Prime Deceptions
Page 1
Dedication
To all who protect the world from devastation
and extend our reach to the stars above
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1: Kick the Puppies
Chapter 2: Forging Fates
Chapter 3: Mamitis
Chapter 4: Pulling Mobs
Chapter 5: Throne of Games
Chapter 6: Bad Penny
Chapter 7: A New Challenger Appears
Chapter 8: Take You for a Ride
Chapter 9: Continue
Chapter 10: The Incident at Garilia
Chapter 11: Catching Up
Chapter 12: Te Conozco, Mascarita
Chapter 13: Loca Como Una Chiva
Chapter 14: Curiosity Kills
Chapter 15: Don’t Blow It
Chapter 16: Girls Just Wanna Have
Chapter 17: Dress to Kill
Chapter 18: Party On
Chapter 19: Unbalanced
Chapter 20: History Repeating
Chapter 21: The Power That’s Inside
Chapter 22: Nadando Contra La Corriente
Chapter 23: Three Two One Let’s Jam
Chapter 24: The Pit and the Paragon
Chapter 25: A Hero and a Memory
Acknowledgments
Chilling Effect
About the Author
Also by Valerie Valdes
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
Kick the Puppies
Captain Eva Innocente ran through the snow, trying to ignore that her pants were on fire.
It wasn’t actually snow so much as a highly flammable form of crystalline methane precipitating peacefully from the sky of the aptly named planet Kehma. She also wasn’t actually running, more of an aggressive hobble that wanted very badly to be a run, but her left gravboot was randomly malfunctioning and sticking her to the ground, so she kept having to send a deactivation command through her commlink to get moving again.
Her pants were definitely on fire, though, blue and magenta because of the methane. Her spacesuit protected her from burns, or she would have been more worried about it. And while it would have been funny to note that the fire started immediately after she lied to someone, at the moment she was focused on not getting shot by that person and his accomplices, who were chasing her.
Eva darted behind a rock formation as a bolt of plasma seared past her head. She would have loved to get her own pistol out, but she needed both hands to carry the package she’d gone to Kehma to steal. Well, steal back, since it had been stolen in the first place. Regardless, she had no hands with which to defend herself, so she had to rely on others.
((Help,)) she pinged at Vakar, who was supposed to be providing cover fire. Her quennian partner was much faster than she was, given his functioning boots and longer, back-bending legs. She’d lost track of him in the snow, which in her immediate vicinity was now falling in tiny blue flames as the bits stuck to her legs burned higher and brighter. The air around her shimmered with heat, and she was glad her nose was protected by the bubble of her isohelmet, because she was sure it smelled like spicy farts outside.
No answer from Vakar, either because of weather interference or because the Blue Hounder mercenaries behind her had signal scramblers. The doglike bipedal truateg definitely had expensive plasma rifles, no doubt courtesy of their suppliers at The Fridge. Working for an intergalactic crime syndicate had its perks, which Eva was a little salty about. Why did the bad guys always get better stuff than she did?
A shot tore through the air so fast it left a trail of blazing purple-blue, coming from in front of her instead of behind. Either she’d been flanked, or—
A second later, the sonic boom reached her, and Eva grinned. Unless the mercs had added sniper rifles to their arsenal, that was definitely Pink. And if her co-captain had arrived, that meant La Sirena Negra couldn’t be far behind.
Eva darted from behind her cover toward another rocky pillar, lurching forward and cagando en la mierda every time her gravboot stuck. The methane-fueled fire was up to her chest now, making visibility even more difficult. She shifted the package so most of its weight was on her right side; the damn thing was heavy, and bulky, and she hadn’t expected to be carrying it while running and being shot at. Another plasma bolt narrowly avoided her, sizzling against the rock as she ducked behind it. She thanked the Virgin these mercs weren’t better shots, though come to think of it, that was a little odd. People who got paid to shoot things to death tended to be pretty good at it, or they didn’t get paid for long. Unless they were herding her . . .
The click-whine of a rifle being armed next to her head made her freeze. As much as it was possible to freeze while on fire.
“Give back the cargo,” the merc said. His voice came through her translators as whiny despite his broad, jowly features and beady eyes.
“Wasn’t yours in the first place, mijo,” Eva said. Why hadn’t he shot her already?
“Who hired you?” he snarled, a line of drool falling into his collar. “How did you learn about this facility?”
Ah, information. The real currency of the cosmos.
“A little bird told me,” Eva said.
He pressed the muzzle of his rifle to the spot where her isohelmet met her suit. “Do not speak in idioms, human. Answer my questions or die.”
“Can’t answer questions if I’m dead, mijo,” Eva replied. “Nice rifle, by the way, you get that out of a catalogue with your parents’ credit line?”
The merc made an angry horking sound. “I earned this, you hairless whelp. I’ve been a mercenary for longer than you’ve been alive.”
“And you haven’t retired yet? Qué lástima, you must not be very good at it.”
“Enough!” the truateg shouted. “You and your pack, playing at a profession you barely understand. It makes my testicles itch.”
Eva almost snarked at that, but something moved behind the merc: the palest of shadows, silent as snow.
“When I was your age,” the merc continued, “we had respect for our elders. For the mercenary code. You don’t even have a proper uniform!”
“Times change,” Eva said. “Oye, could you hold this for a second?”
She thrust the package at the merc, who grabbed it reflexively. His rifle swung away from her and she activated the present Vakar had gotten her for her last birthdate: a set of sonic knuckles that formed glowing gold rings around her fingers. Her first punch landed in the truateg’s gut, the second on his shoulder, and by the third Vakar had stepped up to wrench away the rifle and drop the merc with a blow to the back. Eva deactivated her knuckles and took the stolen package back, giving the half-conscious truateg an extra kick in the junk for good measure.
“Where are the others?” Eva asked.
“Gaining ground.” Vakar took the package from her, nearly invisible as his shiny metal armor reflected the whiteness of the not-snow around him. “We should complete our evacuation.”
“Did you sabotage their ship like I asked you to?”
“I would have reached you sooner if I had not,” he replied. “Their navigation systems will be installing a false software update for the next half cycle at least.”
“Dios mío, that’s evil,” Eva said, grinning. “Vámonos, let’s get out of here before I turn into carne asada.”
((Location?)) she pinged at Min.
((Look up,)) came the pilot’s reply.
La Sirena Negra roared in, its dark hull obscured by the methane snow coating the shields. Min brought the ship to a stop so that it hovered a meter above them, breaking some of the stone spires in the process. Eva and Vakar raced over to the emergency
hatch.
“You first,” Eva told Vakar. “Get that damn thing inside or we don’t get paid.”
He shifted the package to one side and began to climb awkwardly with his free claw. Just as Eva started to join him, her gravboot stuck to the ground again. This time, it refused to obey her mental command to deactivate, so she had to release the ladder and crouch down to examine the stubborn thing.
A bolt of plasma streaked past, followed by a gargling howl from the truateg. Coño carajo, Eva thought, staying low and frantically jabbing at the manual release on the outer sole of the boot. Still not responding.
“Worthless feces licker!” shouted one of the mercs. “Taste my vengeance!”
“Tastes like chicken!” Eva shouted back. Not that they knew what chicken was.
A sonic boom overhead told her Pink was providing cover fire, buying her a few plasma-free moments. The methane flames completely coated Eva now, but she still couldn’t get her damn gravboot free. With a frustrated groan, she activated her sonic knuckles again and punched the ground around her foot, breaking up the pale rock into gravel-sized pieces. There just needed to be enough left to trick the boots into sticking to them, instead of the solid parts underneath—
A searing pain in her thigh made Eva hiss and bite down hard. Somebody had finally hit her. Unfortunately, that meant her suit was compromised, so she didn’t have long before the methane flames worked their way in as well.
Eva punched the ground one last time, and finally her gravboot shifted. La Sirena Negra hovered above her, with Vakar now dangling upside down from the ladder as he reached his free claw out to her.
Grunting, Eva jumped awkwardly with her good leg and grabbed his arm with both hands. Shots sizzled through the snow around her as the ship shifted, her injury making her scream.
Vakar did the galaxy’s most insane sit-up and hoisted her into the emergency access, the hatch closing beneath her as soon as she was fully inside. He released her gently and she collapsed onto the floor, breathing heavily.
((Jump,)) Eva pinged at Min. The pilot’s response was nearly instant, the whine of the FTL drive preceding the stomach-wrenching sensation of artificial gravity compensating for sudden acceleration. Eva could picture Kehma receding behind them as they flew off into the black, toward the nearest Gate, a few hours away.
They’d made it. And they had the package they’d gone to retrieve, which meant they’d get paid. Despite the pain in her thigh, Eva felt cold with relief.
No, not just relief; also the fire extinguishers coating her in chemicals to stop her from burning up the ship. In moments, she was covered in pale-blue gel, slippery as a dytryrc during mating season but no longer aflame.
Eva deactivated her helmet, which dropped a load of the gel into her black hair. Vakar retracted his helmet as well, releasing mingled smells of incense and licorice; he was worried about her.
“I’ll be fine,” she muttered to Vakar, tugging off her busted gravboot and throwing it against the hull. “But I’m definitely going to need a new pair of pants.”
Eva sat in the med bay, trying not to squirm as Pink’s mechanical eye scanned her for injuries beyond the shot to her thigh. Pink had already patched that with a quick-healing compound and numbing agent, and covered it with the usual self-adhesive bandages and a thick mesh designed to restrict movement. Other parts of Eva ached, from muscle to bone, but how many of those complaints were new was debatable.
“You’ll live, again,” Pink said finally, sliding her eye patch down. “You’re lucky they didn’t hit an artery.”
“I’d be luckier if they had missed entirely,” Eva grumbled.
Pink turned around and rummaged through one of the cabinets. “I’m not wasting the good nanites on you, so you have to take it easy for at least a week. Elevate the leg when you can, pain meds every six hours. And of course, you remember your buddy—” She pulled out a cane and handed it to Eva. Its height was adjustable, but they both knew it was already on the lowest setting for the ship’s second-shortest crew member.
“How can I forget good old Fuácata?” Eva muttered. “Anything else, Captain Jones?”
“I’m Dr. Jones right now, sass mouth,” Pink said. “We still need to have your weekly psych session later. But we should get everyone in the mess to chat, yeah?” She peeled her gloves off and tossed them in the recycler, then gave Eva her arm to help her off the exam chair.
Eva sent a ping to the rest of the crew as she hobbled down the corridor of La Sirena Negra to the mess room. The smell of espresso mingled with incense and anise; that meant Vakar was already there, he had made coffee for her, and he was worried but otherwise in a good mood.
“Look at you, smiling like a fool,” Pink said, elbowing Eva gently.
Eva scowled, but she couldn’t sustain it. Especially not when she saw Vakar waiting, out of his shiny Wraith armor for a change. His pangolin-like scales were freshly scrubbed, and his face palps angled toward her as she entered. The smell of anise shifted to licorice, making Pink groan and roll her eye.
“Are you well?” Vakar asked, his gray-blue eyes staring pointedly at her cane.
“Claro que sí, mi cielo,” Eva said. “This is temporary.”
“She has to rest,” Pink added, pursing her lips and giving Vakar a meaningful look that made him smell grassy, bashful.
There went Eva’s plans for later. She sat down at the head of the room’s big communal table and let Pink prop her leg up with a stool, then accepted her taza of coffee from Vakar gratefully.
“I’m here, Cap!” Min said cheerfully through the ship’s speakers. Eva had assumed so, since Min pretty much was La Sirena Negra as long as she was jacked in, which was always. Still, it was good to be sure. The pilot’s human body had been in the bridge last time Eva checked, with one of the resident psychic cats asleep in her lap. Probably Mala, the unofficial leader of the pack.
That left one more crew member still unaccounted-for.
((Mess, now,)) Eva pinged at Sue.
((Coming,)) the engineer pinged back. A few moments later Sue ran in, her black hair spiked at odd angles like she’d accidentally run a greasy hand through it. Her pink shirt was smudged and streaked with brown, and two of her tiny yellow robots clung to her tool belt, making shrill noises.
“Sorry, Captain,” Sue said breathlessly. “I had to replace a resistor for the aft shields. Min said they were drawing too much power.”
“Your bots couldn’t handle it?” Pink asked.
Sue’s cheeks flushed and she stared at her boots. “I sent Eleven and Nineteen to do it, but they started arguing and I had to separate them.”
The bots’ shrill noises increased in volume, and Sue grabbed one in each hand and brought them up to her face. “Leaky buckets, knock it off already,” she said. “Don’t make me put you in time-out!”
Eva didn’t know what “time-out” meant for tiny robots, but the bots shut up, so it had to be a serious threat. Sue settled into her chair.
Sometimes it seemed like the last six months had been one firefight after another, between sparse cargo-delivery and passenger transport jobs. Fucking with whatever was left of The Fridge had been her crew’s top priority, and thankfully Vakar’s bosses were all too happy to subsidize their endeavors. Eva also got to keep or sell portions of any ill-gotten goods they recovered from their raids, or in situations like the one on Kehma, they returned stolen items for a hefty bounty from the original owner.
It wasn’t an easy life, but more and more often, Eva was starting to feel like it was a pretty good one. Even the food was better than it used to be. She took a sip of her espresso, savoring the sweet bitterness; Vakar had used the stash of real beans instead of the replicator.
“So we got what we came for, and now we drop it off and get paid,” Eva said. Min gave a little cheer of “Jackpot!” while Vakar’s smell gained a brief almond spike of delight.
“Also, we pissed off the Blue Hounders and The Fridge,” Pink added. “It’s like as
shole Christmas up in here.”
“Feliz Navidad,” Eva said. “Min, how long until we reach Atrion?”
“About a quarter cycle,” Min replied. “Unless you want to refuel somewhere first.”
Eva shrugged. “Anyone have a layover request?”
Sue shook her head, Pink twirled her finger in a circle, and Vakar’s palps twitched, but he said nothing.
“If we can make it to Atrion, and their fuel prices aren’t ridiculous, let’s just get this job done.” Eva knocked back the last of her coffee. “Nice work, amigos. Take a break.”
Sue wandered back toward the cargo bay, holding one bot in each hand and scolding them quietly. Eva stood and hobbled over to put her taza in the sanitizer, wondering whether she should grab a snack or head straight to her cabin. Vakar appeared at her side, laying a claw gently on her arm.
“Would you like assistance returning to your room?” he asked, smelling like vanilla and lavender under all the licorice.
Eva grinned, raising an eyebrow. “I’m sure Fuácata wouldn’t mind the help.” The snack could definitely wait.
“I said rest, woman,” Pink called from the doorway. “Don’t make me confine you to the med bay. I have a bunch of remote patients in my virtual queue, and I don’t want to waste my very expensive time patching your sorry ass twice.”
Vakar wagged his head in the quennian equivalent of a shrug, while Eva snorted. But as soon as Pink was gone, they shared a look and Eva burst into laughter.
“Come on,” she told him. “There’s more than one way to rest. I can think of at least three and I’m not even trying.”
Eva woke up four hours later with a throbbing pain in her leg, to the sound of Min pretending to be an alarm through the speakers.
“Qué pinga,” Eva said sleepily, raising her head off Vakar’s chest.
“Sorry to bother you, Cap,” Min said, “but you’ve got a call on the new emergency frequency.”
Mierda, Eva thought. That could only be one of three people, and she wasn’t in the mood to talk to any of them.
“Should I go?” Vakar rumbled.