by Layla Nash
Trazzak
The Galaxos Crew Book 3
Layla Nash
Juno Wells
Contents
1. Jess
2. Trazzak
3. Jess
4. Trazzak
5. Jess
6. Trazzak
7. Jess
8. Trazzak
9. Jess
10. Trazzak
11. Jess
12. Trazzak
13. Jess
14. Trazzak
15. Jess
16. Trazzak
17. Jess
18. Trazzak
19. Jess
20. Trazzak
21. Jess
22. Trazzak
23. Jess
24. Trazzak
25. Jess
26. Trazzak
27. Jess
28. Trazzak
29. Jess
30. Trazzak
31. Jess
32. Trazzak
33. Jess
34. Trazzak
35. Jess
36. Trazzak
37. Jess
38. Trazzak
39. Jess
40. Trazzak
41. Jess
42. Trazzak
43. Jess
44. Trazzak
45. Jess
46. Epilogue
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Also by Juno and Layla
Copyright © 2017 by Layla Nash
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Kasmit Covers
Jess
As soon as the ship docked at the waystation, Jessalyn disembarked and headed into the crowds that milled about in the spaceport. She didn’t even wait for her friends. Things had been awkward for over a month, after they received a distress call from an old friend and had to mount a rescue mission to a hostile planet. Jess didn’t go, but she had to confess some personal and professional secrets she never intended to tell in order to help the mission succeed.
And things had been different ever since.
It didn’t help that Isla was mated to Vaant, captain of the Galaxos, and Griggs ended up mated to Vrix after their rescue mission on Caihiri. Jess had always felt closest to those two, out of all six female officers on the Argo, but ever since the Xaravians warriors kidnapped them off their old Alliance ship, everything changed.
Jess pulled a decorative hood, typical of a Furtoli money changer, out of her pocket and whirled it around her head as she walked through a small passageway. She wouldn’t normally use a disguise on a neutral spaceport like this one, but since the Alliance put a price on all their heads, the bounty hunters were tracking all the women down with single-minded determination. Jess knew she’d have a higher price than any of the others, even Griggs — who’d done personal damage to the Argo captain before he ended up dead on Caihiri.
She paused before heading into the market part of the waystation, where travelers and residents of the spaceport could set up shop and sell whatever they wanted. Jess didn’t want anyone following her, and she didn’t want to bump into any of the other women from the Galaxos. She needed to get her head right, test out some old skills, and figure out how much trouble she was actually in.
And part of her still hoped there was a way to resolve their conflict with the Alliance — and get rid of those damn bounties — without everyone ending up dead or at war. She still had ways of contacting the Alliance through her shadow chain of command, which existed outside of the Fleet chain of command and pretty much outranked them on everything, and Jess knew her old bosses wanted to get in touch. She’d put it off as long as she could, but she wanted to know she’d done everything and sacrificed all that was necessary to fix the situation before she gave up.
Even if that meant running into an Alliance agent on a neutral spaceport.
It could have ended in an ambush, and she kept an eye out as she moved through the market to make sure none of the hulking bruisers the Information Ministry liked to hire as enforcers came out of the woodwork to kill her. Her stomach clenched in anticipation, as it always did before a meeting like this one, and she had to pause near a perfume stand to reorient herself and test her resolve.
Sometimes there was a great deal of valor in knowing when to turn and run. To hide. To wait around corners, to follow the innocent and guilty alike, to eavesdrop, to whisper dangerous suggestions in the ears of susceptible aliens and Earthers alike... In the service of something greater, something honorable, almost anything was justified. Or so she’d thought.
She’d believed in the virtue of the Alliance and the good they did for the entire universe, but the last few months had tested that confidence. It had to be only a part of the Alliance that allowed a captain to sell his crew and then damage civilian ships and neutral spaceports in an effort to blame the Xaravian ship for the same. The High Council, the Information Ministry – surely they didn’t know about Captain Witz’s nefarious activity and all the slave trading and economic exploitation that was going on under the Fleet’s colors. They couldn’t. The omniscient and omnipresent Information Ministry couldn’t know, otherwise everything she believed in was a lie. But that meant the Ministry wasn’t omniscient and omnipresent, which posed its own problems. She didn’t know which would be worse.
Jess smiled at the perfume merchant but moved on; the chemicals in the perfume would leave pockmarks and maybe melt through her skin if she wasn’t careful. She studied some fancy scarves and nice leather boots, always searching for additional disguises and costumes for the many instances when she needed to blend in, but... Jess stopped. She wasn’t an information officer anymore. She wasn’t anything, really, other than another crewmember on the Galaxos or the Heisenberg, depending on who needed help.
That part of her life ended the moment she and the five other women sided with the Xaravians against the Alliance.
It felt like the right decision at the time, but in the cold light of a spaceport, nothing seemed certain.
Jess bought the scarves but not the boots, and bypassed a large stand selling Xaravian delicacies. She got the hell out of there the moment she smelled it. No doubt most of the Galaxos crew would be headed that way to buy more of the stinky, fermented and pickled foods the Xaravians called “delicacies.” It all smelled like old, garlicky feet to her. And she didn’t want to be seen.
Jess meandered, apparently aimless but with a destination in mind, through the rest of the market, and popped out on the other end where it seemed like the cafes and restaurants offered every other type of food in the universe. They wouldn’t let the Xaravians have their own kitchen because the smell would have made everyone else sick, apparently. She checked menus and pretended to hem and haw over a few before moving on to the very fringes of the restaurant deck. And there, in a shabby out-of-the-way cafe, sat a semi-familiar figure.
She took a deep breath and remained out of sight, watching him. At least the Minister sent someone she knew and mostly trusted, instead of a stranger. Maybe the Minister wanted Jess at ease so they could ambush her, or open up the negotiations in a positive light. There was no way of knowing until they talked.
Jess checked her watch and knew she had just enough time for a good conversation, a trip to the bookstore, and a circuitous route back to the Galaxos before anyone started searching for her. Might as well get the worst over with first.
She walked into the cafe and kept her hood up, sitting across from the male Earther who wore colorful Furtoli robes and carried a massive ring of keys at his belt. Jess nodded
and picked up a menu, not wanting to speak first.
He smiled, teeth flashing through a dark beard, and handed her a small, ultra-high-tech communicator. “Jess. For a while there, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“It’s been a weird couple of months.” Jess couldn’t afford to relax around him. She and Nathan had had a fling during training — it had been incredibly intense, wild, and a bad idea all over. They were too alike, or too different, or... She didn’t know. It just didn’t work, but something about his smile made that really, really difficult to remember. She touched the communicator but didn’t take it. “Starting with a significant betrayal, so you can understand my reticence about getting into contact.”
He made a face, dark eyes flashing with irritation. “I heard about that. Witz was always a putz. I never thought he’d sink that low. I’m sorry, Jess. I got on the first ship out here after it happened, but by then... You all had apparently made your choice to stay with the Xaravians, and disappeared.”
That was one interpretation of what happened. “It’s complicated. Made more complicated by the hefty bounties on our heads.”
She let her irritation show, and Nathan held his hands up. “I can make it all go away, Jess. I don’t know if we can make everything go back the way it was, but we can at least call off the dogs so you’re not running and hiding on shitty hostile planets the rest of your life.”
“I need to know that the Minister and the High Council don’t support the shit that Witz was doing. If the Alliance supports slave trading and exploiting underdeveloped planets and selling technology that isn’t theirs... I’m not coming back.” Jess wondered if he still wore the same cologne and used the ridiculously expensive loofahs and bath salts. She remembered him as something of a hedonist, taking a great deal of pleasure in... everything. She shivered and focused on the task at hand.
If the Minister wanted to completely screw with her head, he chose well by sending Nathan.
Nathan braced his hands on the table, his long, graceful fingers just as well-manicured as she remembered. “I can’t say much, but there’s an investigation on how those things happened and who was responsible. I’m really not at liberty to discuss any of it, but since you’re you...” He didn’t even look corny when he winked. “I’ll spill a few beans.”
“You were always the worst secret-keeper,” she said. She wanted to be angry about it, particularly since he was the one who made their dalliance public knowledge during training — allegedly because he loved her but she feared it was just to rack up another notch on his bedpost. Jess took the drink she’d ordered from a service robot, and didn’t move to pay. He called the meeting, he paid the bill. That was just how things worked.
Nathan smiled more as he slid a few tokens onto the robot’s tray, and gestured for Jess to go on.
“I don’t know why you think I owe you anything,” she said. “The Alliance betrayed us by allowing Witz to sell us and then just keep on flying. Didn’t anyone in the Ministry stop to question those reports? Or the claims that I would have betrayed the Minister like that?”
He rubbed his jaw and leaned closer over the table, dropping his voice. “There are a lot of questions about what happened. It’s complicated by the fact that we can’t find Witz or any of his crew. If we could throw his ass in prison, it might help get to the bottom of the trouble he’s causing.”
And that was a problem. Jess didn’t feel bad about it for a second, but she knew it complicated her position as well as the Alliance’s. “I thought you would have heard the rumors. He’s dead. Slasu slavers or Tyboli merchants killed him. Or Xaravians. It’s unclear exactly who got the last shot.”
Nathan didn’t blink, but he didn’t look happy. “And the crew?”
“Those who assisted him in his crimes were stranded on Caihiri. I’m told the Slasu took custody of them. Some of them survive, but I don’t know where.” She didn’t want to admit that some of the younger crew from the Argo now served with rebel ships, grateful for the chance to start over far from the corrupt Alliance they’d defended.
“Vengeance is unbecoming, Jess. That’s not how we work.”
That put her teeth on edge. Like he knew how they worked. He’d done a single space tour, but otherwise stayed at headquarters and followed the Minister around, kissing his tentacles. Jess chose not to react, though, because Nathan reveled in getting under her skin. “Tell me how unbecoming you are when you’ve been sold as a slave to alien barbarians. Then we can talk about how things work.”
Nathan sighed, shaking his head, and eventually placed a small chip next to the communicator. “I’ve been told we can make all of that go away, if you’re willing to help us with one last mission.”
“What kind of mission?”
“Acquisition.” Nathan glanced around the shop once more before going on. “There’s a certain item we’re interested in getting our hands on, for defense purposes. A new weapons system is rumored to have developed out of the Caelestis sector that could defeat the shields on our ships. We need to know its capabilities in order to develop countermeasures. Obviously they won’t sell it to us. But they might sell it to a bunch of pirates.”
Jess’s heart sank. So that was why the Minister reached out, and why Nathan sat in front of her — not because anyone cared what had happened to her or the betrayals of trusted Fleet captains, but because they wanted to use her to access gray weapons markets. Her throat closed against a familiar hint of bile as everything she was involved with disgusted her in a bright flash.
Nathan must have seen it in her eyes, because he reached to touch her hands in reassurance. “It’s not like that.”
Jess pulled away and leaned back in her chair, debating throwing the drink in his face and storming out. The Furtoli loved drama, so it would fit with their little charade. And it would be a satisfying way to walk away from the Ministry forever. “Bullshit. You know exactly what he’s doing with this, and you know exactly why I’m not interested in being another cut-out for you guys. If I’m out, I’m out, Nathan.”
“You don’t want to betray your pirate friends? That’s very sweet, Jess, but rather short-sighted.” Nathan flipped the communicator over and pulled up a flashing alert. “This message is going to every Fleet member and Alliance signatory at diplomat level and above in the universe, Jess. Bounties on all of you. Bounties on the Xaravians. Bounties on the ships. They can’t let you all get away with this — you must realize that. The Alliance cannot lose face. Having six of her officers go haring off across the universe with a bunch of barbarians doesn’t reflect well on the Fleet.”
“Haring off?” Jess gritted her teeth and gripped the new scarf in her hands until she thought the fabric tore. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“That’s the story they’re putting out, because we don’t have a guilty Fleet captain to march in front of the Judge to atone for his crimes.” Nathan clicked to another area on the communicator, and held it up again. “And this is what will happen if you help me out with this one small, insignificant little purchase.”
Another communique from the Alliance to all officers — but this one touted the bravery and resilience of the female crewmembers of the Argo as they struggled to uphold the best virtues of the Alliance against a corrupt Fleet captain. Honorably retired from the Fleet with full pensions and promotions, and gifted with the ship that once abandoned them, the noble crewmembers choose to spend the rest of their careers as neutral observers in wild parts of the universe.
Very clean and finished, but making a bunch of assumptions. Like that they would remain neutral against the Alliance, even if nothing changed. But having a full pardon, the Heisenberg free and clear, and even pensions to live off of... That was a tempting offer.
But it wasn’t enough, since it didn’t mention the Xaravians.
Jess picked up the communicator and the chip. “This has the information on the system you’re looking for?”
He nodded.
“I’ll think
about it. It’s not enough how it is, Nathan, and you know it.” She checked her watch again, irritated that she wouldn’t have much time at the bookstore before needing to be back on the ship to help with the resupply. “If I do this — if I do this — there will be a list of demands longer than that godawful report you submitted during the profiling class. And I want to talk to the Minister, so I know for a fact that this isn’t some plot by you to get the bounties.”
He smiled, eyes crinkling in a charming, boyish way that always worked to get him what he wanted. “Come on, Jess. If we wanted the bounties, we’d already have them.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Jess said, and finally let him see the stunner in her belt, hidden by the trailing ends of the Furtoli hood. She shoved to her feet. “I’ll be in touch.”
She strode away until she reached the crowd, then changed her gait to match the ramble and shuffle of most of the shoppers heading toward the established shops on the spaceport. She didn’t look back, though. She didn’t want to see him again, in case it was the last time.
Trazzak
Trazzak rarely got to leave the ship when they made port calls. As the second-in-command, he had to stay behind and make sure nothing went wrong with the ship while Vaant and Vrix ran off to wreak havoc on whatever waystation they docked with. He’d expected nothing different for this stop, particularly at a neutral port known for carrying Xaravian delicacies and a plethora of other hard-to-find goods. Vrix surprised him, though, and offered to stay on the Galaxos with his mate while Trazzak got to enjoy the port.
Trazzak didn’t wait to see if Vrix was joking, though he knew the gruff security chief had calmed a great deal since making the prickly Earther, Griggs, his mate. Vrix made him promise to pick up a few new books from the well-stocked store on the port, and Trazzak got the hell off the ship before the security chief could change his mind. From the way Griggs looked at him — and the hint of bells when she sashayed across the bridge — Trazzak suspected they had other plans than just monitoring the resupply.