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It's a bad habit, watching the transport pods unload their prisoners. But who would Jesper be without a lifetime of mistakes? Probably someone who didn't have an executioner's rifle strapped to his back, not having fucked up his life to the point where his only option was a contract aboard this damned prison ship. It's a bad habit to watch each face shuffling aboard, if only for the faintest chance of growing an attachment to one. No one comes here without a death sentence.
"Again, Fahey?" comes a rasp from next to him. "You shouldn't be watching this."
Jesper spares Kaz a glance. "And yet you're here."
Kaz doesn't reply. This is their weekly pattern, Kaz and Jesper making their own separate ways to the central bridge to watch the arrivals. Jesper does it out of morbid curiosity and sheer lack of better things to do. Kaz's eyes never leave the transport pods until their last prisoners have been shoved out.
"Heard from Helvar that this batch is from Kerch-02," Jesper says conversationally, as if it were galley rations they were spectating instead of people. It's yet another attempt at desensitizing himself, not that he's made much headway these past few years. "Said they're political prisoners."
This earns him a grunt of acknowledgement. No doubt, this wasn't new information to Kaz. Nothing happens in or to this ship without his knowledge. As far as his identity scan is concerned, Kaz is a rank and file executioner. Yeah, for now. Somehow, Jesper doubts a simple promotion is what Kaz is angling for.
The prisoners shuffle in slowly, shackles around their ankles preventing any sudden moves. The bosses don't want ammo wasted on shooting blindly into a riot. Handcuffs keep their arms secured behind their backs. Their ratty purple uniforms would have been a dead giveaway as to their origin world even without Matthias' foreknowledge. Kerch-02 acts like affording dye for their prison garb makes them higher and mightier than Suli Ravka or the Fjerdan lunar colony, but they're all one and the same: societies that send their undesirables off-surface to be eliminated by the same damn bullets on the same damn ship.
Jesper loathes waking up every artificial morning, stepping into his blood-red suit and trudging down to the "office" with the other couple dozen executioners to "clear out the day's assignments." It's horrid, really, to term it so flippantly, but the bosses consider it the pinnacle of comedy. It's murder. Jesper stays on because his da deserves the salary credits more than Jesper deserves a clear conscience.
Kaz is here on his own personal mission, one that Jesper knows involves all hell breaking loose the moment a certain light-footed assassin arrives on a transport pod. It could just as easily have been Jesper captured by the Stadwatch swarmers, awaiting certain doom in a penal colony, but Inej sacrificed herself instead. The life debt he owes her is the other reason he keeps on.
"She's not here," Jesper murmurs to Kaz. It's stating the obvious, the pod doors having slid themselves back into place after the last prisoner emerged. The captain disengages from the dock and lifts off. He'll be back with his next batch of shattered spirits soon enough.
By the time they reach the ship, most prisoners have finished processing their fates. They've cried all there is to cry, depleted the last reserves of their anger, and accepted that this is the end for them. There's so little life in their eyes that they're nearly corpses even before the bullets.
Usually.
Jesper grips the handrail as he watches the grim procession approach. Some of their uniforms are torn, singed, even missing articles entirely, but every manacle is in perfect condition. Slumped shoulders and blank gazes abound. It's the same look as when they step up to the firing line, their identification number called for the final time.
This time, though, one prisoner stands out. When he nears, Jesper can't help but notice the fire still blazing in his eyes. It's evident in how he holds himself, standing tall as he shuffles toward his death. He's not the first to have made it to the prison ship unbroken, but something feels different about this man. Like he doesn't belong here.
Kaz notices the focus of Jesper's attention. "Don't get attached," he says gruffly. Novice mistake. Every prisoner's final breath will be aboard this ship.
The man must sense eyes on him, because his gaze flickers up to the bridge. His eyes are electric blue, his hair like the purest copper ore. It's as if he's challenging the pair of executioners to try their best to douse his inner flame. Jesper's foolish heart stutters.
"Don't you think there's something different about him?" he asks helplessly. That's a prince in chains, not some cocky two-bit criminal who picked the wrong government outpost to plasma-stun.
"Not my problem." Kaz heaves a deep sigh, verging on a groan of frustration, but makes no motion to leave. This is him saying he doesn't outright dismiss Jesper's theory. That he senses something too.
The prisoners risk being moved up the queue if they cause a scene. Honestly, it might be a relief to some, given the inevitable. But it's rare for anyone to bother.
This man bothers. His lips are moving, but Jesper doesn't make it out. Away from the grime and the death, he wonders how soft those lips could be. He's mouthing two words, repeating with as much exaggeration as he can risk without being caught. Kaz translates.
"Scan him."
Oh. They call it the wristwatch, for lack of a better descriptor. It's how they clock in, clock out, run analyses on anything that can be placed in its sights. Identification in both directions. Jesper calls up the interface and aims it at the princely prisoner just as he passes by their spot on the bridge.
ID: 247290-W
Designation: Marked for Disposal
Origin: GD-3MC, Ketterdam Colony, Kerch-02
Infraction:
Jesper blinks at that last line. Squints at it. "There's nothing there."
He wants to reboot his watch and run the scan again, but the technology's never failed him before. He swings the scanner toward some of the prisoners in the man's vicinity. Treason; Modification of Government Property; Public Dissent. Everyone else has a cited reason for being here, for bearing their shared designation. This man's reason doesn't exist.
At the far end of the cavernous main hall, the doors to the holding bay grind open. It's a dungeon in there, reeking of decay and human refuse. The prince catches Jesper's eye one last time, his gaze bold and unbroken and breathtakingly blue, before he has no choice but to shuffle on to his final living quarters. Even if he's done no wrong.
That is, unless Jesper does something about it. There's an escape hatch on the upper deck, just past the med bay's unmonitored storage chamber. Nina showed him once. He's getting ahead of himself, he knows that, but the blank entry on the prisoner's card is going to haunt his dreams tonight. The blank entry and the fire in those blue eyes.
It's treasonous to contemplate, that much is obvious. Any rescue plan Jesper could cobble together from what little he knows of Kaz's plans for Inej is all but guaranteed to end with him at the business end of a colleague's rifle. And yet.
"Kaz…"
"It's your funeral."
Jesper's gaze lingers on copper curls disappearing into the sea of ragged purple figures. Damn it, this is why he shouldn't have spectated the transport pod delivery. Too late for that now. He's gone and gotten attached to Prisoner 247290-W.