Captive of Pleasure; the Space Pirate's Woman (The LodeStar Series)

by Cathryn Cade

  Joran ignored her, moving swiftly back through the cockpit and into the passageway. The cargo bay was an inferno. He’d have to make this quick—even the suit wouldn’t keep him alive long at these temps.

  The big containers of supplies were burning. He stooped, crabwalking his way back through the smoke and flames, gaze darting side to side as he searched for survivors.

  He found only a huddle of charred, smoking bodies in one container, cracked open by the impact of landing, or maybe when those inside fought to escape. Two more bodies lay in the passageway. Sister Lettie and Mako’s crewman Joe, he’d bet.

  Joran searched two more aisles between the ruined containers, but when his breath seared in his lungs, and his clothing began to seal to his skin, he staggered back through the ship. He was nearly blinded by sweat and some other moisture he refused to name. Emotion clogged his throat, joining the heat from the fire in a maelstrom ofrage and sorrow.

  Someone was waiting at the cockpit hatch to lift him bodily from the ship. They half dragged, half carried him away, and let him down on a large, flat rock, efficient hands stripping off the helmet and the suit.

  An oxygen mask slapped over his face. “Breathe!” Qala ordered.

  “Any survivors?” Var asked, but like the rest, he stared at the burning ship, gaze dark.

  Joran shook his head. No one could have survived that, and no one had.

  The charred bodies, featureless and distorted, flung down like chunks of used fire fuel, filled his mind. He ripped off the mask, bent and vomited into the grass.

  Stomach empty, he shuddered. Fought for composure, for the blankness of no emotion. Found it...just barely.

  “Drink.” A water bottle nudged his lips. Taking it, Joran glugged down the cool water, washing the sour taste from his mouth. Then he let Qala fit the oxygen mask back over his face. He breathed deeply, sucking in the sweet cool oxygen.

  “You okay?” Var asked. “Lungs? Skin? You need gesics?”

  Handing the mask off, Joran assessed.His head felt like an inflated quasi-ball, every breath made his lungs ache, his throat burned from the vomiting, and his skin throbbed like he’d been out in the sun all day, naked. “I could use a gesic,” he croaked. “How’s Mako?”

  Var nodded toward the other cluster of people. “Riley’s taking care of him. He took a hit to the head when the ship went down. Concussion. Maybe broken ribs, although hard to tell with Mau cartilage.”

  Qala handed Joran a small packet. He popped it open and swallowed the gesic gel inside. It slid down his throat, leaving cool relief in its wake.

  She stared at the burning transport, her eyes wet. “Oh, God. Sister Lettie, old Joe. And all those slaves—pulled from one hell, tossed into another. ”

  Joran kept his gaze on the fire and his jaw set.

  The IGSF officer walked to stand beside them, helmet under one arm. Her square, tanned face was grim.

  “Mr. Stark. I’m Sergeant Mecham. We have a crew on the way to mop up the fire. Sgt Arc and I will escort you back to your camp.”

  “Really? Appreciate your help, but don’t see why you’d want to spread your ships so thin when you have other matters to take care of.” Like quarking slavers to chase.

  “We’re on those other matters, sir. Seems someone placed trackers on a score of ships coming away from the auction site. Made them easy to catch.”

  She looked from him to Qala, who shifted, but said nothing. Joran sure as hells wasn’t going to speak up—infuriated him they’d had to try and do her job for her.

  “We’ll debrief at your camp tomorrow morning,” the officer went on. “Commander Cerul, head of Frontiera IGSF, will be joining us in a holovid conference.”

  His rage uncoiled again, hot, tight, pushing hard, demanding release. “My, my. Such an honor.” The empty water bottle snapped in his hand.

  The sergeant took a step back, then stiffened as if embarrassed by her flinch. “I hope you still think so when the commander explains the charges that will be filed against you.”

  “Charges against us?” Qala clenched her fists. “We were attacked, not the other way round.”

  Sgt Mecham returned her gaze. “Yes. You were also transporting slaves, illegal under the Alliance Charter.”

  “We were rescuing them! As you should’ve been.”

  “Which we would have been, had we been alerted to the auction a bit earlier,” the officer snarled, slipping her leash for a sec. Her gaze flicked back to Joran and she fought visibly for control. “Now, you’ve an injured man. And you don’t look so good yourself, Stark. Best head back to your camp.”

  Knowing Qala, Joran held up one hand. She let out a hiss, instead of whatever epithet had been on her tongue.

  “You may want to get back in the air yourself, officer,” Joran advised. “Whoever sent that cruiser has lost contact with her. Reinforcements will be on the way.”

  The pugnacious set of the sergeant’s jaw as she scanned the dark skies said she would relish taking care of them. Joran knew the feeling—he wanted nothing more than to get back in the sky and take out as many of the slavers’ ships as possible. And if an IGSF fighter got caught in the crossfire, right now he wouldn’t much care.

  The gesics had taken care of his physical pain, but this was a new level of torment. He’d slipped away from the auction with a whole lot of credit, but lost a transport and the life of a good woman. Sister Lettie hadn’t been one of his crew, but they’d all known the cheerful missionary. An ex-pirate herself, she’d found God but not lost her ability to blend in with the rougher crowd. She’d helped where she saw a need and filled her mission in F City with immigrants who failed to find their feet on this newly settled planet.

  Now she was gone, and so were her latest rescues, who should be landing in F City about now, ready to get back to their lives. Instead they were so much crumbling ash from the fire that still lit up the night—more losses, along with Joe, an elderly drifter who’d ended up crewing the transport.

  And the final consequence, one that had just begun to make itself felt—Joran had stepped right into the loop of an IGSF noose—so slick he was beginning to wonder if this whole thing had been a well-baited trap.

  The way the sergeant was easing back, weapon in her hand, she had a good idea just how angry he was. “We’ll escort you back to your camp, sir.” Turning, she jogged to her small cruiser.

  “Eppie droid,” Qala muttered.

  With a mighty effort, Joran forced his attention back to what needed to be done next. “Get Mako on board,” he told Var.

  “Already there, boss,” the big man said. The way he stood by said silent volumes—he knew, as Joran did—they were in trouble. Maybe the biggest trouble they’d ever been in.

  And although Var’s steady gaze contained not a spec of accusation, Joran knew it was his fault.

  If he hadn’t stepped forward, guilted into on playing hero, none of this would have happened. Just another reminder that no good deed went unpunished.

  Joran rose, swaying a moment with unexpected dizziness. “Whoa.”

  “Take it easy,” Var said, thrusting an arm under his. “The heat of that fire was intense.”

  Joran leaned on him gratefully. “Yeah. Although no more’n I deserve.”

  “Not true.” Var’s deep voice was resolute. “You stepped forward, but any of us would’ve done the same. The girl was fresh meat to those vultures. You had to save her, and the others too.”

  Had to be a fucking hero, more like. And the galaxy had whacked him upside the head with a reminder to stay in his role. The Storm was a wily pirate who knew his place and never stole more from the other thieves than he could hold.

  He clambered aboard the Hawk with the weight of nineteen deaths—and the possible imprisonment of five of his crew—riding on his shoulders.

  The first thing he saw was the girl. The being who’d started all this, in a way.

  Huddled in Wega’s too large robes, she gazed at Joran with those blue eyes, like a
young deerbbit watching a serpent.

  He looked away, his gut clenching again. If only he’d never lain eyes on her, none of this would’ve happened. He would’ve stayed on task, held the others there too, wouldn’t have begun with rescuing her and then getting delusions of grandeur and deciding they could take whoever they damn well pleased.

  “What are we gonna do with her?” Qala asked. In the cruiser’s cabin lamps, she looked as exhausted as Joran felt, her face pale, hair damp with sweat.

  “Find some spare clothing in one of the sleep bays,” he said. “Make her look more like one of us.”

  “Does she speak?”

  “I don’t know. She might, when she’s not scared half out of her mind. Ilya, if the eppies notice her, you’ll pretend she’s your half-wit relation or something.”

  “Why me?” the little blond protested. “Let Wega take her.”

  Wega’s eyes swung in unison to goggle at Ilya. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, she looks nothing like me.”

  Var chuckled, a deep huh-huh that he swallowed as Ilya turned her scowl on him.

  “Because,” Jordan bit out, “right now, I’ve got no time or patience for her. And the epaulets will be happy to slap us with another charge of coercion, or worse. When we get back to camp, you can hand her off to Nera.”

  “How about we leave her here?” Ilya muttered. Var murmured to her.

  Ignoring them, Joran shouldered his way to the cockpit and sinking into the co-pilot’s seat. Without a word, Haro powered up the cruiser for flight. In moments Hawk was back in the air.

  Joran gazed at the starry sky as they headed east toward the camp, his thoughts black as the reaches of space.

  “Always a risk, any time we go on a raid,” Haro said finally.

  “True, but I just raised the stakes exponentially,” Joran said. “Stepped into the snare as gullibly as a deerbbit.”

  “You think it was a trap?”

  “Fuck if I know. It could’ve been.”

  What he did know was that now they were in the grip of Alliance InterGalactic Law, as administered by the Space Forces commander on Frontiera. And if he considered Sergeant Mecham unsympathetic, she had nothing on the Frontieran commander.

  Commander Aqa Cerul gave new meaning to the term military dictator. Being on planet, she was one law enforcer whom he could not ignore. And he’d cruised right into her clutches.

  Chapter 6

  “Zhazid.” Joran’s cook and tontkeeper stepped in through the open door hatch and peered around the lamplit tont. “Where is she? Has she escaped?”

  “My new slave girl?” Joran asked with heavy irony.

  Quark, he was half-drunk, but who the hells cared? No one in this camp. He took another drink from his snifter of moonbrandy. He usually drank ale, but tonight called for something stronger. He’d had enough of the smooth liquor that the horrific events of the past few hours were hazed with a much-needed distance.

  He jerked his chin toward a shadowed corner. “She’s there.”

  Nera held her robe back from her face with one hand and shook her head. “Where, my lord?”

  He grinned—a crooked effort, but it was good to feel something other than rage and self-disgust. With one large, bare toe he indicated the rugs that covered the floor. One of them, in the shadows of a pile of unused cushions, had a large hump underneath.

  Nera gasped, her loose, embroidered robes swishing as she stepped forward. “My lord. Do you wish me to drag her out?”

  He shook his head, his clean, damp hair falling forward over his bare shoulders. “God, no.” The last thing he needed was a hysterical female in his tont. “You go, tend to your own home. Drop the door cloth on your way out. I don’t wanna be disturbed.”

  She nodded, but he heard her tsk of disapproval as she stepped out of the tont into the warm prairie night. Sounds of the camp were audible through the tont’s thin walls—crackling fires, the calls of tethered catamount ponies and the voices of the tribe as they settled down for an evening of leisure. He could drop the soundproofing, but tonight he didn’t care. Footsteps padded past, but a covered doorway meant none would bother their leader unless it was urgent—very urgent.

  He lay back on his comfortable divan, long legs clad in soft pants stretched out before him, and returned to staring blearily at the holovid flickering in the middle of the room. An old-fashioned actionvid, it featured a warrior battling his way through obstacles on a jungle planet to reach an imprisoned princess. No doubt he’d be punished along the way for his heroics, but since it was fiction, he’d win in the end. Probably get some good sex and be lauded as a hero, too.

  The sound was turned down to a murmur. Through it, he heard someone begin to strum a qitar by a nearby fire. If he cared to glance up under the high curve of the tont ceiling, he could view the musician and his campfire, along with a 360-degree holovid of the area surrounding his tont and the camp.

  Manipulating the holovid with his comlink would take the hovering surveillance cams up and out farther too, but not only did Joran not quarking care right now, he had no reason to do so. There were always three or more of the crew on guard duty, patrolling on hovercycles and catamount ponies. They had links to the satcom and could scan the skies and land for any threats.

  Ashe Targhee had seen none of this capability, nor had he noticed that every cruiser parked around the outer rim of the camp was highly armed and placed so that when powered up, they would form a deadly barrier around the camp even before they took off.

  Tonight, all was quiet, in camp and out on the prairie. Mako was in the regen unit watched over by Riley. The others were resting—and no doubt drinking, like Joran. Tomorrow morning would be time enough for their new set of problems.

  The rug in the corner rustled, followed by a tiny grunt of discomfort.

  Joran sighed. Right—he still had his little cling-on to deal with. She’d started whimpering again when he tried to send her to the medtont with Riley and Wega, so finally he’d brought her here.

  “You can come out if you like,” he said, his words morphing into a yawn. “No one will bother you.”

  When there was no answer except quiet breathing, he shrugged. She wanted to spend the night under that rug, that was fine with him, but she must have needs.

  “You must be thirsty by now. And I don’t suppose those slimers fed you much, did they? Let’s see, we’ve got fruit, and meat and veg rolls. Call ‘em yamas.”

  The rug moved, and his keen hearing picked up the growl of an empty stomach. He waited, unexpected humor ghosting across his lips again. Shouldn’t be long now.

  Very slowly, the corner of the rug lifted, to reveal dirty, tousled, dark blonde hair through which those blue eyes peered, full of wariness and distrust rivaling that of any wild creature on this new planet. Smart girl—he wasn’t the safest man to be around, especially not tonight. Slaves tended to get dead around him.

  “Drink?” he offered. “You prob’ly don’t need alcohol, but I have water.”

  Her full lips, dry and cracked now that the cosmetics were worn off, compressed with longing. Her long hair moved as she nodded.

  Moving slowly, he leaned over to take a bottle of water from the low table at his side. He bit the top off, spit it to one side, and leaned over to hold out the bottle. When she didn’t move, he set it on the carpet before her. Then he lay back on his divan.

  She pulled the bottle under the rug with her. He grinned to himself again as he heard water gurgling down her throat and the bottle, crafted of organic wax and plant fibers, crackling as it collapsed. Then she sighed with evident relief.

  “Plenty of food here.” He reached over and took a gremel fruit from the tray and bit into it, slurping the insides from the skin, savoring the sweet, tart pulp. Strange, he’d had no appetite till now. “Mm-mm, gremel. Sweet and juicy, just the way I like ’em.”

  The rug moved again as she craned her neck to watch him eat. She swallowed audibly and her stomach growled again.

  H
e wiped his fingers, then twisted in his seat to guide the hovertray down to the carpet between them.

  “Here,” he said. “Eat.”

  She was still for a time, but when her stomach growled again, this time so loudly it nearly drowned out the qitar tune, she sat up very slowly, the rug and the borrowed robe slipping off her bare shoulders and back. She grabbed the robe around her again. She peered at the holovid a few times but always returned to studying him. Joran didn’t move a muscle.

  “Eat,” he repeated and then turned back to his holovid.

  Slowly, hesitantly, as if waiting for him to slap her away, she reached for one of the flaky rolls. He waited until she had her mouth full and her attention focused raptly on the food in her slender, dirty hands, before he looked at her again.

  He’d been right, she was going to be a beauty once the filth was scrubbed off. His hawk nose twitched at the stench of her unwashed body and that of her Mau captors.

  He wondered if she had any idea how lucky she was that they’d kept her virginal.And that he’d been able to pay so much to save her. Of course it helped that the other bidders were afraid of what he’d do if they outbid him. All except the Serpentian whore-master and the anonymous human, and Joran had had a bottomless well of credit—the slavers’ own—to outbid them.

  He’d saved her from a brothel or worse. Now he just had to figure out what the seven hells to do with her. Il Zhazid had purchased a slave girl from an illicit auction, but Joran Stark had all the women he knew what to do with. He sure as hells didn’t need or want a frightened little immi in his tont.

  And if his brothers ever found out he’d actually purchased a slave girl, they’d never let him hear the end of it.

  Joran rubbed his eyes wearily and pushed his hair back with his free hand. No, with the confrontation looming in the morning, he had more than enough trouble in his lap already. Although she was at least a distraction. Without realizing it, he’d consumed another gremel fruit and half a yama. He felt a little better with the food to soak up some of the brandy.

  Swift footsteps approached. He looked up at the holovid to see Qala stalking toward his tont, her stance militant against the glowlamp floating outside.