"She's tired and confused. It was a low point for her. I was helping her take a shower and she was literally standing in front of me baring everything. She just needs to know people love her," I said. I noticed a strange look on Liam's face. "What?"
"Just trying to get past the picture of you and her in the shower together," he said.
I shook my head and chuckled. "Perv."
BREAKING POINT
Liam and I stayed up and talked on the bridge until about 2200.
"I'm going to check on Shri and then I need to hit the sack," I said.
"How long do you think we need to stick around?" Liam asked.
"At least until we can get Shri settled somewhere. She'll have to move in with her sister. She's not doing a very good job of taking care of herself," I said. "And we'll have to clear it with the Sheriff."
I walked down to Shri's bunk room and woke her up. I didn't want her waking up in a strange place, not remembering how to find the head.
"Where am I? What time is it?" she asked, her eyes wild.
I stroked her hair to calm her. "2200. You're on our ship and I'm about to go to bed. I wanted to help you find the head."
"You're so nice," Shri said and sat up.
I showed her to the head and got her a pouch of water. Shri wouldn't go back to sleep without me lying down with her, but once again, she fell off to sleep almost immediately. I slipped out of the room and found Liam back on our bed, reading his pad.
"I'm exhausted," I said and snuggled next to him. It didn't take more than a few minutes for me to fall asleep.
I awoke in the middle of the night and something felt off. Initially, I couldn't figure it out, but my internal warnings were firing. I reached out to the small table next to the bed, to find my earwig.
"Leave it, Tabby," Shri's voice said from the opposite side of the room.
"What are you doing, Shri?" I asked.
"I can't let it go," she said.
"Let what go?" I asked.
Liam was starting to stir.
"It's for the best," she said.
My eyes had adjusted and I saw her silhouetted figure, pistol in hand, aiming at the bed.
Full lights!
I rose up between Liam's sleeping form and Shri just as she fired and felt the searing pain, which I'd come to associate with being shot, lance across my rib cage. Frak, I thought, as I lost consciousness.
***
I've been told that a person's sense of smell has the ability to evoke the strongest sensory link to memories. As I was regaining consciousness, I imagined, just for a moment, that I was back in the Veteran's Hospital, recovering from losing my legs and arm. A sense of profound sadness pervaded my system, as I mourned my missing limbs.
Coming out of the medically induced sleep, I regained feeling in my extremities and sadness turned to joy as I realized I was completely whole.
"What happened?" I asked, trying to force my eyes open.
"You were shot," Liam said.
The memory of Shri's silhouetted figure standing over our bed jumped into my foggy mind. "Is Shri okay?"
"Yes. She lost it when she saw what she’d done," Liam told me.
"I'm so sorry, Liam. I had no idea," I said.
"They're taking care of her, Tabbs. They'll get her the help she needs," Liam said, comforting. "Apparently her sister Neeja has hired a high-powered lawyer from Puskar to make sure she doesn't get lost in the system."
"What about you? Were you hurt?" I asked.
"Nothing like you. AI says you saved my life. If her shot had continued along its path, I had less than a ten percent chance of making it."
"I just acted."
"It was stupid," he said squeezing my hand.
I opened my eyes and looked over at him. He had med-patches on his face and arms.
"What happened to your face?"
"Don't worry, Doc said I’ll be my gorgeous self again in no time."
"Shri did that?"
"Yes. After she shot you, we had a bit of a row. Like I said, she wasn't in her right mind. Don't confuse that with forgetting her hand-to-hand combat skills."
We heard a knock at the door and the tall figure of Sheriff Long poked his head in.
"Come on in," I said.
"Are you sure? I can come back," He'd taken off the wide brimmed cowboy hat he wore and was holding it in his hand.
"No, I'm feeling okay," I said.
"I've just got two things and I'll be out of your hair," he said. "First thing is, I need to know if you want to file a complaint against Deputy Berant Ganguly. Best I can tell, the D.A. has a good case for attempted kidnapping."
"He shouldn't be a lawman," I said.
"Berant is on administrative leave. Even if you don't press charges, the D.A. will likely bring her own against him," he said.
"I'll cooperate in any way I can. He's not a total loss, but he shouldn't be wearing a badge," I said.
"That's about how I feel too," Sheriff Long said. "I'll tell the D.A."
"What's the second thing?"
"I figure I owed you an explanation on everything that happened. After Mr. Hoffen subdued Ms. Ganguly, she confessed to setting the fire," he said.
"She needs help," I said. I know I should have been surprised, but the strange events of the past few days were beginning to form a sad pattern.
"Ms. Ganguly has been admitted into the Veteran's Hospital system. She'll receive the help she needs. There's the matter of her mother's death. That will be a hard burden to bear, but they'll be able to help her," he said, kindly.
"What about the gun shots from the hillside?" I asked.
"You need to see this," he said, holding a reading pad in front of me.
I saw the scene from the bedroom unfolding in front of me on the small screen. My heart raced as I took it all in. My AI had captured what I hadn't thought possible. The first gunshot had been Shri, shooting out the window. I'd wondered why it had blown outward. She'd held onto my blaster all the way to the ground, the hedge had mostly blocked my view of her firing the blaster. In the heat of the moment, I'd completely missed it, although I recall thinking the blaster fire had been closer than she'd suggested.
"What about her blood poisoning?"
"She injected herself with the poison. She was desperate for help and found it in the one true friend she had. She's very lucky she had you," he said.
"You're kind to say that."
"No ma'am. I'm just calling it how I see it. In my line of business, I see all types. I mostly deal with people who try to get ahead at the expense of everyone else. Then, there are those who just get lost because the world has crapped on them. Ms. Ganguly is the latter and she didn't deserve what happened to her. There's only so much a person can take and I figure she'd taken all she could. Something inside her broke."
He pushed his hat back on his head and smiled reassuringly. "Oh, and there's another type of person I rarely run into. Those who go out of their way to stand between the bad in this world and the innocent. I figure you're one of those. Like I said, you might get a call from the D.A. about Berant, but I think you can be assured he won't be a deputy in the Olympus Mon Sheriff's Department for much longer."
"Where is Shri?" I asked.
"She was taken to the Veteran's Healing Center in Wild River."
"I don't suppose I could see her," I said.
"Wouldn't be up to me, but I don't imagine she'll be having any visitors for a while."
"Thank you," I said.
Sheriff Long smiled as he nodded, then left the room.
"Are you ready to get back to fighting pirates?" Liam asked.
"You bet your ass."
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Diane Greenwood Muir for excellence in editing and fine word-smithery. My wife, Janet, for carefully and kindly pointing out my poor grammatical habits. I cannot imagine working through these projects without you both.
To my beta readers: Carol Greenwood, Kelli Whyte, Robert Long, Matt Strbj
ak and Nancy Higgins Quist for wonderful and thoughtful suggestions. It is a joy to work with this wonderful group of people.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jamie McFarlane is happily married, the father of three and lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. He spends his days engaged in a hi-tech career and his nights and weekends writing works of fiction. He's also the author of:
Privateer Tales
Rookie Privateer
Fool Me Once
Parley
Big Pete
Smuggler's Dilemma
Cutpurse
Out of the Tank
Buccaneers
Guardians of Gaeland
Lesser Prince
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CONTACT JAMIE
Blog and Website: fickledragon.com
Facebook: facebook.com/jamiemcfarlaneauthor
Twitter: twitter.com/mcfarlaneauthor
Out of the Tank (Privateer Tales Book 7) Page 6
