Crusade For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 2) (35 page)

“Worry not, Valerie Carter.  We are not here to fight.  Though you are a most worthy opponent.”

“Heh,” she chuckled.  “You’re not so bad yourself.  It’s been a while since I had to hold off two attackers.”

“You were holding back.”

“So were you.  There were a few moves against the guards you could have used on me.”

Briseis looked past Valerie to her sisters.  “This is a skilled woman.”

“I see a Devil,” Phrike answered.

Valerie shrugged and nodded, no doubt the guards were monitoring.  It was too late to deny it.  Her moves against them in the fight were enough to show that.

“Then we are honoured,” Cheimon said.  “Those who faced you have not been boasting.” 

“If they’re warriors, it does come with the territory,” Valerie said.  She stepped out of the water and grabbed a towel.

“None can boast like a warrior born, ‘tis true.”  Briseis said, drying herself.  “We have much in common.  Perhaps you can join us while we break our fast.”

“Thank you.  I’d like that.”  Valerie pulled on a clean jumpsuit, relishing the odourless fabric.  “Maybe you can tell me what three Spartans are doing so far from home.”

“You have heard of us?” Phrike said.

“Heard, met and fought,” she told them.  “Out in the Edge many years ago.  I’ve never heard of a Spartan force entering Pantheon space before.”

“Well it is a grand tale and needs to be told over a vast repast.”  Briseis said and they walked out to the food dispenser.

“Hopefully they’ll give us extra rations, I’m quite literally starving!”  Valerie admitted.

The four women chuckled together and collected their trays from the dispenser.  They were disappointed, if not surprised by the quantity.  It was probably a good thing.  Their bodies would need to take a bit of time getting used to accepting food again.

“You’ve made some friends, I see.”  Quin said, as they settled onto an empty table.  She stood to one side with a tray of her own.

“Ah, it is the one who tried to help her little friend,” Phrike commented.  “If you wish to do better next time, learn to punch harder, like Valerie here.”  Phrike sat next to Valerie and patted her on the shoulder.  From across the table Briseis and Cheimon laughed.

“Why don’t you join us, Quin?”  Valerie nodded to the empty seat on her other side.  “Don’t worry, they only fight if challenged.”

“She is a friend of yours?” Briseis asked.

“No, but I think it would be good for all concerned if she was,” Valerie answered.  “What do you say, Quin?”  The dark skinned woman nodded and sat.  Valerie did the introductions.

“I haven’t seen anyone like you before.  Where are you from?” Quin asked.

“Ah, so our reputation has not spread as far as we thought,” Cheimon said.

Valerie shrugged while eating her breakfast.  “Sparta is a long way from here, Cheimon.  Most in the Pantheon don’t leave their planets.  People rarely take any notice of what happens in the Boundary systems.  No one pays any attention at all to what happens in the Edge and the Wild.”

“I’ve heard of Sparta but that’s on Earth isn’t it?”

“No.  Sparta is the warrior world, the strongest in space,” Phrike boasted.

“I think the Legion may have something to say about that.”  Valerie said and smiled slightly at Phrike.  “But only because we have the technological and numerical advantage.  One on one, the Spartans are the superior fighters.”

“’Tis true,” Briseis agreed.  “It would be a glorious battle.  Do you know our history, Valerie?”

“The broadest outline.  Your ancestors wanted to recreate the culture of the Ancient Greek city of Sparta.  They found a planet with a less than hospitable climate and colonised it.  It worked too.”

“Who do you fight?” Quin asked.

“Everyone!”  Cheimon announced to the room, swinging both of her arms wide.

“The Spartans are the best mercenaries in the Galaxy,” Valerie explained.  “They’ll fight for anyone if they get paid.  Their only rule, they fight for one side in a conflict and no other.  They’ll never fight each other.  Their word is Carbonsteel.  They never renege on a deal.”

“So your world is made up of only warriors, how does it work?” Quin asked.

“It would not.  We are not foolish, only those who wish to be warriors, and are good enough, are allowed to join.”  Briseis explained.  “My father is an engineer and my mother a doctor.”

“All of the profits from their work returns to Sparta.  They have a pretty good general standard of living for everyone.  Much better than here in the Pantheon,” Valerie looked over to Briseis.  “So what are you doing in the Pantheon and how were you captured?”

“Why do you wish to know?”

“I’m getting out of here and I think you’re the best people to help me.  The more I know, the better I can create a plan.  Such as how many more Spartans were captured with you?”

“It matters not,” Cheimon said.  “They will be listening, anything we say will be heard and they will move to block any escape.”

“That’s why I invited Quin to the table.  They don’t listen in on her,” she turned to the dark-skinned woman.  “Do they?”  The look in her eye was the confirmation Valerie needed.

“Why would they not watch her, friend Valerie?”  Phrike asked.

“She’s a Rebel,” Valerie hadn’t taken her gaze off Quin and the woman swallowed.  “I’ve heard what you’ve been saying.  There’s no way they would let you continue those conversations, unless you were being protected somehow.  It can’t be difficult to pay off the right guard or two and get your feed shunted out of the monitoring pile.”

Sitting up straighter, Quin stared right back.  “You’re reaching.  You’ve never been close enough to hear anything.”

“I’ve got good hearing and I know about the two women you sneaked out last week.  If I was still working for the Pantheon, don’t you think you would have been taken and interrogated by now?  This is the point for you to decide to trust me or not.  I’ve taken that leap and now it’s your turn.”

Quin glanced at the Spartan women and Valerie had to supress a grimace as she held Quin’s gaze.  Something you never did was to accuse a Spartan warrior of spying.  She could feel them bristle in anger around her.  Valerie held up her hand slightly, hoping they would take her lead.  For a moment, Quin’s life hung in the balance and she did not know it.  Briseis nodded faint agreement and the warriors subsided.

“The last thing these women would do is turn us in, Quin.  It’s not in their nature.”

The indecision was clear on her face and Quin chewed her lip thoughtfully.

“Very well.  I don’t know how you did it, but you’re right.  I was inserted here to move our people out.”

Leaning forward, Cheimon looked eager.  “You can release us from this prison?”

Quin shook her head.  “No, our pipeline is too new and with the way it works, we can only get one or two people out at a time.  It needs weeks to reset before the next one.  Besides,” she nodded at Valerie, “there’s no way I can get you out.  I got word from my contact while you were in solitary.  I don’t know what you did, but they want you here until you rot.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, but that’s a conversation for another time.  First of all, where are we?”

“The Blaze system.  The Rock is out in one of the belts close to the hyper-limit.”

Valerie’s eyebrows rose involuntarily.  Of all the systems the Rock could be located in, Blaze was the most serendipitous.

“Can you get word out to Blaze A with your contact?” she asked.

“Why?”

“I have some contacts of my own who could be of great help.”  A memory tickled at the back of Valerie’s mind, but she couldn’t place it and shunted it off to think about later.

“Who?  Old Privileged friends?”  There was an edge of nastiness to Quin’s question.

“No,” Valerie replied shaking her head.  “One of the gangs in Inferno.”

“You want to trust criminals?  No chance, they’ll sell us out to the police in a heartbeat.”

“You associate with criminals, Valerie?”  Briseis asked.  “Perhaps you are not the woman we thought you were.”

“Things are different in the Pantheon, Briseis,” she explained.  “The gangs do a lot of good, more than they harm.  More importantly, they do more for the people than the Privileged government.”  Valerie turned back to Quin.  “These people can be trusted as well as your own.  You know the line between the Underworld and a civic government is more blurred on Blaze than anywhere else.  I’m sure you want to get as many people off the Rock as you can.  You’ll have an abundance of recruits here who, as you pointed out, hate the Privileged.  With my help and my contacts on Blaze, you can have the best chance of achieving that.”

“You really think they can do that?”

“When I first met these people, Quin, I thought the same as you.  They surprised me.  The Blaze Underworld is far more capable than people know.”

“Alright, if I’m going to trust you, I have to trust you know what you’re talking about.  How do we contact them and what do we say?”

Sitting back Valerie considered.  She hadn’t really thought Quin would agree right now.  She guessed her fight with the guards had gone quite a way, convincing Quin she was no longer working for the Privileged.

“Send someone to the Coach Flyer in Inferno and get them to order a Roman Lemon Vodka.  Someone will be along to talk to them within the hour.  I’ll leave it up to you as to how much you want to say.”

“It’ll take some time,” Quin pointed out.

“I presumed as much, luckily time is something we have plenty of around here,” she turned back to the Spartans.  “So, you never answered my question.”

“Schemes run wild here,” Briseis answered.  “You are confident with Quin’s help you can free our warriors?”

“It’s what the Devils are trained to do and I was the best of them.”

“Warriors boast,” Phrike challenged.

“Indeed they do.  I don’t.  Care to test me?” she told them seriously.

“Hah, we have done that dance,” Briseis laughed.  “Trust is the order of the day, though it matters not, for the Pantheon already knows,” she turned serious again.  “Our great ship was hired to hunt a pirate.  A pirate that came and went like a ghost.  It would not be seen for weeks and then arrive to target a fat merchant, only to disappear again.  We hid in the belly of a target, ripe for the plucking.  When we emerged to fight, the cowards ran.  We pursued them across the vastness of space.  Always close enough to track through hyperspace, but never in range of our guns.”

“How could you track them in hyperspace?” Valerie asked.  What Briseis was describing was an almost unheard of event.  It was possible to follow a ship in hyperspace, but you needed to be on exactly the right vector and able to match their speed to the tenth decimal place.  The Legion Navy had been practising hyperspace pursuits for centuries, with only a ten percent success rate.  Briseis was talking about multiple jumps.

“There are some things even the great Pantheon cannot do, but I cannot tell you how.  We three are Hoplites.  We know little of the ships.”

“You’re Marines,” Valerie clarified.

“Yes.  That is what some call us,” Briseis nodded before continuing.  “We finally brought the pirate into range, in the Shigatse system in the Boundary and destroyed her completely.  Our Lochagos did not like that we had come so far and denied us the honour to board her, to take her as a prize.  With our mission fulfilled, we wished only to return home, but were ambushed by Legion ships.  We were surrounded and had no hope to fight our way out.  Lochagos Kydoimos did not wish our ship captured.  He ordered us to abandon her and surrender.”

“How many survived?”  Valerie asked gently.

“Seven hundred and forty-two departed Sparta.  Now, I do not know.  Our shuttle held thirty Hoplites and five crew.  All ten of the Hoplite shuttles were launched and many of the ships escape boats.  We destroyed our computers and do not know what happened to our people.  Once we were captured, we have been separated into smaller and smaller groups, until we awoke here with only two sisters.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Quin said.  “Why would there be a Legion task force in Shigatse?  That’s fifty light years outside the Pantheon.  Why would a pirate run all that way.”

“To draw out a Spartan warship,” Valerie said grimly.  “The Legion has been hearing rumours for decades about Spartans ships that could be closely matched to our own.  My guess is the pirate was actually a privateer for one of the Corporations, with the sole purpose of dragging a Spartan ship close enough to be captured.”

“They could not know we would follow so far,” Cheimon pointed out.  “How could they place their ships in position to ambush us without a means to escape?”

“The Legion’s not short of ships.  They regularly run ‘flying the flag’ missions throughout the Boundary.”

“Intimidation missions, you mean,” Quin said.

“Yes, that’s what they amount to,” Valerie agreed.  “They would have task forces all along the route, waiting for the right moment to pounce.  It’s risky, but for the prize of a Spartan cruiser, I can see them doing it.”

She turned to Quin.  “Can you find out if they’re all on the Rock and where they are?  If we’ve got three hundred Spartan Hoplites on board, our chances of getting out of here just increased considerably.”