Asarlai Wars 1: Warrior Wench

by Marie Andreas

  There was a popular series of fictional horror vids made of a race not unlike the Wavians who in a half-doze ate the rest of their crew before they even came out of hibernation.

  Deven buzzed the external comm once. He figured it might take a while to pull Flarik out of her sleep, but slow and steady awakenings were better than a sudden one. Especially with someone like Flarik.

  He almost fell into the room as the door slid back and a confused, but extremely awake, Flarik glared at him. She stuck her head out past him, her long neck extending to clearly see down both ends of the hall. Then she cocked her head and pulled him inside.

  Deven tumbled in, his eyes blinking in the dim light.

  “Sorry, did not expect a guest,” Flarik muttered as she bustled further into her lair. “Lights up.” The illumination increased to an easy level.

  The room before him was a mess. Wavians preferred cozy, nest-like quarters, so the reconstruction of the original furniture and features wasn’t surprising. The condition of the new creation was.

  Clothing and fabric from the original furniture was flung all over, bits of fibresteel and plastic littered the floor. Flarik vanished further into the room and came back wearing a heavy green robe. She perched on one of the piles and nodded.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Are you all right?” It wasn’t what he’d intended to ask, nor possibly the best thing to ask a Wavian, even one who’d been his shipmate for five years. But she looked so out of things he was concerned.

  Flarik glanced around her quarters with a wince. “Fair question. Very fair question. I believe I am now. But something was wrong, very wrong.” Her eyes were bright. “I had a dream, one that penetrated my hibernation. There was an ancient evil on this ship.”

  Deven set himself down on one of the more solid piles. He didn’t think Wavians were telepathic, at least not on a scale he’d ever heard. And when she was in hibernation it took an explosion to wake her. However, something had reached into her mind through that instinctive sleep.

  Something at the same time that Marli had been on board.

  Carefully making sure no nuances of what was going through his head came out in his words, Deven leaned forward. “Did you see what it was?”

  He wasn’t careful enough; the shrewd lawyer bobbed her head. “So something did happen. Something, or someone, was on this ship who shouldn’t have been.”

  “A number of things happened while you were asleep.” Maybe he could dodge around this, but he knew that somehow she had felt Marli’s presence.

  Flarik rose to her feet, and rocked back and forth, a hunting stance she used when facing a challenge. “Perhaps so. However this was a unique person.” She glared at him as if it was his fault. “I did not dream it.”

  Wondering where his ability to keep things hidden from others had vanished to as of late, Deven let out a sigh. “No, I don’t think you did. There was someone on board.” He’d already told Vas, how much worse could it be if Flarik knew? Besides this might be the only way to engage her help on this. “There was a woman on board. An Asarlaí in disguise. Vas knows, but no one else can.”

  Flarik’s golden eyes locked on to him so intently he knew why the fictional horror vids had been so popular. She was terrifying.

  “An Asarlaí. Alive. Here.”

  “It’s a long story, but yes—”

  “You let one of them aboard this ship?” Flarik started shaking and rocked back until she hit the pile of fabric behind her. In a very un-Wavian movement she tumbled onto the pile and sat there.

  He’d never seen any Wavian, much less Flarik, who was unique even for her species, be so visibly unnerved. If he didn’t know better he would say the lawyer was terrified.

  “Is it gone now?” Her voice was low, her feathered chest rising quickly as she took in short tight breaths.

  “Yes, she’s left.” He debated calling for help, but that would cause problems for both of them. “Are you going to be all right?”

  Flarik rocked for a few moments, her eyes shutting slowly as she nodded. However, whether the nodding was toward him or herself he wasn’t sure. Finally her outer lids opened followed a few moments later by her inner ones. Her golden eyes were their usual predatory self when she stared at him.

  “I was taken off balance by the news that not all of the monsters we thought to have destroyed eons ago are dead.” She rose and tightened the robe around her. “I will ask the captain for an extended leave. It is my duty to remove this last beast.”

  Deven ran his fingers through his hair. This wasn’t turning out well.

  “Flarik, I understand that the Wavians suffered during the time of the Asarlaí. Many races did. But this one is different. She’s working with us.”

  “She? Is she your mate?”

  Deven fought back his initial choked response. “No. However, I have known her for over one hundred years. She has no ill intentions toward your people, or this ship.” He hoped. Truth was he trusted Marli to be Marli, nothing more.

  Tiny feathers that covered Flarik’s head ruffled forward. “Who are you to have known an Asarlaí?” She spit the word out with more venom than a Kjarion pit viper. Clearly the history of the Wavians had not forgotten the Asarlaí.

  “That’s really too long and convoluted to go into now.” He fingered the panel in his pocket next to the patch. He pulled the panel out and held it up. Maybe if he could distract her she’d let things lie for now. “Do you recognize this language?”

  Flarik switched to lawyer mode and looked like she wouldn’t let the interrogation go, but a chance glance at the image on the panel pulled her attention and she whipped it out of his hand.

  “Where did you get this?” If anything, she was more pissed off than she had been about the Asarlaí. “Do you understand what this says? This is blasphemy. Where did it come from?”

  Deven pulled out the burnt patch. “From an image of someone wearing a suit with a patch like this.”

  She hissed and refused to touch the patch even though it was clearly sealed. “The evil came from that. Was the Asarlaí wearing it?”

  He put it back in his pocket for safety. “No. However, someone working for her had been wearing it when he flash froze to death. She claimed he hadn’t been wearing it when she last saw him.” He waited until the feathers on her head settled down. “What does it say?”

  She fixed him with a tilted glance, her golden eyes narrowing. “I do not think I like you visiting me, Second.” She arched her shoulder to release the tension she’d been holding, and nodded at the panel. “However, it is as you say, for the good of our ship. That badge states that the Asarlaís are gods that shall rise again out of the ashes and resume their place as the godhead. But more disturbing is the language it is in.”

  “Rillianian?”

  “Yes. Which I presume is why you brought it to me. The Rillianians and my people have been compatriots for thousands of years.” She nodded slowly. “They stood with us when the Asarlaí atrocities began.”

  “How much contact with them have your people had recently?”

  She flung the panel at him and stomped back to her bathroom. “Not as much as we should have had, that is clear.” She quickly came back out completely dressed and perfectly groomed. “I will not hibernate again until this is resolved. The Asarlaí may not have been whom I sensed. However, I will address the issue of her, and you, after we have solved the other issues.”

  Deven followed her out of her chambers. Middle of the sleep cycle or not, Vas was going to get a wakeup call.

  Luckily, it was just Nariel and Divee up on deck when the battle began.

  “Stop pounding, or by the goddess I will blow you away through this damn door!” The sound Vas made wasn’t really a yell so much as a bellow.

  “Captain Tor Dain, it is vital that you open this door. We must speak now.” Flarik was calm, or so she appeared. However, Deven saw the feathers down near the base of her neck start to ruffle up. Nariel was studiously engr
ossed in reviewing the previous day’s logs, most likely for about the fifth or sixth time. Divee was starting to take apart a perfectly good console. The thin human was the only one on the ship with almost as much skill as Gosta. Anything he took apart he probably could get back together.

  Gosta. The man wouldn’t appreciate being wakened hours before his sleep cycle ended, however Deven didn’t think he had much of a choice. At this point it was a contest to see whether Flarik would tear the door open before Vas blew a hole in it.

  “Nariel, call up Gosta. No, wait. Go get him.” At Divee’s panicked look he added, “And take Divee with you. Tell Gosta we’ve an emergency and need him now.”

  The mind doc looked ready to offer her assistance, then thought better of it and nodded. “Aye, Deven.” An instant later she and Divee fled the battleground.

  Deven took a deep breath and turned back to the combatants. Right now a drunken merc captain and a pissed-off, sleep-deprived, Wavian lawyer were probably the deadliest combination in this region of space.

  The feathers on the back of Flarik’s neck were completely up now. “You must take action. It is your duty.”

  Vas’s responding comment was too garbled to hear, but Deven thought it was, “Fuck my duty.” He really hoped Gosta got up here quickly. Things were going to get a lot worse if he had to intervene.

  “What did you need?”

  Deven spun at Gosta’s breathless question. Thank god on this ship of drama kings and queens they had Gosta. “Good man.” Deven clasped the taller man’s shoulder and propelled him toward the captain’s ready room.

  “Condensed down, we need to get into Vas’s ready room. Preferably before she and Flarik destroy the door.”

  The thin navigator took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Aye.”

  The two combatants were down to snarling at each other in low phrases through the door, so the clicking of his multi jointed legs sounded harsher than usual.

  “Captain? It’s me, Gosta. Deven and Flarik are very concerned.”

  Noises came from the ready room, but they were too low for Deven to hear. Gosta however clearly could hear them.

  “No, Captain, I don’t believe they will go away.” More muttered sounds followed by a burst of laughter from Gosta. “No, nor do I think they will drop into a vat of boiling oil, hang themselves, jump out an airlock, or get you more Hydriang ale.”

  Again the sound of muttering followed, and then Gosta took a step back from the door. With a click it unlocked and slid open. The woman who stuck her head out was not the Vas Deven had left a few hours ago. Her glorious red hair stuck up in haystacks, writing styluses could be seen in two knots hanging off the right side of her head, and the entire left side of her face had weird indentations where she’d clearly lost consciousness at her desk.

  “You all have two seconds to get your bony asses in here before I lock it up again.” However, it didn’t look like she would be doing anything quickly as she slumped against the doorframe.

  Gosta helped Vas up and was arranging her at her desk when Deven and Flarik entered. Deven shut the door, after a quick nod toward Nariel and Divee who had trailed Gosta to the bridge. They could resume their normal low-key shift in peace.

  Deven immediately went to the small food dispenser in the corner of her ready room. Vas rarely used the one on the Victorious Dead, far preferring the galley to the limited supplies found in the ship-wide dispensers. But desperate times called for desperate measures. “One solie, dark.” The small box-like machine gave a soft whirl and a cup appeared filled with the pungent brown drink.

  “Drink it.” Deven sat it down on her desk, and then pulled forward a chair.

  She glared at him petulantly.

  “You know, it’s really hard to take you seriously when you have writing styluses growing out of your head.” Deven leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. He wasn’t going to even try to get this started until she’d taken the edge off her bender.

  Vas glared some more, but she did reach up into the mess of hair with a wince. “Damn.” She reached into her desk and pulled out a small signal mirror, then grimaced some more. “I’ll drink the damn stuff. But I’ll have you know I was perfectly justified in my drinking. My life is filling with unexplainable shit.” She took a long sip of the steaming drink, her shoulders lowering as it worked its way into her system. That a stimulant was acting to relax her spoke volumes about her current state. “Shit, by the way, that none of you have helped get rid of.”

  “I have been in hibernation, Captain.” If Flarik was upset about the previous battle of wills, she gave no indication now. Her clawed hands stayed folded neatly in her lap. “However, had I realized what was happening, I would have forgone my sleep.”

  Gosta fiddled with a flap on his tunic. Finally he glanced up. “I may have found something, but you’re not going to like it.”

  Vas stopped trying to untangle her hair and looked at him from under a chunk of it. “Go on.”

  “The attack from that ore ship may have been prompted by the monks. I believe that I underestimated the Graylian monks and their puzzle.”

  If Flarik’s neck could have turned a full one hundred and eighty degrees it would have. “What? You’ve invited Graylian monks on the ship as well?”

  “No, of course not. They don’t leave their home world…wait, as well as what?” Gosta asked.

  Deven winced. “I told her about Marli.”

  “What?” Vas almost spit out the sip of solie she’d just taken.

  “That captain who came to get her crewman? What about her?” Gosta glanced around the room in confusion.

  “Why don’t we save that for later?” Deven motioned for Gosta to continue and Flarik to sit back in her seat. “Now about the monks and their puzzles?”

  “Yes, well…I realized that one of the pieces of our ship wasn’t more than a slight nudge off the track to the meeting with Mac’s buyer. So, I entered that in as a precursor to the data on the planet for Mac’s drop when we left the space station.” He leapt to his feet and jerkily paced the small ready room. “It was my fault. I know how seriously the monks take their puzzles. They use normal ones as a test for their initiates on their home planet. But we weren’t sure you see—” His earnest face flitted from one to the other; his hands worked themselves into knots. “We didn’t know if that was a real Graylian puzzle or simply a fluke. I mean, no one has ever heard of a Graylian puzzle in space.” He gave a nervous laugh.

  “The idea is insane. Or was. Until now.” He deflated back into his chair. “The monks have great penalties for initiates who try to solve it out of order. They view it as cheating.” He shook his head in a quick jerking manner. “They have our ship parts in specific locations that follow the initiates puzzle. I was trying to go after the nearest piece, but it wasn’t the first in the puzzle. I believe they sent the ore ship after us as a penalty.”

  Vas threw back her head and laughed, a good sign the solie was working to clear the alcohol out of her system. “Don’t be ridiculous. Some planet-bound monks light years from us sent out an ore ship to ram us? We could have blown that ship out of the sky even with its increased speed. The only reason I didn’t was because I’m sick of the mysteries around here.” She continued to shake her head, only stopping when she saw the looks facing her.

  “What? You three really think Graylian monks sent a trap for us. Because we didn’t follow their little plan?”

  “Yes.” Gosta’s answer was simple.

  Flarik frowned. “I didn’t realize Graylian monks were now involved. Clearly my hibernation was at a bad time. I must agree with Gosta. If the monks have set forth one of their puzzles, they will fight any attempt to break it. One must adhere to the proper order.”

  Deven waited until Vas looked his way, and then just nodded once. If Gosta had found a true Graylian monk puzzle, and the pieces of the Victorious Dead were the goals, then he was surprised they’d only sent the ore ship. Graylians were peaceful unless it
was anything revolving around their religion.

  “Captain, I agree the Graylian puzzle work is important, but I wish to discuss the Rillianians. I don’t believe that we can—” Flarik was working up to a full verbal attack when the comm buzzed on the desk.

  “Vas, we’ve got a problem.”

  Terel’s voice was high, a sure sign of stress. Not to mention she was never awake this late, or early, depending on how you looked at it. Vas held up a hand to hold off Flarik and answer Terel. “What is it?”

  “Pela just woke me. She was doing an inventory. Blood samples from all of the crew are missing, your blood vials with the trackers are missing, and our corpse is gone.”

  Vas frowned. “Marli took him back with her.”

  “Not that one. Someone took the body or bodies we found in the storage room.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Vas swore and told Terel they’d be down there in a few minutes. Then she folded her arms and glared at Deven. “Any reason to think this wasn’t your friend?”

  The look that crossed his handsome face told her he’d made the same connection. Hell, he’d probably made it before she did.

  “No. I hate to say this, but Marli is involved for her own reasons. I won’t speculate at what they are, but I don’t think she’d harm this crew.”

  Vas leapt to her feet. She’d resented the solie he forced on her at first; wallowing in a drunken stupor had been liberating for the first few hours. Now she was grateful. “You don’t think she’d hurt this crew? What if you think wrong?”

  “Well, she did plant that tracker on the hull.” Gosta winced as soon as he said it and pounded his forehead. “I’m sorry, Deven.”

  “She did what?” Vas couldn’t believe this. “And you didn’t want me to know?”

  “I told Gosta not to tell you because you were busy drowning in a vat of booze.” Deven turned and headed out of the room. “It’s not hurting anything, and it’s better to let her think she got away with that than some of her other tricks.”

  “Did you know about the body snatching as well?” Vas was going to have to rethink trusting Deven with her ship and crew. What the hell game was he playing?