she brushed a squirming duneroach off her shoulder and crushed it into the shaggy orange carpet in the hallway. The apartment complex was crawling with the nasty little bugs.

The filthy building also attracted roaches of the human variety, like Jacob Maxwell, the mark of the day.

Age 35. Six-foot-three inches of bullshit, bad attitude, and beer belly worth eighty thousand large for pissing off his Fantasy suppliers.

Rain blew her breath out slowly, fingers gripping the hilt of her favorite blaster as she pressed her back against the peeling wallpaper in the moldy corridor of the housing complex.

Her in-ear radio hissed. “In position.” Snow’s cold voice always softened when she whispered.

Rain faced the stained wood-fiber door and thrust her right boot into it. The flimsy material splintered and crumbled as Rain stepped through it.

The grimy efficiency compartment on the other side of the door smelled like unwashed bodies and rancid cooking oil. The odor hit her like a sledge. Gagging, she drew her blaster on the bulky figure scrambling toward the single window in the far wall.

Maxwell. His greasy black hair clung to his scalp, and his gray hoodie and sweats only made his body seem flabbier than it actually was.

He hit the window and squealed, reeling backward as Snow appeared behind it.

Maxwell spun, chunky hands raised and jowls quivering.

“I can pay you,” he exclaimed, beady brown eyes welling up with tears. “I can pay you ten times what Wallace is paying you!”

Rain snorted, lining up her shot. “If you know Wallace sent us, you know you can’t pay us off.”

Outside, Snow snapped the window into the upper part of the frame. The sulfuric stink of Venus’s atmosphere crawled into the tiny compartment as Snow slid inside, murky illuminators overhead turning her white hair grayish and dirty.

“How do you swing?” Maxwell glanced toward the closet door on the opposite wall. “If you swing for girls, I can hook you up.” He grinned nervously. “She’s a fine piece of ass, ladies.”

Rain’s stomach clenched, and she lowered her blaster.

“Are you seriously trying to buy us off with some poor bitch you’ve got tied up in this stinky-ass shithole?”

“She’s young too.” Maxwell’s grin turned darker. “Puts out like a dream. I already took her for a spin.”

Behind him, Snow watched with impassive distaste and turned her cold glare on Rain.

“Can you believe our luck, sorella?” Rain laughed.

Maxwell laughed with her.

“Wallace wants you dead, Max.” Rain lifted her blaster again. “And that means I get to kill you.” She squeezed the trigger, and the plasma burst tore through Maxwell’s head, spraying the wall with a trail of cauterized gore.

His lifeless body thumped to the grimy carpet, head half gone and mouth gaping open in shock.

“Bastard.” Rain shoved her blaster into the holster on her hip.

Standing behind the Maxwell-lump, Snow sighed heavily.

“What?” Rain kicked Maxwell’s leg out of her path as she walked toward the closet door he’d indicated. “Did you want to do it?”

“How do you intend to get him back to the Tama, Rain?” Snow pursed her lips, folding her arms across her chest. “It would have been more expedient to escort him to the ship and kill him there.”

“More expedient, yes. But this made me feel better.” Rain flung the closet door open, hand on her blaster, and froze.

Inside, curled up in a pile of filthy rags, a girl—not even a teenager yet—shuddered against the mangy wall. Chained to the floor, the girl wore nothing but a torn, bloody sheet. Her matted black hair shrouded her face in a dirty curtain of dreadlocks.

Rain glanced toward her twin. “Snow.”

Snow strode toward her, peering over Rain’s shoulder into the closet. She uttered a soft grunt.

Rain knelt and grabbed the chain. With a fierce yank, she uprooted it from the duneroach-infested paneling. The girl tightened into a smaller ball, muttering and shivering.

“Hey.” Rain bent over, trying to see the girl’s face. “Hey, you’re free. On your feet.”

The girl rocked back and forth, still whispering, still muttering.

Snorting, Rain stood up and walked back to Maxwell’s fallen form. She kicked his flabby gut.

“Shooting him at the ship would have been easier,” Rain said.

Snow arched an irritated eyebrow at her.

“I’ll get his legs.”

Rain bent to grab Maxwell’s ankles, and Snow popped her earlobe.

“Ow! What the hell was that for, you sadistic bitch?” Rain veered off, rubbing her ear angrily.

“You blew his head off. You get his shoulders. I will get his legs.” Snow bent and grabbed Maxwell’s ankles.

“Aw, geez, Snow.” Rain sagged. “Really? He’ll get all over me.”

“Still feeling better, sorellina?” Snow flashed a feral smirk.

“I hate you.”

Hauling Maxwell to the Tamatebako took the better part of two hours. By the time they dropped him in the ship’s cargo bay, Rain’s back, arms, and legs were slick with blood and other bodily fluids she didn’t want to consider. She’d cursed her sister every step of the way.

Snow didn’t stop smirking.

“Wrap him up and freeze him,” Snow said as Rain stood doubled over in the cargo bay. “We’re meeting Wallace on Thebe tomorrow, and he will smell by the time we arrive.”

“He already smells.”

“He will smell worse.” Snow paused, hand on her sword hilt, one nostril twitching. “We have a timeline to keep, Rain. Deal with this.” Her gaze darted over Rain’s shoulder. “And deal with that. Quickly.”

Rain straightened and glanced back to the ramp where a shivering figured huddled in a bloodstained sheet.

“Shit.” Rain wiped her hands on her thighs and started toward the girl in the sheet.

The pale, trembling figure tried to press herself into the structural bulkhead of the frame, burying her face out of sight.

“Hey,” Rain said, stopping just out of arm’s reach. “I said you were free. I didn’t say you could follow us.”

The girl didn’t budge.

“Kid, get the hell off of our ship.” Rain stepped closer to her and grabbed the girl’s bony shoulder through the thin fabric of the sheet.

The girl clawed at the bulkhead, but Rain pulled her off and dragged her toward the bottom of the ramp.

“I have nowhere to go.” The girl grappled with the leather cuffs on Rain’s wrists. “Please, do not send me back.”

“You’re not coming with us.” Rain pried her fingers away, but the girl redoubled her grip.

“I will pay you for passage.” The girl clung like a leech. “I will pay you whatever you ask.” She pinned Rain with wide black eyes. “Please, help me reach Orbona City.”

Ice lanced down Rain’s spine, and she scowled at the girl. “Orbona City?”

The girl gazed up at her, black eyes pleading, bloody face hopeful. She had skin like polished oak.

“What the hell do you want in Orbona City?” Rain gasped.

Orbona City was Callisto for pedophiles, a lunar township that only marketed underage prostitution. Orbona City’s population was mostly under twelve, and anyone older than that was only there for one reason.

“It’s a city of refuge,” the girl whispered, fingers trembling against Rain’s wrists. “I have to go there to find work.”

Bile rose at the back of Rain’s throat.

“Kid, you don’t know shit.” Rain scoffed. “Orbona City a refuge? It’s more of what you just walked out of. You like being chained to a wall and—”

“I can find good work there,” the girl said, almond-shaped eyes turning glassy. “I am a strong worker.”

Rain wrested out of the girl’s grip. “The only work you’ll find on Orbona City is on your back, kid.”

The girl stared at her, mouth falling open, perfect rows of white teeth shining in the planet light of Jupiter overhead. Black hair, black eyes, strong jawline and proud brow. No wonder Maxwell snapped her up.

“Trust me. I know.” Rain turned. “You don’t want to go to Orbona City.”

“But then I will be sold to Hektor!” The girl flung herself at Rain, throwing her arms around Rain’s waist and choking on her sobs. “I must not go to Hektor! Do not let me go there!”

“Get off me.” Rain pried her off and shoved her away.

The girl tripped on her sheet and stumbled backward. She hit the ramp on her backside and rolled down to the yellow-tinged dirt. Hiccupping in grief, the girl wrapped herself in the sheet again and pressed her face into her knees.

“Hektor.” Rain snorted. “You only go to Hektor if the snatchers grab you.” She started up the ramp. “And if they come for you, you’d be better off to slit your wrists.”

As bad as Orbona City was, the death pits of Hektor were ten times worse. Hektor provided a convenient solution for overpopulated city centers, but not a convenient death by any means. No death on Hektor was ever easy or fast.

Rain paused at the top of the ramp and glanced back at the girl, still huddled in a ball in the yellow dirt.

We’re on a schedule. We have places to go, people to shoot, money to make. She narrowed her eyes at the girl. But we can’t just leave her here.

“Snow’s going to skin me.”

Rain turned on her heel and stalked down to the bottom of the ramp. She seized the girl’s elbow and hauled her to her feet in spite of her protests.

“You’re coming with us,” Rain said.

“To Orbona City?” the girl exclaimed, black eyes shining.

“Hell, no.” Rain flung her to the floor grates in the cargo bay as she shut the ramp. “I don’t know where we’ll take you, but we aren’t taking you there.”

The girl pulled the sheet around herself tightly, and Rain pulled her toward the spiraling steel stairwell in the corner of the cargo bay. But she froze on the last step as Snow stepped into view.

On first glance, Snow Stormcloud didn’t seem frightening. Average height. Slender build. Sure, the vast assortment of sharp objects belted around her waist gave most people pause, but most of the time, nobody figured Snow could be much of a threat. A woman that beautiful wouldn’t possibly risk breaking her nails in a fight, right?

Oh, so wrong.

“Hey, sorella.” Rain shrugged.

“Why is it here?” Snow glared at the girl in the sheet.

“I’m handling it.”

Snow turned on her heel and strode toward the bridge, jaw muscles ticking in irritation. Yeah, Snow would skin her alive in her sleep. Rain groaned and pulled the girl after her down the corridor to her quarters. The Tamatebako shuddered as the engines kicked on, and the bulkheads rattled as Snow guided the ship out of the atmosphere and into the void of space.

Rain opened the door to her room and shoved the girl inside. “Clean yourself up. I’ll find you something to wear.” She didn’t wait for the girl to answer and shut the door.

She sagged against the bulkhead and ran her fingers into her hair.

“What the hell?” She asked the shadows. “What am I doing?”

“Good question.”

Rain dropped her hands and grunted as a towel smacked her in the face.

She glared as Snow reappeared, illuminators making the black streaks in her vibrant white hair look like daggers.

“You are covered in Maxwell’s filth.” Snow pointed at her. “Wipe yourself down while you explain that creature to me.”

“I couldn’t just leave her.” Rain toweled her arms, shoulders, and back off.

“We do not pick up strays, Rain,” Snow said. “We are delivering Maxwell’s body to Wallace, and we are leaving. That creature will only complicate matters.”

“Look.” Rain bunched the towel in her hands. “Somebody told the kid she needed to get to Orbona City to get a job.”

The muscle at the back of Snow’s jaw clenched.

“Somebody also told her that her only other option is Hektor.”

And there went Snow’s nostrils. Twitching and flaring. Yeah, Hektor wasn’t exactly a happy memory for either of them.

“The kid didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“She is not your responsibility.” Snow pointed to the cargo bay. “Maxwell is your responsibility. He is seeping all over the flooring grates. If we deliver the body to Wallace in that state, Wallace may shoot us just for the hell of it.”

That was entirely possible.

Marshall Wallace, former bankroller for the Black Dragons, worked for himself nowadays, but everybody knew working for him was tantamount to throwing in with the syndicates. Nobody crossed Wallace.

The Stormclouds tried to stay away from him, but every now and then he threw a job at them that they couldn’t refuse. Maxwell had been one of those jobs. And working for Wallace wasn’t all that bad. Wasn’t all good either, but they had worse clients.

Besides, Wallace had a soft spot if you knew where to poke.

Wait a minute.

“Why would you bring this child into our affairs, Rain?”

Rain threw the towel at her sister. “I’ve got an idea.”

Snow held the towel between index finger and thumb, lips curled in disgust.

Rain glanced at the door to her quarters. “It’s crazy, but it might work. And it’ll be a better place for the girl than anywhere else.”

“You have not answered my question, sorellina.”

Rain sighed, eyes still fixed on the door. “Nobody helped us, Snow.” She let her shoulders slope. “I just couldn’t leave her.”

Snow lifted her chin and sighed heavily. She turned, without a word, and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor. She tossed the filthy towel in the trash chute as she passed.

That was positive. At least she didn’t skewer the girl and toss her into the trash chute. Snow had done worse before.

While the girl washed up, Rain dashed down to the cargo bay to wrap Maxwell’s headless body in poly-sheeting and douse him in cryospray. She rolled him onto a pallet and belted him down.

They could grab a hoverlift at the Arcadia docks on Thebe, and moving him would be a breeze.

Running up the stairwell, Rain eyed the door to her quarters. Still closed. So she hurried down the corridor to the storage closet and pulled the door open. Inside, she pawed through several bins of odds and ends until she found a solid-color sundress that would fit the girl. Who knew where it had come from? But at least they wouldn’t arrive on Thebe with a girl wearing nothing but a sheet.

That would leave everybody with the wrong impression.

When Rain reached the door to her quarters, the girl had just opened it. Her black hair dripped in long straight strands to her waist, and her face brightened in a smile as Rain handed the dress to her.

“Cover up.” Rain rolled her eyes. “Running around naked doesn’t work in the rest of the system, kid.” She snorted. “Well, it works in some places, depending on your line of work.”

The girl pulled the dress over her head and spun in a circle. The illuminators shone on the beaded turquoise necklace around her neck.

Rain sank into the chair in the corner. “What’s your name, kid?”

The girl wrapped her arms around herself. “Tala.”

Cleaned up, she didn’t look so pitiful. Long legs and arms, high cheekbones and proud features. What nationality was she? Not from Mars. She wasn’t a Venus native either.

Natives of Venus had a distinct yellowish tinge in the whites of their eyes. Not this kid.

She didn’t seem like a colony brat either. Kids on space colonies usually went into homes or rehab programs instead of being tossed to the void to fend for themselves.

“Where are you from?” Rain asked before she could stop herself.

The girl smiled. “Earth.”

“That’s a load of shit.” Rain scratched her nose.

Nothing good came from Earth.

The girl frowned, black eyebrows drawing together. “I lived with my grandmother in the preserved lands.”

Rain sat back. “No kidding.”

No wonder the girl seemed off. People from the First Nations settlements rarely left their compounds, and the ones who did were so deeply inbred that they couldn’t function in normal society.

“What purity?” Rain scowled. “An eighth? A quarter?”

As though the girl would know. The purest First Nation squatter Rain had ever met had been mostly NUItalian, but he’d had enough Cheyenne in him to qualify for entrance into the preserved lands.

“Cherokee.”

Rain rolled her eyes. “Fine. Cherokee. Whatever the hell that is. Is that your tribe? What purity are you?”

The girl kept frowning. “I am Cherokee. My mother was Cherokee. My father was Cherokee. My mother’s mother and my father’s father, for generations and generations. We are all Cherokee.” Tala beamed. “People of the Earth.”

Rain leaned forward. “You’re not saying—are you a full-blood?”

The girl scowled again.

“Kid, I’ve never met a full-blood from the First Nations. Are you sure?” Rain’s heart leapt. This might actually work.

“That’s what Grandmother told me.” Tala yawned hugely and blinked.

Rain pointed to the bunk built into the wall. “It’ll be a while before we reach Thebe. You should sleep.”

The girl eyed the bunk with a skeptical glance, and she hugged herself. “I can’t sleep. Maxwell wouldn’t let me.”

Rain stood and ushered the girl to the bunk. “You can. That jackass can’t tell you what to do anymore. He can’t hurt you anymore either.” She lifted the girl into the bed and pulled a blanket over her. “Comfy, huh?”

Tala frowned up at her. “It’s lumpy.”

“Lumpy?” Rain sniffed. “Everyone’s a critic.”

Tala threaded her fingers into Rain’s and stared up at her. “Are you taking me to Orbona City?”

“No,” Rain said. “I already told you. We’re taking you to Arcadia. It’s a city on Thebe where you can get a good job. You don’t want to go to Orbona City.”

Rain pulled away, but Tala held on. “What is this ship?”

“The Tamatebako.” Rain shook her hand trying to break free of Tala’s grip.

“That’s a funny name.” Tala giggled. “What does it mean?”

“Who the hell cares? Let go.”

Rain wrenched out of Tala’s grip, but the girl grabbed on with her other hand. “Don’t leave me alone, please?”

Rain sighed. “Nothing will get you here, kid. Just go to sleep.”

Tears formed in Tala’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

“Would you quit with the waterworks?” Rain sagged against the bulkhead. “Shit, kid, just go to sleep. You’ll feel better.”

Tala bit her quivering lower lip, shining tears trailing down her cheeks.

Damn it to hell. When did I turn soft? Rain lowered her head. “If I tell you a story, will you go to sleep?”

Tala blinked at her. “What’s it about?”

Rain pressed her back into the bulkhead and smiled at the ceiling tiles. “It’s an old legend from Earth. So maybe you’ve heard it, but I doubt it.”

Tala rolled to her side. “Tell me, please.”

“On Old Earth, thousands of years ago, this old fisherman rescued a turtle.” Rain glanced down at the girl. “Do you know what a turtle is?”

“The green animal who lives in his shell.”

“Right.” Rain crossed her arms. “Well, this fisherman saved a turtle one day, and then he discovered that the turtle was magic. And the magic turtle belonged to the Queen of the Sea.”

Tala’s black eyes widened as she gasped in wonder.

“To thank the fisherman for saving the turtle, the Queen of the Sea invited him to her palace under the ocean.” Rain rested her head against the wall. “The queen and her court fed him all sorts of wonderful things. Juicy fruits and hearty meats and rich desserts. It was one hell of a party, and the fisherman was the hero.”

“Did he marry the queen?”

Rain chuckled. “Naw. I mean, they probably got it on. Who know? I would’ve. It’s the freakin’ queen of the sea. That’s got to earn you points somewhere.” She shrugged. “But the fisherman was ready to go home, and so the queen gave him a gift—an ugly old box called a tamatebako.”

Tala gasped. “That’s the name of your ship.”

“The queen told the fisherman that he should never open the tamatebako, because even though it looked worthless on the outside, it contained the most priceless gift of all.” Rain allowed herself to smile, feeling the warmth of knowing the end of the story before she told it. “So the fisherman went home.”

“Is that the end?” Tala whispered.

“No,” Rain looked down at her. “Because when the fisherman got home, he discovered that everything he knew was gone. Everyone he knew had died, because even though he’d only been with the queen for a few days, three hundred years had passed.”

Tala covered her mouth with her hands. “That’s so sad.”

Rain turned to the bunk and pulled the blanket up over Tala’s shoulder. “Story’s not over yet, kid. Since he didn’t have anything left to lose, the fisherman opened the tamatebako.”

“What was inside?” Tala yawned again.

Rain smiled. “All the years the fisherman had lost. When he opened the queen’s gift, he got all his years back.”

“Did he die?” Tala pinned Rain with her dark eyes.

“Yeah, he did,” Rain said. “But he didn’t have to keep living knowing he’d lost everyone he’d ever loved.”

Tala yawned again. “He went to be with them.” Her eyes drifted shut. “He left his shell and went home to the Great Spirit.”

Rain chuckled. “Whatever you say, kid.” She brushed the girl’s hair back. “Sounds like a happy ending to me.”

Tala breathed slowly, in and out, sleeping soundly. Rain switched the light on the wall off and stepped back toward the door to the room and paused, finding it open. She stepped into the corridor and stopped.

Snow leaned on the wall beside the door, arms crossed, eyes shut. Rain turned and shut the door.

“What?” she asked.

“I have not heard that story in many years,” Snow said quietly. “I did not realize you still remembered it.”

With a shaking breath, Rain pressed her hand against the door. “How could I forget it, sorella? You told me that story every night on Orbona City, when we were hiding from the gangs and the pimps and the snatchers.”

“It was the only story I knew,” Snow whispered.

“It helped me sleep,” Rain said. “I figured it would help Tala.”

Snow shook her head. “You are going to give her to Wallace, aren’t you?”

Rain nodded. “Wallace has a soft spot for traumatized orphans, sorella. That’s why he keeps hiring us.”

“He hires us because we complete jobs on time.”

Rain smirked. “That too.” She jerked her head at the door. “But Tala’s a First Nation pure-blood. You don’t meet those every day. That’ll be worth something to Wallace. And he hates whorehouses, so he can find work for her somewhere decent.”

Snow’s shoulders sloped with the weight of her sigh. “We cannot stop for every lost cause we encounter, Rain.”

Snow looked old, far older than she should have. Anyone in the business knew the Stormcloud sisters were the system’s most heartless mercenaries, and they knew Snow was the most heartless of all. But Rain knew her twin sister better than that. There was no ice in Snow Stormcloud’s heart. That’s why she seemed cold on the outside.

“Tala’s not lost, sorella,” Rain said softly. “We found her.”

Snow clenched her fists against her elbows. “And if Wallace does not take her?”

“He’ll take her.”

“If he does not take her?” Snow tilted her head.

“He’ll take her.” Rain leaned against the opposite wall and grinned. “Think positive.”

With another heavy sigh, Snow pushed off the wall and started up the corridor toward the bridge. “Thebe is her place of harbor regardless, Rain. Strays are not welcome here.”

Rain snickered. “What if she can cook?”

Snow glared over her shoulder at Rain, and Rain laughed.

As Snow disappeared into the control room, Rain leaned her head against the bulkhead wall and smiled faintly at the door to her quarters. Wallace would take Tala. And even though he was an opportunistic, syndicate-bred bastard, he had standards. He’d do her right. No hellholes like Orbona City for Tala. No nightmares like Hektor either.

Rain ran her fingers over one of the rivets in the bulkhead, still smiling.

“Our Tamatebako,” she murmured softly.

Their reward after a pit match on Hektor that they both survived. Their key to freedom and life on their own terms. The years they’d lost as children finally reclaimed as adults.

A loud clanking rattled the floor grates, and the ship shuddered as it lurched into the bluish-green haze of psuedospace, engines warbling like a child’s battle cry.

It didn’t look like much, but the Tamatebako’s treasure was on the inside. It meant a new life with new names and a new future together.

“You helped us out.” Rain patted the wall fondly. “Maybe you can help Tala too.”

She started toward the engine room, leaving Tala to sleep as long as she could while the engines chirped a cheerful lullaby.