Prince's Courtesan (12 page)

She set the device to eighty three percent and touched the tip to the gel layer. After a quick check to make sure there were no gaps in the coverage, she pushed the button on the side. Light built up around the tip buried in the pink gel. A small ball built rapidly, then when it reached the size of a pea, started to pulse. Waves of light rippled outwards. With each wave, the gel started to dry and turn opaque until it was a flexible and protective layer over the burn.

Helan grunted in approval. “Good. I’ll leave you to it for a while. I’m dying for a coffee. Yell if you need help.” And with that, he was gone, leaving Jaida to handle the bed on her own.

It was hard work, but that was something she had never shirked from.

She lost track of time and the number of patients the porters routed to her bed as the ship rocked and rolled around them. Each explosion brought fresh waves of casualties through the double doors at the front of the med bay. She was reloading her cart with medication and getting her bed cleaned down and ready for the next patient when everything stopped.

Silence settled over the medical bay as all the medics concentrated on the lack of noise from the ship around them. The explosions, the shouts, the distinctive thud-clump of the ships weapons being fired continuously…they were all gone and everything was deathly quiet.

“Is that it? Is it over?” The female medical officer on the next bed asked, her eyes wide as she listened for anything happening outside.

“Err…I think so, perhaps we won?” Jaida ventured. She hoped so; there had been far too many injuries and deaths already today.

As if on cue, the comm cracked and Seth’s voice filled the room. “This is Kai Renza. We have defeated the enemy force, standing down to yellow alert. Good work people, we won.”

Relief shivered through the bay like a tidal wave. Knowing they weren’t going to be facing more waves of casualties, the medics leaned against their beds, exhaustion in every line of their bodies. Jaida snapped her gloves off and ran her hands through her hair. Her back hurt from standing for so long.

It wasn’t over though; there was still the clean up to do.

Turning she stopped as several of the newest patients in triage stood.

Throwing off their tattered uniforms, they revealed bare chests covered with pirate clan tattoos. They were all armed.

“Oh, I think the Prince is counting his chickens before they’re hatched.”

The voice sent shivers down her spine. “At the risk of sounding cliché, everyone down!”

“Damage report. Put it on the main screen. Do we have casualty reports in yet?”

Seth barked orders left, right, and center as he prowled the command deck of the Vengeance. His uniform was torn and bloody. Pirates had managed to punch through the ventral shielding on deck fourteen while he  was on his way to the bridge, which had resulted in a minor skirmish. The internal sensors had been tripped as soon as they cut through the hull, and by the time the boarding party poured through the small shaft, Seth and his team were waiting for them.

“Seven shield emitters out on the ventral hull, three on the port…they’d been about to break through but the automated defenses picked them off.”

Jareth, standing at the console behind Seth’s command chair, reeled information off as it came in. His hands moved quickly on the touch sensitive console plate, occasionally reaching up to tap in mid-air on a display Seth couldn’t see from this angle.

“Casualty reports not in yet. Odd…”

Seth shot a glance over his shoulder in surprise. “Not in? I’m assuming Idirianna is on. That’s not like her.”

“No. It isn’t.”

Jareth’s hands moved in a complicated dance on the display. Both men knew the diminutive doctor. She’d patched them up more times than they could recall. She was forceful, determined, and above all else, methodical. Not reporting casualty figures just wasn’t like her.

Jareth looked up. Most people would have taken his expressionless face to mean he had no feelings one way or the other, but Seth knew him better.

Even several feet away he could see the concern in the tall Colonel’s eyes.

“I’m not getting any response from med bay at all.”

“Okay, check on the routing program for the internal sensors. Computer, display main room in the medical bay on the main screen please.” Seth flicked his dark hair back over his shoulders. It had come loose in the fight on deck fourteen. “Perhaps a power drain or something…” Jareth muttered as the computer thought about the query.

Seth shook his head. “No, can’t be. Med bay gets priority after life-support and reactor containment. They’ve got a separate small generator down there for the intensive care equipment. It’s powerful enough to maintain lighting and internal sensors…should have kicked in when the power was cut.”

Jareth opened his mouth to reply but the silky-smooth voice of the computer broke in over him.

“Unable to comply. No interior sensor feed for medical bay available.”

“What? Reroute power and try again.”

There was a short pause as they waited for the computers response. All eyes were fixed on the main viewer at the front of the room but it remained stubbornly blank, displaying only the logo of the Imperial family, rotating slowly. Seth gritted his teeth.

“Unable to comply. No interior sensor feed for Medical bay available.”

Seth turned and nodded at the two guards at the door. “Get a patrol down to the med bay. Move.”

They didn’t argue, didn’t even nod, just turned on their heels and disappeared through the door behind them. Seth turned back to Jareth.

“Initiate diagnostic procedures on med bay, then work outward until you get a sensor feed. I don’t care if it’s the camera down the hall, I want eyes on the place and fast.”

“On it.” Jareth’s reply was short and sweet as he carried on working.

Seth resumed his pacing. Anger mounted and coiled tight in the center of his chest. Something was wrong. Somehow the pirates had found their way onto the ship, he could feel it in his bones. But how? They’d caught all the boarders and there were no other gaps in hull integrity. It just wasn’t possible.

“Okay, got a feed. It’s down two sectors but I can just re-angle this camera… Computer, put feed from sector seventeen, block C on screen please.”

Seth turned as the screen flickered into life. The Imperial logo was replaced by a fuzzy image of the med bay doors. They were frosted glass with the medical caduceus, snakes coiling around a staff, etched into them.

As they watched, the doors slid open. A body was thrown out, tumbling to the floor in the middle of the corridor like a broken doll. Within seconds blood spread across the floor in an ever-increasing pool.

“Crap…”

Seth ignored the muttered curse from somewhere behind him. Instead his gaze locked onto the figure framed in the doorway. Tall and naked to the waist, he wasn’t a member of Seth’s crew. The tattoos that crawled up the left side of his body in a chaotic tangle marked him for what he was: a pirate.

“Zoom in on his face.”

The camera zeroed in and the pirates face filled the screen. Heavily scarred his right eye was the milky-white of the blinded, offset by deep green on the other side. Heavy gold rings hung from his earlobe and punctured his eyebrow. He looked left and right down the corridor, then, as if he knew they were watching, he looked directly into the camera and sneered. He stepped back and the med bay doors slid shut.

“Zared.” Seth’s lip curled, his voice echoed by Jareth as both men recognized the face on screen.

Zared of the Yarin clan had been a major thorn in his side for years, more so than any other pirate. That wasn’t surprising considering they’d had the same training. As a member of Sector Seven, he’d gone rogue on an undercover operation, married a pirate captain, and started a campaign of terror in the outlying colonies.

“Well, Apparently deck fourteen was a diversion; there must have been a secondary boarding party.”

Jareth turned to one of the officers behind him. “I want a deck-by-deck sweep of the ship. Find out how they got aboard and shut down their escape route. Zared isn’t here for nothing, and he’ll have his bases covered.”

He leaned down and picked up the laser rifle propped against his console.

“And I’m going to take great pleasure in blowing them out from under his feet. Orders, Your Highness?” He cocked one eyebrow. “And if they’re anything other than ‘get down to the med bay and let’s blow that fucker away,’ then with all due respect sir, you can stuff them where the sun don’t shine.”

A shocked silence rippled around the bridge. Seth felt the small muscle in the side of his jaw leap and pulse as he looked at Jareth’s determined face.

Jareth had good reason to hate Zared.

“Do I have a choice in this one? Lead on, fearless one. Captain Denon, you have the bridge. We’re going down to the med bay for some…vermin control. Raise the harem chamber for me and double check that the ladies are all okay.”

An unbidden image of Jaida at the pilot’s console of his shuttle came to mind. Even a week ago, he’d have said she was exactly the same as the rest of the courtesans…a pampered airhead, given to hysterics and fainting fits at the drop of a hat. But after what he’d seen of her since…

The two warriors swept off the bridge side by side, a dramatic show of

force, and Seth cocked his rifle just before they reached the door. Without a word, a squad of troopers in the black-on-black uniform of the sector peeled off from their positions and fell in behind them.

“Show off,” Jareth muttered in an amused undertone as they headed down the corridor at a fast pace.

“Yeah. A little. Can’t blame me, I don’t get to do this much anymore. Too many bloody council meetings.” Seth’s lips quirked. “Any clue why Zared would do something so stupid?”

Jareth shrugged. “Stupid as in boarding an Imperial Prince’s battle cruiser, or stupid as in getting himself shut in Sedj Idirianna’s med bay? While she’s in there?”

Seth’s eyes widened as that angle hit him broadside. “Goddess, I almost feel sorry for him.”

Sedj might be petite and cute as all hell, even if no one dared use the word within her hearing. Despite being a doctor, she was a fully paid-up member of the Sector, and rather a scary one in Seth’s opinion. There was no one better at killing than someone who understood the way the body worked.

He’d seen Sedj in battle a few times, and she was damn good at what she did.

“How about we just shut the door, clean the blood up later?”

“You are an evil man, Jareth Nikolai, you know that?” Seth chuckled as his comm. tag chirped at him. “This is Kai Renza, go ahead.”

The voice on the other end was that of the bridge comm officer. “Your Highness, you wanted me to check the harem chamber?”

Jareth gave the order for double-time and Seth smoothly upped his pace as he answered. “Yes, everything okay? They’re not too panicked, are they?”

There was a telling pause. Seth’s heart flipped over in his chest. “What? Talk to me.”

“Sorry Sire, yes, the women are fine.”

Relief surged through him. He’d been half expecting to hear the pirates had gotten into the harem. “Except…”

“What? For the Goddess’ sake, spit it out, woman!”

The small group stepped into the lift. Jareth punched at the buttons to whisk them down two levels to the infirmary level.

“…the Lady Jaida, Sire. She’s not in the harem chambers.”

The world tilted on its axis. Gray pressed at the edges of Seth’s vision as his fingers tightened on his rifle. His voice was tightly controlled as he answered. “Where is she?”

“The trooper on guard said she felt unwell during the attack, so one of the others took her down to the med bay. That was two hours ago, though, and he says they didn’t come back up.”

Jaida was in the med bay. He just knew it. He knew wherever there was trouble, she’d be at the bloody center of it. His heart threatened to freeze right there in his chest. He couldn’t lose her. Not now, not ever. If she died…

“Okay. Thank you. Kai Renza out.” He cut the comm and looked at the small group around him. They looked back, silent, their expressions determined. For the first time in a long time, Seth was where he belonged.

“Right, listen up because I’m only going to say this once. As soon as we leave this lift on the medical level, we are combat operational. The objective is to retake the med bay by any means, so I expect extreme violence from the whole bloody lot of you. As the man said, ‘let’s blow these fuckers away.’”

“Sir!”

The reply was echoed by all the men in the lift. With swift, practiced movements, they checked the weaponry they were carrying. Without really thinking about it, Seth checked the charge on his battery pack and grunted in approval. It was fully charged. A good thing, because he wasn’t wearing a tactical rig so one battery was all he was going to get.

The lift clunked to a stop, Jareth with his finger on the hold button to stop the doors opening. “Okay. Heads up. Corridor in front of us hangs a left toward the med bay. The main doors are a hundred meters on the right. Doors were closed, they may not be now. There may also be guards posted. We’ll work in two fire teams. You, you, and you on alpha team with me. You and you, you’re bravo team with Princey here. Make sure he doesn’t fall over his own feet.”

“Cheers mate, love you too.” Seth didn’t get a chance to say anything else as Jareth released the button and the doors slid open. He lifted his rifle to his shoulder and nodded to indicate he was ready. On silent feet, the first fire team moved out, the four men darting down the corridor with Jareth in the lead. Halfway down they dropped into cover positions, making sure their firing arcs overlapped. Once they were all in place, Seth moved out.

His heart pounded, adrenalin surging through his veins at the prospect of battle as he headed past the first team one by one. Without looking back, he knew his own fire team was following him. His world was reduced to the view through his sights, the cross hairs overlaid on his vision as he passed Jareth.

There wasn’t much cover in the corridor. The Vengeance was an imperial battle cruiser so the amount of clutter in main areas was minimal. For want of anything better, Seth tucked himself behind one of the support struts.