At Blue Sun Outpost 6519 on Lilac
"Jet, don't you think this is a little... morbid?" Pipsqueak asked, and he sighed through clenched teeth.
"Look, I don't wanna do this, but we can't go back empty-handed. Don't get paid if you don't get the goods," he replied darkly, rifling through the outpost's pathetic bank; they'd come back at night, after hiding out in a canyon until they were sure the Reavers had gone, returning to finish the job in the dead of night. He'd contacted Fanty and Mingo earlier with the news that they'd been hit by Reavers but no one was dead (yet) and they'd still get the job done.
Because that was Jet's reputation: Jet got the job done, period.
Without Toph to break the locks, he'd been forced to forget about subtlety altogether and shoot them off. He'd used a lot more ammo than he could really afford, but once his finger had hit the trigger, it was like he couldn't pry it away till his gun was empty. It had alerted the one lonely security guard left on duty — his coworkers must've gone home to bury their families after the Reaver attack — but Bee had knocked him out with her trusty chokehold before Jet could reload, and re-empty, his machine gun.
That's too much fire for this, Bee had told him, there's no call for an automatic. She was right — the job sure as hell didn't need that kind of artillery — but she was wrong, too, because Jet needed that kind of artillery, something that would make enough noise to block out the echo of Toph screaming in his head.
It didn't matter, none of it mattered. They just had to get the cargo and get gone, do the job and get back to Beaumonde and get paid. Do the job, just — just do the job.
Never mind that one of his crew was laid up with a hole going straight through her, never mind that he still had the top bits of a Reaver ship scraping around in his cargo bay, never mind that none of them had any sleep, never mind that the Avatar had fallen into their laps and no one knew what to do with him, never mind that the Alliance was on the hunt, never mind that another war was brewing and it was all their fault, never mind that all they had left to eat were two protein bars and a box of raisins, never mind — never mind.
Never mind.
Do the job.
It was Jet's reputation: Jet got the job done. Period.
On Freedom
"How is she?" Mai asked, slipping into the door like a ghost. Jet looked up.
"Same, mostly," he replied gruffly. "Ship's falling apart and my mechanic had to go and get herself — " he cut himself off with a sneer. He kept trying to be mad at Toph, 'cause if he got mad at her he wouldn't have to be scared, and Jet didn't get scared over his caustic mechanic. Of course, Mai saw right through him. Even on a good day, he'd have to get up real early to fool Mai anyhow, but it wasn't like he was making a convincing job of it to anyone tonight, not even himself.
"She's strong," she said quietly, leaning against the counter beside him. This close, he could see she'd been trying to sleep, hair a bit out of place and shadows under eyes already smudged with old makeup, but she must not have been having any more luck than the rest of them. Toph's situation had the whole ship on-edge — even the always-cheerful Aang was silent and antsy, sitting in the cargo bay the last time Jet had seen him, making tornadoes in his hands and ignoring the rest of the world.
"Takes more'n strong to survive a harpoon to the stomach," he growled, running a hand through his hair. "Doc says she needs better antibiotics than what we got."
"And?" she prompted. He ran his hand over his face, sweat-streaked and dusty; but he was too tired and his head was too heavy to go about cleaning up just yet.
"Fanty and Mingo only paid a quarter up front for the Lilac job," he explained without looking at either of the women in the room, "only got us enough fuel to get there and back... we can't get that kinda medicine and get back to Beaumonde."
"But if she goes septic," Mai continued for him, "she'll be dead before we get there."
"And I can't just let her die," he finished. "Even if she wasn't one o' my crew — Toph's all that keeps this ship runnin' most days."
"I know," she said sardonically, "she complains about it enough."
Jet smirked, fonder than he wanted to be. "Yeah, but you know the secret?" he asked, leaning in conspiratorially. "She likes it that way. Makes her feel important, gives her somethin' to be proud of." The smirk fell off his face as he watched Toph, laying still as death on the bed, and his gut twisted uncomfortably.
Toph was one of his crew, and that was more important than how good a mechanic she was. She was one of his, and he always looked out for his own.
She needed the medication — and fast, before she was too sick for it to work — but none of them had the money to get it; the only people who might've been rich enough to do it (Mai or Katara or Zuko) had all their accounts frozen or crashed outright now that they were outlaws like the rest of them.
All of that left one option: get more money, and get it now.
"So what are you going to do?" Mai asked, in that almost-challenging tone that Bee used sometimes, to snap him out of whatever world he was lost in, bring him back to reality.
"Ezra's not far from here — way the systems are right now, it's a lot closer'n Beaumonde," he replied, sighing again. "I've heard of a lady, operates out of Ezra's sky, she's always got some job opening."
"What's the catch?"
He shot her a wry smile — just like Mai, only person in the 'verse more cynical than him. In this part of the black, her practicality and glass-half-empty attitude were two of her greatest strengths. "She ain't exactly known for being overly friendly, or 'specially sane."
"I'm sure her gold glitters exactly like everyone else's does," Mai said, and he leaned heavily against the counter.
"And we can't do without it," he muttered, and then glanced at her. "You know you still owe us for springin' Katara, right?" he said, partly to change the subject but mostly in the vague hope that she'd emptied her accounts in time and had somehow just forgotten about it.
Mai scowled and stepped forward, smoothing Toph's hair, probably more to occupy her hands than anything else. He noticed that she was shaking, and it surprised him — did Mai really care about Toph that much? He'd never pegged her for the sentimental type.
"My accounts are still frozen," she said, and only the slightest change in tone told him that she was pissed about that. "I didn't expect it to take this long to — " she cut herself off and changed tacks before she said anything else in that line of thought, "I'm completely out of money right now," she said in a soft voice, and it occurred to him that this was probably the first time in her whole life that that sentence had ever been true.
It should have felt good, seeing the disgustingly wealthy Fire Nation noblewoman-turned-Companion completely broke, but it didn't. He didn't want to think about why.
"I know you're good for it," he said, shrugging. "Just don't wanna forget."
"I won't," she replied coolly, and they stood together in the silence, watching Toph's ragged, shallow breathing.
In orbit around the planet Ezra
Jet was all kinds of unhappy about this.
The only way to get into the skyplex was with a shuttle, since Hama was a paranoid old woman and would shoot ships right out of the black if they were anything bigger than a standard short-range; that meant he could only bring a couple of people on board with him, since shuttles weren't really supposed to hold more than four. Bee was a shoo-in, and with Toph and her lie-detecting skills out, it fell to the next best thing: Longshot, who was usually good at picking up on subtle tells. He didn't dare bring more, since he needed Hama too bad to risk pissing her off.
He'd heard rumors — everyone on this side of the system had — about the kinds of things Hama did if someone wronged her, things that left him on-edge as he walked through the halls, flanked by Bee and Longshot, all three of them with guns at their backs.
The door to Hama's office opened and he found himself staring into a tattoo — which he belatedly realized was attached to a face on a man so big he dwarfed Pipsqueak — and he only just managed to keep a startled yell in his throat. He was dressed like an old-timey gladiator, too much muscle and not enough clothes, and Jet idly wondered what terribly embarrassing secret he was hiding under all that testosterone.
"Crow, let them in," a creaky female voice said, and the giant man stepped aside. The old woman was lounging in her chair and carving up a fruit with a little paring knife, and she might've seemed harmless if it wasn't for how intent she was on digging that knife into the fruit, like it had personally offended her. "Don't mind him," Hama assured them. "He thinks it sets the atmosphere when he stands at the door and says boo."
She waved the big man off and walked around the desk, peering at them intently. "Jonathan Reynolds," she mused, pulling a large, bright orange wedge out of the fruit. "I've heard quite a bit about you. What brings you out my way?" she asked lightly.
"Heard you had a job," he said firmly, and she nodded.
"Of course, I always do. Today, it's a train job," she told him, biting into the fruit. "There is cargo on the train that I want. I will pay you half today, and half when you deliver my cargo to Crow tomorrow evening. Sound reasonable?"
"Sure," he replied quickly, lusting over the mango. He'd had nothing but rationed protein for two months; the thought of fresh fruit made his insides ache.
"You're not asking what the cargo is?" she asked, watching him carefully. He shook his head, and she smiled tightly. "I've heard good things about you, Captain Reynolds," she said, "but I generally don't hold stock in rumors. Tell me, why should I pay you?"
Taken off-guard, the only response he could come up with was: "'Cause we need the money, bad as you get." Instead of trying to backtrack, he plunged forward, banking on his reputation as a mercenary who'd do anything for the right price. He didn't figure Hama as the sort to answer to flattery, anyway. "Ain't got enough to make it any other place and I got someone who'll die if we don't get cash for meds quick."
She smiled. "Good, good. I like dealing with desperate men, less in the way of surprises. However, I have heard a few... other things about you," she said delicately, "that make me think I need to make a few things nice and clear before we can agree to a deal. Crow." She nodded to the big man, who slid a panel on the wall aside to reveal a window to another room, where an unfamiliar white-haired woman was strung up by her wrists, blood on her arms and sprinkled in her hair.
Hama waved her hand towards the woman, who convulsed like she'd been struck by lightning, her scream silent through the walls. "Now, I believe you when you say you're desperate, but I've known desperate men to grow ideals after getting paid," she explained in a low voice. "I trust we won't have any trouble with that kind of nonsense, will we?" Half-ignored, the woman's muffled screams broke down into sobs.
He clenched his jaw tight and swallowed the desire to pull out a gun and play the hero he couldn't be anymore. "No, ma'am," he answered, and was surprised at the confidence in his voice. "Got rid o' all my ideals some years back."
"You would be amazed," Hama said softly, leaning against the window, "at how hard those are to kill. Look at you now! All fired up with righteous indignation," she cried, each syllable hard and low with something like mockery. "Seven penniless years out of the war and you still think the world works in black and white. You're good and just, they're evil and cruel. Am I wrong?" He didn't answer, but she took his silence as one anyhow. "How hypocritcal... but then," she added, louder, shrugging, "I hardly have room to talk, do I? We may be evil people — " he flinched at the inclusion " — but at least we're fair, that's how I see it. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. I like what I've seen and heard about you, Jonathan Reynolds. I believe we're cut out of the same cloth."
He didn't dare open his mouth to speak. Even if he could form proper words, they'd only get them all killed, and — no matter what Hama was — he still needed the money too bad to fight for someone else.
"You think I shouldn't kill her, don't you?" Hama asked, leaning forward. When he didn't reply, she prompted him: "Go on, that's not a trick question. You don't. You can say it."
"I'm sure she's a very bad woman," he replied tightly, and after a moment of searching his face, Hama smiled like he'd said just the right thing, then stood up straighter and walked over to her desk.
"Enough about us," she declared brightly. "Let's talk about the job." She laid an old-fashioned paper map on her desk, pointing to two towns connected by a red line someone had highlighted before. "The train runs from Hancock to Paradiso," she explained, tracing the line. "You get on the train at Hancock, and have the cargo off the train by the time it reaches Paradiso. Take it to this place," she continued, tracing another line from Paradiso into the wilderness, "where you will hand it off to Crow and receive the rest of your pay. Nice and straightforward."
"I like straightforward," Jet replied, staring at the map and swallowing hard in an effort to get the taste of blood out of his mouth. "This a civilian train, yeah?"
"Correct," she answered breezily, and Longshot shifted in his peripheral vision — lie. "Here are your tickets," she continued, pulling out an envelope and placing the tickets and a sheaf of credits into it, sending a jolt of nauseating greed down his spine, "one for you and one other passenger. I suggest you come up with a good reason to be on that train, in case something goes wrong. If you're captured, we've never met.
"Also," she explained benevolently, as she sealed the envelope and handed it over to him, "the first half of your payment, and — because I like you so much — I'm adding a little extra so you can get a day or two's doses of the medicine you need to save whoever needs saving. I'm not heartless, after all," she added with a smile. He wanted to throw it back at her, but he wouldn't be here at all if he had the luxury of refusing charity, even if it was only offered to seal her deal and put him in her debt. "The train leaves tomorrow morning at 0700 on the nose. I trust you can take care of the details."
She dismissed them with a wave of her hand, and Crow opened the door to let them out. He glanced at Longshot, who was staring passively ahead, and at Bee, who was peering at a bookshelf intently like she was real interested in reading the titles — if either of them had something to say to Hama (or to him), they were keeping it locked up tight.
"Pleasure doing business with you," he said in that same confident voice. Hama smiled again, and raised her mango in a mock toast.