Drifters' Alliance, Book 3 (2 page)

The door slides open.

“Gingers have hidden talents!” Gus says loudly as he moves through the opening. “You wish you had ginger blood in you, slant-eye!”

Baebong’s hand slides over to the door controls at his array, aiming to make it close regardless of whether Gus is out of the way or not. “Door closing. Better watch your freckled ass … wouldn’t want you to get it pinched in the door.”

“You’ll see!” Gus yells as he jumps to the other side of the threshold. It’s the last we hear from him before the portal seals shut and blocks out any remaining sounds coming from the corridor.

I sigh and look over at Baebong. “Did you have to do that?”

“Do what?” Baebong is the picture of innocence.

“Get him all paranoid about his ability to lure a whore into his ginger bed.”

Baebong tries not to smile, but fails. “Hey, I spoke the truth. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors.”

“The rumors are not true,” Jeffers says, acting the peacemaker. “Gingers are just as human as the rest of us.”

I tilt my head at that. “Overshine did say something weird about Tam when I was on the Baltimore. He said they don’t AI patients like him.” I search Jeffers’ face. “What do you think he meant by that?”

Jeffers shakes his head. “I have no idea. I don’t know anything about either Tam or Gus that would make them ineligible for AI treatment.”

“Hmm.” I gaze out the clearpanel as I think about it. There are just too many mysteries on this boat, and I need to get them figured out before we get too deep into the Alliance’s plans for us. I don’t like flying blind.

“We agree with the meet and greet,” Beltz says, breaking the radio silence. “Which ship?”

“The Osiris, of course,” Alana says. She sounds like she’s got some kind of secret joke she’s enjoying at our expense.

I break out in a cold sweat. “That’s fine with us.”
Not really.
But what am I supposed to do? Run scared from a boat full of chicks who want to get in my crew’s pants? That’s the quickest way to stage a mutiny that I can think of. A sated crew is a happy crew, and I’m not going to stand in the way of that. Sexually frustrated humans lose control of their tempers too easily and make stupid mistakes being distracted. I’ll just have to take advantage of the down time. While they’re getting their rocks off, I’ll work on cleaning our cargo area and setting up an exercise program. Maybe Lucinda will feel like sitting down and having a chat about her Romanii biogrid building team.

“That’s fine. When?” I ask.

“The Huna crew is available at any time. We just need a couple hours to prepare.”

“That is the same for the Arcadia,” says a male voice. I don’t think it’s the Romulus person who transmitted before, though. It sounds like a younger version of that man.

“Good! It is decided,” says Beltz. “In two hours, we shall meet at the DS Osiris.”

When I was in the OSG, we did slingshot maneuvers to bring over large groups of people wearing darksuits to a single airlock, but I can’t imagine that’s what’s going to happen here.

“What’s the protocol?” I ask, hoping I don’t sound like a complete idiot.

“We will come and get you,” Alana says. “Be at your airlock to meet us.”

I try to imagine her DS maneuvering over to each one of our airlocks to do a pickup, but it’s not computing. We don’t have enough space where we are now. Even so, no one else is complaining, so I decide to keep my mouth shut. She’s been in the Alliance longer than I have, so maybe she knows something I don’t know. In the meantime, I have two hours to get some shit done around the Anarchy and a few questions needing answers. It’s not a lot of time, but I plan to do whatever I can to get this slate back to clean status, starting with Macon.

Chapter Two

I’D EXPECTED TO FIND MY old friend in the biogrid, but Lucinda said she hadn’t seen him in a while. He’d told her he was tired and had to rest. I find him in his bunk, sitting on the edge of his bed and staring at the wall on the other side of the chamber. Thankfully, he doesn’t look like he wants to stab me. At least not yet, he doesn’t.

“What are you doing in here?” I descend the short stairway to be on his level.

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

“Dying.”

I sit next to him on the bed. “That’s cheerful.”

He says nothing.

I don’t remember ever feeling awkward around Macon before; there was always this easy regularity to our interactions, like we were siblings who grew up together. But that’s all gone, now. He’s a stranger, more familiar to me as Rollo than as the person he really is.
Macon.

“Listen … I know I’m probably the last person in the world you want to talk to right now, but we have some things between us and I need to clear the air.”

I wait, but he says nothing. There’s no outward sign that he even heard me.

“Is that okay with you?”

His expression doesn’t change. “You’re the captain.”

“I’m not asking you if it’s okay with Rollo-the-stowaway. I’m asking if it’s okay with Macon-my-former-friend.”

He huffs out a single bitter laugh, but that’s it.

His response makes me ashamed for some reason. Maybe because I turned him from a very good friend into the former kind. Or to the kind that would rather strangle me than actually have a conversation with me.

“You said that me winning this ship was a setup. You meant I didn’t really win the ship by chance, right? What do you know that I don’t?”

His jaw bulges out as he grits his teeth. Either he’s mad about what happened or he’s trying to keep himself from saying anything. Regardless, letting me see this emotion at all is something he shouldn’t be doing; he’s lost a lot of his training in the three years we’ve been gone from it. Call me heartless, but I’m going to use that to my advantage.

“Did Langlade set me up?” I watch for any signs of truth to my statement reflected in his body language, but there’s nothing there that I can see.

“Did his man Tremblay set me up?”

Macon’s right eye twitches just the slightest bit.

“Why would he do that?”

Macon looks at me sideways. “I didn’t say he did.”

I smile. “Sure you did.”

Macon hisses out his anger and goes back to staring straight ahead. “You always were too good at the training, Cass, weren’t you?”

“You were pretty damn good too, Macon, so don’t try to put all your shit on me.”

He shakes his head, obviously pissed, but doesn’t respond.

“Why would Tremblay want me to get Langlade’s ship?”

“I’m hungry.”

Macon’s statement catches me off guard.

“So, go ask Jeffers for some pellets.”

“I’m not hungry for pellets. I’m hungry for a fritter.”

I stare at him in disbelief. I’m sitting here as his Captain and captor trying to interrogate him about very sensitive, life-or-death information, and all he can think about is his stomach?

“Are you serious?”

He glares at me, his voice rising more with each sentence. “Yes, I’m serious. I want a fritter. If you want me to talk, you’ll feed me a fucking fritter, Cass!”

I can’t help it. It’s the look on his face. I start to laugh.

“You find that
funny
?!”

I bite my lip to keep from losing it completely, but the effort makes tears come to my eyes. Macon is losing it … not over having been held captive on a warship by our former psychopathic trainer, not over having faced me in the pit again, and not over having been nearly floated for crimes he didn’t commit … but over a
fritter
.

He’s furious, for about ten seconds. Ten long seconds where I wonder if his next move will be to try and choke the life out of me. But then slowly, his ire turns to confusion and then finally embarrassment. In the end, he smiles and starts to laugh too.

He shrugs. “What can I say? I like fritters.”

I fall back on the bed, still laughing, holding my stomach so it won’t jiggle so damn much. I’m starting to feel sick.

He lies back with me, and we both stare at the ceiling of his room. When I can finally speak without spitting out laughter, I turn my head to face him.

“If you want a fritter that bad, I’ll get you a damn fritter.”

He doesn’t look at me. “I don’t want a damn fritter. I told you … I want a
fucking
fritter.”

“Adelle!” I shout, looking up at the ceiling again.

“Yes, Captain. What may I do for you?”

“Please inform Jeffers that I need a fucking fritter prepared, on the double.”

“I am sorry, Captain, but I do not know what a fucking fritter is. Could you explain?”

Macon snorts.

“Just tell him what I said. He’ll understand.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Oh, and Adelle?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Why didn’t you tell me there was an explosive device affixed under my ship?”

“I was not aware that there was anything affixed to the ship. You did not instruct me to do a sweep, Captain. Shall I do one now?”

I press my fingers onto the bridge of my nose. It’s not like I can punch my compubot or anything, so managing the headache she gives me with acupressure points is my only option. “Yes, Adelle. Do that. And also do a sweep for any listening devices or other monitoring technologies that might be located in or on the ship.”

“Yes, Captain. I approximate that this sweep will take seven minutes at a minimum and will require two percent of our operational resources.”

“Fine. Approved.”

“You think someone bugged the ship?” Macon asks.

“I
know
someone bugged the ship. Those assholes on the DS Mekanika for one. Probably your buddy Tremblay, too.”

“He’s not my buddy.” There’s enough disgust in Macon’s voice that I believe him.

I glance at Macon again. “Then who is he? Why were you hanging out with him?”

“I wasn’t.” Macon sighs loudly. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong time.”

“Tell me.”

“Why should I?” He finally turns his head to look at me.

“Because we were friends once.”

“Doesn’t matter now.”

“Because I’m giving you a fucking fritter, then.”

He stares at me for a long time before answering. “One fritter isn’t going to make up for what happened.”

“It’s a start, though, right?” I bite my lip as I wait for his answer. I really don’t want to lose him a second time.

“Being your friend is bad for my health, Cass.”

“Then? Or now?”

“Then and now.” He goes back to staring at the ceiling.

I’m about to press him for more details, but Adelle’s voice interrupts me.

“Captain, your presence is being requested in the engine room.”

“Can it wait?” I ask.

“It does not appear so.”

I sigh, looking at my friend as I get to my feet. “We’ll continue this conversation later.”

“Goodie.”

“Go eat your fucking fritter, would you? You’re too skinny.” I turn around to leave, not expecting to hear anything else from him. I’m at the top of the stairs opening the door when he sends off his parting shot.

“I missed you, Cass. For three years I wanted to kill you, but I missed you too.”

My heart feels like it’s going to explode with happiness. “Me too.” I leave without looking back.

Chapter Three

AS I APPROACH THE PORTAL, a wrench hits its window and drops to the floor with a clang. I hear the sounds of muted yelling beyond.

Pressing my hand on the keypad, I lean in close to the comm box. “What the hell is going on in there?!”

“He’s going berserk!” one of the twins yells.

I assume it’s Gus losing his shit, angry over the idea that the ladies of the Osiris are going to turn him down at the meet and greet because of his freckles. I seem to recall he was particularly worried about his inability to drift in the Dark for too long without female company.

“Open the door, Adelle.”

“I do not advise you to enter, Captain. The biorhythms inside the engine room indicate a lack of reason.”

“Thanks for the heads up.” Another tool hits the window, making me jerk my head back in surprise. “Open up anyway.”

The door slides open, and my hand flies up without me even thinking about it to snatch the next projectile out of the air. It’s a hammer, and its claw might have embedded itself into my forehead if my reflexes hadn’t been so finely honed from all the practice they’ve been put through.

“What the hell is going on in here?!” I fling the hammer at the worktable and it bounces off, landing on the floor with a crash.

One of the gingers is standing in the middle of the workspace, facing toward the first in a row of server and circuit walls. His head jerks toward me and then goes back to staring into the dark spaces holding our ship’s most important parts. He projects his voice into the shadows.

“Oh! Hey, Captain! What’re you doing here? Captain in the engine room! Standing right here!”

Gus.
It surprises me to learn that it’s Tam losing his shit in here.

“Tam!” I scream, louder than I mean to. The sound of machinery working in here is almost deafening for someone not used to it.

Things go still for a few moments, the banging around I was hearing pauses. But then it starts up again along with a roar. “Arrrraahhhh!”

Gus runs to the end of the first row of equipment and then ducks as a piece of metal comes flying at his face. Its sharp end embeds itself into the wall behind him, and Gus’s eyes go wide when he turns around and realizes how close he came to getting his gray matter speared.

I stride over, shoving him out of the way.

Instead of falling to the side, Gus grabs me by the arm and tries to drag me back. “No! Don’t go back there! That’s engineers only! It’s a restricted area!”

I shove him off me, sending him flying into the worktable, which knocks parts all over the floor. I’m furious not only at the damage being done here, but the gall of this guy telling me I can’t go somewhere on my ship.

“Nothing is restricted to me here! Nothing, you hear me?!”

I turn back toward the walls of equipment, to face the crazy ginger twin who’s obviously lost his mind somewhere in the belly of the beast. This is the worst place in the world for this to happen, and he knows it. I’m so furious, I swear, I’m going to knock him out when I get to him.