by Sara King
“For Christ’s sake, I’m not gonna cheat you!” Athenais hung up the receiver and ended the conversation. “Can you believe that?!”
Goat was playing cards with Squirrel on the command console. Without looking up, he said, “I hear Fairy’s lost twenty pounds. Not getting enough to eat, from what I hear.”
Squirrel nodded.
Athenais’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t want to talk about Fairy.”
“She’s bustin’ her ass and’s barely makin’ enough to survive.”
Athenais slammed her fist down onto the back of the captain’s chair with a crack that made everybody jump. “Enough about Fairy! All of you! I hear her name one more time and I swear to God, you’re off my ship.”
“Your late copilot is begging in the hub every evening after her shift,” Squirrel said, laying down a card for Goat to inspect. “No one will hire your late copilot because you put out the word that your late copilot almost got us all killed.”
“Squirrel,” Athenais said evenly, “We’ve been through a lot, but you’re really pissing me off.”
“Good,” Squirrel said. She picked up her cards and walked out of the control room. Goat got up and went with her.
“Anybody else?” Athenais growled.
Dune shrugged and Pete looked uncomfortable.
“Fairy’s gotta learn where her loyalties lie before I ever let her back on my ship.”
“And bussin’ tables is the best place for her to learn about loyalty, isn’t it, Capt’in?” Dune demanded. “After all, it was you who screwed her outta a job for the rest of her life. That’ll make her learn her lesson.”
“Get out.”
Dune got up. “I’ll be workin’ on Wild Betty if you need me.”
Once he was gone, Athenais turned on Pete, who flinched.
“Do you have anything to add?”
Pete swallowed. “I haven’t been on board that long, but I wouldn’t wanna be in your position, Captain.”
“Why’s that?”
Pete looked at the floor. “Well, because, from what they told me, you’re gonna have to get on your knees and beg to get her back.”
Athenais narrowed her eyes. “I am, am I? Who said anything about getting her back?”
Pete shrugged. “I’m a spacer. I know my ships. The way things are goin’, you and the shifters are gonna be flying to Millennium alone.” At that, he turned and walked out after Dune.
Athenais stared after him with her mouth open. Alone? They didn’t dare. What did the little tramp mean to the three of them, anyway? She’d barely been on the ship two years. Sure, she was good at the helm, but she was the over-exuberant, over-excitable type that rarely ever made friends. As far as Athenais knew, she hadn’t made friends. The only time she had ever joined the rest of the ship in a game of cards was that last time when they were running out of air. So why were her three best crewmembers sticking up for her?
“Goddamn it,” Athenais growled.
At that, the com screen flashed with an incoming message. She switched it to RECEIVE and lifted up the handset.
This is Colonel Howlen. After making the unpleasant discovery that you were still alive, Captain, I’m extending an invitation for you to tour my ship. You may bring your personal weapon, but please don’t try any tricks.
Athenais’s mouth dropped open, but before she could reply, the transmission was terminated.
Athenais stared at the com set for long minutes. Was the Colonel crazy? Why did he think she, a wanted space pirate, would willingly come aboard a Utopian vessel? Maybe the stress had made him lose his mind.
Then again…
Athenais frowned at the com equipment. This was a golden opportunity to check out enemy territory. If Colonel Howlen had heard her transmission to Governor Black, he would also know that Governor Black would do everything in his power to make sure Athenais was not harmed so that he could secure the rest of his reward.
Or was that what Howlen was planning? Did he want to kill her so Governor Black no longer had a reason to hold his ship? That might be fun. Give her an excuse for a little mayhem…
Athenais flipped on the shipwide intercom. “I’m headed out for awhile. If I don’t get back, call Governor Black and tell him I went to visit Colonel Howlen.”
She waited for a response, some signal that someone had heard, but the intercom remained silent.
Athenais cursed, but stood up anyway. “Mutineers, all of them.”
The halls were empty on the way to the airlock. For a panicked moment, she thought maybe her crew had already deserted her, but after a moment she heard a hammer pounding metal in the engineering room and she relaxed. She opened the airlock and stepped into Hub C.
Aside from the guard seated at a desk in the center watching a sports game on his vidscreen, C-Hub was completely empty for ‘repairs.’ Probably Governor Black’s way of keeping a low profile. Athenais groaned, inwardly. Politicians. She started across the abandoned common area to find a tram headed for F-Hub.
The guard at the desk nodded at her all-too-pointedly and went back to his game. One of Black’s goons, then. Athenais rolled her eyes. She wondered what kind of idiocracy the locals had put into practice here, since the last time Rabbit had been in office.
Athenais took the twenty-minute tram-ride to the Hub and flashed a smile at the guard. He asked for her identification anyway and Athenais sighed. When he saw that she had no business in Hub F, he told her so.
“I’m not gonna steal a ship,” Athenais snorted. “I’ve got my own ship docked at C-Hub. The Abetél. I’m here at the request of the captain of the Renee Beckett.
“Renee Beckett’s quarantined, Ma’am. You’d have to get authorization.”
Athenais snorted and strode past the guard desk. The guard shouted at her and ran around his desk to stop her, but Athenais shoved her Phoenix in his face.
“I have authorization,” she said, down the barrel. “See this?” She tapped the gun and smiled. “We’re the negotiation team.”
The guard stared at the cold blue barrel planted between his eyebrows and swallowed hard. “Sure thing. Just doin’ my job, Ma’am.” He backed away with his palms up.
Athenais turned to the air-lock with RENEE BECKETT in glowing letters above it and stood in front of the doors. “All right, Captain. I’m all yours.” She holstered her weapon and looked up at the camera. Behind her, the guard began making a distress call.
After several moments, the doors slid open. On the other side, two men and a woman stood holding flesh-seeking pistols.
“Come on in,” the shorter of the two men said. “Welcome to my ship.”
“Colonel Howlen?” she asked, glancing down at the speaker.
He nodded.
“Huh. Thought from your voice you’d be taller.” Athenais caught the man’s brown eyes narrow as she stepped past him. Behind her, the air-lock hissed shut with a boom of metal. She grinned at the three of them. “So. I’m Captain Owlborne. You can call me Athenais.”
“That courtesy will not be necessary, Captain,” Howlen said primly. “You’re here on business.”
Athenais’s brow skyrocketed. “I am, am I?”
“Yes.” He straightened, every ounce the colonel with a few centuries’ old redwood crammed up his ass. “You are to immediately retract your offer to Governor Black.”
She chuckled. “And I suppose you will hand over the shifters if I do?”
“Not a chance, pirate.” The way he said it, she might have well have asked him to hand over his child so that she could throw him through a meat-shredder. Interesting.
Athenais yawned. “Then I’m afraid I must decline.” She glanced at the ship around her, trying to calculate the number of crew aboard. Probably no more than thirty, at most.
“Stop trying to decide whether or not you can storm my ship,” Colonel Howlen snapped. “I’ll simply kill the shifters and be done with it.”
Athenais ruffled. Turning back to the stuffy little colonel, she said,
“So is that all you wanted, Colonel? I’m disappointed. I thought you wanted to make a deal.”
The Colonel’s face grew sharp. “I don’t deal with space scum.”
Athenais burst out laughing. “Oh, if only you knew.” She crossed her arms, peering down at him. “So what did you want, Colonel? Governor Black isn’t going to allow you to leave until you give me the shifters, and you can’t kill me. You’re between a rock and a hard place.”
“No one said I couldn’t kill you,” Howlen growled.
Athenais snorted. “Try it.”
He did.
Once Athenais’s vision came back from the blast that had liquified her right orbit, she squeegied her ear with a pinkie. Smiling at him, she said, “So, uh, where were we?”
Howlen’s crew was backed against the airlock, as far as they could get from Athenais, faces an unhealthy shade of gray. For his part, Howlen merely looked like he had just seen a particularly disgusting amoeba replicate itself. “So the file is at least partially true,” he commented, his lips twisted in distaste.
She had to give it to him. The man had one hell of a titanium nutsack.
The Colonel gestured down the hall. “Come to my room. We’ll discuss this there.”
Athenais smiled. “Aww. Are you hitting on me, Colonel?”
The man’s face reddened until it was almost purple. “No, you—” He stopped, mid-sputter, with a growl.
“Pity.” Athenais sighed and plucked a singed lock of fire-engine red hair off of her shoulder and dropped it to the floor by her feet. She cocked her head at him. “When was the last time you had sex?”
The colonel stared at her. Against the air-lock, one of his crew stifled a giggle.
“Oh, I see,” Athenais said, reaching out to pat his rigid shoulder. “You poor man. Take me to your room, by all means.”
For a moment, Athenais thought he was going to shoot her again. Instead, he turned on heel and marched her through the maze of corridors until he reached an obscure doorway at the end of a hall. From her estimates, Renee Beckett was at least four times the size of Beetle. Not impossible to storm, but not easy, either. Especially if it was an S.O.-commissioned vessel. Those bastards always had nasty little surprises up their sleeves.
“Inside,” Colonel Howlen ordered, opening the door. Gesturing at the two crewmates who had followed at a distance, he ordered, “You two stay out here. Make sure no one interrupts us.”
“Sounds romantic,” Athenais said. “But I’m no fool. That room’s got a lock only you can open. You first.”
“You think I would break a truce…?”
“You already shot me once,” Athenais reminded him pleasantly, tapping her eye.
Howlen stiffened. “I should have expected a space pirate to be unable to understand an honorable exchange.” He stepped into the room and Athenais followed, standing near the door as he pushed LOCK in case he decided to lunge outside as he was doing so.
“Well,” she said, once they were alone. “Tell me what you’ve got on me, Colonel.” She eyed him over her shoulder. “You must have something, otherwise you’d not be wasting your time.”
“I’ve got everything,” Howlen said. “I’ve thoroughly researched your record and have over eighteen thousand charges I can bring to bear against you. If you don’t cancel your deal with Governor Black, I will turn you over for judicial processing.”
Athenais yawned. “That fountain is making me sleepy.”
Howlen’s face went blank. It took him a moment to realize she was looking at his miniature waterfall. After a moment of looking at it, he went on, “Serious charges. Murder, sedition, kidnapping, racketeering—”
“Why don’t you have fish in your aquarium?”
Colonel Howlen’s face twitched. “The last one died a month ago. I haven’t had a chance to replace them.”
“PH imbalance?”
“Old age.”
“Hmm.” Athenais walked over to the aquarium and tapped on the glass. “Freshwater?”
The colonel stared at her.
Athenais dipped a pinkie and tasted it. “What kind of fish?”
“I don’t know.”
She laughed. “You don’t know?”
“They were black, orange, and white and got quite big. Can we get back to the matter at hand?”
“Koi, most like.”
“What?”
“Koi. I kept a few of ‘em once. They’re good eatin’ if you run outta rations on a long trip.” She picked a few more pieces of dislodged hair from around the wound Howlen had made, wincing at the baby-smooth skin of her scalp. She hadn’t actually thought the prick would do it. Now she’d have to wear a hat for awhile.
Flicking the hair into his trash receptacle, she said, “Besides, I didn’t kidnap Goat. I hired him. Eventually. And I only murder people if they deserve it. Usually I just drop ‘em off somewhere unpleasant and make off with all their worldly belongings.”
Colonel Howlen straightened. “I have the clearance required to send your picture to every spaceport in all four quadrants. You’ll never be able to run your ship through Utopian space ever again.”
“My dear, I don’t give a damn.”
“What?” he sputtered.
Athenais grinned. “You’ve never read Gone with the Wind?” She pulled an old, plastic-wrapped tome off of his bookcase. “You’ve got it here on your shelf.”
Howlen gave her a stunned look. For a long moment, he stared at the book in her hand. Then, almost tentatively, “You read old literature?”
“Of course. There’s nothin’ like a good Old Earth novel to pass the time.” She put the book back and grinned at him. “I always imagine I was a pirate captain, in another life.”
For the first time, she saw a flash of amusement on the colonel’s face before he wiped it away. “I can have your face on every Wanted board in all—”
“Oh, leave it alone, will you?” Athenais snapped. “You don’t think people like you have tried that before? Yes, I’ve been caught. Yes, they gave me all sorts of horrible sentences. And yes, my father wipes my slate clean and sets me loose on the Utopia again. So really, your threats are meaningless. By all means, you can try, but as much as you’d like to, there’s not a damn thing you people can do to me.”
“So you’re hiding under your father’s protection.”
Athenais snorted. “I’m shackled by his protection, more like. Why do you think I joined the rebellions? I’ve been waiting for someone to find a way to kill me.”
Something flashed across the Colonel’s face that Athenais couldn’t read. Disbelief? Pity?
“So here’s my proposal,” Athenais continued, ignoring him. “Let me take a look at your cargo, make sure they’re still breathing, and I’ll put in a good word for you with the Governor. As it is, he’s liable to kill you for being such a pain in the ass.”
“Why don’t you throw yourself into a sun or something?”
Athenais paused and gave the Colonel a raised eyebrow. “Because everything else I’ve tried hasn’t worked, and who wants to be rooted in the center of a sun until it burns itself out? I don’t really feel like taking that chance.”
“Surely you don’t believe that the Potion could last—”
“Surely I’m not about to find out.”
Howlen was silent for long moments as he considered that. Then, for the first time, Athenais saw the mask of captain come off. Almost softly, he said, “What do you want with these shifters? Why are you paying the governor more than they’re worth?”
Athenais scoffed. “They’re worth whatever I feel like paying. One of them’s my friend. And, since I’ve got loads of credits and only a few friends, I don’t mind shelling out a few bucks to save them now and then.”
“Your friend…” Howlen mused. “The one who worked on your ship?”
Athenais nodded. “I’d like to get him back.”
Howlen looked flabbergasted. “You really did fall in love with him, then? And you’re still w
illing to help him, even after you found out he was an alien?”
Athenais frowned. “Who told you that?” Had he started interrogations already? The uptight, ruthless bastard.
The colonel shook himself, the hardass suddenly back in place. “I’ll be releasing your information over the network unless you can convince Governor Black to withdraw.”
“Go ahead,” Athenais said. “They’ll probably just think it’s a prank.”
His brown eyes hardened to polished jasper. “Don’t make me use the shifters as hostages.”
Athenais smiled at him. “You harm them and I will kill you and everyone on board this ship.”
“With that little yacht of yours?” Howlen snorted. “I don’t think so.”
“How about right now?” Athenais said, lifting her gun.
“There are twenty-nine people aboard this ship, woman.”
Athenais raised a brow. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. I was thinking more like sixty. Jeez, this is gonna be a cakewalk.”
“There is only one of you,” Howlen growled.
“And only one captain,” Athenais reminded him. “Like they say, cut off the head and the body just flops around.”
“I expected as much, dealing with a pirate,” he said, his face filled with disdain. “That’s why I locked my copilot in the command room and gave her orders to vent the cargo bay into space if you fire your weapon.”
Athenais held her gun in place. “I don’t need to fire it to kill you.”
“I specified you firing your weapon, but my copilot does think for herself and I doubt she’d be confused as to what to do if you, say, break my neck, instead.”
Athenais heaved an enormous sigh and holstered her Phoenix. She glanced up at the ceiling. “How much money do you want?”
“Excuse me?”
“For the shifters. I’ll pay.”
“They’re not for sale.”
“I’m giving Governor Black twelve mil,” Athenais said. “I’ll give you fifteen.”
“Get off my ship.”
“Oh come on,” Athenais said. “Twenty.”
“Now.” Fury lighted his eyes. He went to the door and opened it with a violent slap, gesturing through the portal in apparent disdain.
The bastard can’t be bought, Athenais realized, startled. Very rarely had she ever met a creature that could not be bought. Of those she had, most of them were alien.
