Asarlai Wars 1: Warrior Wench (19 page)

Chapter Twenty

Vas swore as Deven pointed out the various components. It was carefully hidden but they would have found it eventually.

The system was informally called a particle mover. A bureaucrat with no imagination named it ten years ago when the rumors about such a machine started. Vas shuddered. There was no way anyone was going to tell her that was safe.

Now as a weapon it had potential: aim it at your enemy, move their particles, and just don’t reassemble.

“I recognize that look,” Deven said. “You’re planning world domination again.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Not exactly. I already have a world. Now, galaxy domination might be interesting.” She tapped the screen. “I think they are missing a hell of an application. Make it smaller, more mobile, broaden the beam? A dream weapon.”

“Wouldn’t work, at least not yet.” Deven went back to his seat and settled in. “Yes, my people do have something very similar, and no, they haven’t been able to make it mobile or have a broader range.”

“Pity.” She sighed and shut down the screen. She’d let her eggheads play with it; she had enough of them on the ship she might as well use them. Personally she couldn’t see a big use for it unless they wanted to move the Starchaser parts off ship. Most likely the particle mover was as contraband as the Starchaser parts. Even using it would end them up with far too much Commonwealth attention.

“Why aren’t they after us?” she said out loud as her thoughts wandered.

“Who? I think we have enough people after us right now, don’t you?” Deven leaned back and shut his eyes.

“The Commonwealth.” Vas threw a stylus at him but he batted it away without opening his eyes. “Come on,
this
is a pleasure cruiser? Currently under ownership by a mercenary crew and it just happened to have come loaded with Starchaser parts as well as top-secret tech?”

“Un-huh.” Deven didn’t open his eyes. “They don’t know. Or the parts and tech weren’t theirs. Or they can’t touch us.”

She looked up sharply at his last comment. “What do you mean they can’t touch us?”

“I don’t know, Vas.” His voice was fading; he wasn’t even trying to stay awake anymore. “But they didn’t even check out Lantaria. One of their worlds was attacked and no one came. What does that tell you?”

She thought about it. Honestly, she’d briefly thought about it before, but it was usually a good thing when the Commonwealth wasn’t shoving its protuberance into everyone’s business. Now that she thought about it, there were fewer visits to distant planets and ships listed in the Commonwealth databank in the last few months. Less red tape for getting things approved if it meant a bureaucrat was going to have to leave the inner planets.

“What does it mean?”

“I have no idea.” His words were so slurred she didn’t even know if he got them all out.

“Fine.” She rocked back in her chair. Damn, she wanted to ask him about the video but he was done for. Granted, he had the disgusting ability to sleep anywhere. She swore there had been times in war zones he not only slept standing up but he also never dropped his weapon. But even he had limits.

Which left her alone with her thoughts. Not a place she liked to visit often.

The buzz of the comm saved her from an extended trip.

“What ya need?” She probably scared the hell out of whoever was calling. For some reason her crew didn’t like it when she was bored.

“Captain, ah, Gosta wanted me to tell you that before he went down to his lab he programmed the nav system to head for Mnethe V. He said we have a drop?” Xsit chirped. Usually Vas felt the small Xithinal was too perky for first shift, but being as she herself was wide-awake it didn’t bother her this time.

“Great. What is our ETA? Oh, can you notify Mac and Jakiin and tell them to get their delivery ready? This is their baby.”

“Aye, Captain.” Xsit trilled her version of a polite laugh. “We should make orbit in less than an hour.”

Vas studied her sleeping second-in-command. Left alone, he could probably get a good few hours nap. She debated waking him as payback for bringing Marli into this. However, he just looked so damned sweet in that chair.

She really was getting too soft.

“Go ahead and have Klaxitia oversee Mac and Jakiin’s prep. Deven’s out of commission for a bit.”

Xsit signed off.

Which left Vas with the chore of who was going to go down planet-side for the trip. With a sigh she pulled up Mac’s original list. He, Jakiin, and Bathie. The sigh grew heavier.

She flicked open a private comm to Gosta. “How’s the search going?”

“I still haven’t found anything. There is a lot of information to sift through. This will take time, Captain, you can’t believe that—”

“Easy there, Gosta.” Vas laughed. “I’m not checking on your progress.”

“Thank goodness, I will be able to find—”

“I’m calling you off your search for a bit.”

“Captain? I thought this was a priority?” He sounded like a small child whose favorite toy had been yanked from his grasp.

“This should just take a few hours. I need someone to ride shotgun on Mac’s little trading adventure and Deven’s out cold. I want you to go down instead of Jakiin. I don’t trust him and Mac together. Take Divee and the triplets too. They can help move the product faster.” Vas sat back and ran over her modifications to Mac’s original plan. The drop seemed straightforward. There was no reason for any of her more serious people to go along.

“Aye, Captain.” The annoyance at being removed from his beloved research was lessened. “I completely understand. I don’t trust them either. Does Jakiin know he’s not going?”

“Nope, you get to tell him. Mac too. They should both be moving their stock down to the landing bay.”

“Aye. I’ll call if there’s a problem.”

Vas smiled as she cut the call. Gosta wasn’t happy, but he was the best person for the job. Even though this should be a simple drop and run, Vas didn’t trust simple things anymore.

****

Vas was in the gym exorcising some demons when Xsit patched in a call from the planet. About time. They’d gone down three hours ago, and even with the wanderings that often followed these types of jobs, they should have been finished before now. She reset the anti-grav weights, grabbed a towel, and opened the comm.

“Vas here.”

“It’s Divee, Captain. He sounds upset.”

“Patch the call through.” Vas frowned. Why was he calling and not Gosta?

“Captain, we have a problem.” Divee’s voice was faint, as if not wanting to talk too loud. “The buyers aren’t here, and um…one of the cases broke open.”

Vas swore. She knew Mac and Jakiin couldn’t set up a smuggling run right. Every time she let those two boys try something responsible, it bit her in the ass. Now the buyer was missing. And if the tone in Divee’s voice was any indication, something very bad was in those crates. Which meant they weren’t what they originally scanned as. Which meant it wasn’t just Mac and Jakiin’s mess anymore.

She hated when people lied to her about what she was smuggling. It was simple: she ran a clean ship, and she had an almost 100% success rate in terms of getting cargo safely intact to its destination without the Commonwealth being the wiser. All she asked for were a few simple things. No people, no live animals, no drugs, and no explosives or arcane Asarlaí-based archeology. And no damn lying.

“I’ll be there in ten. That’s as good as I can get. Keep whatever it is under control and if the buyers do come to pick it up, stall them until I get there.” Vas said.

“Aye, Captain.” The obvious relief in Divee’s voice didn’t boost her spirits any.

She called Deven and was pleasantly surprised when he sounded awake. She’d left him in her ready room the entire time.

“Something has gone wrong with the wonderkids smuggling operation. We need to get down there before things get worse.”

“Do we know what happened?” From the slight catch in his voice he was probably jogging down to his quarters for a quick change.

“No, but the buyers are AWOL, the boxes broke open in a bad way, and Divee called me.”

“Crap. Who else do you want?”

“Terel, Jakiin, and you two.” Vas pointed to Gon and Walvento who just happened to be passing into the gym at that point. The heavy Walvento looked surprised; as the ship’s master gunner he rarely went off ship. Nevertheless, he shrugged his massive shoulders in agreement. “I’ve got Walvento and Gon.” She smiled at the two men then pointed at the gym and shook her head. “I need every one armed and ready to drop in less than ten minutes. Oh, and get Bathie up on the bridge. She’s got command while we’re gone.”

Vas clicked off her comm. Deven would get the others together and Walvento and Gon had already run back to their quarters for their gear. She paused before she headed down the corridor to her quarters, and then tapped into the command deck comm.

“Xsit? Close off the storage bay where the cargo was stored. Depending on what our friends had us carrying, I may need to have the storage area quarantined.”

Drugs and Asarlaí artifacts were always her biggest fears. When she’d first started traveling on a smuggling ship as a girl, she’d seen a ship come into dock with the entire crew exploded from the inside out. They’d been carrying a messed up street drug and it got into their air vent.

Vas grabbed her weapons and slipped on some heavy pants and boots. She went back for a flak jacket after a second thought. Better to be prepared. Her weapons were easy: three blast pistols, a long range snub gun, and a brace of knives.

She got to the shuttle bay to find all of her team there before her. Good sign. She filled them in on what she knew as they made the planet drop.

Vas and the others made their way through a thin clump of trees to Mac’s drop point with their blast pistols drawn. They kept the shuttle at a distance, in case something went sideways. This planet was listed as low-tech, but not enforced, and she wasn’t going to risk her life or that of her crew, to abide by the inhabitants’ sensibilities.

There was a clearing up ahead, but Vas still couldn’t see any of her people.

However, she could hear them.

No yelling, no gunfire, no screaming. Nevertheless, some very odd noises and a few voices talking low.

Vas and Terel entered the clearing first. Terel moved ahead to scan the area, with Deven and Jakiin going around the outside of the clearing to see if anyone was lurking. Gon and Walvento stayed back with the shuttle in case someone had to go for help.

An interesting tableau spread out before them. The crates from the ship were in the middle of the clearing. The seals were clearly visible on all but the one furthest away. Immediately Vas saw what happened. They’d stacked them too high and the top one had tumbled off and cracked its lid on a rock. Which wouldn’t have been a problem if there had been silks and tapestries in there like the manifest said there were. Like their sensors had said there were. Instead there were piles of a strange dust. Damn it, next time, if there was a next time, she was prying open every last crate.

Mac was the first of her people she saw. He was lying on the ground, still at first, and then he rolled around. Then he snorted and grumbled. Then rolled some more. Divee was sitting as far from the group as possible. He nodded to Vas, but didn’t appear willing to move closer. The triplets were down on the ground with Mac, but not moving. Gosta was standing closest to her and Terel.

Vas nodded to Mac and the others. “What the hell is wrong with him? With them?”

Terel shrugged and tapped her screen some more, but her face was becoming more concerned the more she saw on her screen. Vas wasn’t sure but she thought she heard swearing under the doctor’s breath. Something rare enough to have Vas contemplate pulling out another weapon.

“The box had a Rillianian stamp inside, but Mac couldn’t read it. He’s stalking a turtle,” Gosta finally said. He pointed to the four people on the ground as if giving a lecture.

“He’s what?” Vas watched Mac and the other three with him. Now they were all doing the same roll, grumble, and snort maneuver. Maybe she didn’t hear right. She didn’t know what they were doing, but she was pretty sure no turtles were nearby. Unfortunately, she wasn’t surprised about the Rillianians being involved.

“He’s stalking a turtle. But the problem is that he thinks he’s a grunge beetle.” Gosta said sagely. “Of course anyone can tell he’s a turnip. Clear as day. Turnips, the lot of them.” He folded his arms and studied the people before him.

Vas pulled back and took a good look at Gosta. She’d file his comment about the Rillianian stamp for later. “You too? Damn it, Terel, what’s wrong with them?” Vas took a few more steps back, trying to distance herself from Gosta. She wanted to push him toward the others, but didn’t know if whatever caused this was contact-born or not.

Terel reconfigured her med screen. “I don’t know, Captain. They scan fine.”

“Terel. Are you kidding me?
Look
at them!” Vas pointed to the group, five people in various stages of hallucination.

“I’m telling you they scan fine. Too fine if you ask me. There’s nothing—” Terel swore as her scanner beeped. “Damn it.” She held off answering Vas, but called back to the ship. “I need a full dose of Glincin for at least five people, possibly more. The area the crates were in needs to be level four decon. Clean it tight and we might need tranq guns.” She cocked her head at Vas. “Unless you happen to be armed with non-lethal force?” At Vas’s confused headshake, Terel continued into her comm, “Yes, tranq guns. Have someone take them to the drop zone. Do not walk them in.”