Deuces Wild Boxed Set: Books 1-4: Beyond the Frontiers, Rampage, Labyrinth, Birthright

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  There wasn’t an inch of wall space that wasn’t occupied by some sort of store, and there were even more stores. They were stacked on top of each other, lifts and escalators leading to the walkway that passed the front of the second row of shopfronts. Even so, that wasn’t all of them. Carts and tents and stands were propped up all over the floor in the center of the room. It looked like chaos at first glance, and Nickie couldn’t help but wonder just how many people had been trampled in the crush. At second glance, though, she could see the order of it. Each pop-up shop took up only a very specific amount of space, and though there were no lines on the floor, she could recognize the grid system they were set up on.

  Even so, she could easily imagine someone getting trampled in an emergency, and it would be a nightmare if she needed to make a sudden break for an exit.

  There was cosmetic tech, home appliances, luxury tech, holoconsoles and wrist holos, tools and upgrades of every shape, size, and utility, real estate depots, cars, and even civilian ships.

  And that was just what she could see from where she was standing.

  She looked farther up the walls, shading her eyes with her hand as she did so. She knew the outpost had residential units—not many, and mostly they belonged to the shop owners and their families—but she had yet to catch a glimpse of one.

  She had to squint past the light to see them. Two-thirds of the way up the towering walls there was a broader walkway, where she could make out the doors to the apartments. She could even see a few people on the walkway, coming and going.

  She had to wonder just how good the insulation was to block out all the noise from the floor below.

  Meredith sent a tiny shock down her spine, jolting her back to the present before that thought could go to any horrible places.

  I wasn’t even going there. You went there first, and that makes you the pervert. Nickie scowled at nothing in particular and took a furtive look around to make sure no one had seen her jump for no apparent reason.

  A vendor eyed her warily, then very deliberately turned away to talk to someone else. Likely he either assumed her to be high or a thief, and she folded her arms over her chest and harrumphed at the assumption. It wasn’t as if she were the weirdest person he had ever seen. Such a busy outpost had to get its own fair share of whack jobs and crazies.

  She shook her head briefly, yanking her attention back to the moment at hand before she could get too distracted.

  She walked farther into the room to get away from him, passing a darkened shopfront with flavored smoke drifting out of it. The urge to go inside reared its head, and she paused outside the entryway. Music and conversation in low tones drifted out. With an effort of will, Nickie turned away from the entrance and kept walking before Meredith could shock her again. She had no doubt that the EI would do so. She nearly tripped over one of the carrier bots that would help her carry things once she started purchasing. The hands-free shopping carts dogged her heels like puppies, and Nickie side-stepped them both.

  She just…needed to find everything on the list Meredith had given her.

  I could tell you where to go, Meredith pointed out.

  Rather than smug, she simply sounded matter-of-fact.

  I have a map of this entire outpost, with a guide on what shop sells what.

  Nickie only remembered at the last instant not to physically wave the suggestion off. People already thought she was weird, and she didn’t need to make it worse. The last thing she needed was security coming to escort her to the checkpoint or back to the docking bay.

  I can handle it, she insisted, planting her hands on her hips as she kept walking. Half the fun of shopping was seeing what was there, after all. There was always time for window-shopping.

  Granted, she couldn’t say she would complain if the entire outpost was just a little less damnably loud. Like, just half a notch.

  Vendors shouted back and forth, some trying to attract customers and others just trying to be heard over the noise as they bartered. Nickie sighed, deciding then that she would just get used to the noise; let it wash over her until she didn’t even notice it anymore. She wondered if Meredith might have an app for that.

  She turned in a circle to get a quick look at everything around her, ignoring the odd looks she got from the rest of the crowd. She had hardly been at the outpost for twenty minutes, and already there were so many things she wanted to get her hands on.

  She had seen better in the past, of course. Back in the Federation, the tech itself probably would have laughed at the outpost. But compared to what she had become accustomed to during her sabbatical, she wasn’t going to complain.

  Sabbatical, Meredith repeated dubiously. Is that what we’re calling it now? Like it was an optional thing and you were always planning to get back to your duties? This is certainly news to me. I’ll have to update my databanks with this revelation.

  Nickie heaved an aggrieved sigh, her shoulders rising and falling with the motion. She ignored the new slew of odd looks it garnered her.

  Meredith?' She sighed, because evidently it was quite possible to sigh inside one’s own head given enough determination. She wasn’t surprised. Rhinoceros-like determination had gotten her some surprising results in all sorts of situations.

  Yes? The EI sounded innocent. Nickie didn’t buy it for a second.

  Shut up.

  There was no response after that. It probably wasn’t a win, but Nickie was willing to count it as one for the time being. She nodded once to herself, shoved her hands in her pockets, and turned on her heel to go pick out some cheap housebots. No way in hell was she cleaning that entire ship with her two hands.

  Fuel cells? Check.

  Console covers? Check.

  Wireless network extenders? Check.

  Holobrighteners? Check.

  Auxiliary radiation dampeners? Check.

  Shielding capacitors? Check.

  A high-quality deck of playing cards? Check.

  She had gotten all those, plus various other odds and ends that Meredith assured her were missing from the ship and would be helpful, even if they wouldn’t make or break any situations that she could predict.

  As Nickie mentally went through a checklist, a literal one appeared at the edge of her vision. She squinted at it skeptically before turning her attention from it. She glanced at her borrowed pair of bots, dutifully holding everything except the dampeners and the capacitors.

  The vendor in front of her drummed his fingers on the counter. “As I asked, is the price—“

  “It’s fine.” Nickie cut him off and sighed. It was a bit pricey actually, but she had negotiated as low a price as she would be able to get without being tossed out of the shop. “Does it include delivery to the ship?” She glanced at the carrier bots again. “They aren’t that big,” she stated, and her gaze traveled to the capacitors and the dampeners, which were all nearly the same size as the bots.

  The vendor paused and turned that over for a moment before he nodded once, slow and decisive. “Fine,” he agreed, drumming his fingers once again, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You pay for half up front, though,” he added as if he thought Nickie was just going to karate-kick him into unconsciousness at the dock and run off with the supplies.

  She couldn’t say the thought hadn’t crossed her mind, but she decided to feel offended. With a roll of her eyes, she folded her arms over her chest and slumped her weight to one side. “Yeah, yeah, fine.” She huffed. “Let’s just get it over with. I have places to be.”

  The vendor turned his console to face her so she could type in her payment information, and as soon as she tapped the Accept button, he got much more tractable. With an almost cloying smile he bade her have a pleasant rest of her day, and as she turned to start heading back to the docking bay, the vendor called assurances that her order would be there to meet her in perfect condition before she even knew it.

  She figured he meant to wait until she was out of earshot before he started hollering at his assista
nts to get everything together, but he was out of luck there. Nickie probably would have been able to hear him from the other side of the outpost what with all her enhancements, including the additional ones that had kicked in since the Skaine scuffle.

  “How charming," she grumbled under her breath, shoving her hands into her pockets. “What else do we need?” she asked thin air, slowing to a halt again.

  Meredith was quick to answer. Even as augmented as you are, you and your cook—

  Chef, Nickie corrected absentmindedly.

  Cannot crew an entire ship on your own, Meredith finished her initial point. You are going to need other people to help run the ship, since utilizing the ship’s existing crew seems to be out of the question.

  I’m pretty sure they’d rather throw me out the airlock, Nickie agreed, and she started heading back toward the main shopping area. It would take time for the auxiliary radiation dampeners and the shield capacitors to be delivered, and she wasn’t going to shed any tears if she was a bit late to meet the vendor at the docking bay. She turned to the two bots dogging her, keyed in the location of the ship, and sent them off. Hopefully Grim would be there to let them on board, but even if he wasn’t, she knew they had loss-prevention programming. They could take care of themselves.

  In the meantime, she had an idea of where she could start looking for the right kinds of people.

  I have a bad feeling about this, Meredith grumbled.

  Chapter 5

  Nickie

  Grim glanced over his shoulder one last time as he walked away from the ship, to see Nickie’s back disappearing in the other direction. He kept moving at a lope, and after a couple of minutes before he found a board declaring, YOU ARE HERE with a red spot on a map. He gave it a brief scan, then turned and started in the direction that seemed the most likely to be helpful.

  He took his time, picking up a bot to help him carry everything as he selected supplies. The galley’s appliances were fine and he was mostly after food, but even so, he wound up selecting a few knives to let the bot carry as well. He just couldn’t help himself.

  He browsed freely, though he avoided every vendor who seemed intent on force-feeding samples to anyone who passed. Even as a chef, sometimes these things were just a bit too much.

  The outpost made all the canned goods back on the ship seem even less appealing, he mused to himself. Despite his efforts though, he still retained the niggling feeling that Nickie would continue to be just as happy eating cold beans out of a can even once the kitchen was fully restocked.

  He sighed to himself and refused to dwell on it. Instead, he dwelt on whether he should aim for quality or quantity before ultimately deciding on the latter. It wouldn’t matter all that much if the food was fancy if there wasn’t enough of it to go around, and Grim liked to think he was the practical sort.

  Not that he didn’t still admire all the higher-quality foods, appliances, and cutlery. Staring was after all free, even if the vendors fancied themselves as Venetian merchants.

  Even taking his time, Grim was pretty sure he had plenty to spare once he turned to head back to the ship. Truth be told, he was sort of glad. As dismal as the ship still was and as uncomfortable as the Skaines locked behind almost every door made it, the ship at least just smelled like…a ship. Metal, cleaner, and manufactured atmosphere.

  The outpost, by contrast, smelled like every single food Grim could think of, all at the same time.

  Suffice it to say he was getting more than a little nauseated, and he put a little extra pep in his step as he headed back to the docking bay.

  When he made it back to the ship there were two bots waiting, laden with what he had to assume were Nickie’s purchases. There was also one impatient vendor off to the side, alternately pacing and tapping his feet.

  Grim ignored the vendor for the time being—not his problem—and ushered Nickie’s bots and his own onto the ship. He escorted two of them to storage for lack of an idea of where else to send them, and they trundled back to the docking bay once they were done carrying things. The third followed Grim to the galley, and it too made its way back off of the ship once it was done depositing his goods.

  Grim took his time putting things away, using it as an exercise to better acquaint himself with the layout of the place. To say it lacked character was being polite—gray, gray, and more gray—but it was functional and of a decent size.

  The ship seemed too quiet just then. Although he knew exactly how many Skaines were locked on board, it didn’t change the fact that there was no one in the corridors and, for all intents and purposes, he and Nickie were the only actual crew members at that point. Talk about a skeleton crew.

  And with no one around, it felt as if the galaxy had suddenly gotten very small. He pushed the thought from his mind and focused on putting things away. He could deal with awkward quiet.

  BANG!

  He jumped and nearly hit his head on the cupboard he was stocking when there was a resounding bang from the other side of the wall in front of him. He scowled at it for a moment, then he grabbed a tin mug and thumped it against the wall in return.

  “I’m going!” he shouted at the wall. “Calm your britches, or I’ll take even longer!”

  The ruckus on the other side of the wall only got louder, so Grim hammered the mug against the wall a few more times until at last the racket began to die down. He scowled balefully at the wall for a few seconds longer, just for good measure.

  Finally, he heaved a sigh and turned away from the wall, instead facing the counter. He set the slightly dented mug down.

  “Right. Food,” he muttered to himself. “Because that’s always fun when I’ve got someone breathing down my neck.”

  He shook his head and started gathering ingredients, his tone too cheerful by half as he assured himself, “Nothing out of the ordinary there, I guess. It’ll be fine.”

  With that bit of admittedly weak assurance, he laid out the supplies and ingredients he would need and got to work. He had a lot of mouths to feed, after all, and none of them were patient or polite.

  A datapad met the wall, and it sparked as the screen cracked and it clattered to the floor. When that had no effect, Slevin and Barqx instead hurled themselves at the wall, hammering at it and body-slamming it ineffectually. Across the room, Drell and Herz were slamming themselves into the door as Grets tried shorting out the door controls, to no avail.

  Standing near the back wall, Durq flinched every time they made the walls rattle—as if there were any possibility of them doing any kind of lasting damage to the ship.

  For a few seconds, everyone fell quiet as someone on the opposite side of the wall banged on it in return and shouted back. And then Krask stepped forward. He grabbed Slevin and Barqx by the backs of their necks and tossed them aside, and he lunged forward, head-butting the wall with all his might.

  Not much happened, other than more pounding from whoever was on the opposite side. Durq stepped closer to the back wall regardless, his hands clasped to his chest as he fidgeted.

  Still shaking his head to shake off the impact, Krask turned to peer slowly over his shoulder, his gaze locking on Durq. “Problem?” he wondered, feigning a casual tone without much luck.

  “Wha… Uh, no. Nope.” Durq shook his head quickly and dropped his hands to his sides. “Nothing like that. No problems here, no sirree.”

  Slowly, Krask grinned and turned the rest of the way around so he could take a step closer. “Are you sure about that?” he wondered, in a tone that was trying and failing to be mild. “You look like you aren’t having the best time.”

  Durq’s shoulders rounded as he shrank in on himself and his hands rose to resume fidgeting in front of his chest. He kept his eyes trained carefully on a spot just past Krask’s shoulder. “It’s, uh… It’s nothing. I am a-okay.”

  “You should really look at someone when you’re talking to them,” Krask pointed out reasonably, taking another step closer. “It’s rude not to. You might offend someone.�
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  “Of course. You’re right. Definitely.” Durq darted a brief glance at Krask’s face, then looked back at the spot on the wall after meeting Krask’s eyes for only the barest moment.

  “Not quite what I meant,” Krask replied, suddenly much closer as he cleared the last of the space between them to stand nose-to-nose with Durq. Durq nearly leapt out of his boots, and it was only a flinch at the last instant that kept him from accidentally head-butting Krask in the nose.

  “Not good for all that much, are you?” Krask mused, seemingly to himself, though the other five Skaines in the room with them were clearly paying attention. Slevin and Barqx were even snickering, their hands in front of their faces.

  Krask grinned again, toothy and broad. “But I guess you might come in handy if it takes too long for dinner to show up,” he decided, giving Durq a once-over. “You look like you’ve got some meat on your bones.”

  Durq stumbled back two steps until he was wedged between a pair of cabinets. With one more laugh, Krask finally turned away to let him have some peace—not that it did much good at that point.

  Durq cringed and sat down on the floor as the other six resumed throwing themselves at the wall like the galaxy’s tiniest stampede. He was content to stay right where he was.

  Rebus Quadrant, Minerva Trading Outpost

  Nickie slowed to a halt in front of the same bar she had passed earlier. The music drifting out of it was different, though it was still just as smooth as before, and the smell of the flavored smoke still made her mouth water.

  She shook her head quickly before she stepped inside. She was there for a reason. She had to stay on task.

  It was dim inside, and the combination of smoke and the music made everything seem almost illicit even though nearly everyone inside was simply sitting and drinking. It didn’t even look like any drug deals were going on under the tables. She supposed those were taking place in the docking bay. Ships and docking tubes were remarkably handy things to hide behind, after all.