Moonstruck (19 page)

“L
ET’S GO
.”
Finn finished suiting up. He and the others, armed to the teeth, boarded the shuttle. The rogue vessel was still caught in the array, helpless. Its weaponry was disabled. The
Unity
’s computer had taken over the ship’s computer, rendering it useless. The rogues could fight back if they wanted, hand-to-hand when Finn and the team boarded, but it would be futile. They’d be destroyed. Finn knew the rogues were desperate, but they weren’t that desperate. Despite their flashes of arrogance and pride, at this point, they’d want to avoid punishment and prison time. He could offer them a way out of both.

Rakkelle hopped into the pilot chair and buckled in. “Y’all ready? Here we go!” With ease, she cut loose from the ship and spiraled down to the rogue, looking tiny in the immense shadow of the
Unity.

They entered the array. While it held fast to the rogue ship, it allowed them through. “Ease her in,” Finn directed, “and sidle up to her…like that, aye.”

“Ooh, I like sidling. Nothing beats a man who tells me what he likes.” Rakkelle cut power and drifted close. A tunnel-tube extended from the shuttle bay and covered the boarding hatch on the rogue. “Sealing…now.” She shook her hair and grinned. “Done. Docking com-
plete!
”

“Check weapons,” Finn said, taking the safety off his pistol. “Don goggles.”

After everyone complied, Rothberg moved through the tunnel first. He tapped on the hatch with his rifle. It made a metallic clang. “Send your captain to open this up,” he ordered, his weapon drawn. “Or we blow you the freep out of the sky.”

That last part was unscripted, Finn thought, shaking his head. Rothberg was a pirate at heart.

“Aye,” said a tired voice from inside.

Rothberg went flat against the tunnel sidewall. The door opened and a warm stench drifted out. Rakkelle inhaled then let out a mournful sigh. “Skins. How I’ve missed them…the softness, the smell, making love in them.”

Rothberg tossed a 360-degree viewer through the open hatch and returned to his position pressed to the tunnel sidewall. Immediately Finn had a picture in his goggles of the scene inside. Five worn-out men sat around the small bridge in tattered uniforms and stained leathers. Two men wore no shirts at all. Their skin gleamed with sweat. Finn knew why. It cost money to properly ventilate a ship. They were probably running at emergency air levels—on purpose. Over time it affected you. He remembered.

“Do not move.” He walked in, holding his rifle, followed by the others. The men simply sat, defeated. Their features were pinched with hunger and hopelessness, their tattoos standing out starkly against sallow skin.

“Thought you were Drakken,” one said.

“He’s got tattoos,” another pointed out. “That be Drakken ink.”

“But he don’t look Drakken.”

Finn’s transformation must have been more complete than he’d realized if these men questioned his origins. First, he’d exchanged his leathers for a shiny new uniform. Then, sometime after beginning his affair with Brit, he’d removed the beading and braids from his hair. Though he hadn’t yet cut his hair, he’d been considering it. And he bathed every day now, most days more than that.

Rakkelle paced around the bridge, somehow catching every man’s eye. Her round little butt swayed as she inspected the pilot station. Her rolled-up sleeves revealed the tattoos on her forearms. One ear was so decorated with jewelry around the entire rim that the skin was barely visible. She wasn’t wearing a bra and had a habit of arching her back and thrusting her chest forward, too, making the most of what little she had, a move not missed by the men. She might be in her Triad uniform, but she was still very much a Drakken in appearance.

Disapproving, Finn frowned. He’d have a talk with her later about that. It was high time they made an effort to blend in, especially in light of the terrorist attack, and those like Yarew, who in their narrow-mindedness were all too happy to use old sins to excuse discrimination.

Bolivarr collected the weapons while the men were otherwise distracted by Rakkelle. “Who’s the captain here?” Finn demanded.

No one immediately answered.

Finn tapped the muzzle of his pistol against his open hand. “We start cooperating or we start shooting. It’s as simple as that.”

“She’s dead.”

Finn’s attention swung to the tall, thin man who’d spoken. He recognized the voice as the one he’d spoken with on the bridge. “My wife,” the man explained. “We had a skirmish on a supply run, and she…” His hands were folded in his lap. Dirt was crusted under his nails. His skin hadn’t seen a bath in who knew how long. He was a grieving man. The fight that had kept him and the others on the run was draining out of him before Finn’s eyes.

“Come on now,” Finn coaxed. “We’ll take you on board and feed you a hot meal, and—”

“I don’t really care what you do to me.” He stood, holding Finn’s gaze. “Shoot me right here. I’d rather join Kallea in the Dark Reaches than be forced to live as a Coalition pet.”

Rage and shame flared in Finn, but he shoved it aside. It was the Drakken way to bicker and start a fight. Violence won more respect than authority. In the old days he’d be expected to fight it out to hold on to his honor. It was better to kill than to live with an insult hanging over your head. However, the man who once would have fought for his honor the way an animal fights for a meaty bone seemed light-years away from who he was now. He was civilized. Not a Coalition pet.

“We’re taking you in,” he told the raiders. “You’ll be questioned and then transferred to a refugee camp. From there you’ll be repatriated as a Triad citizen and relocated. You’ll have choices. You can even join the Forces if you want to.”

Rakkelle had moved back to his side. Bolivarr stood guard on his other. “The food’s good,” Rakkelle said. “Your nights are your own.” Her voice became throaty, her tone inviting. “And I can tell you, I ain’t anyone’s gods-be-damned pet, neither.” She rested a hand on her hip and thrust it out, her eyes smiling and seductive. Even Rothberg was watching her with a dark, assessing gaze, caught by Rakkelle’s sexual spell. “I like to keep pets of my own, though. Aye, and more than one. Maybe we’ll talk again when you’re cleaned up and fed, eh?” She blew them a kiss.

The widower, Finn noticed, paid Rakkelle no mind. He was too busy aiming his resentment at Finn. Transferring anger made grief easier to bear. He’d seen it happen too many times.

“Erikk?” one of the men asked the widower. “We should go with them. Food, a comfy skin…”

Rakkelle bit her lip. She wanted to tell them about the absence of skins, but had the good sense not to give the rogues another excuse to avoid coming aboard.

One by one the men rose, all of them casting hopeful gazes in Rakkelle’s direction. The captain-by-default folded his arms over his chest. “I’ll stay.”

“If you don’t come now, you’ll be towed. We’ve got an emergency call to respond to,” Finn said and made a show of sniffing at the stuffy air. “Conditions aren’t too good in here. You’d best come aboard while you have the chance. I don’t know when we’ll be able to get you food or supplies, or transfer you over to the ship.”

“Don’t care about that.”

“Warleader, get them rounded up now,” Brit ordered in his PCD. “We’ve wasted more than enough time.”

“I’ve got four men we’re bringing aboard, Admiral. The fifth man wants to stay.”

“Denied. He comes, too.”

“You heard the admiral,” Finn said to the widower. “No one stays. Everyone goes.”

“I’ll get my things,” the man said. He turned and disappeared into another part of the ship.

The thought of stopping the man went through his mind. He motioned to Bolivarr to watch the corridor in case the man went freepin’ crazo when he turned his back. “Let’s move,” Finn said, urging the bedraggled crew onto the shuttle where they gazed around in open awe. Finn remembered how he used to be amazed by the relative wealth and richness of the Ring and the
Unity.

“Get them seated,” he told the team, “and I’ll see what’s happened to the captain.”

“Sir, you’d better come.” Bolivarr stood near the stern of the vessel, his pistol at his side. Finn pushed through the narrow corridor. Rooms on either side lacked doors. Skins hung from the ceiling. A half-empty bottle of sweef and small glasses sat on one table. He caught the acrid aroma of a sweef still brewing somewhere on the vessel. Foul stuff, he thought. Well, more so than usual. It brought back memories he didn’t care to have brought back. Homemade sweef would rot your tongue on the first taste. Aye, numbing the way for the rest of what you wanted to drink of it.

Depressing as hells. The captain wanted
this
over what he could have in the Triad? Once he saw what he was missing, he’d never want to go back.

“Hey, mate,” he called after the raider. “You can’t have that much to pack. Get yer ass in motion. You’ve got a shuttle to catch.”

He waited a beat for a response.

“Bah. I’ve got half a mind to leave him here and—” Finn came to an abrupt halt. A body lay rocking in a skin. Blood dripped to the floor, spattering Finn’s shiny Triad boots. Freepin’ hells. The man had gone and shot himself.

T
OWARD THE END
of Brit’s shifts and before the beginning of his, Finn had taken to walking the ship, top to bottom, bow to stern. He knew that Brit maintained the same daily habit. It was the way of ship captains, he supposed, walking your ship, knowing the scents and sounds, getting the feel of her, just as he’d gotten the feel of Brit as the days had passed. Hunting the terrorists by day, making love at night, he knew her physically. The woman inside remained elusive, however. Bit by bit, she was opening up, although certain topics were forbidden, namely the years prior to her entering her beloved Royal Military Academy.

Tonight, in the hours before they reached Goddess Reach, he walked for a different reason than to know his ship. He walked to know himself.

Coalition pet.
The words haunted him. He’d spent many a year bleedin’ the Coalition, driving them crazy in the Borderlands then later as a warleader known for rendering useless comm stations throughout the border worlds. Deep down, he knew the other side had it better—better food, better shelter, better technology, better leaders—but jealousy for what the Coalition had never fueled his fight. No, he simply did his job as it was assigned to him. When the chance came for more, he’d risked everything, giving up his command, so his crew could have a better life. In return, he’d won a better life for himself—one with a future, not the dead end that would have awaited him as a Drakken warleader.

He turned up yet another corridor on this massive ship. He should be resting, aye, but was too restless to do so. The encounter with the rogues—now resting safely in the brig after Yarew and his intelligence team had pumped them for predictably little useful information—left him questioning not himself but “his people” as Brit referred to them earlier.
Coalition pet.
Why didn’t they see him as a symbol of success, an example, something to aspire to? Fools! If they were content to scrape bottom in the Coalition’s upwardly mobile galaxy, they’d be left behind.

Not his crew, though. They were smart. The men and women from the
Pride
knew he’d given them a hand. They’d pull themselves up the rest of the way.

His aimless stroll took him to the area of the ship where most of the crew quarters were. In the least desirable location, on the least desirable deck, the space-hands lived. As on the
Pride,
he mostly stayed clear of the space-hand quarters, leaving some semblance of privacy to the men and women who lived here. Who wanted their captain breathin’ down their neck?

A distant roar of voices caught his attention. He strolled closer, curious. Down one corridor, a crowd gathered outside an open door. All Drakken, by the looks of it. Someone flew out the door and the crowd shoved him back inside. What the hells was going on? Finn headed in that direction.

Several in the corridor noticed his approach. “Captain’s here!” the warning call went out.

The crowd scattered. “Halt!” he bellowed. “Don’t be leaving yet.” Long strides carried him closer. The nearer he got, the clearer the guilty expressions were on the faces.

“Captain,” the men greeted, shuffling and clearing throats.

“That’s Warleader,” he corrected, annoyed that so many of his former crew stubbornly insisted on “for-getting” that fact. “What’s the noise about? What’s going on in there?”

The men in the corridor stepped back to allow him through. Inside the small room, men scurried to right fallen furniture, a table and chairs. They’d been given nice quarters and this is how they treated it? One space-hand used a bloody rag to clean his face. Finn didn’t need to see dice to know what they’d been up to.

“You’re playin’ grabble?” he snarled. The game he’d banned.

“Aye…” The men recoiled at his fury. Zurykk pushed his way through the crowd clustered around the door. He was clutching a fistful of the fabric from Silubakk’s collar, the former civilian who was now a space-hand thanks to Brit’s promotion, as he shoved him along in front of him. Silubakk had a swollen lip and a bruised eye.

“This one tried to get away,” Zurykk said, pushing the space-hand into the room.

“Isn’t grabble banned, or was I dreaming I gave the order?” Finn asked the crowd.

The silence was thick and tense.

“Well?”

“Banned, sir,” or “We weren’t supposed to be playin’, Cap’n,” and “We didn’t see the harm,” were grumbled amidst various mutterings and coughs.

“Didn’t see the harm?”
Finn bellowed, outraged. “Didn’t see the harm in disobeying a direct order?”

“The nanomeds heal ya so fast,” Markar said in a shaky voice as he tried to explain. “You don’t stay hurt for much more than a day.”

Finn didn’t want to know the thought process behind it. He was so freepin’ furo, he wanted to beat the men within an inch of their lives. Ever conscious of how Drakken were perceived—violent, antagonistic beasts—he resorted to hitting the table with the side of his fist instead. The men jumped. “You have no military discipline. You smell like you haven’t bathed. You keep to yourselves and don’t try to assimilate into Triad culture.”