Queen of Denial (8 page)

"The captain seems to think we're being followed. I'm sure it's nothing for you to worry about."

They passed her quickly, and Drew let them. After all, she knew who it was, and it was about time.

"By the way, 'safety in numbers' is a fallacy," Drew said to their backs.

Zarco stopped briefly and turned to face her.

"What do you mean?"

"Running."

Zarco shrugged, and once again started for the bridge.

"What a strange answer. I wonder what she meant?"

Facto looked over his shoulder at the grinning girl and she winked at him.

"Actually," Facto's fingers worked at his collar, which was suddenly too tight, "it's a rather good answer. A concept of Trigade, a martial arts form practiced by the United Peoples of Trinadad on the planet Caldeed. It states that," he cleared his throat, "There is no safety in numbers if the enemy is equal to you or has an equalizer, i.e. an attacker has a gun, and the group has stones. In a free area, whether we are talking about one man or one ship, you can more easily dodge an attacker. If there is only one, you may run from the greater attacker but if there are more of you . . . Well, say for instance we are facing an attacker with a gun right now. Your only real chance is to run. But could you really do that and leave all of us behind?"

"I would hope you would run as well," Zarco said.

"But you couldn't be sure, and in that moment of uncertainty . . ." Facto threw up his hands. "Trigade is not the most chivalrous of martial arts but it does take practice, patience and discipline."

"Are you saying that my Queen may have retained more of her former self than you previously thought?" Zarco asked with a smile.

"Perhaps. After all, Drewcila Qwah doesn't appear to have that kind of discipline."

The King gave him a hopeful look.

"Of course, she also could have picked that particular concept of Trigade up during a conversation in a Salvager bar."

"After you, Sire," Fitz said with a wave of his hand.

After the King had passed through the entrance, Fitz gave Facto a heated look, and Facto shrugged.

Drew watched them walk onto the bridge, then she punched up the buttons on her comlink which should connect her to her ship. She waited for the channel to be opened.

"Of all the stupid, ignorant . . . you'd think that anyone with half a brain would understand that following at a good distance does not mean up the ship's butt." She looked at her comlink. There was still no flashing light. "What the hell is taking them so long?"

She tried again with the same luck. Which could mean only one thing; Van Gar and the Garbage Scow were not the blip on the radar screen. Drew took off at a dead run. Once on the bridge she knocked the Captain and the others away from the radar screen.

"My Queen, I'm afraid I must protest," the Captain started.

"Blow me, rat boy. I was running ships when you were poppin' zits. Hey! I made another rhyme!" She checked the radar. "Ah, fuck! See that little blip right there?" she pointed.

"That's just a glitch on the radar," the Captain said through clenched teeth.

"Shit for brains! That's the ship. The other is just an image the smaller one is projecting to fuck you up. The smaller one is a cloaked ship, a ship which will no doubt be docking any minute if it hasn't already. The worst part is, it's not my ship."

"If a ship had docked us we would have felt something," Zarco assured her. "I think you are over-reacting."

"You need to get off the planet more, Kingy. There are pirate ships that can dock you and you won't even spill your coffee."

Suddenly the ship rocked violently.

"Then there are ships that dock like that. I hope your crew is armed, and that they know what the hell they're doing."

The warning sirens started screaming, and the doors to the bridge clanged shut. Drew hopped up on the scanner table and tried her comlink again. She ignored Zarco, who seemed to be taking command of the ship. "Come on, fur head . . . where the hell are you? I'm stuck here with a bunch of pinheads."

"What are you doing?" Stasha asked.

"Well, I had this really great plan on how to get rich, but part of the plan called for Van Gar to grow a brain!" She took the comlink off her arm and stuck it around her ankle, under her pants. "But none of that matters now that we're all going to die here on this big cow of a ship. A very expensive fucking ship. A ship which doesn't even have a detachable bridge."

"We have escape pods." Zarco grabbed Drew by the arm. "I won't lose you now, come on." He started to go and was spun around quickly by her dead weight."Please, Taralin."

"You hear that?"

They could hear the sound of blaster fire getting ever closer.

"Even if we could beat the odds and get to the escape pods, chances are we'd run out of fuel before anyone could find us. That's the problem with escape pods in deep space. You might as well open the doors and surrender. I doubt very seriously that we are dealing with the kind of riff-raff that I'm used to, and one way or the other they're going to get us." Suddenly a fog started pouring in the air ducts.

"Computer, shut down ventilation to the . . ."

Before he could complete the order, he fell to the floor.

"What did I tell you?"

Drew fell from the scanner table.

Her head was pounding, and she rubbed at her temple. One too many Bend Me Over And Fuck Mes. She was really going to have to seriously consider maybe doing something about her drinking.

"I'm going to have to drink more. That's all there is to it. If I drank more, it wouldn't be such a shock to my system," she mumbled out.

"Oh, my Sweetness. Thank all the Gods. I thought perhaps you had perished," someone said.

No doubt the same someone was stroking her hair. Slowly she began to remember what had happened. She instinctively moved her hand towards the inside of her shirt.

"Forget it, Qwah."

She heard a bunch of clanging sounds and looked up in time to see a pile of weapons; all hers, cascade onto the floor.

"You keep weapons in the damnedest places, but a really thorough check turned them all up."

"I feel so cheap and used." Drew got to her feet and suddenly realized she was naked. She looked at the large greasy guy talking to her from behind the laser bars. "Do I know you?"

"No, but everyone's heard ah ya, and from what I been told my bosses made you who you are today."

His attention turned to Zarco. "Just so you won't be too shocked, the explosion which will be rocking our ship presently will be your ship and crew blowing into a billion tiny space particles."

The ship rocked violently, and the greasy guy laughed. "Sorry you had to miss the fireworks, folks." He laughed again as he left up the stairs.

Drew looked around quickly. Stasha had been spared, as had Facto and Fitz, though they had probably all been saved for a fate far worse than being blown up on a ship.

"Ever notice that when a bunch of naked people are standing around they never quite know where to look, or where to put their hands? It's hell not having pockets."

She looked out the bars at the pile of weapons and her comlink. No way of getting them, they were just out of reach. She looked up at the ceiling and found the monitors. "Well, at least they're not sloppy."

She had been in better positions in her life. And she had felt better. She held her throbbing head and leaned against the back wall of the cell.

She looked Zarco up and down and smiled. "Now I know for certain that I ain't your wife, because
that
I would not have forgotten," she said, pointing.

"This really sucks. I'm not even one of you Royal fucks, but I'll be tortured just the same, and I don't know shit. I'll die a horrible, cringing death and all because I let my greed get the better of me. Van has always told me that my greed would be my undoing. It fucking pisses me off when he's right."

She started pacing back and forth across the cell, throwing her arms around flamboyantly.

"At least I won't die stupid like that poor shlep that was just down here. He's so stupid he doesn't even realize the trillions and bezillions of iggys he could get ransoming you Royal dicks off to the highest bidder. That's what I'd do if I were him. I'd get rid of whoever hired me and go after the gold myself . . ."

"Why you mercenary little wretch," Facto swore, "you would sell out your own people!"

"Hey man, whatever greases your weenie. Ethics really don't matter for shit now since my plan to swindle you out of all your trillions and quadrillions will no doubt die with me."

"So what's the plan, Qwah?"

The greasy guy reappeared outside the bars with a little weasel-faced man. Drew smiled and turned to face them.

"Boys, stick with me and we'll all get out of this very, very rich," she rubbed her hands together.

"Now, first . . ."

"I can't believe you!" Zarco looked as if someone had stolen his last breath. "You aren't Taralin. You are nothing more than Salvager trash."

"Right on both counts," Drew said with a smile.

"I denounce you!" Zarco swore.

"Ooh! Does that hurt! Listen, Kingy, baby. At least I'm saving your Royal asses. That's a lot more than they would do. You don't really think that the Lockhedes intend to let you live? They'll use you to get control of your country, and then once they have it, what the hell do they need you for? You'll just be so much excess baggage. My way, you get to live. You get to keep your country. And a whole lot of hungry smugglers get to get rich. Look at it as a political move to help keep the space lanes clean. You know, Kingy, helping to make space travel safe for decent folks."

"I'd rather be dead." Zarco spat venomously.

"Sire, however mercenary and disloyal you may find the Queen's plan, it will save us and the kingdom from the hands of the Lockhedes," Facto said.

Drew leaned against the wall of the cell, and appeared to be counting. Suddenly the ship rocked violently, followed by a few moments of silence. Then the motors seemed to kick back on with a sickly-sounding grind.

Drew smiled at the others. "Phase one."

Jaco was commander of the Lockhedes on this mission. Till now, he had been quite pleased, as everything had gone according to plan. He had been reluctant to use the smugglers, but they were the only people he could find that knew how to dock a ship without being detected, and their price had been more than reasonable. Besides, this way no one could trace the King's disappearance to the Lockhedes or their government. Not and make it stick, anyway. The wreckage of Zarco's ship would be found, and Zarco and his staff would be considered dead. He could extract the necessary computer codes from Zarco and his staff, and then the take-over would be easy.

"I told you, Jaco. A piece of cake."

Erik Rider sucked on a big cigar, puffing the cabin full of smoke.

The ship lurched violently.

"What the hell is that?" Erik demanded of the ship's Captain over the comlink.

"One ah the motors has gone out," the smuggler answered. "We'll be some slowed, but it shouldn' be no trouble."

"Don't let it be," Erik ordered.

One of the greasy smugglers walked right into Jaco's quarters without knocking.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jaco demanded.

"The prisoners 'ave come to."

"It's about time!" Jaco got to his feet.

"Coming?"

Erik hesitated for a moment. He would really rather not deal with Qwah's wrath, but it was all going to have to come to a head sooner or later. He nodded and got up to follow Jaco.

The prisoners were each pacing their own path through the cell, looking at the ceiling instead of each other.

"So, the mighty King," Jaco laughed. "Brought to his knees for the love of a woman."

"Jaco!" Zarco hissed. "I will not grace you by making a comment."

"Oooh! Snappy come back," Drewcila mumbled.

"Here, put these on." He threw in a pile of white robes.

Drew had just grabbed one, and started to put it on when she saw Erik. "Erik! You fucking piece of shit!" She jerked her arms into the robe, which almost went to her knees. "You . . . you sold me out!"

"How's it feel?" Zarco mumbled.

Drew ignored him.

"How far into this shit are you, Erik?" Drew demanded.

"I've been in it since the very beginning." Erik looked at his feet."They brought you to me right after the operation on your brain. You understand, don't you, Drew? It's a big pay-off. Biggest of my life. The smuggling operation is bringing in a mint, but it's only a matter of time."