Star Raiders (15 page)

“Bear, how long before the engine’s back online?” They’d need it when they dropped out of FTL.
Independence
could fly on one engine, but if attacked they would suffer a serious disadvantage. Dempster was out there somewhere, gunning for her.

Reading Bear’s answer, she decided. For now they needed to go someplace safe to lick their wounds. She pul ed a pistol from beneath her console and pointed it at Greyson. “Able, escort our guest to the brig.”
Chapter Ten

“What’s going on?” Greyson asked.

Shy didn’t answer. She’d expected—could handle—his anger, but the look of hurt on his face left her feeling sick. She turned away.

Able looked confused but took her pistol and motioned for Greyson to precede him off the bridge. When Greyson hesitated, Able gave him a shove. She heard rather than saw Greyson stumble.

“Make sure Eldin takes a looks at his burn,” she told Able without turning.

“Wil do,” Able said.

The door slid shut behind them, leaving Shy alone. As much as she wanted to trust Greyson, she couldn’t risk him discovering the location of her safe harbor or learning of Rian’s existence. She couldn’t even trust him enough to let him know she needed to keep the location secret. No, he couldn’t know where they were going at al , and the brig was the only place on
Independence
she could be sure he wouldn’t have access to a computer console.

“Idiot!” Dempster backhanded the man held upright between two others. Greenish red blood spurted from his flattened nose; he whimpered and crumpled at Dempster’s feet.

“You could have kil ed her. I told you I wanted her alive.”

“I’s s-sorrys. Misss-takes-s.”

Through his rage Dempster barely heard the man’s pathetical y gurgled apologies. Man? He glared at the cowering creature, gil s fluttering on each side of his throat, useless in the ship’s dry air. Fiske was no man. He wasn’t human anymore—not since his genetic manipulation. At that point he’d lost al such claim.

In Dempster’s eyes he was an abomination, a creature to be used and then disposed of. He was an
alien.
Dempster hated aliens.

When he was twelve, aliens had overrun his colony. After the attack that kil ed his family, the reptilian xenomorphs enslaved him. For six long years he’d toiled in an alien mine. Only by forgetting what it meant to be human was he able to survive while others around him perished. He’d grown tough and strong, taking control of the slave compound and using his limited power over the other slaves to stay alive.

Stil , in the end he would have died there like the others but for Stewart Kedar.

When Kedar raided the mining complex, he’d freed al the slaves. He’d given them credits to return to their old lives or build new lives. Dempster had chosen to become part of Kedar’s crew, and his gratitude quickly grew into a possessive, obsessive love.

Through manipulation and deceit he’d become Kedar’s second-in-command, the one Kedar looked to for advice, counsel and companionship. Those he couldn’t control, he disposed of, including Kedar’s faithless wife and young son. Then
she
came into the picture, and everything changed. The love and attention Kedar had given Dempster shifted to her. Oh, Dempster was stil the second-in-command, but he was no longer heir to Kedar’s empire. She was.

How he’d hated her, the little princess. Innocent. Unaware of who and what Kedar was, she lived a life free of the pain and suffering Dempster had known.

She’d done nothing to earn Kedar’s love. She didn’t deserve it.

At first Dempster had wanted her dead, but after Kedar’s wife and son disappeared, he kept the girl too wel protected. Then, as the little girl blossomed into womanhood, Dempster’s feelings shifted. Dead wasn’t near enough punishment for her crime. Only owning her would do. Only by possessing her could he purge himself of his need for Kedar’s love.

“Pleases,” Fiske begged. “Nots kil s Fiske. I’s dos al s yous asks.” The fish groveled at Dempster’s feet, getting his slimy blood al over the deck of the ship and Dempster’s expensive leather boots. Anger and disgust churned Dempster’s stomach.

“Gut this fish,” he told his men. “And space the garbage.”

“Noooos-s-s!” Fiske wailed as the two men dragged him to his feet. One pul ed a knife.

“Wait.” Dempster’s command halted the downward stroke of the blade.

“Thanks yous. Thanks yous,” Fiske babbled, reaching out for mercy.

“I don’t want fish guts al over my ship.” Dempster evaded the fish-man’s webbed fingers. “What’s the closest planet?”

His crony sheathed his blade and grinned. “Dryden.”

“Perfect. We’l drop him there. Until then put him in detention.”

“Nos!” Fiske screamed as they dragged him away.

Dempster smiled. Dryden was perfect, an arid, barren rock, uninhabited, with a thin atmosphere. A fish like Fiske would last a day at most.

Too bad Dempster couldn’t remain around to watch. He’d enjoy seeing the fish-man dry up and blow away. With his greenish gray skin and gil s, Fiske reminded him more and more of the aliens who’d enslaved and abused him for so many years. Plus, it was good for his men to witness what happened to those who failed.

Sadly, Dempster didn’t have the time to spare. She was stil out there, waiting for him.

Greyson paced the brig. Able had let him get out of his rain gear and into some dry clothing, as wel as helping him slap a bandage on his burn and clean up his disguise, but he couldn’t sit stil . What had happened to make Shyanne toss him here?

Just before Able escorted him off the bridge, Greyson had seen her start to enter coordinates into her navigation system. Where were they headed? And why didn’t she want him to know?

And who was Rian—a husband or lover? Jealousy surged. He quashed it.

He’d relinquished any claim on Shyanne when he betrayed her. Stil …

He had too many questions. And locked in the brig, he had no way to get answers.

Time was running out. He had less than three standard weeks to locate and capture Dempster before the Consortium stepped in. In the meantime, every Earth, ELF and ASP agent was out hunting Shyanne. Without the help he could provide with his access to ASP and ELF databases, she might fly right into them. Even if she managed to avoid those, Dempster was out there.

He could activate his UTD emergency beacon. Before she knew she’d been betrayed again, ASP ships would swoop in and capture
Independence
. Once in custody, she’d be safe from Dempster, but by the time he convinced his superiors she wasn’t responsible for the attacks it would be too late to stop a Consortium action; if he was playing advocate for her, he couldn’t be hunting down Dempster.

He plopped down on the bunk and rested his head in his hands. Even to save Shyanne, he couldn’t al ow the Consortium’s plan to be implemented. For now he’d bide his time, but at some point he feared he’d have to choose between Earth and Shyanne.

Shy watched as Eldin finished stitching up and bandaging the gash on Brina’s arm.

The girl was lying pale, injured and unconscious, on the med-bay bunk—the same bunk she and Greyson had made love on. The memory aggravated Shy’s guilt over Brina’s injuries.

“Shy?” Eldin touched her arm. “She’l be fine. A smal scratch.”

“A scratch? It took fifteen stitches to close. I counted. And she’s unconscious.”

Eldin chuckled. “No. Asleep. I gave her something before you got here. She didn’t want me to stitch up her arm.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. The blood and pain didn’t seem to faze her, but the minute I brought out the laser needle, she turned white. So I gave her a light sedative before I started sewing.”

“I should have left her back on that outpost with the others. She’d have been safe there.”

“From what she told me, she didn’t have anything to go home to. And her being a Regalian slave, ELF couldn’t protect her from her owner. It was her choice: freedom or safety. Which would you choose?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Go get some rest. Doctor’s orders.”

“What university did you get your medical degree at?” she joked.

“I have one from the University of Life, another from Hard Knocks Col ege.

The practice I’ve had on this crew has made me a better surgeon than most on Earth.”

Shy gave him a smal smile of agreement. “What about Terle and Bear?”

“Bear’s fine. Terle came in with some cuts and bruises and a sprained wrist. I patched him up and sent him to his cabin. Man’s got a hard head.”

“Have you seen Silky or her crew?” Shy asked, though she didn’t doubt the cat was fine.

“Her fur is a bit ruffled, but she looked fine. The cats are hiding.” He fussed with the already neat bandage on Brina’s arm, then asked, “Is it real y necessary to keep Greyson in the brig?”

Having her actions questioned by Eldin sent a pang of guilt through Shy. In the short time he’d been aboard
Independence
, Greyson had earned the respect of a man she truly admired. After Kedar’s arrest and imprisonment, Eldin had been there for her. He’d protected her. Nursed her through a difficult pregnancy. And when she’d insisted on becoming a smuggler, he’d helped her assemble a reliable crew and taught her everything he knew.

She started to reach out for him but let her hand drop to her side. None of it mattered. “Yes, it’s necessary. I can’t risk him finding out where we’re going.”

“What are you real y afraid of?” He turned to meet her gaze. “That Greyson’l find out about Rian, or that he won’t?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would I care if he knows about Rian?” She’d never told anyone who Rian’s father was, not even Eldin. “I don’t trust him to know the location of our base.”

Eldin snorted. “I may be old. But I can see the similarity between them.” Shy felt the color drain out of her face. She’d thought she was the only one who saw the resemblance between Rian and Greyson. Now more than ever she had to keep them apart. She couldn’t risk Greyson seeing Rian. If Greyson knew he had a son, life as she knew it would change in ways she didn’t want to imagine.

Part of her wanted to keep Rian at her side forever. Another more rational part knew she’d have to give him up eventual y. She didn’t want a life of running and hiding for her son. But not yet. Not this way. She needed more time with him.

To keep her knees from buckling, she leaned against the wal . Fear of losing the one person in her life who mattered most stiffened her spine. “Does everyone know?”

Eldin shrugged. “No one has said anything, but if they bother to look it’s obvious. The minute Greyson sees the boy, he’s going to know the truth.” Shy straightened. “No, he won’t, because he’s not going to get the chance.

Rian is staying with Matha and Tomas, so Greyson wil never see him.”

“Is that fair to either of them?”

She turned on Eldin. “What do I care about fair? Rian is my son. I won’t give him up. You wil not say anything.”

He shook his head. “After al we’ve been through together, I thought you knew me better, trusted me.” He turned and walked out of med bay. “If you need me I’l be in my quarters.”

When two days later
Independence
slid out of the FTL slipstream into normal space around a smal planet, Shy breathed a sigh of relief.

Because space in this sector, located just beyond Earth territory, tended to be unstable, more than a few ships had vanished without a trace, and past this point there was a void no one had yet crossed and returned. For that reason, few new travelers, legitimate or otherwise, bothered to come this way. Also, unless you were looking for it, hidden behind the glare of three suns, Uta was easy to miss.

And if you didn’t know the right coordinates to plot your course, chances were you’d find yourself swal owed by one of the area’s many space anomalies. No one was quite sure what caused the anomalies or what they were, but they were dangerous and they made patrol ing space around Uta difficult, capable of hiding an approaching threat as wel as destroying it.

A young, primitive world, Uta had no intel igent native species. The largest animal was a foot-long, rodentlike creature cal ed a snip, which lived in the dense jungle that covered most of the planet. Until Silky volunteered several of her cat crew, the grainloving snips were becoming a major problem. Now they at least avoided the fields and granaries patrol ed by Silky’s feline guards, and the cats she left on the planet grew sleek and sassy.

Half land and half water, Uta was stil in its infancy. Volcanoes dotted its surface, erupting frequently, constantly changing the planet’s geography and weather. Shy had situated her home base at the southern tip of the planet’s northern continent, far from any instability. In the last ten years the colony had grown from just herself, Rian and her crew to nearly a thousand residents, most rescued slaves who now worked hard to create lives and a community. But without the constant influx of supplies
Independence
provided, life on Uta would be short and hard.

Though she spent most of her time aboard
Independence
, Shy found Uta was as close to home as she had, and it was the only home Rian had ever known.

During the two-day trip here, Shy had spent her time working on the engines with Bear. Actual y, she’d mostly hidden out in the engine room. Bear didn’t need or want her assistance, but he was the only one who didn’t question her about confining Greyson to the brig.

Even Silky had pointed out that confining the man didn’t solve the problem.

Once they landed, he’d be able to figure out their location. Even with the natural space difficulties keeping people away from Uta, eventual y
someone
would find them here.

“What wil you do with him if he discovers this place?” Silky had asked, sauntering away without waiting for an answer.

Shy didn’t know. She couldn’t keep him confined forever, neither aboard
Independence
nor on Uta.

While she’d hidden out and brooded in the engine room, her crew kept Greyson company in the brig. The day after she confined him, she’d stopped to check on him and found him playing cards with Damon and Terle through the cel bars.
Independence
’s cel s didn’t have standard force fields; they were old-style barred cages. Eldin had told her Kedar saw too many people desperate to escape a life of slavery commit suicide by pushing through those fields, so when he’d designed his brig he’d used oldfashioned metal doors and bars. Laughing and talking as if Greyson weren’t the enemy and a prisoner, her crewmates never noticed her hovering in the shadows.