by Susan Grant
He let her drop him back on his feet, holding her hand as they walked toward the house they shared with Sashya. “What’s all this news you wanted to share?”
“Well, Ferren’s teaching me to swim!”
“Is she now?”
“So I can go on sea raids. I don’t want to just be a space pirate, but a dirt-side and sea-farin’ one, too!”
She grinned at the little boy’s admiration for Ferren. The raider could hold her breath longer than what seemed humanly possible, and once she was underwater, she was as agile as a fish. She’d all but confessed to Val that she’d once had the ability to breathe underwater. To this day, Ferren refused to reveal her origins, but if her people were anything like she was, her homeworld was a special place and Val could understand the secrecy.
“And,” Jaym went on expansively, his brown-blond hair gleaming, “I’m going to be the best raider Blue clan’s ever seen! I’ll chase those greedy, lying Surebloods to the ends of the stars and beyond! Like this.” Out came his imaginary dozers from their holsters. He whirled with natural grace and fired his two sticks. “Got ’em, Mama!”
Her heart clenched with maternal worry. Like the romping of camp dog pups, the boy’s play was the precursor to real battle. She had no qualms about sending clansmen into battle. Sending her child was another matter entirely.
Jaym ran off toward the practice fields, picking up another, longer stick as he went, swinging it like a plasma sword.
Slaying imaginary Surebloods.
Like his father. Hells. If only the boy knew the truth about his origins.
Jaym had kept Val’s heart from growing hard; he’d brought her joy in so many unexpected ways. But as deeply as she loved him, he was a reminder of her failings the night her father was killed. Jaym’s father was their clan’s sworn enemy. To reveal his paternity to the rest of the clan would endanger his life and cast her loyalties into doubt. What would happen to her and to Jaym should someone ever figure out the truth?
“Throw them Surebloods back to hells—where they belong, Jaym!” a male voice bellowed across the field.
Jaym’s distant ferocious roar echoed back as he whipped the stick crosswise through the tall weeds.
“You’re encouraging him,” she said, turning to find Ayl striding up the path to join her.
“At every opportunity, aye. The boy can’t forget who our enemy is.”
Her heart skipped a beat and she glanced protectively at Jaym. Ayl never knew what happened that night between her and Dake, but despite Reeve’s subterfuge he had his suspicions. What would happen if he ever learned the truth?
His smile was pleasant. “You made it back from your dirt-side raid.”
“Of course, I did. And it was a success. We’ll make a pretty profit selling that ore on the black market.”
“Dirt-side raiding isn’t right, Val. It isn’t the way we do things. We’re hatch busters, not land scavengers.”
“We’ve made more profit dirt-side in one week than we did in almost a year of fighting for the scraps Nez throws our way.”
“Aye, and I told them that.”
“Told who?”
“The doubters. The ones who think we’re taking the wrong path. I told them to give you a chance in this.”
Her neck prickled with a sense of danger as a sizzle of annoyance sparked in her belly. Always, Ayl presented himself as a man of considerable influence who was also generously her defender. “Give me a chance? As if it’s your decision whether I get one or not?” Her captaincy hadn’t been seriously challenged since Ragmarrk was killed on a raid years ago, but it was by no means secure. “You can tell the naysayers that if they have a problem, they come to me. Gossip does nothing but spread doubt. On any raid there’s danger—on a dirt-side outpost or on a skiff in space.”
Ayl frowned at the blossoms, his jaw muscles moving. “I don’t want to argue. Look at these blossoms. More than last year.” He reached out and shook a small branch, releasing a flurry of petals. They looked overly delicate landing on her scarred and rugged boots.
“We’ll have a lot of ebbe apples come fall,” he said, changing the subject. “Maybe it’s a fruitful omen that pays heeding.” He touched her shoulder as if to thaw her. She neither pulled away nor encouraged him and simply, neutrally accepted the caress of someone she’d known all her life. It was a delicate balancing act with Ayl. On one hand, she recoiled at the idea of taking him as her husband. It wasn’t the embarrassment he’d caused her when they were teens anymore, or the knowledge he still shared Despa’s bed on occasion; it was something else. But when asked to explain it to Sashya, she fell short, saying only that there was nothing in her heart for Ayl. It was as if she were still waiting. Waiting for…
She jerked her focus back to Ayl. If she were to give him no hope of ever marrying her, he might figure he had nothing to lose and organize a mutiny to achieve his latent dreams of power. Maybe it was time to give in and marry him. It would be one less thing to worry about. She was so very tired of worry, she thought, feeling a fresh urge to smoke.
“This is our year to start our life together,” he went on hopefully. “We’ve waited a long time for the moment to be right. It’s not ever going to be more right than now. You need the support.” He paused. “You need me.”
He moved closer, taking her continued silence as an invitation. His fingers lingered on her shoulder and, after a heartbeat of hesitation, he leaned over and pressed his lips to her cheek in a chaste kiss.
Instead of pulling away, she closed her eyes and refused to submit to the memory of a man who’d made her shiver when he’d kissed her there, and everywhere…lips so warm and softly firm, with a stubbly jaw that needled her in the most delicious way… Grinning lips that made her body sing. No man had affected her in the same way since.
As Ayl pulled away, she realized how she hungered for that kind of tender contact, and the passion it would lead to. She might not have the feelings for Ayl she’d like, but was being alone all the time really the best thing? Wouldn’t she learn to accept and even care for Ayl over time?
“Let me stay with you tonight, Val,” he said, his voice thick. “Let me prove how much I desire you.”
With that, reality flooded back, painfully, like a bright light switched on in a pitch-black room. It would keep her awake tonight, she thought wearily. “I need a little more time before we…do that,” she said.
“How much more time do you need? It’s been four years. First, you were in mourning. Then it was the war with the Surebloods needing your attention. After that, Jaym was taking too long to get over a bout of camp cough—like half the kids in this village were, and their parents still shared a bed. Now you’re all wrapped up trying to make dirt-side raiding work. There will always be something in the way, if you let it. There’s no more reason for us not to be together. To marry. To start a family of our own. It’s not like you’ve got other suitors.” He paused. “Unless, you still have feelin’s for Jaym’s father.”
Her heart stopped before she realized he meant her son’s pretend father. She shook her head. “I’ve got no feelings for that man.” Outside violent, gut-wrenching hatred, that was.
Ayl sighed. “Sometimes I think you’re planning to lead me on forever.”
“I think of this daily, if you’ll know the truth.”
“Then say yes. With me at your side, we’ll see our clan into the future. We’ll ensure its survival.” His eyes glowed bright with passion he didn’t have for her, only for his ambitions.
But deep down, she knew he was right. Taking Ayl as her husband would strengthen the clan as well as remove the distraction of a dissenting faction. It was time she stopped procrastinating. As leader she had to ultimately do what was best for her people, and not for her personally. The time had come to decide.
“I’ll give you my answer. Soon, I promise.”
“By week’s end?” he pushed. She hesitated. Desperate times called for desperate measures. “Aye. By week’s end.”
DAKE’S OPERATION REBOOT overcoat flapped around the legs of his Triad-issued trousers as he left the detention facility behind. A sense of urgency quickened his strides now that the shock of his release had worn off. Once the emotional shielding he’d erected over the years came crashing down, sharp fear for the welfare of the people he’d left behind sliced through him, leaving his composure shredded. If his worst nightmares were right and Nezerihm was behind the assassinations, what more had the man done to the Surebloods and Blues in Dake’s absence?
Joy at his sudden freedom turned into resentment that he’d been locked away, losing so many good years, all because a vicious, calculating, power-grabbing rat of a man thought him a threat. If his suspicions about the mine owner were right. He feared he’d be so wound up by the time he found Nezerihm that he couldn’t trust himself not to murder the man while trying to find out the truth.
“Don’t screw up out there. You’ll be in for a real long time if you come back.” The official’s order reminded him of his precarious situation. If he wasn’t careful he’d end up back in jail. This time there’d be no accidental transfers, no second chances. If he got himself arrested, he’d be locked up for good.
He’d die before that ever happened. From the moment a Drakken gun was dropped in his cuffed hands and he was ordered to kill people with whom he had no fight, to seeing his men killed off a few at a time until he was the only one left, to the nightmarish succession of stifling jail cells where he constantly fought his mindless fear of enclosed spaces, his life had been under the control of others. He’d been treated as less than an animal, left to lie in his own filth, to suffer hunger and thirst and untreated wounds, and to plumb the depths of loneliness that nearly drove him mad. How did he get through it? How did he survive? Captivity was a death sentence for a pirate. Most died within a year. He’d lasted five.
Because you had more reasons to live than to die: a clan that needed your leadership, a woman you wanted to get to know a hells of a lot better, joining your life with hers if she’d have you. A dream to see through to the end.
A monster to punish for crimes horrible beyond belief.
First get home, he told himself. Then he was going to start working his way down that list.
Gripping the ticket in one hand and his government-issued travel bag in the other, he finally found himself at the docks. Nothing but stars and docked starships as far as the eye could see behind an almost invisible barrier between him and space. The sight of an enormous pristine white craft stopped him short.
He checked his ticket, then the enviable craft. TAS Unity. His ride home.
He stepped forward and into a strange new world: the galaxy beyond prison. Outsiders, hundreds of them, moved up and down the various loading ramps as the great ship prepared to depart. Dake had never seen so many acres of clean. Every surface sparkled. Even the people. Conversations seemed hushed, actions restrained. How dull. How the bloody hells did they live this way?
“Halloo.” A woman in a Triad tricolor uniform strode forward to escort him aboard. “I bet you’re the Reboot passenger.” She scanned his ticket. “Come with me. I’ll get you through security, then show you to your quarters.”
“I’ve got another passenger—a Reboot,” his escort told the three guards waiting at the security checkpoint. They were armed with technologically advanced weapons that would have made Dake’s dozer look as primitive as a carved stick.
“Operation Reboot,” one said. “Means you were locked up, and no records, then set free with a mumbled apology and a one-way ticket home. Am I right?”
“Aye. That’s about right.”
“How long?” Pity altered the guard’s tone as he plugged in Dake’s information.
Dake frowned. He refused to be any guard’s object of pity, be he Triad, Coalition or Drakken. The only pity he cared to ponder from this moment on was the specken he’d have for Nezerihm, watching the worm beg for his life. “Five years,” he drawled.
“Not as long as some. Well, you didn’t miss much. War and more war.” The guard cleared him through.
Dake took one last look back at the location of his last prison cell, then turned and tromped up the boarding ramp of the Unity.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“VAL BLUE MUST BE STOPPED!” Nezerihm slammed his hand down on the meeting table. His chair adjusted to his increased stress levels, softening the cushion and providing a slight vibrating massage of his lower back. Still, his heart was thumping from too much adrenaline, too much rage. Mara’s Prize wasn’t a large or important ore transport, but it was the principle of the thing—it had been destined for the Triad’s main ship-building facility, the ore bought and paid for.
It was refined zelfen of the highest quality. Promised to the Triad! It wasn’t Val Blue’s to take. The Triad would see he wasn’t reliable to provide their zelfen and they’d take him out of that role. Peace may have come, but he wasn’t stupid—the Triad would still fight to have the resources it needed. It needed zelfen. “How did those flargin’ Blues get aboard a land-docked ship?”
As one, his staff turned to look at the captain responsible, obviously pitying the man. By rights they should. He’d never again set foot on the bridge of any ship transporting company ore.
The captain cleared his throat and did his best to stand up to Nezerihm’s scrutiny. “They confronted my crew while we were boarding, my lord. They accused me of being drunk.”
“And were you?”
“Absolutely not! They were disguised as customs officials. And quite convincingly. I saw through them, but by then it was too late. There were more of them than there were of us, and they had weapons out before we did.”
“And why was that, Captain? How did they outmaneuver my company on every gods-be-damned level?”
“The element of surprise. We weren’t expecting a land raid.”
Nezerihm shoved a furious hand through his hair. The captain’s excuse echoed around the table of mining executives and in his mind, taunting him. Val Blue hadn’t listened to his advice to stop stirring up trouble. Instead she’d expanded her tactics. How long before the other clans picked up on the idea? In transit, his ore wouldn’t be safe in space or on the ground. He’d have to do something about her, and very soon.
“From now on all crews will carry arms, and all will expect and defend against pirates. No one should ever again use surprise as an excuse.” All the staffers and mine foremen furiously jotted down the order. It would get out to the transport crews by word of mouth. He employed no chief of security. Power mustn’t ever be consolidated in such a sensitive position. He alone held it all. His was a family company and until such time he had an heir he’d run operations on his own. For the same reason he didn’t maintain a defense force either. He’d never needed one. Until the war ended, the pirates had been a tolerable nuisance and nothing more, eagerly hunting down his zelfen thieves. He’d saved money not having to maintain an army. He didn’t want an army. Armies were greedy for power. The next thing he’d know, they’d be plotting to overthrow him and take over the company.
Everyone wanted what he had—his life, his riches, his power. Everyone was jealous. He had to preempt the strikes against him. So far he’d been one-hundred-percent successful in doing just that, sending his assassins out amongst the barbaric, greedy pirates to do his bidding. Undermining the clans was easy with so much distrust already in place. Unified, they would have less need for his advice, his protection, his generous help. They might think his zelfen was theirs, like Valeeya Blue did apparently.
He never dreamed the scrawny little Blue girl would turn out to be such an irritant. If he had, he’d have offed her the same day he got rid of her father. He knew exactly where she’d gone off to hide that night. He knew what she’d done.
And with whom.
Good thing she’d never ended up with the young Sureblood as her father had so foolishly hoped. Now that would have been a problem: Surebloods and Blues allied through marriage.
Any child born to the couple would have been seen as the leader of both clans. Instant unification—the stuff of nightmares, he thought. Then the thugs would come after him, after his company, his riches, even invading his palace here on Aerokhtron.
No pirate had set foot on this turf since the clans met to sign an agreement giving his family joint control of the mines in the midst of the Great Zelfen Rush. His father had intended to extend the expiring agreement’s term through negotiation. Nezerihm cringed, glad he never allowed that to happen, and wake up the pirates to the fact that the mines really belonged to them. He knew better than to open up that can of worms. He made sure his father passed on to the Ever After without ever revealing what the idiot pirates didn’t realize and didn’t deserve to. Then he was careful to destroy the original treaty, of course, just in case the worst ever happened. He felt no guilt whatsoever about the tactics he’d employed to save his family’s legacy. It was the old man’s time to pass on anyway.
The idea of losing the mines made him feel very, very ill. Thankfully there was no chance of that now—or of little Blue-Sureblood bastards running about. Dake Sureblood was long dead. A crisis preempted.
But now another one loomed. Val Blue was irritating him greatly. He needed to take immediate action against her or lose the Triad’s trust and business. But first things first… “Captain, come take a walk with me.”
The transport captain glanced around at the men sitting around the table. No one met his eyes. All knew and understood how unhappy Nezerihm was because of his ineptitude. Now he’d have to give the man the bad news in private.
Trailed by the despondent captain, Nezerihm walked across the room to the balcony, shoving open the doors. The breeze rushed in, the warm, summery air laden with moisture from the surrounding lake, a nature-made moat. Silently, the captain stood next to him.
“I wanted the moat to be special,” Nezerihm commented, “and it’s so ordinary. I tried stocking it with mer-people, but they all died. One of the unneutered males hung on, though, longer than the others. He was part of my motivation for obtaining a rare young female, to start a pod of my own, but the one I imported at extraordinary expense from the water worlds went astray before I could bring her home.”