by Enid Titan
“I’m not sure tightening the guard will work. Our crew’s stretched to duty limits as it is.”
“Talk to Horus about rigging sensor traps.”
“Won’t that compromise our security?”
“This isn’t easy. We’re here because we trust each other. We all grew up in under cities. Undercity folk don’t betray each other. It doesn’t happen. Not when the confederacy insists on crushing us with its boot.”
“Maybe that’s who we ought to blame. The confederacy.”
Garth shakes his head.
“This isn’t how they operate. If they thought we were worth the trouble, they would have boarded the ship and pressed us into chain gangs by now.”
“Aye.”
“You don’t look well, Gavriel. Return to sick bay and let Xanth give you a heavy dose. We’ll continue this in the morning once you’ve had more rest.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Good man, then. We’ll sort this out and we won’t have to worry. I know you have people at home counting on you.”
“We all do, Garth.”
And I’m right, too. We all have people counting on us. In the morning, I draw up our list of suspects and everyone’s on it. I send the list to Garth and assign everyone a time to step into his office. Interrogating a bunch of raggedy space pirates will be anything but pleasant.
Chapter 14
All Fingers Point To Her
“I’m glad you scheduled me first so we can get this charade over with,” Poke strides in and sits with a wide gait, leaning back and folding her arms. Gold earrings hang from her red lobes, matching her eye color. Garth’s hand balls into a fist.
“Annabel,” he murmurs, “I trust you with my life. But we must ask questions. We must investigate. You don’t stand accused.”
“I have as much chance of being a saboteur as Gavriel.”
“I know that, Poke,” I snap, “However, I doubt I’d have the capacity to whack myself in the back of the head.”
“Humph. What do you want to know?”
“Strange reports on the night shift. We want to know if you’ve heard anything the past week from the captain’s chair.”
“Nothing. This week has been entirely normal.”
“What about the mess hall?”
“Look, I’ve heard nothing. I want to help you, but I can’t help you if you waste time interrogating me. Garth, I trust you with my life. I’ve trusted you with my life from the first day we met. Let me help. There are crewmen from my planet who trust me. I can get them to keep an eye out, to go where no one will notice them. The question is, do you believe the saboteur to be a member of the senior crew, or someone green?”
“We have no suspects yet,” I answer, “Why?”
“I know she’s your pet project, but I don’t trust Jaen Nabokov.”
Poke doesn’t mince words. Her white hair cascades down her back in thick waves as she unapologetically shakes a few strands out of her face.
“Listen,” she says to Garth, ignoring my presence entirely, “Garth. I know you. You have a big heart. But why doesn’t she speak? A human girl, this far away from Earth with no ties to the confederacy that we can determine, and she shows up out of the blue and trouble starts.”
“Jaen can’t be responsible for this,” Garth answers.
Poke rises and pounds her fists on the table.
“Damn it, Garth! You won’t say a bad word about her and you won’t explain to anyone how you came into possession of a slip of a girl who knows a suspicious amount about ship operations, engineering, charting the stars and more. She has to be what? No older than twenty-five? Where did she come from?”
“I’ll look into it, Annabel. For you.”
“Good. And I’ll monitor her for you too.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Are you ordering me not to monitor her movements?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Thank you.”
Annabel storms off.
“That went well,” I mutter sarcastically. Garth sighs.
“Poke is too damned stubborn.”
“Like a hornet’s nest. One poke and she flies off the handle.”
“Aye. Who do we have next?”
Kazim’s our next interrogation and in typical Kazim fashion, he enters with a string of alibis. Various women who confirm that during the hours surrounding all the major upsets on the ship, they were intertwined in bed with Kazim. The interview remains brief and Garth eagerly ushers Kazim and his various girlfriends off.
“I don’t know how he finds time to get any bloody work done,” Garth grumbles.
After Kazim, we interview Nova who fritters in after him, irritation written over her face.
“Can you believe him? I don’t understand why these women don’t have respect for themselves.”
“Sit, Nova.”
“What’s this I hear about an investigation?”
Nova could probably recite the astrological birth chart of every woman Kazim has slept with in the past year, but she rarely pays attention to anything that happens on this ship outside her job as master-at-arms.
“We’ve experienced incidents on the ship that lead us to believe we have a saboteur on board.”
Nova scoffs.
“Have you investigated that little trollop?”
“Which trollop might you be referring to?” Garth asks, exhaustion coloring his voice.
Like all of us, he’s come to expect Nova’s complaints about Kazim’s various “girlfriends”. The two of them would be better off if they just. kissed.
“He’s obsessed with that human girl,” sneers Nova, “She doesn’t say a word to anyone but Kazim fawns over her at every turn. I mean… what sort of woman with any self-respect chases after Kazim of all people?”
“I’d hardly say she’s chasing him,” I mutter.
A mistake. Nova snarls, “Can you shut up, Gavriel? You always defend him.”
“Nova. Focus,” Garth commands.
“Fine. I’ve seen her lurking around the engine room off duty and she worked the night shift with Gavriel before some mysterious figure knocked him unconscious.”
“She’s tiny compared to me! She couldn’t knock me unconscious.”
Nova rolls her eyes and sneers, “Men. You’re so stupid. She has you all wrapped around her finger with her soft, pathetic little act. I’m not falling for it and I didn’t expect you to fall for it, Garth. You know better.”
“Thank you, Nova. That will be all.”
Garth hides his frustration well, but I’ve known him long enough to know he doesn’t appreciate getting a dressing down from Nova, of all people. She usually reserves her sharp tongue for Kazim or whichever one of his girlfriends she’s selected to torment.
Garth mutters, “We’re getting nowhere at all.”
“Patience. We still have the rest of the senior staff and the crewmen. We’ll learn something.”
“All we’ve learned is that no one on this bloody ship trusts Nabokov. Do you know how frustrating it is to have my judgment questioned, Gavriel? Or how dangerous?”
He’s thinking about mutiny. I’m not telepathic by any means, but captains of pirate vessels always worry about mutiny. Garth isn’t like other captains. He has nothing to worry about with Annabel as his first mate, or with me as quartermaster. We’re more loyal to Garth Moray than we are to ourselves. He has to know that.
“Who the hell is next?” Garth asks before using the intercom to get Licker to bring him a growler of pumpkin beer. He’ll need it.
Chapter 15
Suspicions of Mutiny
Connie Baharozian might yell at me on intercom or swear like a sailor when she’s knee deep in ship’s grease, but she’s entirely respectful to Garth. She dotes on him. Her waist length black hair is pinned in a braid pattern traditional on Nova’s planet, signs of a long gab session about Kazim’s various exploits, I’m sure.
“Captain,” Connie whispers, lowering her h
ead as she sits across from him.
“You know why you’re here. But you understand this is a formality.”
“Yes. I do. And we both want to find out who punched a hole in the ship's hull while avoiding my notice.”
“Aye. It’s troubling. Did you notice anyone acting strangely there?”
“Garth, Gavriel, I need to tell you this in confidence. I don’t suspect her, don’t get me wrong, but perhaps Jaen Nabokov knows something.”
“What do you mean?” I ask too quickly because Connie’s brows pinch together in a moment of suspicion, maybe.
“I saw her there the day before it happened, a few minutes before her shift. But she acted strangely. For example, everyone knows the girl barely says a word. But she spoke to me at length, and nothing she said could have been true. None of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Garth. I know you. The girl told me that the two of you… well, she said she wanted to sleep with you. That she planned on seducing you and was in love with you. But… that can’t be true.”
“It isn’t,” answered Garth, but his voice has a strange tenor to it. He wasn’t lying, but he hadn’t told Connie the entire truth.
“She said that her parents abandoned her. And… I don’t know. I got the sense she wasn’t honest. And the next time I saw her, it was like the conversation never happened. She returned to her quiet self and to think about it, I haven’t heard her say a single word since.”
“Strange,” Garth mutters, but I can tell he isn’t listening to Connie. I tell her to keep an eye out and ask if she wants more guardians in the engine room. She declines. But then she offers another possibility.
“Is it possibly my brothers are responsible for this?”
Connie comes from a big pirate family. The Baharozian Brothers own several pirate ships. If Connie didn’t hate them, they might have had the best engineer in the sector on their ship instead of ours. Garth shakes his head.
“I have a truce with Saroyan and Haig.”
“Why didn’t I know about this?” Connie asks.
“Like I said, we have a truce.”
“My dear brothers always think I need protecting.”
“Thank you, Connie. I’ll consider their involvement. You’re right. They’re pirates, and it wouldn’t be the first time any of us lied to each other.”
“Thank you, Garth.”
We pause for lunch. Garth’s deep in thought as we drink pumpkin beer from the growler and enjoy the bowl of vegetable stew Licker brought us.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Connie. What she said about Jaen.”
My cheeks flush mulberry.
“Aye.”
“I must tell you this in confidence, Gavriel.”
“Aye.”
I’m afraid if I give the wrong answer, he won’t tell me, and I’d do anything for a sliver of a detail about Jaen. I want to trust her. But how can I trust her when shipmates I’ve known for years suspect her of sabotage? Garth’s binding trust is the biggest hope I have in her.
“We were together. Several years ago.”
“What?”
“Jaen would have never said that she wanted to sleep with me. Trust me. And she isn’t in love with me.”
“If you dated her, whenever that was, how can you be sure?”
I’m acting like this information doesn’t disturb me, but it does. She doesn’t say a word to anyone, yet she’s been in bed with Garth Moray, a giant seven-foot orc. Maybe Nova’s right. She’s a seductress and a temptress, and she’s been playing a game with all of us.
“Because, Jaen ended things with me. She’s not meant to be a pirate, Gavriel. She needs help and I’m helping her.”
“Aye.”
“What do you think of her?”
I shrug and lie.
“I don’t think much of her.”
“Gavriel…”
“What?”
“I know you. I know Odilians. You aren’t as good at hiding your feelings as you think.”
“I can’t afford to have feelings out here. And neither can you. We have to accept she might betray you. How many years have passed since you’ve seen her?”
“Five. But she’s been through a lot.”
“Aren’t you old enough to be her father?”
Garth downs the rest of his beer.
“Enough, Gavriel. The women I spend my time with are none of your concern. And Jaen’s tougher than she looks.”
“Tough enough to knock me out? Tough enough to rip a hole in the hull?”
Garth bitterly answers, “Yes. She’s physically capable and intellectually capable of both those things. But you don’t understand Jaen Nabokov. Her heart is bigger than this bloody galaxy. And I lost her because I chose this ship. I should have never left her. If I’d forced myself to stay…”
Garth sighs before finishing his sentence.
“Never mind. We have more people to interview. Who’s next?”
“Jisoo.”
Garth groans.
“Bring her in. Getting a useful word out of that one will be harder than cleaning my tusks.”
“Aye.”
Jisoo glides into the room, hips swaying as her enormous black eyes stare beyond us.
“Captain. Quartermaster. Thank you for having me.”
Jisoo doesn’t look like the sort of woman to be an efficient murderer, but she’s killed more than anyone on this ship. She wets her small rosebud lips with her tongue and gets to the point with assassin’s accuracy.
“You’re looking for a saboteur, right? I can’t help you. But I can give you a reason someone might want to sabotage the ship.”
Her theory amounts to only conspiracy. But I can tell Garth is considering that some crewmen might plan a mutiny. I doubt it. And I wonder why Jisoo suggested mutiny at all. She’s overly suspicious, I decide. Our interview with Horus and Xanth yields little. Horus, like Nova, only cares for guns. And Xanth only cares for medicine and his deep loneliness, which while depressing, doesn’t make him a saboteur.
Tomorrow, now that we’ve cleared the senior crew from involvement, we’ll get to the greener crew and junior crewmen. But there’s one new hire I plan on getting to first.
Chapter 16
My Little Spy
I wait a few doors down from sickbay for Jaen to leave her shift. I have an hour until mine — plenty of time to confront her. I have a plan to keep her safe and to monitor her movements. If half the senior crew is right about her and she’s some unholy combination of a saboteur or mutineer, I want to find out. She walks past and yelps as I slink out of the shadows and grab her by the forearm. I press my hand over her mouth so she can’t scream and pull her into an empty room — unused crew quarters — where we can talk uninterrupted.
The door shuts behind me, and I remove my hand over her mouth.
“Jaen. We need to talk.”
“W-what are you going to do to me?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I have a knife,” she threatens, “Next time I won’t miss your redundant lung.”
“It’s redundant. Do what you want.”
I can’t help but taunt her, even if it’s definitively stupid of me.
“What do you want, Gavriel? I’m tired.”
“I want to talk to you. Why don’t you bloody talk to anyone? I know about you and Garth.”
Her lips tighten into a dank scowl.
“What did he say about me? He promised me he wouldn’t tell anyone!”
“He said you two were lovers.”
“That was a long time ago,” she snaps.
“He respects you deeply.”
“He owes me.”
“Jaen… I know you don’t like me at all.”
Her gaze snaps to mine. It’s indecipherable.
“Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to answer questions.”
“What questions?”
“Why don’t you talk t
o anyone.”
“Because… it’s the deal I made with Garth.”
“What?”
“I shouldn’t talk to you, either. Especially not you.”
“Especially not me?”
“I know all about you, Gavriel. I don’t want to judge because we’re all on this ship for a reason, but… you’re damaged. I can’t handle another damaged pirate.”
Ouch. You’re damaged. It’s not like I don’t know it’s true, but I didn’t think it was that obvious.
“Fine. Don’t deal with me, then. Spy for me.”
“What?”
“You’ve heard about the saboteur?”
She snaps, “Yes. And everyone on this ship thinks its me. Garth warned me.”
“Then help prove it isn’t you. You’d report directly to me. I know you’re sneakier than you let on.”
“Thanks. What a compliment.”
She tries to leave, but I grab her arm again and press her against the wall. She gasps, but doesn’t try to get away from me.
“Jaen. I want to talk about the kiss.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“So when I kissed you, you felt nothing?”
“Damn it, Gavriel. You’re like every other man. You only think with your cock.”
“Who said anything about my cock?”
She wets her lips and wriggles her wrist free from my grasp.
“Whatever you think you want from me, you don’t.”
“You hate me then?”
“No.”
Her face twists in horror, like the word escaped against her will and she’s let slip a tremendous secret.
“Then what? Why can’t we talk about this? We’re consenting adults. We can do what we want.”
“You’re old enough to know that isn’t true. How old are you? Twenty-six?”
“About that.”
“Then you’ve lost people. We all have. And when you get entangled… that’s what happens.”
I sneer at her, “Is that why you became one of Kazim’s whores?”
