Asarlai Wars 1: Warrior Wench (22 page)

While she was trying to figure out what was happening, he added another question. “And where did you say you saw those refugees? We’ll want to find them and make sure they’re safe.”

Vas took a steadying breath and backed away from the comm. Something was very, very wrong. A quick check of the line confirmed that it was connected to an inner Commonwealth call. But that didn’t calm her any. Warnings in her mind all but demanded she sever the call immediately.

“They were heading in-system. They said something about the Novia system.” She picked something plausible, difficult to search, and in the exact opposite direction of where they were heading. She knew she didn’t want the person on the other end to know where the refugees or her own ship were, even if she had no real reason why. “They were in trader ships, about four or five, slow moving.”

Again the click as she realized he was conferring with someone near him. They didn’t know where she was, and they didn’t know she was in the
Warrior Wench
. If she bounced the line when she cut it they couldn’t reconnect. At least not easily. Vas swore as she realized Gosta was most likely still unconscious. Divee might be able to do a good enough block to keep them from being traced.

She cut the call.

“Xsit? Get me Divee, stat. And do not, under any circumstances, accept any calls from the Commonwealth.”

“Captain?”

“Don’t ask, just don’t. And I need Divee now.”

Vas cut the comm and paced her small ready room. She’d never spoken to an Expeliar in her life. They were a cadre of the ruling elite, third tier from the top. There was no reason her general call would have been routed to one such as him.

Unless they were waiting for her.

Wishing she had recorded the conversation, she frantically grabbed a stylus and pad and wrote down everything she could remember. There may have been things she missed. However, far worse than the recent goings on was the thought that someone in the Commonwealth’s upper tiers knew who she was, and was looking for her, her ship, and those refugees.

The door chime rang. Hopefully it was Divee; right now she needed a shield around her ship and those refugees. Crap, what if someone else knew who was in those generational ships?

“Come in,” she yelled then waved at Divee to sit as she called Flarik.

“Flarik, I need you to make sure no one on those ships contacted anyone, especially anyone in the Commonwealth. And you need to find out who they’ve been in contact with since they left Lantaria. And tell them no outgoing messages to anyone until I say otherwise.”

The pause before she answered told Vas that Flarik really wanted to ask questions. However, the lawyer was too smart to do so on an open comm. “I will come find you when I get back on board.” The closest she would get to, “you’d better tell me what’s going on” that Vas had ever heard.

“Thank you.” Vas said, then turned to the thin man waiting for her. “Divee, I need you to hide us from the Commonwealth.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Divee’s gray eyes grew large and his mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. A silent mind of its own. He finally broke free. “Might I ask why?”

“No. You may not.” She softened her tone at the look on his face. “Not yet anyway. I just had a very odd conversation with a Commonwealth bureaucrat, and I think it’s best we lay low.”

“Are we….” The look on his thin face was almost painful. He was loyal to the end to her and the company, but he was also possibly the most law-abiding citizen of the Commonwealth that Vas had ever met.

“No, we are not going rogue.” She knew what he was afraid to ask. She shuddered. Rogue mercs had been becoming rarer over the last five years. Rumors were that the Commonwealth had been silently removing them, preferring to control all mercenary companies, however indirectly. However, no proof had ever been found.

“We are simply avoiding them for now. I believe there may have been something compromised with the clerk I just spoke to,” she lied quickly. Looking at the thin lines of concern that marred his face, she came to a decision; Divee might need to be transferred back to Home for a while. She didn’t doubt his loyalty to her, but she couldn’t take a chance on his loyalty to the Commonwealth interfering.

He looked like he decided it was best not to think about things too much. “I believe I can shield us. Do you want us off the grid completely?”

The Expeliar had said he couldn’t find them on the grid, but that was because he still believed she and her crew were in the
Victorious Dead
. She contemplated just having Divee leave things as they were on the grid. She shook her head at that thought. It was the council of the Commonwealth she was dealing with, not some backwater rubes. It wouldn’t be difficult for that bureaucrat to find out where she was.

“Yes. I know it’s dangerous, but we need to be off-grid completely at this point. We don’t know who was behind those gray ships at Lantaria, or who they were aiming for. We have to protect ourselves,” she paused, “and the poor people in those ships.”

For a team of mercs, her crew was a huge bunch of softies. Divee’s face crumpled at the mention of the refugees. She might not have to bench him after all.

“You’re right, Captain. If there is any question, we must protect those people.” He rose to his feet, every inch the former aristocrat he was rumored to be. “I will have all of us completely blocked immediately. No one shall be able to find us.”

He quickly left to go about his business, leaving Vas to marvel about her choice in crew. Maybe it wasn’t them who were going soft, but her.

They could start heading toward Home the instant Divee said they were blocked from the grid. Well, once they were blocked, and Flarik and Bathie gave a clean bill for those refugees, that was.

She ate half of her pathetic sandwich in two bites, and then opened the comm.

“Terel? How are they?” She’d asked Xsit to keep her updated but it had been her experience that her version of ready and her doctor’s version of ready were two different things.

“Still not ready to return to duty, Captain.” If the tone of her voice hadn’t let Vas know Terel was annoyed, the use of her title would have. So be it.

“That’s not what I asked. I need to talk to some of them.”

Terel’s sigh was loud through the comm. “Which ones?”

Vas grinned. “Depends. Who’s awake?”

“Jakiin is probably in the best condition. In fact,” Terel paused as she muttered to someone in the med lab, “you could have him. He’s beginning to annoy me.” The last was said lower, but Vas was certain Jakiin heard it.

“I was hoping for my second-in-command.”

“He’s still out. Vas, there’s no way I’m letting him regain consciousness until I’m certain everything is out of his system. You’ll need to be without him for a little while yet.”

Vas wolfed down the rest of her sandwich. “Send me Jakiin then. I have some things to ask him.” She almost signed off, and then flicked the comm open again. “How’s Mac?”

“He’s almost ready, not completely conscious, but I can send him up in a few.” Terel signed out and Vas went to the deck. With nothing really going on she didn’t mind leaving Xsit in charge. Too long would be bad. Xithinals as a whole didn’t like being in charge of anything. They were flock creatures and vastly preferred that others lead the flock.

Xsit had been slumping over her console, staring forlornly out at the stars when Vas came onto the deck. She perked up immediately.

“Captain, good to see you. Nothing to report.”

“Thank you. Has Flarik returned from those ships yet?”

Xsit pulled up a small screen with the internal information. “Not yet. Bathie should be back up on deck soon though.”

“Captain?” Divee’s voice cut in over the comm. “I believe it is done.” There was a hesitance in his voice that Vas didn’t like to hear. He was talented enough to be Gosta’s equal, but his constant self-doubt weakened him.

“It either is or it isn’t, Divee,” she said. “Which is it?”

The pause on the other end told her he was still far too unsure of himself. Finally he came back on with a cough. “It is. We, and the refugee ships, are blocked from the grid.”

Vas settled into her command chair with a smile. “Thank you, Divee. You can return to cleaning out the smuggling space.”

She turned at the sound of steps, expecting her missing pilot. There had been more than enough time for Jakiin to make his way up here. But it was only Bathie.

“I checked and cross checked them all. The refugees are safe, and they’re what they say they are.” Bathie settled into Gosta’s chair with ease. One advantage of so many smart crewmembers is that they weren’t relegated to only one position.

“Thank you. You didn’t happen to see Jakiin wandering the corridors, did you?”

Bathie shook her head, blond hair staying in perfect place. “Nope. Ya want me to go get him?”

“No.” Jakiin was probably hiding from her hoping something else would pop up to take her focus off him. The way things had been over the last two weeks she’d bet he wouldn’t have had to wait long. Vas sighed and opened a ship-wide comm.

“Jakiin, get up to the command deck immediately.” She shut it without waiting for a response. Even though Flarik was working on their lineup of mysteries, she figured she could work on one end of them.

Those damn crates.

She had no way of knowing if the crates were a deliberate plant, meant to do something to her and her ship, or simply property of stupid drug runners. A month ago she would have chocked it up to stupid drug runners. Now, she couldn’t let anything go by without questioning it.

Come to think of it, how did she know that things hadn’t been this messed up before and she didn’t see it? Maybe her missing time and the taking of the
Victorious Dead
hadn’t been the start of it, but a part of a longer pattern.

“Oh, my head.” She closed her eyes and sat back in her chair. The backlash from the stims was fading, but the pounding in her head seemed to be getting worse.

“Are you all right?” Bathshea asked as she ended yet another communication with the folks on Home. Grosslyn really wasn’t taking the addition of two hundred refugees well and continued to harangue Bathie.

“No.” Vas waved off the engineer as she saw the look of concern. “Ah, there’s one of the problems now.”

Jakiin came slowly down the corridor leading into the command deck. He looked like a man taking that long final trek to an airlock funeral.

As well he should.

“Come on, boy, I don’t have all day. I’m still recovering from that shipment of yours.”

Jakiin winced, and the gills on the side of his neck, normally not visible, fluttered briefly. A sure sign he was seriously distressed.

“Tell me how you and your partner found out about this shipment. Considering that you wouldn’t have known we were going back to the station so soon, I’m thinking it was a lucky thing you found something so quickly.”

Jakiin slowed down to a stopping point just outside the reach of the command chair.

As if that would protect him.

“I could still shoot you from here, you know.” Vas folded her arms and glared at the unlucky pilot. Well, self-inflicted unlucky anyway.

“What?” He jumped a foot back, the veins in his pale face standing out like green roads on a map.

“I’m just saying that staying out of physical striking range of someone with a blaster at her side is fairly stupid.” She motioned for him to come closer. “And might piss off the person holding the blaster.”

Looking even more like a dead man walking, Jakiin stepped forward but kept his head down.

“Where did you and Mac find out about that shipment?”

“Mac found it when we were leaving the docking bay. A woman came and asked us if we wanted a quick job. She said she knew of Mac by reputation and only wanted to hire the best.”

Should have known. The only thing worse than Mac’s love of schemes was his weakness for the female flesh. Any female flesh. Vas motioned for Jakiin to go on. She didn’t trust herself to say anything.

“Mac asked her if it was dangerous, or drugs, or any of the other things you don’t allow on the ship.” His red-brown eyes were earnest as he finally glanced up. “She said it wasn’t.”

Vas wrapped her hands around each other so she didn’t grab his throat. “And what was to stop her from lying? Crap, Jakiin. You two took on a job without checking, without clearing, and based on the client’s say so? I don’t know what to do with you two, seriously.” Her fingers flexed with the need to smash his head into the arm of her chair. Finally she shook it off. “I don’t suppose you got anything worthwhile in terms of who she was?”

Jakiin took an involuntary step back, shaking his head. “We have the contract…but Mac didn’t know if it was real or not. He tried looking her up after we left the space station and he couldn’t find her.”

Vas closed her eyes and counted to ten. Deven kept insisting that trick would work to calm her down. Peeking open an eye, she realized she still wanted to strangle Jakiin. She tightly shut the eye and resumed counting.

She’d reached one hundred and fifty when a coughing interrupted her.

“Captain?” Jakiin’s voice was little more than a squeak.

She didn’t bother opening her eyes. “Yes?”

“Are you all right?”

“A better question would be if I can keep from blasting you out an airlock long enough for Mac to get up here.” She couldn’t believe this. If the two of them were brighter, and hadn’t been with her for the last eight years, she would have thought they were agents for whichever deity was trying to ruin her life.

Still keeping her eyes closed, she flipped open a comm channel. “Terel? Is Mac on his way?”

“I’m shoving his ass out the door as we speak.” From the tone of her voice Terel was almost as pissed off with the pilots as Vas was.

“Send flyboy to my ready room. He needs to be up here before my ass hits my ready room chair.” With a deep breath she opened her eyes and nodded to Jakiin.

“You heard that. I’d think you’d be waiting for me outside of my door.”

Jakiin’s eyes went huge, the red coloring overpowering the brown. With a nod he all but ran for the door in question.

Vas really didn’t take joy in terrifying her crew. Well, okay, to some degree she did. But only the ones who deserved it. After the pranks they’d pulled recently, Jakiin and Mac deserved it. But they’d always just been opportunistic, not criminally stupid. Until now.

She was just sitting down, glaring at Jakiin for the hell of it, when a loud thump hit her door. Amazing, for once Mac almost made it on time.

“Come in.”

The door slid open as Mac was straightening his strawberry blond hair. He flashed a grin that suffered a quick death. Ducking his head, he slunk into the empty chair next to Jakiin. The door slid shut before he made it all the way into his seat.

“Okay, I’ll make this simple. I’m asking myself why I haven’t spaced you both right now. But I’ll give you two a chance to get out of this.” She steepled her fingers in front of her face. “Someone played you both for idiots and almost caused untold havoc and possible death for most of this crew. You both massively disobeyed orders. You took a smuggling job on your own, without checking it.”

She paused, as Mac looked ready to argue. She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head. He wisely folded his lips as if biting them and shrugged.

“As I was saying, you boys screwed up big time. Mac, Jakiin said you tried to track the woman down who hired you. How far did you go?”

Mac appeared as if he was still waiting for permission to talk. Finally he decided it was better to respond. “I tracked down the name she gave us, and the name of the company she said she was working for. Well, I almost tracked down the company she said she worked for. By the time I realized she was a dead end, we were being chased by that ore ship.” He took a deep swallow. “And I forgot.”

Vas stared up at the ceiling, willing the thin metal tiles to give her the wisdom to deal with morons. “Lucky you, you get to continue that search now. I want you to find out….” Her conversation faded as Mac stared at something behind her.