Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2) Read online

  “I don’t know—” Mac’s words were cut off as Marli started pulling him out of the pilot’s chair. The shuttle shifted again. Vas was a good pilot, and she agreed with Mac. There was no way to get the shuttle airborne in this position.

  “Get yourself strapped in fast, boyo,” Marli said as she jumped into the vacated seat. “I’ll give you a first-class lesson on every trick they never taught you in flight school.”

  Mac barely had time to buckle into a seat when the engines re-engaged.

  Vas twisted her neck looking backwards to make sure Pela, Gon, and the bio-bed were still secure. Pela was monitoring the unconscious Deven copy, but Gon looked freaked out.

  “You all going to be okay back there?” Vas was mostly worried about Gon, but knew that drawing attention to him would make him freak out more. Gon was a ground pounder. He didn’t like playing with the flyboys and girls and only flew in shuttles or anything small to get to a job.

  “We’re good,” Pela said. “The bed adapted to the shift and our patient is still safe.”

  “I will be,” Gon said. He was clenching the seat in front of him so tightly that Vas would be surprised if the metal underneath wasn’t crushed. He looked ready to add more to his comment, then just gave her a tight-lipped nod.

  Good enough for her. Vas figured her crew were old enough to fight their own inner demons. She’d turned back to the front, when the shuttle slammed backwards and up all in one disturbing—and Vas would have said physically impossible—move.

  They were airborne, but bobbing at a weird angle. One of the thrusters must have gotten damaged during the trip down into the pit. And that’s what it was. Vas hadn’t been able to see the ground well enough from her previous spot, but she could see it now as the shuttle tried to pull away.

  The ground was caving in, and the flames that caused the building to explode licked out along the collapsed ground. A brief flash of liquid silver in the mess told her there was something the flames were following. But it was swallowed by smoke and fire too fast for her to figure out what it was.

  There was no way Deven and a bunch of gahan rigged up the place to explode. But she hadn’t noticed any weapons fire come in from orbit. “Xsit, I need you to scan the registry and markings of all the ships in orbit around the planet. Report back on anything larger than a shuttle,” Vas said as she watched the entire area be consumed by flame. Marli finally balanced for the damage done to the shuttle and they were leaving the area. Slower than Vas would have liked, but clearing it.

  “We’ve lost access to the landing thrusters completely,” Marli shouted from the front. “Can your ship pull us in? I can’t maneuver well enough to make that entrance.”

  Vas wanted to move forward and see exactly the amount of damage her shuttle took, but there was still too much bouncing to unbuckle. “Possibly. The Wench has the capability; we’ve never had to use it.

  “Gosta? I’m assuming you’re monitoring us? Can you get the triplets down to landing bay two and run some tests? We’re coming in with no ability to land.”

  “Aye, Captain. We picked up on the explosion. It was focused on that building and the land around it.”

  “Damn it. There’s no way this was something natural? I saw some sort of silver molten material down there.” Vas resumed her swearing as another thought hit her. “Can you scan for Marli’s second-in-command and a bunch of gahan? Look for life signs.”

  “No, on it being natural, at least not according to my readings. But I’m not sure what or who triggered it. As for Captain Marli’s people…yes. I see their shuttle. It was far enough away that it was not impacted by whatever happened down there. The explosion, both of them actually, was tightly focused. There is a lot of security on their way out to the location, but the shuttle should be airborne before the enforcers arrive.”

  Vas relaxed a bit as the Wench came into view. They were on the non-marred side, so she didn’t have to look at the mess from the breach.

  “Has Xsit pulled in data on any ships in orbit?” The shuttle was flying better, so Vas unbuckled and went to look at the monitors. Marli was clearly distracted and didn’t even object when Vas moved her arm to see the damage to the shuttle better on the consoles.

  One thruster was blinking red, and all the landing equipment was offline, but damage had also been done to the engines. Whether it had happened when the shuttle first fell or during Marli’s little maneuver was anyone’s guess. Not only was Vas not sure about the wisdom of questioning Marli, she also doubted they would have survived had Marli not done whatever it was she did.

  “She has, and I don’t think any of them had…oh, wait.”

  Vas waited for a good three seconds before prompting him. “Wait what? Gosta?”

  “This can wait until you’re all back on board, Captain.”

  Even Marli looked up at that.

  “Gosta, what the hell is out here?” Vas tried seeing what she could, but the shuttle’s scanners were next to useless in a busy area like this planet.

  “There’s a Rillianian relief ship leaving orbit right now. A small one with no weapons to speak of. And it’s cleared the area.”

  Marli tapped her own comm before Vas could respond. “Savan? Are you and our guests onboard?” Obviously her shuttle made better time than this one had.

  “Aye, Captain, but either the original count was off or we lost two,” Savan said. “Our guests are too disturbed by the entire day’s events to answer any questions, including how many of them there had been.”

  “I need you to follow a Rillianian relief ship that just left orbit. The Warrior Wench will send the last location for them. See if they have fled somewhere nearby—a relief ship shouldn’t be able to move that fast. Capture it, disable if you have to.”

  Vas nodded. “You hate them even more than I do?”

  Marli’s look was feral. “They don’t have relief ships. The Rillianians don’t have any ships now. After the incident on your ship, I took away all of theirs. I have no idea what that was, but they were lying about being a relief ship.”

  Vas went back to her seat as Marli communicated with the triplets on trying to bring the shuttle in. Getting the shuttle close enough for a huge loading arm to grab it and pull it in wasn’t easy.

  It was even less easy to be inside the shuttle in question.

  “Can we do this without shattering my shuttle?” Vas said as she fought against being flung out of her chair, belt or no. And there was no way the scratching sound that she felt in her spine could be good for the shuttle or her ship.

  “Hey, it’s working.” Mac had taken his life in his hands and was peering out the window. That he was practically on Marli’s lap was a good indication of his priorities. He wasn’t even paying attention to what he was sitting on since he was busy geeking about the ship.

  It took longer than a normal landing, but it got them inside.

  Terel and two more med techs were waiting and immediately rushed the still unconscious Deven out of the bay.

  Mac and Gon left as well, leaving Vas to deal with Marli.

  “Do you have the slightest idea what just happened? Because I sure as hell don’t,” Vas said.

  “Not at all.” Marli followed Vas out of the shuttle. “Actually, that’s a lie. I have ideas, but none of them fit what happened. And I’m not ready to toss them out there yet.”

  “I’d say someone was after us, you, or those gahan.” Vas nodded to the triplets and they swarmed the shuttle. They were all excellent pilots and very good at fixing things. If anyone could repair the shuttle, they could.

  “Agreed,” Marli said in the lift. “Your ship or my ship I could understand. We’ve both got enough enemies. But a bunch of kept men and women? I don’t see it.”

  “Which means we should look into it,” Vas said as they walked out on the command deck. Vas knew they needed to work on the Deven issue, but if whoever blew up that building was by chance still in orbit, she wanted to be on deck.

  “I knew I lik
ed the way you think.” Marli nudged the relief pilot out of the way and settled into Mac’s pilot sling. “He won’t mind, right?” She looked up to Vas with a mischievous grin.

  “Anyone else, yes. You, no.” Vas took her own chair and called down to the med lab. “Are our Devens all secured in bio-beds?”

  “Aye, Captain,” Pela answered and Vas heard some noises in the background. “The pirate one managed to disconnect his tube and woke up. Gon is sitting on him though while Terel tranqs him again.”

  Vas hoped they were recording all of the trouble that this aspect of Deven caused. She would enjoy showing him what an ass he could be. “Tell me if you have any other troubles, and keep Gon down there until I say otherwise.”

  Vas pointed to the ships still in orbit around the planet. “Xsit, what about the rest of the ships out here?” The more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed that someone had fired from space. There were ways to track that and she saw nothing so far. Not that it didn’t mean one of the surrounding ships couldn’t have had people down there just like she did.

  They’d kept a low profile, and this planet was the closest to the Commonwealth center she’d done a job on in over five months. But there hadn’t been any recent chatter about looking for them, or the Warrior Wench, since the Commonwealth went silent. Well, except for those three non-Commonwealth ships.

  The tiny, very Deven-sounding voice in her head had reminded her each day that the monks might have been stopped, but the beings behind them—whatever they were—had not. Vas didn’t run from danger, but she couldn’t drag her entire crew into a war she knew nothing about.

  The fact that there were now an unknown number of half-formed Asarlaí shadow ships in the galaxy, and at least a few had come through a dimension breach rigged to the side of her ship, was the universe laughing at her thinking.

  “Three Ilerian sport hunters just left orbit, and the rest are registered traders,” Xsit said. “But we also have chatter from the empress’s people.”

  “On the main screen, please.” Vas was sure the great gahan rebellion was the Deven clone’s work—but better to be safe.

  “Empress Wilthuny expressed her grief at the loss of life of the gahan from Mayhira and has pledged a reward to whoever captures those who were responsible for their deaths.” The announcer spoke over an image of the building the gahan had been hiding in right after it burst into flame. Considering that Vas knew there had been no media ships around she wondered where they got the footage.

  Luckily neither her people nor their shuttle could be seen.

  “The empress holds the Mayhira government responsible for the actions taken against her people and will be seeking full remuneration.”

  “That does explain some of what we saw,” Flarik said as she came on the deck.

  Vas noticed that Flarik’s fist clenched as she walked by the pilot station, and her eyes stayed off of Marli, but she didn’t jump for her throat so that was a good sign. The Wavians had long memories and the atrocities done to them at the hands of the Asarlaí centuries ago were as fresh as last week in their minds.

  “I was looking into the empress’s legal standing while I waited for your return. She has lost a lot of clout and funding since the Commonwealth shut down. I believe this is part of a play to get that back.”

  Vas muted the news report. “You think she would go so far as to kill her own people, simply to sue a planet government?”

  Flarik gave a shoulder twitch. “Lawsuits have been won over less.”

  “Captain, there’s another ship over the explosion site. It’s trying to show as a news viewer, but the codes aren’t right and the markings are backwards.” Gosta switched the newsfeed to half the screen and a less professional view of the area came into view. Scanning this close would have been impossible on the Victorious Dead, but it was yet another one of the mysterious improvements done to the Warrior Wench before Vas took it.

  The ship in question was a small atmosphere bird, and Gosta was right—it wasn’t a news copter. And it was definitely pulling in samples of something from the ground.

  “Can we get a closer look? I saw something under the flames before Marli pulled us out of there. Silver, molten silver.”

  Gosta shook his head, but continued to try and narrow in what they were seeing. “I don’t think so, Captain.” He looked up. “I’m running an analysis of the newsfeed vid. They seem to be very carefully avoiding this quadrant.” He switched his images to the main screen. The section he was referring to was highlighted in green. Right where Vas, her people, and the shuttle had been.

  “Damn it,” Vas said. “They avoided showing us, which means whoever they are, they did see us, and whatever was coming out of the ground, and don’t want it public.” There was no way that level of avoidance could have been accidental. Someone was aware of Vas and her crew’s participation. And keeping it out of the public eye. Most likely to use against her later. Or they were holding it back to protect her. That earned a mental laugh—the only one who would have done that had died.

  Marli had left the pilot station and gone over to Gosta’s area. “I didn’t see any molten silver. This was after we’d left?”

  Vas was still watching the short news clipping for any indication of who took it, but she nodded. “It was when you were fighting to get us off that planet. Just a flash, but I know what I saw.”

  “Damn my eyes, that little Empress Wilthuny may be far more conniving than we thought. Gosta, do you have any information on this planet? I have a bad feeling I know it, but it’s been a very long time and I’ve forgotten more places than currently exist.”

  Vas turned at that. It was rare for Marli to show her age, but in that sentence she sounded all of her thousands of years old. A dark shadow had crossed her human-illusion face, but she shook it off with a small smile at Vas.

  “I can check for you,” Gosta said and he slid over to Hrrru’s station. His slightly illegal Commonwealth library was linked to more than a few stations on the command deck.

  A few minutes passed and Vas went back to slow-motion analysis of the news feed.

  “That’s not right, that can’t be right.” Gosta’s muttering cut into Vas’s thoughts.

  “What’s not right?” Vas looked over at him, but the agitation on his face made her get up and walk over to him. “Gosta, talk to me.”

  He’d gone silent, something often welcome, given his level of chattiness about most subjects, but not right now. Particularly when he looked like an Ilerian dung beetle had crawled down his throat.

  Marli was looking at the same screen, but looked more confused than upset. She looked up at Vas with a shrug.

  Vas leaned over, ignoring Gosta’s mutterings for the moment. “Silmanikly? Okay, I know I don’t know all of the historical names of the planets, but I’ve never heard of that one.”

  “Me either,” Marli said. “But there is still something about this place that seems familiar.”

  “It was a historical name for the crown planet in a long-lost kingdom,” Gosta finally said. “It was in the Organa system.”

  “That was out past the rim,” Vas said. “That’s too far from here, you’re mixing it up with another planet.” The Organa system was destroyed over a thousand years ago. It had been the demarcation of the rim at that time. Unfortunately, it had been on the side closest to the Asarlaí worlds during their last push toward reclaiming their power.

  They’d destroyed the seven planets of that system, their sun, and eighty small moons.

  Marli leaned forward over Gosta’s chair, her eyes huge as she stared at the information. “Turn it off.” She took a few steps backwards and blindly fell into an empty station. “Oh, gods.”

  Vas was used to strong people. She was strong; most of her crew were strong. Someone like Marli made them all seem like weak kittens.

  Until right now.

  Marli’s breath was coming in short gasps, and her face was so pale Vas was afraid she was going to pass out. Se
eing someone that strong collapse like that was possibly the scariest thing Vas had seen in a long time.

  “That is Silmanikly. It was pushed here…when the Asarlaí blew up its sun…as an experiment. There were millions of people on that planet, they all burned as the atmosphere was ripped off of them.” She looked up and tears filled her brown eyes. “The Asarlaí high command cared nothing of the slaughter. They’d created a chain reaction to change the core of that planet. There was supposed to be a way to create a material worth more than the most precious gem, and more powerful than a sun’s core. They were stopped before they could claim their reward.” She spit the last out. “When it settled here, someone must have terraformed it, given it a new atmosphere, and a new name. I doubt they knew what it had been.”

  Vas kept her hand on her snub blaster at her hip. She didn’t think Marli was going to do anything, but her face was showing so many emotions that Vas wasn’t sure if she trusted her. Vas swore she’d seen another face flash through, a much older and paler one with fangs and red eyes. What she didn’t need right now was for Marli to go berserker on them. Her crew of sixty against one Asarlaí? Not even a contest. Marli could kill them all within minutes.

  20

  The rest of her crew seemed oblivious to the danger right in their midst. Of course, no one on the deck right now except Flarik and Vas knew what Marli was.

  Flarik must have picked up on the tension, that and Vas’s hand still resting on the handle of her blaster. She slowly came forward from the station she’d been working at.

  “Is everything all right?” She kept her voice pitched at that perfect level that lawyers everywhere could pull off. She also put a lot of layers into that question.

  Marli heard it as well and looked up with a small nod. “Everything will be fine. I had an emotional reaction to this situation.” She shook herself as if she’d suddenly remembered she was on a ship of people who didn’t know what she was and hated the Asarlaí.