Drifters' Alliance, Book 2 (18 page)

“You might not have a choice. It would be better if you came back on your own decision, before…” He glances up the hallway in the direction we came from.

“Before what?”

He holds up a hand and then straightens, backing away from me by two paces.

A shadow stretches along the wall coming toward us, and then I hear sounds. Two seconds later, the girl appears again. She’s striding fast, but slows when she sees us standing there.

“Sir.” She looks at him and then me. Then back to him. Her left nostril flickers annoyance.

“Corporal. What’s the status of the engineer?”

I frown, trying to remember if anyone specified it was an engineer down.

“He’s on life support.”

“Can we help him?”

“I believe we can. Medical is arranging transport.”

“Excellent. And?” He towers over her, making me shake on her behalf just watching it. I hope she has a good answer for him, because I’m getting nervous not knowing what he wants.

She glances at me for a fraction of a second before she responds. “Arrangements have been made for the other.” She looks at the ground. I get the distinct impression that she’s ashamed.
That’s weird. What did she do on my ship that would make her feel that way?
I’m getting really, really bad vibes about this, but I don’t want to challenge his authority in front of this girl; I know there’s no faster way to get on Overshine’s bad side.

“Report to your station and await further orders.”

Once she’s gone off in the other direction, I fold my arms as best I can with my broken finger and fix him with a stare. “What was that all about?”

He puts his hand on my elbow and tries to urge me forward. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

I refuse to go, wincing a little when his efforts to get me moving hurt my toes. “Actually, I am worried. Anything you try to keep a secret from me is going to make me worry.”

He smirks at me. “Then you’re in for a hell of a trip.”

“Trip?” My eyebrows go up into my hairline. “You think I’m going somewhere?”

He shrugs, his eyes flicking to the right before settling on me again. “Yes. To the infirmary, remember?”

I shove his arm off me. “Don’t play games, Overshine. I’m not in the mood.”

“This has nothing to do with your mood and you know it. You’re not in any kind of physical condition to go anywhere but to the infirmary, so stop delaying, stop being afraid, and just go.”

He moves ahead and acts like he’s not going to wait for me.

“Afraid? I’m not afraid.” I hobble, trying to keep up.

“Sure you’re not. That’s why you’d rather hang out with a broken finger and a crushed windpipe than have a doctor look at you.”

“I’m not fan of the laser, but that doesn’t make me afraid.”

I can hear a grin in his voice as his words drift over his shoulder. “I still remember you yelling your head off after your Level Six contest.”

“That guy cut half my ear off!” I yell at the top of my lungs, wincing when it feels like I just stripped my windpipe of a layer of skin.

“You always were a big crybaby.”

I glare at his back, thinking how if I didn’t have a broken toe and a broken finger, and he wasn’t the captain of a bigass warship, I would totally run over there, jump on his back, and gouge his eyes out. He’s so lucky, he has no idea.

He turns around and chuckles. “I knew that’d piss you off. You should watch out for that ego of yours. Gonna get you in trouble someday.”

I snort. “Ha. That’s a good one. Still nursing that wound Macon gave you in Eights? Is that what your problem is?” That was the best challenge ever — when Overshine got stabbed in the dick. No one ever screamed like he did on that day.

Overshine stops suddenly and turns around, his face going red. His voice drops so low I barely hear it. “Don’t make me sorry I helped you out.”

I keep hobbling, only stopping when I’m really close. “Why not? You going to break my other bird?” I hold up my good middle finger right in front of his face.

He grabs it and acts like he’s going to break it, but then he doesn’t. He just holds it.

We both look down at it and then up at each other.

“Let my bird go, asshole.”

“Don’t put your bird in my face.”

A speck of spittle hits me right in the eye. I close it and stare at him with the only good one I have left. “Say it, don’t spray it, dude.”

A very slow smile creeps up onto his face. Then he starts to laugh. “You are so … ridiculous.”

I try not to smile, but I can’t help joining him. “I’m not the one holding someone’s only bird captive.” I look down and so does he.

His laugh and smile disappear and he lets out a long sigh, his shoulders going up and down with the effort. “Cass.”

I yank my hand out of his. “Yeah, Overshine?”

“I have a name, you know,” he says. “A first name.”

“Yeah.” I back up a step. “I know. It’s
Captain
. You have something to say to me?”

He looks up, his face once more a mask. “Yeah. I do. Don’t hate me for what’s about to happen.”

A cold wave comes over me and goosebumps break out across my body. “What are you talking about?”

It’s then that I hear several sets of boots clomping down the hallway toward us, from the direction we just came.

“No!” yells a voice I recognize. “No! I don’t want to go with you! You can’t make me!”

I’m instantly nauseated. “What did you do?” I ask Overshine, my voice turning into a plea.

“I had no choice.” He moves to the side of the corridor and shoves me over to join him.

I lean on the wall as a group of uniformed personnel go by, Macon held in the middle of them, his hands trussed together and attached to a ring around his neck.

He sees me at the same time as I see him.

“Cass! Why?!”

“Ma… Rollo! What’s going on?!” I try to yell. It comes out more like a goat’s bleating.

I turn my ire on Overshine. “What are you doing?! You can’t take my crew in custody like that?!”

“He’s part of your crew?”

Macon’s looking over his shoulder at me as he’s being dragged off. I look from him to Overshine, stuck between a rock and a hard place. I know the rule: Admit he’s mine, and I’m culpable for whatever he’s done. And I know at the very least, he’s escaped the OSG without authorization. At worst, he’s committed some capital crime that calls for a floating. No way do I want to get caught in the middle of that.

“No, actually,” I finally say, my voice displaying my defeat, “he was a stowaway.”

“Good thing,” Overshine says, taking me more gently by the elbow than before. “Come on. Let’s get you to the infirmary.”

I decide not to say anything else, lest my emotions get the better of me and cause me to reveal more than would be prudent. But later? That’s a different story. I’m definitely going to find out what they want with Macon and what they can do for Tam. And as soon as that’s all wrapped up, I’m outta here. I’m getting back on my ship with my crew
and
my stowaway with me, and I’m heading to the nearest Alliance reunion.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY ship is gone?” I’m sitting on the exam table flexing the newly mended bones in my hand and foot. My voice is back to normal after only thirty minutes in the sarciossis capsule. Thank goodness, because I hate that thing; it makes me feel like I’m being buried alive or cryonized. It doesn’t matter how many peaceful sounds they try to pump in there; all I ever hear is the sound of my approaching doom.

“Your second-in-command was given the opportunity to leave the area, and he took it.” The girl who was helping Overshine take Macon and Tam off the ship is apparently also in charge of overseeing my recovery — a jackass of all trades. She’s staring at the readings produced by the machine I’ve just gotten out of.

“Who gave him the opportunity?”

She looks up at me. “We did.”

“We? Are you in charge here, then…?” I look at her collar and see only one bar there. “…Corporal?”

Her face takes on a hint of red, but she doesn’t say anything in response. She goes back to staring at her readouts.

“I want to get back on my ship now. I have things to get done there.”

“Like I said,” she doesn’t bother to look up, “your ship’s not here anymore.”

“Where did they go?” I hate that I suddenly feel so lost. So … abandoned. So dependent on this chick to know what’s happening in my life.

“How am I supposed to know?” She raises her gaze to me again. “I’m not in charge around here.”

I make a face at her, which has her smiling just the slightest bit before she goes back to her work.

I shove myself off the edge of the machine and land on my bare feet. “Give me my boots. I need to get dressed.”

She taps her finger on the keypad in her hands over and over, entering some data for something, I have no idea what. “You’ll get your boots when we’re done here.”

“We’re done.” I walk over to the door and wave my hand in front of the keypad. Nothing happens.

She ignores me, acting like I didn’t just try to do my grand exit.

“Seriously. Open the door.”

“Buuusy,” she says in a singsong voice as she puts her instrument down and moves over to the array attached to the capsule. She actually has the nerve to whistle as she goes through the cleaning process. When she pulls out the disinfectant mist from a cabinet behind her and uses twice as much as necessary, heat starts to rise up my neck. The angry kind.

“Sucks being low ass on the totem pole, doesn’t it?”

I’m not disappointed when her misting hand hesitates. Then she starts her spraying all over again, acting like I brought an alien plague in there with me.

Bitch. Saying I stink? I don’t think so.
I showered yesterday. Or was it the day before?

She’s still not answering me, so I prod some more. “Yeah … and with Overshine as your boss … must be real bad.”

She stops her misting and looks over at me. “He’s a great captain. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

My eyebrows go up at her obvious fan club status. “Really? Do tell. Because when I knew him, he was a ruthless cheater willing to do anything to win.”

She’s scrubbing the capsule now, cleaning the old school way with germ-killing towelettes. I guess my microbes are too hardcore to let the mist and the machine do all the work.

“He never cheats. Ever.”

“Is that what he told you?” I laugh. “Okay. If that’s how he wants to play it.”

She grits her teeth but says nothing.

I hope I’ve given her something to think about, though, because one day, I predict she’ll be sorry for putting all her faith in that guy. He’s too focused on making it to the top to be doing the right thing all the time. The OSG does not reward recruits with the job of captain for being all shiny and clean. He had to take some people out at the kneecaps to get where he is today. I’d be willing to bet pretty much anything on that.

“You want to leave, then leave,” she says, reaching over and swiping her hand over a keypad near her.

The portal to the chamber opens and I smile. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” There’s an anteroom just beyond the door with another portal in my way. “Do a girl a favor and hit that button again?”

She waves her hand a second time, and the next door opens.

I’ve turned to say thanks, so when I step over the threshold and run into something solid, I’m too surprised to process what it is right away. At first I think she’s shut the door on me, but then I realize my face is pressed into a uniform and there’s a button in my nose.

“What the…” I pull back and look up into Overshine’s face. “You again?”

“Don’t act so disgusted.” He looks over my head at the girl who now appears panicked. “You were going to escort her, I hope,” he says.

She drops her towelette and walks quickly to the portal. “Of course, Sir. I was just…”

“She was just going on and on about what a stand-up guy you are, so I had to get a breath of fresh air. You know how stale that shit can get.”

He grabs me by the upper arm and pulls me out into the corridor while lifting his gaze to address his crewmate. “Finish your work in here and then wait for us outside.”

Outside where? I hope he doesn’t mean outside, outside. I didn’t think to bring a Darksuit with me.

“Yes, Sir. I’ll be done in five minutes.”

He pushes me ahead of him and walks loudly behind me. I scoot over to the side to make sure I don’t get run over. “Not sure if you noticed or not, but I don’t have any boots on.”

“You don’t need any boots. My ship is clean, unlike yours.”

“Oh! Good one! Lemme see…” I put my finger on my chin. “Oh, wait! I know. “ I hesitate so my sarcastic joke will have full effect. “Uh, ohhhh yeah? Well, guess what? My dick is bigger than yours. What do you say about
that
?”

He walks faster. “Shut up.”

“No,
you
shut up.” I’m pretty sure some kind of medication was pumped into the capsule back there that’s making me act like I’m eight years old again.

He says nothing, which only serves to make me angry. “Where’s my ship?”

“Gone.”

“Gone where?”

“No need to panic. When we need to find it, we will.”

That makes me chilly. “How’s that? You put a tracker on her?”

“No.”

I’m getting out of breath trying to keep up with him and not panic at the same time. “Did you tell them to go?”

“We gave them the option.”

“Oh, right. And what was their other choice? Leave or … get vaporized?”

“No. Leave or be boarded until you recover. I guess they didn’t want that.”

I lift my chin, proud they watched over our assets like that.
It wouldn’t do to have the OSG finding that chicken, now would it?

“They have orders; it’s my ship and no one has the right to board without my permission. They did the right thing.”

“And now it’s gone, and you have no ship. Great plan. Now I see why the OSG was so broken up to lose you.”

I can’t tell if he’s kidding or just being a dick, so I leave my comment on that for another time. “Where are we going?”

This warship is frigging huge. I’ve been on a few of them before, but I don’t remember having to run long distances to get nowhere last time I was on one. I am glad it’s so clean, though. My feet are pretty tender from almost never taking my boots off, and they did just go through the sarciossis procedure. Whatever shit my bones were getting up to at the age of nineteen has now been erased; I’m almost as good as new. I’m generally not a fan of MI, but after walking around on three broken toes with that broken bird finger, I’m going to put those feelings aside for now.