Deuces Wild Boxed Set: Books 1-4: Beyond the Frontiers, Rampage, Labyrinth, Birthright

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  “Yeah, yeah,” Tabitha grumbled as they filed out the door. “Now, this Guido guy—”

  The door slammed, and they stared at it for a moment.

  “It’s just hard to take him seriously when he has Christmas lights in his hair,” Katsu commented finally, and two others snickered.

  They set off toward Level Fifteen.

  Achronyx, can you find me information on Yeven’s Bar and someone named Don Guido? Theoretically an information broker?

  Are you pulling my leg?

  No, I swear to God that’s his name. Hirotoshi, back me up.

  That was what Guildert said, Hirotoshi agreed. After a moment, he added, I was surprised, too.

  I’ll do what I can. Achronyx sounded doubtful, and Tabitha could hardly blame him. She was wondering if the whole thing was a joke, but it just didn’t seem possible that Guildert would know enough about humans to make a joke like that.

  There were always mysteries, she supposed.

  They found the bar named “Yeven” on the far end of the fifteenth level. It was packed, which made it a little less creepy, but it was altogether just as sticky as the last bar, and there was the smell of the liquor they’d first been given on this station.

  Tabitha and Hirotoshi wrinkled their noses. Katsu, who had not yet been privileged to drink it, didn’t notice. Tabitha, noticing this, leaned over to Hirotoshi.

  “You should buy him one of those drinks,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth.

  “I will not,” Hirotoshi replied calmly. “I would not inflict such a thing on an ally.”

  “You’re no fun, you know that?” She leaned back.

  They got their drinks and went to a booth in the back. No one seemed to take exception to Hirotoshi’s face this time, so they had plenty of time to sip their drinks and observe the other patrons.

  Tabitha, once she had discerned that what she had was the good liquor, downed hers as fast as she could and lifted her empty glass to get another. She smacked her lips as a Torcellan waitress wove between the tables to set it down and take her money.

  “Mmm, mmm. I bet this could get me drunk.”

  “I’ll put a bet against,” Katsu offered gravely.

  “I’ll put a bet for,” Hirotoshi replied after a moment. “It is highly alcoholic, and her nanites have not encountered many drinks of this type before.”

  “You two have yourselves a deal.” Tabitha drained her second drink and held the glass up again. “Although… Dammit, I have to pee. Do you think there’s a bathroom in this place?” She hiccupped, then her eyes narrowed. “If the seat is sticky, I’m using the owner’s tongue to clean it.”

  Yoll Quadrant, QBSS Meredith Reynolds, Never Submit-Never Surrender Bar

  “Which is as good a stopping point as any,” Tabitha rolled her head around. She looked at her beer and tapped the glass. “That’s the problem with being a vampire and trying to drink. You don’t get buzzed easily, and by the time you do… Well, it’s a matter of volume. I’ll be back.”

  She winked at Angie and left, her hips swaying under the black coat. Even though it covered her figure, it wasn’t hard to imagine how everything must look in the tight leather pants underneath.

  Angie stared after her, wide-eyed, and Terrence laughed.

  “Tabitha’s not shy,” he told her.

  George chimed in, “No, she’s not.”

  Angie smiled and took a sip of her beer. She’d been so caught up in listening to Tabitha’s story that she had hardly drunk any of it, and it was getting warm.

  “I had no idea about the stories Tabitha must have,” she said finally. “This is only one of them. Imagine living your whole life like that, out there sticking up for Justice!”

  “Don’t you do that?” George asked, eyeing her quizzically.

  “Yeah,” Lilah chimed in. “Tabitha told us you were a gunnery officer.”

  Angie laughed until she saw that they were all serious. “I mean, I am,” she explained. “But I don’t do anything like what Tabitha does. She’s off tracking people down and bringing them to Justice. I just, you know, make sure all the ordnance is in the right place, and that people know how to use it, and…all of that.”

  “So, in other words, you help keep our ships in the air and help our enemies get dead,” Lilah summarized succinctly. “I’d say you’re out there sticking up for Justice as well.”

  The regulars chorused their agreement and clinked glasses, and Angie clinked hers with theirs shyly.

  “So tell us about you,” Terrence suggested. “You must have had some close calls, right?”

  “Oh, ummm.” Angie’s eyes lit up. “There was one engagement where they were just zipping around the ship, and we couldn’t tell when to fire which guns. When they’d come in range, even for a moment, we'd be firing so fast that the barrels were jamming. Well, I knew that was going to end poorly, so I had people start firing randomly. We couldn’t keep up with the fighters, right? So we just cleared our fighters out of the way and started having a whole set of guns firing, but never the same set twice. That scared them right off, I tell you. They’d been thinking they were so special, zipping around, but once they knew they might get in the way of a blast and there was no way to anticipate it? They fucked right off. So we were able to get the supplies to the colony we were going to once we got them out of our way.”

  “There.” Terrence patted the table. “See? You’ve been doing good stuff.”

  “I have.” Angie was buoyed by their cheer, but a moment later she remembered why she was here listening to this story and her face fell. “But I lost Manny—my boyfriend—and I just don’t know what to do with myself these days. My work doesn’t seem important anymore. He made everything come alive, and without him, things are…a bit gray, I’d have to admit.”

  “Hey, now.” Tabitha had come back. She nudged Angie with her elbow. “No calling yourself boring. Manny made the world interesting because that was the world he saw. You said he cooked, right? It’s like that. You see the ingredients. He saw the dish.”

  “I like thinking of it that way.” Angie nodded. Was it possible that the best way she could remember Manny would be to see the world as happily and as interestedly as he had?

  Angie took a moment to think how she had been holding herself back from experiences because she knew she would want to tell Manny about them.

  When she’d first realized she was going to be talking to Ranger Two, her first thought had been sadness that he wouldn’t hear about it. She had wanted to turn around and walk away.

  He would have been so sad if she had done that. She blinked away tears.

  Tabitha, seeing this, motioned to the others to ignore it, but they were already finding any excuse to look elsewhere. This group looked out for one another. They weren’t going to embarrass the new girl by pointing out that she was crying.

  “So, where was I?” Tabitha asked vaguely.

  “You were in a bar,” Angie reminded her, sniffing and wiping her nose on a bar napkin.

  “Oh, right. The bar fight.”

  “No, you already told me the bit about the bar fight.”

  “Oh, you precious little unicorn.” Terrence reached out to put his hand over Angie’s. “None of Tabitha’s stories have just one bar fight.”

  Angie started laughing, and Tabitha gave Terrence an approving nod. Good job making her laugh.

  “He’s right,” she told Angie. “There are more bar fights. For instance, the one with Don Guido.”

  “I meant to ask about that.” Angie hadn’t been born on Earth, but some jokes traveled just fine, what with all the movies people had brought with them. “Was he a human?”

  “Better,” Tabitha said. “So much better. But I’ll get there. Let me set the scene for you…”

  “I see two Skaines,” Tabitha told Katsu and Hirotoshi.

  Hirotoshi nodded. The two Skaines sat in a booth on one side, deep in conversation, one making grandiloquent gestures as they conversed.

&
nbsp; “He’s gay,” Tabitha pointed out.

  Hirotoshi eyed her from the side. “What makes you so sure of your pronouncement? Are you even sure Skaines have an equivalent in their culture and relationships?”

  “Oh, come ‘on!” She turned to Hirotoshi, jerking her eyes toward the Skaines. “Have you never been around flamboyance? You can’t think… Are you telling me my gaydar is all fucked up?”

  “I’m merely asking,” he looked at the two Skaines, “if perhaps you read too much into the situation.”

  “I’ve got good gut feelings.”

  Ryu snorted.

  Tabitha leaned over. “I didn’t ask you for your opinion.”

  The other guys snorted, and she glared at all of them. “You backstabbing fuckers.”

  This time, everyone including Tabitha chuckled. She returned to covertly paying attention to the Skaines.

  One of them was wearing the soft, well-worn jumpsuit of a station employee, and the other was wearing something that likely went under a spacesuit.

  Neither was armed, but Tabitha’s eyes still narrowed. “I bet they’re just planning their next crime spree. What planet should they go steal from? Which aliens make the best slaves?” She glared. “In fact, I’m going to go over there as soon as I finish my drink.”

  “Kemosabe,” Hirotoshi reported, having listened to the conversation, “the one making all the gestures is talking about his mother’s cooking.”

  “Cooking means creating a new crime. I know all about this stuff.” Tabitha tapped her head and took another gulp. “Just as soon as I finish my drink.

  “He’s describing a chicken dish,” Hirotoshi insisted.

  “Ha! Skaines don’t have chickens. Do you believe me now?”

  “I was just using familiar words. It’s a bird of some sort, roughly the same size as a chicken if I’m interpreting the gestures correctly.”

  “That’s probably a code for something,” Tabitha retorted snidely. “He's describing the size of something he wants to steal. Or kill. Or something.” She hiccupped. “Maybe the size of his member.”

  “The chicken is…” Hirotoshi tilted his head, picking up the audio with his special implants, “stuffed with root vegetables and onions.”

  Her eyes got bigger. “Maybe they're smuggling stuff!”

  Hirotoshi gave her a look. “It’s a recipe. And it’s spiced with something like… I don’t know enough about Skaine spices to tell you.”

  “A bird stuffed with something and then spiced with something. Clearly, they’re smuggling spiked drugs.” Tabitha sat back and gave him a meaningful glance as she downed her drink and held the glass up again. “I’m done with my drink, so I’m going to go fight them. You’re both falling behind, by the way.”

  “You wanted to get drunk. I’m not in a drinking contest.” Katsu shook his head. “I gave up on that pursuit centuries ago.”

  “Good call.” Tabitha rapped the table with her knuckles. “Stay sharp. We’re about to have a fight.”

  “Kemosabe, I really think they’re talking about cooking,” Hirotoshi interjected. “Besides, didn’t we come here to find Don Guido? We already messed up one exchange with an information broker by having a bar fight.”

  “How did we mess that up? We got all the information. For free. And he didn’t die, so he can hardly complain.”

  “I think we should ask around and see if anyone knows Don Guido,” Hirotoshi suggested.

  I’m looking, Achronyx told them. I’m plugged into the station and searching for any spelling I can think of for that name. Looking at all the ships, too.

  Anything we should know about? What about any Skaine ships? There are two shady characters in the bar right now. Tabitha accepted her fifth drink from the waitress and started sipping it immediately.

  I have no ships registered to Skaines, but there is one with a Skaine crew member. It delivers medical supplies.

  Hmmm. Tabitha considered this, frowning.

  Just then a huge alien wearing very fancy clothing swept into the bar. Two more aliens, huge on their own but dwarfed by him, both wearing suits and carrying guns like bodyguards would, came in behind him, along with a few others in his retinue.

  Tabitha and the Tontos looked at one another meaningfully.

  “Bingo,” Tabitha murmured quietly.

  If anyone here was “Don Guido,” it had to be this alien.

  Chapter 12

  Nickie

  Rebus Quadrant, Aboard the Penitent Granddaughter

  Nickie tumbled into the command chair only to fidget for a minute before getting back to her feet to pace across the bridge like a feral cat. “I figure we can pose as the ship that’s supposed to show up to transport the slaves. We can collect whatever part of the payment they were supposed to get on arrival, then instead of rounding up the slaves we turn them on the Skaines holding them.” She folded her arms over her chest and nodded once decisively. “It’ll be a cakewalk.”

  “I find your confidence slightly alarming.” Grim sighed, though he didn’t protest the idea. “It’s like saying ‘what could possibly go wrong?’ right before you put in for retirement.”

  Rather than offer him some sort of reply, Nickie instead asked, “Meredith! What can you tell me about the situation we’re heading toward?”

  “My intel suggests there are at most five hundred colonists,” Meredith replied, taking the cue from Nickie and speaking out loud. “The colony is called ‘Themis,’ and is operating at level-two terraforming.”

  “A mining colony, then,” Nickie mused, cocking her head to one side as she pondered what that would involve. “Well, at least that means it will have an atmosphere.”

  “That seems the most likely situation, yes,” Meredith confirmed. “I feel compelled to point out that there are very few species that can survive without a breathable atmosphere, so that seems to be a rather unlikely concern regardless.”

  Ignoring the statement, Nickie stretched her arms over her head and once again fell back into her chair. Staying still for a few minutes was something other people did. “What sort of trouble should we expect?”

  A report centered itself in her vision for her to glance over.

  Meredith continued talking. “There is only a small contingent of Skaines guarding the colonists. I suspect they aren’t expecting much trouble while they wait for transport.”

  Nickie shifted sideways in her chair, flinging her legs over one armrest. “Any other ships in the area?”

  “Not yet,” Meredith answered. “And unless the situation changes, there aren’t any others due to show up until roughly two hours after our likely arrival.”

  Nickie let her head loll back, humming thoughtfully as she stared at the ceiling. “I guess this means we’ll seriously need to have our shit together,” she observed eventually. “We’ll need to get the colony cleared of Skaines before backup appears.”

  She sat back up, letting her feet land on the floor again, and leaning over to fold her forearms on her knees. “Get in touch with the colony without alerting any of the Skaines. We need the Skaines to believe we’re the transport they’re expecting, but we don’t want the colonists trying to fight us.”

  “Understood,” Meredith agreed. “I’ll get started.”

  “And see what you can find about their numbers,” Nickie added hastily. “The Skaines, I mean. Their shifts and where they’re stationed, too. And ideally what frequency they’re communicating on.”

  “Leave it to me,” Meredith assured her.

  The data feed scrolled past the edge of Nickie’s vision as she began scanning possible avenues of communication, but she ignored it for the time being. Instead, she turned her attention to Grim, who had been conspicuously silent throughout the entire exchange. He was watching her thoughtfully.

  “Anything to add?” Nickie asked pointedly, leaning back in her chair and crossing one knee over the other. She stretched the top leg out to point at him with her toes. “You’ve been very quiet. I expected more
complaining.”

  Grim rolled his eyes. “Your plan seems solid enough, even if I still think trying something like this with hardly any crew is crazy,” he replied, shrugging one shoulder. “I’ll go along with it. Besides, I’m a chef. I doubt I’ll have much to do with all this.”

  Nickie grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Ah, come on, Grimkins. You know I wouldn’t let you miss out on all the fun!”

  His mandibles pulled tight to his mouth in irritation. “Why, thank you, Nick-Knack.”

  For a second Nickie looked almost comically offended by the absurd nickname, but then she huffed out a reluctant laugh and shrugged. “Fair play.” She sighed. “Fine, fine. I’ll stick with just Grim.” She hopped to her feet once again and leveled the tip of one finger at him. “I’m going to go get ready for whatever’s waiting for us. You should do the same. Expect the unexpected, blah blah blah. You get it.”

  That said, she turned on her heels and swanned off the bridge. They were on a battleship, after all. She had to assume there were some very fun toys that would come in handy stashed away in the nooks and crannies.

  Rebus Quadrant, Skaine Ship Boh’Locks 881

  Captain Karvar paced across the bridge. Every so often he glanced at the viewing screen, but there was never much to see in space after a ship got a certain distance from a port or a planet.

  “A little over two hours until we reach our destination,” the pilot reported without needing to be asked. The question had come up four times over the last hour.

  Karvar sighed and finally stopped pacing, to instead sag back into the command chair. “We should be making better time than this,” he groused. “We’re supposed to be professionals.”

  “We’re not making bad time,” his first officer pointed out, glancing up from his station. “It could certainly be going worse.”

  “I really doubt the prospective buyers on Corona Darth are going to be quite so understanding about it,” Karvar replied dryly. “The station isn’t exactly known for being filled with warm and fuzzy people.”