Dominion-427

by Blaze Ward

  “Officer?” the man rather gasped.

  “At the very least,” she purred triumphantly. “I won’t know how the actual crew will break down until we get closer to having a ship. You may have even more important duties when we get there.”

  Iulianus grinned inside at the way the fool perked up at the thought of other duties. Probably had to pay the station whores extra already, and that would just go up if he had any sort of reputation for brutality around them, as well. Might be too cheap to actually pay that price until his needs got out of hand.

  That would just make a man like Butler Vidy-Wooders that much easier to control, if that was the leash the Widow chose to employ.

  Iulianus’s price wouldn’t be anything so mundane.

  20

  Glaxu

  Glaxu had to give them credit for trying. Or something.

  Instead of sending the human captain over to invite him into their conversation, they had sent the extra female. The one that wasn’t a sailor in uniform, and didn’t move like an assassin. Were they trying to seduce him or something equally detestable?

  He wasn’t a good judge of age, but Glaxu would have placed her younger than the Widow by a reasonable amount, but still a decade or more older than Bayjy or Kyriaki.

  A rose past the bloom, to quote one of his favorite playwrights from the old days. Still equipped with thorns, but no longer attracting the insects to come pollinate her.

  Or whatever euphemism the humans might use.

  Glaxu was at his prescribed corner of the bar, while the rest of the humans tended to follow a gravity field that pulled them to the far end of the room, leaving him a wide berth to drink his juice properly hot. And the bartender had even left notes or something, because the new one today, a surly-enough near-human, had just nodded and gotten to work.

  Glaxu would have left her a spare coin in thanks anyway, even if it wasn’t the money Leader had apparently won in a game of cards, funding their excursions yet.

  The excess Dominion female approached as the rest settled at the same table they had had earlier. Hilariously, the listening device still worked, but the chair where it was attached had been moved back to the next table over, where a fat, squat Viddhu was eating soup noisily when Glaxu had checked his earphones.

  “Captain Redtip?” she said as she approached to a point Dave probably could have predicted with a ruler before she entered.

  She was not a killer. At least not as he understood the term. Not like the human Athanasia. Taller than the blond woman. Leaner as well, more in line with the sorts of streamlining a Mondi like him preferred. Brownish head hair a little darker than his feathers, drawn up in a complex, asymmetrical braid showing no gray at all, in spite of her apparent age, so Glaxu assumed a chemical camouflage that he couldn’t smell from here.

  He hadn’t rotated his body as she had approached. Merely drawn his pistol on the hidden site and turned his head.

  “Indeed,” he nodded politely with a slight head cock.

  She had done nothing to warrant rudeness. Technically none of them had, and it never cost you anything to be polite to people.

  Even if you did have to kill them later.

  “Athanasia inquires if you would have an interest in joining our group for a common meal, to discuss business,” the woman intoned in a quiet, careful voice, standing mostly still, but not so calm as an assassin preparing.

  Well done, too. Nothing anyone could take offense at, unless they were already there to begin with. And already part of the plan as they had hatched it at that table after he had left the other day.

  Seriously? You think a mere triple-cross will be sufficient to cheat a Mondi?

  “I will join,” Glaxu nodded to her with dignity, letting his head crest semaphore courtesy and grace as he holstered the pistol, grabbed his juice, and stepped off the bar stool.

  The woman waited patiently, and then rotated in place to lead him back to the table, as if a herald.

  Glaxu took a moment to study today’s companions in greater detail than he had as they made their way through the room.

  Athanasia. The Widow of not-Dave-Hall, dressed in a tighter outfit than yesterday, with a tunic to only mid-thigh instead of her ankles, and wrapping her like a second skin. Gray, as the previous one had been, two days ago, but a darker shade, down in the steel and charcoal range. Suggestions of evil and power, if he understood the human hints, mixed with sex and rage.

  Glaxu hoped the silly woman wasn’t planning to seduce him. He doubted she had the correct internal spiraling for the act, even if he could have found the interest.

  The other woman took her spot across from the Widow, leaving an empty chair on the end of the oval.

  The human ship captain from before sat diagonal from Athanasia, prim and specist in his haughtiness. Pressed and impeccable in the rest.

  The fourth made Glaxu happy that he couldn’t grin outwardly. And that he could contain his mirth before it reached his head feathers.

  Leader and Fierce Bayjy had shown him a picture of Butler Vidy-Wooders, the captain of Bayjy’s former employment, Hard Bargain.

  M’Rai were certainly impressive creatures. Three times Glaxu’s height. Easily eight to ten times his mass.

  It was probably a dreadful oversight on his part that he had forgotten to put on the shock bracers this afternoon before he went out for an evening’s entertainment. If trouble erupted, he would have no choice but to dewclaw some stupid bastard.

  Even more interestingly, the creature on display here was quite different from his old pictures. The facial hair had been trimmed back to a level that might have made a different man look distinguished. The head hair appeared brushed back and tied into a ribbon or something, rather than the unruly madness he had apparently normally preferred.

  Introductions, more formal this time. Stephaneria was the extra female. Glaxu still could not place her purpose in this nest. He wondered if they had brought along a sex-object, but he could not for the life of him understand why she might be important enough to dine with the elders of that nest.

  Glaxu did make carefully sure not to react to Bayjy’s nemesis, Butler. Or perhaps she and Kyriaki were Vidy-Wooders’s nemesis. Those stories had left him rolling on the floor in a fit of giggles and feathers.

  “So, Captain Redtip,” the Widow said after they had ordered food and drink. “What loyalties do you have to your former shipmates?”

  It took him a moment, as his mind kept flashing back to the old nest of Mondi that had assumed he had remained behind, as he had wished, when he had merely been stranded by an Overdrive failure. But she meant Leader, Bayjy, Kyriaki, and not-Dave-Hall.

  “I’m here, they have left,” he shrugged, somehow failing to mention that it was part of a larger plan that they left him behind, rather than a parting of the ideological ways.

  “But you know where they intended to transit to next?” she asked in a light, friendly tone.

  Two old friends, well met and gossiping about old shipmates. Or some such drivel.

  “I was privy to their plans, right up until they hit the buoys, Madam,” he suggested off-handedly. “If they truly maintained course, then yes.”

  “I would like to invest in your knowledge,” she said.

  What an interesting play on words, even for humans.

  “Oh?” he decided to play adroitly stupid.

  It had worked wonders with Truqtok’s people. It might work here, although this group was far more dangerous than most of the folk he had met on Kryuome.

  “Captain Vidy-Wooders here has decided to join my vengeance,” she smiled, reaching out and even stroking the M’Rai on the arm in a manner that Glaxu’s interspecies erotica studies had suggested human women didn’t normally do with strangers, or even close acquaintances.

  But then, M’Rai were probably human enough.

  “Then you probably don’t need me,” Glaxu smiled at her serenely.

  “Need?” she smiled politely back. “Perhaps not. Desi
re your assistance. And would be willing to recompense you for your time.”

  “And none of the fixers, fences, or other whores on the station were able to guide the next leg of your journey?”

  Glaxu let his eyes grow large as he spoke. Among Mondi, that improved near-distance accuracy on a beak strike, but to humans, it apparently looked like surprised innocence, from what he had been told.

  Too bad none of you knew that.

  The two captains appeared to deflate just a little, while the two women retained their calm dignity. But then, the other two human women he had known, Bayjy and Kyriaki, were probably more dangerous than the men, at least within their realms of expertise.

  “Captain Tarasicodissa might have mentioned things to folks, but the man has a reputation with misdirection that I have come to appreciate and respect,” Athanasia tutted.

  “So you didn’t find a secret, hidden, Urlan base at the south pole, either?” Glaxu chuckled happily.

  Leader had certainly ruffled everyone else’s feathers with that one.

  “We looked among the prospectors,” she joined his mirth with a laugh. A moment later, the others did as well. “But were unable to locate our prey. We came here for other reasons, and managed to get lucky enough to find you, apparently bereft.”

  “Merchants are dull folks,” Glaxu offered, not bothering to point out that Valentinian and friends had reinvented themselves as salvagers, at least until they could return to more profitable ventures later, when Dominion-427 was no longer hunting them.

  “Just so,” Athanasia smiled. “But we will no longer be merely chasing the ship across the galaxy.”

  “Oh?” Glaxu let himself perk up.

  This might be actionable intelligence that would justify blowing his cover and fleeing to warn his nest.

  “Dominion-427 was only on loan,” her voice got harder and sharper as she spoke. “I have sufficient funds at hand to detach myself from the ship, buy a new one, and pursue other ventures as well.”

  Glaxu nodded serenely as he kept his head crest elevated by sheer force of will.

  “Chatosig is a notable destination for someone interested in such activities,” he said, turning his attention directly on the until-now-silent M’Rai. “Are you part of her new squadron of pursuers, Captain?”

  For a man who liked to play poker for money, Butler Vidy-Wooders did not have an especially bland face. He almost looked like the other captain had silently kicked him under the table, from the way he flinched.

  The giant cleared his throat and glanced at the Widow like he was asking permission to speak. Interesting. Even more so when the woman nodded.

  “Hard Bargain has been a good ship for me,” the man said carefully. “But times have changed, and I will sell it and put the money in the bank. With other funds already invested, it will generate interest for the time being, until I have destroyed Tarasicodissa and Endon. After that, I will look for my next venture.”

  Glaxu knew he shouldn’t have been shocked. Bayjy had told her tale of woe. And the one of vengeance that more than balanced the scales. Personally, Glaxu was more surprised that the man was smart enough to get out now, but he supposed that the Widow had thrown him a lifesuit in impending vacuum, and he had taken it rather than explode in space.

  Glaxu nodded his attention back to the Widow.

  “Commissioning a warship at M’Rai physical scales will take time,” he said socially. “I cannot imagine Longshot Hypothesis will remain in dock while you delay.”

  “Fortunately, there already exists such a vessel,” she smiled at him with great innocence, for a human. “Somewhat old, but capable of being refurbished and upgraded in a relatively short period of time. A dealer at Chatosig-One, of all places, had it for sale. They had bought it from a M’Rai pirate some time back, but were unable to sell it later, as one of the periodic wars and tides shifted through and most of the local M’Rai migrated to other sectors of space. At least the more criminal element that needed such a warship.”

  “Interesting,” Glaxu nodded. “I wasn’t aware that there were enough M’Rai in the area to make up a crew.”

  “There aren’t any more,” she leaned forward just a little. Possibly a human gesture women used to distract men, from the unconscious way she seemed to display her upper chest to him and the effect similar motions by Bayjy or Kyriaki had on the two human males. “But the necessary refits and updates to convert it to a human standard crew, while expensive, aren’t that much more than fixing it up for the M’Rai.”

  “Does it come with a shuttle bay?” Glaxu asked, jutting his beak out just a little to sell his interest.

  And he confused her, just for a moment, as something clouded her eyes before vanishing. She turned her attention off to the other captain, Palaiologos.

  “It does not,” he spoke up quickly. “At least in the current configuration midship. This was designed originally as an escort for one of the small navies some of the local kingdoms build when they want to conquer a neighbor or three. There is a storage area just inward of a large cargo airlock, that could be converted to a flight deck, but nothing as big as a Mondi-sized, variable geometry slayership could fit right now.”

  “Would you be interested in hiring an escort ship?” he ventured.

  What was the worst they could do? Offer?

  And him? Accept?

  “I hadn’t anticipated that your services might be on the market, Captain Redtip,” Athanasia tried to recover things.

  Glaxu shrugged.

  “My original nest has returned home, or at least headed towards the homeward sectors,” he said honestly. “I’m at Chatosig, having escaped from Kryuome instead of continuing to be stranded, or gotten myself killed. I need to start looking at future employment options soon.”

  “You were stranded at Kryuome?” the other female, Stephaneria, spoke up suddenly.

  He had almost forgotten she was there, quiet as a snake hiding in the grass from a hungry Mondi.

  Her eyes were sharper now, commensurate with a hidden intellect that could explain her presence with this group.

  “Overdrive failure,” he nodded to her. “I was separated from my old nest and they assumed I had stayed behind. Captain Tarasicodissa hired me to help him kill some of the local gangsters that had been causing problems. Part of the payment was parts and expertise to rebuild my own systems. We both flew as far as Chatosig, him looking for the next cargo, me looking for the next raid that someone needed to hire muscle for.”

  There. Almost a real truth, depending on how you wanted to look at it.

  Something rather interesting passed between the two women’s eyes. Glaxu didn’t have the body language down to do more than rate the importance and excitement of the look, but it was there. All the emotions at the table changed in a heartbeat.

  It was enough difference that he loosened up his legs from the squat he had assumed earlier and flexed his toes outward against the plastic, pseudo-wood of the chair. Never knew when you should prepare to suddenly explode upwards on madly-flapping wings, striking every direction with dewclaws while you drew your pistol and cut loose.

  After a moment, calmness returned, and Glaxu wondered if he had just cut a significant portion of Vidy-Wooders’s net value to the women by possibly being available to hire.

  Not that they could afford Redtip Windrunner Oedressa Farther Glaxu, but these people were a threat to his new nest. Anything he could do to damage their peace of mind would help.

  He just wasn’t suicidal enough to kill everyone here and then try his luck with the authorities on-station.

  “That is certainly an interesting and unexpected development, Captain Redtip,” Athanasia said after a moment to clear her flutters.

  Glaxu invested everything he had into the most nonchalant shrug he could manage. Difficult when you didn’t really have shoulders. Elbows had to make up for it.

  “As I said, at some point, I will need something else,” he said evenly. “Even parked in the cheap s
ection of the station and watching my coin carefully, I will run out of funds at some point not too distant.”

  Translation into human: I’m not broke. How desperate are you?

  The Widow nodded as a way of closing off that portion of the conversation, and then shifted seamlessly into talk about station politics and other sundries of almost no relevance at all, except to distract everyone from the one cogent point, or perhaps two, that had come up. The Mondi could be for rent. The Widow was buying a second-hand M’Rai light corvette, if it was the one he had scanned earlier, and would be chasing Valentinian with more help. Local help.

  Glaxu enjoyed his steak strips, cut to mimic grilled snake, if a little bland and chewy with cartilage. Nothing else important happened. Dessert was skipped for more coffee for the humans and juice for him.

  Stephaneria had gone mostly silent. Captain Palaiologos had responded to technical questions with precise answers. Vidy-Wooders looked like a stiff drink would help.

  The Widow kept all sides talking, like a dancer at the center of a scrum until they broke back into two groups and Glaxu found himself headed back to Outermost with serious, personal concern.

  Not tonight, but how soon should he break cover and run for Leader with the updated information the man needed to make better plans? Enough to confirm the hull? The upgrades?

  Dare he actually listen to the employment offer that would no doubt require an internal conversion on their part?

  Butler Vidy-Wooders might not even be necessary, if Redtip was available. That was part of the look he had seen floating between the two women. The human captain had given nothing away, while the M’Rai was an open book nobody had bothered to write anything in.

  Perhaps the Widow wasn’t as foolish as he had expected?

  At least the game ahead would be entertaining.