Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2) Read online

  The fact that Terel barely looked at him was a good sign. She was an obsessed healer if someone was seriously hurt. “I already scanned him, it’s a reaction to the particle mover. He’s napping.” Terel stopped and took a sniff. Vas might be the captain, but Terel could take down an armed battalion with the look that followed that sniff.

  Vas looked down at her filthy, beer-stained clothes. Damn it, she didn’t want to go on deck smelling and looking like this, but she also didn’t trust Mac not to get them blown apart.

  Terel held out a medical smock and loose pants. With a shrug, Vas took them, stripped down, and put them on. She still smelled like beer, but not as much.

  Together they jogged to the lift and went up to the command deck.

  Mac and Gosta weren’t the only crewmembers dealing with issues right now. There had been a plague scare back on Home, a planet in a rim quadrant that Vas had won years ago and currently was home to her extended crew and their families.

  The plague had turned out to be benign, but the fact was that it got to her planet because her people were bored with no merc jobs and many were going off planet without proper precautions.

  Her people needed a distraction until the Commonwealth settled down. “I think we need to get back to looking for the Victorious Dead.”

  Vas’s words caught Terel off guard and she spun around. “Where did that come from, and what has it to do with Mac trying to get us killed? Again.” They’d entered the command deck during their discussion, which caused Mac to jump out of the captain’s chair with a face that was equal parts pissed and terrified.

  “We can’t go around looking for that ship, Captain. We have other things to worry about.” Mac added that last bit belatedly. He hadn’t minded looking for the ship when he thought it might lead to some new money making opportunities. He was far less emotionally attached to any ship than Vas or the rest of the crew. Or most spacers, truth be told. There was no money in finding it in his mind, they needed money, and therefore he didn’t care about finding the rest of the ship.

  The Victorious Dead was stolen when Vas had left it at a repair yard for some minor work. The salvage dealer doing the repairs instead took it apart and sent the pieces to some crazed religious monks who wanted it for reasons still not completely clear to Vas.

  The salvage dealer and the monks were no longer a problem. They also were no longer among the living. Despite the defeat of the monks, Vas had still only been able to find a few pieces of her missing ship. Getting back to trying to find it would be good for the entire extended company—and hopefully keep the folks back at Home from wandering into more trouble.

  Although Vas had originally hated this fancy former brothel ship they’d taken, she was used to it now. Along with the illegal advanced particle mover, it had many upgrades that weren’t going to be seen outside of military vessels for at least a year or ten.

  Besides, it was a great stress reliever when she got to fight the assholes in bars who equated her with the name of her ship. No one could blame her for defending her honor, right?

  “Sorry, you have no vote. You especially will have no vote if that ex-girlfriend of yours gets that electro net up and they attack this ship.” She leaned toward him as she made her way to her chair. “If you survive that, I will lock your ass up in the brig for the next year.”

  Mac was one of the few pure humans on her ship besides Vas herself. He also came from some terrifyingly pale stock. His face went even paler than normal and the two patches on his cheeks that were the same color as the scrub of bright red hair on the top of his head told her he was taking that threat to heart.

  As well he should.

  Vas took a moment to look over the controls on the arms of her massive command chair. One thing about this ship—everything was right where the captain could see it. All of the stations on the command deck linked up to her chair.

  “I seem to recall hearing Terel order you to get the hell out of here. Why are we not moving?” Vas gestured at the screen before them where the small skip cruiser was trying to set up an electro net. Vas was far less worried about it as she saw that two of the other ship’s people were outside the ship in evac suits trying to trigger the net.

  They must have bought a knock-off.

  Mac was settled back in his pilot sling, a much better fit for him than any captain’s chair. The redness on his face drifted to his hairline. “They were arming…and I didn’t want to take a chance…they had a net, Captain.”

  Vas looked from him to the idiots trying to force what should be a high-tech piece of equipment together, and failing badly, then back to him.

  “Good goddess. You want her back?” Running her fingers through her hair was a very bad idea given the condition of her hair. But the move was automatic. “Get us the hell out of here, now.”

  Mac looked to the screen, then back. “But don’t you still have a mission down there—”

  “Move this ship, now. Just a hop to the next system. We can come back and finish the job I need to do in a few hours. Those idiots on that ship will either be gone or blown up by then.”

  Mac opened his mouth, probably in protest, but his brain was smart enough to shut down his vocal cords before anything could come out. With a terse nod, and a longer-than-needed stare at the screen and the morons still floundering on the skip cruiser, he punched in the codes and the Warrior Wench moved toward the nearby gate and passed through to another system.

  Vas didn’t think the skip cruiser would be able to do anything in terms of moving for a bit, unless they were okay with losing their crewmembers on the outside. Nevertheless, she didn’t want them following her. She ordered a few more hops, and then went to her captain’s ready room. “Terel? I’d like you and Flarik to join me.”

  The Wavian had been quietly chatting with one of the engineers, but nodded. That was another thing. Not only was Flarik becoming a buddy to Mac, in her own way of course, she was actually making small talk with other crewmembers. Vas was sure it was as disturbing for the crewmembers in question as it was for her. To say the old Flarik was anti-social was an understatement.

  For possibly the millionth time since they’d lost him in the explosion, Vas wished she could talk to Deven. Never mind her annoying romantic feelings for the man, he was an excellent second-in-command and had traits that she never would. He handled all the weird inter-personal bullshit on the ship far better than she ever could.

  But Deven was why she was calling Terel and Flarik into her room.

  “What happened down below? Nariel said she picked up some extreme stress and confusion in your voice when you called in,” Terel said, then held up her hand. “If you want her in on this too, it will have to wait; she’s gone into hibernation. A short one—but she’s out for the week.”

  Vas rubbed the side of her head. She should have thought of calling in her resident mind-doc immediately. She also should have remembered that the mind-doc needed to hibernate.

  “That’s fine. I’m fine. I was being shot at while being hauled around in an extremely undignified manner. Stress was sort of a given.” She watched both of them, but neither one bit at the comment.

  “I saw Deven.” There it was, out in the open, no preface or anything.

  Flarik tapped her clawed hands together, and then folded them neatly in her lap. She’d maintained the pure white feathers and female gender she’d had when they first started down this road and honestly, at this point, it would be hard for Vas to imagine the lawyer any other way. Wavians could, and often did, adjust color and gender at will. But Flarik hadn’t modified either in over eight months. Maybe she’d have to ask Nariel about this change and the others that Flarik was exhibiting.

  Now she was demonstrating what passed for her as pity. Her species didn’t have the concept, so it never looked right on her.

  Terel did a little better.

  “No, I seriously saw him this time.” Vas felt her face flush at their looks. In the last six months since Deven had died-
but-not-died, she’d thought she’d seen him on at least a dozen different jobs. But while they’d been able to prove something had happened to her when she almost died, and there seemed to be residue from Deven’s telepathic markers in her system, no one believed her when she saw him.

  Of course, the fact that each time it had been clear it wasn’t him hadn’t made it any easier.

  “I not only saw him, I bumped into him. Slammed into him, really.” Vas turned to Terel. “Maybe we can find some DNA on my clothes?”

  “Vas, if you hit him, then why isn’t he here now?” Terel said with a sad shake of her head.

  Vas stood up and paced behind her desk. “That’s why I need you two—he didn’t recognize me. He’s now a gahan. Had the tattoo and everything.” To be honest, with Deven’s appetites and skills, becoming a male concubine was a perfect place for him. Except she needed him back. The entire universe might need him back on this ship.

  “Let me verify what you are saying,” Flarik said. “You ran into Deven, the man whose ship we all saw explode over six months ago. He failed to recognize you and is now under the employ of the Empress Wilthuny?”

  At Vas’s nod, Flarik clicked her teeth a few times—an action she usually did when annoyed—and turned to Terel. “We may need to pull Nariel out of hibernation early.”

  Vas sighed and grimaced as she caught a whiff of herself. She needed to go take a shower. “Look, it sounds insane, but it was him. Damn it, if only Ragkor hadn’t grabbed me.”

  Flarik rolled her eyes, another new thing for her. “You mean rescuing you like a good second should?”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Terel said. “You forget, Vas, your crew does actually know what it’s doing.”

  Before Vas could frame an appropriately scathing remark, the entire world rocked sideways and she tumbled across her desk.

  3

  V as pulled herself to her feet just as her two friends did the same. “As you were saying? There seems to be a problem with the ship moving. Or rather, not moving.” She ran to the door, slammed open the panel next to it to grab a weapon, and hit the command deck with blaster drawn.

  To find her entire crew tumbled about and a very embarrassed looking Mac standing over his station punching buttons frantically.

  “I can explain,” Mac said as his face went from pale white to pink to scarlet. “I think I underestimated her brothers and the net.”

  He punched up what was on his station to overlay on the massive screen at the front of the command deck. A bit of electro net was stuck to the aft side. It was in a pile, so it must have gotten free of the main piece when the idiots trying to use it were having their problems and latched onto the Warrior Wench. Or, knowing the type of people Mac often hung out with, the idiots launched it at her ship as she was entering the gate. That was a good way to drag the ship doing the launching through the gate unprepared. That usually ended up with a seriously smashed ship and a dead crew.

  “Where are we, Hrrru?” Vas couldn’t even look at Mac right now. Today should have been a simple day, yet somehow it was all going to hell faster than an Ilerian running a con job.

  “We’re in the Gousht system, Captain. Neutral, non-combatants. Mostly agro farmers. Nothing else known.” The Welischian nodded as he spoke. He was small, no more than four feet tall and mostly covered in gray fur. The long front claws found on all of his people were trimmed neatly in his case, but they were a point of pride. The Welisch had been subjected to decades of abuse at the hands of a conquering species. Thanks to those claws of theirs, when the Welisch finally rose up, that other species wasn’t around anymore.

  He was also extremely polite and considerate. Unlike so many of her crew. Maybe she should see if more of his people would like to give space a chance.

  And he consistently recalled how she now wanted systems identified. Something the rest of her deck crew couldn’t remember if their lives depended on it. There hadn’t been any world-shattering attacks on the rim planets since Vas and her crew had destroyed the monk Bhotia, and whatever link he had to those bastards in the gray ships. Nevertheless, there were other factions building up—a war of some sort was brewing and she wanted no part of it.

  She had her crew stay only in neutral regions.

  “Thank you, Hrrru.” As much as Vas wanted to go take a shower, they were effectively dead in space until they got the electronic binding net off, so that wasn’t an option. She reclaimed her command chair, and then looked pointedly over at Mac.

  “Why are you not in your space suit already? You need to get out there and get that crap off my ship, stat. Take Walvento. If you get out of hand, he has standing orders to cut you loose and leave you to drift in space.”

  Mac’s blue eyes went impossibly round and Vas knew he wanted to ask if it was true. She gave him a grim smile. He’d never left the deck that quickly in all the time she’d known him.

  Terel and Flarik joined her on either side of her chair.

  “I think I know how I can prove it,” Vas said while watching the action outside her ship. She often forgot how massive the Wench was until something as spectacularly tiny as people were near her. In this case, on her. “That restaurant probably had at least ten vid recording drones running, both for security as well as bragging rights for who was there. I had a hell of a time dodging them for my act. But if we get access to them, you’ll see it is Deven.”

  Terel looked ready to continue her earlier argument, but Flarik nodded slowly.

  “That is quite sound, Captain. I shall request them as part of a legal inquiry for an important party who cannot be named, but is facing court issues.” Her grin was predatory as she nodded and left the deck. Flarik had many skills, and she was rapidly developing more. However, her first love was being a lawyer. Before joining Vas’s crew five years ago, she’d been an extremely high-end lawyer on retainer for some of the biggest silent rulers in the Commonwealth.

  Vas had never gotten a full tale out of her, but it boiled down to her becoming extremely bored one day, chucking it all, and joining Vas’s crew. Vas hadn’t been looking for a lawyer, but she found she needed one within about ten minutes of talking to Flarik. Getting the vids from that restaurant would be simple for someone like Flarik.

  “Now, back to our current problem,” Vas said to no one in particular as she watched the achingly slow process unfolding on the main screen. Moving quickly in cumbersome space suits and heavy mag boots was impossible. Watching the progress of Mac and Walvento was making her teeth ache.

  “Captain, there is a ship coming in from the gates, and it’s coming in hot.” Xsit had been quiet during this entire situation, but she was new to the position of long-range scanning officer. The small, bird-like Xithinal was the opposite of Flarik’s bird-of-prey species. Vas had a feeling that in their distant past, the Xithinals were prey. Xsit’s normal position was close-range communications, but Vas was taking Flarik’s lead and trying to cross train as many of her command staff as she could.

  “Bring it up on the main screen,” Vas said. She wasn’t too worried about Xsit’s tone—everything out of the ordinary made her sound like that.

  The warship coming at them at full mark made Vas reevaluate that thought. Xsit had a right to be freaked out. Vas toggled back to the ship view, but the electro net was still in place. The larger form, Walvento, had a torch and was trying to cut it free. It would leave a mark in the Wench’s shiny white metal skin, but if it worked, Vas was okay with it.

  “Do we have any power at all—engines, weapons, maybe large sticks we can throw?”

  “Not a damn thing, Captain.” Bathshea had come up to take Mac’s place when he left. The engineer was a good pilot, but they had nothing to move them.

  “Warship, you are coming too close. Back off or we’ll fire.” Vas yelled into the comm. They might have no power but the Warrior Wench had a separate system for her communications. Weird for any ship, and unheard of in a ship this size, but in this case damn handy.
/>
  The comm crackled, “Go to hell.” The voice was female, and had Mac been on the command deck, Vas was damn sure he’d recognize it. His stalking ex-girlfriend had gotten off of the skip cruiser and onto a warship.

  “Damn it.” Vas swung out of the command chair and jogged for the lift. “Terel, congrats, you’re commander on duty. I’m going to hope Mac finished repairs on that little Fury of ours.”

  Terel had started to move to the command chair, but spun before her ass hit. “You’re going to take the suicide box up against that?” She pointed to the screen, and the sleek warship on it, behind her.

  Vas turned as she got into the lift. “You have a better idea? Flits can’t hold up against that.” They still hadn’t gotten anyone else fully trained on the ancient and criminally temperamental Fury. Deven had found and repaired three Furies. Impossibly old, insanely powerful, single-person fighters. They also had a bad tendency to explode and take out anything even remotely nearby with them.

  It had been the other two Furies, piloted by Deven and Jakiin, that had saved the Warrior Wench and ten refugee ships they were escorting from being captured six months ago. Deven and Jakiin had gone out there with the idea of making the Furies explode, and taking out as many enemy ships as they could. It worked, but at the cost of both men’s lives.

  Although Deven was definitely back.

  Per his out-of-body conversation with Vas, when she had been dying herself, he explained there was a lot about his people she didn’t know—and that he had died before. But he hadn’t been able, or willing, to explain beyond that.

  Vas’s thoughts went to Jakiin as she keyed up the remaining Fury. Sadly, she knew he was truly gone. He had been Mac’s best friend, and often a pain in the ass. Yet he’d proven himself a hero. He had volunteered to go out there knowing what they were going to do. Vas had been sending his family credits each month anonymously.