MindSighted: BlackWing Pirates, Book 1

by Connie Suttle

  Winkler

  The fool tried to kill himself—with a steak knife, no less. If he'd known to make the slashes vertical instead of horizontal, he'd be dead.

  As it was, I'd been forced to contact Kooper and transport Amlis to a private facility for a blood transfusion, to replace what he'd lost. His wrists, however, showed no marks of the suicide attempt after Quin healed him.

  Justis, Quin, Dena and I stood outside the hospital room while Amlis was examined by Karzac, who'd answered my call. Rodrik was in the room with Amlis, vibrating with anxiety.

  If Amlis weren't healthy enough to attend Conclave, Rodrik would be forced to act in his stead.

  "He should rest for an eight-day, and be re-evaluated during that time," Karzac said. "They'll give him more blood today, until his tests yield better results."

  "What about Conclave?" Rodrik said. Honestly, Rodrik should learn to keep his mouth shut—well everybody should—around Karzac.

  "If New Fyris is to be represented, I suggest you begin your study now," Karzac growled at Rodrik. "This one was in no shape to come and you knew that. How long, Master Rodrik, has the Prince's mental health been on the decline? How long ago should you have requested help? There are methods to do so—discreet methods—in which therapy can be provided to those who rule in the Reth Alliance."

  Rodrik wasn't used to being reprimanded. At least he knew better than to argue, because he didn't have a legitimate excuse. He was Amlis' heir, until Amlis could produce his own. As such, he had the authority to approach the Reth Alliance to present evidence and ask for an evaluation.

  Discretion would be employed, and if the request were fraudulent, that would be determined. If it were legitimate, then the ruler in question would be approached. If they refused the offer of help, then the process to remove them from their office would begin.

  Mental instability in a ruler was trouble, and the Reth Alliance knew it. It was a relatively new determination, too, and was often referred to as Kifirin's Rule, passed after the King of Kifirin lost his mind and attacked his own people.

  Karzac, who wasn't in the mood to suffer Rodrik's presence any longer, folded away. Another physician walked toward the room as if he'd been called, and shouldered his way past those of us in the hall to enter the room.

  Rodrik walked toward us, then, stopping in front of Quin.

  "I, ah, am grateful," he began uncomfortably, his words sounding foreign and awkward. Quin, faster than he expected, punched him in the face, then swept out a wing and knocked his feet off the floor. He fell with a grunt and a curse.

  I stifled a laugh as Quin stalked away, Dena right behind her.

  Randl

  "Quin punched Rodrik." I blinked; my delayed vision almost missed the high slap of hands between Travis and Trent.

  "On another note," Travis turned to me, a wide grin on his face, "Amlis tried to commit suicide, but Quin saved his ass. We don't know yet whether he's of sound mind or if Quin left that part of him alone."

  "Suicide." I ducked my head. A feeling of guilt overwhelmed me for a moment—if I'd been there, I'd have seen this before it happened.

  "Stop worrying about it, bro—his physical health is fine, thanks to Quinnie. He just won't be attending Conclave—Rodrik will have to fill in for him. Doctor's orders."

  "That's for the best," I sighed. "Amlis wasn't stable enough to make important decisions."

  "We know. We've had plenty of conversations with Winkler. Lukas has asked to meet with him, to go over the agenda again and discuss the votes from New Fyris."

  "I hope Rodrik has a conscience, then, and considers the people and not the Prince's treasury."

  "I heard from Mom," Travis turned to Trent. "She says that with all that's going on with the prisoner, she doesn't want Lexsi or Kay near him."

  "Who are Lexsi and Kay?" I asked.

  "Lexsi is our cousin. Kay is—well, she's pretty special. They're the only ones who may be able to reverse an obsession."

  "I had no idea it could be done," I confessed.

  "Just keep that to yourself," Travis cautioned. "Those two are the only possibilities we have, and should only be approached in extremely special cases."

  "I can understand why," I agreed. "Besides, whoever would normally receive information from the prisoner shouldn't know that. It could place both women in terrible danger."

  "That's what Mom said," Trent agreed. "Would you like to have dinner with the family tomorrow night? You can meet Lexsi and Queen Reah then."

  So many questions crowded my mind. Who was I to be invited to a family gathering that included Queens, a King, and the Founder of the Campiaan Alliance? "I know your brother is Teeg San Gerxon," I blurted.

  Travis guffawed. Trent grinned and slapped me on the back.

  "He wants to meet you," Trent said. "He's been in contact with his son, Garwin Wyatt. Wyatt informed him the pirate ship was scanned before it was destroyed, and that you reported it."

  "I should learn to keep my mouth shut," I mumbled. Travis laughed again and slapped me on the back, like his brother. "Come on, Teeg's not so bad. He just looks intimidating to everybody else."

  "Jayna says that David reached the ship," Trent pulled a comp-vid from his pocket to check a message.

  "David?" I asked.

  "David Hiboux. He's our engineer and mechanic. The ship developed a hiccup, so he's checking on it."

  "Ah. What should I wear to the family dinner?"

  "Something nice but comfortable," Travis said. "Come on, let's go see Quinnie. She can update us on Amlis and Rodrik."

  Dena, Quin's bodyguard, opened the door to Quin's suite, once Travis let her know we were at the door. Her multi-colored wings were held tightly against her back as she led us to the room Quin chose as a temporary study.

  We found Quin there, royal-red wings draped casually around her as she thumbed through images on a comp-vid.

  "Randl," she stood and sounded genuinely glad to see me. "Travis, Trent, good to see you."

  "Good to see you, too, wingy-woman," Travis chuckled.

  "No respect," Quin turned her gaze on me and waited until I saw her smile. I understood she was teasing, however, and smiled back at her.

  "Want to take a break and tell us about Amlis?" Trent asked.

  "Sure. Dena, will you order tea for all of us?" Quin asked. "Order for you, too."

  "Of course," Dena said and walked from the room to place an order. There was no doubt that Dena was still angry with Amlis and Rodrik, and wanted to do to both what Quin had done to Rodrik.

  It wasn't her place and she could be charged with assault against a royal if she did. Therefore, she had to hold her anger in check.

  I'd known she was furious the moment she answered the door, and my vision enabled me to see why.

  I didn't blame her. Quin had confided in Dena, and Dena's outrage at a long-ago beating at Rodrik's hand for saving Amlis' life was justified.

  Quin, though, hadn't harmed Rodrik enough, in my opinion.

  Randl, the matter is closed, Quin's voice filtered into my mind.

  "What is a life worth, Queen Quin?" I asked and bowed to her. "You gave a gift beyond price, and the response was to harm you for it."

  "People are weak at times," a hand dropped onto my shoulder. King Justis of the Avii had joined us.

  "Your Majesty," I turned and bowed to the King.

  "You don't have to do that," Justis said. "Here, you're considered family. I know how you and your father helped Quin on Vogeffa II. Between you, you saved many other lives. Your father now works for the Avii and Queen Lissa. You should be hearing from him soon, once he's settled at Avii Castle."

  "Thank you for providing a home for him," I dipped my head in respect.

  "It can be your home, too," Quin offered. "Whenever you have time off from your new job."

  "I would like that very much," I said. How wonderful would it be to watch the Avii in flight whenever I wanted?

  "Tea," Dena walked in, followed by a hote
l employee carrying a heavy tray of cups, tiny cakes and a large teapot.

  "I was hoping for a snack," Justis said. "Sit, everyone. Let's have tea and talk."

  Varok of Pyrik

  Lee'Qee was a secret the President of Pyrik kept hidden. That's why I and those who came before me made a home there, among the abandoned factories and crumbling infrastructure.

  Long ago, it had been the hub of Pyrik's industry, until an accident involving the nuclear energy used to power Lee'Qee forced all to abandon it three centuries earlier.

  Pyrik was forced to adopt solar energy afterward, and the many, many deaths attributed to the leaking poison were hidden from the history books by presidential command.

  The current president had nothing to do with that, of course, and back then, Pyrik hadn't been a member of the Campiaan Alliance. In fact, the Campiaan Alliance was relatively new, compared to the Reth Alliance.

  The nuclear accident that devastated Lee'Qee was old news when Pyrik was invited to join the newly-formed Campiaan Alliance.

  For clicks surrounding Lee'Qee, there was nothing except tree-covered forests, a few hills, and wide meadows, which served as home to many species of birds and animals. Pyrik now referred to it as an animal sanctuary, provided to rebuild those species. Residents weren't allowed to go there.

  Nobody said it was for their own safety.

  I and my crew live here. Others have been sent elsewhere, as needed. We have a mission.

  That mission is to destroy Pyrik and every royal, president, prime minister and head of state with it, during the Conclave.

  Once that is accomplished, every member planet of both Alliances will become acquainted with the might and firepower of the Ke'Leru Pirates. We were currently in the process of adding to our fleet and recruiting members to our cause—whether willingly or otherwise, it mattered not to me.

  Lee'Qee can be seen from space, but the official story is that it was abandoned once solar power became the preferred power source. Many worlds had something similar; those merely didn't have numerous deaths from a nuclear accident associated with them.

  Those who came before, and now my crew and I—we'd adapted to the area. I often joked that we thrived on the poison leeching from the ground, when it would kill anyone else.

  As for the ASD and CSD—we had plans for them, too, beginning with the assassinations of their Directors.

  "Still no concrete evidence that our contact was killed on Refizan," my brother, Perill, set a comp-vid in front of me.

  "Hmmph." I lifted the device and studied the report. "What about those containers of remains? Have the forensics reports been released?"

  "Not yet," Perill said. "Our people on Refizan are waiting for that information."

  "You can't deny that our connection disappeared after the explosion," I pointed out.

  "Yes, I know. The ASD has been quite sly in the past, though. I told you to allow the ship to dock so we could ask questions. The ASD has ramped up their presence here, because you chose to destroy the ship instead."

  "Remember, brother, we all came to the same, hasty conclusion—that they'd killed our contact during the journey."

  "We know that wasn't true," Perill argued.

  "Now we do, after we consulted our Prophet. Don't worry, brother, they won't find us; everybody will consider it an act of revenge by another criminal element and all will go back to sleep."

  "That's exactly what it is," Perill grumbled. "An act of revenge—by us."

  "Except nobody knows about us. They'll look elsewhere for a scapegoat. Stop worrying."

  "As you say, brother," Perill replied and stalked away.

  Randl

  BlackWing X

  "Naturalized Amterean," David Hiboux grinned and held out a hand. I knew that about the dwarf engineer before he told me, but I smiled and shook hands with him without saying so.

  He'd recently been to Avendor; I could almost smell the fresh air and gishi fruit about him. "Normally he's with us, but he takes vacations once in a while, to spend time with his wife," Travis said. "What's up with the ship?" he turned to David.

  "Cooling system glitch. Need to replace it," David said. "I wouldn't recommend going into hyperdrive the way it is."

  "How long?" Trent asked.

  "Maybe a day, at most, once I get the replacement parts."

  "I'll see about putting a rush on that," Trent said. "What are you doing for dinner, Dave?" His voice sounded robotic.

  "Funny," David sniffed. "I haven't made plans," he added.

  "There's a restaurant about half a click from the hotel. Serves a decent facsimile of a burger," Travis explained. "Want to come? We're taking Randl with us."

  "Damn, I haven't had a decent burger in months," David said. "I'll go. Decent beer, too?"

  "Good enough," Trent shrugged.

  Two hours later, we walked into Flipper's, an upscale version of a sandwich shop, which served beers from both Alliances. I wasn't a heavy drinker, but I enjoyed a beer with Pap now and then.

  "Beef patty sandwich, with mustard sauce, onions, pickles, tomato and cheese," Trent told the waitress when she arrived to take our orders. I could tell by the deep frown as she tapped the order into her comp-vid that she didn't find Trent's choice palatable.

  "I want the same, with crispy potatoes," David said. "And a Refizani Blue-label."

  "Add crispy potatoes and a Refizani Blue to mine," Trent said.

  "I want what they're having," I said.

  "Make that four," Travis grinned and tapped the tabletop menu display to shut it off.

  "Want an appetizer out first?" the waitress lifted an eyebrow at Travis. She only saw his disguised face, but his physique didn't fail to catch her eye.

  "Batter-fried onions?" Travis asked me.

  "Sounds good," I said.

  "Two orders," Travis told the waitress. "We're hungry."

  "I'll have your beers and appetizers out soon," the waitress gave Travis one last look and walked away, her hips swinging an invitation to him.

  "You can have that if you want it, bro," Trent teased.

  "No, thanks," Travis said.

  Only a few stray crispy potatoes lay on plates as we drank a third beer. The food was very good; I could see why Travis and Trent liked the restaurant so much. I was beginning to wonder if being drunk affected someone's ability to fold space, as it did when driving a vehicle, until two men and one woman followed the hostess past our table.

  They'd stopped briefly to allow a server to pass carrying a laden tray of food. That's how my vision adjusted well enough in my inebriated state to see them clearly.

  "Travis, may I borrow your comp-vid?" I asked as the group moved past our table.

  "Sure." Travis wasn't as affected as I by the consumption of three beers, and pulled his comp-vid from a pocket with steady hands.

  I took it and tapped my message carefully into it, before handing it back to Travis, face-up.

  Travis

  I though Randl wanted to contact his father or something. That wasn't the case. He'd written a message to me.

  The three who passed our table have the same affliction as your mother's guest.

  In three blinks, I'd transferred the message to Kooper.

  "Those three." Randl pointed to the group in question, who sat at a corner table at the restaurant. We were tucked inside a disguised hover-van three blocks away, while a micro-drone recorded images of the three targets.

  "We can follow them," Kell Abenott offered. He and Opal, his mate, had joined Kooper after I'd sent the message.

  "Mist only—we don't want a repeat of what happened last time," Kooper huffed while staring at the three people. His comp-vid buzzed while we watched the targets eat their meal.

  "No identification on any of them," Kooper said after reading the message. "Probably from outside the Alliances. Without getting closer, there's no way to determine their true origin."

  "I can't see it, either," Randl said. "There's something blocking that visi
on in them, too."

  "But you can see the same thing here that you saw in Vrak?"

  "Yes. Something in their cells, just like the one called Vrak," Randl confirmed.

  "Send a copy of these images to Quin," Kooper barked at his comp-vid. "Maybe she can tell us something we don't know, yet."

  "Right away, Director," someone on the other end replied.

  Randl

  Travis folded the four of us back to the ship; Kooper thought it better if we stayed aboard the docked vehicle. I didn't mind; seeing the three at the restaurant had unnerved me. Whatever affected them was new to the ASD Director, too. During my life on Vogeffa II, I'd seen plenty of the unusual as far as mutations went, but nothing like this.

  "Here," Travis handed me a bottle of Refizani Blue. "Mom sent us a case after she heard about the encounter."

  "It raised the hair on my arms," I admitted and accepted the beer.

  "Didn't do much for me, either," David took a bottle. "Man, those unmarked hover-vans give me the willies."

  He was teasing; I understood that and laughed at his words.

  Kooper Griff

  "We don't have good news, I'm afraid," Kell said. Opal, who'd sat next to him at the breakfast table in my suite, appeared angry and frustrated.

  "You lost them?" I could tell by Opal's resulting stiffness that they had. These two were the best trackers in the ASD, and they'd lost the three we'd found the night before.

  "They have a disappearing trick," Opal growled. I'd never heard that sound from her before.

  My hand stilled in its journey to lift my cup of tea. "What sort of disappearing trick?" I asked after a moment. Opal and Kell had been mist. They should have been able to float right on top of their quarry, if necessary.

  "It's not what you're thinking," Kell said. He was an ancient vampire and could read my body language if not my mind. "They didn't disappear down a rabbit hole. I wouldn't call it folding space, but it's similar. They were walking along the street, headed who knows where, when suddenly, all three stopped—as if they'd been halted by a giant hand at the same moment. I'd call it eerie, and I don't often use that word," Kell shook his head. He still didn't believe what he'd seen.