The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3)

by J. A. Sutherland

  Alexis stayed where she was, jaw clenched in sudden recognition from the moment’s glimpse of the unscarred half of the man’s face. He was familiar for a reason, but she couldn’t believe it was him. Had, in fact, spent the years since their last meeting certain that she’d killed him.

  Chapter 26

  Daviel Coalson, alive and here, and sure as certain he’s recognized me as well.

  The last time that she’d seen Coalson had been on the signals console of her first ship, Merlin. Captain Grantham had left her in command of the ship and a skeleton crew while he assaulted the illegal gallenium mining operation Coalson ran, in addition to the piracy and smuggling Grantham had begun investigating him for.

  Coalson had fled in a ship’s boat and Alexis had pursued in Merlin. He’d been on his way to reaching a ship and escaping when she’d ordered a full broadside fired into his boat. He’d dropped something in Merlin’s path, though. She suspected it was a nuclear mining charge of some sort. Merlin had come close to being destroyed, it was only her order to roll ship and take the blast on the ship’s heavy keel that had saved them, and it had taken some time to repair the damage. By the time they’d been able to search, the other ship had fled and the wreckage of the boat had drifted and dispersed so greatly that they’d been unable to recover it all.

  A voice spoke near her and she spun around, startled. A man was standing near her table, smiling expectantly. Not the same one as before. He spoke again, but so rapidly that Alexis couldn’t follow what he said at all.

  “What?”

  He spoke again, slower, but still smiling and pointed to the chair.

  Oh, for the love of …

  “No,” she said.

  The man sat.

  “I meant, ‘No, you may not join me,’ not, ‘No, the seat’s not taken,’ or whatever it is you were asking.”

  The man smiled.

  “You can’t understand a bloody word I’m saying, can you?”

  The man nodded and smiled wider.

  “And yet, you’re still sitting at my table …”

  Alexis looked around hoping to catch Dansby’s eye or catch some sight of Coalson at the rear of the pub so that she’d at least know where he was.

  The man at her table said something and reached across the table to take her left hand in both of his. He stared at her intently and said … something.

  “I’m certain that was quite complimentary and I’d be incredibly flattered … if I understood a bloody word of it. But I didn’t and I’m not and I’m busy —” She waved her free hand at him in a go away gesture. “So would you please bugger off then?”

  The man laughed and ran his fingers over her palm in a way that made her want to rush off to the head and wash herself.

  Alexis ground her teeth together. She took a deep breath, started to say something more, then shook her head.

  “No,” she muttered, “I’ve had quite enough of this.”

  With her free hand she pulled one of the blades Dansby had bought her from her left sleeve and held it up in front of her. The man froze and his eyes widened. She waved the tip of the blade back and forth.

  “Look, you, this knife?” She pointed it through the table in the general direction of the man’s lap. “Your bollocks.” She flicked her wrist in a cutting motion, then raised her eyebrows. “Savvy that, at least, do you?”

  The man released her hand and stood up, then took a step back from the table. He scowled at her and squared his shoulders, then muttered the first word she understood before walking away.

  “Bitch.”

  Good lord, even with a whole other language at his disposal that’s the still best he can come up with?

  Alexis watched him go, then slid her knife back into its sheath. She glanced around, but no one else in the pub seemed to have noticed the exchange. Either that or such things were so common that the clientele paid no heed.

  She turned in her chair so that she could see the table the man she thought was Coalson had been at. How could it be him? Coalson’s body was never found, but they’d always assumed that he was among the dead.

  His boat took a full broadside. It was shredded to bits and I think the fusion plant must have gone as well.

  But he wasn’t dead. She was certain it had been him at that table. He was here on Baikonur and he’d recognized her as surely as she’d recognized him.

  She looked over to Dansby, willing him to finish so that they could leave or at least to look at her so that she could communicate some sense of urgency. Whatever Coalson would do, having recognized her, would not be to her benefit, and she wanted nothing more than to reboard Röslein and be gone from Baikonur entirely.

  She almost cried out with relief when Dansby rose and gestured for her to follow him. They left the pub and she waited until they were some distance down the corridor before she grasped Dansby’s arm.

  “We must speak. Quickly.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned when we reach Röslein. Patience, niece.”

  “No, damn your eyes, this is a different matter!”

  “What —”

  Dansby’s head jerked sharply to look down the corridor, then he shoved her to the side into a pile of trash between stacks of crates and leapt backward himself. As quickly as he moved there was a loud crack and shouts.

  “Four of them!” Dansby yelled. “To either side, maybe more.” He already had his weapons drawn. Chemical pistol in one hand and laser in the other.

  Alexis drew her own pistol as more cracks sounded and the crates around her shook. She had her flechette pistol in its hidden holster as well, but didn’t think those tiny darts would be of much use with all the cover in the corridor. Dansby raised a hand above the crates he was sheltering behind and fired off two quick shots, then fired the laser in the opposite direction. More shots struck the crates.

  “Fire back at them, damn you!”

  Alexis, eyes wide and not quite believing that she was being shot at on a station, leaned around the edge of the crate to find a target. She managed a quick glimpse of two men, behind crates themselves, farther down the corridor, before seeing them adjust their aim toward her and ducking back.

  “Don’t look to aim, just bloody shoot!” Dansby yelled at her. He had his tablet in hand and began speaking into it rapidly while trying to fit a new capacitor into his laser with the other.

  “What if someone comes out a hatchway?” she demanded, thinking of the crowded pub and not wanting to shoot an innocent by mistake.

  “No one’ll come to investigate this nonsense!” Dansby yelled at her, firing again. “And if they’re foolish enough to do so they deserve to be shot!”

  Alexis did as he said, simply pointing her pistol over the crates and firing twice rapidly, then doing the same in the other direction.

  “I’ve no quarrel with you, sir!” a voice called. “It’s that bitch, Carew, I want!”

  Alexis recognized the voice now too, and no doubt it was Coalson. How he was here, how he was even alive, she didn’t know, but it was him.

  Dansby looked at her across the corridor, his mouth open with astonishment.

  “I left you alone for ten bloody minutes!” More shots rang out and Alexis and Dansby returned fire. “What did you do?”

  “Send her out!” Coalson yelled. “Or throw out your arms and I’ll let you walk free!”

  “Run, whoever you are!” Dansby called back. “And you might live out the day!”

  He fired his laser again and was rewarded with a cry of pain from down the corridor. He turned to Alexis with a wide, feral grin as he slammed a new capacitor into the laser’s grip.

  “Worth every bloody pence.”

  “Can’t have many more charges for that!” Coalson called.

  More shots struck the crates near them. Alexis flinched as the impact knocked the crate above her off the stack and she had to bat it away as it fell.

  “It’s only a matter of time!”

  “How many magazines do you ha
ve?” Dansby whispered.

  Alexis did a quick pat of her pockets and boottops to ensure she had all she thought she did. “Six and what’s left in the pistol.”

  Dansby blinked and shook his head. “Don’t believe in going half-prepared, do you? Never mind.” He glanced around the crates quickly and ducked back as more shots were fired. “What’s left in your pistol that way,” he said, pointing. “On three and reload quick.”

  Alexis nodded.

  “One. Two. Three.”

  They both stood fired rapidly over the crates, Alexis one direction and Dansby the other. Alexis ducked back down as the slide on her pistol locked back and reloaded, but Dansby ducked down and then stood again. Laser one direction and pistol the other, he fired both, then dropped and quickly reloaded.

  “There’s always some want to rush when they think you’re reloading,” he said with another grin. “Might have got both.”

  There were cries and moans to either side and more shots rang out. Bullets and flechettes slammed into the crates, over and over.

  “I believe you’ve angered them, Mister Dansby.” Alexis couldn’t help but grin back. Her heart was pounding and her body felt chilled, but she was also exhilarated. Everything around her was bright and clear, the edges sharper than she thought normal.

  “Seeing a friend take a laser to the groin has that effect.” He raised an eyebrow. “Does little for the groin owner’s disposition, as well.”

  Alexis fired several shots, again not looking, just wanting to keep their attackers at bay. There was a sharp cry and the calls for help from that direction cut off.

  “Shoot a man who’s injured, Carew?” Coalson called out. “That’s the cowardly behavior I’d expect of you!”

  “Don’t bloody shoot the wounded, Carew,” Dansby said.

  “I wasn’t aiming, I’m sorry.” Alexis shrugged. She felt little compunction about it, truly. Perhaps later she might, but for now he’d been trying to kill her and might have been still firing, wounded or not.

  Dansby met her eyes and grinned. “I’d gutshot that one and his cries were putting his fellows off. They’ll rally now he’s silent.”

  Alexis found herself grinning back. Outnumbered and surrounded they might be, but she felt very much alive.

  “Nothing to say, Carew?” Coalson called. “Have I finally silenced that tongue of yours?”

  Alexis and Dansby fired over the crates again.

  “I’ve a fine serpent here to do my speaking, Coalson.” She grinned at Dansby. “He’s more than a match for a rat like you.”

  “Does your serpent know you’re Navy, Carew? Or does he wear that absurd blue of yours as well?”

  There were shots and shouts of alarm from the other side, away from Coalson.

  “That way,” Dansby said, pointing toward Coalson, “and keep firing. Now!”

  Alexis rose with him, not understanding why, but oddly trusting him. She fired rapidly and heard footsteps behind her, but Dansby never turned so she kept on until spacers from Röslein charged past, led by Mynatt. Alexis and Dansby stopped firing as their foes turned and ran. Alexis caught sight of Coalson at the rear, or rather at the front of the retreat, before he scrambled to the side and disappeared into some ship’s hull. His men were close behind him, with Mynatt and the Rösleins on their heels.

  Dansby leaned back against the corridor wall. He slid the capacitor cartridge from his pistol and inserted a fresh one, then looked over at Alexis. He pressed a hand to his side, probing, and winced. Blood soaked his jacket beneath his hand.

  “You’re hurt!” Alexis crossed the corridor and grasped his arm, seeking to pull his hand away and see the damage.

  “Grazed,” Dansby said. “Barely struck at all.” He stared down the corridor in the direction Coalson had run and shook his head in disbelief. “Who was that?”

  “Should we not be going?” Alexis asked. “Before the station patrol arrives?” In truth she was surprised they hadn’t already.

  “Patrol?” Dansby laughed. “Be lucky if the bodies don’t rot where they lie. Now tell me what this was about.”

  Alexis did so, as briefly as she thought he’d accept.

  How Coalson was from her home planet and had always hated her family. How her first ship, Merlin, had discovered he was involved in piracy, smuggling, and illegal gallenium mining. And how in the final chase she’d been in command of Merlin and given the order to fire a full broadside into Coalson’s boat as it ran for another ship and before whatever he’d dropped behind had detonated.

  “By the time we repaired Merlin and could return to search the wreckage it had dispersed far and wide, so there was little left,” she concluded. “We recovered some of the bodies, but not his, and the other ship was long gone. We simply assumed he was among the dead … a full broadside into so small a boat, and every shot struck. No one should have survived.”

  “Piracy and smuggling and a secret gallenium mine all at once? This Coalson believes in a pie for every finger, now doesn’t he?” Dansby winced. “Still how? How in bloody hell?”

  “I’m sorry, Mister Dansby. I … I’ve been certain he was dead and how he’s managed to be here …”

  “Oh, not that.” Dansby waved it away. “Baikonur is where you come to run into his sort. If there was any system where you’d find the man again it would be here. No it’s just that …” He gave a derisive laugh. “You’re a mere slip of a girl. Thirty bloody years I’ve been sailing, man and boy — piracy, smuggler, every damned dark bit of business I could find.” He shoved his pistol into its holster. “And the first damned time I’m ambushed and shot is over a man you failed to kill properly?”

  “Again, Mister Dansby, I’m sorry this happened.”

  Dansby shook his head. “If you’re inspiring this much hate so young, Carew, you might consider a change in occupation.”

  “I’ll give that due consideration.”

  She stood and looked up and down the corridor to see that it was, indeed, still clear. She wondered just how much Mynatt had heard of the last part of the confrontation and what she’d make of it.

  Dansby pushed off the wall. “Let’s be off back to the ship.” He looked down the corridor in the direction Mynatt had followed Coalson. “Anya will find us there after she’s tired of the chase.” He shook his head. “I’d have you safely aboard before you’re seen by anyone else who’d like you dead.” He winced again and glared at her. “Not that I’m entirely unable to see this Coalson fellow’s point, mind you.”

  Chapter 27

  “Navy? She’s bloody Navy!”

  “Damn it, Anya! Keep your voice down!” Dansby made a frantic shushing gesture and went to his cabin’s hatch to ensure it was closed.

  Alexis stepped back from the two. She and Dansby had managed to get back to Röslein before Mynatt and the others returned. Dansby insisted they both wait in his cabin, where he had a sturdy hatch and an override of the ship’s systems, until they learned just what had been overheard by the crew. When Mynatt and the rest returned, she demanded entrance and Dansby let her in after confirming it was only her outside his cabin.

  Mynatt was, to say the least, displeased with her new knowledge and Dansby’s explanation of the situation had done nothing to placate her.

  “You’re going to get us all killed, Avrel!”

  “Shh!” He spread his hands. “It’s a fair job. It’ll be all right, you’ll see. Did any of the others hear?”

  Mynatt paced rapidly back and forth, jaw clenched and breathing loudly.

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “I was closest and I barely heard it myself.” She put her hands to her head and pulled her hair. “Nor could I bloody believe it until I came back to the ship and found you locked in here! What were you thinking?” She held up a hand. “No! I know what you were thinking, or thinking with, rather. Your damned purse and nothing more! What if the crew had heard? What if this Coalson tells someone on the station?”

  “We’ll deal with it,” Da
nsby said.

  “‘We’? Word gets out you brought the New London Navy here and your ships will never dock again! Who’ll sell to us? Who’ll buy from us?”

  “Anya, please calm down, I’ll —”

  “I’m tired of your damn promises, Avrel!” Mynatt advanced on Dansby, backing him up until he was against the bulkhead. “You promised me a ship years ago and I’ve held up my end of the bargain more than once! What’ll you promise now? That your latest stupid scheme won’t get us all killed or worse?”

  Alexis frowned, wondering what the worse might include, but didn’t dare ask. Dansby looked like he was terrified of Mynatt and Alexis couldn’t blame him. She’d found herself edging toward a handy corner as well, hand on her pistol in case things turned violent.

  “Damn you! You can’t do this to your crews, keeping them in the dark like this! Unlike her —” Mynatt flung her arm wide to point at Alexis. “— we’re not just to follow orders! We have a say in things!”

  “Miss Mynatt,” Alexis said, trying to calm her, “if you’d listen for a moment and let us explain, please. My presence has nothing to do with your regular business and needn’t —”

  “And you!” Mynatt spun and advanced on Alexis. “I should have bloody known you were Navy, with your damned ways and all.”

  Alexis felt the bulkhead against her back and tightened her hand on her pistol, then released it and slid her hand behind her to where her flechette gun rested. If things did turn violent, then the flechette would be quieter and possibly less lethal. She wasn’t certain of what the best way to handle Mynatt was, but she knew the rest of the crew couldn’t know her true identity or the mission was doomed. She needed this ship to carry her to wherever Commodore Balestra was or there’d be an entire fleet and tens of thousands of troops waiting in vain on Alchiba.

  “This is my crew!” Mynatt yelled, a bit of spittle spraying from her mouth and landing on Alexis’ face. “You’ll not put them in this kind of danger! You’ll not get away with it!” Mynatt’s eyes narrowed and she started toward the cabin’s hatch. “The crew’ll not —”