by Layla Nash
Chapter 31
Violet
Violet didn’t know why Faros was being so helpful to Pyix and the others as they prepared to depart, though she suspected it might have had something to do with her wanting to go with them. She saw her chance to escape disappearing quickly and figured talking with him in the corridor was the only real option to make her case. If there weren’t any witnesses, maybe he wouldn’t feel obligated to be a jackass.
Maybe.
The doors had barely whooshed shut before she started talking. “What are you doing? They’re going to track down the Tyboli ship and end up destroyed. You should be offering to help, not encouraging them to go alone.”
“I do not have time to help them,” he said, with fake patience. It set her teeth on edge. “And you should not be encouraging me to attack another ship, hmm?”
“Stop playing dumb,” she said, voice low. “Something else is going on and I don’t know what it is. I want to leave, Faros. I’ll go with them and we can forget all of this. I won’t say anything to the rebellion about where you’re at or why you…took me. It’s fine. It’s better that this ends here and now.”
“That what ends?” he asked. Something changed in his posture; he grew guarded, defensive.
“This,” she said, and gestured between them. Her face heated and she hated to think that anyone inside the mess hall would overhear. She didn’t want any witnesses, although Aldrin only knew what they thought about her wearing his robes. “I don’t know why you kidnapped me and maybe you don’t either, but it’s better to be done with this now.”
His eyes narrowed. “I told you, you’ll be free to go after my mission is done. Three standard days, that’s it. That will have to be enough.”
Although, from the look on his face, maybe he didn’t believe it would be enough. She’d started to doubt it herself. The possibility of never seeing him again after three days made her stomach twist uncomfortably, despite how angry he made her. Everything about him drove her crazy, and yet... yet she thought maybe she’d miss that once it was gone.
“What if...” Violet cut off and turned away, uneasy.
He caught her arm and kept her from retreating back into the mess or fleeing down the corridor to... somewhere else. She didn’t have anywhere to hide on the Sraibur, that was for damn certain. Faros’s rough palm sent shivers all through her as he held her elbow. “What if what? What crazy scheme do you have for me now?”
At least he sounded amused and not furious, although part of her wouldn’t have minded his irritation. Amusement just made it clear he didn’t take her seriously. Violet steeled her courage and tried to think of all the people who would benefit from getting rid of the Tyboli ship for good, even if she knew in her heart she was about to make a deal for herself and not for anyone else. “What if I stayed, then? If you help the Lovelace defeat the Tyboli ship, I could…stay. For a while.”
The pirate captain stilled, then released her arm. His voice grew colder, more distant. “You’d bargain with yourself, then? Is it so important to you? How could I possibly require such a sacrifice?”
She tried to draw away. He’d misunderstood, perhaps deliberately. But Faros kept hold of her arm and didn’t let her retreat far. Violet fought down her own anger and tried to find some of the equilibrium that had helped her deliberate earlier. “I only mean that if you could do something good for once, I wouldn’t be as inclined to try and—”
“Something good? You think attacking a ship that holds a debt over me is a good thing?”
“When they’re Tyboli? Yes.” Violet wrenched at his grip and debated calling for help. She was certain Pyix and the space chicken would immediately jump in to assist her, and Estelle could handle Wyzak. She clenched her jaw and tried to stomp on Faros’s foot. “There is a reason that the Lovelace is chasing them. I don’t understand why you won’t just do something about—”
“Because they will not succeed,” he snapped. Faros glanced at the door and lowered his voice, then dragged her a few steps farther from the door so the Lovelace crew wouldn’t overhear. “I have seen Kryken fight and I know they will not succeed against him. The crew and the ship will be forfeit. I cannot turn Pyix’s mind from going after the Tyboli, so it is his choice to taken on Kryken and his ship. But I will not sacrifice this ship and the rest of my crew because you’ve got delusions of being some kind of hero.”
Violet jerked back. “They might fail if they’re alone, but if the Sraibur supports them—”
“Kryken never works alone,” he said. He gripped both her arms and held her closer than Violet anticipated. She almost wanted to rest her head on his chest, though she was so angry she couldn’t see straight and wanted to punch him instead. Faros shook his head, as if he despaired of convincing her of something obvious, like the speed of light, when she insisted on not seeing it. The pirate went on when Violet said nothing. “They will not win. We would not win, if we joined them. I am not going to commit to a suicide mission because a bunch of altruists think that—”
It was her turn to cut him off, and she flailed against his grip with all her strength. “You’re going to just let them fight alone? How could you just… This is worse than you abandoning your brother in space!”
“Abandoning my brother? What are you—” He released her with enough force she stumbled back, and Faros turned away, wild-eyed. His scales rattled and the spikes stood up on his shoulders when he finally turned back. “That again? Are you really so concerned about that? He lived, didn’t he?”
Violet couldn’t take it. She wanted to throw something at him and hoped that someone interrupted. It had been a terrible idea to try and reason with him. She couldn’t have a conversation with him. There was no reasoning with him, no logic or law that would convince him he’d been wrong about something. “You’re a beast. If you won’t assist the Lovelace, I’m going with them. I’ll not stay on this damn ship another second, and if I had different clothes, I’d throw these fucking robes in your face.”
“You’re not leaving,” he said, voice sharp. Faros stood over her, looming, and Violet sucked in a breath as her knees went a little weak. The pirate leaned down until he was almost at eye level with her. “Do you hear me, Earther? You will not leave this ship until I say so.”
“I hate to interrupt,” Wyzak said under his breath, sticking his head out of the mess hall. “But the guests wish to depart.”
Faros clenched his jaw until Violet saw the muscles in his neck and face jump in response, then jerked his head to the side and shoved Violet at him. “Escort the Earther to my quarters. I’ll see that our guests get back to the loading bay.”
Violet sucked in a breath to shriek at him but the space chicken appeared immediately in the hall. She clucked and was suddenly between Wyzak and Violet, her beady black eyes fixed on Faros. “A poor decision, pirate. We help all who need us, and this one needs us. Do not be a fool twice over, twice over.”
“The girl agreed to stay for three more days,” Faros said. He barely ground the words out between his clenched teeth. “She will not break her word. That is none of your business. If you survive the confrontation with Kryken, then fine—come back and pick her up, by all means.”
Pyix stepped into the hall, his scales already swirling with orange and hints of red. “We will defeat the Tyboli.”
“He says it’s a trap,” Violet said. She didn’t bother fighting Wyzak as the second-in-command started to herd her away from the guests. “That the Tyboli will have backup. Please reconsider. Please. Do not throw yourselves against Kryken alone. Call the rebels for backup or something.”
The other captain didn’t blink. “We are aware of the Tyboli’s tactics, Violet, but thank you for the warning. We cannot allow him to escape again. We must at least damage his ship and slow him down. Then the rebellion can finish him off.”
She wanted to scream in frustration. Why wouldn’t anyone listen to reason? “But you could be killed.”
“It’s a risk we hav
e to take,” Estelle said quietly. She reached around Wyzak to squeeze Violet’s hand. “We’d hoped, of course, that the Sraibur might be inclined to join us, but this is the culmination of a year’s work, Vi. We can’t let him get away again. We have reason to believe they’re searching for slaves for another contract with the Slasu. If we wait, that’s hundreds or thousands of more souls who will be sold into servitude. If we delay them, then Kryken may not be able to find the target he’s chasing.”
Violet’s heart sank. What if the Tyboli were looking for that transport full of poor farmers and settlers that the Sraibur had disabled and stopped? That was a prime target for the slave-takers. She looked at Faros and tried not to sound like she was begging. “It won’t take long to at least—”
“I will not risk this ship,” he said sharply, and she gave up.
Violet fixed him with the fiercest glare she could manage. “You’re a coward.” And she stormed off, not waiting for Wyzak to show her the way back to the captain’s quarters.
She wished she had another place to retreat to, and tried to demand that Wyzak put her in some other quarters—the ones right next door, maybe, where she’d stayed the night before—but the second-in-command just shook his head and pointed her toward Faros’s rooms. She fumed but went, since there wasn’t much else to do.
Before the door whooshed shut, though, Wyzak handed her something through the opening. “The Hwali wanted you to have this.”
A small bracelet, made of an unusual metal, weighed heavy in her palm as she took it. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, irritated. “But she said it was important and you would know what to do with it when you needed it. She said to put it on.”
Violet frowned at the Xaravian as the door shut, then frowned at the smooth wall for a while longer, trying to puzzle through why the space chicken gave her a pretty but purely decorative piece of jewelry. It was a long time before she put it on.
Chapter 32
Faros
He saw red the moment Violet called him a coward, and very nearly went after her to shake some sense into her. He wasn’t a coward by avoiding the confrontation with Kryken. He was being a responsible captain and a smarter pirate. She didn’t know anything about working on a ship that wasn’t part of a much larger Fleet battle-group. The Sraibur had survived so long because it was fast and nimble, carried a lot of firepower, and didn’t often use it. Winning without firing a shot was the goal, and if she didn’t get that... He ground his teeth until his entire jaw ached.
Pyix didn’t speak as Faros led the way back to the loading dock so they could return to their ship. The Hwali queen glared at him enough that Faros figured she would have eaten him alive, starting at the toes, if he turned his back on her. In the loading bay, Nokx raised his eyebrows when he saw the group and the red and orange in Faros’s scales.
The captain grimly shook Pyix’s arm. “I’ll warn you again not to take on Kryken. There’s something else going on; he might be setting an ambush or he might be meeting up with the rest of his group. If you go after them, it’ll be disaster for your ship. Do you really intend to risk your crew and your ship?”
The other captain didn’t blink. “I gave my word we would bring Kryken to justice. We have to try.”
“It’s a suicide mission,” Faros said. “You’re a fool for doing it.”
“We have a few tricks up our sleeves,” Pyix said. He nodded to Wyzak as the second-in-command entered the loading bay, then to Nokx, then stepped into the transfer arm that would take him back to his ship.
Estelle didn’t seem inclined to speak as she started toward the arm, though Wyzak cleared his throat and said gruffly, “Be careful.”
She glanced at him, startled, then a slight flush rose in her cheeks. “In the transport arm? It should be stable—”
“Not just that,” the second-in-command said, and Faros glanced back at him in consternation. What the hell was wrong with the man? Wyzak ignored his look and went on. “With the Tyboli. If they board your ship, it will not end well for you. Go to the escape pods and signal us. We’ll do what we can.”
Which earned him a darker look from Faros. They hadn’t discussed that at all.
But Estelle’s head tilted as she studied Wyzak, then she nodded. “We will.”
Then she too strode into the transport arm. She didn’t look back.
Which left the Hwali queen, in all her feathered and furious glory, standing in front of both of them. She scratched her foot against the deck of the loading bay, those beady eyes seeing right through to Faros’s soul, and lowered her voice to a threatening cluck. “You are three times a fool, you are. That Earther will not sit quietly by, and you are a fool to think she will. Listen to your heart and not your pockets. A small thing, a broken deal, compared to the rest of your life. To your soul. Choose carefully. Yes, choose carefully.”
Faros choked on some kind of response, some acknowledgment that things didn’t always go as he’d planned, but before he could gather his thoughts, the alien bird-like creature had turned and flapped her way through the transport arm. He stood in the bay with Wyzak, waiting until the green light signaled that everyone was through the other side and had sealed their hull, then stood back so Nokx could begin disengaging the arm.
“Well,” Wyzak said. “That was…interesting.”
Faros eyed him. “What’s with you offering to run in there and rescue them? We don’t have time for that. We need to get moving in the other direction.”
“You know as well as I what will happen to those females if the Tyboli get hold of them,” Wyzak said, and a sharp edge to his words put Faros’s scales up. “We can’t stand by and let that happen.”
“They made their choice.” Faros strode out of the bay as his anger got the better of him. “We warned them. You heard all three of them—they’re running in there fully aware that it’s not going to go their way, and yet they’re all choosing to do it. The Earther and Hwali didn’t argue with Pyix or suggest they wanted to wait for reinforcements. They all want to do this. It’s their choice.”
Wyzak followed on his heels, on the verge of mutiny. “And if they wanted to fly their ship right into a black hole, would you stand by and let them?”
“Why is it my responsibility to save them from their own stupidity?” he snapped. “I warned them, more than once, and they persist. Why do you all act like I’m the asshole for not throwing my ship into the black hole after them?”
The second-in-command didn’t follow him, though he called down the corridor, “Because only an asshole would refuse to help at all.”
Faros waved him off but braced himself to face condemnation from Violet as well, and paused outside his quarters. Part of him wanted to go in and pick another fight with her, in the off chance she could have been convinced to resolve the tension the way they had earlier. But the rest of him knew that he didn’t have time for the argument or the making-up. He still had to find a new target, lucrative enough to pay off his debt, and then re-engage Kryken before the Tyboli destroyed the Lovelace and her crew.
He wasn’t opposed to helping them, but he had to keep his priorities straight. The faster they got the payment for Kryken, the faster they could turn around and distract the Tyboli from destroying the Lovelace. He headed for the bridge instead of dealing with Violet. He’d rather bring a solution to her than just argue, even if arguing meant the potential for makeup sex.
On the bridge, he occupied his captain’s chair and ignored that Wyzak had not joined him. Harzt and Izyk were both present, though, and at least they had good news. Sort of.
Izyk pulled up a new quadrant on the viewing screen. “We have what looks like a merchant fleet. Signatures are similar to the transport ship we ran across earlier, so it’s possible they’re not as heavily armed. Three ships total. If we disrupt their pattern we might be able to disable all of them and choose the one we want to board.”
“Three ships are better than one,” Faros said under h
is breath. The three ships were more likely to carry something of value, or all three together would repay his debt to Kryken. Merchants only traveled in fleets when they had something to protect. Of course, that also increased the likelihood of security and defensive precautions. “When will they see us?”
“We have about thirty standard minutes,” Izyk said. “Then we’ll be on their radar.”
He leaned back in his chair and pressed his hands together in front of his chin. Thirty minutes to decide. There was still time to turn the Sraibur and catch up with the Lovelace, if he felt like giving those orders. They’d confront Kryken, probably get their asses kicked, and then Kryken would seize the Sraibur and all aboard as penalty for the attack and breaching the contract.
Which meant Kryken would get his hands on Violet. Faros couldn’t stand the thought. His eyes narrowed as he scowled at the viewing screen. The best choice was to get the payment, deal with the Tyboli, and go on their way. He could probably still convince Violet to stay on the Sraibur long-term, if she’d been willing to stay to make him support the Lovelace’s crazy scheme. It could all still work out. He just wished he felt as confident as he needed to look.
Chapter 33
Violet
Violet paced the confines of Faros’s quarters, arguing with herself and periodically stopping to study the bracelet that the space chicken gave her. What in the name of Leibniz was it supposed to do? It didn’t look electronic or linked to anything, and wasn’t any kind of tech she’d ever seen. Maybe it really was only decorative, and meant to be an emotional comfort to help instead of something that could actually get her out of a dicey situation.
She fumed as she thought about Faros’s short-sightedness and his unwillingness to help the other crew. Kryken was Faros’s enemy the same as he was Pyix’s! Why not team up? She just didn’t understand. Something else had to be going on. The pirate captain had to have other reasons for refusing to help the Lovelace; he didn’t want to admit it for some reason. Violet massaged her temples. Right when she thought she understood Faros and figured he wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone believed him to be, he went ahead and tried to prove everyone else right.