Return

by Blaze Ward

  Nothing luxurious, just where crew slept.

  The door closed and Aileen heard the lock set.

  She turned to Eha and studied the woman’s eyes and scales.

  “You made it this far,” she reminded Eha.

  “Water,” Eha whispered.

  “You saw how many escape pods and emergency suits Lazarus had on Ajax, Eha,” Aileen reminded her. “There were swimming rings to throw and inflatable boats on the rear deck, plus a spot below that looked like a shuttle bay down at the water level, so probably a pleasure boat with an engine that’s too big. If I can find a way to blow this stupid ship up, we’ll be able to get you to shore safely.”

  “Think it will come to that?” Eha asked, just a little life coming slowly into her voice.

  “I’m sure the boys are up to something, but I’m not relying on it,” Aileen replied quietly. “Whoever owns this tub could have just called and invited us to lunch.”

  “And now?”

  “And now we wait,” Aileen reassured her. “Somebody wants to talk.”

  She doubted they would have anything Aileen wanted to hear. She just needed time. She knew Lazarus far better than anybody else on the crew did. Far more than Eha Dunham had been able to pick up in a month.

  He might look friendly and mostly harmless, but she’d seen the anger in his eyes when they got hustled back into the car and sent on their way.

  These fucking morons had no idea what was coming to rescue her.

  Twenty-Seven

  Oluchi

  Oluchi watched with the others as the small brown woman walked up. He’d always prided himself on being a casually hip kind of guy who could be dropped into any situation and make it work.

  A social chameleon.

  This woman looked like someone who could disappear into the background and be completely invisible, even in a Chinese Diaspora nudist colony. Everything about her screamed silence.

  Or whatever the opposite of scream was. Deathly silence.

  She reminded him of a ghost.

  “Pryce,” she said with a nod to him as she stepped close and looked up at Lazarus. “Eduardo sent me.”

  She had a voice that might have come from a computer system. Again, one of those designed to sound helpful without being so sexy that they distracted you.

  Oluchi understood what the woman did for Eduardo now, and it didn’t involve keeping his bed warm.

  “Lazarus,” the man replied firmly, obviously inspecting her, but not as a man might a woman, not like Oluchi had.

  Like a navy captain making sure a new sailor was up to snuff. Lazarus had that look about him, regardless of the vague deflections he had offered earlier when asked.

  “Xiuying,” the other man rumbled with an extremely polite smile, like he had seen this woman, or another of her species come into his bar and immediately called a few off-duty bouncers to come on duty, just in case.

  “Grace Savidge,” she replied with a nod.

  “Weapons?” Lazarus asked simply.

  “What gear I need is in the van,” she said coolly.

  Oluchi took that to mean that she was a weapon herself, and had a few housebreaking tools and maybe a radio over there.

  Ninja, maybe. Something equivalent.

  Scary.

  Her smile in his direction suggested that she was also reading his mind. Or he had forgotten to put his poker face on.

  He fixed that oversight and nodded to her.

  “Eduardo told me that you’d know where to go,” Grace looked at all of them in sequence, like she was measuring them, before settling on Lazarus.

  Good guess, but wrong here.

  “Ardna apparently took them down to the harbor and put them aboard Cardinal, his yacht,” Oluchi said, “Then sailed out past the breakwater but didn’t go anywhere.”

  “Six hours of darkness until false dawn,” Grace observed neutrally. “Fortunate that it is winter and the days are longer. Do we assume a friendly misunderstanding on their part when we arrive?”

  “The two women that were kidnapped at gunpoint are two different alien species nobody on this planet has ever met before,” Lazarus replied in a voice starting to betray the rage Oluchi had seen earlier. “One of them is humanoid from the waist up and giant snake below that. The other is a four and a half foot tall otter. Ardna reacted very negatively towards the first, Eha Dunham, and rumors suggest a fear of snakes in general.”

  “Okay,” Grace nodded more as a placeholder than anything.

  Oluchi found himself joining the other two staring at the newcomer expectantly.

  “I don’t like guns being pointed at me,” Lazarus said. “Where I come from kidnapping someone is generally a capital offense. I doubt the laws are so strict here, but if anything happens to those two women, my suggestion would be for the three of you to get off-planet as quickly as possible, because the assistance I would go get in that case includes seven other species and enough firepower to end Yisan as an inhabited planet. Eha’s mate is likely to use it. I’d be happy to help him. I will ask them once. Only once. Then I will kill every single one of them that are involved. That clean enough for your rules of engagement?”

  “Not even asking Khan once,“ Xiuying rumbled. “The rest’ll maybe get a chance ta drop guns afores I splatter ’em.”

  “Good enough,” Grace said with a nod Oluchi could only qualify as serene.

  He wondered what he had gotten himself into, but that was a shallow question. He’d walked in from the beginning understanding that this situation might be the biggest thing to happen in his lifetime, and a chance to get rich enough that he never had to hustle again.

  Unless he wanted to.

  “There are three ways onto, or off of, a boat in the middle of the ocean,” Oluchi found himself saying. “Fly out and land. Sail out on a boat. Both of those make noise and are likely to get someone’s attention. The other involves a bit of a swim. Probably the quietest way.”

  “I have gear for three arranged,” Grace said, turning to eye Xiuying. “I will make a call as we drive and get you fitted out. Gentlemen, shall we?”

  Oluchi nodded and tried to pretend that he was just as dangerous as these three killers he found himself getting into a van with.

  But really, he figured he was about as dangerous as a flyswatter trying to stop a charging water buffalo. Fortunately, he was on the water buffalo’s side.

  Twenty-Eight

  Lazarus

  The flight to oceanside went quickly as Lazarus sat in the front seat and watched. Grace handled the controls like any of the best boatswains he had ever flown with, and kept them out over the hills, rather than blasting noisily down the highway, where someone might look up and wonder. Or maybe be watching and make a call.

  Lazarus had known that bringing Eha and Aileen here was a risk, but he’d deemed it a political risk, not a personal one.

  However, that man that had stopped their car, Khan was apparently his name, had said he’d kill them if they gave him any grief, so Lazarus didn’t feel like he was overreacting to the situation.

  You could have called and invited us to a private lunch, my friend. Might have come. Might not have. But now, you've got an enemy with an impossibly long memory. Three if you do something stupid, because Eduardo won’t get his trade and Addison probably won’t stop until he smashes your entire corporation into the mud and then hunts down every ship you own and shatters it.

  The Rio Alliance Navy plays by the rules, but I’m not Pancho Oliveira anymore. My name is Lazarus of Bethany, and I’m a wanted man in Innruld space.

  Grace was watching him out of the corner of her eye as she flew. He glanced over and stared until she talked.

  “Aliens?” she asked finally.

  “Churquen and Yithadreph,” Lazarus replied. “Back at the ship are Necherle, Kr’mari, Qooph, Tarni, Vaadwig, and Ilount. And a warship. A big, dangerous one.”

  She nodded.

  Lazarus noted that the woman didn’t have a single wast
ed motion. Everything was precise and specific. Chatter was at a minimum as well. Just enough to cover the details or ask questions. Nothing more.

  The two men in the back of the van were having a low conversation, but there was no laughter, so probably planning. Oluchi Pryce had never been aboard the Cardinal, but there were only so many ways to build something that size. From the descriptions the woman had brought, Cardinal wasn’t much larger than the sort of cutters he had commanded when he was a punk kid fifteen years ago.

  “What does it mean when aliens come to Yisan?” Grace asked.

  Lazarus was surprised. She moved and spoke like an assassin most of the time, but he hadn’t seen anything suggesting the depths of education and knowledge necessary to make that intellectual leap, so she had many more layers than he had expected.

  “Trade, possibly,” Lazarus said. “I’m heading to Brasilia, but they wanted the chance to see Humanity in the raw, before everything became a highly-scripted event with protocol and diplomatic standards. Eduardo’s on my good list, as is Fernanda Flores. Ardna is not.”

  “Who are you really, Lazarus?” she turned her head fully to stare at him and dropped her voice to the point that the others wouldn’t hear, but he figured the autopilot was up to the task of flying, if it came to that.

  “Rio Alliance Navy,” he said simply. “I was testing an experimental warship when I had to flee for my life. A group of random aliens rescued me, got me back on my feet, and then protected me from folks like Strav Ardna back where they come from. They’re in the process of taking me home to get some help smashing their own fools, and I’ll assist when we get there.”

  “And fools who get in your way here?” Grace asked.

  “Eduardo and Fernanda I’ll protect from Eha’s mate as much as I can,” Lazarus offered. “I was trying to show my friends the good sides of Humanity. That appears to have been a mistake on my part.”

  “Maybe not,” she glanced back to include Oluchi and Xiuying in her observation.

  “Maybe not,” he relented. “I appear to have made some friends here, as well.”

  She had a pretty smile. He saw it now for a brief flash before she returned to a default neutrality.

  “Strav Ardna isn’t usually this stupid,” she volunteered. “But that’s not the same as saying he’s never done stupid things. Is he trying to torture information out of the women?”

  “Is that within his realm?” Lazarus asked with a chill he couldn’t shake off. Then the rage ignited again. “Does he do that when he doesn’t get his way?”

  “Occasionally,” Grace nodded. “Eduardo doesn’t keep me on staff just for my tea making ability and musical talents.”

  She glanced over now, and must have read the confusion there.

  “Geisha didn’t always just mean highly-paid prostitute, or performer in a historical reenactment,” she said, her face as deadly serious as her voice was quiet. “Once upon a time, it was one of the best covers a woman could have, when she worked in certain other fields.”

  “Assassin,” Lazarus breathed back at her.

  She nodded.

  “Perhaps I’ll also be lucky enough to hear you sing sometime,” Lazarus offered obliquely, suggesting that there would likely be killing soon.

  Unplumbed depths, like a black pearl hidden in a pile of coal.

  She studied him closer now, eyes narrow and judgmental.

  Weighing his soul?

  “Perhaps,” she offered back.

  Again, the ghost of a smile, gone before it registered anywhere except his memory.

  Then she turned her attention back to flying and Lazarus lapsed into his brooding.

  Maybe he had found friends on Yisan after all.

  He absolutely had an enemy.

  Briefly.

  Twenty-Nine

  Aileen

  Aileen was surprised when they came for her alone, but she didn’t get much chance to ask questions. The short Human with the growly voice threw open the door, gestured in her direction with a gun, and smiled.

  “Only you, princess,” he said gruffly.

  Eha had stirred on the bottom bunk, but subsided and the Humans locked the door again, with Aileen in the corridor surrounded by men. Tall men.

  It was really getting to be annoying, being surrounded by storks all the damned time.

  They marched her forward and up a deck, towards the bow. This deck ended in a double door that Growlyboy knocked on and then opened.

  They entered and Aileen found herself in a room as wide as the hull, with dark windows on both sides and wood furniture representing a serious amount of cash to have custom made.

  Carpets almost as thick and soft as her pelt underfoot. More polished wood and inlay, with lots of gold and silver work. Sofas on one side, chairs and a desk on the other.

  And one old Human seated behind the desk. The one from the party. The rude shit who’d stomped out early in the evening without a word to anyone.

  That guy.

  Aileen didn’t particularly like that guy.

  He gestured for her to sit in the chair in front of him on her right. The stupid, Human chair made for someone who was all legs and no tail.

  Aileen kept her grumble to herself and climbed up. The guy had half a dozen goons with him, and not all of them had guns out, so she figured someone would tackle her before she could rip the guy’s throat out with her teeth.

  Always an option when a woman decides to tell you no, buddy.

  “We weren’t properly introduced earlier,” he said in a hard voice trying to sound polite as Aileen finished climbing up the stupid, fucking chair meant for someone with legs as long as Lazarus who didn’t ALSO have a tail. “Strav Ardna.”

  “Aileen Enjehn,” she replied, fidgeting until she found a spot that didn’t hurt her butt.

  “What are you…people?” he demanded.

  Aileen had caught the stutter. That moment when someone wanted to use a less friendly term.

  She presumed this son of a diseased galumph was Westphalian originally, or had at least picked up all the beliefs in Human supremacy. It had all been theoretical before, listening to Lazarus explain things, but shit just got visceral tonight.

  “Traders,” Aileen evaded the question bluntly. “Lazarus was adrift in space when we pulled him into our airlock. Got him fixed up and introduced to some of the folks back where we come from, then brought him back to Human space so he could get home.”

  And that was even true, as long as you skipped over the part where a nervous Ilount doofus had blown up Lazarus’s ship in the first place and nearly killed the Human aboard.

  Not that she had ever stopped teasing Wybert about it. Kept him humble.

  Oh, and she also skipped a warship with a really, freaking dangerous boomstick on the front.

  “Back home?” Ardna asked with a slight gasp. “How many worlds do you represent?”

  Ah, the trade question.

  Are you furry, scaly weirdoes big enough to threaten us, or small enough we can roll over you and suddenly gain a whole new nest of slaves and servants?

  Aileen really didn’t like his tone of voice. It helped to imagine the Human as a short, balding Innruld who had worked himself into a lather on something. Then they might be cousins.

  Asshole cousins, but you know…

  “About a thousand, last I checked,” Aileen lied coldly at the bastard. “North of forty different species, not counting regional variants in biology.”

  Might has well whomp you upside the head now, eh?

  Worked. The Human went pale. Must really not like aliens or something.

  “And you’re here for trade?” he demanded, voice starting to gain some of the strength she expected from a merchant.

  Never let attitude problems get in the way of making money.

  “I am, but I’m not in charge,” she smiled warmer now, imagining Eha or Addison wrapping this fool up in their coils and squeezing him slowly. Oh so slowly. “I’m just the ship’s Quartermast
er, brought along to handle cargo loading and such.”

  She let her whiskers and ears telegraph bright-eyed innocence at the man, just to rub it in a little more.

  “And the other two?” he barked. “The Human and that thing?”

  Ah. Snake terrors. Got it.

  Lazarus had warned them. Apparently, they’d found one.

  “Lazarus wanted to stop here to show off,” Aileen said simply. “Then the ship’s headed to Brasilia to talk to the government there.”

  “What kind of ship?” his voice fell to a hollow whisper.

  Brass tacks and shipping schedules time, buddy?

  “Incredibly well-armed warship, at least as I understand your standards,” she grinned, waggling her whiskers now at the joke in her head. “Lazarus is the only Human. Rest of the crew are all aliens like me. Well, not just like me. You got Qooph, Vaadwig, Necherle, Kr’mari, Yithadreph like me, and the commander’s a Churquen like Eha.”

  All of that is technically true, your honor. Sins of omission don’t count if bald guy over there’s not smart enough to ask the right questions. Always got told to never volunteer things to cops and bureaucrats by my momma.

  “More of those things?” he almost squealed as he hissed in a breath.

  “Yeah,” Aileen agreed innocently. Close enough to innocently, anyway. “Churquen are actually the single largest species, by numbers, I think.”

  Gosh, it was fun watching him squirm.

  “And the other one is in charge here?” he snarled, whiplashing through his emotions almost too fast for a girl to follow.

  “Yup. She’s the Ambassador to the Humans.”

  Aileen sat back against the seat, in spite of how much it hurt her stubby tail to do that. Looked better, conveying total cool to a worked up Human.

  Lazarus had warned her.

  She’d been nervous that the dork had some sort of strange fetish, but it wasn’t snakes. And he wasn’t totally Human supremacist, or he probably would have kidnapped Lazarus and shot them.