Though he’d gotten used to and accepted Varean’s touch in the last year, he’d never returned any of the gestures. This time, however, he clamped his hand over Varean’s, holding on tightly, though he wasn’t sure why.
“You know I’m not,” he told Varean with an almost-smile. “I’m totally messed up. And apparently that’s your problem now, too. Yours and Ella’s.”
Varean pulled him in for a hug. Once upon a time, he would have shot someone for trying to hug him. Or at least punched them. Instead, he found himself tentatively returning the embrace.
“It’s a problem worth having,” Varean said in a low voice.
He didn’t know what to say to that; he was completely off-kilter. Standing in unfamiliar territory without a clue where to turn. But Varean saved him by releasing him with a cocky grin.
“Now, let’s get on with what we came down here for—me kicking your ass all over this cargo bay.” With a few simple words, Varean had grounded him.
“You sure about that? Are you forgetting I might be able to read your moves now?” He tapped the side of his head.
“The same way I might be able to read yours?” Varean cracked his knuckles. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
Chapter Eighteen
Qae stood back, watching as Cami negotiated with the mech she’d hired to paint over the Ebony Winter’s hull. A small spike of guilt pinched in his guts at the fact he was leaving Cami to take care of this. But it was nothing compared to the guilt he felt that they were doing it in the first place.
He could barely stand there and let it happen, let alone employ the faculties needed to iron out the details. The epic hangover he’d woken up with wasn’t helping.
After eating the food Cami had organized for him the evening before, he’d decided he wasn’t done drowning his sorrows and hit up a bottle of bourbon. Rian and Varean had joined him, and they’d ended up exchanging war stories—something he’d never done with Rian before. He hadn’t told them anything about Ebony, although he’d talked about the things he’d done on Siraj.
All of Rian’s stories were pre-Reidar, from when he’d forged his ident files and illegally signed up as a sixteen-year-old. He’d served three years before the ship he’d been assigned to had been hit by the Reidar. Most of Rian’s stories involved Zander Graydon.
Zander was seven years older and had sort of taken on an older-brother role, taking care of Rian when he’d been a rookie soldier. But at the same time, they’d quickly become best friends, which had lasted through Rian disappearing for three years, only to return a shell of himself. An unstable, psychotic shell. When Zander and Rian had reconnected a few years back, Zander hadn’t let that stand in the way of his loyalty and devotion to Rian.
But that was Rian Sherron. Somehow, despite being a surly bastard with no tact whatsoever, he managed to inspire undying loyalty and unquestioning devotion in his crew, family, and friends.
Which was partly why Qae was willing to quash every emotion in his body telling him that he was going to hate himself for a long time over the demise of Ebony’s painting and let Cami pay someone to erase his final link to the first person he’d ever loved.
The first person he hadn’t been able to save.
And since he was getting all introspective, he could admit that was why he was doing this.
He hadn’t been able to save Ebony, but he was hell-bent on saving Rian, no matter the cost to himself. If they didn’t stop Baden Niels, he would keep coming for them. Rian was one lucky son of a bitch, even though he might not agree. But everyone’s luck ran out eventually. Baden Niels needed to be taken care of before that happened.
Cami finished with the trader and walked over to him.
“It’ll be done by the time we get back.” She set a hand on his arm and gave a gentle squeeze. Anyone else, he would have said they pitied him. But he knew Cami was just offering her support.
“Let’s get on with it.” He turned on his heel, unable to look at his ship for another second, and strode across the docks to where Rian was waiting with Varean and Jase. They’d settled on a five-person strike team to take the small Exarch Class ship. It was a long-range personnel shuttle owned by a company called Vanguard Holdings, which specialized in scouting out and acquiring locations for expanding business. Best of all, Vanguard was a subsidiary of none other than Dieter Industries, which technically meant the Exarch Class ship was the property of Baden Neils. It started right here, by boosting one of the likely-thousands of vessels directly and indirectly tied to his company.
It’d turned out Cami was quite the consummate pirate’s daughter, and there was barely a ship she didn’t know how to steal. Qae was adequate and probably could have made do, but it’d been pretty obvious she could override the controls and get the ship off the station a lot faster than he’d be able to.
Besides adding her to the team for her skills, they’d struck a balance between manpower and firepower, in the likely eventuality the crew manning the Exarch Class ship were Reidar.
On the Ebony Winter, Tannin would hack station security to smooth their way, make sure the IPC station protection officers didn’t get involved and ensure the docks didn’t get locked down before they made their escape.
“Ready?” Rian asked as they approached.
Qae nodded and they moved off, heading to the elevators to take them up to where the Exarch Class ship was docked two levels above them.
Inside the lift, a holo projection sprung to life as soon as the doors closed, an advert for some kind of AI-chipped sports shoe blaring about increased performance. Rian calmly took out his pulse pistol and blasted the projector source. It popped and fizzled into silence as Rian slid his gun away.
“If the station charges the Ebony Winter’s docking account for that, I’m confiscating your supply of Violaine,” he muttered, cutting Rian a sideways glare.
“Tannin will take care of it.” Rian touched the small comm attached to his shirt collar. “Make sure that gets charged to Vanguard Holdings.”
“Already done,” Tannin’s voice came through all their comms, patched directly into their ears. It seemed like he was enjoying himself immensely. Of course, he got to sit back on the Ebony Winter and play with his toys while they went out and stole shite from some sociopathic aliens.
Fun times.
The elevator arrived to let them out. They navigated a few people waiting to get on, but an alarm chimed then a red light flashed with a pleasant, automated voice announcing the elevator wasn’t available due to needing repairs. The doors closed before anyone could get on. Jase snickered as they walked away, and Qae shot him an exasperated look.
“Don’t encourage him.”
Jase shrugged, not the least bit repentant.
They crossed the docks, Qae gauging whether there were any station officers around or any other factors that might complicate their plan.
Two ships over from their target, they paused as Varean got out the specialized commpad Tannin had given him. It had functions most commpads didn’t, one of which was to scan for life signs. Varean ran an analysis of the Exarch Class ship, which had Medulla stenciled on the side.
He frowned, expression taking on a pensive edge. “Reading five life signs in the ship.”
“Even odds,” Qae put in. “I say we go for it.”
“Everyone clear on the plan?” Rian pulled out his razar and a nucleon gun as they all murmured their agreement. “Get ready to party, people, we’re going in hot.”
They all palmed their weapons, but kept it low-key so they didn’t attract any attention as they hurried across the distance to the Medulla. At the hatchway, Varean set the commpad against the control panel, allowing Tannin remote access to run an override program on the ship’s locks.
In a matter of seconds, the hatch was lowering.
Rian cast a glance over them all, then lined himself up with his back to the inner wall and edged in, leading with the razar.
The rest of them silently followed, Var
ean coming last and closing the hatch behind them. Voices drifted from the upper levels, but obviously the occupants didn’t realize they’d been breached.
The Exarch Class had three levels, and the space they’d entered was just big enough to store passenger luggage. Besides that, the ship had two levels to accommodate the six cabins that could take a maximum of fourteen crew and passengers. And Rian liked to joke that the Ebony Winter was tiny. This ship was a gnat in comparison. But it would do perfectly for the insane plan they’d cooked up.
“All life signs showing up on the second level,” Varean reported in a low voice. “No one on the bridge.”
Rian nodded and then turned to look at him. “You and Cami head up and start jacking the ship. The rest of us will take care of the bodies.”
Qae had to quash a morbid grin. Bodies was probably an apt description, especially if they turned out to be Reidar.
Cami and he took the lead, silently treading up the stairs with their guns ready. At the landing on the second level, Rian, Varean, and Jase broke away to move down the wide corridor toward the sound of voices, while Cami and he continued up the short flight of stairs to the bridge.
They’d only just approached the controls when all hell broke loose on the level below, shouting and gunfire echoing up the steps.
“We better work quick,” he told Cami, who’d already crouched down and yanked off an access panel in the bottom of the captain’s console. She leaned in to pull out micro components and crystal interfaces.
“I need you to come over here and access a few things on the screen while I’m redirecting some of these circuits.”
He holstered his guns and hurried to sit down in the captain’s chair, tapping the screen to bring up control tabs.
Cami gave him some instructions and they worked seamlessly to bring the engines online as the fight went on below them. The crew had to be Reidar, otherwise it wouldn’t have taken this long to subdue them.
“Qae.” Rian’s voice sounded in his ear.
He touched the comm attached to his shirt collar to reply. “We’ve nearly got it—”
“One of the bastards got loose, heading your way. Definitely Reidar. We’re pinned down—”
Qae started to turn, hand landing on his holstered nucleon gun, but in his peripheral, he saw the Reidar appear at the top of the stairs with a pulse pistol already drawn. It was all happening in a matter of nanoseconds. He started to stand, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to draw and shoot before the Reidar got off a shot.
Breath catching in his chest, he resolved to go out fighting and yanked at his nucleon gun when the Reidar fired. Suddenly Cami was there, coming right up in front of him. She took the energy pulse—a direct hit to the center of her chest that sent her slamming back into him.
He caught her slumping form with one arm, shooting the Reidar in sustained bursts with his nucleon gun until the alien stumbled over backward and finally went down.
“Cami?” His heart was smashing against the inside of his chest over and over. He knew exactly what taking a pulse blast to the middle of the chest did to a person. But maybe it hadn’t been a direct hit. Please don’t let her be—
He lowered her until she was lying on the deck, then reached up and pressed his fingers into the crook of her neck, already able to see her chest wasn’t rising and falling. Nothing registered and for a second, his mind went completely blank, a numbing wave of disbelief rolling through him.
“No. No, no, no. Damn it!”
She couldn’t be dead. He refused to let her be. No way was he going to lose her now.
Bootsteps pounded on the steps and he jerked out his nucleon gun, swinging around to aim at the hatchway, except it was Rian, Varean, and Jase.
“What happened?” Varean demanded as they rushed over. Rian stepped over Cami’s legs and threw himself into the chair behind the captain’s console, while Varean crouched down on her other side.
“She took a pulse blast to the middle of her chest.” His voice came out hoarse as he ripped open her shirt, sending fastenings scattering. “Go find me a resus unit. Now!”
He didn’t bother waiting to see if Varean had gone to do as he’d ordered, but bent down to breathe for her then started compressions. He could barely draw a full breath himself, adrenaline-laced terror coursing through him like nothing he’d ever felt. Couldn’t keep the numbers straight in his head as he counted how many times he’d pressed on her chest. Could only repeat to himself over and over not dead, not dead, not dead.
“Qae, you and Cami weren’t finished here.” Rian’s voice was emotionless and hard like always. Focused on the task at hand. “We need to get this ship off the station.”
“Christ, Rian, we’ve got other problems,” he ground out between compressions.
Before he could lean over to breathe into her mouth again, Rian grabbed him in a bruising grip on the shoulder and yanked him up.
“Stick to the objective. Get this damned ship off the station now, or she died for nothing.”
Something snapped inside him, sure as a bone breaking. He violently shoved off Rian’s grip. “She’s not frecking dead!”
Rian just stared at him impassively, leaving a hard burning wave of utter loathing toward his cousin tearing through him.
“I’ve got her, Qae,” Jase told him from where he’d taken over trying to revive her.
Qae cursed with every word he knew as he spun back to the console and took up where Cami and he had left off a few minutes ago.
In a matter of seconds, he had the engines spooled up, and soon after, Rian coordinated with Tannin to get them off the docks and out of the station.
As soon as Rian had things in hand, Qae got back down on his knees and Varean reappeared.
“You get her back?” Varean asked, coming down beside him.
“No. Where’s the resus kit?”
“Couldn’t find it.” Varean shook his head. “But I don’t need it. I should be able to bring her back myself.”
“What?”
“Like I did with Rian.” Varean leaned across Cami and stopped Jase from doing any more compressions.
“What if your mojo doesn’t work?” he demanded, trying to quell the panic that was threatening to rise up and choke him.
“If my mojo doesn’t work then not even a resus unit will save her.”
Varean set his hands lightly in the middle of Cami’s chest. He closed his eyes, and after a second, a white-yellowish energy glowed beneath his palms. He pressed down once, and her whole body convulsed. Then she gasped and reared up, her eyes snapping open in panic.
Qae caught her against him, stopping her momentary struggles.
“It’s okay, Cami, I’ve got you,” he murmured. Relief surged through him so hard the entire room started spinning. He held her against him, just feeling her breathe. Relishing the simple fact that her heart was beating.
Jezus, he’d almost lost her. She’d technically died. If it hadn’t been for Varean—
He looked over Cami’s shoulder at the commando.
“Thank you.” The words didn’t come out at much more than a hoarse whisper, but Varean nodded.
Cami went lax in his arms. He adjusted her position to check on her, but it seemed she was just unconscious this time.
“She might be in and out of it for a while,” Varean told him. “Probably best to find a bed for her until we get back to the Ebony Winter and Kira can check her over.”
He nodded, since his throat felt too tight to form words. He hefted Cami in his arms and left the bridge without looking back at Rian. If he looked at his cousin with the way he was feeling, there was every chance the lingering fright and fury would end with him shooting Rian.
He’d long ago made peace with Rian’s dogmatic adherence to his private mission to wipe the Reidar out of existence, and the fact he wouldn’t let anyone or anything get in the way of it. Plenty of people had died along the way, some of them Rian’s own crew. But this—
This
hit too close to home. This felt personal.
Except he couldn’t take the time to think about the implications, not when they weren’t done. When they still had the second and third part of this crazy plan to carry out.
He went into the first cabin he could find and gently laid Cami down on the bed. He dropped on the edge of the mattress and shoved both hands through his hair, pushing out a long breath and trying to force the last of the panic to go with it. He felt shaky all over. Nothing had gotten to him like that in a long, long time.
Looking at her, he checked her breathing then pressed gentle fingers into her neck to gauge her pulse, even though her chest was rising and falling steadily. As he sat back again, something on her shoulder caught his attention where her shirt was still gaping open. He pushed the collar farther aside, slipping it over the rounded top of her arm, at first not understanding. She had a tattoo, but it looked like—
He quickly but gently checked her other shoulder, only to find the same thing, then lifted her arm and rolled back her sleeve at the wrist to study her forearm.
Disbelief washed through him as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
She had slave tattoos inked up and down both arms. How was that even possible? Different slaves had different markings, and because he’d never had much to do with slavers—besides occasionally hitting their ships for creds and freeing slaves for the hell of it—it took him a few seconds to read the markings and work out that she’d been designated—
No.
He had to be wrong. He dropped her arm and sat back. Those were pleasure slave tattoos.
How had this happened to her? Did her father have something to do with it? Everyone knew Rene Blackstone was ruthless, but would he really trade in his own daughter?
Rage, fed by the harrowing near miss they’d just had, erupted within him, and it was all he could do not to get out his comm, contact Rene Blackstone, and demand answers. Punctuated with a whole lot of curses and insults.
This was what she’d been trying to hide from him.
He’d assumed she had scars or something she’d been self-conscious about. No wonder she’d been so careful about not undressing in front of him. Jezus.
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