Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2) Read online

  “Captain, the gray ships are in orbit, but they’re sending out fighters.” The distraction in Gosta’s voice meant something beyond those massive planet killers was going on.

  “We need to get out of here. But we should warn the Commonwealth fighters. The Commonwealth never took our reports of the gray ships seriously.” Vas opened the long-range screens. Sure enough, both gray ships were moving into an orbit around the planet.

  “No, Captain, there are more Commonwealth fighters coming out of the gray ships—they’re heading for the planet ahead of the cruisers.”

  Vas spun to Deven, “What in the hell is going on?”

  Deven had been watching his monitors but shook his head. “I’ve no idea but we need to get out of here, and fast. The explosions on the planet are growing and going larger.”

  Vas looked at the ships in the distance. Massive amounts of fighters were pouring out of the gray monsters—she’d have to take Gosta’s word for what they were. At this distance, the shuttle’s systems couldn’t pick them out. How and why the Commonwealth was now working with those planet murdering bastards was something Gosta could figure out later.

  Vas pulled the shuttle up higher. They should make it to the Warrior Wench before the planet below them blew up. But she’d seen a number of smaller ships get sucked back down while trying to evacuate Lantaria as it exploded.

  “Captain, the fighters are pulling back, and from the readings I’m getting, the gray ships are preparing to fire on the planet,” Gosta said.

  Vas looked over her shoulder at their passengers. Hallam was clinging to the arms of his seat, Therlian and Kaena were looking out the small window. Therlian looked up and Vas shook her head.

  “Come on, sweetie, we need to look ahead now.” Therlian pulled her daughter away from the window. “Glithy needs you. She’s not happy in that cage.”

  How did you explain to a little kid that her world was about to be blown to bits?

  Vas ignored the ships around her and focused on getting into the Warrior Wench’s landing bay. A few moments later they were in.

  “Get the blast doors down and pull back,” Vas yelled as she unbuckled herself from the seat and ran for the hatch. She turned to Deven. “Can you take care of checking them in?”

  He nodded. “Aye, we’re good here.”

  Vas ran for the lift and the command deck.

  “Why haven’t they blown it up yet?’ Not that she was disappointed—she’d seen way more planets be destroyed in the past six months than anyone should see in a few lifetimes. But the tableau before her looked unchanged. Almost.

  “What in the abyss are those pulses?” Instead of the red beams that had fired upon Lantaria, golden-red pulses were coming from both gray ships and slowly moving over the planet. And the planet was still in one piece.

  “Those are modified energy charges,” Hrrru answered before Gosta could. “They are aiming energy into the planet.”

  Vas waited for the rest, but her crewman went back to his screen.

  “What are they doing, why hasn’t the planet exploded yet, and aren’t we still too damn close to the action?” She flung herself into her command chair and started calling up info.

  “They are stabilizing the planet,” Gosta said. “Or so it would appear. The seismic action that was happening is stopping where they are firing. I don’t believe the planet will explode and I do believe we are not in danger.”

  Vas drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair as she scrolled through the reports. “Do we know why? The explosions we believed were caused by persons unknown, correct? Are both groups after the metal or whatever that silver stuff was?” Explaining about Marli’s intel was tricky—no one was ready for her secret to be out, but it was getting harder to explain how she knew things.

  “No on the why, probable on the explosions.” Gosta paused. “Although, the explosions themselves could have been a reaction to whatever is changing in that planet’s core. The data indicates there has been some serious activity over there in the past few months. And now whatever is buried below is coming to the surface.”

  “There was some chatter between the empress’s ship and a few ground locations before she left,” Xsit said softly. “I recorded what I could but it was coded. They did not sound happy.”

  Vas grinned but dropped it before she turned to her communications officer. Xsit’s people were extremely dedicated and hard working—but they weren’t known to be independent thinkers. This was a major stride forward for her.

  “Excellent work, Xsit. Have one of the code breakers look at it.” The large front screen showed as the planet before her, originally crackling in yellow and silver lines from the deep explosions, calmed down. The lines themselves grew thinner as she watched. “We have the empress up to something and trying to get her claws into Mayhira, the Commonwealth working with the planet killers, and we’ve no idea what in the hell is going on?”

  The bombardment continued on the planet below. The fighter ships were still hanging back. They seemed to be more focused on the other ships in orbit than the surface.

  Yet none of them appeared at all interested in Vas or her ship—something that both the mysterious gray ships and the Commonwealth had separately been obsessed with lately. “Gosta, get as many scans as you can of the gray ships, their firing patterns, and those fighters.”

  Deven came off the lift minus their new guests, and he nodded at Vas’s silent inquiry. “I secured Therlian and Kaena in their own suite and put Hallam in one of the crew rooms. Yes, all three passed, even the marmat, and I sent the results to Terel.”

  Vas smiled. He might not recall that he gave her the duster, but he was remembering anything that happened recently.

  “Captain, I think they are winding down, and the fighters are rejoining the ships,” Gosta said and the screen split into three. One was a wide view of the planet before them—the explosions, rivers of molten whatever it was, etc. were gone. A small group of fighter ships led a fleet of passenger carriers back to the planet. Therlian hadn’t said anything about a general evac, but if she had been leading the rebellion—there was a good chance she and her people hadn’t been included. But while Vas and Deven had been in the storage unit, people had been removed from the planet—at least some. Someone had gotten the rich and famous off the planet and the rest had gone into hiding. The blast that had almost made Kaena an orphan had not been related to the stuff under the surface of the planet—Vas recognized the explosive pattern of a Calie box two incendiary device. Which raised another level of questions—a person or persons wanted to destroy the planet, probably trying to get to the Asarlaí mess of silver substance boiling under the surface. Vas’s guess was the empress. But then the Commonwealth was somehow working with those murdering bastards in the gray ships and stopped it. She might think the gray ships had changed sides if she hadn’t seen them attack Aithnea and her people. They hadn’t changed sides, but they might have changed their approach.

  “Gosta, keep scanning, but I think we want to make ourselves scarce—slowly. Mac, start moving toward the closest gate, but don’t look anxious.”

  “When have I looked anxious?”

  “All the time. You’re either anxious or guilty. Fly relaxed.”

  Mac opened his mouth, then shut it and shook his head.

  Satisfied he was going to behave, Vas picked up the bag with the box in it. “Deven? If you would be so good as to join me?” Vas motioned toward her ready room. Ideally, she’d have Gosta there as well, but she wanted him to keep an eye on what was going on with the planet and those ships. Not to mention she might want to see what this item was before bringing her excitable navigator in on this situation.

  Deven nodded and followed her inside. The ease with which he slid into the chair facing hers in the ready room pulled at Vas’s heart. He was him. But he also wasn’t. There were still too many gaps in his memories. She shook her head and held up the box. Now wasn’t the time to wonder if he’d ever fully come back.
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br />   “I think we’re agreed that this needs to be opened?” Subtle changes in the engines told her they’d resumed moving. It still amazed her how silent this monster could be.

  “The client did risk our lives—his contract is null and void.” Deven leaned back in his chair. “I don’t suppose you’d consider letting me open it in case it’s something deadly? Or take it down to the labs?”

  Vas raised one eyebrow at him. “You don’t remember me very well, do you?” She held up a high-tech Jallian scanner. The best in the business. Terel had found a box of them hidden away in her med labs a few weeks ago. Just when they thought they’d found all of the expensive and potentially illegal tech on this ship, a new stash was found. It must have taken Skrankle weeks to build all of these hiding places. Jallians were only slightly illegal and could scan for anything in the known world—even some unknown. She swore as she held it up.

  “What’s that and why are you swearing at it?”

  “It’s a scanner, but it dawned on me that having a few of these in the decon chambers might be a good idea. Might have let us know what we were facing with those damn robots.” She shook her head and hit a few keys on her desktop. The door clinked as it was reinforced. “Another new feature: reinforced ready room. And no, I am not going to let you open the box. If anyone dies this time, it gets to be me.”

  Deven didn’t say anything—yet another new odd and disturbing trait—and gestured for her to proceed.

  Vas had expected more of a fight from him, but when it was clear this new Deven had his own sense of decorum for a second-in-command, she sat down at her desk and slid open the bag.

  She hadn’t gotten a good glance at the box since they’d been too busy trying not to die at the time. But her original assessment was correct—it was gorgeously detailed and expensive. Gathian rustwood was rare, and this box was carved out of a single piece. The wood was hard to find and impossible to carve in anything larger than pieces of very expensive jewelry. Yet somehow this had been made. It was also extremely old. A few thousand years if she had to guess.

  She held up the scanner and made sure the vid recorder on her desk was on and recording. This box alone was possibly worth more than her ship. Definitely more than the Victorious Dead before she was dismantled.

  The designs on the sides appeared to be delicate filigrees but she couldn’t determine any meaning to them. But the top seemed to be filled with words—she just couldn’t tell what they meant. It was like seeing words without knowing the language. She knew there was something important there, but she wasn’t sure whether it was telling her about riches or that this was about to explode.

  “Do you recognize this at all?” Vas held it up but Deven had already silently moved next to her desk.

  His eyes narrowed as he held the box and studied the designs, but finally he shook his head. “No, but I feel like—”

  “You should know it,” Vas cut him off. “Exactly how I feel. But since neither of us know where we know it from, and the scanner isn’t picking up hazardous or explosive components, I think we have to break this open.” What had looked like a lock was nothing but decoration. It didn’t latch to anything.

  “You can’t damage it! This is clearly an artifact.” The new Deven sounded far too much like Gosta. The old Deven kept that part hidden even though Vas knew it existed.

  “I don’t want to, but it is sealed and I can’t find a way in.” Vas turned the box over in her hands a few times, but while she could see the thinnest of lines where the box would probably separate into a lid, she couldn’t find a way in. She was about to have Deven try while she went to find something that would open it with the least amount of destruction when a click echoed in the room.

  Vas held her breath as the hair-like line widened and the lid cracked open. She looked over the lid to see Deven was as entranced as she was.

  Whatever was inside was wrapped in a naggingly familiar yellow silk with bright red writings. The silk was ancient. Vas could tell that even before she touched it. Nevertheless, touch confirmed, fragile yet stronger than a flight suit, and if she was right in her textile aging, one of the weirder skills she picked up from her time with the nuns, at least seven or eight hundred years old.

  Nudging open the lid brought more of the silk into view and Vas’s heart froze. It looked familiar because it was familiar. This silk was a piece of an ancient prayer shawl from the Clionea nuns.

  Her hands shook as she sat the box back on the desk and gently removed the item, still in its wrapping.

  There were stories, ones she didn’t believe, as she was never a member of the order. Nevertheless, Aithnea would share them every night anyway while Vas finished her chores. Tales of sacred talismans that had been lost over seven hundred years ago. That when found would allow the order to fulfill its destiny.

  Vas knew what was in her hands.

  35

  The round object within the wrapping was a bit large to hold comfortably in one hand, and it was far heavier than it had felt inside the chest. Vas held it in her hands, waiting. She might not have been a member of the order but she had grown up with them and their teachings. A trickle of sweat fell down from her brow.

  “You know what it is,” Deven said and it wasn’t a question.

  “Yes.” Vas continued to hold it in her hands. The order had lost a number of talismans in a battle on the long-dead planet of Plantiar. That one of them might be here, in her hands, after the destruction of the entire order was too much for even Vas’s steely nerves.

  Deven gently took it from her hands and put it, still cloaked in the ancient silk, back into the box.

  “What happened?” His voice was soothing.

  Vas was almost afraid to tell him. Deven and Terel were the only two people who knew about Vas’s past with the nuns. She couldn’t handle it if she tried to confide in him right now and he didn’t remember.

  “The nuns died. They all died, to save us, to save me, because of something I’m supposed to do.” Vas felt the tears but didn’t stop them as she looked up to meet his face. “Something we’re all supposed to do. And I don’t have a damn idea what. And this,” she took a gulping breath, “this might be one of their missing holy artifacts. Aithnea spent her entire life looking for it—now she’s dead and it’s here.” She crumbled forward and didn’t even try to pull away when Deven’s arms pulled her close.

  “Why can’t it go back the way it was? Why can’t I just kill things?”

  Deven’s laugh was stifled at first, then it escaped and Vas joined him as she pulled back and wiped her tears. Yes, the nuns wouldn’t be happy about her crying about them, but she was crying for herself, not them.

  “I recall it was a lot easier when you could just kill things. That much has come back.” The grin he gave her was pure Deven—all sexy smart-ass. Then he let it drop and a warmth and concern that was far more devastating than his smart-ass grin filled his eyes. “And I know how much Aithnea meant to you. I remember that too.”

  “Thank you.” Vas squeezed his hand, then turned back to the box. “But my breakdown isn’t going to help us figure out what in the hell is going on.” She took a deep breath and actually sent a prayer to the goddess the nuns had followed. Then she gently removed the silk. The dark red stone hidden in the folds of the silk wasn’t what she’d been expecting. She turned it over.

  It wasn’t truly a rock, or rather it had one giant rock embedded at the back, but the front was care worn and completely covered in symbols and words. They were so tiny that it was impossible to figure them out—even if they had been in a language she could read.

  “That’s one,” Deven whispered from over her shoulder.

  “You know what it is?” Even with years of the stories, Vas might not have recognized what it was without the nuns’ silk around it.

  “Not fully, but I know the stories your nuns told. They used this, along with three other pieces to call upon their goddess.” His voice dropped, and while he didn’t try to touch it,
he held his hand over it. “They weren’t as violent back then. Still warriors, but it was after the items were stolen that they became such dedicated killers.”

  Vas gently laid it back down in its nest of silk before she turned to face him. “They weren’t bad. They defended those who couldn’t fight back.” There wasn’t a mean bone in any of the nuns. But they could fight better than any merc in the lanes.

  Deven reclaimed his seat across from her desk, but his eyes were hooded. Whatever was going on wasn’t something he wanted to tell her. She narrowed her glare.

  “Fine. I don’t know all of the history of it; I wasn’t in this part of space when the pieces were taken. But their spirt changed.” He didn’t look like he was up to saying more, at least not now.

  Vas sighed and wrapped up the tablet and carefully placed it back in the box. There were layers of questions here—why did Ramoth have this piece to begin with? Or perhaps he only knew it was there, but didn’t think he could have gotten it. Which raised more questions. Damn it, she didn’t have time to deal with this, but there was definitely no way he was getting it.

  She started to put the lid on the box when Deven grabbed it.

  “Before we close this, let’s make sure we know why it opened so that we are certain we can replicate it.” He ran his hands over the lid, then handed it to Vas. When he’d handled it, nothing had changed. When she did, and hit two small indentations on exact opposite sides of the lid, hidden by some of the decorations, a soft click was heard and a segment pulled back. She placed it back in the chest, then tried to pull off the lid. Nothing. She handed it to Deven. “Place your thumbs here and here.” Without touching it she pointed to the two hidden areas. Nothing. Then she pressed her thumbs where Deven’s had been—the line released and the lid came off.

  “That’s very interesting, and more than a little disturbing,” Deven said as he pulled her hands free of the chest and watched the line close again.