Asarlai Wars 1: Warrior Wench

by Marie Andreas

  She turned off the blank screen. Either the Commonwealth was more foolish than she believed or they were covering up something. Neither option was reassuring, but neither did either of them concern her. She’d done her bit when she forwarded the video.

  In her gut she believed the unknown attackers were after her and her ship. She’d gone over Gosta’s report on the other merc companies there and nothing stood out. All of them were smaller companies. The loss at Lantaria most likely meant the end for at least two of them. Rubbing the side of her face she pulled up the report again just to make sure nothing had been missed. A quick read told her nothing connected the other companies. She uploaded the entire package of all of the data on the event to a secret server she maintained, and then deleted it all from her own computer. Some might call her paranoid; she preferred the term prepared. In her experience anything unexamined could and would come back to bite her in the ass.

  She thumped open the comm to the command deck. “Gosta, are Mac and Jakiin onboard yet?” Doubtful, but there was always a chance they’d move their asses for once.

  “Gosta’s not up here, Captain,” Hrrru’s soft voice answered. “Bathshea thinks he’s in his lab. But I don’t think the pilots are on board yet.”

  Vas thanked Hrrru and almost called down to Gosta’s computer lab. Then she thought better of it. If Mac and the others weren’t back yet, they had a bit of time. Gosta had been bursting at the seams about something. It would be a good idea to go down there in person and find out what he’d been up to.

  The Warrior Wench had all of the labs, or offices, stuck away from the main quarters, and they were few in number. In the Victorious Dead, the labs were all part of the living area. While Vas admitted she enjoyed making a living as a mercenary, many of her crew had other interests. They enjoyed the mercenary life, wouldn’t be in a company like this otherwise, but she wanted to make sure everyone had an opportunity to develop other skills and hobbies.

  Information was Gosta’s hobby. Vas often thought when he finally left the mercenary life he’d run an information center on one of the academic planets.

  Surprisingly, the door to Gosta’s lab was shut. He rarely shut it, preferring to share his information with any hapless soul who wandered down his corridor.

  “Gosta? You in there?” She rapped on the metal door.

  A clanging preceded the door opening, followed by Gosta sticking his head out quickly and motioning her inside.

  “What are you doing?” Vas barely got inside when Gosta shut the door behind her.

  “You’re not going to like this. Well, maybe you will, but I didn’t tell you before I did it…But I have a plan… It’s not just for me you see—”

  “Easy there.” Placing both hands on his shoulders, she cut him off. Weird plans from Mac she expected, but Gosta? Never. Yet he babbled like a schoolboy caught stealing an upper classmate’s speeder. “Now what did you do?” She gently pushed him back toward his desk and chair.

  “I stole it.” Gosta’s long face looked ready to drag to the floor as he glanced up at her.

  Vas removed a pile of documents from the lone other chair in the room and scooted it forward before she sat. “Why don’t you start with what you stole, who you stole it from, and why you took it?” Unlike dealing with Mac, she knew Gosta would have weighed the good and the bad before breaking her rules. She trusted him not to have done anything against those rules unless he had a very good reason for it.

  He stared at her for a few seconds, his eyes growing bigger. Then he turned to his computer and rapidly hit a few keys. “That.”

  It took the system a few seconds to load, and that alone told her it was something big. She really wasn’t surprised when the Commonwealth Academic Symbol appeared along with the bold ‘Property of the Commonwealth Academic Society’ banner.

  “You stole the library?” She sat back as the full catalog of information on this single machine scrolled past her eyes.

  “Not all of it.” He hit a few more buttons to end the constant scroll. “Just the important parts. It’s only a copy, a link really. A non-traceable, non-breakable link coded to me alone, but really only a link.” His face went from ecstatic pride at what he had in his possession to abject terror at what Vas might do to him about it.

  His earnestness made Vas hold in her laugh. Not that it wasn’t stealing, but even if caught the fine would be less than what Gosta made in a month during a normal job. Schooling her face to seem serious, she leaned forward and patted his arm. “Did you do it for the good of the ship and most of all to help your captain resolve some nasty mysteries which have been plaguing her lately?”

  “Of course! I mean, it is for me as well, but of course!” He almost appeared insulted that she might imply he would keep knowledge to himself.

  “Then all I can say is thank you.” She rose to her feet. “Make sure you don’t get caught. And report any findings to me.” She froze halfway to the door. “Rather, any findings directly related to my problems. All others you can file.”

  Gosta grunted in response as his fingers flew over the keyboard. They’d be lucky to pry him out of here any time soon.

  Vas smiled as she shut the door. With all the other drama invading her life, this was a nice surprise. Providing Gosta stuck to her final command and didn’t feel the need to report all of his findings to her. She shuddered; that would be truly terrifying.

  Deven was on the command deck by the time she returned. Mac and Jakiin were as well until they saw her coming and fled down the back corridor. Smart men.

  “I take it we’re ready to leave?” Settling into her command chair, she quickly called up their status. She didn’t even care where they went. She just wanted open space around her. Maybe that attack at Lantaria was making her jumpy.

  “We are.” Deven gave a pointed look at Hrrru sitting in the pilot chair. “Mac isn’t happy.”

  Vas gave the command to leave space dock. “Good. I really don’t care. Do we have any info as to where we’re going yet?”

  Deven locked his arms behind his back in the almost military stance he often adopted. Even though he wouldn’t admit to being part of any military in his past. “The Qualian system. The job is simply drop, get paid, and leave. Planet is low-tech and lightly populated. We probably won’t even be noticed.”

  Her shoulders loosened as the commands and orders that would get the ship out into open space flowed around her. The fight had helped some with stress relief, but not enough. She turned back to her second-in-command. “Have you had a chance to look at our information?” Bathshea, Hrrru, and Fron were carefully not paying attention to their conversation. Which meant of course they were dying to know what was going on.

  “Actually, I wanted to give it to Gosta. Shouldn’t he be up here?”

  “Gosta is ensconced in his lab. Which is why Fron has the nav seat. Figured getting him to try other positions would be a good idea.”

  Deven’s eyes brightened when she mentioned Gosta’s lab. He pretended to be all about sex and fighting, but there was a secret book learner in that fine body. She waved him off. “Go down and find him. You can see if he can find anything on our information.”

  “Captain?” Hrrru’s hushed voice broke Vas out of her thoughts as she watched Deven stride off the command deck.

  “Yes, Hrrru?” The star field on her view screen had completely removed the image of the space station. Thank the gods they were in space again. With a shake to clear her head, Vas turned toward the small Welisch yeoman. The Welisch had been bred for generations to fight in tunnels by a long-lost conquering race. Or formerly conquering, since the Welisch had risen and overthrown the invaders. Complete genocide wasn’t pretty even when a race deserved it. Hrrru, like most of his people, appeared like a large pet: furry, soft spoken, and meek.

  Vas figured he was one of the more dangerous beings on her ship.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Short gray fur shimmied as he shook his head as he spoke. “Not wrong.
But why does master Gosta have Graylian puzzle on his work panel?” Hrrru held up the panel Gosta had been trying to show her before. The panel with the weird circles and lines.

  “A what what?” Vas had been lost in thought before the yeoman’s call, but now she wondered if her ears were working.

  “Graylian.” Hrrru glanced down. He didn’t enjoy the attention of others. “Small enclave of monks from home world. They live there now; but they came from the planet Achaeon. Chased out fifty years ago when the ruling prince overthrown.” He waved a paw in the air as he got off track. “This looks like one of their ancient puzzle texts. Where did master Gosta get it?”

  Vas walked over and took the panel. Maybe it would make more sense to her now as opposed to when Gosta showed it to her before.

  “It goes this way, Captain.”

  The fact that she’d been holding it sideways and Hrrru had to correct her definitely indicated it hadn’t suddenly started to make sense. “Thank you, Hrrru.” She looked around the deck, but once her joy at leaving the space dock wore off, this part of the trip was rather dull. “I’ll take this down to Gosta and see if he knew he had a Graylian puzzle. Maybe he’s figured out what it means.”

  Hrrru bobbed his head and went back to his screens.

  “Bathie, you have the bridge. If you need anything call me. Or Deven. Or Gosta. We’ll all be down in Gosta’s hidey-hole. Again.”

  The second trip down to Gosta’s lab was uneventful, even if Vas did walk slowly to see if somewhere along the way she’d be able to figure out the linking of all the items on the panel. Or Graylian puzzle as Hrrru called it. Yet another piece of the master puzzle currently taking over her life. However, she was afraid some of the pieces were missing.

  Alas, figuring out whatever clues were hidden on the panel wasn’t going to happen in the short span of time between the command deck and Gosta’s lab.

  This time the door to his lab hung open, but only a hair’s width. Deven’s low voice could be heard asking Gosta a series of intense questions. By the time that Vas thought about sneaking up to eavesdrop, she knew she was already too close.

  “Come on in.” The tone in Deven’s voice told her he knew who was out there. He had been talking about something she would probably like to hear about with Gosta, and he wasn’t going to continue. Not only had her world become far more complicated as of late, it was also becoming more insubordinate.

  With a sigh, Vas nudged open the door. “Hrrru had some questions about your panel. Or rather why master Gosta had a Graylian puzzle text on his log panel.” She handed the flat disk to Gosta. Deven tried to peer at it but Gosta was holding it close as if he’d never seen it before.

  “What did he call it? Graylian?” He peered at it as if for the first time. “I have heard of them, you know, I have.” Shoving the panel into Deven’s hands, Gosta’s reed-like fingers dashed over his keyboard. An instant later Vas saw the fruits of his pilfered knowledge.

  The large computer screen filled with text and images that continued to grow until Gosta finally forced it to stop. “Ah, Hrrru is a wise student to have picked out a Graylian puzzle.” An image grew larger on the screen. Brightly colored lines and squares overlay a star chart. Far more complex and intricate than the one Gosta had found, but the similarity was there.

  “I certainly wouldn’t have seen it,” Vas admitted. “I see it now, but glancing at the two things? I don’t think so. Hrrru knew it immediately.”

  Deven studied the two separate images with a frown. “But why would the pieces of our ship be parted out in such a ritualistic manner? Can you check again that none have been installed anywhere?”

  The clicking that followed was as much from Gosta’s finger joints as the keyboard.

  “No, see here,” Gosta said as he pointed to each dot on the screen. “None of them are installed. They stole our ship, took it apart, and left all the pieces in an obscure religious pattern in space.” He sighed and rubbed his long fingers across his face.

  Deven rose and offered Vas his chair, when she refused, he stood as well. Vas could never figure out why her second-in-command would periodically pull out archaic chivalry on her.

  “There has to be a connection. Vas, have you heard of the Graylians?”

  “No, and I doubt a group of monks are going after me by hiding my ship in a puzzle. Besides, it’s not much of a trick. We can see all of the parts.” She waved at the screen.

  Gosta leaned forward intently. “Unless that is the trick. In Graylian puzzles the obvious choice is usually the wrong one. Often the fatal one if my memory is accurate. But you are right, Captain. I cannot see them doing one of these this large, nor in space.” He scratched one long elbow with his first knee in thought. “They were only dangerous to their own people. Those who chose to follow the religious path, but failed. Their ritual sacrifices were…inventive. They became even more isolated when they fled from Achaeon.”

  Deven frowned at Vas’s intake of breath. “Why did you react to Achaeon just now? You didn’t react to it before.”

  Vas shrugged. She’d been trying not to respond, but the coincidence was too strong. “It just hit me. That’s where I went when I left last month. I was meeting a potential client about a job. Then I was talking to a seller about another base of operations. I might like a small planet on the side besides Home.” The faces before her were unfairly judgmental. “Nothing happened. It was a simple trading trip. I lost track of time. There were some parties of some sort.”

  “You said it was a client.” Deven’s eyes narrowed. “And you never lose track of time. I think you swallowed a time piece as a child.”

  Vas waved her hands and paced around the small room. “It was a client and some trading.…”

  Deven grabbed her shoulder and forced her to look at him, then practically pushed her into the empty chair. Probably a good thing since the world was spinning and a dull drumming was threatening to take over her head.

  “Vas? Look at me.”

  Deven’s green eyes were enormous and dangerous. Why would she have someone so deadly near her? He shouldn’t be so close. “Away. Too close. You’re hurting my head.” Black dots obscured her vision as she tried to pull back out of his grasp.

  “I’m not causing the pain, Vas—”

  “Actually, maybe you are.” Gosta cut Deven off and Vas heard him tapping furiously at his computer keyboard. “She might be under a block. Something could be forcing her memories away from what happened. If so, any attempt to recover them will lead to pain or loss of consciousness.”

  Even with her eyes obscured by clouds of pain, Vas knew Gosta was thrilling in the search of what was hurting her. Or killing her. Again. This was really getting old.

  “My brain is going to explode.” Getting that sentence out was harder than the five weeks she’d been trapped on a desert island after a shuttle crash. “Make. It. Stop.”

  She felt cool hands on her cheek. “Vas, you have to release my bracelets. Now. Let me in there. If someone put a block on you, it will kill you. You’ve triggered it and it will keep shutting down systems….” Deven’s voice dropped off as she opened her eyes. “Crap. You can’t see, can you?”

  Her eyes burned. She felt them open but saw nothing. The noise of the room was overwhelming her, pushing her mind deeper into her skull. Like a windstorm, but only in her head.

  “Vas!”

  Hands, too tight, far too tight, were shaking her arms. “Let me sleep.” She struggled until she was sitting on the floor. The nice cool floor.

  Cold metal pressed against her hand, and fingers fumbled her hand around the metal. Metal and hot skin. She tried to pull back, but the force of the other hand had her own pinned.

  “Release the bracelets.”

  The words were faint. She wanted to ignore them. Sleep sounded so good now. But maybe if she gave in, the voice and the hands and the noise would leave her alone. “Release.” She uttered the word, and then fled to a cocoon of darkness and silence.

&n
bsp; Only to be rudely pulled back by a glowing presence in her mind. The unbearable light cleared and Deven’s voice flowed into her mind. Words, arcane, mystical, and dangerous, flowed through her head. Why did she know they were dangerous? She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew they were there to kill her. They chased her and pulled away the safe shelter. A part of her wailed as the words threatened to shatter her soul.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vas fought for her life, fought against the words trying to swallow her entire self. They were inside her, in her mind, in her essence of being. They pulled and tore, ripping her away from the quiet peacefulness she sought.

  As she fought to gather her tattered soul back around her, a slip in the onslaught of words appeared. A chink in the armor assaulting her mind. A moment of clarity.

  The words weren’t the enemy.

  Deven’s words were fighting the miasma that filled her mind. There were two parts. The most aggressive had laid there in wait since she had been attacked on Ghorlian Prime, the other was far older. Wait, she’d been on Achaeon, not Ghorlian…why would she have been on Ghorlian? The clarity faded…then rushed back in like sand filling a hole. She had been on Ghorlian. Making a deal for a huge job. One too good to be true. The bastards had taken her somewhere, but those memories were still shuttered. However, the fact that they existed, and that she had been kidnapped, those memories were free. Finally.

  The freedom allowed her to help Deven’s presence fight the encroaching darkness. She reached out and pushed against the shadows, looking for more answers that her mind withheld from her. Nevertheless, even with Deven’s telepathic assistance she couldn’t push past the barricade in her head.

  That her own mind had been used to block the truth from her almost pissed her off more than the idiots who tried to kill her with poison.

  They took her ship, took her mind, then tried to take her life. They would have to invent new words for hell when she found the bastards behind this.

  Disgusted at her own mind’s ability to thwart her, Vas drifted toward consciousness.