Free Killbox (2010) by Ann Aguirre

my lead. He's genuinely surprised when I take him to the comm room instead of our quarters. Amusement stretches my smile--Mary, it's good not to worry about offending anyone by showing my teeth.
    "Constance pinged me earlier," I say. "But I didn't want to interrupt the party."
    She slips from ship to station and back again, riding the beams like a ghost in the wires. Has anyone ever used a PA like this before? For good or ill, she monitors all the information coming and going; she looks for patterns and presents her findings, as I asked her to on Ithiss-Tor.
    His dark face becomes wary. "Tell me it's good news."
    "She only said we'd already gotten a response to your broadcast." I lean in and activate the message she's left queued up.
    An image flickers to life on-screen, good quality compared to the distress calls we've been watching. The man is a little older than March, skull-cut black hair and a darkly handsome face. At first I don't recognize him, then he smiles. The two gold teeth are a dead giveaway.
    "Hon," March breathes. "I thought he was too smart to get blown up on station. He wouldn't have trusted the Conglomerate to get close enough to kill him before he ran."
    The pirate looks older with his locks shorn off, but no less appealing. "Surprise," he greets us. "I'm tired of lying low. Farwan destroyed most of my resources, so I'm willing to consider a truce, if you make a good offer. Let me know."
    I glance at March. "Do you trust him?"
    "Not any farther than I can throw him." He grins. "But he'll make a strong ally. His name still has power in the Outskirts, and where Hon goes, others will follow."
    "He won't like working for you, Commander." I add his rank in a teasing tone.
    "But he'll like legal raids . . . and seizing property in an official capacity. What we're talking about is Conglomerate-sanctioned piracy, turning smugglers to our purposes."
    "So you'll tell him to come?"
    In answer, he tells the computer: "Bounce a reply immediately: Record on."
    "Acknowledged." To my surprise it's Constance.
    "My offers stands," March says. "It applies to any captain and crew. Report to Emry for more details." He pauses, then adds, "I'm glad to see you, man."
    Really? I wouldn't have thought so.
    He's so much a part of me now that there's no warm prickle because he's almost always touching my mind lightly, so March answers aloud without even realizing what he's done. "He's one of the few people who remembers Svet. I could talk about her with him."
    Anyone who wasn't a jumper would find that constant presence awful and invasive, but I'm used to it. Part of me wishes I could do that for him, too, outside the nav computer, so he could know that comfort, too.
    "Didn't Dina know her well?" She's been with him the longest, as I recall.
    Doc came later, after he finished his medical training off Lachion. Of us all, Keri has known him longest, but never met his sister. And despite her leadership of the clan, he doesn't think of her as someone he could lean on. She always turns to him for help.
    March shakes his head. "They met once or twice on Gehenna, I think, before Svet went to work for Farwan. But you know how Dina is when we put into port."
    I grin. "I know how she used to be. But I take your point--Hon's the only one left. No wonder you want to see him."
    There's weight in those words. People only live as long as someone remembers them, and for a while, March thought he was the only living soul with memory of his sister. Maybe there are ex-Farwan employees out there somewhere who knew her, but how would he find them? And what would he say if he did? You can't reminisce with a stranger.
    "This is a good omen." March pushes to his feet and reaches for me. "Any other urgent messages I need to see before we retire?"
    I smile up at him. "Nope, that's the only one. But there will be more." Leaning my head against his chest, I close my eyes for a moment, just enjoying his warmth. "Tarn couldn't have done better than you for this