“What did he say?” Dexter was sure it was the same man that had spoken to him, but he needed to know more.
She took a deep breath before continuing, “He didn’t say anything at first, he just walked up to Rowen and held out his hand. Rowen stopped in mid-stride, even though he should have fallen over from losing his balance. The man released him and Rowen fell, but he was on top of him and he twisted his neck until I heard it pop.” Celia turned away, her shoulders shaking as she struggled with the memory.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Dexter consoled her. “But I need to know more.”
She nodded and looked back, then shook her head and let out a pitiful laugh. “I don’t think I’ve got any tears left,” she said. She looked at all three of them, then bit her lip. “Blayn tried to help. He ran over but I knew it was too late. I think Blayn did too, but he pulled his knife and tried to stab the man. The man paralyzed him too, then walked around behind him. Blayn tried to turn when he could, but the man in the robe used magic to throw a stone from the ground and hit him in the head.”
Something about the attack nagged at the back of Dexter’s mind. He’d never encountered anyone who could do something like that, had he?
“He turned to me and I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I just stood there. My friends were dead, just like that.” Celia searched Dexter’s eyes for understanding.
“You had every right to be scared,” Dexter said. “Where there’s magic there’s bound to be a seasoned warrior ready to soil his armor. I once knew a man so strong there wasn’t a man nor beast that could kill him. Magic ended up being the only thing that could put him down.”
She nodded. “Maybe, but I should have run.”
“Maybe he’d paralyzed you as well?” Jenna suggested.
Celia gasped, then her expression fell. “No, I could move. I just didn’t. He walked up to me and told me he needed me to do something for him, and if I refused he’d do to my family what he’d already done to my friends.”
“And what did he want you to do?”
She stared at her hands before answering. “He said he needed to talk to you about your daughter. I had to poke you with the ring he held out for me. He showed me how to flip the charm in it and warned me not to let it touch anyone else, or my family would suffer.”
“What about the rest of it?”
“The rest?”
“Aye, the part about being a skilled deckhand and helmsman?”
“She doesn’t have ‘Shira’s strength, but she’s as good on the deck as any we’ve ever had,” Jenna answered for her.
Celia nodded. “I know things about ships, Captain. I meant everything I told you before…”
Dexter nodded. “What now, then?”
“What?” Celia’s mouth gaped open, confused by his question. “Whatever you’re going to do to me. I deserve it all. I didn’t ask for this, but I went along with it.”
“Might just have turned out you done the best thing you could have, for all of us.”
“What?” The question was asked by all three of Dexter’s tablemates.
“I had a talk and it wasn’t much of one. He wants a port, but he didn’t say which one. Can’t be a port on a moon or a world, I’m thinking, so it’s got to be one of the elven flying salads or maybe something like a bandit sanctuary in the void. We’re supposed to head to Port Freedom and he’ll meet me there.”
”Maybe he wants Port Freedom,” Jenna said.
“Thought about that,” Dexter said. “Maybe that’s what it is, too. He said he’d been planning this for years, then got kind of uppity when I told him you’d renounced your crown. He seemed to think we might could still help him out though.”
“He’s got Jianna’s soul?” Xander asked.
“Claims he does.”
“Then we find a way to give him what he wants,” Jenna said with an air of finality.
“Don’t let your sails get too full of wind,” Dexter said. “Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to end up governor of some trading post floating through the void.”
“Aye, but if we get Jia back, does it matter?”
Dexter nodded, she made a good point. “We’ll see what we’ve got to do. We’ll get her back and deal with whatever we have to along the way. Celia, once you’re feeling up to it I need you back in the rotation. I’m adding you to the helm too. I’m right in thinking you’ll be working for me and only me this time?”
Celia’s eyelids nearly opened wide enough to let her eyeballs fall onto the table. She nodded vigorously. “I…I can’t believe you’ll have me. Yes, Captain! Yes! I can’t go back, not now. Not after what happened.
“Turns out you was working for me before too, but that’s hardly the point. When this is over and things settle down we’ll see about patching things up with your father, too.”
Her elation dimmed somewhat. “Sir, if it’s all the same, I’d rather stay here.”
Dexter glanced at Jenna and got a shrug in response. He could tell she had a few words to share with him on the topic, but they weren’t the kind of words he allowed in front of his crew. He almost grinned at how easily they were falling back into their roles as though it had only been six days instead of six years.
“I’ll be sure the spixers don’t undo what improvements you make,” He said, closing the subject. The spixers were what the Navy sailors had come to call the constructs the elders had shown the elves how to build. Xander, in particular, had taken great interest in them. The spixers were a metallic sphere with four articulated legs to allow them to climb all over the hull of a ship and reach damaged sections. Additional arms with tools built into them emerged from the sphere as needed to repair the damages. The name came from a cross between a spider and a fixer.
Dexter turned to face the rest of his crew’s direction. “I mark it a couple of weeks to Port Freedom,” Dexter changed the topic. “Time enough to get some practice in. I’ll lay good odds that we won’t get out of this without it getting bloody. But first, send Keshira to my cabin.”
He noticed the lines around Jenna’s eyes tighten briefly. She’d wanted to say whatever she needed to. “Captain, I—”
“Will accompany Keshira to my cabin? Good, I can’t think of a better idea,” Dexter interrupted. He flashed her a smile then finished the water in his cup. “Ladies, wizard,” he said by way of dismissal. Dexter put his cup in the washing bucket then made his way to his cabin to await Keshira and Jenna.
His wait was short lived even though he’d nearly nodded off to sleep in his chair. In spite of two days of sleep he was exhausted by the brief activity. A sharp rap on the door and then Jenna pushed it open, leading the woman in. Dexter looked at her and was amazed at what he saw. Instead of the ready smile she shared with everyone and permanent erect posture she carried herself with, she looked defeated and miserable. She’d once been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen but now even Xander in his wizard dresses seemed more fetching.
“Captain!” Keshira said, her eyes brightening a little. The corners of her lips twitched, threatening to grow into a smile. It faded before it could be realized. “Sir, are you real? I can’t feel you anymore.”
“I’m real, Keshira. Xander says that because of what happened to me, something about me not being connected to my body anymore for a little bit, that our bond was broken.”
“I’m all alone,” Keshira said. It sounded like she was whining, but Dexter knew it was a simple statement.
“You’re the same as any of us now,” he tried to reassure her. “Just an insecure about what other people think of us and alone in a void filled with other lonely people.”
Jenna scowled at the analogy, which prompted a wink from Dexter.
“Some of us get lucky and we find someone special,” he said. “You know what I’m talking about, you’ve felt the love Jenna and I got for each other. I hope you can find that yourself someday. That takes away the loneliness.”
“I’ve felt it,” she ec
hoed. She looked at Jenna and then Dexter. “I felt your love for Jianna too. I tried to make her like me.”
Dexter chuckled. “She knows, she’s just young. She didn’t understand how you could smile so much.”
“I’m not sure how I did either.”
“You’ve known nothing but happiness. Even some of our miserable times were happy times for you – you were fulfilling the only existence you knew you had. Now you can do anything, Keshira. You can be anything. You’ll always have a place on my crew or as my friend, but should you want to go and find your own life I won’t hold it against you.”
“That’s it?” Keshira asked.
Dexter’s smile faded. “Yeah, I guess it is,” he said. He frowned. He’d hoped it would go better. “I can tell you what to do on the ‘Hawk, but I can’t tell you who you should be or how you should act other than that. And I won’t. “
“Dex, she needs you,” Jenna said.
Dexter’s head snapped around to his wife. “You the same woman that was jealous a few years back?”
His wife shrugged away the accusation. “Yes, I was, but I know better now. I know you better, and I know Keshira. She’s naïve but she’s also my friend. I care for her, and I want her to be safe. She needs you to tell her what she must do. Even if she’s not bonded to you, she’ll do anything for you.”
Keshira nodded. “I can’t do anything else.”
Dexter cursed the wizard that had created Keshira. She was a beautiful and a wonderful woman, but denying her of the ability to choose her own destiny was the greatest crime a man could commit. Greater even then stealing his daughter’s soul, and that one had earned a death sentence.
“All right, then take what I’m saying as my command, ‘Shira. I want you to pursue what makes you happy. Figure out what fills you up and takes away the loneliness, then do it. Maybe you ain’t so good at figuring out what to do, but once you’ve got something in your pretty head you’re plenty good at figuring out how to do it.”
Keshira nodded, a faint smile coming to her face. “Thank you, sir. And thank you, Empress. I want to make you happy, any way I can. If that means finding something else that makes me happy as well, then I will do it.”
Jenna gave the tall woman a hug on her way out, then she turned to face Dexter. “Dex…”
“Gods, woman. I’m tired,” Dexter moaned.
Jenna took his hand and pulled him out of his chair. She clung to him tightly until he started to sway with exhaustion. “You need rest, and then we’ll talk,” she promised. “I don’t always understand the way you do things or the why behind it, but it seems to work out pretty good most of the time.”
“Only most?”
She guided him to the bed and sat him down on the edge of it. She gave him a kiss before helping him pull his clothing off. “If you trust Celia, I’ll accept that. I did terrible by her and I need to make it up to her, I’m just not sure how.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Dexter mumbled.
Jenna smiled and ran her fingers through Dexter’s hair. “Too bad you’re so tired, I was going to offer to help you sleep.”
Dexter groaned. With their schedules and jobs, intimate moments between them had been few and far between. He had to hire some more crew. Tasha was acting arms mistress, but she’d made a fine second mate.
Jenna gave him a lingering kiss as he started to drift away into a far more comfortable darkness than the last one he’d endured. “Rest well, my love. Jia’s not the only one that needs you.”
Chapter 6
Dexter sat in the chair next to Jianna’s bed but his thoughts led him elsewhere. He tried to relive every memory he had since taking possession of the Voidhawk. In particular he dredged up the earliest days, when he and Kragor had been rebuilding the ship in between his time spent pretending to work for the Federation.
His concentration was shattered by Keshira’s voice. “Where’s the Captain?” she asked, her voice sounding irritated. Dexter smiled at the emotion. He didn’t enjoy irritating beautiful and powerful women—usually—but in this case it meant Keshira was functioning intellectually and emotionally on her own.
“I’m in here,” Dexter called out loud enough to carry through the door. He winced and turned to look at the small form of his daughter, then frowned. If only a loud voice was all he needed to wake her.
Keshira opened the door without hesitation or knocking. “Captain, I heard about your experience. I believe I know who is responsible.”
“Dex!”
Dexter watched Jenna go storming past the door towards the bridge. She stopped, having caught sight of them out of the corner of her eye, and glared up at the taller pleasure golem. “Free or not, don’t you ever leave your post like that again!”
“What’s going on?” Dexter rose from his chair. Keshira’s words had startled him, but the new situation needed immediate attention.
“I’m sorry,” Keshira said. “I was trying to think of how I could make the Captain happy. Helping figure out what happened seemed like the best option, since neither of you wish me to fulfill the purpose this body was designed for.”
Dexter coughed and even Jenna’s petite elven nostrils flared. The deranged wizard that had built Keshira had built several golems just like her, though each had their own look. The end result was a constructed being that was designed to fulfill whatever carnal desires their bonded Master wanted. In order to do that the pleasure golems had to be not only anatomically and aesthetically pleasing, but also strong, resilient, and able to learn quickly.
“Wait,” Dexter said, a thought occurring to him. “The purpose your body was built for? You saying you’ve got an itch you can’t scratch?”
Jenna gasped in the doorway.
“I’m not saying I plan on scratching it,” he added as an afterthought. Jenna scowled at him.
“Sir, without our bond I am free to reflect on what I do best and what brings me the most pleasure. This body was built for that purpose: pleasure. It has become apparent to me that everything I do has some sensation that triggers excitement or arousal in me. Using my body to haul on the lines, feeling my clothing rubbing against my skin, and other things. Ormitor built me with pleasure as his top priority. He did not do so unkindly, I think, for he made sure I would find great enjoyment in any such activities as well.”
Dexter clamped his mouth shut. He shook his head to clear it of Keshira’s disturbing revelation. The disturbing part being that it sounded as if he could turn the Voidhawk into a sailing brothel. “Um, well, you’re not likely to start molesting my crew, are you?”
Keshira smiled. “No, sir. I think that even if you were to desire me to do so I would have reservations. As you said, I’m responsible for myself now and I wouldn’t like that very much. I’ve learned everything from you and the others, I understand respect and kindness.”
“Huh,” Dexter said, at a loss for words. He was proud of Keshira. Proud and amazed. In the span of four days she’d reached these conclusions on her own. Her constant smile was gone, but in its place there was a sparkle in her eyes that told of a more complete being. She was a far cry from the suicidal maniac that had been prophesied when she outlived him.
“That’s wonderful,” Jenna snapped. “But no matter what you’re feeling, you need to get clearance to leave your post when you’re on the deck!”
Keshira nodded. “You’re right, and again I’m sorry. I was so excited I just forgot.”
“See to it you don’t forget again,” Dexter echoed Jenna’s sentiments. “Now since you came all the way down here, who do you think is behind all this?”
“Dex, there’s more,” Jenna interrupted.
“More than rebuking her for running off deck?”
“Aye, we’ve got company.”
Dexter frowned. He hadn’t felt the subtle shift that usually accompanied a voidship’s transition from sailing unimpeded through the void to tactical speeds. “Did the Duke send another ship to get his daughter back?”
&
nbsp; Jenna shook her head. “I don’t think so, these are elven ships.”
“Ships?” Dexter repeated, emphasizing the ‘s’ on the end of the word.
“Three of them, scouts. And they’re ahead of us.”
“Get everybody ready. I don’t expect it’ll get ugly but I’m tired of being caught with my pants down.” Dexter’s hand checked for the pistol at his hip. “And Keshira, who do you think’s behind this? I don’t want to run the chance of forgetting to ask later in case this gets exciting.”
“Rolxoth, the sheriff of Port Freedom.”
Dexter and Jenna gasped in unison. Rolxoth had worked out a deal with them the last time there were there. They’d just killed the wizard that had created Keshira and burned down his house in the process. Freedom meant doing Rolxoth a favor. A favor that ended up backfiring rather badly when the elves double crossed him and overran Port Freedom.
The tricky part was that Rolxoth wasn’t a human or an elf. He wasn’t even a dwarf, he was something else entirely. Someone had once told him that Rolxoth came from a race of beings said to come from another realm. There had to be magic involved, they were faceless and powerful, two qualities Dexter could attest to after having met him.
“That son of a bitch!” Dexter muttered. “I remember him saying he was happy there. Looks like he wants it back.”
“He went to all of this trouble for it?” Jenna asked. “If he had enough money to arrange all of this, why’s he need Port Freedom under his fist?”
Dexter nodded. Jenna had a way of making sense. “We’ll figure that out later, right now we got some elves to deal with.”
Dexter stopped by the bridge on his way out. Celia was on the helm, not his first choice considering it might turn into a tactical challenge. He peered out the window and saw the ships ahead. They were closing at a rate that made swapping out helmsman all but impossible. The time needed to merge with the ship and take control wasn’t excessive, a few minutes at worst, but it could be the difference between life and death.
“Celia, stay sharp. This could get ugly and we might need every bit of speed you can give us.”
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