Pirate Nemesis (Telepathic Space Pirates Book 1) (30 page)

Nayla.

Yes, my Queen.
The young woman was already moving through the crowd. She knelt beside Reaper’s dog and placed her hands on him.

Mercy moved on to Wolfgang. Only his implants allowed him to live. Their repair nanites worked to keep his body alive, but they were losing the battle. It was a function they’d never been designed for, keeping flesh alive and blood flowing. Mercy took over the task, mending the bones that had been broken, knitting back together the torn tissue and arteries that Willem’s people had inflicted. The Talent seemed guided by a hand beyond her own. She was afraid to think about it too closely. Afraid that she did, it would stop working and Wolfgang would die.

The flicker of life she felt from him became a steady beacon, small but definite.

Arigatou gozaimasu.
For the first time, Mercy understood Doc’s ancient dialect clearly as he thanked her while kneeling beside Wolfgang’s prone form.
I will take care of him now.
The doctor’s tone was more gentle than she’d ever heard it.

Mercy eased back and hesitated over Kator. Even with the seemingly endless bounty of Talent at her disposal, there was nothing she could do for the dead. She gently closed his eyes as she opened her own.

Reaper still held her. Though it felt like endless time had passed, it was only a few seconds. Willem still held Rani. He only now stepped away from her. Mercy could feel his surge of fear as he looked around the room, taking in the hostility of the pirates. She heard his thoughts as he planned his escape, calling for his teleporter, Octavia.

But Octavia didn’t belong to Willem anymore. She was Mercy’s now. And so was he.

No.
Mercy spoke the word without heat or inflection, but Willem still winced when he heard it. He put a hand to his head, no doubt realizing that her voice was well past his surface thoughts. Inside his shields.

Mercy moved through his thoughts and memories. She saw him steal the research Sanah once built and turn it into a deadly virus to kill Talented minds. To kill Lilith. She saw him plan the operation that kidnapped Mercy, saw him coldly decide to take Atrea as leverage. She saw him create Rani, manipulate her, use punishment and reward to build her into someone he could control.

But nowhere did she see her mother. A pang went through her. Pallas had never been with Willem and Veritas.

You—you can’t kill me.
Willem sounded far too confident. He had not yet realized that the true threat was Mercy, not the pirates facing him. He tried appealing to her.
I have information you need. Your mother! I can help you find her.

His lies should have angered her, but Mercy looked at him and felt nothing. An emptiness rose within her, Reaper’s Talent. A numb cold that was soothing and pleasant. She looked at Willem, and saw a thousand different ways to kill him. Ways to stretch it out and make it last. Ways to cause torment and pain.

You have nothing I need.
She chose the most efficient method. She was already inside his shields. It took only a moment’s concentration to crush his mind. He never even screamed.

As his body crumpled, the room wavered around Mercy. She realized she felt weak. Somewhere behind this place where she floated among Talented minds and abilities, pain hammered at her head, the kind of nausea-inducing headache that was unbearable.
Burn out
. It seemed even a queen had limits.

She allowed her awareness to drift back to herself, to pull back from all the people who were hers. The moment she did, she doubled over and vomited at Reaper’s feet. It didn’t improve her headache. Blackness edged her vision.

“I think I’m going to pass out,” she said out loud. Because thinking the words hurt too much.

“I’ve got you.”

She felt Reaper lift her into his arms just before the blackness rushed in.

M
ercy watched
the azure blue shell of stasis crystallize around Rani’s sleeping form. The sedative loaded into the capsulet Vashti injected her with had sent the young queen into a deep slumber. Mercy tried to remember the ancient fable the snow white name came from. Did the woman ever wake up? It seemed there was something about blood on snow, so maybe not. Maybe Rani never would either, and that might be for the best. Mercy wasn’t entirely sure the girl was sane after everything Willem and his cronies had done to her, both physically and mentally. Doc said there were reasons not to clone the Talented, much less whatever Frain had done to create his own cloned queen.

But Mercy couldn’t quite bring herself to kill the girl, either. She was a child, used and abused by the people around her, and Mercy would not see her murdered for that. Maybe, between them, Doc and Nayla could help her somehow. Or, as Tamari grew older and into her power, maybe she could. The child seemed miraculous enough at the tender age of four.

A scanner was abruptly thrust into her face, interrupting her reverie. It had Mercy stumbling back a step and sputtering as Doc invaded her personal space.

She glared at him. “I thought we’d reached an understanding.”

“Oh yes?” He didn’t even look up from his scan. “What understanding is this?”

“The understanding where you respect my boundaries and I won’t try and avoid you anymore.”

Now he glanced up, dark eyes glittering with something that looked suspiciously like amusement. “And when did we have this discussion? I don’t recall.”

“We shared a moment when I healed Wolfgang. Don’t try and deny it.”

His head cocked quizzically. “Healed? You
healed
Wolfgang?
Ie.
No. What you did was triage. First aid. It is not the same as healing.”

Mercy’s mouth dropped open. “I repaired broken bone! Knit tissue together! What the hell is that if not healing?”

He picked up a bone knitter and waved it at her. “This instrument could do as much. Your efforts kept him from slipping away, I will grant you that. But I would hardly call it
healing
. That is what Nayla does. It is what I, as a doctor, do.”

“What’s the damn difference?”

He set the bone knitter down and stared back at her seriously, all amusement gone. “The difference is we are trained to heal. You are not. Do you understand? You were lucky. One slip—” He snipped the air with his fingers. “—and Wolfgang bleeds out instead of recovers.”

Mercy’s outrage drained to worry. “He’s going to be all right, though, isn’t he?” She craned her neck to look around him, even though she couldn’t actually see Wolfgang behind the privacy screen.

There were too many sections of the infirmary cordoned off for patients, from Wolfgang, to Jaxon, to Vashti – who had two broken bones – to a disgruntled and bad-tempered Atrea. She’d suffered a few bruises in her scuffle with Willem’s men, but Doc was most concerned about the malnutrition of her previous captivity…and whatever Tamari had done to heal her.

Doc moved Rani’s stasis pod to the only free corner of the infirmary. A second stasis pod lay there already, but this one was covered with a shroud. Mercy followed Doc over and touched the shroud with hesitant fingers.

“Has Kator’s family been by yet?”

“Yes. They are working with Cannon to make arrangements for the ceremony.” He hooked Rani’s stasis pod into emergency power, so if anything happened to take main power down on
Nemesis
, her stasis would remain active. “Max has not been by.” Doc said this almost casually, as though making a passing comment.

Mercy knew it wasn’t. “I’ll check in with him.”

Doc nodded, like he expected nothing less. “Well, your scans still show a massive improvement.” He gave her a look that held accusation. He hadn’t quite forgiven her for waking up after the events in the arena with near perfect health. If Doc couldn’t explain it, he didn't approve.

“Are you telling me I’m free to go?”

He grunted. “I suppose I have little choice. I’d love to keep you here and take samples and scans to study how you managed this feat, but I suppose Cannon or Reaper would simply come and drag you away before I had sufficient data.”

“So I can go?”

He gave a long suffering sigh. “
Hai.
”

“Take me with you!” Atrea’s cry came from around two privacy screens, but her voice was unmistakable.

Doc said something under his breath that didn’t sound complimentary. Mercy burst out laughing as she crossed the room to Atrea’s bed.

“You know I can’t do that.”

Her friend’s eyes narrowed. “I know no such thing. You’re the Queen, right? You can do whatever the hell you want.”

“That’s not actually how it works.”

“It
could
work that way. If you wanted it to.”

“I told you, I’m not taking command away from Cannon. Not now, maybe not ever.”

“But you did that claiming thing. Everyone here
belongs
to you now.”

“No. Everyone here is
connected
to me now. That’s quite enough for me. I’m not looking to control people, like Rani, or rule them, like my grandmother.”

Atrea rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. She lowered her voice and leaned close. “Seriously, you can’t leave me here. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this doctor has a worse bedside manner than the Navy doctors. And let me tell you, that is really saying something.”

Mercy tucked the blanket around Atrea a little tighter as she stood up. “I’m sorry, I really am.”

“Traitor.”

“I’ll be back to check on you.”

Just as she moved to step away, Atrea’s hand whipped out and snagged her wrist. “Mercy, please.” Desperation shone in Atrea’s blue eyes. “I can’t be here when
he
wakes up.” She jerked her head toward Jaxon’s privacy screen, her face pale.

“You had to shoot him, Atrea. You made the right call, and he’ll agree.”

“No, I didn’t.” Atrea sagged back onto her bed. Mercy had never seen such a stark look on her friend’s face. It was enough to make her sit down.

“What’s going on?”

Atrea looked away. “I should have popped that girl. The queen controlling everyone. I don’t know why I didn’t. One shot and her control would have fallen. None of the good guys get hurt, and both kids live. Instead, I chose between the two men being controlled, and nearly killed one of them. Fucking shot went low. I missed the other guy completely. So now we have a dead kid, and a bunch of people in the infirmary.”

Mercy didn’t say anything right away. She took a moment to think about how to approach it. “Wow,” she said, keeping her voice mild. “That is a lot of guilt you’re taking on for someone who helped me save this entire ship.”

Atrea just shook her head. “I’m serious, Mercy.”

“So am I. Besides, you only think you could’ve shot that girl. But if you’d tried, you would have missed, and both boys would be dead.”

Atrea frowned. “The shot was open.”

“You still would have missed. Queens can’t be killed by just anyone. There’s like a…an aversion to it. When Willem tried to kill me, he couldn’t physically pull the trigger. The same thing would have happened to you. Or you’d have missed.” She squeezed Atrea’s hand. “So stop beating yourself up. And don’t worry. Jaxon seems like a good guy. I’m sure he’ll be understanding.”

Atrea laughed, but the sound had no humor. “Right. Most guys are really understanding when you shoot them.”

“You’ll see.” Mercy stood up. “Now, I really have to go. If I don’t meet Reaper soon, he’s going to come looking for me. And no one wants Doc and Reaper butting heads.”

“Yeah.” Atrea eyed her with a hint of her old spirit. “You’re going to have to tell me more about this guy. I’ve never seen you like this before.”

Mercy rolled her eyes as she walked away.

“No, seriously!” Atrea called at her back. “Does he cook? Give back rubs? The sex has to be great.”

Mercy made a rude gesture as she slipped out of the infirmary, and heard her friend’s voice dissolve into a laugh. It was good. A sound she was grateful to hear again.

Soon Wolfgang would be back on his feet. Vashti was already nearly healed. She and Mercy were due for a long talk – Mercy wanted to know exactly how Vashti threw off Rani’s control when no one else could.

She figured Reaper would be with Cannon and the rest of the Core. They’d all been meeting fairly often since the arena. Some were pleased with the way things had turned out. Others were definitely not. Mercy was staying away as much as she possibly could. She didn’t need to ruffle anymore feathers, and she definitely didn’t want people thinking she was setting herself up as some sort of supreme ruler. She’d met with them once, at Cannon’s insistence, and told them in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t interested in changing anything. Cannon was still the King, and that was that. Of course some people believed her, and others didn’t. Bottom line: she couldn’t make everyone happy, and she wasn’t going to try.

Mercy, where are you?
Reaper’s voice made her smile.

Hey. Aren’t you with Cannon and the other pirate captains?
Since most of the Core had their own ships to command, Mercy had started giving them nicknames. Captain Reaper, Captain Griffin, and so on. If the person didn’t have a suitably pirate-themed name, she gave them one. “Captain
Bloodstar” was her current favorite. Nobody seemed amused by it but her.

I just returned to our quarters, and found you gone. Did you take one of the dogs with you?

I thought we agreed that I was safe now that I’ve claimed everyone on the ship. Even if Willem’s tool is still alive, he definitely can’t hurt me now. Not even as intentional collateral damage with another bomb.

There is still the matter of the Killer.

Mercy sighed as she turned down the corridor to their quarters. Reaper just would not let that go.
Have any Killers boarded the ship recently?

That’s not the point.

She opened the door and walked in, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, if any do, you let me know. I’ll happily go back to dragging a dog with me every-damn-where.”

Reaper was waiting for her. He stepped close and pulled her against him. “Yes,” he said. “You will.”

“Enough. I walked across the whole ship by myself and nothing catastrophic happened. Can we just take a moment and be happy about that?”

“You’re in a good mood. Wolfgang and Atrea must be doing better.”

“They are.” A little mollified, she softened against him. “Atrea asked me if you cook and give back rubs.”

He grinned, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “And what did you tell her?”

“That we just have really great sex.”

“Well, that’s true.”

He took her mouth in a possessive kiss. It was a constant amazement to Mercy that someone with the ability to turn off all emotion could be such a passionate and attentive lover. His hands threaded in her hair as his tongue swept across hers, and she could already feel the fabric of her shirt parting along her back, the cold air of the room prickling her skin.

You keep tearing my shirts.

Not my fault you don’t take them off fast enough.

She grinned against his mouth.
It’s a good thing you do cook.

Reaper chuckled softly. “I really don’t. I order up from the galley.”

“Well, damn.”

He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the alcove. He’d been doing that a lot, since the arena. Carrying her. She wasn’t sure what that was about, but figured she’d ask him eventually.

As he laid her down, he said, “The Core wants to know what we’re going to do with the rest of Frain’s people.”

Mercy narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been waiting to say that since I walked in the door.”

“You’re the one who refuses to come to meetings.”

She closed her eyes and felt the bed dip as he lay down beside her. “What do they want to do? The Core.” And damn him for making her ask. He and Cannon had some scheme cooked up between them to try and make her join in all of the politics.

“It’s a split vote. Some want to maroon them on the nearest moon, habitable or not. Others want to take them in. Especially the women.” Reaper paused. He was playing with her hair. It had grown longer again, long enough now to hang past her shoulders. “Cannon says it’s up to you, since you claimed them along with the rest of us.”

“Hmm.”

He nudged her with an elbow, but she didn’t say anything. “Mercy.”

“What?”

“What do you want to do?”

She sighed. “Take them in, of course.”
And let them be pirates.