Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2)

by Marie Andreas

  Vas couldn’t believe she was going to suggest this. “How well can you mask your abilities without those bracelets?” Like his age, and true heritage, Deven never talked about that.

  He paused, seemingly in argument with himself, then finally nodded. “I can hold it for about an hour. I’m far more powerful than my ranking, and nope, don’t want to share right now. Leave it to say that if they catch me—us—they will kill us both.”

  “Warrior Wench shuttle, this is a second call. You are commanded to land immediately.”

  Crap, they went from request to command. The next step was to blow them out of the sky and sort things out later.

  “Captain, the drone has been discovered. I’m having it self-destruct.” Gosta called in.

  “Agreed. Then pull the ship back to higher atmosphere. Deven and I have to land, but if it goes badly, I want you to run and find Marli. Let her see what you got from the drone and tell her what happened.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Gosta said and cut the line.

  “They are tracking weapons on us,” Deven said. But his hands stayed on the controls and they were still not pointing toward the planet.

  29

  “We’re having a problem with the ghaltnator, but complying now,” Vas called down to the shuttle landing command then cut the line.

  “Head down as slow as possible,” She said then reached over and removed Deven’s esper bracelets. “I need you to glamour both of us. I don’t care as what, as long as we don’t look like us.” Yes, she might be paranoid but paranoid mercs stayed alive.

  “That’s going to tap my abilities, covering both of us and keeping my telepathic skills off their radar.” Deven rubbed the place where his bands had been. “I’m going to keep it simple. Hope you like being a blonde.”

  Vas felt a tingle, like she’d walked into a personal shield but it stuck to her. She held up a hand that was most definitely not hers. Gone were the short nails and banged-up fingers. Instead there was a soft white hand with a bunch of rings. Not high-end enough to be robbed, but enough to not look like a merc.

  Deven had changed as well. He was still tall, but now his normally olive skin was pale, his long blond hair caught up in a knot. He looked like Savan’s cousin. He was also showing way more skin again.

  Vas turned the hand-held her way. She didn’t carry mirrors, but it had a reflective surface and knowing what she looked like was probably a good idea.

  Yup. She looked like a matched set to Deven. Blond, pale, frail looking. “Really?”

  Deven laughed as he maneuvered the shuttle into landing formation. “Savan was an easy mental grab and he showed me a vid of his sisters when I was on their ship.”

  “Wait, so you know Savan?” She’d never met him before the trip down to rescue Deven. “Did you meet him a long time ago?”

  Deven was busy landing the shuttle, so his response was distracted. “No, when I was on the ship before, he was trying to help me with my recovery before Marli realized what had actually happened and we came to find you.” He turned to her quickly, his eyes huge.

  “You recalled something from before you were put back together, that’s great!”

  “Maybe,” Deven said then turned back to landing. “Warrior Wench shuttle coming in for final approach.”

  “What do you mean maybe? Memories are good.” Vas busied herself with trying to make sure she was covered. This glamour was far bustier than she was and the clothing minimal. No wonder the gahan were drawn to Savan; his people were sexpots.

  “The feeling that there are events that happened—both ones before I died, and things that happened when I was split that I don’t recall, is disturbing. And as new one’s surface, that’s disturbing too.” Deven finished landing and ended the conversation.

  Vas watched him for a moment, she could only imagine what he was going through. But he’d shaken off his reaction to remembering Savan, so she moved on as well. “Follow my lead.” Deven had set them up in these personas, might as well use them. Vas unbuckled her belt, stuffed a small pouch of breaking and entering equipment under the jacket in the back, and went to the door. She wasn’t surprised when four armed guards awaited them.

  “Captain Vaslisha Tor Dain?” The lead guard was a head taller than the others and built like Ragkor. Even without the full blaster in his arms, he’d be hard to get around.

  Vas laughed. Deven’s glamour wasn’t changing her voice, but she could. She pitched it high and breathy, and looked at the guard through her eyelashes. “Sorry, Captain.” He didn’t have those bars, but she figured her persona wouldn’t know that. “That wench left a long time ago. She lost the ship to my crew about two months ago. Didn’t your people get that change when I said we were coming down?”

  The guard narrowed his eyes and tightly shook his head. “And what is it your crew is doing with the ship?”

  Deven slid forward at this point. “What it was intended for. The former captain stripped it before she and her crew left, but the beds are still there.” The look up and down he gave the guard made his meaning very clear.

  “Then you’re back to being a….”

  “Brothel ship, yes. We’d love to stay and visit, but we have a party we have been hired for by the duke of Ghilithina.” Vas smiled.

  “That’s not what was sent down when you requested clearance.” His hand lingered near his blaster in a side holster.

  “We couldn’t say what we were actually doing. It’s a surprise party and the duke’s cousin has a friend who works in the port.” Vas did her best pout. “It was my idea. I’m sorry.”

  The guard nodded to the others. “We still need you to come to command, but you should be able to get back to your…jobs…soon.” The redness in his face and the small onyx circle on his collar brought a seductive smile to Vas’s lips. The order of the Purin. A very old subset of some lost religion who followed chastity their entire lives. There was a reason there weren’t many of them around anymore—they were non-breeding themselves out of existence.

  Vas made sure there was a lot of slink in her step as she went down the stairs to the guard. “Thank you, Captain.” She fingered the collar that the religious pin wasn’t on. “Maybe if you get lonely you could come find us. The Warrior Wench is always ready for action.”

  She swore she heard a choking sound behind her, but the guard didn’t choke. He looked like he wanted to though.

  “Please go to the command office,” he said with a wince.

  The other guards smiled appreciatively, two at her and one at Deven. They didn’t have the pins.

  The guards didn’t escort them, but considering it was about a hundred-yard walk to the command office and they all had high-powered blasters that could blow Vas and Deven away with ease, they didn’t need to.

  “When did you get so good at this?” Deven stayed a half step behind her. It had been his choke she’d heard back at the shuttle.

  “A lot of things changed since you’ve been gone. Not doing merc jobs has led to some more creativity in what we do. We still run rescue missions as well.” She glanced back at him. The face was different but that smile was all Deven.

  “I saw that in the logs. Thank you.”

  “We didn’t do it just for you,” Vas said. “Okay, it started out as a tribute for you. The way you and Jakiin died hit the entire crew hard. It was good to have an outlet. But it seemed like the right thing to do. After the Commonwealth shut down, we needed to find other work. Mercenary jobs were getting weird and impossible to confirm. You know me: no confirmation, no job.”

  “Captain Tor Dain?” The sanctimonious prig standing in the doorway, looking down his nose at both of them even though he was at least a few feet shorter, was in no way one of the airstrip personnel. Last time Vas had checked, no working person would be caught dead in the tight ceremonial tunic made of the most absurd yellow fabric and chartreuse flaring pants that ended up being tucked into short black boots.

  The effect was enough to cause seasickness on la
nd. Clearly, one of the empress’s people.

  “Nope, told the guards the same thing. She and her crew lost their ship to me and mine. Lagrang Poff, at your service.” As she spoke she gave the obnoxious little man a come-hither once-over. Not easy when she was fighting the urge to gag at his clothing.

  Deven stepped forward and bowed. “Captain, don’t you realize who this is? He’s Flovian of the Empress Wilthuny’s envoy.”

  The official preened a bit at his name, then shook it off when he realized Deven was sizing him up. The look the sanctimonious man gave both of them indicated neither were of his taste.

  He went from pompous official to bored servant faster than Vas could draw a blaster. “I see. You people do not know where she went then?”

  “Not at all. We left them out in the mining colony past Kaneb Five. She was very far gone in drink,” Deven said. “The loss of her second-in-command decimated her.”

  Vas shot him a glare but he was staying focused on the man in front of him. Actually, Vas knew what he was doing. His eyes appeared to be on the official, but he was actually looking past him and trying to view the darkened interior.

  The official started to nod, then froze at someone’s voice behind him in the darkness. Vas couldn’t hear what was said.

  “Did she and her crew have any ship when you left them?”

  Vas thought quickly. That fake Rillianian rescue ship. The empress certainly had allies in whatever it was she was doing, but that ship was too low class for her.

  “Yeah, she ended up with the Hython. Tight fit, but it’s what she could get.”

  The official turned away. “Very well. Go about whatever business you people have on this planet. The empress does not need to see you.”

  Deven stayed half-bowed and watched the doorway until it was shut in their faces.

  He took her arm and quickly marched them out of the landing area and down toward the huge shipping containers waiting to be unloaded.

  “Are you that worried that they’ll come after us?” Vas pulled her arm free. Even through the telepathic disguise she could see Deven was sweating. More importantly he was starting to look like Deven through the haze of the blond filter.

  “Something is affecting me. I can’t…” He staggered forward, then pulled himself up by hanging on to the side of one of the container units. “Get my bracelets on me now. I’m losing—”

  Vas was by no means a small, frail woman, but Deven was a big man and all muscle. She caught him as he collapsed, but only barely. Then she dropped him as she was lowering him to the ground and a stabbing pain tore through her skull. Echoed by alarms in the compound.

  Deven now looked completely like himself, and she knew she did too.

  30

  “Damn it,” Vas said. She let Deven slide to the ground so she could grab the bracelets out of her pocket. The alarm was getting louder, but they didn’t sound like what she was expecting. She’d only heard an esper alarm once, and luckily it hadn’t been Deven. He’d been picked up in the raid, and it took a while to get him out of jail, but they’d been able to do it.

  His wrist was cold as she snapped the bands into place. He was still breathing, but his breaths were short and shallow.

  The alarms kept going.

  The bands should have shut them down as soon as they blocked Deven. There might still be crews out there looking for an unsanctioned telepath, but the mojo that triggered the alarm should have stopped.

  Unfortunately, when she got her wish a moment later, the silencing of the alarm was replaced by the sound of a lot of marching feet. Double time, but in unison. Unison always meant standing military—a mob didn’t train.

  The footsteps were heading their way. Vas had her snub blaster and she knew if she patted him down she’d find a few weapons on Deven. But that still meant it was her against an unknown number of assailants. And she was trapped between a bunch of storage containers.

  She grabbed some of the oil-covered dirt around them and smeared herself with it, focusing mainly on her face. She had finished doing the same for Deven, leaving him mostly face down, when the entry to their hidey-hole was filled with armed guards.

  “Both of you, drop your weapons and raise your arms slowly.” The grunt was in full riot gear, unusual for taking down an uncontrolled esper. Gear designed to deflect a blaster shot wouldn’t do anything against a telepathic attack.

  “Thank the gods,” Vas said, adding a tremble to her voice. “They be coming through here and struck us down. My mate’s unconscious.”

  The guard held his position until Vas dropped her blaster. Then motioned toward one of the other guards. The woman jogged forward, patted down Vas, then turned Deven over. “She’s right. He’s out cold.”

  The lead guard nodded as his companion came back to join them. “Did you see where they went?”

  Vas pointed to the left, back into the landing area.

  Without a word, the guards turned and jogged the way she’d pointed.

  They clearly weren’t looking for a telepath, sanctioned or no. Vas had seen the woman take Deven’s wrist—the one with the bands—as she turned him over.

  Vas didn’t have time to see what they were after, nor did she have room to care. “Not my intergalactic war, not my Dengolian slime worms,” was an old saying Aithnea used to recite to remind Vas that not everything was something she needed to worry about.

  Although in all her travels she’d yet to find any creature called a Dengolian slime worm.

  She brushed some of the grime off Deven. She’d put it on them to reinforce that they’d been attacked but mostly to keep their features from showing. The empress looking for Captain Vaslisha Tor Dain was not a good thing. She’d been having Gosta run scramblers on her image in any and all data banks owned by the Commonwealth the past few months—she would need to have that order pushed out further.

  Deven groaned and she pulled on him to get him up. If he could groan, he could move. Vas wasn’t sure what the empress was up to, and if there was a goddess she would make sure the empress and her people were gone by the time she and Deven came back for their shuttle. It would look too suspicious if they went back to the shuttle now.

  “Hold up. I can’t see.” Deven was on his feet but shaking his head and leaning most of his weight on one hand against the container. Enough to dent it.

  “Can’t see as in we’re screwed, or can’t see as in you’re shaking it off?”

  He squinted down at her, his eyes were little more than green slits but they were looking at her. “Shaking it off. Slowly. Damn, what hit me? And why do you look like shit?”

  Vas looked out the entrance of the row of container tankers. The guards were at the far end of the landing area and more shuttles had been allowed to land. Still no idea what they had been after, nor what the alarm signaled, but if she knew Gosta he had all of the internal comm systems down here tapped by now and could fill her in when they got back.

  “I was hoping you could tell me. You freaked out, told me you were losing it, and then collapsed. Our glamours dropped. Alarms started but turned out the guards weren’t looking for an open esper.” She pointed to his equally muddy self. “This was the best I could do to make us look less like ourselves.”

  Deven rubbed the side of his head as if he had been hit on that side. “The empress. She’s got an esper with her, a strong one. He or she took down my shield like it was paper. I collapsed to keep them out.”

  Vas motioned for him to come forward and led them sneaking out, without appearing to, of the shuttle port. “Then why didn’t they drag us in? It took me a bit to get the bracelets on you. They had to have known where we were.”

  Deven was moving forward, mostly without help. “It’s difficult to explain. They ripped down every esper’s shields within a few clicks of here. But they weren’t looking for anyone specific.” He rubbed the bands on his wrist. “This will show that I’m blocked, so no longer in danger. But whoever the empress has is even more powerful than me, and
untrained.”

  Vas shuddered. She still wasn’t sure how powerful Deven was, but she knew it wasn’t good that there was someone out there stronger than him and untrained. Higher-level telepaths were all kept under lock and key by the Commonwealth when found. Anything level ten or higher was always crazy.

  Once they got away from the shuttle port, Vas raised her hand-held and looked toward the location of the storage locker. Not too far away. They were here to get whatever Ramoth wanted and see if it was something they were going to let him keep. They might as well do it.

  She’d gone ten feet before she noticed Deven wasn’t following.

  “You coming?”

  Deven was looking back at the shuttle port and shaking his head. “I can’t get over the feeling that there is something I’m missing. Something about what just happened.”

  She stepped back, looped her arm through his and started moving toward the storage facility. “Deven, with all you’ve been through, it’s amazing you can walk right now. It’ll come back. And it’s a damn good thing they weren’t looking for an unsanctioned telepath, because we’d be dead now.”

  Deven gave one last glance over his shoulder at the shuttle port, then started walking faster. “No, you’d be dead. I’d be taken in for experimentation. But I agree, we were damn lucky.”

  They were both silent the rest of the way, and considering the oily mud was drying and cracking on their skin, people avoided them. Their first disguise had been blown, but sometimes the old ways were the best ways.

  The storage unit was located in one of the few truly run-down areas on the planet. It was as if the people who originally settled here wanted to create one little area to contain the undesirables.

  Mayhira was a small planet, mostly higher end and filled with people from many worlds. As long as they were rich, they were welcome. The buildings in this part of town looked to be barely standing even if they were clearly not old. They did not give the impression of welcome. More of a ‘here ya go, try not to let your new home fall on you’. It wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the places Vas had seen. Mostly extremely small, single-family homes with heavy fences protecting tiny yards. They were sad and pathetic compared to the rest of the opulent planet.