by Juno Wells
Vrix
The Galaxos Crew: Book Two
Layla Nash
Juno Wells
Contents
1. Griggs
2. Vrix
3. Griggs
4. Vrix
5. Griggs
6. Vrix
7. Griggs
8. Vrix
9. Griggs
10. Vrix
11. Griggs
12. Vrix
13. Griggs
14. Vrix
15. Griggs
16. Vrix
17. Griggs
18. Vrix
19. Griggs
20. Vrix
21. Griggs
22. Vrix
23. Griggs
24. Vrix
25. Griggs
26. Vrix
27. Griggs
28. Vrix
29. Griggs
30. Vrix
31. Griggs
32. Griggs
33. Griggs
34. Vrix
35. Griggs
Connect with Juno
Also by Juno and Layla
Copyright © 2017 by Layla Nash and Juno Wells
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Kasmit Covers
Griggs
Griggs picked up another stave and whirled it in the air as she watched the half dozen women and several Xaravians who stood in the gym, and frowned as she studied their forms. Three weeks into a class on Mykosian staff fighting and most of them still had terrible footwork and fumbled the hell out of their staffs. Griggs shook her head and went to correct Estelle's grip.
"Remember, one-third down and one-third up is where your hands need to be. Bend your knees. Lean forward slightly from the waist. Drop the end of the staff, and—strike. One, two, three—step back. Good."
Griggs never liked teaching, but she needed to do something to keep from going crazy on the Galaxos and the Heisenberg. Even with two ships to run, there didn't seem to be enough to stay busy. She had to grudgingly admit that the Xaravians were efficient in most of the things they did, which included handling spaceships with minimal crews.
Griggs glanced around at the class, relieved that Vrix hadn't demonstrated any interest in joining in. The man would be a serious distraction, with the way he watched her. She felt hunted half the time, like a tasty treat he was just waiting to get.
"Okay. Reset and start again from the beginning. Fighting crouch, left foot forward half a step, staff raised over your head. On my count—"
Before she could begin the form again, absently twirling the staff in one of the more advanced moves, the communicator in the room buzzed. Griggs frowned. "Go ahead."
"Griggs, we have a distress call coming in. Please get to the bridge." It was Isla, though her voice sounded strange. Tense and worried, and not at all like Isla.
The back of Griggs's neck prickled in warning and she braced for the worst. "Aye aye, I'm on my way."
She put the stave aside and pointed at Rowan. "Take over for me. Run through the forms three more times, then do a cool down and stretch."
Rowan hopped to the front of the room, looking relieved that she didn't have to maintain the fighting crouch a moment longer, and started barking orders at the others. Griggs jogged on her way up to the bridge, and burst through the doors just in time to hear the distress call echo over the speakers.
A familiar voice spoke, though it was almost unrecognizable as Heidi whispered and her voice shook with fear. "I'm on Caihiri in the Dreomia system, in the capital city. The rest of my crew is gone, our ship is gone, and I can't raise them on the communicator without exposing my position. I think they left me behind. If anyone hears this, please help me. I don't think I can survive long without money or a weapon, and the slavers have been very active in this city the last few months. Please help immediately."
Griggs's heart sank. Heidi Altmann, one of her roommates from the academy, saved her life during an ill-planned raid early in Griggs’s career, and never mentioned it again. Griggs owed her more than she could ever repay. The last time Griggs heard, Heidi was a first officer on an Alliance battleship. To go from a highly decorated officer in the Fleet to a fugitive abandoned on a wild planet was certainly suspicious and probably a death sentence for Heidi.
Griggs started to ask a question when the message began again, crackling with static as Heidi repeated the coordinates of her location and the stardate of the transmission. She braced herself to listen to it all over again, deliberately not looking at Isla in case emotions started running high, but halfway through the transmission, the message cut off and did not return. Griggs looked at the communications panel, and her heart started to pound. "Can you get it back?"
"The source is gone," the kid said. She thought his name was Adhz, and he seemed like a nice enough Xaravian, but Griggs didn't have time for that shit.
She checked the panel herself and tried a few tricks to recapture the signal, but it faded away too quickly. The location of the transmission blurred into a major city, disrupted by a warren of buildings and satellites and Newton only knew what else. Griggs looked at Isla. "When are we going?"
Isla took a deep breath. "It's a wild planet, Griggs."
"Right. So this entire ship should land on their fucking heads and demonstrate why we don't allow other people to treat our friends poorly." Griggs looked around at everyone else on the bridge, and she was both stunned and pissed off that none of them moved for survival suits and the emergency pods. "Well? What the fuck are we waiting for?"
"Griggs," Vaant started, but Griggs held up her hand to cut him off.
He wasn't her captain, and she didn't give a shit about his opinion on this particular matter. "Nope. This is a matter for my fellow former Fleet officers, not any of you. She's our sister; she's our mission. We're going to go down there and save her before any of those dirty slave-trading bastards even know she's there."
"They might already," Vaant said. "And a bunch of women heading down to a city where they specialize in taking women prisoners seems like a stellar idea. Well done."
Griggs really didn't like him sometimes. She didn't know what Isla saw in the jackass. Before Griggs could pull out her stunner and give him a piece of her mind, though, Isla stepped forward. "Griggs, we can talk about this somewhere else."
"There's nothing to talk about, Lennox." Griggs checked her communicator and watch, loading up the coordinates that Heidi transmitted. "Get a ship, get some supplies, go down and help Heidi. That's the plan."
"Cici, we—"
"She's our friend, Lennox." Griggs said it as patiently as possible, though she hated having to remind Isla of it. "This is what friends do. We help each other when one is in a shitty situation, and we sure as fuck don't leave one in a hellhole like Caihiri."
Isla's eyes narrowed. "I know what I'd like to do, Griggs, and that's exactly what your little plan is—but we have two ships and two crews to think about. There needs to be a better plan."
Griggs opened her mouth to argue more, and probably to cross the line into insubordination, but Vrix loomed at her from the side and shooed her toward the door. "We should discuss this outside. Let's go."
She held her ground, not about to be pushed around by the Xaravian security chief in front of the rest of them, and braced herself for the fight. At least she was warmed up from the class and wouldn't pull a muscle if she had to whale on Vrix.
Vrix
Vrix intended to work out in the gym that morning, until he discovered Griggs giving yet another class on one of the random martial arts she knew. As much as he enjoyed watching her fight and stretch and beat up other people, he couldn't be in the same room when she did so. His scales turned purple and blue with lust and a little bit of love, and the rest of the Xaravians found it hysterical. He hadn't been teased so much since he left the nest on Xarav.
So he was on the bridge when the first distress call reached them, all thready and broken until the ship adjusted course to get more aligned with the transmission and signal. The moment the voice came over clearly, Isla's face drained of all color—which the Xaravians had learned meant nothing good. She braced herself on the captain's chair, next to Vaant, and took a shaky breath.
"That's Heidi. She's a friend of ours from the academy. Our third roommate when Griggs and I lived together."
Vaant squeezed her hand. "We'll find her."
Vrix leaned against the navigation console and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Endangering a whole ship for a single individual didn't strike him as a smart thing to do, but he wasn't the captain of either ship. Vrix was there to keep everyone as safe as possible based on the captain's intended course, even when he thought the course was stupid and poorly thought out. He intended to return to his quarters and take a nap while they sorted out what to do, but when Isla called Griggs up to the bridge, Vrix stayed put. He wanted to see that particular reaction.
She didn't disappoint. Griggs looked ready to charge down to the planet and confront anything and anyone who stood between her and her friend. Which only served to endear her more to Vrix, since he appreciated someone who was willing to charge into a fight without thinking too much—even though experience taught him the hard way that it wasn't usually the best idea. It certainly didn't even qualify as a good idea when talking about Caihiri itself, since Vrix and Vaant spent a little time there while the Galaxos was still getting a reputation as a pirate ship. The planet, and the capital city in particular, was the worst sort of place for innocent civilians and upstanding Fleet officers, since it thrived on the underworld and dark dealings of the very worst of the worst. Caihiri was everything that Griggs and Isla signed up to the Fleet to fight, and they had no idea what they'd be walking into. His scales rattled just thinking about it.
But Griggs's fury boiled over at the hesitation she saw in Isla, so before either could say or do something they'd regret, Vrix pointed Griggs to the hall. "Let's talk outside."
She scowled fiercely at him, ready to fight, and he worked to keep from smiling at her. Experience also showed that only infuriated her more. So he fished around for a reasonable excuse for a time-out, and managed to pull something out of thin sand. "We need to know more about your friend and her survival and evasion skills before we can figure out how to get her. Explain to me what she knows."
The Earther security officer deflated somewhat, though she didn't look pleased, and stomped off the bridge to the hall outside. Vrix shook his head, staring up at the ceiling. Amazing that all it took to get her to do something was to pretend about his own ignorance and give her the opportunity to lord her superior knowledge over him. And it was equally amazing that she hadn't caught on yet.
Vaant slapped his shoulder and muttered, "Good work," as he and Isla followed Griggs into the hall. Vrix checked the coordinates from the transmission one more time, then joined them.
Before either Griggs or Vaant could start arguing, Vrix herded everyone into his quarters, just on the other side of the hall from Vaant's, and closed the door so none of the rest of the crew would overhear Griggs's insubordination. She still looked mad as a scalded snake, but there wasn't much Vrix could do about that. Yet.
Isla held her hands up to forestall another tirade from Griggs. "I agree we have to do something to help Heidi. I'm with you on that. But we can't just race in there and expect for everything to work out. We need a plan so we don't endanger both ships and both crews. We'll be useless to Heidi if we have to waste time rescuing ourselves."
Griggs paced the inside of his living room, her teeth grinding, and eventually she managed to spit out a suggestion. "Then we send an advance team to figure out what's going on on the ground. We look for evidence of any traps and get Heidi's location and anything else we need to know. Then the rest of the crew can jump down so we can free Heidi and get her to safety."
Vaant didn't look convinced. "A bunch of Earther women will stick out too much. You'll end up targets, and we'll create a couple new missions for ourselves before we know it. Maybe if Trazzak and—"
"I'm going," Griggs said. Her voice went flat and cold, completely bereft of emotion. "Whether anyone else goes with me or not, I'm going."
Vaant snorted, his scales beginning to swirl with orange irritation as the mouthy Earther refused to see reason. "You'll be kidnapped in the first hour, maybe sooner. You stand out too much, and if you're by yourself, it's too much of an easy payday. You will not be going to that planet."
"She won't trust any of you." Griggs folded her arms over her chest, and Vrix started to wonder if they needed to disable all the escape pods so she wouldn't try and make a run for it. "She doesn't know you, and she sure as hell has no reason to believe a bunch of Xaravian barbarians are there to help instead of eat her. I'm going to find Heidi."
The captain took a deep breath and ran a hand through his long hair, setting the bones and beads rattling, as he looked at Vrix. "Talk some sense into her, Vrix."
Griggs's expression darkened considerably as she glared at him, a direct challenge in her posture and her eyes. He couldn't help it—his scales rattled and hints of purple surfaced. She was so unbelievably fierce for such a fragile, delicate creature, and it drove him mad. And since he never passed up an opportunity to get under her skin—as well as get her more used to having him around—he sided with her. "I think she's right."
All three of them stared at him, and once more Vrix struggled not to laugh. He did enjoy being unpredictable, but he'd expected at least Vaant to suspect his true motivations.
Griggs looked suspicious. "Explain."
"I have to explain why I think you're correct? Very well." He waited as she fumed and started turning red, an adorable little habit the Earthers had that seldom meant what the Xaravians thought, and eventually spoke more to Vaant and Isla than the security officer. "An advance team—a small one—will give us all the information we need, or at least will allow us to identify infiltration and exfiltration routes. I haven't been on Caihiri in years, but I remember enough about it to know a large group will be more of a target than a small group."
Vaant still didn't look convinced, and it was Isla's turn to look at him suspiciously. Vrix shrugged. "We need someone that the woman will speak to, and someone to provide her with a plausible reason for being on the planet in the first place."
"Like a pirate," Isla said. "A Xaravian pirate."
"Now wait a minute..." Griggs started, frowning at them both as Isla started to grin.
"I think I can live with that," Vaant said. "Griggs, you and Vrix can head to the surface to scope things out as soon as we get within range, and we'll monitor from the ship until you give us the signal to intervene."
Griggs struggled for something to say, and Vrix imagined that her skin would have turned orange and red with rage if she were a Xaravian. He thanked his lucky stars she wasn't.
Griggs
Griggs couldn't believe they were just standing around talking instead of actually doing something to rescue Heidi. Even as she wanted to go straight to the escape pods and get to the planet by herself, part of her was distracted by Vrix's quarters. She'd never been in them, of course, nor had she heard anything about the man from anyone else. The furniture and decorations were at odds with the gruff security officer's public persona: everything was calm and comfortable and covered in pillows. She'd half expected the man to sleep on a bed of nails and lounge on razor blades, for as cuddly as he seemed.
And
instead of trophies from some brutal Xaravian sport on his shelves, he had books. Lots and lots of books. She didn't expect to be able to read any of them, or even be interested in the subjects, but she'd never expected him to be someone who cared enough about the written word to bring that many books on a spaceship.
Griggs shook herself back to the conversation at hand, as Vaant and Vrix discussed who should go and when. There wasn't going to be discussion about at least one aspect of the advance team... "I'm going. If I go by myself, I can move faster and hide better, and that will make the world of difference when it comes to getting Heidi out of there."
"It might," Isla said, though she didn't look particularly happy about it. "But you're not going by yourself. If Vrix goes with you, both of you can adapt to the changing circumstances together. It makes a lot more sense. Plus he's spent time on Caihiri and knows the city."
Griggs wanted to stomp her foot like a child. She didn't need the help. And she sure didn't want Vrix there, since he would be one hell of a distraction. "I can't afford to be slowed down."
"Believe me, I won't be the one slowing things down," Vrix said, and Griggs froze, eyeing him sideways. The way he said that sounded like he definitely meant something than other the mission to save Heidi. But the Xaravian remained expressionless, so she couldn't really judge his tone by itself.
Griggs ignored the slight smile on Vaant's face and folded her arms over her chest. "I don't need a bodyguard or some giant brute skulking around and drawing attention to what I'm trying to do. And there's no way in hell he'll be able to blend in enough for us to get the job done."
"This isn't a planet that's friendly to women," Vrix said, keeping his temper in check. "At the very least, I can be a prop when you need one."
Griggs still couldn't shake the feeling that he had some ulterior motive in going along with all of this, and since he wasn't losing his cool, she didn't know if she'd find out why until it was too late and they were already on the surface. Griggs needed to push him just a little bit and see whether he revealed his other plans, so she poked him in the chest and tried not to notice the solid wall of muscle under her finger. "Fine. But I'm in charge of this mission, so you'll be following my orders. Got it?"