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

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  He leaned over and elbowed Belk again. “See? Bet you can’t top that.”

  “Don’t touch me,” Belk groused, swatting Gern’s arm away and emptying his glass again. Before he could demand another refill he wobbled, and with a startled shout, he tipped over backward and tumbled off the stool to land in a heap on the floor. With a groan, he lifted an arm to paw at the stool before deciding that getting back up was just too much work.

  A moment later there was a snore, loud, soggy, and not entirely unlike a fog horn. Gern squinted down at him and jiggled his stool side-to-side for a few seconds, purposely bonking Belk in the side of the head with one of the stool’s legs. Belk didn’t stir and kept on snoring.

  With a shrug, Gern picked up Belk’s mostly empty glass and drained the dregs of it before slamming it back down to the bar top again.

  With his company suddenly considerably worse at carrying on a conversation, Gern hopped down from the stool and wobbled toward the door. He got halfway there before he remembered that he should probably pay.

  “My tab’s on him,” he decided, flapping a hand in Belk’s direction before he went out the door. He nearly walked into a support beam five feet away from the bar.

  Rebus Quadrant, Vanquisher Space Station

  We have permission to dock. I assume you are ready to disembark.

  I’ve been ready since we set the coordinates.

  Meredith made no response to that, so Nickie simply checked her weapons one last time and headed for the airlock. She met Grim halfway there, and he trotted after her for a few steps before catching up and slowing to a walk.

  He followed her in silence as they made their way off of the ship, out of the docking bay, and farther into the station. It wasn’t like Minerva Outpost, which had been designed to make people want to shop and spend money. Instead, Vanquisher was comparatively utilitarian. While individual locations were as dolled up as could be, the station itself looked almost industrial, with beams, supports, and struts bared. The flooring was simply metal tiles, and all that had been covered were the aspects that had to be hidden for safety. There weren’t even any windows except in specific businesses.

  It wasn’t the most cheerful place to stay, but it did its job well enough, and the fact that it wasn’t particularly pretty didn’t seem to have kept anyone away from it.

  It wasn’t long before Nickie and Grim came upon a bar, only just far enough from the docking bay that it couldn’t be accused of encouraging irresponsible behavior. Small and reasonably unadorned, it didn’t stand out particularly from any other bar, despite its decidedly grandiose name.

  They came to a halt a few meters from the bar, and a cursory glance made it clear that there weren’t many Skaines inside at that point. There were a few, but the majority of the patrons were Yollin and Zhyn, with a smattering of humans.

  Most notably, though, there were two rather inebriated Skaines right outside the bar, slumped in front of a support beam. They were grumbling at each other and pushing each other halfheartedly. They were barely even conscious.

  Nickie gave them a brief once-over before deciding that they would do, and she took off at a jog toward them, forcing Grim to keep up.

  She dropped to a crouch in front of the two Skaines and grabbed one by the front of his shirt. She hauled him close and gave him a shake, and when that didn’t get enough of a reaction, she slapped him across the face.

  “Go awaaaay.” He groaned, flailing a hand at her without much luck. “Sleepiiiiiing.”

  Nickie punched him, which seemed to wake him up. He blinked several times and scowled at her as he slurred, “What d’ya want? We didn’t do nothing.”

  “I’m looking for the crew of the El’hana,” Nickie replied, and she gave him another harsh shake when it looked like he was contemplating drifting off again.

  His companion replied, grumbling almost inaudibly, “Ship left. Not here anymore.” He flapped a hand at Nickie and rolled over as if the support beam he was leaning against was as comfortable as a pillow.

  Granted, given what Nickie knew of Skaine home decorating, maybe it was.

  “Fuck off,” the Skaine still dangling from Nickie’s hold contributed intelligently. “We didn’t do shit.” He squiggled in a manner that was maybe supposed to be intimidating, but given his lack of coordination, it came across more like a cat trying to get out of a sweater.

  For a long moment, Nickie stared at them both. Maybe they weren’t part of the El’hana’s crew, but they were still Skaines. It seemed like a sure bet that they had done something to get them into trouble at some point or another. It was what the Skaines did, after all.

  She let go of the front of the Skaine’s shirt, and her fingers curled into a fist, tight and bloodless. They were both so drunk they would hardly be able to do anything, and she doubted they would even remember her face by the time they sobered up. It wouldn’t be a big deal.

  Grim grabbed her shoulder and she jolted in surprise, dropping the Skaine back to the floor as she did. She stared up at Grim blankly, as if she had completely forgotten he was there.

  Slowly, as if he were trying to negotiate with a mountain lion, Grim asked, “Since we aren’t going to find what we’re looking for here, how about we get a drink?” He motioned to the bar behind them with one hand.

  With stiff, mechanical movements, Nickie looked at the bar and slowly straightened back up to her full height. “Right. A drink,” she agreed belatedly, before she pivoted on her heel and walked into the bar. Grim glanced back at the Skaines as he followed her, but they were both already drifting off again, still grumbling. As he watched, a Yollin stepped over them while hurrying on her way.

  As they stepped into the bar, Grim could just barely hear one of the Skaines mumble, “I think we almost got mugged by a bounty hunter.” Grim shook his head and shoved the pair of them out of his mind for the time being.

  Nickie snagged a stool at one end of the bar, and Grim stood and folded his arms on the top. One of the bartenders stopped in front of them with a cordial, “What’ll it be?”

  “Whiskey,” Grim replied. “Yollin, if you have it. No ice, and don’t be stingy.”

  “I’ve had a really bad day,” Nickie added. “Surprise me.”

  The bartender’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t comment as he walked away. Evidently, it wasn’t the first time such a request had been made, since as he returned just a few moments later with a pair of glasses. Grim’s drink was the familiar amber of whiskey, but Nickie’s was possibly the most violent shade of green either of them had ever had seen.

  “Bottoms up,” the bartender offered as he set their drinks down, before moving down to the other end of the bar to tend to the Zhyn who was trying to flag him down.

  Nickie gave her drink a slightly dubious sniff, but it was the only sign she offered that she wasn’t quite sure what it was. If she cared, she offered no indication of it. In fact, she offered no real indication of anything that was on her mind just then.

  Grim could hazard a guess. Between her taking off into the mines, the speech she had delivered to the colonists, and the close call she’d had with the drunken Skaines, he was pretty sure it was the least in control of her emotions she had been in quite some time.

  He offered no comments on the matter, though. Instead, when she finally picked up the shot glass to cautiously sip it, Grim held his glass out expectantly. Nickie eyed his glass for a second before rolling one shoulder in a lazy shrug and tapping the rim of her glass against his. It made a quiet ringing sound, and she pulled her glass close again.

  After one last wary sniff, she took the smallest possible sip from her drink and recoiled slightly as soon as it touched her tongue. Grim masked his laughter behind the rim of his glass. Not fooled for an instant, Nickie scowled at him, but it was halfhearted at best.

  She didn’t dislike the drink, though, even if the strength of it was enough to sweep her legs out from under her. As if to prove that it couldn’t best her, she threw her head back
and downed it in one quick gulp.

  It burned all the way down, but it was a pleasant, familiar sort of burn. It left her feeling like she was buzzing after just one shot of it. Knowing it was probably a bad idea, she couldn’t help but contemplate asking for another.

  Grim sipped his drink at a more sedate pace. As if he could read her thoughts, he cleared his throat. “Please don’t make it so I’ll have to carry you back to the ship,” he requested dryly. “It will be embarrassing for both of us.”

  With a snort, Nickie punched his shoulder with her free hand. Still, she had to admit that it was probably a bad idea to go for seconds. There was relaxing, and then there was being a sloppy drunk. The latter didn’t sound appealing.

  He didn’t seem inclined to talk after that, and she didn’t feel much of a need to break the silence as he finished his drink. She felt calmer by then, or less ready to let her fists fly, at any rate. There was a time and a place for giving Skaines what for, after all. Nothing good would come of it if she decided to throw down with every incidental Skaine she saw.

  Vigilantes were supposed to fight for Justice, after all. They weren’t supposed to fight just because it felt good to fight.

  Chapter 8

  Nickie

  Rebus Quadrant, Aboard the Penitent Granddaughter, Bridge

  As the ship undocked and prepared to leave the space station, Nickie stared at the quadrant map that had taken over most of the main viewing screen. Her elbows were on her knees, and her fingers were steepled in front of her chin. Grim was in the kitchen, and Durq was probably helping him. Nickie was alone with her thoughts.

  “So if they aren’t here,” she groused, scowling at the map, “then where the fuck are they?” The map offered her no answers or explanations.

  Meredith’s reply was matter-of-fact. The Skaines you questioned said they had left, so clearly they were there.

  Which means they’d already restocked and were headed elsewhere to lay low. There are a few likely options in the general area. Which one seems the most likely?

  Nickie asked the question without taking her attention from the map, her patience already beginning fray at the edges. Meredith wasted no time.

  The map shifted, highlighting and then zooming in on a specific system and then one planet in particular.

  This is Swapayama. Technically speaking it is a human colony, but it’s very sparsely populated and has only a few villages.

  Atmospheric readouts and population density reports appeared at the edge of the map.

  The atmosphere is habitable for the Skaines, and the colony is not advanced enough to notice if they have company, as long as the Skaines do not announce their presence. They can remain undetected until it is time for them to complete their job.

  Nickie slumped down in her seat and scuffed one boot against the floor.

  Great. Just what we need. A shipful of hostile Skaines hiding on another human colony. Because that definitely didn’t fuck everyone over the last few times it happened. Skaines and humans go together like oil and water.

  We’ll be there shortly. There’s no sense in getting worked up about it already.

  Well, plot a course, then. I want to be there, like…yesterday.

  I’m afraid time travel is a bit outside this ship’s capabilities, but I will come as close as I can.

  Nickie grumbled, less actual words and more just indistinct nonsense syllables to make her displeasure with the entire situation known. Her displeasure was not subtle. Everyone was aware of it.

  She levered herself reluctantly upright in the command chair before getting to her feet. She stretched, reaching over her head and arching backward until her spine popped, then headed toward the door.

  I’ll be busy once we make it to Swapayama. I’m going to go shovel down some food and get ready. Last thing we need is to be caught with our pants down and our asses hanging out on some backwater little spit of a colony.

  With that decision made, she left the bridge. Meredith would let her know once they were close enough to start worrying. In the meantime, she had other things to think about, and someone had to let Grim know what was going on.

  Rebus Quadrant, Regleon System, Planet Swapayama

  The community center had been the heart of the village for years. Building it had been a community event, not unlike a barn raising, and nearly everyone attended parties and celebrations in it at least a few times a month. It was a simple building, but well-loved all the same.

  A Molotov cocktail arced through the air toward it, hitting the roof of it and erupting into flames. Three more followed, one of them landing in the doorway and blowing the main door off of its hinges.

  Finally, a grenade smashed through one of the windows, and when it exploded, it took out an entire corner of the building.

  It was just a bit of light entertainment as far as the Skaines were concerned. Most of the villagers had fled into the underground shelter as soon as they saw the El’hana landing outside the village. They were just flushing out the last few who hadn’t managed to make it into the shelter.

  If nothing else, it was a good excuse to let off a bit of steam before they had to buckle down to work, and they had managed to find some unexpected goodies as they made their way through the largely empty village.

  A good evening, all things considered. A good way to get ready for the next job.

  With a roar of laughter, seven Skaines slammed their weight against a shed until the thing gave up on staying upright. With a groan and a series of cracking sounds, the wood conceded. One wall cracked and fell forward, and the rest of the shed tipped to the side in one piece before breaking apart.

  There were two girls huddled together in the space where the shed had been. The older of the two was only in her early twenties. The younger one couldn’t have been older than sixteen. They clung to each other as they waited for the Skaines to kill them. They probably would have preferred for that to happen.

  Instead, Gern laughed and grabbed the older one by the hair. She shrieked and stumbled after him on all fours as he started pulling her away, until she managed to trip her way to her feet. With her head cocked at an odd angle to try to minimize how hard he was pulling, she followed behind him.

  “Trina!” the younger one shrieked even as she scrambled up to her feet and got ready to run. She only made it a few steps before Belk tackled her into the dirt, his arms around her middle. She screamed and flailed, thrashing like a fish on a line, but it didn’t do any good. His grip was too strong, and it seemed like it took zero effort for him to get back to his feet and sling her over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

  As he carried her away, she could see the hatch that led into the community shelter. Even from a distance, she could tell it was locked. There was no way to open it from the outside. Even if she had managed to make it over there, there was no way anyone below would hear her shouting. Even if they did, they wouldn’t get it open before the Skaines scooped her up again.

  She tried to be grateful that her friends and family were safe, or at least most of them were. She could see a few bodies on the ground near where the community center was burning. She tried not to be jealous or resentful of the fact that she had been locked out and abandoned. If she was going to die in the next few hours, she didn’t want to die angry.

  Belk adjusted the way he was carrying her, shifting her weight and jolting her back to the present, even if that was the last place she wanted to be.

  She kicked and flailed and thrashed the entire way back to the ship, her fists hammering ineffectually against Belk’s back. He didn’t even seem to notice, and he didn’t let her go until he dumped her on the ground beside the ship on the far side of the Skaine encampment.

  She landed in a heap and immediately tried crawling toward the woods. She could lose them in the trees and make a mad dash for the next village over.

  She only made it a couple of feet before Belk planted a foot against her shoulder and kicked her back. She landed on her backsid
e beside the other girls, and a moment later all six of them were chained together by their wrists. He sank one end of the chain into the ground like he was tethering a dog, and with a harsh laugh that sounded more like a growl, he patted her on the head and made his way back to the festivities.

  She looked around quickly to see if there was something—anything—she could use to break the chain, but there was nothing there. She didn’t even have enough space to get her hands free by breaking her thumbs. As drastic as that sounded, it was a sacrifice she was willing to make just then.

  “Kelly, there’s no use,” one of the others told her, but she shook her head quickly. There had to be something she could do.

  She threw her weight forward to try to rip the chain free of the dirt. All she managed to do was fall over sideways onto the ground, her arms at an awkward angle. She squirmed and yanked on the chain for a few more minutes until she exhausted all of her energy and went limp in the grass. She stayed there, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath, but she couldn’t quite manage to do it.

  It felt like she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. One of the others was petting her hair, but it sort of felt like it was happening to someone else. Her chest felt too tight, her head hurt, and each breath felt like she was trying to draw it past a stone in her throat.

  She curled into a ball as much as she could just then, pulling her arms up to hide her face as she sobbed. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her or to Trina or the others, but she had a feeling she wasn’t going to see her friends or her family again after that night. She wasn’t even sure if she would still be alive by morning, and if she were, she wasn’t sure she would want to be.