Outermost

by Blaze Ward

  “We were supposed to take you to him,” the man managed, shock settling into his system.

  Probably the heat coming off the barrel of Kyriaki’s plasma rifle, pointed at his face.

  “With guns out?” Valentinian’s laugh sounded like a wolf barking. “I’d ask what kind of fool you take me for, but that much is already obvious.”

  Dave grinned when Vee turned to Bayjy.

  “Bring their boots,” he ordered. “They can walk home.”

  Bayjy nodded. She was a little paler than usual, but her previous exposure to violence had been, as near as he could tell, mostly bar fights and drunk crewmates who didn’t necessarily want to take No for an answer. At least the first time.

  Dave settled for glowering at the men. It wasn’t as effective as Kyriaki, but she’d taken out four of them by herself, so she had an extra edge there. Plus a plasma rifle.

  “Tell your boss to send someone else, next time. Someone polite and unarmed,” Vee snarled at the man. “I ever see you again, anywhere on this planet, I’m going to open fire and assume it was self-defense. You understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” the man flinched.

  Bullies were always such fragile creatures, at least when they ran into someone willing to fight back. That was part of what made them bullies.

  Dave squatted down and made a point of memorizing faces. He would be willing to shoot any of them right now, had Vee ordered it. He let his face tell them that.

  Nobody peed themselves, but it was probably a close thing, especially when Bayjy growled at them after he was done.

  Valentinian started walking without a glance back. Dave prodded Bayjy to follow, and then he and Kyriaki mentally flipped a coin and she ended up at the rear of the column for the last two hundred meters to the ship.

  They ended up upstairs in the lounge, with Vee pulling some juice out of the fridge and the rest of them doing something similar.

  “What’s this?” Dave asked as he saw the pile of stuff Kyriaki had apparently left on the counter earlier. He picked up a bottle and sniffed it. Coconut.

  “Suntan lotion,” she replied quietly, grabbing the bottle out of his hand. “I was sunbathing on the top of the ship when they arrived and set up their ambush.”

  Dave did a double take at the woman when he realized she had probably been nude at the time. He had seen her naked before. When she first came aboard, they had made her strip everything off, which they then jettisoned into warpspace.

  But there was a difference between naked and nude.

  She started blushed furiously now.

  Interestingly, Vee was blushing as well, so maybe those two had accidentally locked eyes at the wrong moment. Or the right one.

  Dave hoped that they would finally get over themselves at some point and make a final decision, either to fool around, or not to. The stress of thinking about it constantly wasn’t doing either of them any good.

  “Okay,” Valentinian announced as they all got settled. “Obviously, we’ve rattled some cages, just settling down on this planet. I have no idea what, who, or why.”

  “Will the boss send a smarter messenger next time?” Bayjy asked. “Or are they going to just attack us?”

  “Don’t know,” Vee replied with a shrug. “I do know that Dave and I will take turns on watch tonight, with the short-range sensors turned on to make sure they don’t show up. If they do, I’m fine taking off on short notice and going somewhere else. If we had guns, I’m almost angry enough to strafe someone right now. Or set up top with a longrifle and snipe.”

  “Should I anyway?” Kyriaki asked.

  “No, but thank you for saving our asses,” Vee smiled at her. “No clue what their boss wants. Not a lot of trade or traffic on this planet to work with, other than the need for guns wherever we go.”

  “Should we break out the nasty stuff?” Dave asked with a grimace.

  “Just how nasty can y’all get?” Bayjy seemed to have gotten pale again.

  “Extremely,” Kyriaki spoke up. “I had my pick of things to take. Plasma rifle seemed best, on the assumption that we might want to interrogate prisoners. Had a lovely sniper rifle with me earlier, when I was up top nude.”

  Most blushing. Even Dave felt himself get into the act. Kyriaki as primitive war goddess painted in coconut oil. Bayjy grinned at her friend.

  “We still going down to talk to this Basuk fellow?” Bayjy asked Vee.

  “Yes, but mostly for some sort of short-range transport,” Valentinian said. “Maybe they’ll have something else I want to buy, but nobody really appreciates my collection.”

  “Where did all that come from, anyway?” Kyriaki fixed her bright, blue eyes on the man. “I don’t think my White Hat detachment back home had that many guns.”

  Dave liked the way Vee’s eyes lit up at first. He’d heard the story earlier. And known parts of it before he lined the man up to make his own escape.

  Valentinian laughed and took a deep drink of his juice.

  “Honestly?” he asked after a few moments. “I was in a bar fight and took two guys down with a chair. They both had guns, and I wasn’t about to let them come after me later, so I took the pistols away from them. Kept them, because having an unregistered firearm hidden about the ship might be a useful thing from time to time. Especially if I get a boarder sneaking in through the forward airlock and finding me upstairs working on an engine.”

  “You have guns hidden up there?” Kyriaki’s eyes got serious. “In addition to all the rest in the armory?”

  Dave smiled. Vee smiled. Kyriaki’s mouth dropped open.

  “Should I?” Dave asked expectantly.

  “Go ahead,” Vee said.

  Dave moved around the table to one of the legs that attached it to the deck permanently. He found the burr and pulled on it while pushing a different place under the tabletop itself. A lock clicked and the leg opened to reveal a secret compartment. And a hold-out pistol.

  “How many…?”

  “Every room on this ship,” Valentinian said solemnly. “Including your quarters. I’ll show you where and how to get to them later. For now, I had a collection started. And more bar fights. I started keeping them, rather than chucking them down drains or out airlocks. A few times I did runs for arms dealers, and started swapping this for that. And bought a few pieces outright. Stole a few. What we do to survive. I won’t call it a compulsion, but the galaxy is a dangerous place, and up until very recently, it was me and Artaxerxes against some mean people.”

  “Kinda nice to have friends?” Bayjy asked.

  “You have no idea,” Vee smiled at her.

  “So what books did you buy?” Dave asked. “Nearly forgot, but you two were having a grand time in the bookstore.”

  “I need the local geography, but backwards in time,” Valentinian said. “We have an old treasure map, and I want to find the big X on it. Don’t really need to deal with the locals all that much, but I’m also not going to take any shit from neighborhood warlord punks. When you’re on duty, I’m going to read. If we’re lucky, we can talk to Basuk tomorrow and then go deal with the Muties down on the equator.”

  “And if we’re not?” Kyriaki asked.

  “Then maybe I burn the whole, damned city down first,” Valentinian said with a hard smile. “I’m not playing around.”

  10

  Athanasia

  She had gotten quarters on the station for herself and installed her bodyguards close by, once Athanasia had returned to duty. Or however it was she wanted to quantify the morning after the lovely evening she had just spent.

  Ramazan had fallen asleep wrapped around her, breathing in her ear. She had even fallen asleep herself, which surprised her in ways she had forgotten were possible. Her celibacy had been years in the making.

  Several days had passed. She still seemed to have a bounce in her step that suggested she needed to add that sort of thing to her regular calendar. Not aboard the ship, but most stations could service those needs.


  Yes, it might even be something to look forward to, besides hunting down Dave Hall and killing him. Not even building a small network of spies on this station had done so much for her humor.

  Tonight, she was in a private room at a select club, awaiting the next step in her revenge. She had dressed formally, back into those white robes that conveyed Dominion authority. Ramazan had arranged for her to meet his niece, another woman with an axe to grind, if the rumor mill was to be believed.

  The door was opened by a flunky and the woman arrived. Athanasia rose and took her hand.

  Stephaneria was divorced and in her mid-forties, so a decade younger than Athanasia, but she had that same burning rage underneath.

  Athanasia had gotten some pieces of the story from Ramazan, but not much. Enough, to lead her to other questions. Other sources of information.

  A few other people on the station had even been willing to be bribed for things she didn’t know after she knew what to ask.

  And what Stephaneria thought about Tarasicodissa.

  “Welcome,” she said as the younger woman got settled. “Your uncle and I have spoken a few times, and I’d like to bribe you personally for some information, starting with dinner.”

  She liked the way the other woman’s eyes got shrewd and hooded. They could make common ground, but were still technically enemies from radically different worlds: socially, politically, economically.

  And Athanasia represented Stephaneria in another decade alone, perhaps. She could use that as an edge, as well.

  “You’re hunting Dave Hall and Valentinian Tarasicodissa?” the woman asked.

  Athanasia caught the hint of emphasis on the latter name. Yes, there was a place to stick a knife, as her recent contacts on the station had suggested.

  “I am,” Athanasia nodded. “My mission is to kill Hall, but I also intend to punish the others as well.”

  Punish, rather than just Kill. The woman might still have some emotional attachment to the captain. Many other women apparently had, from what the records had shown, including Inspector Apokapes, for example.

  But then, you’ve been thrown over for one of the two women Valentinian chose to take with him, leaving you behind, didn’t he? That’s what the rumors all say. And I can see it in your eyes.

  “And you believe I can help you?” Stephaneria pressed in a hard, quiet voice.

  “Punishing those two women with him goes hand in hand with what I plan to do to the men,” Athanasia emphasized. “Without your helping me, they might all escape justice and live out long and happy lives elsewhere.”

  Leaving you here to be an old maid librarian, stuck in a forgotten corner of the station while others have adventures? Yes, I know your fears.

  The needles went under the woman’s skin easily. She almost flinched under the words, so closely had Athanasia read her. So well had the watchers known the librarian and her weaknesses.

  “Punish?” Stephaneria said almost unconsciously.

  “Dave Hall was my husband, before all this started,” Athanasia used a longer needle this time. Almost a nail. “He abandoned me. Embarrassed me. Left me behind.”

  Had she slapped the woman, the flinches may have been about the same. As might the rage that suddenly took root in those eyes. Rumors had mentioned the previous husband and the affairs that had broken the marriage apart. That was another avenue that she could use.

  “I want to make that man pay for what he did to me,” Athanasia continued in a cold, hard voice.

  “Yes,” Stephaneria breathed. “I understand that.”

  “I thought you might,” Athanasia let her voice soften.

  Two women, letting their hair down to bitch about men. As it were.

  She let the moment stretch as the other woman flushed and paled alternately under the twin forces of some internal battle.

  “I understand you might know where they’ve gone,” Athanasia stated quietly. “Can you help me?”

  Soft. Supple. The two of us against all the men out there. How great is your rage?

  “I don’t want them to win,” Athanasia continued as the woman remained silent, breathing the words more than speaking them, but the impact on the younger woman was an electric shock.

  “No,” Stephaneria growled suddenly. “He doesn’t get to win.”

  Athanasia didn’t ask which He that might be. Revenge would be broad and inclusive. She waited and watched the woman’s anger boil slowly. They were almost over the rim of the pot now already.

  “I might know where they’re going,” Stephaneria admitted finally.

  Ramazan had hinted as much, without understanding how far she might chase those men. Brags about a crooked card game and a treasure map had never been confirmed, but she wasn’t looking for evidence to put before a magistrate. Just a direction she could sail, on her way to the gates of hell.

  “Tell me,” Athanasia conspired with her, both of their voices low but picking up energy.

  “There is a map,” Stephaneria said.

  Athanasia fought to keep the glee out of her eyes as she nodded conspiratorially, watching this woman twist herself in her jealous rage at being left behind.

  “A treasure map,” the woman continued. “Tarasicodissa had it, but couldn’t tell where it was in the galaxy, so he asked me to help. Bribed me, even.”

  “I’d like to bribe you,” Athanasia offered in a husky voice that was entirely ambiguous about how.

  Stephaneria’s eyes flashed hot under the emotional assault inside her soul. Her smile was a dark, almost malevolent thing that Athanasia recognized from her mirror.

  “I found it for him,” she said, but her eyes had lost focus now, deep inside where the maelstrom of fire and wind fought. “But he left me here. Took them with him. Seduced me with his eyes and his words, and then abandoned me.”

  Yes. I have you now. Tell me, little one. Give me your soul.

  “Go on?”

  “I know which system,” Stephaneria said. “But not where. There were a set of directions and coordinates on one side of the page. He covered those before I copied it. But I have the star and the planet.”

  “What would convince you to share it with me?” Athanasia asked quietly.

  Somehow, they had both ended up leaning forward, until they were breathing on each other at this point. She took a risk and leaned into the younger woman, brushing lips with her. It seemed to be what Stephaneria needed to boil over the pot entirely.

  Her eyes flew open wide and focused on Athanasia, but she didn’t withdraw. Flushed instead. Crimsoned to the tips of her ears.

  But then her eyes turned utterly feral. Angry. Raging.

  She leaned forward herself and returned the kiss. Hot and heavy with emotion.

  Athanasia enjoyed the physicality of the woman as she smelled the musk of Stephaneria’s hatred start to mix with her own.

  The woman finally broke and leaned back. Athanasia did as well, but smiled. Ramazan had been fun, but his niece promised to be even better.

  “I want to go with you,” the younger woman announced, surprising both of them, it seemed. “I want to see you punish them. Help you. Revel in it for what I owe that man.”

  “Are you sure?” Athanasia pressed.

  Having an second killer that they didn’t associate with her would be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, especially if the woman was that desperate for human touch.

  Athanasia could imagine having weeks or months to twist the woman’s hatred, hone it into a sword. It would keep her warm.

  “They don’t get to win,” Stephaneria growled.

  Athanasia leaned forward again. The sudden kiss was as hungry as it was angry.

  Yes. You’ll serve my vengeance nicely.

  11

  Glaxu

  Glaxu had decided to make his approach during the day. Humans were generally a daytime species, so just showing up on someone’s doorstep in the middle of the night was frequently met with weapons and attitude problems.

  Outermost w
as up at a very high altitude this morning, listening on all channels, but he had already locked down his target. Someone was sitting on the ground with an active sensor array pinging every second and a half. Either they were lost and listening for help, or had about the same opinion of the natives that he had.

  One way to find out.

  He configured the fightercraft’s variable geometry for a soft glide and stayed at ten thousand meters elevation. All four wings were out to their widest stretch, and he could almost stall in mid-air this way.

  Below, his target was separated from the city by a reasonable walk, which would make for excellent security. He was coming up on it from what he guessed was aft, and was struck by the overall form.

  Spacecraft didn’t really have to follow any rules of streamlining, since most of the time they didn’t have anything more dense than a solar wind to deal with. Outermost was designed for atmospheric operations as well, so the central spearhead had two canards and two wings, all multiply-hinged for whatever maneuvering needs you had.

  The ship below was a cargo transport, big and somewhat blocky. Interestingly, from here it looked like a Mondi lying flat on the ground, with his legs together and his short wings up and over his head. A rather elegant waste of space, all things considered, but pretty.

  The leg section was probably larder and systems. On his scanners, the wings forward were actually engines, so the ship would fly like he did. Or fly where he had to settle for a glide when jumping from a height.

  Still, a technological species. That was a step up from the weirdoes further north on the equator. Hopefully they’d be able to help him repair his warp systems so he could get off this rock.

  The morning light was just cresting and illuminating the valley where the city hunched angrily. On his screens, he picked up movement. Four humans emerged from the ship that was his target and began to walk.