Asarlai Wars 1: Warrior Wench (4 page)

“It’s all right, Jeof. You just need to rest for a few minutes.” Deven laid his hands on either side of the drunk man’s head. Jeof closed his eyes with a sigh. “When you wake up you’ll go find a hotel room. You have money near your heart. It’s enough to get you off this planet. Go to Chaslisten and speak to the healers. You want to be a farmer.”

Deven’s left hand quickly darted into the man’s jumbled clothing, and then back to the side of his head. Vas knew he’d most likely just given Jeof all of the money he’d earned this last month. Jeof would probably be a happy farmer on the ag planet Chaslisten before the month ended.

A shudder crept across her shoulders and a cold pit grew in her guts. She knew Deven had power but she’d never seen it wielded so subtly. Her hand slipped into her pocket and she fingered his esper bracelets. Things would be better when she got these back on him. While she trusted Deven with her life, she didn’t feel the same about trusting him with her mind. She would never trust an esper in her head again.

Deven released Jeof and rejoined her. “We should go. It’d be best if he doesn’t see us when he wakes up.”

She held out the bracelets with a raised eyebrow. Deven usually put them back on immediately.

“All right, but let’s get out of sight.” He all but pushed her out of the alley and around the corner.

“What’s wrong?” She hadn’t picked up on anything in the alley beyond the obvious smells of refuse and abandonment. However, something rattled Deven. That alone was a rare enough occurrence to have her fingers linger near the butt of her blaster and the hilt of her dagger.

Deven held out his arm, wincing slightly when the metal clamped around his wrist and sealed in on itself. “I’m not sure. Something didn’t feel right about Jeof, something deep in his psyche. Whatever it is I didn’t want to disturb it. There were webs of mind treatments dropped over each other dating back at least a year. I think it would be better if he didn’t see us again.”

Vas shrugged. She had no problem with avoiding the loon. The well-being of one clearvac junkie was of no concern of hers. Not to mention that no matter how much she rubbed she couldn’t get the prickly feeling of the moldy biscuit free of her hand. “Agreed. Let’s go make sure the rest of our crew is intact. You haven’t seen any of them recently have you?”

Deven replaced the leather band over his esper bracelets. “No, but to be honest, I didn’t try.”

Vas laughed as they made their way to the small part of town that welcomed the more salty spacers. The invisible grunt labor found in any community lived in shantytowns set a few miles out from the casino conglomerates. To pull in extra money, many of these small towns created zones for the crews of visiting starships to stay at. The casino workers got much needed extra funds, and the crews of ships had places to stay they could afford, and the casinos avoided having riff raff sleeping on their floors.

He turned to her as they walked. “I think all of them are still in Expreia. They were talking about getting a group bunkhouse so they could all stay together cheaper. I sent out a comm-alert that you had sent out spy-cams to keep an eye on them after the first week you were late.”

“When have I ever spied on my crew? I don’t want to know what they do most of the time.” Vas took a moment to enjoy the cool night air as she watched him.

Deven smiled, his dimpled charm reminding her how he always came out of gambling houses ahead of the game. “No, but they don’t need to know that. Gosta said they were getting restless.”

“God’s balls, you should have said that first off.” Vas picked up speed—there wasn’t time for a nice evening stroll anymore. Restless was never good with her crew.

The muted lights of Expreia were coming into view when pain stabbed into her stomach. Vas grunted and doubled over as fire flooded her insides. It disappeared as quickly as it came.

“What is it?” Deven took her arm, but she shook him off.

A deep breath washed away the last vestiges of the attack. “I’ve no idea what happened, but I’m—” Her words ended in a scream when her insides burst into flame. She collapsed to the sand and grabbed her stomach. She felt like she’d been gutted by a beam weapon. Her fingers felt nothing, but the pain kept expanding. The tissues inside her body were being torn apart at the smallest level. Her screams filled the night.

Deven grabbed her head in one hand and her hand in the other. “You have to get the bracelets off of me. Now.”

She tried to focus on the gold and black figure before her, but the ripping inside her took too much energy. She couldn’t think. For only the second time in her life, terror froze her mind.

“I.” Pain swallowed her world again. Blood slammed in her ears. “I can’t.” She tried to lock her jaw, but pain forced out another scream.

Cool hands rubbed her own. Deven held her head cradled in his lap and rubbed both of her arms. “You’re dying. You only have minutes left. It has to be now.” The sharpness in his command made her reach for the bracelets without thinking.

She fumbled with the metal bands, but her fingers couldn’t close on them. Fear, pain, and darkness swallowed her in a massive rush of wind and sand. He was right—she was dying. She knew the way dying felt; she’d been here before. But she had never wandered this far down the path. Wrong about one thing though, she didn’t have minutes left.

She had far less.

Chapter Three

Deven swore and ripped the painful metal off his wrist. He wasn’t supposed to be able to take them off himself, and would be dropped in a deep pit somewhere if it were discovered that he could do so. But he didn’t have a choice. Vas was dying.

Vas’s head lay in his lap, her breath rasping along the bottom of her lungs. He grasped both sides of her head and reached deep in his mind for his telepathic power. Gathering his strength, he mentally dove into her body. Poison flared around him, as red and violent as a discharge from a blaster, shredding her from the inside. New swear words were invented when he finally realized what the poison was. He hadn’t seen that class of poison since Vas’s great grandparents’ lifetime, and he had hoped to keep it that way.

He could count the number of breaths Vas had left. He psychically grabbed hold of the poison and tried to drag it out of her. Instead of freeing her, the red of the poison flared brighter, tightening its hold on her heart. He dug deeper inside himself, pulling in reserves far beyond his normal ability. A new pounding echoed in his head—that of his own heart fighting to keep beating. He couldn’t keep working at this level much longer.

He fought the darkness swallowing his mind, and pushed at the deadly poison one more time. He almost wept when it released her heart. Vas lost consciousness and an instant later the darkness claimed Deven as well.

***

“So we found you two collapsed over each other in the desert. Next time you and the captain decide to go on a bender, you might want to stay where folks can find you. Just luck we picked up a signal from the captain’s comm.” The voice was nearby and loud. Too loud.

Vas groaned as the voices slammed into her skull like tiny little Arelian throwing darts. Why did every pore of her being feel like it had been blown apart and put back together by a blind man? More specifically, a one-armed blind man having a bad day?

“Gosta? Report.” She didn’t need to open her eyes to know it had been her Navigation Command officer speaking.

“Two hours ago, Fron and Hrrru picked up your comm signal and went to investigate. They found both of you out cold but with no marks. We carried the two of you here into Terel’s lab in the compound, set up cots, and tried to figure out what you’d done this time. Deven woke up a few minutes ago.” Gosta paused and his voice dropped. “He is very heavy to carry, Captain.”

Vas chuckled at Gosta’s observation and winced when a ripple of pain shot through her body. “Ow. Don’t make me laugh. Any of you.” She cracked open an eye and peered up at Gosta’s gangly body. The small upper body of his Syngerin ancestors appeared precariously balanced on his almost human lower half. It left him appearing constantly leaning forward. Syngerins reminded Vas of very large walking stick insects, however, she was very careful never to let her opinion come out. Besides, she’d always been fond of bugs; they were the only kind of pets available on her home world.

Shifting her glance to the man in the bed across the large room, Vas let a few swear words sputter silently. If she felt this bad, Deven should at least look winded. Instead he looked like he’d been lounging in a spa. God damn that man.

“I only remember pain.” A chill took hold of her at the flash of memory that hit, but it didn’t fill in any of the gaps.

Deven didn’t answer, but nodded toward the low-ranking officers lingering in the doorway. Whatever he had to say, he didn’t want it to go out to the rest of their crew.

Vas motioned for Gosta to lean closer. “Clear the doorway and post a guard in the hall. You and Terel can stay.” Vas glanced past Gosta toward Terel. By the tiny lines that creased the medical officer’s forehead and the narrowing of her molten silver eyes, Terel would probably knock down anyone who tried to make her leave her patients’ sides. Having a best friend who was so protective was a good thing, but having ones’ doctor be that protective could be a bit much at times.

Gosta nodded and motioned toward Xsit who leaned in the doorway. The tiny birdlike woman bobbed her head at Gosta’s words, then turned toward the other junior officers. In an instant the hallway was cleared and the door secured.

“You were poisoned.” Deven swung out of his bed, waving Terel’s muttered protests aside as he did so. “I tried to draw the poison out too fast and my system collapsed.” He tried flashing one of his charming grins. “You know us pretty boys are fragile.”

Vas knew the futility of fighting with Deven about staying in bed; he stayed in bed when he had a good reason. Being injured didn’t happen to be one of those reasons.

Terel finally shrugged. Her eyes flashed briefly to lighter silver, the only outward sign of her annoyance.

Vas wasn’t going to step into any battles of will between those two. Besides, she had her own issues to fight.

“What in the hell happened?” Vas said.

“You died.” Deven’s jaw tightened in a rare show of emotion. It vanished an instant later. “Okay, you were about a second away from dying. We were ten minutes out of town when you complained about a pain in your stomach.” He sat back on the edge of his bed.

A phantom pain hit her low in the abdomen. “I remember.” Her voice stayed low. “I thought I’d been hit by a beam weapon.”

“I wish.” Deven shook his head. “That would have been easier to fix. You’ve been poisoned. Someone slipped you some Larkerian drell recently. You should have been dead twenty seconds after it went active. It’s a designer poison and it can be set to activate anytime within thirty days of insertion.”

Terel blanched at his words and slid back into her chair. Although the name meant nothing to Vas, it clearly did to her medical officer.

“What is it and how did they give it to me?” Vas racked her brain to think of where someone could have poisoned her. Had Skrankle done it? Who knew what lurked in that slime he oozed. Except she didn’t think Skrankle could pre-plan his next meal let alone a murder.

Which left at least fifty or more of her favorite enemies as prime suspects.

“The drells are a class of designer poisons from the Westergail Wars.” Everyone turned to stare at Gosta. Along with being a crack navigation officer, he laid claim to being a master hacker and computer wizard. However, none of his interests usually included historical facts.

He continued without noticing their looks. “They were one of the last inventions of the Asarlaís.” Gosta frowned; his pronounced jaw mandibles clicking loudly as he finally noticed that the others were all focused on him. “I read, people. Something the rest of you might do once in a while.”

“But the Westergail Wars ended eight hundred years ago,” Vas said. She wasn’t happy that after twenty years as a mercenary she almost left this world thanks to a poison. It being from the homicidal and self-destructing former master race of the Asarlaís just increased her annoyance level. That the universe managed to out-survive the Asarlaís was a miracle still taught to schoolchildren.

Gosta shook his head. “Clearly some of their creations continued. However, I’ve not read of the Larkerian drell before.”

Deven leaned back partially on the pile of pillows on his bed. Vas couldn’t tell if fatigue had caught up to him or he adjusted himself for her benefit. “The Larkerian is a rare one. I haven’t seen it in a very long time.”

She knew he meant to say something else. His mystery man persona was designed to increase her urge to space him. Some days resistance was harder than others.

“So someone slipped me an ancient and obscure poison sometime in the last thirty days. We have no idea who, why, or where.” Vas wanted to go and find something or someone to beat up, but she didn’t know if she could move. Deven may have taken her off death’s path, but she’d come far too close not to feel the effects. She told herself the lump of ice in her gut was just a side effect of the poison.

“How long will it take to go away? We do have a battle to fight, you know.” Vas picked at her med officer. She knew she was an awful patient, but it did seem to make doctors work harder to get her out of their sick rooms.

Terel scurried over to the holo vid, humming as she did so. She hummed when agitated, happy, or sad. Vas couldn’t think of an emotion that went through Terel that she didn’t hum about. Maybe it was a species thing. The question would be which species. Terel was an Exotic, her heritage made up of so many unique species that no single one could be claimed. Tall and elegantly thin, almost human looking, but with long dark orange feather-like hair that never would be found on a human. Even with the odd hair, she still looked like so many others she didn’t stand out in a crowd. She had an eerie ability for balance however—physically, mentally, and maintaining the internal balance of her patients. Came in handy on a ship full of hot heads.

“You won’t find much, unless you start studying archives.” Deven ran his hand through his hair, then sighed as if weighing something. “I know a fair amount about poisons. No, I won’t talk about it, nor will I develop any for you. But I haven’t seen a Larkerian drell in over two hundred years.” His dark green eyes narrowed as he watched all of them.

Vas didn’t think Deven was a pure human, not many espers were, and none that were past a level three. However,
over
two hundred years?

“How old are you anyway? Your records say you’re thirty.” She wasn’t surprised that his records were wrong. She’d be more surprised if any of her crew had accurate files. But she didn’t like not knowing they were that far off.

“I lied.” Deven shrugged and flashed an honest grin. Far more unnerving than his glamour grin in Vas’s thinking. “You don’t need to know how old. Take it on faith I’m older than you. And I haven’t seen nor heard of the Larkerian drell in over two hundred years.” His grin vanished and the lines in his face deepened. “And that I almost couldn’t save you.”

Gosta rose from the computer screen he’d been hunching in front of. “Captain, I’m going to need to use the
Victorious Dead’s
computer system to find information. This is a rental and is useless for a deep search. Where is the ship docked?”

“That’s a good question.” Vas watched all three faces as her words hit.

“You lost our ship?” Deven went pale and a line that hadn’t been there before appeared between his brows. This was why she had hoped to tell him before the others—she knew he wasn’t going to take it well. The other two sat back down and stayed silent but both watched her with eyes found only on kicked puppies.

“First of all, it’s
my
ship, not our ship. Secondly, what I would have told you had you not been playing with the deity of baked goods all evening was that Skrankle took the ship apart.” She held up her hands as all three tried to speak at once. “Skrankle says he mistook it and parted out the wrong ship. Considering that no one could mistake the
Victorious Dead
for our current loaner, I seriously doubt it. Also considering that said loaner is in top shape, and has lots of brand-new state-of-the-art goodies and treats, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to part her out.”

Vas studied the ceiling; no easy way to say it. “Our current ship is conspicuous.” She frowned but no easier terms came to mind. “And very ill-named.”

“Well?” Gosta prodded when she waited too long to tell them.

“We’ve got the
Warrior Wench
.”

She closed her eyes, and slid into her pillows as all three shouted at once. None of them said anything that she hadn’t already said to herself. The majority of her negotiating for pay on jobs came out of her reputation and that of her crew. What her clients would think of the fierce merc Captain Vaslisha Tor Dain tooling around in the metal version of a fluffy pink whorehouse was enough to make her sick. She vowed that for every job they didn’t get hired for, Skrankle would also lose another body part. Lucky for her, Ilerians had lots of body parts.

She finally waved them to be silent. “It sucks. Trust me, I know. But there isn’t anything we can do now. We need to be on Lantaria by this time next week for the Honth battle. We also need to have a ship to find the
Victorious Dead
. I did a quick scan of Skrankle’s orders on his holvid. He didn’t do a full breakdown; the ship won’t be in small pieces, so our job won’t be as hard.” She didn’t know if she convinced them or herself.

“But we can’t do anything until I can stand. Doc? Any clue as to how long I’m laid up?”

The gleam in Terel’s eyes told Vas she wanted to continue asking questions about the ship. Long-time spacers often cared about their ship more than their families. Muttering under her breath, Terel turned toward her computer.

“Now that we know what you were attacked with, Gosta and I should be able to find something to combat it even on these computers. Hopefully there won’t be much more to do, I think Deven pulled most of it out of your system.” Her tone implied that she wanted to take him apart to find out how he’d done what he did as well. However, as with the issue of their missing ship, Vas knew Terel would just quietly wait until the proper time, then corner the guilty parties when it was least expected.

As Gosta joined Terel and they conferred in low tones, Vas pointed in Deven's direction. "What I need
you
to do is go round up the rest of our happy crew, tell them to pack up all their stuff, and get them ready to bug out. Then contact the fighters at Home and have them meet us in transport ships in route. We can’t swing by and gather them this time. We'll need about six hundred fighters from Home, low-tech ground pounders only. We're with a few other companies on this one.” Her crew sometimes complained about her rule for taking all personal belongings off the ship for any extended shore leave. She seriously doubted they’d complain after having the entire ship go missing. At least they all still had their stuff.