Sovran's Pawn (The Black Wing Chronicles Book 1)

by JC Cassels

  Bo flushed under his praise. A faint smile teased her lips.

  “Go back to quarters and start primping.” He nodded towards the bodies. “I’ll clean up this mess and meet you back there as soon as I’m finished.”

  Reluctantly, she nodded.

  “Did they say anything to you? Do you know what they wanted?”

  Bo unwound the towel from her forearm and shook her head. “They didn’t say anything. They just – jumped me.” She shrugged.

  Royce nudged her towards the door. “Go do your girly stuff. I’ll be along shortly.”

  Bo nodded and moved to obey.

  “Hey, Princess?”

  She stopped and peered up at him curiously.

  “Good job.”

  She lifted her chin. A wide grin lit her face. “Thanks.”

  Feeling much more lighthearted than when she’d arrived, Bo left the carnage and the fitness center behind her.

  Nothing like murder and mayhem to make a girl feel better.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Day One, Five-Point Tourney

  The one major drawback of being undercover as a Joy Babe was that it took so damn long to get into character. To get properly coiffed, primped, and dressed took an inordinate amount of time. Bo hated the prep work. Royce had returned to their stateroom, bathed, shaved and dressed while Bo was still trying to get her hair to obey. She hated to disappoint her aunt, but, Maker willing, she would never go into the family business as anything other than a cover.

  Entering the gaming lounge, Bo spotted her uncle seated at one of the gaming tables. Ignoring the leering attention thrown her way, she lifted her chin and focused on walking gracefully through the crowd on the ridiculous shoes that her aunt insisted she wear. He glanced up at her as she approached, but otherwise ignored her.

  Three chairs remained empty. She glanced over the six players, not really paying them much attention beyond wondering what the odds were that so many well-dressed, physically perfect men would gather around the same Five-Point table. Five of the men applied themselves more or less stoically to the game.

  One blond gentleman kept up a lively banter until she drew close. He looked up as Bo rounded the table, and his running commentary trailed off as his stare traced her curves in open admiration. He climbed quickly to his feet and held the empty chair beside him in invitation.

  “Well, hello, beautiful,” he said with a bright smile. “What brings you here this evening?”

  Bo’s steps faltered as her gaze slid past him to the stoic dark-haired man sitting beside him. Darien looked up at her approach. Just as quickly, he dismissed her, returning his attention to the game.

  The warm smile of greeting died on Bo’s lips.

  Her pride still stung from last night. With a small lift to her chin, Bo fell back on her aunt’s training. Darien Roarke had thrown down the gauntlet last night, and Bo was more than happy to pick it up and throw it back.

  Ignoring her uncle’s warning look, Bo took the empty chair beside the affable gent. “Why, all of you handsome gentlemen, of course,” she said smoothly.

  The animated blond gentleman’s blue eyes flashed with mischief and he resumed his seat. Reaching out, he slapped Darien’s shoulder with the back of his hand, never taking his eyes off her.

  “Hah! There, you see, Dare? I told you we’d fill more chairs.

  “My name’s Chase,” he said warmly. He set his game cards face down on the blue table, heedless of the randomizing field and confirming Bo’s suspicions that he was no gambler. He held out his hand to her. “What’s yours?”

  Slipping her hand in his, she forced herself not to look at the man beside him. “Marissa,” she replied with a smile.

  “Marissa,” he repeated breathlessly. “That’s a gorgeous name. It suits you.” He held her hand far longer than manners dictated. “I think I’m in love with you,” he whispered, leaning closer he tightened his hold on her. “Can I buy you a drink? Some jewelry, maybe? How about a house?” He shook his head. “Forget the house. How about we go somewhere and get that drink first?”

  “Let go of her, Chase.” Darien growled in warning. “She’s on the clock.”

  Bo bristled and looked over at him. He didn’t bother to look up from his game cards – at least she didn’t think he looked up. He still wore the sunshades, which made it hard to tell, but she had the impression he was attentive of everything going on around him.

  Sunshades, hats, scarves, veils, gloves – experienced gamblers commonly wore concealing accessories. At this level, effective gamesmanship was all about bluffing and hiding one’s tells. He, at least, had spent quite a bit of time around Five-Point tables. He gave nothing away, much to her annoyance.

  Ignoring her, he placed his bet and turned expectantly to the next player in turn. Left to stare at the back of his head, Bo returned her attention to the man who still had yet to release his hold on her.

  “No,” Chase said. “She’s not on the clock.” He leaned closer to her. “You’re not on the clock, are you?” he asked quietly.

  “Not exactly,” Bo replied softly. “But I am spoken for.” She directed his attention to Royce with a nod of her head. “I’m here with my uncle – and I think he wants you to keep your hands to yourself.”

  “Uncle?” Chase said. “Uncle?” He looked to Royce and then back to her. “Oh? Right! Uncle!” He started to release her hand, but tightened his hold at the last second. “Listen, Marissa, if you find yourself in a situation you don’t want to be in, I’ll be more than happy to help you find your way clear of it.” He looked intently at her as if willing her to understand. “I mean it. Just find me – or call my name. Whatever. I’m here for you.”

  He said it so earnestly, Bo found his concern endearing. Touched by his kindness, she smiled, leaning closer to him. She opened her mouth to thank him, but Darien cut her off.

  “Chase, shut up before she decides to take you for everything you’ve got.”

  Bo’s smile faded and she flinched at his tone. Aunt Misou had warned her that Joy Babes needed to develop a thick skin, but she hadn’t realized the truth of it until that moment. As the Ostra Child, the heir to Mondhuic rule, she’d grown up relatively insulated. Even when people hadn’t liked her, they’d still been respectful. In the Guard, between her rank and her pilot’s rating, she’d been accorded the respect due her station. Hell, in the Tandoori lockup, she’d demanded respect from the other inmates in her own fashion. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he’d hurt her feelings.

  Chase shrugged and flashed an apologetic smile, drawing her attention once more. “You’ll have to forgive Darien,” Chase said. “His sole reason for being is to play Five-Point. When he’s not at a tourney, he lives in a box in the closet. Frankly, I can’t wait to stuff him back into it.”

  “Chase…”

  “Marissa…” Royce’s gruff voice broke through the rising tension, defusing the situation. Bo gratefully looked to her uncle. He held up his empty glass. “Would you go get me another drink?”

  Bo met her uncle’s warning stare. Regaining her composure, she nodded and somehow managed to pull her hand from Chase’s. She rose and took the glass from her uncle, resting her hand on his shoulder as she passed. Reaching up, Royce gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “Thank you, baby girl,” he said as she slipped away from the table.

  She glanced back over her shoulder in time to see Darien look up from his game cards, watching her as she walked away.

  When she reached the bar, the bartender was busy with another order. Bo scanned the room again, but her eyes kept straying back to her uncle’s table. Three more brawny gamblers filled the empty chairs. Bo glanced over them, silently comparing them to the other players in the room.

  Who were they fooling? They looked like the IC delegation of the annual Sub-socia arms dealer convention. She’d seldom seen so many square jawed, stiff-necked males in evening wear sitting down. Usually they wore com sets and camo, and hovered around t
he perimeter of the room singly and in pairs, caressing the stock of their favorite assault rifles.

  Her attention turned back to Chase. While he had the heavily-muscled build of an IC agent, his demeanor was anything but. And he was certainly not an experienced enough Five-Point player to make the cut at a tourney like this one. He could be an independent, but she doubted it.

  Darien, on the other hand, was something else entirely. He had all the identifying traits of a professional Five-Point player, but he had the build and demeanor of an IC Agent. Royce apparently thought he was IC. Bo shook her head. The man was an enigma, utterly confusing and completely infuriating. She couldn’t decide if he was mentally unstable or just mercurial. One moment, he was the charming rascal who had stolen a kiss in the embarkation lounge, the very next breath he was an insulting bastard deliberately pushing her buttons.

  Turning her back on them, she forced herself to stop dwelling on it. She was honest enough with herself to admit that he had gotten under her skin in a way that no man ever had.

  She waited patiently for the bartender to make his way around to her. She tensed, sensing a presence behind her. Casually, she glanced behind her. Chase started with surprise at being caught. Squaring his shoulders, he moved to stand at her side.

  “I guess I’m being pretty obvious, aren’t I?” he asked, leaning on the bar. His elbow slipped, throwing him off-balance. With a small, self-deprecating smile, he quickly regained his composure and gingerly tried it again.

  Bo couldn’t help but smile at his boyish charm. Unable to help herself, she glanced back at the table. Darien tossed a stack of silver pieces onto the growing pile in the center of the table. Instead of turning to the next player, he watched her, his face expressionless.

  “Obvious is misleading,” she said tearing her eyes away from Darien. “It’s been my experience that nothing is ever quite what it seems.”

  “Can I buy you that drink?” Chase asked.

  Bo held up the glass. “I’ve got one, thanks.”

  Leaning closer, he lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Yes, but that one is empty,” he said with mock solemnity. “I was thinking more along the lines of buying you a glass with something in it.”

  “I’m flattered, Chase, truly, but I’m a Companion, not a Skyhopper.”

  “Why are you being difficult?” he asked.

  “I’m being difficult?”

  “I’m only trying to be nice and buy you a drink,” Chase said. “You’re the one who keeps being evasive.”

  A few words of Gallic caught her attention. Before she could stop herself, she turned to look for the speaker. A warning chill rocketed down her spine.

  “Evasive?” she echoed.

  “See – there you go again. Evasive.” He leaned closer. “It means you’re avoiding direct and honest communication.”

  Bo noticed that Darien’s seat was empty. She frowned.

  “I see,” she said absently.

  A movement a few meters away caught her attention.

  “Now if you’re looking to be honest with yourself…”

  The rest of Chase’s conversation was lost to her. Bo watched a trader from Gol turn abruptly and shove the humanoid next to him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Chase was going to be the death of him. That Joy Babe, Marissa, was trouble. He could feel it down to his marrow.

  Blade shouldered his way through the crowd towards the bar. His steps slowed as the trader from Gol turned and shoved the humanoid beside him. Like a wave, the ensuing melee rolled through the room. One after another, the gamblers, government agents, and Sub-socialites lashed out at one another, eagerly shedding the thin veneer of civilization in favor of a good, old-fashioned bar brawl. Chase caught a sharp blow across his jaw when he turned to offer assistance. Within seconds, Chase was completely engaged in the brawl, hard-pressed to defend himself against a garishly-dressed humanoid with an obscure tribal war-tattoo winding down one side of his face.

  Biting back a curse, Blade sidestepped a pair of combatants, then ducked under someone’s fist. Marissa dropped her glass and backed away from Chase, but tripped and stumbled over her skirt. She recovered quickly with reflexes a spacer would have envied.

  If she hit the ground, she would likely be trampled in the fracas. A glance around confirmed that her client was otherwise occupied with two men and a chair, and Chase had all he could handle with the humanoid who was trying to use him as a bar cloth.

  A writhing knot of combatants rolled into his path from one side as another pair buffeted him from the other. He shoved one and stepped lightly over the other.

  That was when Blade noticed the tall, slender methane breather in his faded yellow, self-contained environment suit. He was an island of calm in a sea of chaos, moving purposefully towards Marissa and his brother. Blade’s every instinct screamed a warning. He shoved his way through the crowd, intent on reaching them before the methane breather did.

  Helplessly, he watched the methane breather plant his feet and pull a cylindrical device from his suit pocket. A dull roar filled Blade’s ears as he recognized what it was… a ditoxicin squib... the stuff of nightmares… his nightmares.

  He shouted a warning, but it was swallowed by the noise in the lounge.

  Marissa turned just as the methane breather raised the ditoxicin squib and the full contents of the spray exploded in her face. She lifted her hands in reflex, but it was too late. Blade felt the blood drain from his face. She helplessly tried to wipe the spray from her eyes, but the ditoxicin covered her hands.

  “NO!”

  Blade reached the bar and snatched up a pitcher of ice water. He shoved her onto the floor against the bar and dumped the contents of the pitcher on her face. The methane breather hit him repeatedly in the ribs with a collapsible stun bat, knocking him into the bar. Blade grunted with the pain; he thought he felt one of his ribs crack. Without giving himself the chance to think about it, he turned to confront the methane breather, but he had retreated into the crowd. Without wasting any time, Blade reached over the bar and snatched up a bar towel, wetting it thoroughly from the tap. He knelt down and wiped as much of the ditoxicin from her face and hands as he could. She was already pale and struggling to breathe. Her amber eyes stared unseeingly at him.

  He grunted when a boot found his injured rib. Pulling her to her feet, he rose and looked around for his brother. Having gained the upper hand with his garishly-dressed antagonist, Chase needed no assistance. A trio of grappling men stumbled towards them. Blade pulled her tightly against him and curved his body protectively around her as they crashed into him, driving his injured side against the bar. He grunted as a fresh wave of pain went through him. She pressed her hands against him, trying to push him away. He tightened his hold on her. With a shove, he knocked the men off in another direction. Muttering a curse, and ignoring the pain in his side, he bent down and pulled her over his shoulder.

  He didn’t have time to observe the niceties. The chemical weapon was already drilling into her mucus membranes and destroying tissue. He had to get her out of here and into treatment, stat. He carried her from the lounge, brutally shoving his way through the melee, leaving his brother to fend for himself.

  Once in the companionway outside, he moved quickly, pausing only briefly at an emergency first-aid cache. Breaking the seal, he pulled out every piece of equipment inside, including respirator masks, containers of breathable air, and a medipak. A sense of calm washed over him as his training took over. He ran down a list of his options, discarding one possible course of action after another.

  The ship’s infirmary was likely well-stocked, but it was unlikely the ship’s medic was trained for ditoxicin poisoning. He didn’t have time to bring a green medic up to speed and they tended to get difficult if you just breezed into their infirmary and took over. If untreated or improperly treated within the first half-hour, she was as good as dead. He doubted that he’d delayed much of the chemical’s damage by dumping the pitcher in her fa
ce. She’d already inhaled a large concentration, not to mention rubbed a good bit of it in her eyes. What he needed was an emergency stasis field to buy them both some time.

  She was dead weight, limp, unconscious, breathing shallowly, and struggling for what little air she could get. Ignoring the bank of lifts, he palmed open the emergency stairwell and raced down the two levels to the luxury staterooms. He broke through the hatch into the companionway at a run. The liner wasn’t overly large, but every millisecond counted. He reached his stateroom and keyed open the door, stepping through.

  Once inside, he dropped the medical gear onto the floor and eased her down beside it. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled a sharp knife from its sheath and deftly cut her clothes from her, taking care not to nick her soft skin. Balling them into a pile, he tossed them at the door.

  Working quickly, he dug through the medipak for a handheld scanner. He took a baseline of her vitals while he untangled the respirator mask’s feed lines. With one eye on her fading vitals, he attached the lines to the canisters. With a tug to test the connection for leaks, he settled the mask over her nose and mouth. With a sharp twist, he opened the valves on the canisters, forcing air into her.

  The medipak yielded little in the way of useful drugs. At the bottom of the pack, however, he found the fist-sized disc he’d been hoping for. With grim determination, he tore the wrapping off and discarded the operating instructions. With half an eye on the medical scanner, he keyed the device for her specs and placed it on her chest; then he touched the activation switch.

  The stasis field hummed and the device glowed as the field engaged.

  Blade fell back against one of the overstuffed chairs and drew a deep breath, lifting his face to the ceiling. He offered up a silent prayer. He stayed like that sitting on the floor – back braced against the chair – his knees drawn up, unwilling to look at her until the scanner beeped, signaling that her condition was temporarily stabilized.