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

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Grim pulled his communicator out and tried to connect a call. It felt like it rang for an eternity before Nickie answered and he filled her in on the situation.

  It had seemed that everything was going so well until the shouting started. Clearly, the situation wasn’t good, but it had appeared as though everyone had been more focused on trying to put everything back together. As he watched the mayhem unfold, he supposed it was only natural for tensions to run high.

  He caught Melissa and Jack by their elbows when it looked like they were going to try to take their own shouting match even further. Even Keen was yelling by then, trying to get Tracy and Harry to screw their heads back on straight and act like rational human beings again. No one else needed to add more fuel to the fire.

  “I would leave them to it,” Grim cautioned, tugging Melissa and Jack away from the fracas. “No one needs either of you making the situation any worse.”

  Though Jack scowled at the perceived insult, Melissa simply shrugged as she silently conceded the point and took a few steps back. She couldn’t go far, though. A rather impressive crowd had gathered around the arguing trio, making it impossible to get past without physically fighting through the wall of people.

  Though only a few minutes had passed when the main doors opened and Nickie stormed in, Grim couldn’t help but sigh in relief. Nickie breezed closer like a cloud passing over a field until she was elbowing her way into the middle of the crowd.

  “That is enough!” she barked.

  She slammed her way into the arguing knot shoulder-first, and Harry and Tracy both fell silent mid-shout as they stumbled away. Grim caught Keen as he backpedaled out of Nickie’s path.

  “I don’t care who started it or why,” Nickie growled. “I’m ending it. Whatever you’re fighting about, it’s not that important. It’s definitely not important enough to start acting like the fucking Skaines, though I’m sure they would all be thrilled to see how you’re behaving now.”

  The colonists seemed to wilt as one, growing quiet save for a few discontented murmurs. Still, Tracy gave one last valiant effort at making his point heard.

  “But he—“ Nickie leveled him with a glare that could have set a cruiser on fire. He closed his mouth so quickly he nearly bit the end of his tongue off.

  “Bad things happen,” she stated simply, though her tone brooked no argument. “This is not a just universe. You can do everything right and do your best at everything, and bad things still happen. It’s no one’s fault. No one caused it. It’s just life.”

  Grim shuffled closer as he listened, glancing around at the colonists. None of them looked especially cheered by the dour speech, and even if it had stopped the argument, he wasn’t sure if it was quite what any of them needed to hear just then.

  But Nickie wasn’t finished.

  “Even if it was no one’s fault—even if no one did anything wrong—that doesn’t give you the right to be horrible to each other.” She settled a meaningful look on Tracy and then on Harry. “Pinning it on a scapegoat won’t make you feel any better. You don’t get to be monsters because monsters found you. The only thing that’s going to make you feel any better is proving that you’re still better than those fuckers and that they haven’t ruined the rest of your life. The only thing that’s going to help is moving forward. You’ve all got legs. Use them.”

  She planted her hands on her hips and looked around. “Anyone else want to say anything?”

  The crowd was conspicuously quiet after that. Nickie nodded once in satisfaction, and the crowd parted to let her walk away.

  “Good. Now, at least some of you follow me so I can show you how those weapons work. They won’t do much good if they just sit in storage.”

  Slowly, the others began to follow her as she walked away, like a chain of befuddled ducklings following the first adult duck they spotted.

  Quite a speech.

  Meredith sounded contemplative as she made the observation.

  Yeah, well. It got them all to shut up.

  Here I was hoping that you possibly believed that bit about it not being anyone’s fault.

  “This,” Nickie began, holding a chrome spike with a red orb on top of it up like she was presenting it to royalty, “is a perimeter marker.”

  She slammed it toward the ground, sinking it into the dirt until the waist-height spike was only knee-high. “When it’s active, the ball lights up. You line up a whole fuck-ton of them around whatever perimeter needs to be guarded.”

  She moved on, picking up a small turret. “This is, ah…perimeter permissions,” she explained coyly, grinning when it at least got a few chuckles out of the group gathered around her. “If someone approaches the perimeter, the markers will catch them and alert the guard station, and whoever’s on guard can tell the markers if they’re welcome. If they are, they can pass through the perimeter just fine. If they aren’t welcome, then the perimeter permissions,” there she paused to waggle the turret in her hands, “will turn them into artisanal cheese.”

  She set the turret down and picked up a red orb about the size of a beach ball. “This is an atmospheric marker,” she explained, holding it over her head. “You tell them how high to fly, and they monitor any ships that pass them and alert the guard station. If the ship has permission to be there or is otherwise benign, the guard does nothing and the ship lands safely. If the ship is hostile, the guard tells the markers, and the markers turn into bludgeons and crash into the invading ship as many times as it takes to wreck their shit.”

  She plonked it back down on the ground, planting one foot on top of it to keep it from rolling away. It made a heavy, hollow booooong sound when she did. “These babies will follow the asswipe all the way down to the ground if they have to, and if that still doesn’t dissuade them, they’ll turn their attention to anything coming off the ship. You can even set them up to link up with the nearest perimeter markers if you really want to ruin someone’s day.”

  She pulled her foot off the orb and stepped back, gesturing toward the various pieces to let the colonists investigate them. “They’re all inactive and perfectly harmless right now unless you decide to hit each other over the head with them or some shit like that. Please don’t.”

  You sound like you’re having fun.

  Little bit. It’s nice to have a chance to distract everyone, at least.

  So should I wait until later to give you the news?

  Nickie meandered a few steps away from the colonists as Keen inspected the turret and Raynard tapped his knuckles on the atmospheric marker in academic curiosity.

  What sort of news are we talking about?

  I believe I’ve found a lead on the Skaines who made the retaliatory attack.

  A clip from the colony’s security footage of a Skaine cruiser landing appeared on her HUD. It was smaller than the previous two Skaine ships the colony had seen, but Nickie supposed if they had come with purely violent intent, it wouldn’t take a lot of them of them to do a lot of damage.

  The footage paused after only a few seconds and zoomed in on the name on the side of the ship.

  “The El’hana,” Nickie muttered under her breath, too low for any of the colonists to hear her. Grim, though, was giving her a concerned look. Nickie flapped a hand at him and held a finger up a “one moment” gesture.

  Think we could track it down?

  Nickie folded her arms over her chest and began tapping her foot, antsy energy and the desire to get moving again already starting to flood her.

  I believe so, yes.

  That was all Nickie needed to know. She turned toward the colonists again, hands settling on her hips.

  “All right!” she announced, louder than was strictly necessary to get everyone’s attention. “Meredith will get with Raynard and make sure he has all the information he needs on how to set all these up and program them properly. This is where I leave you. I have a few chores to get out of the way.”

  Though the colonists seemed a bit leery about her leavi
ng already, no one tried to stop her when she strode toward her ship with Grim loping after her.

  Chapter 7

  Nickie

  Rebus Quadrant, Aboard the Penitent Granddaughter, Bridge

  Nickie dropped into the command seat and propped her feet on Lucky’s head. Grim stationed himself behind the first officer’s console.

  “Why the abrupt departure?” he asked, confusion evident in his tone. “Is there a problem?”

  “Not necessarily a problem,” Nickie replied. She glanced over her shoulder, spotting Durq lurking at his usual workstation. “You ever heard of the El’hana?”

  Durq blinked at her dumbly for a moment before he finally replied. “Sort of? I-it was a while ago? All of my info would, uh, be, uh, out of date at best.”

  Nickie waved him off, unconcerned. “We’ll check the job database, then. They’re an active Skaine ship, which means they need to work, and that’s the most convenient way for them to find work. Odds are we’ll find them on there somewhere.”

  “I’ll start looking,” Meredith replied. The database appeared at the edge of Nickie’s vision, entries scrolling too fast for Nickie to register.

  “What’s the El’hana?” Grim asked, bemused. “Or is no one going to tell me what’s going on here and why we’re in such a hurry?” Already the ship was making the telltale growling noises that meant it was getting ready to take off. “And if anyone says ‘it’s a Skaine ship,’ I will throw Brandy at you.”

  “It’s the ship that invaded Themis after we left,” Meredith answered.

  Nickie scowled. “It’s the ship piloted by the sonsabitches who killed eighty percent of the colonists,” she added, vengefully. “And we’re going to find those bastards and show them exactly what we think of what they’ve done.” Her hands tightened into fists on her armrests.

  “Oh,” Grim replied faintly. “I see.”

  “Any objections?” she challenged.

  “No, no,” Grim mumbled in reply, staring down at the console in front of him. “I’m good.”

  The bridge was silent after that save for the sounds of the ship. It was a lot to think about, considering it was to be a revenge killing.

  Meredith broke the silence. “The El’hana will be picking up a shipment of slaves in three days. I suspect they will need to lie low beforehand, both to restock and to prevent anyone from catching on to what they’re doing.” The database on Nickie’s HUD scrolled rapidly to the proper entry. “Of the handful of viable locations for them to stop before they begin their job, I suspect that Vanquisher Space Station is the most likely.”

  “What makes Vanquisher so special?” Nickie asked even as she confirmed the coordinates to begin heading in its direction.

  “It’s near the colony their job is on, and it has considerably more amenities than Ravager or Shelloc Station,” Meredith replied. “It will allow them to refuel and restock while also allowing them to remain anonymous in comfort.”

  Nickie nodded absentmindedly in agreement. “Vanquisher it is, then,” she mused. “We can kick their asses for what they did on Themis and what they’re trying to do now. It’ll be a two-for-one deal.”

  Grim drummed his fingers on his console. “We’re sure these are the Skaines who attacked the colony?”

  “Positive,” Meredith assured him.

  “It sounds like something the captain would do,” Durq added, although it sounded like he was mumbling it to himself.

  “That’s settled, then,” Nickie decided, nodding once as if to close out the argument. She stretched her arms over her head and arched her back away from the seat before slumping back into it, her arms landing on the armrests once again.

  Grim watched her quietly for a few minutes. At first, it seemed as if she were focusing on the main viewing screen with almost single-minded intensity, until it became apparent that her thoughts were a thousand miles away.

  Slowly, he moseyed over to the command chair, stopping beside it.

  “Credit for your thoughts?” he asked. Nickie jerked in surprise as she snapped back to the present. She looked up at him sharply, and Grim had to pull his mandibles tight to his mouth to keep from laughing at her reaction.

  She swatted at him half-heartedly with the back of one hand. “Asshole.”

  Grim was beginning to think she was simply going to keep her thoughts to herself when Nickie suddenly glanced around and motioned for him to come closer. He leaned down to hear her when she started to speak.

  Nickie’s voice was low so Durq wouldn’t hear her from across the bridge. “We need to get rid of the Skaines. Just…all of them. They need to be done. Gone. Over with. Every last fucking one of them. None of them can be expected to be civilized at this point.”

  She was calm as she said it, as if she had simply come to an ordinary, everyday conclusion. “These ones are just going to be first.”

  Grim shifted uncomfortably. “What about the ones who were selling weapons to the Leath?” he asked slowly. “I mean, you did promise Molly you would handle them.”

  Nickie waved it off, unconcerned. “They fall into the category of ‘all the Skaines,’” she pointed out, sounding a bit too reasonable for the decision she was making. “We can get to them later. Molly and I aren’t exactly old and decrepit. I’ll have plenty of time to keep my promise to her.”

  Grim nodded slowly in agreement. “All right,” he replied after a moment. “If you’re really set on doing that, I’m not deluded enough to think I can change your mind.”

  Nickie grinned up at him. “I always knew you were clever.”

  Rebus Quadrant, Vanquisher Space Station, The Squires of the Fates Bar

  On any ordinary day, the bar would have been pretty quiet. It wasn’t the fanciest bar on the station, but it wasn’t the plainest, either. As a result, it tended to attract a very in-the-middle sort of crowd.

  On most days.

  Today it was full of Skaines who were all high from a job well done and eager to tell everyone about it, regardless of the fact that no one else in the bar wanted to listen to them.

  “And so I says to the guy… Do you know what I said to him?” Belk rumbled out an unsteady laugh, and his whiskey slopped over the side of his glass. If nothing else, at least the loudest of them were too drunk to realize that no one was paying attention to them.

  “We all know wha—" Gern broke off to hiccup, then threw back the last of his drink. “What you said,” he finished, slamming his empty glass onto the bar top. “We’ve heard this story, like…four trillion times.”

  Belk butted his head against Gern’s, sending him pitching sideways off his stool. “I barely had time to-to tell it twice,” Belk insisted before he finished his whiskey. He emphasized his words by picking up his glass and giving it another purposeful thump. “Hey. Heyyyyyy,” he repeated louder, waving his empty glass over his head like a banner. To say he was slurring didn’t do his tone justice.

  By the time one of the bartenders made her way over, she had long since given up on even pretending to be pleasant, instead eying the puddles the pair of them had slopped on the bar. And that wasn’t even getting into the rest of the Skaines who had taken over half the bar. She was pretty sure they had broken at least three of the chairs since their arrival.

  “More of the same?” she asked flatly. From the corner of her eye, she could see her coworker fetching a mop from the closet.

  “Make mine a double this time,” Gern interrupted, scrambling awkwardly back onto his stool. It had been designed for someone several inches taller than him, but he seemed unperturbed.

  “Yeah, yeah, that sounds good,” Belk agreed eagerly, waggling his empty glass in the bartender’s face.

  With heroic willpower, she refrained from rolling her eyes at them before she took their empty glasses away and brought them their refills.

  Belk downed a quarter of his refill in a couple of gulps, liquor slopping down the corners of his mouth. “Hey, d-do you want to know what I said to the guy?” he asked, l
eaning as far over as he could to talk to the woman at the other end of the bar.

  She looked like she would rather be anywhere else in the world, and she stared down intently at her beer and her wrist holo. She asked, “What’d you say?” only because it seemed like a faster way to get him to leave her alone than ignoring him or telling him to get lost.

  Belk wobbled on his stool and grabbed the edge of the bar to keep himself from toppling to the floor. “I-I said ‘this is what happens when slaves don’t know their goddamn place,’ and then I ripped his throat out and left him on the floor.”

  The woman flinched and hunched over her wrist holo as if Belk would simply disappear if she pretended he wasn’t there hard enough. Both bartenders went still and shared an uneasy look, but they both already knew that station security didn’t have much of a say in what the Skaines did if they didn’t actually do it on the station.

  Belk eyed the woman until it was incredibly obvious that she wasn’t going to say anything. He scoffed and leaned away, grumbling to himself before he took another gulp from his glass.

  Gern elbowed Belk sharply, and his voice was too loud when he said, “Aw, come on, that’s nothing.”

  “If you got something better, then share it,” Belk challenged, glowering at him petulantly.

  “I found one of those, uh…those spike things they use for…some shit in the mines, I don’t know. I don’t do peasant work.” He waved it off, unconcerned, before he held his hands up a good foot apart. “That big. Kinda rusty. Still pretty sharp. And I-I cornered a guy in a storage room, and he was blubbering like a little bitch, all snotty and loud, and I ripped his throat with the spike. A-and then, before he’d died, I nailed him to the wall with the spike-whatever-it-was. Modern art, if you ask me.” He lifted his drink and downed it in one go before slamming his glass back down and belching. He laughed belatedly, evidently oblivious to the fact that half of the bar’s occupants were trying very hard to pretend that he wasn’t speaking.