Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2)

by Marie Andreas

  “We need to gain control of this ship fast,” Vas said as she and Deven gave out the last of the blasters. All were set to lower levels to minimize damage to the ship. She hadn’t waited this long to get her ship back just to have her shot to pieces again. Another jolt rolled through.

  “Did you take out those planet killers or just run them around a bit?”

  Marli ignored the snark in Vas’s voice then walked to the door. “I took care of them. Planet killers, my ass. They barely put up a fight.” She carefully moved the semi-busted door and looked down the hall before continuing. “And since we know those other two grays aren’t moving until their evil spawn are hatched into this world—I’d say someone new has come to play.”

  “Agreed,” Deven said. “I can take half of our people to the deck or engineering.” Both were going to be touchy areas, but only one had the empress.

  Vas smiled at Deven’s thoughtfulness. Not that she couldn’t she override him, but it was nice he thought she might want to do anything other than kick the empress’s ass. Those bastards behind the gray ships, Asarlaí or not, were currently faceless, unknown monsters—not something she could attack directly. The empress was, and she’d been pissing Vas off for too long. The destruction of Mayhira, and the loss of whatever poor souls couldn’t get off of it in time, was completely on the empress’s shoulders. Yes, it was the Asarlaí who had created the thing, but according to Gosta if the empress hadn’t sped up the timeline by going after the material underneath, it might have taken years to germinate.

  “Oh, she’s mine. We do need to find out who else has joined our party though. I don’t like being blind.”

  “I might have something, Captain,” Elisita said. She had gone to the comm screen in the galley and had been quietly taking things apart. The empress might have shut down internal comms but that wasn’t anything an industrious Welischian couldn’t overcome.

  Static filled the screen. It appeared that Elisita had worked around the empress’s block, not removed it. But she was able to configure it to what the command deck was seeing. There was a smaller image of the energy going into the Warrior Wench tats, trying to stop the breach. But the larger image was a group of three Commonwealth warships. The two gray ships that had been hovering out there were now nowhere to be seen.

  “Did they leave?”

  Marli scowled at the screen. “Or they’ve managed to cloak?”

  “But I thought the gray ships were with the Commonwealth,” Livienn said.

  “We all did,” Vas said.

  “Actually, when we were on our recent excursion to Mayhira, I realized that they were not the same,” Marli said. “The empress had convinced part of the government to work with the gray ships—that was until they used them to try and shut down the original chain reaction on Mayhira. She did not take that well. The gray ships seem to have usurped some of the Commonwealth, but not all. These are probably what is left of your real government.”

  Vas would have smacked her had Marli been one of her crew and not a deadly Asarlaí. As it was, she did growl, “And you didn’t think we might need to know that? Damn it.”

  “Things happen. Sorry, but one government is the same as another to me.”

  Deven stared at Marli for a few moments, then shook his head. “This changes nothing in terms of getting the ship back. We need to do so before they finish closing the breaches or those other ships finish us. Nothing has been fired in defense from this ship by the way—whatever they’re doing to stop the breaches is probably cutting access to weapons.” He nodded to Livienn and a few other engineering-minded crew. “We’ll get engineering back. You two and the rest take care of the empress.” With a nod to Vas and a glare to Marli, he slipped out into the hall with his crew following.

  “I do believe he is vexed with me,” Marli said with far more amusement than was warranted.

  “You deserve it,” Vas said and put her hand on Marli’s shoulder as she started to walk out into the hall. “I know what you are. And it scares the piss out of me. But if your attitude, suicidal, lazy, whichever it is, causes me to lose a single crew member, I will hunt you down and kill you.” Vas had begun to feel an odd friendship toward Marli in the past week, but this was life and death right now. Marli needed to remember that she might be immortal but most everyone around her was not.

  Even though Marli in this glamour was a number of inches shorter than Vas, she managed to look down her nose at her. She also narrowed her eyes and her upper lip pulled back in the start of a snarl. Then she let loose a huge laugh and pounded Vas on the shoulder.

  “I knew I liked you. From the moment I saw how your blood fought against that poison all those months ago, until I finally met you and you wanted to blow my ship out of the sky—I have liked you.” She shrugged and looked around. No one on this crew knew her, not even like the crew on the Warrior Wench. All they knew was there was something tense going on.

  Marli grabbed Vas’s shoulder and spun them around and out the door. “And you called me on my behavior. Fair enough. This is your party, and I’m just along for the ride.”

  Vas couldn’t help herself and laughed. Marli was untrustworthy, unscrupulous, self-centered, and deadly. She was also good people in her twisted way.

  They checked the corridor, but it was clear. The empress invading this ship with only a few people was either cocky or desperate. Granted, she’d had stealth on her side, and it worked. But Vas wouldn’t rely on such a tactic unless she was out of options.

  “Victorious Dead, stand down by order of the Commonwealth.” The voice that echoed through the hallways was annoyingly familiar. “You will surrender and prepare to be boarded for conspiracy against the Commonwealth under section 562.76 of the interstellar code. And stop firing on that other ship.”

  Ramoth. Vas had wondered where the idiot had gone, and now she knew.

  “Damn it.”

  “That does make us speed this up a bit,” Marli said.

  “Not just that. That idiot was our client. The one I had to retrieve a certain chest for. I should have known he was lying about everything and not just that job.” They’d reached the end of the corridor. Vas looked but both sides were still clear. The right would lead them to the main command deck entrance. But the left would lead them to a smaller and lesser-known entrance. “Marli, I need you to take seven people up that way. That’s the main entrance. Make sure to take out who you can when you go in, and make sure all eyes are on you. I’ll take the rest this back way.”

  “Is he going to be a problem?” Marli pointed toward one of the speakers where Ramoth’s droning voice was reading off more sections of Commonwealth law that were being violated. Not only was Ramoth an annoying liar and member of the Commonwealth government, he was obviously an accountant or some other horrifically bureaucratic person.

  Vas sighed and nodded to the people who would be going around with her. “Probably. Depends who he has behind him. He’s a coward, and if he’s the one in charge it could actually work in our favor. See you on the deck.”

  Marli smiled and moved down the other corridor.

  Vas had five people with her, but she was hoping she wouldn’t need even that many. They should be able to slide inside the secret entrance and sneak up on the distracted empress and her fighters. Therlian and Ragkor were most likely tied up, but Vas had faith in their ability to fight even when hindered.

  If she could find the damn door.

  Vas hadn’t been able to spend time on the reborn Victorious Dead. But she knew where that hidden door was. Or where it had been. It wasn’t even like it was that well-hidden. It was a modification the prior owner made for his own weird reasons.

  But it had somehow vanished.

  Vas leaned back into the crew. “Were any of you involved in the retrofit?”

  Pocina nodded. “Aye.”

  “Do you know what happened to the door that should be right about here?” As she spoke, Vas pounded the wall in what should be the middle of the door. />
  She almost fell forward when an outline appeared and the door cracked open.

  “Holy mother of the abyss,” Vas said and looked at the door. Previously it hadn’t been noticeable but it was still a door. This was seamless. There was no way at all to tell where the door had been in that wall. “New tech?” At Pocina’s nod, she smiled. “We need to talk afterwards.” That could be very handy on both ships. When life decided to stop throwing her around, she was going to have to do some serious upgrades.

  The crack of the door meant Vas heard the exact moment when Marli and her crew stormed the command deck. Vas nodded to her people and they ran in through the secret door.

  The fighting was taking place near the main entry. Ragkor and Therlian were not only bound, they were both tied to console chairs and extremely bruised. They must have put up a hell of a fight. The empress was moving toward the back. She was content to let her people die for her. Of course, that meant she was moving closer to Vas and her people.

  Vas held up her hand. The empress had stopped moving and was fussing with a small pendant dangling off her belt. A control for a particle mover—so small Vas almost didn’t recognize it.

  Vas ran forward and tackled her, ripping the pendant out of her hand.

  51

  The empress wasn’t as tall as Vas, but she was strong—especially for a pampered aristocrat. She was also very agile.

  Vas had the pendant, and was trying to hang on to Empress Wilthuny with one hand and figure out whether she should throw the pendant or hang on to it. The empress broke free of Vas’s grip long enough to grab her hand holding the pendant and pull.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t rip it out of Vas’s hand, but both hands closed down on the flashing red button on its side.

  Vas felt a familiar tingling, then they were both slammed onto the command deck of the Warrior Wench. That they had materialized about three feet in the air didn’t make for a soft landing.

  Luckily for Vas, the empress was on the bottom.

  Vas recovered first and ripped the pendent completely free of Empress Wilthuny’s hand. Then she rolled to her feet while the empress was still looking for her lost breath. Vas kept her blaster aimed at the prone woman as she surveyed the deck.

  The command deck had partial power, and the lights were growing stronger. “How long until full power?”

  Gosta looked up, but shook his head. Flarik turned from the command chair. “He won’t give us a time, but we should be up very soon.” She nodded at the woman. “Nice of you to join us, Empress Wilthuny.” Her toothy smile dropped. “Ramoth is on that Commonwealth ship and demanding boarding rights.”

  “I know. He’s demanding the same from the Victorious Dead.” Vas hit the comm on the command chair’s console. “Victorious Dead, are you secure?”

  “Aye, Captain,” Ragkor answered. “A few injuries, nothing serious. No fatalities on our side.”

  “Good. Whatever the empress set up over there is sealing the breach. Keep it going until I say.” She walked over to Gosta after handing her blaster to Gon to keep an eye on the empress. Gosta had recovered a bit, but having one’s captain appear in midair could throw anyone off. Gosta preferred that his mysteries stay in his studies. “Any idea how much longer before the breach closes?”

  He pulled up a few screens that had different scans of the same area. He’d been running four when she came up but he was actually running far more than that. “I’d say very soon. Our systems are quite close to coming completely back. The shadow fighters have vanished as well. Everything in the ghosting system indicates they are gone—and I believe they were actually sucked back into their side of the breach as it began to close.”

  “Any idea where the two gray ships went?” Vas nodded to the two security personnel who had come on deck. “Please escort the empress to our finest holding facility. Flarik or I will be down to talk to her soon—no other visitors.” She trusted her crew, but it was better not to leave things to chance. She turned to the empress. “But first, you could have gone anywhere with that pendant. Why go to my ship?”

  The empress struggled a little as the two guards hauled her to her feet, but her fight was gone. “I have nowhere else. I bluffed about having a fleet heading to your home planet—I was trying to build one. My remaining ship, which I’m sure you’ll see has this tech”—she pointed to the pendent in Vas’s hand—“is dead. There was enough power to keep that pendant live but nothing beyond that. Besides, the grays want this ship, and want it bad. The Commonwealth knows that, so they want it. This is the safest place to be right now.” The two guards took her to the lift and left.

  “Now, ‘the grays’ as she called them, do we know where they are?”

  Gosta answered and he didn’t look happy. “They vanished, Captain. Completely. I can’t find them in any other system. The moment the Commonwealth ships appeared, the gray ones vanished.”

  The lights on the command deck resumed to full power, and Gosta’s open comm exploded with departments calling in to report they were back up.

  Vas started to go to her command chair, when Marli popped in right in front of her. Rather, Marli and Deven popped in right in front of her.

  “Ya know, I’m very glad for the assist here, again. But you have got to stop dropping in like this,” Vas said as she stepped back. Gosta needed to work harder on finding a way to block these transfers.

  “You’re welcome,” Marli said with a huge grin. “Now, where shall we go to celebrate?” She rubbed her hands and even Mac looked disturbed by her grin.

  “We still have the Commonwealth ships sitting out there. I’m surprised they haven’t started firing yet.”

  Deven shot Marli a look, then shook his head. “She shut them down. At least for the moment, both ships are completely locked out of their entire system. Gosta, she did a better hack than you.”

  “You are far too kind, boyo. They were easy to pick off. Not even the rudimentary level fifty blocks up. But they will recover, and I do believe we might want to be somewhere else when they do.”

  Vas wanted to ask questions—a lot of them—but right now Marli was too smug to deal with, and Vas needed a drink. The danger was over and she was right, they needed to get far away from here.

  “Where’s your ship, anyway?” Vas knew she couldn’t be too far away. Even Marli’s advanced system had range limits for transporting.

  “Right under your noses.” The smug level on her face ratcheted a few marks up as she hit her comm. “Savan, uncloak for the nice people.”

  The screen switched from the Victorious Dead and the two Commonwealth ships to the Scurrilous Monk. It was eerie how she slowly reappeared like she was coming out of a fog bank.

  “A full cloaking? I thought you said that tech was lost?”

  “Oh, it is. This is new tech. I worked with some of my most trusted sources and had it made. Nothing can penetrate it, not a ghosting computer, nothing. Maybe magic. I’m not sure, never found a magician. Isn’t it wonderful?” She bounced a bit on the balls of her feet like a small child with a shiny new toy.

  A chill went down Vas’s back. If Marli could so completely hide her ship, where nothing known to any species could find it, what was to stop others from doing the same?

  Marli waggled a finger at Vas. “Oh, I see where your mind is going. Don’t worry, I made sure my trusted sources would never tell anyone.”

  “You killed them?” Deven had gone to his console, but he was on his feet immediately. Good to know even he didn’t completely trust her.

  “Of course not,” Marli said then tilted her head. “Although, that would have been much easier. But would set a bad precedent. No, I wiped their minds. Only of the tech, nothing else. Then set them up on a resort world in the Willruthian system. They’ll never have to work again.”

  “We might need to get moving, immediately,” Divee said. “The Commonwealth cruisers are getting weapons and power back.”

  “I must ask more about—” Gosta’s excited comm
ent was cut off as the Scurrilous Monk rocked to one side from an invisible strike. Then more ships came out of the fog just like it had. Huge planet killer grays, ten that Vas could count. The two missing smaller gray ships from earlier appeared alongside them.

  Proximity alarms rocked the Warrior Wench as two of the massive ships flew too close. Within seconds the Warrior Wench, Victorious Dead, Scurrilous Monk, and the two Commonwealth cruisers were completely surrounded. The grays weren’t firing on any of the ships, except the Scurrilous Monk. An explosion burst open the starboard side. The Scurrilous Monk was firing, but couldn’t seem to get off enough rounds to damage any of the massive gray ships.

  Marli slapped her comm. “Savan, get the hell out of there!”

  At first only one of the grays was firing on the Monk, and she was firing back. Now three of them fired and the Monk looked dark.

  “Captain, there are no tech readings from the Monk at all. I still have life signs though.” Hrrru said.

  “Savan—respond!” Marli was screaming now, and Vas swore she saw her glamour waver. She was also tapping her comm, trying to transport back to her ship. But nothing happened.

  “Captain, I’m trying to reach the Scurrilous Monk as well. I’m picking up a faint SOS on a minor frequency,” Xsit said.

  Marli was at a console the second the words left Xsit’s mouth. “Savan, you have to get the ship out of there. Use anything at your disposal. Anything.”

  Vas knew there were a lot of secrets on that ship, and the way Marli said ‘anything’ told her there was at least one very serious secret weapon on there. Something even bigger than the one she’d used to destroy the other three gray ships earlier.

  Vas moved to the communications console, but she could barely hear the response both due to volume and static. Whatever frequency he was on, it was a weak one. Probably all they had left. “We tried. They blocked us. They are demanding surrender of this ship, or they will destroy us.”