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

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  He shook his head, then reconsidered. “Well, there’s talk of someone called Rotciv. He sounds disgusting, but no one knows what kind of alien he is, and no one knows where he is. I’d tell you if I could. Would be worth a lot of money.”

  “Drink your water,” Hirotoshi suggested.

  Don Guido obediently started drinking.

  Tabitha sat back in her seat smugly. “See? Rotciv—the next in the long line of Skaines I will kick back to their mother’s womb.”

  “You don’t know he’s Skaine,” Hirotoshi remarked reasonably.

  “And there’s Tiw’s medicine,” Don Guido added. “He had his whole supply stolen. They think it left on a ship called the Geqward. Here, wait a second.” He tapped on the computer strapped to his arm, squinted to make out the keys, and tried again. “I sent the coordinates to your ship. You came on the Achronyx, right?”

  Tabitha blinked. This guy was better than she’d thought. Hirotoshi gave her a meaningful look and picked his glass up—

  Only to have it dashed out of his hands.

  “You!” roared the alien who had attacked him a few days ago. “I told you I didn’t like your face!”

  “This should be good.” Tabitha leaned out of the way as the alien grabbed Hirotoshi by the arm and hauled him into the space between the tables. She watched over her shoulder for a moment, then turned back to Don Guido. “Where were we?”

  You should get out of there, Achronyx reported testily. The inspector is not far away. He might see this fight.

  We’ll deal with that if it happens.

  Achronyx sighed.

  Hirotoshi and the alien were still trading blows when a huge alien appeared in the doorway of the bar. He looked around with a keen eye, and Tabitha and Katsu noted him, then turned their faces the other way.

  “I think that’s the inspector,” Tabitha muttered to Katsu. “Quick, out the back, while he’s occupied with Hirotoshi.”

  “What about Hirotoshi?”

  “He’ll figure something out.” They slipped around the back of the table, leaving cash for their drinks and whispering goodbye to Don Guido as they went.

  Borven’s gaze had immediately been drawn by the human fighting Okk, an alien he recognized. He stomped up to the two of them and pulled them apart.

  “Here, now,” he ground out. “What’s going on here?” He looked around and chose a bystander at random. “You. What happened?”

  Luckily, this bar wasn’t one of the ones that hated inspectors. The patron coughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, sir, Okk went up to the alien there and said he didn’t like the alien’s face, then dragged him over there to fight. They hadn’t been fighting long when you showed up.”

  Borven sighed. Okk was well-known on this station for starting fights with anyone.

  Still, this was a human. He let Okk go and told him to sit down nearby, and leaned down to look at the human.

  “You. You match the description of a human I am tracking.” He looked around. “Are there more of you here?”

  Hirotoshi looked around the bar, raising an eyebrow. “Apparently not,” he allowed.

  The inspector eyed him. He smelled a powerful liquor on his breath. “Hmm. Do you usually travel with two other humans?”

  “No,” Hirotoshi replied cautiously. “Sir,” he added, echoing the etiquette of the other alien.

  “Hmm.” Borven folded his arms. “You match the description, though. Dark hair, pale skin.”

  “Ah.” Hirotoshi smiled. “An understandable mistake. Many humans have this coloring. I’m afraid I really don’t know anything else. This fight was…” He frowned at Okk. “I really don’t know why it happened.”

  “Because he’s Okk,” Borven suggested resignedly. He waved to the door. “Very well, you can go.”

  “Thank you.” Hirotoshi took his coat and left the bar, catching up with Tabitha and Katsu in the landing bay. “Kemosabe, you abandoned me.”

  “I knew you could take care of yourself, Number One.” Tabitha led the way to the bridge. “Achronyx, lay in the coordinates from Don Guido and prepare to set out.” She turned to Hirotoshi. “I already had backup plans if you got in trouble. We don’t abandon anyone. However,” she pointed to herself, “I’m much harder to hide. If he had seen me, we would have been screwed.”

  “Yes, Ranger Two.” If Achronyx could do a snide voice, he was doing it very well, and Tabitha rolled her eyes when he finished speaking. “Coordinates laid in.”

  A few minutes later, Achronyx announced, “Ranger Two, there is a holocall coming through for you.” He sounded almost smug.

  “Who is it?”

  In answer, Achronyx brought up the video call. Borven Thod was glaring at the screen.

  “Jackass,” Tabitha muttered to Achronyx. To Borven, she smiled and waved. “Hi!”

  Borven’s eyes searched the frame and caught sight of Hirotoshi, then pointed. “There you are. I should have known not to trust you.”

  “Why shouldn’t you have trusted me?” Hirotoshi asked. His voice was smooth and emotionless.

  In response, Borven brought up a video that showed Tabitha, Hirotoshi, and Katsu walking into Yeven’s Bar, and the events of the subsequent fight. It was sped up, and they watched it all the way through.

  Tabitha leaned forward, watching as she traded hits and then kicked a couple of times. “Oh yes. That’s the right angle. I’m going to have to move these pants up to being my regular leathers,” she remarked to no one in particular. “Look at that! Damn, that ass is hot!” The screen cleared to show Borven’s face, and Tabitha leaned back. “Ugh!” She waved a hand back and forth in front of the screen. “Not as pretty. Warn a girl next time, Inspector.”

  Borven glared back at the human female. “According to station law, I must ask you to come in for questioning.”

  “Nope,” replied Tabitha cheerfully, waving her fingers. “Toodles. Places to go, bad guys to annoy.”

  “You will find that your ship is barred from leaving the station,” Borven warned her.

  “You’ll find it’s not,” Tabitha countered. It’s not, right?

  I can get us out of here. Achronyx sighed. If you want to be a criminal, that is.

  Tabitha chuckled. That sounds great! Let’s do that.

  I should have told you I couldn’t.

  I would have known you were lying and he will get over it. Tabitha grinned as the ship started to pull away from the station. Borven was furiously tapping at the keys of his console, and she snapped her fingers to get his attention.

  His angry face popped onto the screen.

  “Don’t bother,” she suggested. “We can get around any programming you put in place. We have to go now.”

  “I order you to re-dock,” Borven shouted, furious.

  “We’ll be back soon.” She terminated the call.

  “Soon?” Hirotoshi echoed.

  “Probably never. Well, hopefully never.” Tabitha thought for a moment, then shrugged and pointed to the blank screen. “He doesn’t need to know that. Anyway, come on, Achronyx, let’s go find some stolen medicine. We might as well do something until we can track down Rotciv.”

  Chapter 16

  Nickie

  Rebus Quadrant, Themis Colony

  The Tykis outpost had certainly seen better days.

  That much was obvious from Nickie’s impromptu tour of the site. The walls were grimy, half of the lights were flickering or dead, and it was apparent that there had been combat within the outpost’s walls.

  Despite all that, the colonists seemed cheerful when Nickie made it back to the main hall. Tired and a bit high on adrenaline, but cheerful. Nickie supposed winning their freedom back could do that, even if the job was only half done.

  She strode through the room as if she owned it, grinning at the people who stopped to thank her. She found Grim at the center, surrounded by a flock of colonists. He was shaking hands and chatting, and getting a lot of slightly mystified looks.

  “Never s
een a Yollin before?” Nickie asked mildly as she came to a halt at the edge of the group.

  “Very rarely,” the woman to her left replied, still seeming breathless at everything that had happened. “Certainly not on our little colony.”

  Grim finally spotted Nickie and broke away from the colonists to approach her. “There you are,” he commented wryly. “I was starting to think you’d launched yourself into space in a shuttle to get at the incoming Skaines early.”

  Nickie scoffed and punched his shoulder. “As if,” she drawled and glanced around. “Where’s, uh…Durq?” she wondered cautiously. “Is he getting up to some sort of trouble?”

  Grim rolled his eyes. “He wanted to stay on the ship,” he answered plainly. “Right about now, he’s probably hiding under his bed. Or mine.”

  “Wait, you mean he does actually have his own room?” Nickie asked, bemused. “I thought you were kidding about that.”

  “The ship has twenty-four private quarters,” Grim reminded her. “Including his.”

  Nickie grumbled something rather less than polite under her breath, but she let the topic go when Grim cleared his throat.

  “Aaanyway,” he continued, “there’s someone you’re going to want to meet. Follow me.” He gestured for her to keep close with one hand and turned to make his way through the crowd.

  “This is Keen,” he offered when he slowed to a stop at the outskirts of a smaller group, where a handful of the colonists were muttering urgently amongst themselves until one of them—the Keen in question—pulled away from the group to speak with Nickie.

  “Quite an impressive show you put on,” he remarked.

  Nickie shrugged broadly. “I do what I can. So, what’s been going on here?”

  Keen sighed slowly. “The initial invasion happened about two months ago. Everything we had mined and all of our nonessential equipment was confiscated, and we were put to work mining for them,” he explained. “At least until recently, when our primary power generator died. The auxiliary shafts are basically dead, and the main shaft is only running on the barest amount of backup power. Working down there is effectively impossible. The only reason we’ve been able to hide down there without dying is that we know the layout so well.”

  He paused, glancing at Nickie to see if she had anything to contribute, but she simply motioned for him to carry on. He cleared his throat. “We weren’t getting any work done for them anymore and they decided it would be too much of a hassle to get the mines up and running again, so they decided selling us off was the best way to handle things. We’ve gotten recent rumors of another Skaine ship coming to pick us up.”

  “Wait, what?” A young man, his clothes and his hair disheveled, practically tripped over, leading a young and equally disheveled woman by the hand. “Already?” he demanded.

  “Raynard,” Keen scolded mildly.

  “Sorry, just—“

  “What are we supposed to do now?” Adelaide asked fretfully.

  Nickie cleared her throat to get their attention. “We’ll just have to take out those fuckheads once they get here,” she supplied, her tone almost pleasant. “Meredith can help with comm—“

  “On it!” Raynard volunteered. “I’ve got all their signal data already. I was in charge of radio monitoring, and if I could do it with salvaged gear, I can definitely get the Skaines’ communication gear working.”

  Nickie blinked at him before nodding. “Meredith, coordinate with him.”

  Raynard departed in a flash, leaving only Keen and Adelaide watching Nickie expectantly.

  “He seems very helpful,” Nickie commented after a moment.

  “Where do you want us?” Keen asked. “We have a militia, though it’s pretty informal.”

  Nickie shook her head slowly. “I work best on my own,” she replied haltingly. Working on her own meant she didn’t have to give complex commands.

  “But what if they come into the mines?” Adelaide asked, wringing her hands. “You don’t know your way around in there. You might need our help.”

  Nickie waved it off with a flick of her wrist. “My co-pilot can map it out for me in a jiffy,” she replied. “Besides,” she plucked one of her drones from her belt, “I have these.”

  Adelaide didn’t seem convinced, glancing at the marble-sized ball in Nickie’s hand. But she at least fell quiet, letting Keen ask, “Protocol for if we intercept any of the Skaines?”

  “Kill them?” Nickie supplied. “I mean, I don’t plan on taking any prisoners. We don’t need any info from them, so we may as well just get rid of them.”

  She could practically see more questions building, and she decided it was time to nip it all in the bud.

  “You just keep everyone tucked away,” she commanded Keen, poking one finger into his chest. “I’m hardier than I look and I won’t be needing much help, so just keep your people out of trouble and only come out if Meredith says I need help.” She folded her arms over her chest and tried to sound stern. “Got it?”

  “You’re just one person,” Adelaide fretted before Keen could say anything.

  “I’m a little more than that,” Nickie assured her, her gaze still locked on Keen.

  “I understand.” He sighed. “I’ll keep everyone ready to move just in case.”

  Nickie clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man,” she assured him, then began making her way back to the airfield.

  As Nickie sauntered to the Granddaughter for some last-minute preparations, she couldn’t quite help but point out, You see? I was born to lead like this!

  Just try not to get yourself killed.

  Meredith’s request sounded more long-suffering than anything else.

  Rebus Quadrant, Themis Colony, Lower Atmosphere

  Boh’Locks 881 broke through the atmosphere with a bump and a rumble of metal as the engines adjusted, just as they had a thousand times before. After they had descended a short way, Karvar glanced at his communications officer and commanded, “I expect us to have permission to land by the time we get to the airfield.”

  “Already on it, sir,” the officer replied, adjusting his headset with one hand while the fingers of the other flew over the console.

  The ship descended quickly, though well within the safety parameters. It wasn’t long before Karvar could make out the outpost on the viewing screen. But despite the communications officer’s assurances, there had been no update on whether the ship was clear to land.

  Karvar looked slowly at the officer, his eyes narrowing slightly.

  “Well?” he asked, drumming his fingers on his armrest. “What’s the hold-up?”

  With a quiet, “Um—“ the officer glanced over his shoulder for a split second before turning to his console again with renewed efforts, as if the situation would resolve itself if he were simply emphatic enough. Of course, that wasn’t actually the way it worked, and Karvar’s impatience continued to mount until it was practically hovering over him like a dark and stormy cloud.

  More than anything the communications officer seemed confused, tapping out commands in jerky movements. For the life of him, Karvar couldn’t understand why. It had been a simple order, and it should have been a quick and simple response.

  “Are we clear to land?” he asked sharply, getting up from his seat to look over the officer’s shoulder. At a cursory glance, the signal exchange seemed uncharacteristically one-sided. “It’s a routine check. What’s the holdup?”

  His communications officer shrugged and gestured to the console. “We’re not getting a reply, sir. I’ve tried pinging the airfield four times, and there hasn’t been an answer.” He tapped out a few quick commands to send the inquiry again, and again there was no response.

  “Make that five times.” The officer sighed, but despite his apparent exasperation, he kept at it.

  Karvar eyed the console warily before looking at the main viewing screen. He moved a few paces to the side, until he was standing behind the pilot’s seat. “Take us down,” he ordered, one hand on the b
ack of the pilot’s seat. “But be cautious. Something about this isn’t right, and we don’t know what kind of situation we’re heading into.”

  The pilot nodded without taking his eyes off of the helm controls, offering a distracted, “As you command, sir.” Karvar lingered behind the pilot’s seat for a moment longer before returning to the captain’s chair at the center of the bridge.

  “Set scanners to their widest range,” he commanded. “And keep an ear open for suspicious chatter.”

  Rebus Quadrant, Themis Colony

  Incoming.

  Meredith’s warning was matter-of-fact and simple.

  Raynard and I are picking up Skaine radio activity. The ship is preparing to land. They’re already wary at the lack of a response.

  Connect me to their comm, Nickie commanded, stretching her arms over her head before checking her equipment again to make sure she had everything. I want them nervous, but not completely on guard. Nervous people are jumpy. Jumpy people make mistakes.

  You’re connected.

  Nickie pulled out her communicator as she made her way to the airlock. She didn’t like speaking the Skaine language—it was too guttural and harsh for even a syllable of it to sound attractive, so even their language sounded violent—but she knew it nonetheless. It came in handy from time to time.

  “We’re reading you,” Nickie assured them. She swore she sounded like she was barking like a dog.

  Can’t you lower your voice any farther? You don’t quite sound like a Skaine, and I can only modify your voice so much.

  Irritated by the critique, Nickie tried.

  “It took you long enough,” the Skaine captain groused in reply. “What’s the holdup?”

  “There was a situation with the slaves. It’s been dealt with. I’ll meet you at the airfield.” That said, she disconnected and opened the airlock’s outer doors, just in time to see the Skaine ship landing.

  Nickie began walking down the ramp.

  Captain Karvar is attempting to contact you. He’s trying to understand why a human is coming off a Skaine ship.

  Then I guess I should go explain it to him in person, Nickie decided before she sprinted down the ramp and across the airfield.