Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2)

by Marie Andreas

  “Why the hell would a gahan be in a swamp?” Vas said.

  “Let’s go down and ask him, shall we?” Marli spun toward the lift.

  Vas let out a sigh. She wasn’t going to get into a power match with the woman. Especially not on the command deck of her ship. “Mac, Gon, and Pela, you’re with me. Gosta, you have the ship.” She was almost to the lift, then turned to Xsit. “Keep monitoring all lines, especially any of the gray channels.” She couldn’t explain why, and she knew Xsit wouldn’t ask. But Vas got an itch between her shoulder blades as she walked past the communications console. Better to be safe.

  The gray channels were unofficial communication, although since the Commonwealth put themselves on hold for two months it could be argued that everything was gray now. But the true gray channels were darker—a place Vas rarely took jobs from. Those attack ships that had been trying to claim to be Commonwealth had come from somewhere and if there were more out there, she needed to know.

  Marli was already waiting in the shuttle bay. At least she hadn’t actually entered the shuttle. She waited until Mac went by her, then matched his stride. “You’d not mind if I piloted us down now, would you, my lad?” She swung around a small gizmo, one she didn’t hold still long enough for Vas to get a good look at. “I have a way to narrow our search, but you understand I can’t have anyone else see it?” She aimed her smile at Mac, then turned around to fire a shot of it at Vas.

  The old Mac would have fought tooth and nail to keep his pilot spot—okay, he still would. Now that he knew what Marli really was though, that fight wasn’t even crossing his mind. Vas wondered again how he played cards with that face.

  “After you, m’lady,” He even bowed as Marli entered the shuttle.

  Again, Vas reminded herself that fighting Marli would do no good and the sooner they got this taken care of, the sooner Marli would be out of her hair. Still, she had to unclench her fists with force to get on the shuttle.

  “My second-in-command, Savan, is meeting us down there. He—”

  “Captain, I picked up some chatter from the planet, well, that and news channels,” Xsit said as her comm call cut Marli off. “They are all talking about the empress’s rebellion. About twenty of her gahan who were escorting minor nobility have vanished. Not taken, they ran away.”

  “Thank you, Xsit. Keep monitoring.” Vas secured her seat and watched as everyone else did as well. Pela had brought a mobile bio-bed, the plan being to grab Deven, tranq him, and get him into the third chamber back on the ship as soon as possible. The empress could deal with the rest of her escapees. “I have no idea why a bunch of gahan would run away, but I think we agree we need to put the shuttle down some distance away?”

  A creased brow disrupted Marli’s perfect face as she looked back to the shuttle seats. “Agreed; and I, too, am concerned.” She faced the front and started engine protocol. “Savan, slight change in plans. Make sure you arrive at these new coordinates I’m sending, and stay out of sight of the targeted building.”

  Vas couldn’t hear the response, but moments later the shuttle was out of the bay.

  The landing was textbook perfect and Marli’s man was waiting for them. He was human in appearance, but, like Ragkor, probably seven feet tall at least. He was also extremely good looking, with long blond hair pulled back in a braid that fell down to his hip.

  His looks were so perfect, Vas suspected a glamour. Which would put him into the high-ranking telepath range. One with no esper bracelet. Interesting.

  Telepaths, or espers, all had to be reported and classified. The higher the esper, the less sane they were. Vas was damn sure Deven had been far higher than what he tested as.

  That Savan wasn’t wearing a bracelet, but was possibly wearing a glamour, was disturbing. Vas had a long hatred of espers, Deven excluded, which started in her childhood. The encounter with the deranged esper sociopath monk who had tried to take over her ship hadn’t improved her feelings about them.

  Attraction to his looks warred with revulsion at his nature as Vas shook his hand.

  “I am pleased to finally meet you in person,” Savan said. His smile could take out a small moon if he aimed it right. “My captain is quite impressed with you, you know. And that doesn’t happen often.”

  Before Vas could clarify his comment—while she wanted to stay on Marli’s good side, she didn’t want to be someone of interest—Marli grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

  “I want you to go around behind the building and wait for my signal.” Marli pointed toward the mass of vegetation before them.

  “Are we sure there’s even a building in there?” Vas watched Savan jog off without a single question of his orders. It must be nice to have a crew who listened.

  “Behind the plant life.” Mac came up to them with a huge blaster rifle and a comm-pad. “The trees and vines do a good job of hiding it, but I’m reading at least nineteen heat signatures in there—besides our missing man.”

  Vas nodded but kept a wary eye on the weapon. The entire landing group was armed, they always were, but this blaster was half again the size of Xsit. She didn’t even know they had anything that large. “Don’t you think that’s a bit overkill?” It looked like it would blow a hole in Deven big enough to wave a hand through. Mac was a ship junkie, not a weapon junkie. He never got excited about a gun—until now.

  “Isn’t this wonderful?” He beamed like a new father and patted the gun’s side.

  If he went to burp it, Vas was sending him back up to the ship.

  “Now, I know what you’re thinking, but this is a tranq gun. Pretty fancy though, eh? Marli gave it to me. Er, us. She gave it to the ship.”

  Vas shook her head and made sure that Gon and Pela were ready to go. Gon was for muscle, Pela was for medical, and Mac was just for Mac. All three nodded they were ready.

  They moved toward the clump of greenery, and Vas was surprised at how thin it was. They were real plants, but they looked far thicker than they were. Like they were newly planted with the plan for an illusion of old growth. Heavy vines crept along the trees and ground leading toward an open field. Mostly open, it was now covered in shrubs, but looked to have once been a grand lawn.

  Marli had slunk ahead and quickly dropped out of sight. Vas turned to her team. “We need to spread out but still be within sight of each other. Assume all of the escapees are located inside and may put up a fight. I don’t want any of them hurt if we can help it, but we are getting our man back.”

  The shot of an old-fashioned reloading laser rifle almost took her head off.

  18

  “Hold your fire!” Only years of being one of the best mercs in the lanes kept her alive. Vas dropped to the ground at the shot and was pleased to see her people did as well.

  Two more shots were fired, but they weren’t even close to hitting anyone. Not even a tree took a hit.

  Vas swore as another shot went wild over her head. Whoever was shooting at them had horrible aim, but they were doing a damn fine job of keeping Vas and her team pinned down. Shots weren’t firing toward the back of the compound, so she assumed that Marli and her second hadn’t been spotted yet. This wasn’t in the center of town, so it might take a little longer for someone to report it to the authorities but eventually they’d get a report of weapons fire. Mayhira wasn’t a rowdy space joint; it wasn’t common for people to fire off weapons for no reason.

  “Look, we just want to talk.” Vas tried yelling again as she managed to crawl a bit closer.

  “Who sent you? We don’t have anything of value.” The building was well hidden in the vines, but the tip of the rifle became visible as he shouted to her.

  If Vas hadn’t already been on the ground, she might have fallen there at the voice. It was Deven, but that wasn’t the shocking part. He sounded scared.

  Just as the pirate Deven had no heart, this one had no guts. They’d said before that Deven had two halves—a fighter and a lover. They were clearly showing here. She wondered again what the o
ne Marli had originally was.

  “We need to talk to you,” Vas said. She’d almost added ‘Deven’ but she had a feeling he wouldn’t know the name.

  “How do you know who we are? Who sent you? We’re not going back!”

  Okay, that was new. And where he’d sounded scared before, as soon as he said the last line he sounded very Devenish.

  Too bad they couldn’t bring down the one Marli had to talk some sense into himself.

  “Going back where, boyo?” So much for Marli sneaking up. She stood as she spoke and was no more than fifteen feet away from Vas’s hiding spot. Vas saw the laser rifle slide off of her area and aim at Marli. She doubted that Deven was the only gunman, but these were all supposed to be kept men and women—ultimate lovers, not fighters. Maybe the Deven copy was the only one of the gahan who knew how to fire a gun. Even as badly as he’d been doing it.

  “I’ll shoot,” Deven’s voice was back to having a catch in it. “We won’t be taken back to be sex slaves anymore.”

  Damn it. This copy had Deven’s social justice meter. Vas would bet a round at any bar to her entire ship that none of the people in that compound ever even thought of rebelling until he showed up.

  Not that Vas would have ever been a candidate for such a position, but no one was forced into the life of a gahan; they applied for it. And the luxury they lived in was something to dream about.

  But Deven was always a stubborn one with his ideals, and clearly that was passed to this copy as well.

  “But can you shoot an unarmed woman?” Marli slowly raised her hands, and then turned her back to him. “One not even facing you?” She took a step backwards, closer to the building, then a second.

  “Stop that,” he yelled, now sounding more Deven again, and a shot fired out. Of course it was five feet over Marli’s head.

  The laser rifle stuck out further at that point and Vas realized the gunman was sitting down. Which made sense, considering the condition of the other Devens. They were both in heavy-duty bio-beds, and they probably needed to get this copy in one as well.

  Vas held her fist in the air above her, a silent command for her people to hold their places, then crept forward as Marli took one more backwards step. Marli could have probably used some Asarlaí mojo to take this Deven down, like she probably had used on the pirate one. But for some reason she seemed content to keep him focused on her back. And ass.

  The shrubs and vines around this place were horrific. This might have been a luxury mansion once, but that was a few hundred years ago. But it was good for hiding in. Marli continued to take one step backwards at a time, and Vas crept to the stairs. There were only four steps and they led to a long, plant-life strewn, patio.

  Deven’s copy came into view as soon as she crept up the first step. He was sitting heavily in a wooden chair, leaning on the arm like an old man. He’d braced the laser rifle between his thigh and the chair. His firing was becoming worse, but not on purpose. He might end up hitting Marli or one of their people simply because he had no more energy and was breaking down.

  Vas hoped Marli could put these copies back into her Deven.

  He started to turn. Even as silently as Vas was moving, something tipped him off.

  “What, I’m not good enough for you?” Marli’s taunt focused his attention away from Vas and the stairs. Marli must have also moved a lot closer.

  “Get back. I will defend these people,” Deven’s gahan clone said. But while she could hear the will in his voice, Vas saw there was nothing left in his body.

  Vas hadn’t gone for a tranq gun, but she had grabbed some hypos. She crept forward, praying that the rest of the gahan stayed wherever they were hiding.

  Deven slumped forward and Vas tackled him out of the chair and hit him with a hypo. There was no recognition in his eyes as he searched her face before the drugs hit.

  He was unconscious a few seconds later. “It’s okay. Come up. Pela, bring the bed.” There was a rustle coming from the open doorway into the abandoned house. “We won’t hurt you. You can come out.” Vas cradled Deven’s head in her lap, but motioned to the shapes hiding in the dark.

  What she was going to do with twenty or so gahan, she had no idea. That none of them had fired on her, told her she was right about the Deven copy being the leader.

  “It’s okay. I told you, everything will be fine.” A tall shape in the middle of the shadows inside the house solidified as Savan. He had his arms around a man and a woman and was murmuring to them both. The rest of the gahan trailed out behind, but all were watching Savan like he was their new god.

  If that didn’t convince Vas he was an unregistered telepath, nothing would. She fought off the chill as he and the collection of gahan came closer.

  “He told us wonderful tales,” a woman with bright green hair said as she paused by Vas and looked down at Deven. “But I was happy with my job. We have betrayed the empress though. We can never go back.”

  “It was as if it made such sense at the time, but now?” A slender young man in a loose tunic said as he too paused and looked down at Deven.

  Clearly this Deven clone had at least some, if not all, of the original’s coercion skills. He’d decided the gahan were sex slaves and started his own mini revolution. Vas brushed aside the hair from his face. So much like her Deven. She ignored the clench in her gut at seeing him alive and so vulnerable.

  “Never fear. It will all be fine.” Savan aimed one of his smiles at Vas, and then led his entourage down the stairs.

  Pela watched as he passed and shook her head. “I’m not sure what he’s got, but that is some serious mojo.”

  Gon stayed silent as he held the other side of the portable bio-bed, but his scowl said what he thought. He and Savan would not be becoming drinking buddies in the next few lifetimes.

  Vas helped get Deven into the bed. She couldn’t tell for certain, but he seemed lighter than she’d expected. And his body was frailer.

  She lifted his right arm to check for muscle tone. Not much. But even worse, no esper bracelets. That was one thing she hadn’t thought of—something as real world as those damn metal bands all espers had to wear wouldn’t have come back with any of the Devens. They’d have to find a way to get new ones on Deven immediately. Once they put him back together anyway.

  “We have our patient?” Marli jumped up on the porch from the front lawn.

  “Yes, but we might have a problem with the gahan. They may have been swayed into joining his revolution.” Vas wasn’t only worried about the gahan losing their positions. If word got out that they were swayed by a non-controlled esper and that was traced back to the real Deven—they were going to have an entirely new slate of problems. The board that controlled the telepaths was ancient and in some ways more powerful than the Commonwealth. Certainly more stable. She was sure that Deven had managed to fake his telepath rating with them—he was far stronger than he was ranked. Whether he could survive a full inquiry was another thing entirely.

  Marli looked down at the Deven copy and held out one hand. “This one definitely has a telepathic skill—but extremely faint. His swaying them was probably more personality than esper. Interesting that the pirate didn’t have any at all.” Her nose scrunched up. “Actually very good that he didn’t. I never knew Deven could be such a bastard. We would have had a major problem had that one been a teke.”

  Pela and Gon led the bed down the stairs and toward the shuttle. Marli and Vas followed behind.

  “What about the one that found you?” Vas had spoken to that one, and he’d seemed the most Deven like of all of them.

  “I call him Deven prime,” Marli said with a smile. “He definitely has some, stronger than this one.”

  Mac waited for them at the edge of the shuttle. The scowl on his face was clear.

  “What is wrong with you?” Vas stopped in front of him as Marli went to help secure the bio-bed inside.

  He held up his gun. “I never got to shoot him.”

  Vas laughed and p
ushed him toward the shuttle. “I’ll make sure to tell Deven you lamented not shooting him when he recovers.”

  Vas watched as prep for liftoff took place. She’d been strong in her faith of Deven coming back—that he wasn’t really dead. Now she worried how three dying men were going to be combined into her Deven. The man she’d admitted to falling in love with right before he got himself blown to hell.

  Life was much easier as a simple merc.

  With a shake of her head to chase off the useless and annoying thoughts, she followed the others inside. Marli buckled in next to the bio-bed, so Mac had resumed his pilot seat.

  “Where did the gahan go?” There was no way they could have all fit in the shuttle, but Vas knew they couldn’t just leave them.

  “Savan has one of my larger shuttles. I agree we can’t have them roaming around spreading tales. I’ll give them quarters in my ship until we figure out what to do with them.”

  Mac spun at that, his face so expressive he didn’t even need to say anything.

  “No,” Vas said as she buckled herself into her seat. “They are not joining our crew.”

  Mac had turned back toward the pilot’s screen when the ground dropped out from under the landing struts and the shuttle fell forward.

  19

  V as swore as the straps of her seat cut into her shoulders and chest as she was flung forward. “What in the hell happened?” She had to shout as the shuttle’s stability alarms exploded right at that moment.

  Mac got them turned off, but the shuttle was still tipping forward.

  “I don’t know. Something pulled out the ground—” His words were swallowed by a fireball of sound and flame that took out the building the gahan had been hiding in. That made the ground under the shuttle even less stable and Vas found herself hanging straight down.

  She heard a click behind her, and Marli swung down past her, using the seats and bars to lower herself to the pilot area. “Reverse this thing now, get us in a back spin, and move out of here.” She hadn’t physically grabbed Mac and flung him out of the seat, but Vas figured it was simply a matter of seconds before that happened.