Asarlai Wars 1: Warrior Wench (15 page)

“Everyone, cross check at least two other folks. Make sure all suits are tight. We have no idea what’s on this ship and because of its freight we won’t be able to tell if there’s a bio-hazard until it’s too late.” Vas turned to check Terel’s suit.

“You ready?”

Terel nodded then checked Pela’s suit. “I think so. We should have every contingency planned for.” They checked the rest of the crew, and then Vas called up to Mac.

“Mac, we’re ready. Open the doors. Keep them locked until we are ready to come back though. No sense exposing more of the shuttle than we need to.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Come on, boys and girls. Let’s see what’s here.” Vas palmed open the latch. “Oh shit…” She froze and slowly raised her hands. A wide-mouth blaster rifle had been inches away from the door when she forced it open and was now aimed clearly at her head.

Chapter Fifteen

“Look, we’re sorry. We didn’t think there was anyone alive.” Vas said with her hands up and prayed her team behind her was doing the same. The gun’s muzzle was less than two feet from her head, the sight lamp on it blinding her to anything beyond. “We don’t mean you any harm, but you did try to ram my ship.”

There was no response, but the gun didn’t lower either.

“Terel, I don’t have a scrambler on this suit, and I really can’t put my hands down to get one. Can you power one up? I’ll try again.”

Terel didn’t answer, but a soft whirl of the translation device told Vas she’d done what was asked. Vas repeated everything she’d just said and the scrambler spit it out in fifteen different base languages. Obviously those weren’t the only languages in the known universe, but all of them were root languages. Between them they covered more than ninety percent of the known population at least in a rudimental fashion.

Judging by the lack of movement from the gun, this person must belong to that ten percent that wasn’t covered.

“Damn it.” Vas lowered her hands a tiny amount to see if there would be a result. Nothing. “I need ideas, people.”

“Hold on. Let me check something.” Terel kept her voice low and soft. Even though the person on the other end of this blaster wouldn’t understand, they might react to tone.

A soft chime indicated Terel had turned on her life signs scanner. What was she doing, checking to see if there were others they missed? Even if this person was alone there was no way they could charge him or her.

Hands on Vas’s shoulders pushed her arms down. “You can lower your arms. Our friend here isn’t going to shoot anyone.” Terel stepped around and took hold of the blaster rifle and switched off the sight lamp. “At least not deliberately. Although we should probably disarm him carefully. It might still go off.”

Vas wiggled her shoulders to get the kinks out, and then motioned the rest of the team forward. It took a few minutes for her eyes to see something other than spots.

“Damn me. He’s frozen there?” Once she could see, it was clear her ‘attacker’ had been frozen in place. Face, hands, and neck were black and brittle. Even his flight suit appeared ready to shatter off of him.

Terel scanned some more. “Yes, but I don’t understand how. There’s an atmosphere in here, an odd one, but it should be breathable. But leave your suits closed please.” Terel added that for Vas’s benefit; she was always trying to get out of environmental suits faster than the doctor liked.

“No worries, doc. Suits will stay on until you say. Can we move him? I’d really like that weapon discharged and secured somewhere.”

Gon moved forward. “If you don’t mind, Cap’t, I’d be fine with lowering him down and seeing to the gun.” Gon was a Garthian, and his accent and rumbling voice always reminded Vas of farm country on an ag planet. But he was also the best suited to dealing with frozen beings. Garthia had been known to go through cycles of freezing that lasted years.

She moved out the way and let him lumber past. With a gentleness that was surprising due to his size, he carefully laid the frozen body down and began working on the blaster. Finally, he broke the hand and removed it that way.

“Sorry, Cap’t. Tweren’t another way to get it.” He opened the casing to take out any rounds, and then looked back up at her. “Whoever he were, he went out firing. There aren’t any charges left.”

Vas turned back toward the space lock, but there were no telltale burns indicating he’d discharged his weapon that direction. In fact there were no burn marks at all. “Great, yet another mystery to haunt my sleep.”

“Did you say something, Cap’t?” Gon asked.

She waved him off. There was no reason for the entire crew to know how bizarre her life was becoming. “Nothing, just talking to myself. Terel, you’re with Divee and me. Pela, stay with Gon. Get our friend here in a full decontamination suit then put him in a decon storage locker. We need to take him back and see if there are answers we’re missing. I don’t want to take any chances here. Let’s go see what else is on this damn ship.”

Vas moved forward cautiously. The ship had tight quarters, and she really didn’t want any more surprises. Granted the only person who was supposed to be on here was dead, but she’d heard of pirates masking life signs in abandoned ships, and then attacking those who came after it. As a sometime pirate herself, she’d never pulled that stunt, but she knew others who would. The passageways were narrow and low. Good thing Deven had stayed behind; as it was, Vas was having to duck with the added height of the environmental suit. Deven was about three inches taller than her.

An ore hauler wasn’t designed for looks, comfort, or speed, just hauling huge amounts of rock from one end of the galaxy to the other. However, this one was in worse shape than any she’d seen. The lights were off; most likely they had been cut to a bare minimum to feed whatever had been done to the engines. There was no way a normal ore hauler could have reached the speeds this one did, even for a sprint. Someone had clearly adapted it to become a bomb. Now the question was if it was after Vas, the
Warrior Wench
, or just any poor sap who came through this part of space.

A low, repeated noise, not part of the ship’s functioning, could be heard down one of the passageways. Vas held up her left hand and clenched her fist. The two behind her froze instantly. With a nod she slowly walked down the short corridor following the sound. A dim light glared unnaturally in the dark from a doorway that was cracked open.

After checking to make sure Divee and Terel were still standing guard where she left them, Vas nudged the door open.

The cabin was small, its tiny space taken up by a narrow cot and a rickety metal desk. The muted sound and light were coming from a small computer screen embedded in the cabin wall. The image was broken and obviously stuck in a loop. Then the static image cleared and a delicate brunette appeared. She held herself regally although she wasn’t anyone Vas recognized. She spoke common perfectly, but there was an accent, odd and fluid, that Vas couldn’t place.

“I hate to put this on you, Ghassil, but there’s no one else. I can’t get out there in time. You’ve got to—” The image scrambled again, the voice nothing but garbage, then it came back.

“—arrior wench. She’ll be in that system soon—”

Vas swore as the image and voice went completely into undecipherable gibberish.

Damn it. Whomever that woman was she had ordered this ship to attack the
Warrior Wench
and worse, she knew where they had been going.

Vas tapped her comm. “Divee, can you come in here?” After a second thought she added, “Terel, you too.”

She fussed with a few more pads and buttons, but the same loop repeated without any new data. A rustling announced someone behind her. Vas stepped back from the system and waved Divee forward.

“Can you pull that computer and its memory out of that wall? I need everything you can save.”

The slender human man nodded. “Yes, Captain Tor Dain. I can see what can be salvaged from the wreck. I will endeavor to obtain all of the information you need.” He gave a slight bow, a lock of jet-black hair falling forward inside his suit.

“Good man.” Divee had been with her for four years, yet he was still as formal as the day he arrived. Vas gave a mental shrug. He was damn good at computers, almost as good as Gosta, and a formal tech wasn’t a bad thing. Just odd. “Terel, stay with him until he gets the machine free. I’m going to keep searching. If I’m not back in ten minutes, call for Gon and send him out after me.”

Vas sighed and raised a gloved hand the instant Terel’s mouth started to open. “No, you can’t come with me. I don’t think anyone is here. However, if there is, they may not like Divee stealing their computer system. I need you here.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that.” Terel folded her arms, or tried to. The suit made them too bulky to do it effectively. “I was just going to ask if you would like Divee to pull the main computer logs once he gets this personal one out?”

“Right.” Vas knew Terel hadn’t been about to say that at all. She was the biggest mother nag of the entire crew. “But that is good thinking. Divee, please ransack and pillage as much technical information from this ship as possible. Then return to the shuttle.” She nodded and went back down the corridor to rejoin the main passageway.

Ten minutes later Vas had finished prowling around the abandoned ore carrier. The entire ship had clearly been ill-used and without a regular crew for a while. She guessed it hadn’t hauled ore regularly for at least a year. The hold was completely full, but it had dust on it. Obviously the ship had been taken with a full load quite a while ago.

All of the corridors had the same smoky residue as the main hallway. Vas had rudimentary science equipment with her, but not enough to tell what it was. Scraping off a sample she sealed it in a case and slipped it into her pocket. Another mystery for Gosta to solve.

Terel and Divee still weren’t back when she made her way to the shuttle, but Gon, Pela, and Mac were having a fine conversation. A conversation that stopped when she came into view.

With a sigh, Vas stepped past them and peered into the shuttle. The decon case was sealed nice and tight. “Good work. I didn’t find anyone or anything else. Have we heard from Terel and Divee?”

“Ay Cap’t, they radioed that Divee had pulled as much equipment and data as possible. T’were heading back a few minutes ago,” Gon said.

Vas nodded and stared into the dark looking for them. This place was dead. Very cold and very dead. She suddenly didn’t want to be there anymore. She rubbed her arms, but the feeling intensified. They needed to leave now.

“Terel? Come in. Where are you?”

“Almost there, Vas. Divee may have found a port system with more data.”

The feeling of needing to leave was almost overwhelming. Coldness crept up her gut toward her throat. “Cancel that, get back now. We have to leave.” She turned to the others.

“Get ready, Mac. The second they get on board we take off.” Another wave of fear overtook her. “Lay in a course straight out as far from this thing and as fast as you can.”

“Terel, damn it, where are you and Divee?” Vas refrained from yelling, but she did push Pela and Gon into their seats and double checked that the decom chamber was secured.

“We’re here, Vas. What’s the hurry?” Terel’s headlamp came into view as she spoke.

Vas motioned for them to get in the shuttle. “Can’t explain. Just get in and get buckled.” She pulled shut the docking door. “Now, Mac.” She barely had time to get in her seat before Mac disconnected the link with the ore hauler and blasted off.

They were about three minutes out when an explosion slammed into them and sent the shuttle into a spin.

Chapter Sixteen

“Mac, were we hit?” Vas yelled into the comm as debris and loose equipment bounced around the shuttle. She’d gotten everyone secured, just not all of the packs. Luckily, the important things were locked down. It would still be damn useless if she or one of her crew got knocked out from an unsecured scanner. “And get us stable!” A pulling on her harness told her that the inertial dampers were off as well.

“I’m trying!” Mac yelled back. “We weren’t hit directly, at least not by anything big. This is from the explosion.” A second later the spinning stopped.

Vas pulled on her harness. Some of the pressure was still there, but it was returning to normal.

“How did you know that was going to happen?” Terel sat across from Vas, and it was clear the doctor was itching to do a full examination on her to find out that very answer for herself.

“I didn’t know it was going to explode.” Even as she said it aloud, Vas knew she had known. Not exactly what was going to happen, but that something was. Specifically, something very bad was going to happen. Far stronger than her normal gut instincts, this was almost a command. Which was almost as disturbing as the fact that they’d been three minutes away from being space dust.

“I did know something was wrong,” she finally admitted both to herself and to Terel. “I have no idea how, but in those last few minutes I knew something was horribly wrong.”

“Maybe you’ve been hanging around Deven too much and it’s catching,” Terel said. After a few moments, she laughed. “I’m kidding. Telepathic abilities aren’t contagious.”

“I know that.”

“Right. Then why did a look of terror flash across your face?”

Terel had her there. However, there was no way in hell she was going to discuss the disaster of last night with anyone, not even her best friend. She didn’t want to know what secrets lurked in others’ brains. Ever.

She gave Terel a shrug. “Anyway, somehow I picked up on something. I just knew we had to get out. Call it highly honed skills of too many battles.” She flipped open her comm. “I presume the ore hauler is destroyed?”

“Yup.” Mac’s distracted voice indicated he was still fighting the shuttle over something. But he was too good of a pilot to let it win.

“Are we going to have to call for someone to come get us? Or is it fixable?”

“Captain! It’s always fixable.” Mac was clearly insulted that she would even imply such a thing. “I have never lost a ship yet and I don’t plan on doing so. We should be ready to rendezvous with the
Warrior Wench
in a few—” A pinging cut him off. “Hello, what’s this?”

“Mac? Was that an alarm?” Vas was ready to take her chances with the shuttle’s internal stability and remove her straps to go to the front when he took too long to respond.

She was just loosening her buckles when he came back on the speaker.

“Sorry there. We’ve got a visitor who wants to make sure we’re all right. She’s asking if we need help.” Mac laughed at something only he could see. “And I’d say let this lady help me anytime.”

Another sense of foreboding hit Vas, this motivated by knowing Mac’s taste in women. “Is it a pretty brunette with an odd accent?” The woman who had ordered the dead man to charge the
Warrior Wench
hadn’t said she wasn’t in the area, just that she couldn’t get here in time.

“Ah, you know me too well, Captain.” Mac said. “She said she can pick us up—”

“Cut communications with her. Now.” Vas unbuckled the restraints, and then made her way to the command portion of the shuttle. The heavy boots in the suit kept her stable, but the systems clearly weren’t working properly. It took her longer than intended to get to the front.

Mac turned toward her from the pilot’s chair. The screen was still up but the volume cut off. The face growing more animated in her silent speech was the woman who had ordered the dead man to attack her ship.

“I said cut the connection. And get a hold of Deven. I want the
Warrior Wench
here as soon as possible. Do we have any maneuverability in this bucket at all?”

Mac rocked back in his seat as she reached forward and cut the contact with the woman. “She’s just trying to help.”

“Get Deven now.” Vas tapped the dark screen. “That woman sent a message to the corpse on that hauler, a message as to where we would be. And she called us by name.”

Mac winced, but called up Deven. Vas started speaking as soon as her second-in-command appeared.

“Deven, there’s a ship closing in on us. They were the ones who sent that ore hauler on its attack vector and most likely the ones who just detonated it. I need you to get here now.”

“That ship is closing in on you too fast. We won’t make it in time if they decide to go after you. You’ll be in weapons range in less than five minutes.” She heard him bark commands, but she knew his judgment on ship abilities was never off. If he thought they couldn’t get there in time, they couldn’t.

“Jakiin and I have two of the Furies up and ready to fly. A Flit wouldn’t hold against that cruiser closing in on you, but they might.”

She swore to herself. She didn’t trust those rusting antiques, but judging from the information she was gathering on the cruiser heading toward them, he was right. The
Warrior Wench
only had eight of the small fighter Flit ships onboard, and that wouldn’t be enough to go after a cruiser.

“I hate to say this, but go ahead. Have the
Warrior Wench
close in as quickly as she can, but get those rust buckets of yours out here.”

“Aye. Hang on, we’re coming.” Deven cut off, leaving Vas to stare at the ship closing in. The flashing red comm light indicated the cruiser was still trying to contact them.

“Captain, are you sure that’s the woman who ordered the attack?” Mac said his hand far too close to the flashing comm button for Vas’s comfort.

Reaching around him, she turned the comm to deny and the flashing stopped. “Yes, I’m sure. I know it shocks you to learn this, but beautiful women can be evil too. I saw her and heard her. She knew where we were going to be and when.” Folding her arms, she glared at him as she saw his hand twitching toward the button.

“I know beautiful women can be evil. I work for you don’t I?” Mac’s face flashed red the instant the words were out of his mouth. “Not that you’re evil, or that I think you’re beautiful. I mean you are, beautiful that is, but I don’t think of you that way.”

Vas laughed at his attempt to save himself in spite of the situation. “I think you should just shut up now. Don’t worry, I know what you mean. Or rather what you are attempting to mean. Have Deven and Jakiin launched yet?”

Mac gave an audible sigh of relief as he turned to the console. His fingers flew over the keyboard and an image of the two Furies heading toward them appeared.

“Excellent.” Vas stayed back.

The Furies took up position in front of the shuttle. After a few more minutes Mac got the shuttle’s systems back up. The cruiser was just entering target range. First one Fury, then the second fired up weapon systems. The cruiser reduced speed, but didn’t stop. Nor did she fire up her weapons.

Vas let out a breath. She had no worries of the
Warrior Wench’s
ability to keep that cruiser in its place, but she really didn’t want to see if the two Furies could take it down.

After a few tense moments, both Furies powered down their weapons.

“Deven, what the hell are you doing? Just because she’s not flashing weapons doesn’t mean she’s not planning on it,” Vas yelled at her second in command. “She’s still moving forward in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Deven’s face appeared on their screen, the odd-looking Fury pilot equipment closing in around him. “I know that. I also know who she is. She wants to meet on the
Warrior Wench
. Can the shuttle move now?” There was a tone in his voice, one that told Vas she wasn’t going to be happy. Not that she was already. How in the hell did Deven know and trust someone who’d sent a bomb after her ship?

“We’re not meeting anywhere. I heard her issue orders to the idiot flying that hauler, orders that mentioned us and told him to get to us first. Yes, this shuttle can fly, but I’m not turning my back on her.”

The lead Fury, most likely Deven, pulled back closer to the shuttle. He often did that, his piloting mimicking what he would do if he were standing there. “Vas, I trust her.” There was an almost palatable pain in his voice and face now. “I don’t want to discuss it over the air. I don’t know how secure these things are given the current situation. However, I trust her at this point. We need to hear what she has to say.”

Vas let an army of swear words tumble around her head before she spoke. The question was did she still trust Deven? As pissed as she was at him, the answer still was the same—she did. She wasn’t happy about it, but she trusted him in matters of the ship and crew. “Damn it, Deven, you and I are going to have a very long conversation when this is over. Escort her in. I want you and Jakiin on either side of that cruiser. Blow her out of the sky if she steps one toe out of line, friend or not.” Vas nodded toward Mac. “We’ll come in from behind.” Not that the shuttle had any weapons to speak of, nothing that would even make a cruiser think twice. However, Vas didn’t want that damn ship behind her.

Both men knew better than to argue at this point. Deven silently moved with Jakiin into flanking positions, and Mac fired up the engines to follow the cruiser in. Vas was satisfied, or almost. She flipped open a comm to the
Warrior Wench
. “Gosta, get a small security detail to the docking bay. Deven and Jakiin will be followed in by a shuttle off that cruiser. Make sure it only has one life form on it and that it docks in the security section. Escort our guest to my ready room and keep her there.”

“Aye, Captain,” Gosta responded. If he wanted to ask more, he managed to hold back his curiosity.

With a final glare at Mac just because he needed it, Vas went back and resumed her seat.

The flight back was brief, and her crew stayed out of her way to the command deck. Since they followed everyone else in, Vas was the last one to get to her ready room. Deven, Gosta, and the striking brunette were all chatting quite comfortably by the time she got in.

Luckily none of them had dared to take her seat. With a nod to the two men and a glare at the woman, Vas slid into her spacious chair. She took her time getting settled, then turned toward the woman.

“So do you want to tell me why you ordered that corpse in my hold to charge my ship?”

The woman’s smile made her even more mind-numbingly beautiful. Vas could see she would get whatever she wanted from men, or women who fancied women, regardless of the species.

“Well, Vas—might I call you Vas?”

“Captain Tor Dain will be fine.”

Again the flash of beauty, this time in a nod and grin. “Understood. Captain Tor Dain. I think you misunderstood my command. Although to be honest, I’m not sure if the person you found was my man Ghassil. I’d like to check the body if I could?” Something must have shown on Vas’s face for she sat back a bit. “In a while then. Once you’ve heard me out.”

“Why don’t we start with who you are and why you knew where this ship was? We’re a registered mercenary ship in case you hadn’t noticed. Last time I checked our travel paths are private.” Which was one of the few benefits of being a legit mercenary instead of one of the rogue ones. The rogues got more money, but they also ran the risk of the Commonwealth smacking them down like a fly. Moreover, there was no protection of their movements.

Deven leaned forward. “Actually, I’d like to make the introductions if I could. Vaslisha Tor Dain, this is Marli. We’ve been friends for a very long time.” He paused, looking carefully at the woman. “Over one hundred years.”

“What? She’s like you?” Vas reached for the blaster in her desk out of instinct, but held off grabbing it.
Crap, another long-lived telepath?

“It’s okay, Captain. I’m not like Deven, and I assure you I’m not a telepath. And in a way, we have met.” Her grin was softer, more real than before. “Or at least I’ve met your blood.”

Vas rocked back in her chair and studied the ceiling for a few seconds. Well, she’d wanted to know about Deven’s mysterious friend, hadn’t she? She just hadn’t realized it would be a beautiful woman with a command cruiser and a rampaging ore hauler.

“You’re the one who gave me the antidote to wipe out the last of the poison and found those trackers. Thank you.” Vas nodded to the woman. “But that still doesn’t address your man trying to ram a highly modified ore hauler into the side of this ship.”

Marli steepled her fingers in front of her face as if weighing what to say. “He wasn’t trying to charge your ship; he was trying to stop the ore hauler. It was automated with some program we couldn’t crack, he intended to find out who had rigged it, why, and if he couldn’t disconnect the command, to destroy it. He’d been on it for the past three days trying to find those things out. I last spoke to him thirty-two hours ago. He never answered my last hails.”

Vas got up and paced. Sitting and thinking didn’t go together for her. “How did you find out about it, and why wouldn’t you just warn us?” She turned to Deven, “Did you know about this?”