by Celeste Raye
He spoke, his voice—a low and not unpleasant thing—resounding in her ears. “Sure you do. Live or die.”
Great. Same choices she had had before. The women at her back surged forward as yet another spike shot through the ceiling. That one didn’t open to disgorge anyone. Instead, it emitted a long and awfully terrifying sucking sound that sent flares of panic all through Clara’s body. Ok then. Time to go.
Margie and Ariel joined Clara in her flight across the floor toward the door. A fourth woman, one whose name Clara didn’t know yet, dashed into the tube just before the whirling door shut. Ariel gasped out, “What about the others?”
The fourth woman, a fiery redhead with pale features and a lovely mouth, shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess they’re coming.”
The tube jolted them upward. Clara’s hands whipped out, and she held onto one side. The ride up was fast, sickeningly so. She found herself blinking as the door spun open again to reveal a wide deck and a vast array of blinking equipment.
Margie said, “I guess this is us.”
The four women got off slowly. The tube descended again, letting out a high whine as it did. A tall man-creature with blonde hair and set of eyes like the others looked them over. “Were you cargo?”
Margie said, “Sort of. Brides.”
He looked amused. “Oh. So you’re not good for ransom.”
Clara found her tongue as outrage stuttered into life. “Nope.”
He shrugged and turned toward the equipment. The tube came back up, bringing with it several more women, all of them confused and more than one who was weeping. He sighed and said, “I’m Talon. Anyone hurt?”
Clara checked herself and shook her head. Ariel had a shallow cut on one arm that had already stopped bleeding. Margie had a bruised cheek. The blonde woman who’d been fighting so hard earlier shrugged as if to say she was fine but didn’t speak. One of the other women had a large gash on her calf, and another had a slight scalp wound. He yelled for someone named Marik and another appeared, this one with brown hair and eyes.
Marik said, “Follow me, those of you that are hurt. I’ll get you fixed up.”
The others left. Ariel, Margie, Clara and the woman who’d joined them in the tube huddled together.
Talon said, “They’ll be done in a minute down there. You sure got the shit end of that stick, didn’t you?”
Clara’s lips vibrated with rage. “I’d say so. You wrecked our transport to our grooms and…”
Talon snorted. “That’s what they told you? Yeah, that is what they told you. Of course they did. You weren’t going to husbands; you were going to Narnlia.”
Clara blinked “I beg your pardon? That is not possible. That’s a pleasure planet.” And where all the women were slaves to the brothels or the singing saloons.
Talon grinned at her. “If it is not so, then why were you on a trajectory there?”
Her arms crossed. Her chin came up. “We weren’t.”
Talon pointed to a monitor. She and the other woman stared at it. A hard gasp lifted Clara’s breasts. It was true! They were nowhere near the star system they were supposed to be headed for.
Margie said, “There must be some kind of mistake.”
Talon nodded. “Happens all the time. The government down there on your planet’s in on it, of course. Pretending to be sending off brides, so the good people who follow them don’t protest too much when their women are shipped off.” His eyes lingered on Margie’s face. Margie glowered at him.
Ariel said, “So…now what? Is that where you are going to take us?
Talon said, “That’s up to Renall.”
Renall? The tube opened again. The piratical one stepped off. Talon said, “There you are. I was stuck explaining the hard facts to them, again. Why is that always my job?”
Renall said, “Because you are so good at it.” His eyes searched among them and singled Clara out. “The question now is what to do with them.”
Ariel wiped her face. Margie stared at the floor. The fourth wrapped her arms around herself and looked away. Clara stood her ground, not lifting her arms and definitely not lowering her gaze. She said, “Tell me, what made you salvage that ship?’
“It was carrying things we actually need. Water, supplies, and oreonium. We need that for credits in the system, and now we have you as well, which we don’t need.”
Her head came up a little higher. “How do you know you don’t need us?’
Renall chuckled. “You’re spirited.”
“I’m also lethal.” The words dropped into the space between them. “If you attempt to shove me off on that pleasure planet, you’ll lose a good chunk of your hands while you do it, or your life.”
Renall didn’t even blink. Maybe his kind couldn’t. His lips curved upward into a nasty smile though. “I see. I will keep that in mind.”
He turned away. The four women looked at each other. Ariel asked, “What are we supposed to do?”
Talon said, “Just be quiet.”
They drew back into a small corner. Renall and Talon spoke in muted voices, and in their language, which was beyond Clara’s limited abilities of outer planet speak. She whispered, to Ariel and Margie and the fourth woman, “Any of you know where they’re from or what they’re saying?”
The fourth woman nodded. Clara gawked at her. The woman was tall and stick-thin. Blue shadows lay under her eyes despite the long sleep. Her blonde hair had probably been lustrous at one time, but now it was dull and slightly stringy and in definite need of a wash. The woman smiled and whispered into Clara’s ear, “Move a little closer to the vac tubes.”
They did. The noise there was terrible, and Clara had the idea that the woman didn’t want Talon and Renall to hear what she was about to say.
Margie asked, “Who are you?”
The blonde gave her a tired smile. “Jessica Laud. I’m a former Capo.”
Clara’s mouth fell open. She remembered then that Jessica had been fighting the crew with some real skill. A Capo though? She whispered, “What’s a Capo doing on that bride ship?
Jessica’s eyes closed and then reopened. “I knew something I was not supposed to know, is my best guess. Only I don’t know what it was.” Her smile was rueful. “I did know the ship was bound for Narnlia though. I had planned to escape as soon as we were let out of the pods. Take an escape ship and run. But that seems to be out the window.”
Margie whispered, “Who are they?”
“Wreckers, of course.” Jessica frowned. “I’d say from Inner Magda. They have that look and seem to speak the colony tongue, but they speak it with a little bit of accent so they might just be using that to throw off anyone who might know it, or their real language. Or they might just be using it because it’s a base language and one that anyone can learn fairly quickly. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say they’re from the same system, but not the same planet, wherever they’re from, and they’re a crew because they all have one thing in common, and it’s not exactly race.”
Ariel asked, “What do you mean?”
Clara had already figured it out. “She means they’re space pirates.”
“Yup.” Jessica sighed. Her narrow shoulders slumped. “I’d also say they know exactly what they’re doing. It’s been exactly half an hour since they took the ship and they just launched the hull. Look.”
They all turned to the long windows. The ship they’d been on had been scrapped and stripped down to a bare gleam of metal. There was nothing left to identify it. The ship they were on let out a series of loud rumbles and the tubes opened to disgorge a dozen of the wreckers.
Jessica whispered. “That’s fourteen, and they stripped it in half an hour.”
Holy shit. It was impressive, no doubt. But what did that mean for them? Clara’s teeth chewed at her bottom lip. She scanned them carefully, her eyes assessing them. Jessica had been right. They were all definitely from the same system, but not the same planet. Some were shorter than the others, and some had eyes t
hat were a lighter blue. They all spoke that language.
Clara asked, “What’re they saying?”
Jessica shrugged. “I brought you over here so they wouldn’t hear me saying I understood them. Unfortunately, I can’t hear anything but their voices either so I don’t know.”
The four gave each other long glances. Jessica asked, “What’re you in for?”
Clara said, “Running tables and carrying currency.”
Margie said, “I’m not a good citizen, and Ariel got sold off to clear debt.”
Jessica nodded. “Well then. I guess we are each other’s best bets for survival. The others didn’t seem to be too willing to fight or have the guts for it either. I wouldn’t leave them behind if I had a choice to save them, but I wouldn’t exactly trust them to be around if we do have to go to war with these guys.”
Clara nodded agreement. She already saw Jessica as an ally and the other two as potential ones. Margie and Ariel both had every reason to want to get out of there and to go somewhere else. But where?
Clara’s eyes went back to Renall. He stood close to Talon and a few other wreckers. The ship gave a long shudder and headed upward, parting the darkness of space as it slid through it.
Narnlia appeared, a small blue and orange planet to the right. Clara stared at it, relieved at not being sent there but still afraid that the next option might be even worse.
Talon came close. He said, “Renall wants to see you.”
His fingers pointed at Clara. Her heart sank. Why was she being singled out? She didn’t know, but she did know she didn’t have a choice but to agree. She said, “Fine.”
She followed Talon toward Renall. Renall said, “I’d like a private word.”
Great. He likely wanted sex. She eyed him warily. Did his kind have sex? Her nipples stiffened in an unbidden and unwanted way at the thought. She said, “Ok.”
He jerked his head toward a small hallway. Clara followed him down it. The hallway led to a series of smaller rooms, many of them with beds. Quarters, she surmised.
They reached a large bay. Renall stopped and turned toward her. His eyes raked her from head to toe. He held his hand out. There, on his elongated palm, set crypto-files. Her heartbeat ticked up. “What?’
“You’re a carder.”
The words hit hard. Ire surged up. “So what? Why do you care?”
“You any good?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Depends.”
Renall’s eyes bored into hers. “On what?”
“On who you ask.” Why did he care if she was a carder? It made no sense at all. She eyed the crypto-files. “You must have gotten those off the ship.”
“I did.” His fingers closed around them. “I have a proposition for you.”
She bet he did. “What is it?”
“You run a game for a year, high win rate. You walk with your crypto and with that identity chip your government put under your spine gone.”
Her mouth went dry. “That’s impossible. Removal triggers a mini-bomb.”
Renall grinned. “Our surgeon’s removed a lot of them quite successfully. Your planet is the least advanced in all ways you know.”
Was he serious? Her eyes narrowed. “Nobody does anything for free.”
“Didn’t say it was free. I said high wins, and a whole year.”
True. He had said that. Clara considered that for a moment. “Then what? I just walk?”
“Yes. Like I said. Here’s the thing, without that crypto and without that device, you could use any ID you want. You could get a surgery or two; give yourself an appearance of any planter system. You could even re-enter your home planet and buy a few slaves, right out of the cells.”
Her mouth went dry. Her family! She swallowed hard. “They might not be there after a year.”
“Carders don’t get bought. Besides, I know where they are all at, and I could make it so that they don’t get sold.”
Could he really? She wanted to believe that, but she knew all too well that lies were the first thing people used to gain loyalty, especially when the person they wanted loyalty from had something they really needed and wanted. “I don’t believe you.”
“Then how about this? In three months, if you earn high, I’ll bring your mother to you. She can tell you how the rest are doing.”
Goddamn him. He was hitting her at the hardest points of her hurt. She pursed her lips. This was a negotiation, and she knew it. Might as well negotiate. “You get my mom, and you got two carders willing to work it out for the rest of the family.”
Renall’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t suggest your father first.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Mom’s not only better, she’s in frailer health. She might not make it another three months at the serio-camp she’s in. It’s rough in there.”
Renall said, “It won’t be cheap to get her out. She’ll have to work out her costs.”
“Before anything goes to the bigger pot. Yeah, I can agree to that and she will too.” Besides, Mom runs the best table anywhere. She kept that thought behind her lips. She added, “We didn’t discuss my cut.”
“I told you what you get.”
“Bullshit.” Her hackles came up. “I want at least ten percent too. That’s fair.”
Silence filled the spaces between them. Under her feet, the ship let out soft vibrations. There were no windows where they stood, so she had no idea what direction the ship had turned to, and even if she had been able to see, this was an unfamiliar star and planetary system. She only knew Narnlia by reputation and from cryptographs she’d seen of it.
His lips twisted upward. “You can have four.”
“Seven and a half.”
“Five, and that is my final and very fair offer. After all, I’m tossing in the removal and the crypto-file for good measure.”
It was as fair as she would get and five percent of something was better than a hundred percent of nothing.
She’d woken up on a supposed bride ship heading to a colony she had no interest in, and in despair over her family. Since then she’d watched the ship she’d been on go down in figurative flames, and found out the government on her planet was essentially selling sex slaves to Narnlia. And now she was facing a being who turned her on and that she absolutely could not trust, and was about to strike a bargain he might never hold to.
In for a coin, in for a clutch of them, though, right?
She held out a hand. He took it. Little shocks ran through her body. Desire lifted its head once again, and she tamped it down. “Deal,” she said.
Chapter 2:
Renall watched Clara walk in front of him. She was stunning, and his body ached as he took in her lush curves. He sighed inwardly. He needed her in his gambling ship, not in his bed. He had a dream to accomplish. A world of his own. One small enough to be prosperous and livable but not so large to offer resources or profit to anyone who might consider plundering it.
He knew just the place too. But first, he had to get his coin in order.
Renall stopped at a door. He said, “This will be your chamber, unless Talon has assigned it to someone else. It doesn’t look like he has.” He shot a look down the corridor. Weeping came from one chamber and sounds from others. He sighed inwardly. He hadn’t counted on walking off with women. They weren’t supposed to be on the ship. Once again, he was stuck with a human cargo, much of it worthless. Unless he wanted to trade it off to slavers, which he was violently opposed to doing.
So what to do with them all?
“Thanks.” Clara stood at the door. “What do we do until we get to wherever it is we are going?”
Hell if I know. He said, “I will have you informed of meal times and such.” Then he strode off.
Talon stood near the bridge guiding the ship in that easy way of his. Renall often envied Talon that talent. Renall was blessed with different abilities, and between the four brothers—Renall, Talon, Marik, and Jeval—they were steadily acquiring the nec
essary funds to get that world they all wanted.
One world. Four peaceful kingdoms on it. No more pirating, dashing in and out of far-flung galaxies where only the roughest and the most outcast of the space trash hung out and where shady deals were just all part and parcel of the game that played out.
The oreonium they had harvested from the transport ship would be taken to one of those planets where it would be given a fake log, and a shipper would take a large cut of the profit that they’d earned. That planet killed most off-planet inhabitants so few ever really knew for certain whether or not there was actually oreonium there or not, a boon. There wasn’t, at all, but who’d live to say if they went investigating?
Talon spoke. “I sent the others to a chamber.”
“I put her in one too.” Renall shook his dark head. “Give me the rundown on the others.”
Talon’s lips compressed. “We have a Capo onboard.”
Renall’s shoulders tensed. “Oh?”
“Yes.” Talon slanted a look at him. “She’s been in a healing cryo. She was beaten pretty badly. I ran a scanner on her memory, without mentioning it to her of course. If she’s a spy, she’s been wiped pretty clean. That doesn’t mean she won’t turn out to be the obvious Capo spy on our ship. It just means that she doesn’t know she’s a Capo spy on our ship.”
Renall considered that. The four brothers made no decisions alone. Everything was subjected to a vote. “How are you and the others leaning on her?”
Talon shrugged. “I saw what she went through. It may very well be that they wanted her gone for something she knew. But they wiped her so she wouldn’t recall it so whatever it was, they had to have her so far away she could not speak on it if she remembered.”
And a brothel would have made sure she had no voice. Besides, they had come across the transport almost by accident. It had been cruising fast and headed right for Narnlia, and with no manifest listing the women as being aboard. The decision to strip it so close to that planet had been risky and last minute. So the odds of the Capo using her to bait them into that stripping were nil.
