Corsairs: Adiron: Corsair Brothers Book 1

by Dixon, Ruby

  Right now, I'm focused on Jade. She's the only thing that matters, because if I lose her, I have nothing.

  "Touchy, touchy," Bethiah says. "I guess that's an acceptable split…for now."

  I don't miss the grudging tone in her voice. Until everything's settled, I'll be sleeping with one eye open and a blaster at my side. "So what's the plan?"

  "Take over this ship," Bethiah says immediately. "Tow that derelict hulk to Jerrok's asteroid so he can strip it. Profit."

  It's not the worst plan. Jerrok won't betray his cousin or me. His asteroid base is remote and secluded and the ships will need to be stripped of their identities before they're taken anywhere. And…Jerrok's sympathetic to humans. At least, I think he is. If anyone can make him sympathetic to a human's plight, it'll be our soft-eyed little Sophie. She's the gentlest little thing.

  Poor Sophie. I hope she hasn't given up on me and my brothers.

  My brothers…

  I lean in toward Bethiah, confronting the piece of news I didn't want to think about. "Is what Shaalyn said about Kaspar true? Is he alive?"

  She shrugs. "Ish?"

  I scowl. "How can you be 'ish'? It's either a 'yes' or a 'no.'"

  Bethiah gives an exaggerated shrug. "Okay, so technically it's a yes."

  I breathe a sigh of relief.

  "But!" she continues. "He might be dead now." When I give her a blank stare, she glances around the hall to make sure no one's listening and then leans in again. "We intercepted his pod. He was in there with the yellow-haired human. Kinda cozy if you ask me, but I suppose you didn't. Anyhow. We pulled in their pod but ran into a problem. The human had a sickness, and so we couldn't extract him from the pod in case it was contagious. We kept the pod in our bay overnight. I think Shaalyn wanted to keep him until their health could be cleared, because you know she's never met an opportunity she didn't like."

  She's right. I don't know how I ever missed this before. Shaalyn has always been greedy and all about herself. I was just too dazzled by her to think it was a problem…until she turned on me, of course. Jade's nothing like her, and I couldn't be more thankful. "What happened, then?"

  A ruthless little smile curls Bethiah's mouth. "There was an accident in cargo bay. They must have broken out somehow. Took down a perfectly attractive, completely inexperienced greenhorn, too. Such a shame that sort of thing keeps happening."

  I breathe a sigh of relief. Bethiah had a hand in that, too, then. "Thank you."

  "Like I said, though, the human was sick." She shrugs. "Don't know what happened after that, but it's Kaspar. He'll turn up somewhere, probably with the authorities from three different planets chasing his tail."

  Truer words never spoken. "How do we play this, then?"

  Her smile grows even more dangerous. "As brutally as we want."

  67

  ADIRON

  I've got Bethiah on my side, and I almost feel bad for Shaalyn.

  Almost.

  "So when do we do this?" I ask Bethiah, leaning against the door. The noodles she brought are congealing slowly, as our conversation goes on for longer than anticipated, but I don't care. More important things are afoot. "Tonight, when everyone's sleeping? Tomorrow?"

  She shakes her head and looks around again. "Our window of opportunity is right now, if you're ready to do this."

  "Right now?" I echo, surprised. So fast? "Why right now? Not that I'm not ready, just curious."

  Bethiah smirks, then straightens and types an access code into the control panel of the door. A moment later, it slides into the wall, sending the bowl of noodles tumbling to the filthy floor of my cell. "Poor, poor Shaalyn is nursing a busted nose and wounded pride."

  Busted nose? Wounded pride? "Jade?" I ask.

  "Jade. Your little human's a fierce one."

  Kef yes, she is. I grin. "That's my girl. Where is she?" My heart thumps as I glance over at the next cell, but it's empty, of course. I knew it was, but…there's only so many places to hold someone on a cruiser like this. I turn back to Bethiah, a horrible feeling clenching in my gut. "Shaalyn didn't…"

  Bethiah shakes her head, tapping away at the panel to the elevator off this floor. After a moment's frustration, she sighs and pulls out her blaster, then shoots the panel. A curl of smoke rises from it, an alert chirping. She ignores it and glances over at me. "Your human is safe, because she's worth a lot of credits. Shaalyn would have killed her otherwise. Instead, she just put her in stasis. Cold."

  "Cold?" I shudder. Being sent into stasis cold is brutal. It's only happened to me once, when there was no time to administer the drugs to slowly ease me under. It's an awful feeling, of being closed in and trapped in the pod while your veins are fed liquid ice that feels as if it's freezing you bit by bit. You're awake while your limbs stop responding, and your brain is the last to go under. I know of weathered soldiers who don't bat an eye at the worst war has to offer, but panic at the sight of a stasis pod.

  And she did that to my Jade? My soft, funny, loves-to-be-in-control Jade? "She did it to get back at me," I growl. "Keffing Shaalyn."

  "Don't take all the credit," Bethiah says drily. "I'm pretty sure the fist to the nose had something to do with it, too."

  Right. Doesn't matter. If I get my hands on Shaalyn…well, I'm going to see if Jade wants to kill her first. "Where's her pod at? Med-bay?"

  Bethiah nods once, handing me a blaster. "No time to go play tongue-games with your human right now. We need to move. She left a blaster in the lavatory, you know."

  I frown to myself, trying to follow Bethiah's line of conversation. "I want to see Jade and make sure she's all right. I won't wake her up yet." I want things to be completely safe before she opens those beautiful eyes again, just because I need her to know I can take care of her. That I've got her back. That I'll always look out for her. "And uh…who left a blaster in the lavatory?"

  My partner glares at me. "Pay attention! This is no time to moon over a human!"

  I want to shake her with frustration. "I'm not mooning. But I'm also not doing this without knowing if she's safe or not." She's the most important thing in the universe to me, and I need to make sure she's all right. How Jade's been treated is going to determine whether or not Shaalyn dies fast or dies slow.

  "Does it matter if she's safe or not? She's a human. She can't help us in this fight. Did you not hear the part where I said she left a keffing blaster in the lavatory? It fell onto the floor when I was taking a shit." Bethiah makes a face. "She's lucky I'm the one that found it."

  My Jade snuck a blaster on board the ship? I know she didn't have it with her when she came out of the wall and Shaalyn took her captive. I thought she'd dropped it or left it behind. Instead, she smuggled it in somehow. My pride for my female raises a few notches. She's so smart and clever. I grin. "Atta girl."

  Bethiah just rolls her eyes as if I'm an idiot. "Just…come on."

  "Med-bay first," I insist stubbornly. "Then we kick everyone's asses."

  68

  ADIRON

  Our plans to kick everyone's ass aren't going as, well, planned.

  Since the elevator won't respond thanks to an impatient Bethiah shooting the controls, we take an emergency access ladder hidden away in one of the walls and climb up. Once we get on the main floor of the ship, though, we run into one of Shaalyn's greenhorns. He's sprawled on the floor, his blaster gone, a pool of blood cooling around him.

  I nudge him with my toe, but he's dead. "You do this?" I ask Bethiah.

  "No." She frowns down at him. "Come on. Let's just get to med-bay."

  We head there and find another dead body in the hall. So much for kicking asses. Turns out the asses have already been kicked. I pat the dead male down anyhow, but he's very much dead and there's no weapon. "Another mutiny?"

  "Shaalyn's idiots? Not likely." Bethiah snorts. "I'm starting to think she's onto us, though."

  "Well, you DID shoot the control panel." A subtle partner, she's not. "They'd have to be unconscious not to notice
something's up."

  Bethiah just gives me an exasperated look. "Just come on already. The sooner we take over this ship, the sooner it's mine." Her expression turns toothy, and then she races down the hall, her blaster out.

  Kef me. And I thought I was the dumb one. Maybe pairing up with Bethiah isn't the best idea, but too late to turn back now.

  We find two more bodies along the way to the med-bay. "How many does that leave?"

  "Two and Shaalyn," Bethiah replies, standing outside the med-bay doors. She peers in and then indicates it's clear. "Go lick your human or whatever it is they do with their mouths, and then let's go take Shaalyn down, all right?"

  "It's called kissing," I tell her. I shove my blaster into the waist of my pants and head for the stasis pod that's lit up, the window fogged with the chill inside it. I run my hand over the glass, and I see Jade inside. She's unconscious, her full lips with a blue tinge to them. Her clothes are gone and she's naked, her hair a halo around her face. She's calm looking, though, and whole. Thank kef. I feel like I can breathe again. I stare down at her. She's so beautiful that my heart hurts just looking at her. "I'm going to take care of this," I whisper. "You can count on me."

  I touch the glass one more time and force myself to turn away from her. I want to pry her out of there, but I can't. It takes time to recover from stasis, and I can't risk her being hurt. Shaalyn's not going to play fair, and me and Bethiah are used to space battles and backstabbing pirates. We can handle ourselves.

  And if we can't…I don't want Jade to face the consequences.

  "I'm ready," I growl as I storm out of the med-bay. Seeing my mate—because Jade is absolutely, positively MINE—laying there in stasis has flipped a switch in my head. Gone is carefree Adiron. In his place is an angry, protective male out to get revenge for his mate. Shaalyn's going to wish she never touched one single curl on Jade's head.

  "Yay!" Bethiah cries, bounding after me. "Let's go take my ship!"

  We storm through the halls, heading for the bridge. I'm not entirely surprised to find that when we get there, the doors are sealed, the control panel shot out, and yet another dead male on the floor in front of us. She's cannibalizing her own crew to save her hide. It's a foul move, but one I'm not entirely surprised to see. Of course Shaalyn cares only about Shaalyn. She can always find more idiot males to dance to her tune. If nothing else, she's good at convincing a male that she's in love with him.

  Been there. Done that. Got a gut full of stab wounds to show for it.

  I turn to Bethiah and gesture at the bridge doors. "Don't suppose you know how to get this open?"

  She shrugs, a bright smile on her face. "Shoot it until something opens?"

  I'm never going to give my brothers shit again for groaning at one of my bad ideas. I stare at her.

  She shrugs again. "Space her?"

  I shake my head. "The bridge is locked down tight. She has access to all the controls there. We can't space her. If we try to force our way in, she could destroy all the controls and leave us stranded here. We need a plan."

  Bethiah taps her blaster on her chin. "Want to try negotiating?"

  "With her? Are you serious?"

  "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were swimming with so many other ideas?" Bethiah hisses at me. "Why are you being such a grump? I thought that was Mathiras."

  Am I like Mathiras? I guess when it comes to Jade and her safety, I'm turning into a boring stodge, just like my brother. I'm not even mad about it, either. I just need to make sure Jade is safe, and if Bethiah doesn't like my plans, too bad. "You do realize negotiating with Shaalyn is pointless? She's just going to lie to you to save her skin."

  "So? Like I'm going to keep my end of the bargain?" Bethiah looks at me as if I'm insane. "I'll say whatever we need as long as we get her ass out of the bridge so we can take control."

  I don't have any better ideas, so I gesture for Bethiah to do her best.

  She steps up and taps a communication request onto the panel.

  Waits.

  Glances over at me.

  Waits a bit longer.

  "Initiating vacuum sequence," the ship chirps helpfully. "Airlocks will be opened in ten minutes. Please secure all loose equipment."

  Bethiah and I exchange a look of horror.

  Shaalyn isn't going to negotiate. She's going to expel us from the ship itself.

  69

  ADIRON

  I race to the door panels, but the controls are a bright red, the alert flashing over the screen. Not only are they locked down, but the sequence can't be changed.

  I'm glad Jade's still in stasis. She'll be fine. I'm just sad I won't be there when she wakes up. I look over at Bethiah. "Any last words?"

  "This is some bullshit," she grumbles, shoving past me and pounding on the panel as if that will somehow activate it. She hammers at it, and then lets out an incoherent cry of rage. "I am not going to be bested!"

  She's taking this rather poorly. I watch her have a tantrum for a moment longer, and then I turn and head down the hall to med-bay.

  "Where are you going?" Bethiah asks me.

  "Gonna go spend my last few minutes with my mate," I tell her. Really, we've walked into a boneheaded trap. The moment Shaalyn suspected things were turning on her, she secured herself in the room with all the controls. If Bethiah was half as clever as she thought, she'd have locked down the ship herself before starting her mutiny.

  Nothing to be done about it now, though. It was an attempt, and not all attempts are successful. I'm just sad I won't get to see Jade smile again. To hear that soft, reluctant laugh of hers when I do something ridiculous and unexpected. My chest squeezes painfully. We should have had more time together. It's unfair to only be given a little over a month with the female I love, only to lose her. I'm not normally one to mope about fate, but all I can think about is Jade. Jade waking up and I'm not there. Jade feeling like I abandoned her, when it's the furthest thing from the truth.

  I'm going to spend the last of my time draped over her stasis pod, gazing down into her beautiful, sleeping face. I want her to be the last thing I see before the vacuum of space sucks me out of the ship. I want—

  I pause as I head down the hall toward med-bay.

  Turn around.

  Head back to the window I just passed.

  There's a ship there. A very familiar-looking ship. As I watch, it extends the ship-to-ship docking mechanism, like a long, thin finger, even as the Jabberwock pulls up alongside Shaalyn's ship.

  "Nine minutes until airlocks are opened," the ship says helpfully. "Please secure all loose equipment." It pauses for a moment and then continues in the same expressionless voice, "Unfamiliar vessel initiating ship-to-ship docking sequence. Please advise."

  I shove my face against the glass, wondering if my sister can see the delight on my face from her ship. Probably not. Talk about a rescue in the nick of time. I race back down the hall, nearly collide with Bethiah, who giggles and does a happy little dance and then rushes right next to me as we head for the portal. The ship-to-ship dock extends painfully slowly and then pauses right before it can connect, and my heart skips a painful beat.

  "Jabberwock hailing the Decision Maker," comes Zoey's voice over the intercom, and it's like a breath of fresh air. My little sister sounds so strong and in control, and I could not be prouder. "You have ten minutes to accept our docking sequence, or we will take drastic action."

  Uh oh.

  "Uh." Bethiah looks over at me. "This is going to be an incredibly ironic death, isn't it?"

  "I sure hope not." I try to send positive brainwaves to Zoey—as if that'll do shit. Move faster, I tell her silently. We're about to be splattered on your windshield.

  Another tense minute ticks past, and it feels like I have rocks in my stomach as I stare at the Jabberwock's docking connection, still frozen in place.

  Come on, runt, I tell her. Come on. All the while, I wait for the next tick of the countdown to my death.

  There's
an unearthly cry of rage that comes from the bridge, so loud we can hear it through the walls.

  "System override," the ship says, and Bethiah grabs my arm. "Vacuum sequence cancelled. Accepting ship-to-ship connection."

  "I did not accept this!" Shaalyn cries angrily over the intercom. "You are not allowed on board! This is a hostile takeover!"

  My sister's voice comes in, strong and proud. "As opposed to, what, a polite and friendly takeover? Better hold on, because you're not gonna like what else we do, either, bitch."

  I race to the control panel, trying to send my sister a message, but I'm still locked out. I hammer a hand against the wall in frustration and begin to pace, watching as the dock slowly, slowly creeps toward Shaalyn's ship and eventually latches on with a whoosh of air and a chorus of messages announcing the connection. A million thoughts are racing through my mind—how did Zoey know we were here? Is Shaalyn going to retaliate somehow? Did Kaspar or Mathiras somehow contact the Jabberwock and let them know about the fact that I remained behind on the Star?

  More importantly, will Zoey like Jade? Will Jade like Zoey? I want them to get along. They're the two most important females in my life, and the thought of them not liking each other makes my palms all sweaty.

  Or…that could just be the near-death experience.

  I glance over at Bethiah. Her ratty hair is disheveled, held back by her patch that's now resting against her horns like a headband instead of on her face. The look on her face is all smiles, though. "Never thought I'd be so glad to see that idiot Kivian," she tells me. "You think he'll let me have this ship? Since I practically took it anyhow?"

  I shrug. "Can't hurt to ask nicely. And maybe don't call him an idiot."

  She puts on a sweet smile. "He's a clever, clever male…and I love his outfits."