Asarlai Wars 1: Warrior Wench

by Marie Andreas

  “Do you need me for anything else?” Gosta hated to leave his captain, but in this area he knew his presence wouldn’t help. Besides, perhaps he could use his library and find some answers.

  Terel glanced up and blinked owlishly. Obviously she had already dismissed him. “No, we should be fine.” She reached for his arm. “I wouldn’t mention the captain calling out for Deven to anyone. Even her, unless she remembers, which I doubt she will. She needs to let his shade rest, even in her heart.”

  Gosta nodded sadly. “Agreed.”

  ****

  “Deven?” Vas was obviously losing her mind. The shape in front of her looked just like her second-in-command. Rather, her late second-in-command. The man turned around. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just low-slung loose white pants. New spider-like scars covered his torso. His face was mostly left untouched except for a few thin scars on his right cheek that ran from the corner of his eye to his jawline. He was standing in a bank of fog; actually, they both were. She couldn’t see anything except him.

  “Vas? Oh, gods.” The man who looked like Deven took two steps forward and grabbed her arms. With an intensity Vas really didn’t think one would feel in the afterlife, he kissed her until her knees went weak. Literally. He had to catch her before she went down. Again, something one wouldn’t think would happen in the afterlife.

  “So it was you? Or rather it is you.” Vas’s thoughts were jumbled even to her. She knew she wasn’t awake.

  “Am I dead?” she asked the stunning apparition before her. If so, at least she was going to have good company.

  Deven steadied her feet. “No, but you’re not far from it or I wouldn’t be reaching you like this.” His green eyes bore into hers trying to search for something. Finally he shook his head. “It’s no use. I can’t read you on this level.”

  Vas glanced down at his wrists automatically. “Your bracelets….”

  “Were destroyed when the Fury blew up,” Deven said without regret.

  “So then you are dead. However, I may not be. Yet. But you are.” Vas nodded. “Of course you are. You’re a figment in my dream. My dying dreams, if figments can tell those things.” She started looking for a way out. Maybe if she found her way out of wherever here was she’d regain consciousness.

  Deven ran a finger down her cheek, smiling when she leaned forward. “Trust me, I’m not a figment. And Vas, I am alive. Don’t ask how, I can’t tell you. But I came back from the explosion.”

  Guilt hit Vas hard. Deven and Jakiin had survived? And she’d left them?

  “No. Don’t feel that way. I was dead. Sadly so was Jakiin, and he’s gone. I stayed dead long enough that even Terel would have had me buried if you had retrieved what was left of my body.” He put a finger over her lips. “I can’t explain how. I’m not sure myself. Nevertheless, I am alive. You just have to find me. But first you have to live.” Frustration deepened the new scars on his face. “I can’t tell what’s wrong with you though.”

  Vas rubbed her arms. She couldn’t stop looking at Deven. Deven. Her Deven. “I think I fell in love with you.” Crap, oh crap. That was not what she meant to say. Ever. Even if this being before her was only a bit of her dying mind.

  Deven’s eyes went wide, and then he pulled her close again. “I thought so too. I mean, I felt that way too. Still do. I didn’t think you.…”

  Vas stiffened her arms to hold him back. “Okay, let’s not go there. I’m dead, dying, or about to get that way. You were dead for quite a while apparently.” Her eyes narrowed. “Waitaminute. That time that Terel almost buried you. You really were dead, weren’t you? Not in some healing coma?”

  “Yes, I was dead. What could be called dead. For most people.”

  “No, not what could be called dead. Did your heart stop?” Vas waited until he reluctantly nodded. “Then you were dead.”

  “And you aren’t yet.” Deven shook her. “Vas, what is going on? What was the last thing you remember?”

  Vas racked her brain. “I was in the infirmary. Gosta and Terel were there. Terel…damn it, Terel knocked me out again. She needs to stop doing that.”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  Vas waved her hand at Deven, pacing around the vague space. It really was like nowhere, vast and gray with nothing to show top from bottom. “So she keeps saying. But that’s not it. Something else.…” Vas snapped her fingers. “That last group of refugees.”

  “The Mnethe V group? What about them?”

  “No, not them.” She stopped pacing and peered at him. “You do realize you’ve been dead two months, right? We kept picking up refugees and relocating them when we could. It wasn’t to honor you or anything, just seemed like the thing to do. Things are getting weirder out there. More dangerous, and not in a good way.”

  Vas drummed her fingers on her chin as she tried to get back on track of the elusive memory. “That was it. We were going after a small group on Hkjsg. You know how I hate desert planets, but that was where they got chased to so that was where we went. Anyway, when we found them, they claimed they’d been stalked for days by this monster, a diflin gaul they said.

  “Then this thing lunged out of nowhere. Huge monster. Reptilian skin, long snout, odd little legs. But it could run faster than anything I’ve ever seen that wasn’t a machine.” A shudder racked her. “I didn’t even have a chance to get off more than one shot, and that was after it was on me. It was trying to feed on me when the others killed it.”

  “How long did the refugees say it was chasing them?” Deven’s eyes were intense.

  “A few days, why?” Vas couldn’t figure out what was making him so worried.

  “Vas, diflin gauls don’t sound like what you described, but traxliann gauls do and they can’t live on a world like Hkjsg. Anything more than a day at the most and they would die. Someone planted that thing there to go after you. And those refugees had to have been in on it.”

  “I’ve got to wake up.”

  Deven nodded, his eyes deadly now. “Yes, you do. And you’ve got to live.”

  Vas waited a few moments, but nothing changed. “Okay, so what do we need to do? I’m still here and while you are literally a sight for sore eyes, those refugees might be taking over my ship as we speak.”

  “Our ship.” Deven corrected with a smile. “I don’t know. Even in my rather long life I’ve never communicated like this with someone. I’ve no ideas on how to get you back there; I’m not even completely sure how I was able to call your spirit here.”

  A loud buzzing sound overtook his words and Vas felt herself being pulled away. Deven didn’t seem to notice at first then smiled. “Save yourself, save the crew. Then find me.”

  “You didn’t tell me where you were,” Vas screamed as he became smaller and smaller.

  “I don’t know.” The response was faint but clear.

  Vas was still swearing when she woke up.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Damn him all to hell!” Vas swore as her eyes opened to her room in the medical suite of the Warrior Wench.

  “Damn who? And I’m glad to see you’re feeling well enough to swear.” Mac’s dry voice came from out of her range of vision, but a turn of her very stiff neck showed him. He looked like he hadn’t rested or bathed in a few days.

  “You’ve been watching me?”

  Mac flushed. “Well, yeah. Terel has you on camera, so she should be here in a few minutes. But I wanted someone to be here when you woke up.”

  “Don’t you mean if I woke up?” Vas grinned as the look on Mac’s face told her that wasn’t far from the truth.

  “Okay, maybe. Thing is if you woke up, I wanted someone to be here. You’ve been out for forty-eight hours.”

  Vas tried to prop herself up but her entire body was encased in steel, or so it felt. She couldn’t move anything more than her neck and hands. “Why am I so stiff? And why didn’t you at least take time to bathe?” Mac and his clothing were a bit ripe.

  “You’re stiff because of the
meds Terel had to keep pumping in you to keep you alive. We almost lost you twice.” Mac tried to look offended. “And I was willing to sacrifice hygiene to make sure you didn’t wake up alone and this is the thanks I get?”

  Vas smiled and eventually Mac dropped his wounded expression.

  “So shouldn’t Terel be here? I’d think if she’d lost me twice she’d be anxious to see how I was faring since I’m now awake.”

  Mac frowned. “I would think so, too. She was fussing over you like a mother glock with one chick until I finally chased her out a few hours ago.”

  “And she hasn’t been back?” Vas frowned and glanced at the camera. Its beam was on, meaning it was recording. It wasn’t like Terel to leave any seriously injured patient alone for any length of time, especially someone like the captain.

  Vas motioned for Mac to move closer. “Is there a microphone on too? With the camera, I mean. Are they recording sound?”

  Mac started to speak, but Vas just mouthed, “Nod yes or no.”

  Frowning, Mac nodded.

  Vas swore and pulled him as close as she could with her stiff limbs; at least she was able to move a bit now. “I need you to disable the camera and the microphone. But I need it to look like something just went wrong with the system.”

  Mac pulled back, looking with growing concern at her face. “Wh—”

  “Don’t ask, just do. I’m serious, Mac. Have you ever known Terel to leave a patient alone this long?”

  Mac swore. “No.”

  “Then I need you to do what I asked, quickly. Don’t draw attention to your moves.” Vas almost let him go then pulled him back. “Wait, lock the doors first. Is there anyone else in this portion of sick bay?”

  “No,” Mac said. “The others were bandaged up and sent to their rooms.”

  “Okay, lock the outer doors if the rooms inside still look clear, then this one. If you see anyone, and I mean anyone, only lock these doors.”

  “Vas, you’re scaring me. What the hell is going on?”

  “No time. Go.” Vas let him go. Damn it, she hadn’t come back in time. When she first woke up she thought her whole encounter with Deven had been a wishful dream. A fantasy brought on by a too close brush with death. But Terel would never have left her alone for any length of time, even with Mac on guard.

  Mac came back from the outer rooms, and then locked the doors they were in, and ducked behind the wall the camera was on. A flick and the recording beam died.

  “Outer rooms were clear. I could hear people down the corridor but they sounded a ways away and I couldn’t tell who it was. I’ve locked everything I can.” He folded his arms. “Now can you tell me why the hell you had me cut us off from the rest of the ship?”

  “First, help me up.” Vas tried to move and got her upper body off the bed before she crashed down. “Damn it. Look for something to fix this. Terel’s got me so full of pain blockers, I can’t move.”

  “Vas….” Mac looked ready to argue, but then gave up and went rummaging through the medicine. “This should work, but you’re going to hurt like hell.”

  “If what I think is happening is actually going on, that’s the least of my worries.” Vas nodded when Mac didn’t move. “Now, Mac. We don’t have much time. Those med seals won’t hold for long once they realize we’re on to them and in here.”

  “See, that’s the problem, I don’t know who they are.” Mac tried to hold his ground, but finally gave in and pulled a hypospray out of the medicine cabinet.

  Vas winced as the hypospray did its job far too well. Her entire body caught on fire as pain flooded every nerve.

  “Son of a bitch!” Vas’s scream echoed in the small room. Panting, she wiped away the tears as her body adapted. The pain still raged but once the first shock was over it was almost bearable.

  “The ‘they’ I was talking about are the bastards who have taken over our ship. The ones we brought on board.”

  Mac rocked back. “The refugees? How in the—why would they and how would they take over our ship?” He peered at her closely. “And just how would you know about it since you were trapped down here and unconscious?”

  Vas squirmed. It wasn’t going to be easy to convince Mac. Hell, she wouldn’t believe him for a second if the roles were reversed. “It’s hard to explain. However, the refugees used that damn creature that attacked me to get on our ship without being scanned. The thing that attacked me couldn’t have survived on that planet.”

  “Maybe it was a mutation?” Mac’s look wasn’t good. If Vas couldn’t convince him that they were under attack, he was going to unlock everything and run straight into the pirates taking their ship. Irony was a bitch. Her crew had done more than a bit of pirate work in their day, but this was the first time on the receiving end. However, her crew wouldn’t have stooped to such low tactics to take a ship.

  “You really think that someone is hanging out with a climate controlled tank of them, letting them out every day or so? So they can harass a bunch of refugees from a planet that was destroyed?” Vas sat up gingerly. The pain in her back was horrific, and spasms echoed every move. At least she could move. “Come on Mac, think about it.”

  Mac frowned. “But why didn’t Gosta or Terel figure it out?”

  “They might have.” Vas frowned as fear for her friends grew. It was one thing to be lost in battle, another to lose people on your own ship. “When was the last time you saw either of them?”

  Mac thought about it. “I probably saw Terel in here about five hours ago.” He looked at his watch and swore. “Actually probably more like ten hours ago. I must have fallen asleep in here. She was finally setting up an autopsy on that gaul. I haven’t seen Gosta since we brought you in.” Mac winced, and then ran his hands through his hair. “He was going to get the refugees settled in.”

  “Damn it, there are times I hate being right.” Vas forced herself to sit up through the pain that flashed all over her body. Hopefully once her nervous system got used to handling the pain again it would become bearable. “We have to assume the entire ship is compromised by now. What do we know about the refugees? Or rather the bastards pretending to be refugees?”

  Mac started pacing. “Not much. We know what they told us: running away from a destroyed planet, big silver ships came out of nowhere. They claimed to be from Diloxi, small population, low-tech. The idea of them taking off in the generation ship we found the remains of was plausible.”

  “They described the ships?” Vas fretted. She didn’t remember them describing the ships. Had she even paid attention to their story? Great move: walked right into a trap and handed over the keys to her ship. Most survivors they met got out before the ships actually arrived, or else they didn’t survive.

  “Yeah they did. Sounded just like the ones at that ambush at Lantaria and the ones at the supergate.” Mac paused. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

  “Because I don’t think you wanted me to stand here stark naked in front of you and I just realized who’s on our ship,” Vas said as Mac hastily turned his back as she reached for some medical garb to wear. Even just getting dressed was a new exercise in pain. “It’s the Graylian monks, or some group of Rillianians, or both. They haven’t been able to catch us, so they snuck on board.”

  She slapped Mac’s ass as she hobbled to a cabinet looking for any type of weapons. “You can turn around now.”

  “But how did they know we’d be here?” Mac was slower than usual today. He must have been napping a lot.

  “Not hard to figure out how to catch us. We’ve been doing good will trips more than our own jobs for the last two months.” Vas swore and stumbled over to another drawer. Didn’t Terel have anything useful here?

  “It’s been kind of nice, sort of a tribute to Jakiin and Deven,” Mac said softly.

  “You don’t have to get defensive with me. I’m the one who ordered the runs.” Which was weird in and of itself. Emotions or not, the amount of time they’d burned rescuing small refugee groups was som
ething the old Vas would have laughed herself to death over.

  She took a deep breath. She needed to tell someone and right now Mac was it. Wasn’t going to be easy by a long shot, but if something happened to her she wanted someone else to at least know about Deven.

  “Mac, about Deven,” Vas said and took another couple of slow breaths. There was no way to say it without sounding crazy. And she couldn’t even tell Mac how Deven did any of it since she still had no idea.

  “He’s not dead.” There, she said it.

  Mac’s face softened and the closest thing to compassion that Vas had seen on his face appeared. “Of course he’s not, Vas. He still lives on in our actions.” He reached forward to comfort her but Vas smacked him away gently.

  “No, he’s really not dead. Jakiin is however. Really dead. But Deven is alive.”

  “How could Deven have survived that? And how could he have survived and Jakiin didn’t?” Disbelief warred with hope on Mac’s face.

  Vas shrugged. “He didn’t survive. He died. He just didn’t stay dead.” Vas waved her hands at Mac. “I don’t know how, he wouldn’t tell me. Deven isn’t completely human regardless of how he looks.”

  Mac stepped away a good two steps. “Deven died, but isn’t still dead, and he told you things? After he died, things?”

  Vas schooled her face to look very serious and not the least delusional. “Yes, he spoke to me while I was under those drugs. No, no. I don’t know how, nor do I think I was just dreaming. He’s alive. Again. Somewhere.”

  Mac looked like he was fighting to believe her. “Okay, so you’re saying that Deven contacted you while you were in a drug-induced coma to warn you about the refugees who are actually these idiots who have been chasing us all over the galaxy. Said idiots have now taken over the entire ship except for us.”

  Vas nodded. “Yes.”

  “All of that and all you’ll say is ‘yes’?” Mac walked around the room swinging his hands. “How am I supposed to believe you? You could be totally delusional. You did almost die, you know.”

  “Yes, you told me. Twice.” Vas wasn’t going to push him. She didn’t even know if the two of them could re-take the ship. But she did know there was no way in hell she could do it alone.