“But—”
“Dancing, Danna,” Kraft said with a singsong voice. “Don’t cut in unless you really want to dance.”
After darting a glance to Kraft’s silver blade, Danna said, “Bavin, go get my Bartlet Blaster.”
Bavin trotted off like a faithful puppy. Bavin’s clear enchantment with Danna made Jace consider that Kraft, and her whole female crew, might be…lesbians.
Jace cast a speculative gaze to Kraft. She was six-three of dark and deadly Walkyrie with blades and guns strapped to her full, sexy hips. Imposing as hell. Kraft radiated power and authority. Even though he stood a hand taller and outweighed her by fifty pounds, he knew she could take him down without breaking a sweat.
Kraft flashed him that slow, lazy and sexy smile.
Stepping close, she whispered, “Half are, half aren’t. I’m in the no pile.” As she leaned close, she gave him another taste of her musky perfume and breathed, “I like men.”
She ran her gaze over every inch of his body. Jace swore he could damn near feel it, like a good, hard rubdown that touched all his private places with heat. When she finally settled on his eyes, she winked, and he felt certain his decade of celibacy showed in his blushing face.
Lifting her mouth to his ear, she breathed, “I like you.”
Before Jace could even grasp at a response, Heller screamed.
Chapter Four
“Shit howdy!” Heller yanked open a crate of universal ammo. He fondled the hollow-point bullets with a gleeful, face-splitting leer. He let Danna look, but not touch, and they soon fell to squabbling again.
Kraft wanted to throttle Heller for interrupting her moment with Jace, but realized she didn’t have time to linger, not with an IWOG mothership close by.
“I’d still like to know why these folks abandoned ship,” Jace said.
When Kraft first touched the ship, the ugly vibrations made her recoil, but her own desire to know overshadowed her reluctant foreboding. Slipping off her gloves, she laid her hands flat against the durosteel hull. She’d read the ship lightly when they docked, just enough to board and secure the vessel. Now she closed her eyes and let her awareness flood deep into the ship.
Emotional residue and disjointed flashes assaulted her in a swarm that threatened to drop her to her knees. A stoic face looming above terrified crew. Bellowed orders and frightened responses. Big eyes and gaped mouths. Hands frantic in work to prepare for destruction. Raw and sharp, the stench of fear and insanity overwhelmed her.
“Captain lost his mind. Apocalypse coming. He ordered all hands to abandon ship, then tossed himself out an airlock.” She opened her eyes and looked right at Jace. “Everything hinges on the captain.”
Terror crushed her like a vice. The reckoning she’d been running from for eight years felt close. Darkness plunged like sudden blindness. Kraft clasped Jace’s hand.
“IWOG mothership approaching,” Shar said over the Basic’s com. “Please maintain silence on all com channels.”
In the dark, she leaned close to Jace. “I hate those bastards.”
Almost a decade on the run, and she’d done countless jobs since she’d acquired Whisper, but this had to be the most intensely strange of them all. Her terror slipped away when she discovered she liked holding his hand while feeling his body heat in the dark. Too soon, the lights came back on, and she pulled away when she really wanted to press him to the wall and kiss him until neither of them could think straight.
“We’re clear, Captain Kraft,” Shar said.
“Did they alter course?”
“No, Captain Kraft.”
Relief surged. Her time would come, but not today.
“I think there’s more than enough for both our crews.” Jace nodded to the piles of goods that filled the room.
“Jace! It’s ours!” Heller bellowed.
“Technically, the cache is hers,” Jace said.
“How do you figure that?” Heller argued.
“Bailey isn’t blind. Her ship had to be here all along.”
“Intelligent, handsome, honorable and fair?” Kraft poked him with a thrust-out finger, impressed that he figured out she’d docked her ship to the Basic, making her ship look a part of it.
Jace gave her jabbing finger a curious brow.
“Just making sure you’re for real,” she said, trying to think of other ways to touch him. Any excuse would do.
“That’s debatable.” Heller kicked a box of ammo and winced.
Jace glared at him, then turned to Kraft. “You’ve been fair with us. More than. I think we’ve got a situation with an obvious solution.”
“Being honorable thieves.” She smiled.
“Such a deal is like to tweak Trickster’s nose.”
Her smile widened. “It is at that.”
“Half?” Jace offered his hand.
Heller and Danna erupted, “It’s ours!” then glared at one another.
Kraft clasped Jace’s hand and said, “Deal.”
As they divvied up the goods, Danna and Heller couldn’t stop sneering or lunging at each other.
Jace asked, “How long?”
Kraft tilted her head to the side. “How long is my ship?”
“No.” Jace laughed. “How long have you been in the Void?”
Kraft shot him a grin. “Whole of my life.” She thought for a moment. “Been flying Whisper about five years. You?”
“Never flown your ship.” Jace gave her the same cock of the head with a grin. “Been flying Mutiny about seven, though.”
She laughed. Her gaze drifted to her crew. Her smile faded and her voice dropped. “Gets harder every day, doesn’t it?”
His gaze followed hers. He watched their crews move the cache into their respective ships. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Kraft leaned close, looked right into his eyes, pinned him with both her gaze and rolling whisper voice. “They get like family. More so day by day. More a captain cares, the harder life gets. The Void is a brutal bitch to those who care.”
“Makes us special,” Jace defended.
“Or crazy.” She winked.
Jace blushed. In the whole of his life he’d never met a woman who made him feel like a giddy school boy and a lustful monk all in the same turn. Disconcerting. He managed eye contact, but he couldn’t stop blushing as his thoughts turned.
Kraft touched his arm. “I wouldn’t live it any other way.”
“Me either.”
Heller and Danna erupted into another screaming argument they decided to settle by arm wrestling. It degenerated into a mad, grasping tussle on the floor.
“Mutiny is an odd name for a ship,” Kraft said.
“Whisper seems odd to me as well.”
“Does it? Whisper is descriptive. Is Mutiny?”
“You asking me if I stole it?”
“Did you?”
“Mutiny is honestly mine. Is yours?”
“Lock, stock and barrel. There’s not another ship in the sky like Whisper. Best part of my ship is her crew, though.”
“Seems like you’ve got some pretty tough ladies.”
“Don’t let them hear you say that,” Kraft said, leaning close. “Especially Danna. If you want to see her head explode, call her a girl.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“We’ve defeated Berserkers, more than once,” Kraft said, looking at her crew. “My crew knows hell. Does yours?”
“They do.” Jace nodded. “We do our best to outrun most.”
“As do we.” Kraft nodded. “Whisper isn’t much to look at, but she’s fast. She’s docked underneath.”
“I thought that looked odd.” The zeppelin-shaped Basic had a smaller cylinder clinging to its belly, like an overstuffed cigar with a cigarette attached.
“Not odd enough to stay away.”
“Script was too good. It’s funny how that can sometimes cloud a captain’s vision.”
“You were willing to give it all up to save your crew.”
Incr
edulous, Jace glared at her. “Enjoy pouring salt into my wound? Would you like a splash of vinegar with that?”
Kraft lifted her hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean it like that. You’d give almost any script to keep your crew safe, and you know it.”
“You’d do the same for yours,” Jace pointed out.
“Touché.”
“Ha! Say it, fetch! Give! I own your ass!” Danna screamed as she pinned Heller to the floor.
“I ain’t giving over to a she-freak!” Heller bellowed.
“Give, or I swear,” Danna lifted her hand to draw her blade.
“You’ll swear up a whole mess of trouble if you do that,” Kraft said. “Leave off your boy-toy, Danna, we gotta go.”
“I so won,” Danna said as she climbed off Heller.
Kraft turned to Jace. “This time? Everybody won. All of us live to dance another day.”
Before Jace could answer, Kraft disappeared with a slow, lazy and sexy smile.
Chapter Five
“You’ve been pissy ever since we salvaged that Basic a month ago,” Garrett said after Heller lumbered out of the galley.
Jace let the comment slide as he picked at his plate of nasty glop. “Is the engine fixed yet?”
“Spit and bailing wire, but Mutiny will get us to Byzantine.” Garrett leaned back in his chair, his own supper mostly untouched.
“When we get there, you get the part to fix the engine, got it?” Jace stabbed his fork around his dinner, searching for something edible amongst the garish goo. Noticing that Garrett had picked out the red bits, Jace rooted around, found one, chewed, then spit it out. “That’s the best of it?”
“Want more nasty? Take a bite of the green things.” Garrett shivered. “Ewww.” His whole face scrunched up. “Red is the best of a bad lot.”
Jace tried again. If he didn’t think too much, the red bits vaguely tasted of tomatoes. “I can tolerate bad food if the ship is running right.”
“Don’t get bristled at me, Jace. I told you two months ago to replace—”
“You’re right.” Jace tossed his fork aside and held up his hand. “You did.” It wasn’t fair for him to blame Garrett for his lack of script. “I’m going to be plush soon, okay?”
“Okay.” Garrett leaned forward with a horse-toothed grin. “You took a shine to that pretty lady thief, didn’t you?”
Rather than answer, Jace considered his plate. Dinner smelled better than it tasted, but that wasn’t saying much. What looked like wads of vibrant yarn smelled like dirty socks and tasted like something he’d accidentally stepped in.
What I wouldn’t give for a decent meal.
“You gonna answer me, Jace, or are you gonna keep making nasty faces at your supper?”
Lifting his gaze to Garrett, Jace said, “Just because you have big eyes for Payton doesn’t mean everyone else is looking to hitch up.”
“That may be so,” Garrett drawled, “my big eyes for Payton, but you didn’t answer my question.”
“Just make sure we’re ready to dock today, okay? Get the part you need to fix the engine when we do.”
“Gonna cost at least a grand,” Garrett said apologetically.
Jace had at least 5K of goods from the Basic salvage. Mutiny needed fuel, water, recyc, parts, food and crew—pretty much in that order. And Jace hadn’t paid his current crew in months. How could he take on new crew when he couldn’t pay the one he had?
“See if you can find what we need for less.” Jace gave the order with a faint hope that Garrett could finagle the part for half. If Garrett could keep Mutiny running for just a bit longer with spit and bailing wire, Jace might be able to get them out of the red and into the black.
“I could have taken the part off that Basic,” Garrett reminded. “Along with a bunch of other useful electronics.”
“You think I’m going to salvage an IWOG credit ship? Are you nuts?” Jace shook his head. “I’m one swift side-step from the edge of the law as it is by salvaging the hold.”
“They’d never know,” Garrett said.
“The IWOG would slap an Ollie on a part worth a grand.” Jace knew the InnerWorld Government routinely slapped trackers all over their credit ships. The only thing the IWOG credit department couldn’t track was cargo.
“Ollie-Ollie-Oxen-free.” Garrett sighed. “You’re right. Not worth the hassle.”
“Nothing is worth tangling with those freaks.” Because of insatiable IWOG greed, Jace lost his wife, his children, his entire world—and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
“Never met a woman like Captain Kraft,” Garrett said, tipping his battered straw hat off his brow as he lifted his incisive gaze. “Never in the whole of the Void met a woman so much of so many things.”
Considering his rejected food, Jace picked up his fork and toyed with the bright strands once again as hunger rumbled his gut. He’d rather think about anything other than Captain Kraft, or hunger. Forcing Senna to his mind’s eye, Jace pushed his thoughts down a well-worn, sepia-toned path.
“Beautiful. Powerful. Strong.” Garrett kept his voice low and private as he considered aloud, all the while settling his battered hat to his head.
“Senna was such.” Jace dropped his gaze back to his plate of garish goo. Senna once stood beautiful, powerful and strong. A tiny sprite with cinnamon hair who loved him through failed crops, three children and a thousand foibles. “And it sounds like you’ve got a crush.”
“Not on Kraft,” Garrett said. “Payton is all of those things.”
Payton. His doctor. “Difference is?”
“Deadly. Kraft is deadly. Payton isn’t. Senna wasn’t. No matter how finely you slice it.” Garrett plunked his hat to the table. “Kraft let us go because she took a shine to you. Here I am thinking you took a shine to her too.”
“We’re almost a month behind schedule.” Resolute, Jace shoved his garish meal away. “I don’t have time to consider such nonsense.”
“‘Specially since you’re all crotchety we’re late getting to Byzantine, and you’re afraid you’re gonna miss your opportunity to meet up with Kraft again.”
Garrett had been with him way too long. Jace thought he’d been more subtle about why he wanted to hurry to Byzantine.
“That woman would captivate just about anything male.” Garrett primped his thinning brown hair. “Thing is, that lady had eyes only for you.” Garrett waggled his brows. “Did pretty Captain Jace Lawless take a shine to deadly Captain Kraft?”
“Don’t call me pretty.” Jace shoved away from the dented metal table, stood and stomped off to the bridge.
Laughing, Garrett shouted after him, “Your pissytude answers my question better than words ever could!”
After docking on planet Byzantine, Jace led Heller and Garrett into the heart of Kali.
Advertisements blared from plasboards. Hucksters hollered out the wares they had for sale. IWOG consumers, WAG citizens, and Fringe players rushed about in a deafening cacophony. Jace hated being on-world. Sounds and sights and smells made him feel pummeled. Every Fringe planet gave him a headache that didn’t go away for days.
Wall-to-wall foot traffic, bodies so dense Jace gagged on the mélange of sweet perfume and fetid unwashed flesh, made the way to Trickster’s lair horrific. The stench inside the rubble of his office wasn’t much better, just a shade more tolerable than the cluttered streets of Kali.
Trickster welcomed Jace and his crew with an offer of dusty seats and cold IWOG refreshments. Jace declined both with polite suspicion. Trickster repeated his offer with jolly insistence.
“You’re all warm and fuzzy today,” Jace said. “This puckering because you won the lottery, or I did?” With a subtle flick of his hands, Jace flipped his coat from his guns.
Trickster had never been accommodating before. In fact, he’d been downright belligerent.
Heller snorted and spit on the floor. “If the fetch puckers any harder, his whole head will go right up your ass.” Heller settled his gigan
tic, weapon-riddled frame into a wide fighter stance. At a moment’s notice, he could level the building and everyone in it.
“His attitude is unique.” Garrett tipped his hat to Trickster and then lowered his hand to his gun. “I’m pondering the weirdness wonder of it myself.”
Trickster’s private guard, armed with Swain Shredders, tensed.
The whole room of men hit a sphincter factor of seven in less than three seconds.
“Gentleman, please.” Trickster lifted one hand to his men, the other to Jace. “There is no call for this. I find I am in a whimsical good mood, that is all. We can conduct our business standing, if you prefer, Captain Lawless.”
Bad to worse. Trickster never called him by his rank. Mostly, Trickster hissed Lawless like Jace should live up to the name. While calling him Captain Lawless, the nasty weasel dealt fairly, far too fairly, for the salvaged goods.
Jace chalked Trickster’s unnerving attitude up to the fact that Kraft probably made her deal for her part of the cache. Jace figured Trickster acted strange because he knew he didn’t have the advantage this time. Still, Trickster’s jolly yet sinister mood kept Jace on guard.
They made arrangements for Trickster’s men to unload the goods, at which time Jace would receive his script. Before he and crew could leave, two guards trooped in a bunch of women.
“Stooped to the flesh trade?” Jace knew about the trade in beautiful and skilled women, yet found it personally abhorrent. But most didn’t know that. Payton, the doctor on his crew, and her daughter, Charissa were said to be his bought-and-paid for whores. Nothing could be further from the truth, but the tale did lend to his disreputable aura.
“Women are valuable commodities.” Trickster ordered them to line the far wall of his ramshackle office. They ranged in height, weight, race and, most notably, awareness.
Captivated, Jace riveted on a beautiful slave dressed in fluffpink. The revealing harem outfit didn’t showcase her impossible beauty the way her black clothes and gleaming silver blade had. Tarted up, Captain Kraft looked garish, false, forced to wear a mask that ill-suited her. She stood rigid as a parade-ground soldier, towering over everyone but himself and Heller. Her eyes were so glazed, Jace thought it likely Kraft had no idea where she was.
Thief: Fringe, Book 1 Page 3
