Drifters' Alliance, Book 3

by Elle Casey

  “I had no choice but to have dinner with Drake. He commandeered a spot on my ship as he was passing through. And being the captain of a warship puts me in a position to learn a lot about what the OSG is planning. Photographs are to remember things, just like scars. You should know all about that, Cass. And I’m not a traitor. Not to the people, I’m not.”

  “The people? What people?” I snort in disgust. “There are no people.” The whole idea makes me sick. “Everyone is out for number one. There is no ‘people’ in our galaxy. Just the Haves and the Havenots.”

  “And the Outlanders,” he says, more softly than either of us has spoken so far. “They represent the people. The people do exist, Cass. They do.”

  “Oh, so, you’re buying into the myth too, is that it?” I’m not ready to let him know that I might actually be a believer too. I mean, I’m okay with the whole shadow thing, but to think there are actual aliens out there? No. I can’t go there. Not yet, anyway. I’d need more proof, and so far, Outlanders haven’t shown their little green faces in my world.

  “They’re not a myth.”

  “Aliens. Yeah, right.”

  He smiles. “Don’t be silly. They’re not aliens.”

  “Whatever.” I wave my knife at him. “Tell me why you’re here on my ship so we can get this over with.”

  “I’m here to warn you and to help you.”

  “Warn me that the OSG is after me? Yeah. I got that.” I point at the door. “Kind of obvious, actually.”

  “Not just the OSG. Others.”

  “Others … like …?” He’s really starting to piss me off.

  “I can’t really say.”

  “Why? Because you have a super secret handshake, and I’m not a part of your club?”

  He looks angry now. “No. Because I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t have any more time.” He looks down at his comm unit. “They’re coming. I have to take you in. Play along and it’ll go a lot easier for both of us. I don’t like to see you get hurt.”

  I raise my knife up, more scared now than I’d like to admit. I hate that this room is so small and he’s so big. “Take me in? No, you can’t do that! I thought you were here to help me, dammit!”

  “I am!” He takes a step toward me but stops when my knife comes up ready to slice and dice. “It’s just temporary. You don’t really know anything, so they can’t keep you for long.”

  “Tell that to Macon!” I shout. “He didn’t do anything wrong and they threw him out into the cold!”

  “Macon made out okay, in case you hadn’t noticed!” he shouts, his voice rattling my eardrums. He throws his right arm out. “Some of us didn’t make out so well, though, Cass! Some of us paid a pretty hefty price for the games you played!”

  I’m stunned into silence. What in the hell is he talking about?

  “You didn’t stick around to see what happened after you left, did you? Never made contact with your old friends. Never called in to let everyone know you were fine and had done it all alone. No … you let others stay behind and take the fall.” He shakes his head. “Selfish, Cass. You’re a very selfish girl.”

  I laugh kind of crazily at that. I also suddenly feel very nauseated. “What? Me? Selfish? You’re calling me selfish? Oh, that’s rich. That’s really, really rich.” I know I sound defensive, but what the hell? He’s got a lot of nerve.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demands.

  I shake my head. “You were so damn full of yourself. You broke every rule, played every dirty trick, all just to get to the top. And now here you are, Terrick! Right at the top! And you’re claiming that you’re on my side? That you’re with the Outlanders? Please. You must think I fell on my head and broke my skull somewhere along the way to believe that crap.”

  “You know, I should probably just walk away and let you find out for yourself what happened. Let you learn the hard way. But I’m not going to do that, because I promised someone very special I would help you out.”

  “Who?”

  “None of your damn business. You want to know what happened after you left? I’ll tell you …”

  I’m actually not sure I want to know, but he’s on a roll and I know I can’t stop him. I listen on with a kind of sick interest.

  “You disappeared. No one knew where you’d gone. I searched everywhere. I knew I was going to get taken down if I didn’t come up with you by morning lineup. I was in charge that night.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re not sorry. Because you don’t know what happened yet. The best part.” He stares at the ground and shakes his head. “You’re missing the best part.”

  I cringe at his tone. I have a very strong feeling I’m not going to like this so-called ‘best part’.

  “You said you left on the garbage scow,” he says.

  I nod wordlessly.

  “Do you remember losing your jacket in the process?”

  My mouth drops open as I start to answer with a no. Then I stop and say nothing. Wait. I did lose my jacket. Damn thing got caught in the maceration gears, and I had to wriggle out of it to keep from losing an arm in the thing. That’s why the garbage scow was such a great escape plan; no one’s stupid enough to risk being ground up into pulp. No one but me, that is. I hid in the maintenance cabinet. It was the perfect plan …

  “Yeah, well, I saw your jacket stuck in the jaws … reached in there, thinking maybe I was going to save you or help you somehow. The machine was completely jammed up.” His eyes take on a faraway look. “I could swear I heard you yelling for me in there. I couldn’t see anything past the opening. It was as black as a wormhole down in that shaft.” His eyes focus again, on me this time. “It wasn’t you calling me, though. It was just the sound of the machines winding out, getting ready to break free from what was jamming them up. But I had my arm and my leg down in there, trying to get to the girl who I thought was stuck.”

  My hand goes to my mouth. “Oh, shit.”

  He reaches down and pulls up his pant leg, simultaneously using his opposite hand to pull up his other sleeve, revealing limbs that he definitely wasn’t born with. “Like Drake said, I’m half the man I used to be.”

  The AI that was invisible under the uniform is as plain as day to me now. I feel sick to my stomach, not because it’s disgusting that he’s half man and half droid, but because I did this. I caused him to lose two limbs the day that I found my freedom. They were ripped right off him! My stomach turns over.

  He’s right. He did pay a very heavy price for my escape. I am selfish. My heart feels like it just got shredded in the scow’s gears.

  “Terrick … I …” I can’t think of what to say. What do you say to a man you almost killed? To a man who tried to save you and destroyed his body in the process?

  He drops the uniform back into place and shrugs it down until it’s creaseless again. “Don’t worry about it. The Outlanders fixed me up and set me on a different path. I’m a changed man in every way that counts.”

  “I don’t understand.” I’m so confused right now, I feel like I’m being hit with the schlafhammer again. “Why would the OSG let you captain a warship if you’re with the Outlanders?”

  “Because they don’t know I’m with the Outlanders, obviously.”

  “But how …”

  “We don’t have any more time.” He walks over and gestures with his hand. “Turn around and put your arms behind your back.” He pulls out laser ties that will bind me up good and solid.

  I look at him like he’s crazy. “No. Go away.”

  There’s only a half-meter between us now, and he’s staring down at me with his impossibly handsome but scarred face. “I have to take you in. I’ll make sure they don’t kill you. And then we can figure out how to get you out.”

  “Sorry, Terrick, but I just can’t let you do that.” Without any warning, I punch him as hard as I can in the solar plexus, and then I slam him in the back of the head with the butt of my knife when he lurches ove
r in pain. He goes down like a ton of bricks, unconscious but still breathing. I could swear he let me do this to him, though. He was never that slow before.

  “Adelle!” I screech.

  “Yes, Captain?” Her voice is too calm. I want to slap some sense into her, tell her she should be panicking like I am.

  “I need to talk to the engine room!”

  “You are linked, Captain. Go ahead with your transmission.”

  “Gus!” I sound like I’m losing my mind, but I can’t help it.

  “Yes, Captain. You okay?”

  “Yes. I need to get out of here.”

  “What about that OSG guy?”

  “He’s unconscious. In my bunk.”

  “Oh, man. Sucks to be him.”

  “Can you get rid of him before we get out of here?”

  “You want me to float him?”

  “No! No. Just … get him back on the dock somehow.”

  “Uh … yeah. Just give me a few minutes.”

  “Have you heard from any of the crew?”

  “No. I think comm is shut off between the docks and the ships right now.”

  “Great,” I say, mostly to myself. I sit on my bunk and bite my nails down to the quick as I wait for my engineer to dig me out of this helluva deep hole.

  Chapter Forty-One

  THE SAME MAINTENANCE UNIT THAT brought me onboard is sending Captain Terrick Overshine off the ship and onto the dock. The trick is going to be getting it down there without some OSG ape getting all up in our thrusters about it.

  Gus is giggling maniacally as his finger hovers over the Enter key on his keyboard.

  I wave at him. “Go ahead. Our shit can’t get any more messed up than it already is.”

  “Oh, yes it can,” Tam says under his breath.

  “Here goes nothin’.” Gus hits the button, and we watch out the clearpanel as all of the lights in the pedestrian tunnels leading to the docks shut down. The only things visible there now are glowing exit signs.

  “Bingo bango!” Gus yells, holding up his hand for a high five. He frowns at his brother. “Don’t leave me hangin’, man. That’s not cool.”

  Tam gives him a very unenthusiastic slap. “We still have to get that droid out of here.”

  “Not a problem. Check me out.” We watch as Gus remotely controls the overtaxed unit holding a very heavy, unconscious warship captain through the airlock and to the door that will allow its cargo to be offloaded in OSG-controlled territory. “Just one little transmission …” Gus leans down toward a mic at his mobile unit and talks to some unseen person on the dock. “Hello, friends of the Green Goddess, this is Gus the Wickedly Handsome, asking for a little offloading assistance.”

  Without the lights on the docks, there’s no way to see for sure what’s going on down there, but a couple minutes later, a gruff voice comes over the speaker. “Offloading complete. What should we do with the cargo?”

  I lean over and talk into the mic. “Deliver it to the southern hub. Leave it there.”

  “Roger that. Safe travels,” the voice says, and then it’s gone. I breathe a sigh of relief that the man who could have killed me will not be floated today. Not by my hand, at least. I’ll have to remember to thank Lucinda and her grandfather for all the help their family has given us today. I owe the Romanii big time. It’s going to make my biogrid ownership negotiations a little trickier, but there’s nothing I can do about that now.

  “Who’s on the ship now?” I ask, hoping some of the crew managed to sneak on while I was chatting with Overshine.

  “Still just us. And Simion, of course.”

  “Did you tell the Osiris we need them to deliver our crew to us?”

  “Yes, we did. They’ve agreed to round them up and bring them as soon as this is over. We have meeting coordinates.”

  I nod, trying not to cry about leaving my friends behind and about the fact that I have a bunch of other friends out there willing to help me live my life on my terms. How did I get so lucky? “Can you get us out of here in one piece?”

  Gus shrugs. “I can shut the station down and give you a clear path, but you have to do the flying.”

  I nod, deciding that cracking a joke is a great way to make our situation seem less awful. “Hey, is there any way we can do this without everyone in the entire station watching?” I’m imagining an all-consuming blackout, knowing it’s probably impossible. A girl can dream …

  Gus and Tam exchange a look. Then Tam looks at me. “Maybe.”

  I wait for the rest of the story, trying not to get too excited.

  “Beltz felt really bad for kicking your ass,” Gus says, sounding both embarrassed for me and really happy.

  “And why does that make you smile, I wonder …” My heart is tripping all over the place.

  Gus can’t stop himself. He grabs my arm and squeals like a little girl. “He gave us a cloaking device! He gave it to us! For free!”

  “Holy shit.” I can’t stop smiling now either. I walk to the door, heading to the flightdeck. I feel like I’m going to scream, and I can’t do that here. My feet suddenly have wings on them and I need to fly away.

  “What do you want us to do, Captain?” Tam asks.

  I have hope again, and hope is a very powerful drug. It’s enough to make me think we’ll get out of here and find our friends in the Dark not too far in the future. “Hook a girl up. Let me know when we’re good to launch.”

  “What about Baebong and the others?” Gus asks.

  I feel like someone punched me in the gut at hearing that, but at the same time, I know if I don’t get the hell out of here, I’m going to get taken in by the OSG and I’ll never see any of them again. Being a good captain means making really hard decisions, the right decisions regardless of the personal cost. In the long run, we’ll all be better off if I’m still captaining this ship; I believe that with all my soul.

  I turn around at the portal door and put my hand on my heart. “I swear to you that we will get them back on this boat as soon as humanly possible. But I can’t get brought in by the OSG, or they’ll take this ship from me and give it back to Langlade, and I’ll never see any of you again.”

  “That can’t happen,” Gus says.

  “No. It can’t.” A tear slips past my defenses.

  “We’ll get you out of here, Captain. We promise.” Tam puts his had on his heart and bows.

  “Yeah, we promise.” Gus has his hand on his chest, but his attention is on his computer again. “I have to work a few formulas here … make sure the shield is in place … got to do some … figuring …”

  Tam waves me away. “We’ll call you when we’re ready.”

  I nod and leave them to their engineering, running up to the flightdeck. I have to go figure out how I’m going to steer an invisible ship out through a station gone dark, with the entire place surrounded by OSG warships. I know I can do this. I’ve gotten this far, haven’t I?

  Chapter Forty-Two

  IT’S NOT AN EASY THING, to disappear a DS in the middle of a station lockdown. Hell, it shouldn’t even be possible. Lucky for me, I have the very best engineers in the universe working for me, and the inventor of the first ever, actual working cloaking device feels really bad for kicking my ass.

  “I’m ready whenever you are,” I say over the comm to Gus in the engine room. I’m sweating through my flightsuit already, and we haven’t even started yet.

  “Okay. Remember … first we’re going to shut down the rest of the station’s lights, comm devices, weapons, and signal detectors … then we’ll go dark and cloaked. You’ll have approximately fifty-five seconds to get us out of here before they can regenerate power.”

  “Not fifty-six?” I smirk as I let my hands hover above the array, ready to let my fingers start flying over the sequence that will launch us from the dock. I’ve already retrieved our airlock ramp. We’re all buttoned up and ready to ride, unfortunately several crew members short. But I’m confident we’ll have them back onboard in no tim
e. I know I can count on my Alliance friends.

  “Maybe. Or fifty-four. I’m not a hundred percent sure on that.”

  I roll my eyes. “Let’s make it fifty and call it a draw.”

  “All right, full station blackout in ten …”

  My hands are trembling as I wait for the countdown to finish.

  “Niner … niner, niner, sixty-nine her.” Gus’s voice has gone sexy, or what he probably thinks is sexy.

  I roll my eyes.

  “Eight and feeling grrreat.” Gus is having too much fun with this countdown.

  “Seven, I hope we don’t end up in heaven.”

  Tam’s voice takes over, sounding annoyed. “Six.”

  I laugh, my nerves making it seem way funnier than it is.

  “Five, hey look, I’m still alive!”

  I nearly choke on that one.

  “Four, Gus, your rhyming is really poor.”

  “That’s the spirit, brother! Three, we’re almost free!”

  “Two, don’t make me slap you.”

  Gus’s voice loses all humor. “One, and now it’s done.”

  There’s a long beeeeeeeep over the comm and then total darkness.

  Feel the force, I say to myself. Then I laugh like a maniac and start the sequence that will move my ship away from the docks and out through the exit bay.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  I’M NOT SURE I LIKE being a ghost. Our ship is dark, all running lights turned off for the great escape. It’s the only way the cloaking device can work. All the other ships around us are lit up, but without lights inside the station and the pedestrian tunnels, it’s almost as if it’s just the machines here and all the people have abandoned the place. Or died. It’s creepy.

  “We are off-dock,” I say at almost a whisper, leaving the comm-link to the engine room hot.

  “Good job, Captain,” Tam says. “Just keep her steady.”

  “No one’s blasted us so far,” Gus adds. “Seems like the jammer’s working. That’s a plus.”

  I kick up the thruster to a level I’d never normally use in a station like this. But with all the ships docked and no one free-flying around, it makes it a lot easier to maneuver without worrying about hitting anything. Besides, I only have about forty more seconds to get the hell out of here before the station comes back online.