The Commonwealth had folded in on itself, shown no activity for over two months, and yet now came out with advanced versions of their older ships?
“They are sending communications, Captain,” Xsit said with a chirp.
“Open them to the deck,” Vas said. She watched the ships on the screen. Even without being able to pull up specs, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out their weapons.
“Calling Warrior Wench. Identify your captain and stand down to be boarded.”
That was blunt and to the point. And told Vas there were still communication issues with who owned this ship. The fact that she had the ownership transferred when she first took this ship, and she knew it was filed with the Commonwealth within days of that, was very disturbing.
“Captain Ragkor Kjillian here. Sorry, we won’t be able to allow the boarding, but what can we do for you?”
Vas turned to see Ragkor and Mac coming off the lift. Ragkor held his hand up to Vas. He was bruised and battered, and had a serious limp. But considering what he’d been through, he looked much better than a dead man. Which he might be very soon, if Vas didn’t agree about his stepping in and pretending to be the captain.
Vas nodded and motioned a throat-cutting movement to Xsit. Once she nodded, Vas spoke.
“You want to explain, Captain?” Her hand was on her blaster, just in case she’d massively misread him.
“I figured with what your friends went through to keep you hidden, the least I could do is step up. The ships out there either have no idea you’re here, or they’re confirming it.”
“Captain, um, either one of you, the ship is trying to flag us again,” Xsit winced as she listened. “Very aggressively trying to flag us.”
Ragkor came to stand alongside Vas’s chair but kept quiet.
“Agreed, but no view screen. Mac and Gosta, I need you to find a way out of here without weapons.” She knew the Warrior Wench could take out three class-five attack ships—three normal ones. There was no way of knowing what modifications had been done to these. And while she was still all for hiding from the Commonwealth, until she knew more of what was going on, she wasn’t ready to start a war with them.
“We will board your ship, Captain. By order of the Commonwealth.”
The lift opened before Ragkor could respond and Flarik stepped out. As usual, she’d probably been monitoring the command deck from her quarters. The lawyer had odd hobbies.
She held a hand up to hold off Ragkor’s response, then tapped the comm. “I believe any interaction with the Commonwealth—who has been absent from their own systems for over two months, thus could be considered no longer in effect—needs to be presented through myself. I am the ship’s lawyer. You may have heard of me—Flarik.”
There was silence on the other end, which was more than a bit confusing. Yes, Flarik represented the ship and her captain in legal matters, but in an interaction with the Commonwealth she would only step in if Vas were under a legal conflict.
“Barrister Flarik, yes, we have heard of you. It is good you are representing this ship. Please explain to your captain and crew that we must board via section 783.2 of the Commonwealth code.”
The feathers on the back of Flarik’s head flared up and she spun to Xsit. “Cut it.”
“Captain, we need to get away from here immediately. Whoever they are, those are not Commonwealth ships, or at least their crews are not Commonwealth.” She held up a small device she’d had clutched in her hand. A series of tiny buttons flashed. Almost all were white, but the middle two were red.
“I’ve used this device before, but it never indicated a problem, so I never felt the need to disclose it. I will not bore you with the full details, but it can pick up voice infiltrations, markers in different species. They are not from a known Commonwealth species.”
“Damn it.” Vas turned to her command crew. “I need options, people. We need to avoid an altercation with these ships. They are flying the Commonwealth colors and even though evidence indicates they aren’t what they seem, we’d be in a bad place if we’re wrong.” She hadn’t heard from Terel about locating pirate Deven yet, but they’d have to move fast when she did. They couldn’t drag these three ships, whoever they were, along with them on that. Nor on whatever trip Aithnea’s little secret nod to Yholine led them.
“Captain, I have no idea what that buoy is, but the protections around it indicate it is very important. They could be here for it,” Ragkor said. He still stood in parade rest next to her chair, even though his lean from avoiding putting weight on his injured leg was getting worse.
“Excellent observation. Now how do we disengage from them? We have a few more appointments I’d rather they didn’t follow us on.”
“Blow them out of the sky.” Flarik was still looking at her little gizmo, but her teeth clacked as she spoke, and her feathers were still ruffled. Xsit was going to run from the command deck if Flarik even glanced at her like this.
Flarik was bloodthirsty—being both a Wavian and a lawyer guaranteed that. But this was aggressive even for her. Vas had to think the legal repercussions of blowing up three actual Commonwealth ships wouldn’t be healthy for anyone.
“Do you want to clarify?” Vas held up her hand. “I know, your gizmo there indicates they aren’t who we think they are, and their responses make me inclined to agree. I think we need a little more to go on.”
The front view screen was locked on those three ships, so the screens didn’t have time to block the glare as all three blew up.
Impact klaxons rang out as debris from the three fighters slammed into the Warrior Wench’s shields. A second alarm blared and another ship, much larger than the three disintegrating fighters, passed by with horrifying closeness.
“Sorry about that, Captain. My navigator is babysitting your second-in-command, or rather the part of him that thinks he’s a pirate. Bastard is a serious asshole.” Marli’s voice echoed around the deck. She might have said she was sorry, but there was no denying the laughter in her voice.
“Damn it, Marli. We don’t know if they were really with the Commonwealth or not,” Vas yelled over the klaxons. The proximity alert cut off as the Scurrilous Monk moved off, but the impact warning was still going.
“Mac, get us out of range of this flying crap, and someone shut those klaxons off,” Vas yelled, the final bit coming out far louder than intended in the sudden silence.
The ship was moving, but Vas knew Mac needed a heading. She needed to find out what in the hell Marli was up to—and things like how their twenty hours out suddenly turned to less than one.
“Warrior Wench, follow us. I have a place we can regroup.” Marli didn’t even wait for a response before the Scurrilous Monk left the area and headed for the nearest gate.
“Damn it, follow her.”
“Captain? Are you sure?” Gosta hadn’t taken to Marli when he’d met her during their first encounter, and he didn’t even know she was an Asarlaí.
“We don’t have a choice. She has answers we need, and she has a few Devens we need back.” Vas figured Marli found a way to get the pirate one using something she’d picked up from Vas earlier. But she also didn’t think she had the third. “They don’t have a lot of time.”
Gosta looked like he wanted to ask more, the entire command crew did, but they held off. Flarik did her scary bird-of-prey pose, but didn’t ask anything.
“I’ll be back in my quarters,” Flarik finally said and nodded to Vas and Ragkor, then stalked off to the lift. Vas would be more concerned about the stomp except that was often how the lawyer travelled. Vas doubted Flarik was even aware of it.
Mac shook his head, the closest he was getting this time to asking what was going on, and the ship turned to follow Marli.
The system she was in was a small one, the gate connecting to it was old and not used much, judging by the connections it took to reach it.
But it got them far enough away from the scene for Vas’s liking. And considering Marli had centuries mor
e experience at hiding, Vas felt secure in the obscurity of the system. There was a single star but it was far away. The remnant of a long-forgotten mining operation silently explained the small gate’s location and its abandonment. The screen told Vas a much larger gate lay at the far end of the system.
“Thank you for joining me, Vas,” Marli’s voice cut in even though Vas hadn’t ordered open comms. Xsit raised her hands and shook her head. Marli might not have the ‘wanting to control the known galaxy’ mindset the rest of her long-dead people did, but she clearly had the ‘I’m going to do whatever I want’ mentality solidly in place.
Of course, she was also letting a lot of her ship’s special abilities be known when she didn’t need to expose them. Interesting. Either she trusted Vas based on a few meetings, or she didn’t care what Vas and her crew knew because she was planning on taking them out.
“We probably want to meet over here. It took a while, but my navigator finally got our new guest into a bio-bed.”
She said it as if there was an option, but even though the Scurrilous Monk didn’t look that much bigger than the Warrior Wench, Vas knew Marli could blow them out of the sky as easily as she had taken out those three fighters.
“We’ll take the shuttle over. I’m thinking my doctor should come with us, as well as my second.”
“Aye, good call on all parts.” The laugh underlying Marli’s voice told her that Vas using the shuttle, and not mentioning the particle mover, was not missed. Considering that when they first met, Marli had used it to get some bodies she stole off the Wench, it wasn’t a secret.
But Vas didn’t feel like reinforcing that they had it. Plus, the more they used it the less she thought they should. It was dangerous technology and not fully vetted by any of her people—even Gosta.
Mac got up as Vas and Ragkor headed for the lift.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Vas stopped in front of his station and folded her arms.
“I figured you needed a pilot?” His hopeful look reminded her that he had a serious crush on Marli. Vas figured that would change in a second if he knew what she was.
Marli appeared to be a drop-dead gorgeous brunette. Tiny and petite, she could get people to do what she wanted without resorting to her Asarlaí magic. Vas hadn’t seen Marli in her natural form, but she’d seen holograms of beings purporting to be Asarlaí. Male and female were both about seven feet high, with pale, almost pearlized skin, long white hair, red eyes, and tiny fangs.
“Sorry, I think I can handle this.” Vas patted his shoulder and used it to push him back in his seat. “Gosta, you have the deck. Xsit, keep scanning for chatter.” She turned back to Gosta as another thought hit her. “You did leave a marker?”
Gosta looked insulted. “Captain! Of course I did. It’s drifting in the original debris since I figured the new wreckage might be more likely to come under scrutiny. “
Vas smiled and headed for the lift where Ragkor waited. The markers were variations of a tag placed on ships. Gosta had fiddled with them and made them almost invisible, free floating, and able to send information that couldn’t be picked up by other ships. A ghosting computer might pick them up, and probably anything Marli had, but most other systems wouldn’t even notice them or the constant stream of information they sent. Gosta would gather it, then see if there was anything of value.
Terel was already down near the shuttle with a full med kit. And a very healthy scowl. “She’s got to stop taking our things, Captain.” She held up an empty vial “After she cut off communications an hour ago to travel the non-existent twenty hours to us, she stole the tracker for the pirate Deven.”
“Clearly, wherever she really was when she contacted us, she had enough time to hunt down pirate Deven, steal him, and get to us.” Vas shook her head. She admired Marli’s skill, but if things started going sideways, like she had a feeling they already were again, it wasn’t good to have such a powerful wild card roaming around. No matter whose side she was on.
Ragkor stayed silent.
“Anything on the pre-cog meter?”
“Sorry, no.” He winced. “That’s one of the reasons I never told you about it. It’s not consistent at all. Those ships were the first image I’ve had in years.” He didn’t add that he’d been mostly drunk for the last few years before Vas brought him on board. At least that was what he’d told her. She knew drinking could mess up teke and pre-cog talents.
Vas looked at his visible injuries up close, then turned to Terel. “Did you check him or any of the shuttle crew out?”
Terel looked at the huge man and shook her head. “None of them came down to the med labs. Even though I’ve told them they need to if they get hurt.” She stopped walking toward the shuttle and put a hand on Ragkor’s chest.
“I’m fine, Captain, really. I’m—”
Terel caught him as he collapsed forward. Vas rushed forward to help since even though Terel was tall, she was about half the weight of Ragkor.
“Pela, bring a bio-bed to the shuttle bay, immediately.” Terel yelled into her comm as klaxons started wailing.
Together, Vas and Terel lowered Ragkor to the floor. He was out cold, but Vas couldn’t see any bleeding. Of course, internal injuries were impossible to see.
“Gosta, what the abyss is going on?” Vas did her own yelling as the ship bucked under a hit. Judging by the impact, the shields were still in place, but something was firing on them.
Gosta’s voice was frantic and Vas heard others yelling on the command deck. “Captain, it’s Marli. The Scurrilous Monk is firing on us!”
11
P ela appeared within a minute with a floating bio-bed, but the klaxons were still wailing. Vas nodded to Terel and ran for the lift. Whatever had caused Ragkor to collapse, Terel and her people were on it. Vas had to find out why in the hell Marli was opening fire on her ship.
And with the fire power Vas imagined that Marli secretly had on that thing, why she hadn’t blown the Warrior Wench apart yet.
The command deck was usually chaotic. In times of stress, it was a controlled chaos. Right now it was pure chaos.
“Someone turn off that damn klaxon. We know we’re under attack.” Vas swore she’d asked Mac to do something about the thing months ago.
“Xsit, open a ship-to-ship comm.” Vas ran to her command chair and buckled in. They were still taking hits. The shields were working but that didn’t stop impacts from flinging people around. Someone killed the klaxon, and Vas pounded the communications button as soon as the light turned green. “Marli, what the hell are you doing?”
“Captain, we are under attack internally. Please move your ship away.” That wasn’t Marli, but sounded like the man who had contacted them before. He must have turned from his mic as his voice dropped but he was clearly yelling. “Everyone out of this room, now!” Then cut out.
Vas motioned to Mac. “You heard the man—run. I don’t think they’ll follow us.”
“But shouldn’t we help her?” Mac was engaging the engines but he didn’t sound happy.
Vas shook her head. She wished she could tell the rest of her crew what Marli was. Just a few knew, Terel and Flarik being the only ones still on the ship. “Trust me, she’s a lot tougher than she looks and could wipe the floor with any of us—me included. Move this ship.”
Vas looked at the logs. Nothing heavy was being fired from the other ship, and nothing long-range. There were also a lot of badly aimed shots that didn’t even come close to them. Someone was definitely fighting over on the other ship. That was something at least. Of course, whoever was behind it might not have needed long-range weapons since they were close. But the man she spoke to seemed far more concerned about them just getting out of range.
The rocking stopped once they moved out of reach of the short-range weapons.
Vas wanted to give Marli and her crew time to resolve whatever was going on, so she refrained from calling back to them.
This wasn’t a time to take unneeded risks either
. “Walvento? I need you to have all heavy weapons primed and aimed at that ship. She shoots one long-range weapon at us, we have to fire back.” At his grunt in agreement—the weapons room always made him resort to grunts—Vas sat back. The multi rows of lights on her weapons console came to life. Yes, Walvento and the rest in the weapons room had control of them, but from here, as long as her live and willing hand hit the console, she could override the firing if need be. Nice new gizmo of Gosta’s.
But she’d be surprised if they survived a full hit from the Scurrilous Monk long enough to fire anything back. What she should do is take off and let Marli find them again. Yet, Terel agreed that the Devens didn’t have much time, and it seemed they needed all of them together, to put him back together. They needed Marli, the two Devens, and her ship to hopefully find the third.
She didn’t want to leave, but she also didn’t want her ship blown apart.
And there were other issues. “Terel, do we know what is wrong with Ragkor?” She kept her eyes on the screen in front of the deck. The Scurrilous Monk hadn’t moved at all.
“I’m not sure. The scanners aren’t showing any internal injuries, but his body is acting like there are. Hold on,” Terel said. “Damn it, we need a scan of what is on that buoy. Ragkor is conscious again, barely. He said his glove had a tear when he went to anchor that thing to tow it in. And when he connected it to use as a power source to help move the shuttle. You’d better survive this, you bastard, so I can rip you apart for being stupid.”
Vas held in her laugh. She knew that last comment was aimed at Terel’s patient. So far Ragkor hadn’t annoyed anyone on this ship, but he’d now seriously pissed off his doctor. Vas was pissed too, but knew Terel would do a better job of payback in this case. Yes, they had a job to do, and yes, they had limited time. But who knew what he’d been exposed to by having a tear? His bare hand wouldn’t have been exposed directly to space, and the suit would have shut down any further exposure. Unfortunately, the first layer of those suits was for radiation and other contaminants. There was no way an area that had just had their sun blow up didn’t have major contaminants.
Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2) Page 7