by Jaleta Clegg
I curled up on the bench. Harris watched me.
"Can I go in my cabin now?" I asked.
"And access all sorts of systems? I’m not stupid, Dace. Lesson two, don’t underestimate me. You’ll stay where you are. Where we can watch every move you make."
"Can I use the bathroom?"
He pursed his lips, disgusted. He nodded at the thug looming over me. The thug hauled me to my feet. Pain shot down my leg from my knee. I had to hang on to the thug’s arm to keep from falling on my face. He shook me off and I staggered to the wall.
"Keep the door open," Harris called as I limped into my cabin.
So much for that half-baked plan. I made it into the tiny bathroom. The thug planted his foot in the door so I couldn’t close it. I tried to pretend he wasn’t there. I wasn’t very successful. He gave me no chance to go through the cabinets looking for a weapon. He didn’t give me a chance to grab the blaster hidden under my pillow. He dragged me out of the cabin and shoved me at the bench. I landed on my knees in front of it. Something popped in my knee and I groaned at the pain. The thug picked me up and dropped me onto the cushion. I cradled my knee and gingerly tried to figure out what was damaged.
Darien Harris took another thug and went into my cabin. I watched them paw through my cupboards and drawers. Harris found my blaster and gave me another cold smile as he tucked it into his waistband.
"Lesson three," he said, stepping out of the cabin. "Don’t try to trick me again." He slammed his hand against the back of my neck.
I passed into complete and total darkness.
Chapter 19
I woke, stiff and groggy and aching. It took a moment to remember why I was on the bench and not in my cabin. And then I wished I hadn’t woken up. The ship’s lights were dimmed. The door to my cabin was closed. My personal thug was sitting on a chair next to the cabin door, watching me with eyes that missed nothing. I glanced into the cockpit. Two thugs manned the stations. I had no chance of slipping in and messing anything up.
And if I tried, I knew Darien Harris would calmly torture my friends while I watched. I bit back frustrated tears. I rolled over, putting my back to the thug, and pretended I was asleep.
I knew this ship, inside and out. I’d rebuilt most of it. There had to be something I could do. There was an access panel right in front of my nose. Wiring for the engine, I thought. What would be worse, yanking the wires out and blowing us all into microscopic bits or doing what Harris demanded? Staying alive won out. Playing in that access hatch wouldn’t buy me anything but certain death.
I could bring the ship to a standstill, given a few minutes access to the computer. I could lock them out of everything and set the emergency beacon to blaring. And then they’d calmly beat me to a pulp and kill my friends one by one. They had us outmuscled and outmaneuvered.
I ached horribly. I rolled back over and looked at my thug. He was big, bulging with muscles. He looked at least a little intelligent.
I sat up, groaning. "Can I get some pain meds?"
He yanked me to my feet by one arm. I groaned again. It hurt like crazy. My knee throbbed as he marched me across the lounge, but it held my weight. Maybe nothing was broken. Yet. He shoved me down into one of the chairs at the table.
He fetched me water. "No meds. Hom Harris wants you to remember your lessons."
I drank the water, glad he was that considerate. As soon as I finished, he hustled me back to the bench and shoved me down.
"What’s your name?" I asked out of idle curiosity.
"No talking."
I heard the threat and shut up. I spent a very long four hours staring at the bottom of the storage cabinets over my head and trying to think of a way out of this nightmare. I hadn’t come up with anything that didn’t end in certain death when the reentry alarm sounded. We’d made very good time to Kimmel, not that it mattered. One step closer to complete ruin, I thought bleakly. Damn Darien Harris and the whole Targon Syndicate.
As if my thoughts summoned him, Darien opened the door to my cabin and stepped out. He smiled, letting it spread over his face. He enjoyed making me miserable. That was what he’d promised me, wasn’t it?
Jerimon hurried past into the cockpit. He avoided looking at me. Which was probably a good thing, I was very tempted to call him names that would have blistered his ears. The look on Harris’ face warned me that that would be a very stupid thing to do. I kept my mouth shut.
The ship slid through transition to normal space. They talked to port authority on Kimmel. No one questioned who was calling. No one asked to speak to the captain. Not that I expected them to, small ships like mine were notorious for high crew turnover.
We landed. My personal thug picked me up and threw me into the cabin with the others. I sprawled on the floor. The door slid shut behind me and the lock light glowed over the door.
Jasyn and Clark helped me off the floor. I dropped on the bunk and leaned back against the wall.
"Who are they?" Ginni asked in a small voice. She huddled next to Habim, who was currently snoring. Dismantled equipment spread across his lap and over the bunk
"The Targon Syndicate." I didn’t have to explain any further for Jasyn or Clark. Ginni looked at me blankly.
"A criminal organization," Jasyn told Ginni. "Dace has been on their hit list for a while."
Ginni looked at me with wide eyes.
"What do they want?" Clark asked me.
"What do you think? I might be able to buy them off for you. They aren’t going to stop until I’m dead, though." I shifted and bit back a groan.
"What’s broken?" Jasyn asked me.
I looked at the cut across her cheek, a thin line of dried blood. "Nothing permanent. Harris’ thugs know their business." They wanted to inflict maximum pain with minimum damage. They’d succeeded.
"Harris?" Clark questioned me.
I summarized everything I’d heard and seen and guessed about the man who took us hostage. I doubted we’d have much time together. The thugs were probably listening in.
"Did you get in touch with Lowell?" I asked Clark when I finished.
He shook his head. "No one admitted to knowing him. But we did get temporary papers for Ginni and Habim. They jumped us when we got back to the ship."
"Jerimon sold us out," I said, watching Jasyn.
"He left me a note," she said, biting off each word. "Targon arranged for his early release on condition that he find you and deliver you to them. He didn’t want me to be upset with him. I want to rip his ears off and feed them to him. How could he do this?" She turned away.
"They would have found me sooner or later," I said. "How do we get the ship back from them?"
No one had any ideas that were workable. Harris and his thugs had done their homework. We were locked in the one cabin that had no critical access ports. I could play with the wires and plumbing in here but nothing else. Minor nuisances, nothing more. The override panel for the door was welded shut. Clark had been through every storage locker in the room. All of them had been emptied except for one that held a handful of broken hand scanners. None of those would do us any good, even if Habim managed to fix them.
We were stuck, well and truly stuck, in a very nasty situation.
My thug came for me an hour later. He dragged me out without a word. Harris was waiting for me in the lounge. They left the cabin door open while they beat me up again. When the thugs were finished, Harris leaned over me where I lay groaning on the floor.
"Lesson four, no plotting," he said. And smiled.
I wanted to beat the smile off his face. I knew better than to even let him see that thought in my eyes. I crawled over to the cushioned bench and collapsed onto it.
They fed us a few hours later. The thugs sent four dinners into the cabin. Jerimon came out of the engine room and sat at the table to eat. He avoided looking at me. He talked to the thugs, pretending to smile and joke. I wanted to throttle him with my bare hands. How dare he sell us out like this?
Mos
t of the thugs left with Harris after the meal. Harris was in a good mood, he stood over me and gloated before he left. He made sure I knew exactly what he was planning. Juntis Shoot had provided him with collectible ceramics. Harris was going to deliver this batch and then break the contract Juntis Shoot claimed I had signed with him. Broken contracts would get me barred from the Independent Traders Guild and Harris knew it.
That was only the beginning. The whole shipment of ceramics had been laced with packets of highly illegal drugs. The Patrol would get an anonymous tip about the time we lifted, without paying any landing fees, of course. Not only would I be blacklisted for not paying, I’d have the Patrol chasing me as a smuggler.
Having the Patrol after me wasn’t as scary as Harris hoped. I wanted them chasing me. I had a much better chance with the Patrol than with Targon. All I had to do was catch Lowell’s attention and I could get everything straightened out.
I slumped on the bench and looked as dejected as I could manage. Let Harris think he was winning. Let him believe he was breaking me.
Harris left, smiling as he sauntered out of my ship. There were only two of the thugs left, and Jerimon.
Jerimon came over to the bench. The thug watched him suspiciously. "Go eat, Tom," Jerimon said to him. "I’ll keep an eye on her for a while."
Tom didn’t go far. He watched us the whole time he slurped down reconstituted chicken noodle soup.
"It was you or me, Dace," Jerimon said. "They cornered me in prison and offered to let me live if I sold you out to them."
"Don’t bother apologizing, you sneaking double crosser. How could you do this to Jasyn and Clark? Not to mention Ginni and Habim. Take revenge on me, I can understand that, but you betrayed your own sister."
He slapped me, his face a cold mask. "Don’t bring my sister into this. If it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t have been mixed up in any of this."
"You brought her into it, Jerimon. You stupid idiot. Do you really think they’re going to just let you walk out when they’re done with me?"
He slapped me again, knocking me sideways. I tasted blood.
"Don’t mark the merchandise," Tom said.
Jerimon turned away. He went down to the engine room.
I wanted to cry. How could he possibly blame me for his stupidity? It had been the same story with the Sessimoniss. He’d gotten us both in that fix and then tried to hide from it. I’d ended up taking the brunt of that one, too. How could he have been so stupid as to trust a crime syndicate?
There was a polite knock at the hatchway. The thug Tom looked up from his soup.
"You must be new," a familiar voice said just outside of my range of vision. Captain Everett of the Windrigger stepped into the lounge. He smiled at Tom and looked casually around. "Captain Dace," he greeted me. "It’s good to meet you in person."
I stood, trying to hide a grimace of pain. I could see in his face that he sensed something was not right on my ship. I pasted a smile on my face, conscious that Tom watched every move.
"How are you?" I asked Everett.
"Doing well," he said. "I came to see how you were doing with Ghost."
Ghost, the cat. I hadn’t seen her since Shamustel when I’d left her sleeping on my pillow. She appeared from the empty cabin and twined around Everett’s legs. He bent down and picked her up.
"She’s fine, as you can see," I said, trying to sound happy. It sounded forced and strained to my over sensitive ears.
"I see that." He turned so his back was to Tom. "And how is Jasyn doing?"
"She’s a bit busy right now," I lied. He was signalling with his eyes. I nodded ever so slightly.
"I’ll have to call back later," Everett said. He let Ghost jump down. "Perhaps dinner?"
"Not this trip," I said. "Sorry, we’re on a tight schedule."
"I see." I hoped he saw the mess I was in. He was Gypsy, Family to Jasyn and the traitor Jerimon. Maybe he could help. "Then perhaps next time we meet, Dace." He offered his hand.
I clasped it in my hand, hoping that the shaky feeling I had would be obvious to him and not Tom. He squeezed my hand briefly and left with a breezy wave at Tom.
Tom watched him until he was well past the ship. Tom shut the hatch, then turned to glare suspiciously at me.
I sat on the bench, wincing as I hit bruises.
"Who was that?" Tom asked. His voice was as soft and silky and dangerous as a zithos snake.
"Jasyn’s cousin." Ghost hissed at Tom then jumped into my lap where she proceeded to tell me how hungry she was. I stood back up, groaning. Ghost danced over to the galley.
"What are you doing?" Tom stopped me with one meaty arm.
"Feeding the cat."
He held me there for a very long moment while he studied my face. He dropped his arm and nodded.
I fed Ghost. She gobbled it down. I leaned on the counter and watched her eat. Jasyn’s fish swam next to my head. Her mural was finally finished. The fish began to shimmer and looked like they were really swimming. I lost my grip on the counter and slid to the floor. My head was spinning. My tongue felt thick. How long had it been since I’d eaten? An hour, maybe. Drugs, I thought. Or maybe just too much pain, too little food and too little sleep.
Tom picked me up like a bundle of rags and dumped me on the bunk in Jasyn’s cabin. The room looked stripped. Tom took the precaution of tying my wrists and ankles together. I was too dizzy to protest. My head felt stuffed with cotton. The last thing I was aware of was Ghost curling up on my belly and purring to herself.
When I woke a long time later, my mouth was dry and I could feel the hyperdrive humming through the ship. Ghost slept on my head, curled in my hair. I closed eyes that felt swollen and tried to sleep. My head pulsed in time to the engine.
Someone dragged me off the bunk. I blinked blearily as I was once again dumped on the bench.
"Not smart, Dace," Harris said to me.
"What?" I mumbled.
He didn’t bother explaining. He let his thugs beat me. None of them touched my face, though.
They left me sobbing on the bench.
Chapter 20
Sector Chief Querran stretched out on her couch and wiggled her toes. Her apartment was quiet, finally. Four days of her grandchildren had worn her down. She looked forward to an evening of quiet before she had to report back to work in the morning. Another two years, she thought, and she could retire with full benefits. Two years and she could choose how to spend her time. She could visit her grandchildren at their homes. She could travel to all the places she’d wanted to see.
The Patrol had been good to her, she couldn’t complain. She was getting old, though. Retirement looked and sounded more and more appealing.
Her com buzzed. Priority signal. She frowned. Who would call her at this time of day when they knew she was on a well-deserved vacation? It buzzed again, insistent. Bad news, she grumbled as she got up to answer it.
"Chief?" It was her assistant Marshay. The woman looked haggard, her face wrinkled in concern. "I know you’re on vacation and I didn’t want to bother you, but there’s a situation I think you need to know about."
"It couldn’t wait until morning?" Querran hated the plaintive note that crept in. She was definitely getting old. She didn’t want to deal with an emergency. Marshay was very efficient, though, and wouldn’t be calling her unless it really was an emergency. "What is it?"
"I think you need to come in," Marshay said.
That got Querran’s attention. Very few things were sensitive enough that she didn’t trust them over the com lines. "Give me thirty minutes." She rang off.
Thirty two minutes later she walked into her office, through a building dim and quiet for the night. Her office was lit up, along with several others on her floor. Marshay saw her and stood, saluting. Marshay looked as tired as Querran felt.
"What is it?" Querran asked.
Marshay wordlessly slid an open folder across the conference table. Querran sat and scanned the summary.
"Simple piracy, Marshay," she said, dismissing the folder. "Why did you call me in for this?" She was too tired to dig deeper, to read between the lines. "A ship jumped without paying docking fees on Shamustel and again on Kimmel."
"The cargo delivered on Kimmel included over two hundred pounds of Glitter, uncut. Worth thousands on the market."
"It was intercepted," Querran said and closed the folder. "Send two cruisers after the ship. What was it? A small merchant? No weapons, no problem."
"I think there is a problem," Marshay said. "Look at the ship name and registry." She opened the folder to the appropriate page and slid it back.
Querran read through the page and sat back, steepling her fingers under her chin. "I think we’re in a mess." Marshay nodded silent agreement. Querran looked at the ceiling and thought hard. "Where was the ship headed?"
"No one is quite sure. They have a cargo contracted to Ytirus, but signs are that it isn’t going to get delivered." Marshay spread a map of the sector on the table. She pressed one corner and the map sprang to life. Pinpoints of light sparkled over the table. "They were on Kimmel two days ago." Her finger pointed at a single point of yellow light. "Ytirus is here. They were on a course that, if projected, leads them here instead." Her finger traced a line that headed away from Ytirus on a completely different vector.
"What’s out that direction?" Querran asked.
"Persephone, Fortran, Dinias Nebula, a dozen different possibilities."
"What ships do we have that direction?" Querran squinted at the glowing map.
"The Avenger is patrolling near the nebula," Marshay answered. "Captain Nimitz is here with the Glory Road." Her finger hit a star near the fuzz of the nebula. "Kurok and Ubiquitous are in transit here and here."
Querran studied the map for a very long moment, deciding which course of action would have the fewest repercussions and come closest to accomplishing what she wanted.
"Send message capsules to all four ships and the surrounding settlements," she said finally. "My authority. They are to detain the ship and crew when they appear. Make sure it’s clear that they are to shoot to disable or cripple, not kill. I want to talk to the crew myself."
