by Susan Grant
“Aye, you’re looking at a man who’s supposed to be dead. The only reason I’m standing here today is because the Triad needed to make room in their cells for war criminals. Nez decimated the leadership of our two clans, plowing through us one by one until Val was the only one left, and only because he grossly underestimated her abilities. Now he’s going to come for her!”
And he’d never allow it.
“Nezerihm’s the killer,” many began to chant, adding to the cacophony as reactions to Dake’s accusations spread like a Parramanta wildfire, consuming allies and skeptics alike. The mine owner wasn’t popular, maybe even less so than Dake to some.
Ayl cupped his hands around his mouth. “You’re lying, Sureblood!” He sat with the senior raiders now. Much had changed in the clan since Dake was last here. “No one gets conscripted and lives to tell about it.”
Dake reached for the fasteners on his Triad uniform shirt and shrugged it off to his waist. The cuff and chain around his ankle jerked taut as he turned slowly with his arms held out to the side to display the gruesome evidence of torture and beatings. He wasn’t ashamed by their gasps and curses. He considered the latticework of scars and burns across his torso a physical history of his years of captivity.
“He’s not the only one with scars,” Ayl declared, yanking up a sleeve to show a long puckered scar. “Look at this one. Got it when the hatch we busted blew too soon. There’s more, but I don’t feel the need for another striptease. Do you? All of us are banged up. In this clan only hearth huggers and children don’t wear marks of glory. What that Sureblood showed us proves nothing.”
Dake bent his right ear forward. “I got this, too.”
Val sent Grizz to see. “It’s a brand,” Grizz confirmed. “Numbers burned into his flesh.”
“It’s how the Horde kept track of their conscripts,” Dake explained. “Their soldier slaves.” He extended his left arm. “The Horde gave me this, too.” The Drakken eagle inked in black on the inside of his left bicep forever marked him as a soldier in the Imperial Army. Then he thrust out his other arm. “My Coalition prison ID. You need a nano-reader to see the numbers, but if you press down hard enough you can feel the ridges. Scar tissue from the implants.” He swung his glare around the room, daring anyone to call him a liar now. Then he wheeled his focus around from Ayl to Grizz, then to Sashya and finally Val. She sat with her hands spread on the table. Her jaw was tight and her eyes a storm of emotions.
“But I saved the best proof for last,” he said, and a fresh round of noise erupted. Pleased, he narrowed his eyes at his audience. He was no less a showman than any of these Blues.
His throat was scraped raw from the shouting, but he lifted his voice until it could be heard clearly above the ruckus. “I was on board the Unity, hitching a ride back home to Parramanta, to my people, and guess who I ran into coming out of the captain’s office? Nezerihm himself. He was there, negotiating for our destruction.”
The uproar he’d caused whirled around him like the vortex of an over-maxed thruster. Val was deep in talks with Grizz, her mother and a number of senior raiders. Their heads were close together, a huddle, their conversations muted. Several fights broke out around them. Others stood yelling their opinions, some siding with Ayl and others cursing Nezerihm and calling for Dake to be set free.
Free… He’d never be free until his people were released from the threat that was their future. Hells, all the clans. Their fates were irrevocably linked. Nezerihm had that figured out a long time ago.
A defiant yell tore through it all. “Don’t believe the lying bastard! He’s using Nez as a scapegoat.” Ayl stormed to the center of the room with his posse and an awkward Despa. “All his scars and numbers prove was that he was captured. Even if he was gone for five years and he wasn’t behind the raid crashing, it doesn’t mean he didn’t kill our beloved Conn Blue. What happened was he poisoned Conn and fled—and just so happened to run across a Drakken hunter ship. Bad luck, and the Surebloods deserved what they got. Nezerihm had nothing to do with it.”
Ayl’s mouth curved with pleasure at the new doubts he raised. “I’d like to remind you all that a Sureblood cup was found in Conn’s hand that night, and what was in it? Poison…in the form of sharken he shouldn’t have been taking considering his health concerns.”
The crowd was starting to get worked up again. Ayl was convincing in his hatred of the Surebloods. He could very well shift favor away from Dake, even after he’d revealed the evidence of his imprisonment.
“The Surebloods bought sharken from Despa that terrible night. Tell them,” Ayl prodded the woman. “Did you sell sharken to the Surebloods?”
Despa tucked a curl behind her ear and spoke to her shoes. “Aye, I did.”
“To whom?” Ayl pushed. “Which one?”
As she turned her eyes to Dake and opened her mouth to speak, rage boiled up in him. “I did not buy booster from that girl!” he bellowed.
But the ensuing boos told him there were few who believed him, even now. Just as he’d won many over with the atrocious evidence of his incarceration, Ayl had deftly coaxed them back to his side.
Pirate justice, Dake thought. Right or wrong, the verdict always depended on the last opinion taking precedence before judgment took place. Whoever was the best at convincing won the case for the accused or lost it. It was not, Dake thought, looking good for him. He’d already pulled out all his cards. No more aces in his pocket.
There was a sudden commotion as the slave girl they’d rescued from the freighter pushed her way to where Dake stood. She’d filled out and grown up since Dake had seen her last. Her hair was even wilder and longer, her eyes just as hypnotizing blue. But she wore raider gear, and her limbs were athletic and strong, reflecting hard training. Her expression was intense and determined despite her clear shyness. She’d never been meant for a pirate’s life, he thought, but this was the life she’d adopted and in which she’d apparently thrived.
“Hells be,” Grizz muttered to Val. “Ferren.” Everyone else looked as shocked as Grizz was by her actions.
The girl clutched nervously at her trousers for a moment as she scanned the crowd. Then she clasped her hands together to stop the fidgeting. “I saw Nezerihm’s aide at Despa’s store that night.”
It was the oddest thing, hearing that meeting house go silent with her bombshell. Pirates weren’t quiet people. Only time would tell if that hush was a good thing or bad. Dake was glad for it; her breathy voice was difficult to hear as it was. And their silence spoke volumes about how curious they were about what Ferren had to say.
“I watched people that night. When I was new here, I did it often to learn about my new home.” Her accent was as exotic as her appearance. Everyone strained to listen. She lifted her pretty chin. “I saw a man go to Despa’s store. Nezerihm’s man.”
“How do you know he was Nezerihm’s man?” Ayl demanded. “He could have been from any clan.”
“Because I make observations only with what I see with my own eyes. Unlike some.” Ferren cast a withering glare at Despa. “I recognized the man from those Reeve escorted that day. He called them Nezerihm’s cronies.”
Laughter went around, Reeve shrugging. “I was their assigned escort.” Then he exchanged a look with Ferren that revealed love and concern. “I didn’t know she was out wandering alone at night, though.”
In answer to Reeve, Ferren smiled sweetly but without any apology.
“Despa,” Val said. “Did you sell sharken to the crony that Ferren mentioned?”
Despa gnawed on a fingernail. She wants to lie, Dake thought, but this time she was struggling with it. Ayl acted completely disgusted, shaking his head and muttering something that caused her to blush. “No,” she said in a small voice. “I did not sell him sharken.”
Dake swallowed hard at her answer. He’d hoped she’d reveal something to help his cause, so he could get started on everything he’d come here to accomplish. They were spending time interrogating Ayl’s littl
e puppet when there was little of it to waste. How long before the Earthling Johnson started sniffing around for his shuttle? Dake promised he’d check in after a vague amount of time, but he could very well be dead by morning. Would Val let that happen? Could she keep rebellious raiders from defying her if she didn’t?
It took many moments for the roaring to die down enough to hear Grizz shouting for everyone to shut up. “Ferren’s got something else to say.”
In her soft, accented voice, Ferren spoke to Despa directly. “Many purchased from Despa that night, this we know, but maybe she will tell us what Nezerihm’s crony paid for if not sharken.”
Despa clutched at her skirt as she and Ferren exchanged a glance. Ayl whispered sharply to the healer. She froze, her expression pained. Then, swallowing, she brought her chin up. “The man Ferren saw bought something else.” Her chin came up. “And I told no one, not even Ayl.”
The raider’s furious gaze bored into her, but she seemed to gain strength as she went on, almost defiantly so. “He bought some pyro from me. It wasn’t a strange request. Nez hated the cold. He’s come for pyro before to raise his body temperature on visits here.”
“Pyro,” Val said. “It causes a fever, then.”
Despa nodded. “Aye. A little goes a long way, too.”
“Doctor,” Val said to a woman sitting at the end of the table. “My father was running a high fever when he died. What was his temperature?”
“Why, I don’t remember exactly, Cap’n.”
“Ballpark,” Val snapped.
“It was high, very high. Five degrees above normal or more.”
“In the deadly range.”
“With his medical condition, with the strain already on his heart with the alcohol, the squatter’s and the sharken, aye.” The doctor nodded. “It was easily deadly.”
“Is pyro something you saw in his blood when you tested it?” Val demanded.
“You can’t see it. Pyrogens are identical to what the body produces to fight an infection, or a poison. It’s carried to the brain where it suppresses heat-sensing neurons and stimulates cold-sensing ones. If you’re asking if Conn Blue could have been given the pyro as a poison, aye, he could have been and, aye, it would have killed him.”
Val squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, hanging her head.
Ayl tried to argue but the man could barely be heard over the resulting commotion. The noise reverberated inside the meeting house, threatening to bring the entire structure tumbling down as swiftly as Despa’s and Ferren’s testimony had destroyed Ayl’s case.
Val turned her head to Sashya. “Mama,” she said, “do you have anything else you’d like to ask or add?”
“Aye, I do.” Conn’s widow dabbed the tip of her shawl to her eyes, drying tears she’d shed during the proceedings. “If the rest of you pirates don’t grow some balls and kill that conniving, rat-faced, cave-dwelling monster Nezerihm, I will.”
The biggest roar of all went up then. It was sheer anarchy, and it went on seemingly without end.
Val stood. Her eyes were moist, but her pale face rigid as she held her emotion, in check. Dake knew well how she felt. He’d rarely been as drained as this, and he’d been pushed to his limits countless times as the prisoner and slave of two civilizations. He thought the trial had gone in his favor, but he couldn’t be sure. He thought about what Val had said about dissenters second-guessing her, and it ignited a flare of worry: would his innocence make her look guilty? Would his guilt solidify her standing in the clan?
Only with Ayl’s group. The majority of the raiders in the meeting house were chanting, “Sureblood, Sureblood, Sureblood,” and singing out death threats against Nezerihm. It was what he’d hoped to do here. A common enemy was the beginning of an alliance.
Dake waited out news of his fate, his adrenaline surging as Val hopped up on the table and ordered the raiders to shut up. It took a couple of shots fired from her dozer through the roof to clear a break in the bedlam resulting from the bombshells launched by the women.
“All right, Blues!” Val declared. “This trial is ended. Due to overwhelming evidence in his favor, I hereby spare Dake Sureblood’s freepin’ life.”
Dake was mobbed. Reeve unlocked his ankle cuff. The rest of the clan swirled around him. He was bombarded with congratulations and offers of food and drink. Someone wanted to go for a spin in the shuttle and another thought Nezzie’s skull would make a good waste bowl. But no apologies. It wasn’t the pirate way. If he’d been run through a gauntlet, beaten up and put on trial, he deserved to be. It was that simple. Nothing more needed to be said.
He tried to make his way toward Val but was blocked by bodies. The doors had opened, letting in people from the square. Towering above most of the Blues, he used his height to search for her in the packed meeting house. He caught a glimpse of her braid swinging behind her as she maneuvered through the crowd like a skiff navigating the Channels at full speed.
Aiming for the exit.
Not so fast, Blue girl. Dake started after her, and then Malta appeared in his path, her grin crooked, her intent to get him drunk as obvious as the suspiciously uncorked bottle of moonshine in her hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
VAL BURST OUT OF THE meeting house into the sunshine. One day five years ago, without warning her life was turned upside down. Now it had been righted just as violently and unexpectedly. It left her reeling, completely off balance.
“You’ve got to appear strong at all times, even when you feel weak. You already know how to do it, Val. It comes from somewhere deep inside you.”
Grizz’s words from long ago reverberated in her mind. Strength was more than fighting the enemy, she thought. It was recognizing the enemy.
Her enemy wasn’t Dake. It never was.
Miraculously, impossibly, he’d survived conscription, imprisonment and stars knew what else. He’d aged more than the years away would warrant, but then maybe so had she. He’d lost weight, and his once-thick hair was cropped short. Stubble shaded the chiseled planes of his jaw. His nose had been broken, maybe more than once. A fresh cut and bruise covered his left cheekbone, thanks to Ayl, and his right brow was split by a thin, raised scar she knew wasn’t there before. His entire torso was a showcase of man’s cruelty to man, a far cry from the smooth, golden skin she’d caressed in the tub. Then, he’d been a cocky young raider captain. Now he was a battle-scarred survivor of the worst imaginable hells.
Despite the battered surface he still looked so blasted good that she didn’t trust her willpower around him any more today than she had five years ago, when the mere glint in his eyes lured her away from her duty and into the worst mistake of her life.
The square bustled in celebration and also with talk of war. “Don’t you worry, Val, we’ll pull that coward Nez apart, limb by limb,” some clan folk called out to her as she strode past. “He’ll pay.”
He’ll pay. Like they’d wanted Dake to pay. How easily they shifted their hostility to Nezerihm.
Nez killed Conn. He killed Sethen and Dake’s father, too, and fates knew who else from other clans in his quest to squash them under his thumb. With Ferren’s willingness to speak up and Despa’s capitulation, Dake had convinced the Blues that the wily mine owner was in cahoots with the Triad and planned to pit the pirates against each other to exorcise them from the region. But the raiders who tended to side with Ayl would see Val’s pardon as evidence she was soft on Dake. She’d let him escape once before. Now she had again, in their view. And it put Jaym at risk.
You knew that risk going into this trial.
Without Dake around, Jaym’s resemblance hadn’t been so obvious. Seeing the two together demolished that safety net. They were father and son. She was shocked that Dake hadn’t noticed yet. He would soon enough. She’d escaped the meeting house before he had a chance to start asking questions. Or Ayl.
Especially Ayl. He hated Dake. What would happen when he found out Jaym was Dake’s? Val’s instinct to protect her offs
pring quickened her strides. She wanted to hunt down Jaym and drag him into the shelter of their home. But he wasn’t in the empty fields or any of his usual haunts. Of course not. Everyone was back at the meeting house, exactly where she didn’t want to return. It would cause too much curiosity if she were to force him to come inside. He’ll be okay. He’s with the clan. She held back from babying him. Sashya was there. If not her, then Reeve would be there, and Ferren, none of whom drank to excess. They’d be observant enough to spy any malice directed at her child. It gave her some time to think this over, and she needed it to consider her next steps.
“Val!” Despa caught up to her. “I have something to say.”
“You said it in the meeting house.”
“Not all of it.” Despa had been crying, but her voice was steady. “I never said why.”
“Why isn’t important.” Val wanted no delays with the healer who’d done nothing but make trouble at every turn. Who’d enticed Ayl into her bed the night Val gave up her virginity to the man. “You told the truth. That’s all I care about.”
“Please.” She clutched Val’s hand. “I can’t keep it inside anymore. I’m sorry I let you think—that I let everyone think—that the Surebloods gave Conn sharken. If it was clear the Surebloods were innocent, it would have made Ayl look bad. I loved him. I protected him. Wrongly, aye, but I was young and stupid.”