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

by Ell Leigh Clarke

But that wasn’t why Nickie had fought them. She had fought them because she was angry. With them, and with everything else.

  Hate the sin but not the sinner, people said. Nickie had never given the phrase too much thought. A bit too much philosophy for her taste and she had never been one for pseudo-religious babble. Just then, though, she was pretty sure she understood what the words were supposed to mean.

  She sat up in a hurry, grabbing the edge of her towel and tossing it to the floor as she got to her feet. Hastily, she got dressed, tugging her clothes on with impatient motions. She had barely finished stomping her feet into her boots by the time she was out the door and on the way to the bridge. She took each step at nearly a run, as if the realization would flee and leave her right back where she started if she didn’t get to the bridge in double-time.

  The bridge was empty when Nickie stepped through the doors, but that wasn’t a surprise. Grim was in the kitchen, and as timid as Durq was, he still didn’t like to be alone. If he wasn’t asleep, he was probably in the kitchen with Grim.

  She strode through the bridge with hurried steps and threw herself down in the command chair. She could have done this from anywhere, she supposed, but getting up and going to the bridge made it feel more official. Like she was actually doing something worth a good goddamn about the problem.

  Meredith. I need you to look something up for me.

  Of course. What do you need?

  Those fuckers I promised Molly I would deal with. Any idea how we might track them down?

  For a moment, Nickie was worried that Meredith would tell her it would take days or weeks to track them back down. She had sort of let them slip from her mind when something more personal had popped up. Considering that, Meredith’s next words were as refreshing as a glass of icy lemonade.

  I have been loosely keeping tabs on them. I thought it was for the best. I knew that eventually we would need to know where they ran off to.

  Meredith, you are officially my favorite.

  I will do my best to be adequately honored by such esteem.

  The Skaine job database appeared at the edge of Nickie’s vision, scrolling rapidly. Completed jobs and new ones alike were highlighted and pulled aside.

  They have remained clustered in this area, and they have two active jobs at this moment. They are on neighboring planets. Considering that, there are a few options for where they might be laying low.

  Considering “laying low” could mean any number of things for the Skaines, Nickie was relieved to see that the options that popped up on the map that had taken over the main viewing screen were all space stations rather than colonies. Skaines never played well with colonies.

  Nickie eyed them shrewdly for a moment, then she nodded once.

  All right. Set a course for the one that seems the most likely. We’ll start from there and see where it takes us.

  Rebus Quadrant, Ablapus Space Station

  Ablapus Space Station was small, only barely large enough to have a residential section and a few businesses within it. Most of its income came from refueling, reloading, and long-term storage and docking. It was common to see ships coming and going at all hours, and it was a popular station for ships of any planet to dock at when they needed to restock or refuel.

  Skaine ships were uncommon there, though. Nickie suspected it was because they knew they would stand out too much on such a small station. But if they hadn’t enough fuel to make it to one of the larger stations, they weren’t above making that sort of compromise.

  When all was said and done, the Granddaughter had only been docked for about fifteen minutes and Nickie had only been on the station for about ten when she spotted the ship she was searching for. What looked like the entire crew was milling around in the docking bay, and Nickie took careful note of what they were all doing as she slowly approached the ship.

  The Skaines were just loading crates into the ship’s cargo hold and taking inventory, nothing particularly dangerous. They hardly even looked up as Nickie approached. Maybe it was that lack of immediate violence that led to Nickie open her mouth and speak to them.

  “Working hard?” she wondered, folding her arms and leaning one shoulder against the landing gear.

  “Yep,” one of them answered blandly, sliding her a glance before going back to the task at hand. He hefted a crate onto his shoulders and started carrying it up the gangplank.

  “Anything good?” she asked when he emerged from the cargo hold to move another crate.

  He shot her an irritated glance. “Not really your business, Pasty.” He reached for another crate, heaving his shoulder against it as he started sliding it up the gangplank.

  “I’m guessing if someone explained, like…economics and sociology and psychology to you, you people still wouldn’t feel inclined to find new avenues of work,” she observed, glancing around at the others. They had realized she was there and were muttering amongst themselves. A few of them shrugged and resumed ignoring her.

  Maybe forty in all. She had faced more.

  “A crew needs to earn a living,” he grunted as the crate slid a few inches up the gangplank. “Can you fuck off soon? We’re busy.”

  She couldn’t say she had expected a different answer, and she supposed it didn’t really matter. She had already promised she would deal with them, and she didn’t intend to go back on her promise.

  She bent down, and to anyone watching, it just looked as if she were adjusting one of the straps on her boot as she slipped her knife from its sheath. No one noticed it as she straightened back up.

  She took her drones from her pouch, which looked like she was simply reaching into her pocket. She let them go behind her back, and they blended with the metal of the docking bay as they flew off. Rolling her shoulders, she pulled her gun from its holster seamlessly. None of the Skaines suspected a thing until Nickie started moving.

  Two steps forward and a hop had her standing on the gangplank with the Skaine who had been humoring her, and her knife found his chin in short order. No one even realized what was going on until his body dropped to the floor. She lifted her gun, and she had just enough time to fire one, two, three shots before the chaos started. Three more dropped to the ground, to be hurdled as the rest of the crew charged Nickie.

  Immediately, she retreated onto the ship. As she did, her holoball appeared in her hand and she gave it a swat, sending it ricocheting around the room. As its lights bounced all over the place, it worked to disguise where her shots were coming from as she shot out the lights in the cargo hold and plunged it into darkness. A grid blanketed her vision, but the Skaines didn’t have the same tricks up their sleeves.

  With only the holoball bobbing slowly back and forth in a corner to offer any idea where she was, a handful of Skaines converged on it. Nickie crept up behind them as they cautiously investigated.

  They had just enough time to realize she was nowhere near the holoball before she fired, shooting one in the back of the head. The other four whipped around to face her and she dove away, disappearing behind a pile of flats of food stores.

  She could hear them splitting up to come around both sides of the pile, but then she had enhanced hearing. She was willing to bet they couldn’t hear her over the sounds of the rest of the crew out in the docking bay, shouting and swearing as they tried and failed to catch or destroy the drone trio.

  She climbed the pile of flats, pulling herself onto the top of it, then peered down over the edge and fired once before hopping back down. As one Skaine dropped from the shot through the top of the head, her knife slipped easily into a second’s throat. She heard footsteps on the other side of the pile, and she rounded it to stab a third Skaine in the back of the neck.

  But the fourth one wasn’t there.

  Nickie looked around quickly but paused when she heard something creaking. She leapt aside as the fourth Skaine tried to tackle her from the top of the pile, tucking and rolling as the Skaine landed in a disorganized heap on the floor.

  He
scrambled back to his feet, gun in hand. He took aim and fired, and the laser blast ripped through the edge of the pile as Nickie ducked behind it. Her holoball, still bobbing in the corner until that moment, reappeared in her hand. She peered out from behind the pile and lobbed the holoball at the Skaine’s face. He yelped and stumbled back, waving it away with hurried movements.

  He didn’t know it was just a toy—shiny and distracting, but harmless. Nickie couldn’t decide if that was funny or just sort of sad, and she shoved the thought out of her head quickly.

  She aimed and fired, only for her shot to go past the Skaine’s head as he dodged around the holoball. Finally, his attention snapped back to her and he lunged, claws bared. He never got a chance to crash into her, though.

  One of the drones ripped through the hull, sending shrapnel in every direction and letting a shaft of light pour in from outside. The last Skaine in the cargo hold dropped to the ground, gasping and clawing at his face and his neck as splinters of metal impaled him in half a dozen places. When Nickie shot him, it felt a bit more genuine when she told herself it was to put him out of his misery. He would have died anyway, but it wasn’t just about killing them or letting them suffer. It was about doing a job and keeping a promise.

  She turned on her heel, checked her gun and her knife, and dashed back out of the cargo hold. She could hear the drones over her head, and by the time she got back out of the ship, there were only a dozen Skaines left.

  Really, her drones were one of the best purchases she had ever made.

  She hopped over the side of the gangplank and ducked underneath it, dodging a few blasts. Her drones kept working, giving her time to cross to the other side of the gangplank and peer out. She lifted her gun and took aim, only to have to duck her head back behind the gangplank so she didn’t get her scalp blasted off.

  Gun still poking out, she fired blindly twice and heard the thump of a body hitting the floor. She peered out again and pulled the trigger, only for the gun to jam. She gave it a look like it had personally offended her, then jumped out from under the gangplank.

  The last few Skaines were nearly upon her. She pistol-whipped one on the head and stabbed her knife up through his chin. Before the body collapsed, she vaulted over it, out of the way of two sets of grasping claws. When she landed, she used the momentum to aim a roundhouse kick at one of them, and his neck snapped under the impact.

  As her leg came back to the ground, she kept turning. She flipped her knife to a reverse grip, using the last of her momentum to slam it through the side of the next Skaine’s temple. She pulled the knife free, and the body crumpled.

  Everything got quiet, and she slowed to a halt. She looked around, turning in a slow circle and letting her gaze sweep over the docking bay. After one circle, she was satisfied that the job was done.

  She took a breath and sighed it out slowly. She flexed her fingers around the grip of her gun and the handle of her knife, but her knuckles hadn’t bleached to the color of soggy paper. She rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck, but they hadn’t tensed up like a cobra coiling to strike.

  It didn’t feel like it had been an execution this time. It felt…more like a business transaction, albeit a very strenuous one.

  She looked down at the bodies surrounding her and wrinkled her nose, then shook her head briskly. That had not been the most tasteful of similes, admittedly.

  Nickie holstered her gun and slid her knife back into its sheath, then lifted a hand. Her drones landed neatly in her palm, and as she dropped them back into her pouch, she turned to head back to her ship—only to come to an abrupt halt. She had attracted something of a crowd.

  For a second, she thought she was going to have to talk herself out of trouble. After a moment, though, the man at the head of the crowd simply asked, “Does this mean we can get all of our stuff back?” He was holding a toddler with one arm, the boy’s face hidden in his shoulder to spare him from seeing the carnage all around them.

  No one in the crowd was looking at her like she was a mountain lion that had gotten in with the sheep.

  Nickie blinked slowly. Apparently, the Skaines had raided the residential section of the station. She wasn’t even surprised, but her irritation was more resigned than white hot. She supposed it was a good step.

  She moved away from the gangplank, gesturing to it grandly with one hand. “Have at it. Fuck knows I don’t need it. Hell, you could probably salvage the ship for some pretty good parts.”

  The crowd swarmed onto the ship a moment later. Nickie lingered at the bottom of the gangplank as she watched to make sure there were no Skaines lingering in the shadows, waiting to cause a scene or take hostages. The father picked up a small food crate under one arm before leaving the ship again. As he passed one of the Skaine bodies, he leaned down purely to spit on the corpse.

  By that point, she was pretty certain she didn’t need to worry about them reporting her to Security, and she was pretty sure the incident wasn’t going to be reported to station security until long after all of the bodies had gone cold.

  And if any Skaines were going to launch a sneak attack, they would have done it as soon as their loot started leaving their ship. She had never known them to be a particularly patient or strategic people, after all. She was comfortable that the entire crew was dead, and the residents were safe.

  She watched for another minute, then started back to her ship.

  Bridge, Aboard the Penitent Granddaughter, Rebus Quadrant

  “But then again, if you let it boil for too long, it’s just going to turn into glop.” Grim had been talking about the finer points of soup for at least seven minutes. Durq wasn’t quite sure if it was good or bad that he was actually interested. Regardless, he made notes on his holoconsole whenever Grim said something that seemed helpful.

  “Like when you boil celery or carrots for too long,” Grim continued, sounding like he found the very idea distasteful. “Granted, I don’t know why anyone boils or steams veggies, to begin with. You get so much more out of them if you roast them, or do literally anything other than boiling or steaming them.”

  Durq nodded along dutifully until something on the outer cameras caught his attention. He glanced at it and mumbled after a moment, “Nickie’s coming back.”

  Grim glanced at the camera feeds and cocked his head to one side as he scrutinized them. Durq wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but all Grim said after a moment was, “So she is.” All talk of soup and vegetables was forgotten as they waited expectantly for her enter the ship.

  Maybe Grim had some idea what to expect, but Durq was at a loss. Considering what had happened the last time Nickie had taken it upon herself to get rid of an entire shipful of Skaines, he was half expecting a horror show to walk onto the bridge.

  He wouldn’t know until she came in, so he fidgeted with his holoconsole until the door opened, then shut the console down.

  There was something different about Nickie when she walked back onto the bridge. They didn’t linger at the space station for any longer than they had in the past, so it seemed like a safe bet that someone had died. Probably multiple someones. A lot of someones. It was sort of what Nickie did. Regardless, someone had died, so that wasn’t what was different.

  But she didn’t look like someone had jammed a metal rod down her spine and pulled it too far backward. She very nearly looked relaxed, or at least as relaxed as she ever seemed to get.

  Durq might have just assumed he was making things up, but apparently Grim had noticed a difference too. He was watching her just as closely as Durq was.

  Nickie slowed to a halt beside the command chair, picking up a cleaning cloth she had abandoned on one of the armrests. She propped a foot on the seat and pulled her knife from her boot, and she gave the blade a quick scrub while the blood on it was still wet enough to come off easily.

  And that on its own was an oddity. Aside from the knife, there was scarcely a drop of blood on her. Compared to the trail she had tracked in last time, i
t was night and day.

  She put the knife and the rag down, pulled her gun from its holster, and gave it a quick glance, her nose wrinkling in irritation as she did. After a moment, she handed the gun, the knife, and the sheath to Brandy. The bot dutifully accepted them, but simply sat there holding the weapons in three spindly arms.

  “The gun’s being a fucker,” Nickie informed the bot plainly. “Take care of it for me. And clean the sheath.”

  The rest of Brandy’s arms popped out, and it began unloading, dismantling, and cleaning the various parts of the gun. Nickie observed the bot long enough to be satisfied that it wasn’t going to break anything before turning away.

  Finally, she realized just how intently Grim and Durq were watching her.

  “Do you guys need something, or what?” she asked slowly, as if she were expecting the words “We need to talk.” “I mean, you’re usually a bit weird, but this is above and beyond.”

  Durq sulked before he could help it, but Grim simply cleared his throat and wondered, “Everything all right? You feeling okay?”

  Nickie shrugged broadly, hands at shoulder height and her palms facing the ceiling. “My gun’s a fucker, but the job is done. Isn’t that right, Meredith?”

  “The entire crew has been dealt with, as promised,” Meredith confirmed.

  “Good to hear,” Grim replied, still sounding bemused. He glanced down at Durq, who could only shrug in response.

  Nickie spared Brandy another glance before turning toward the door again. “Set a course back to Themis, Mere. We should head back to give them the good news.”

  “Of course,” Meredith confirmed.

  Nickie nodded once and strode off the bridge.

  There was a long moment of quiet before finally Durq asked, “Am I the only one who thought that was sort of weird?”

  Rebus Quadrant, Aboard the Penitent Granddaughter, Nickie’s Quarters

  As convenient as sliding doors were, it was occasionally a shame that they couldn’t be slammed open or closed dramatically. Nickie settled instead for throwing herself down on the bed with enough force that she bounced. She heaved a blustering sigh and tucked her arms under her head.