Pirate Nemesis (Telepathic Space Pirates Book 1) (9 page)

“Point taken.” She couldn’t help but smile back, amused and appalled despite herself. She spared a moment to be thankful he was a relative. Maybe that would provide her some form of armor against what she suspected was a lethal charisma.

Cannon glanced around the room, then jerked his head toward the door. “Walk with me? I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a meal. I imagine you’re starving.”

Mercy thought once more of the nutritional bars she’d been surviving on for who knew how long. She might not know or trust these people yet, but real food went a long way in winning her over.

“You have no idea,” she said feelingly, and jumped off the bunk.

“I haven’t finished my examination,” Doc said, irritation in every word.

Cannon paused. For some reason, Mercy expected him to neatly ignore the implied request. Instead, he gave the doctor his full attention.

“You have concerns?” he asked.

“Physically, she’s made a good recovery. However, she is still underweight, and likely to experience periods of weakness and exhaustion. Her mental state is more difficult to measure. Her Talent was severely overtaxed, over a long and continuous period of time. The trauma she has endured is also a concern.”

“Doc.” Cannon managed to infuse the single word with layers of meaning. The doctor frowned, eyeing Mercy critically.

“She should be fine,” he said reluctantly. “Provided she doesn’t push things too fast, either physically or psychically. I recommend keeping a close eye on her for at least a few days.”

“I’m standing right here,” Mercy muttered.

“So you are.” Cannon looked at her. “So, would you be comfortable with a babysitter for a few days?”

“Are we pretending I have a choice?”

He smiled. “Let me ask it a different way – would you rather we watch you from a distance, letting you fumble your way around an unfamiliar ship full of people you don’t trust? Or do you want a guide? One who will pull double duty by keeping an eye on your welfare.”

“When you put it that way, it’s not much of a choice.”

He shrugged. “A guide will be useful. You also need help rebuilding your shields. I’m afraid whatever happened to you on that space station has left them in a very vulnerable condition. You’re going to need extensive retraining from someone very skilled before you’ll be safe around nulls again. Here, everyone shields their own thoughts, so you’re relatively safe. Not so much, out there.” He gestured vaguely with a sweeping motion of his hand.

“Are you planning on keeping me prisoner here?” This was the question she’d most wanted to ask since waking up, the biggest concern hovering in the back of her mind. Had she traded one jailer for another?

“No,” he said. “No, we are not. You are free to come and go as you wish. But your friend Atrea is going to have to stay until we can figure out how to cure her of whatever infects her mind. I believe she and her father are staying for the foreseeable future.” He paused. “Did you wish for me to arrange transport for you?”

Mercy was aware of a strange silence in the room, as if every person there literally held their breath, waiting for her answer. It was odd, and uncomfortable. But of course she couldn’t leave Atrea. She closed her eyes, suddenly weary of it all. Of her own emotions, and this horrible unease that filled her whenever she thought of her family. She couldn’t afford to run anymore, that much was clear.

“No,” she heard herself say. “Of course not. I just…I don’t know what I’m feeling. I’m tired of being at everyone else’s whim but my own.”

“I don’t doubt it. From what I’ve heard, you had a very harrowing few weeks.” Cannon leaned a hip against one of Doc’s infirmary beds, his arms crossed over his chest. “What can I do to help you feel more comfortable? I realize you don’t trust us yet. You have little reason to, other than Wolfgang’s good opinion, and you haven’t had the opportunity to speak with him.”

“I don’t know,” said Mercy quietly. She shrugged. “I don’t know you. Any of you. My mother used to tell me if we ever came home, Grandmother would kill me. Well, here I am, and I’m supposed to let all of that go because Lilith is dead and gone. I’m supposed to assume that none of you have that same agenda.”

“I understand why family might be the most difficult for you to trust, at least at first,” Cannon conceded. “That doesn’t change the fact that you need training, and someone to keep an eye on you as you recover.”

“Reaper.” Mercy leaped on the name, so fast it startled even her.

Cannon stared at her. He couldn’t have looked more shocked if she’d pulled out a disrupter and stunned him. He looked over at Doc and Vashti. The latter shrugged.

“She trusts him.”

“He could have left me on that station to die.” Mercy said. “He didn’t have to free us, but he did. If he wanted me dead, I already would be. I don’t trust him, exactly, but let’s just say I trust him more than I do you.”

It took Cannon a moment to find his voice. “A first for everything, I suppose.” He stroked a hand over his chin. “Well, if you want Reaper to train you, so be it.” He straightened, sweeping a hand to the door. “Now, can we go and eat that meal before it grows cold?”

Feeling she’d established some small measure of control, Mercy nodded, and stepped out of the room ahead of him. She felt shaky, and light headed. She had the feeling she’d just committed to much more than just someone to retrain her Talent. Somehow, between waking up and getting something to eat, she’d decided to stay.

Like it or not, she’d just thrown her lot in with the very family who once tried to kill her. It was a sobering realization. She wondered what her mother would say.
It doesn’t matter
, she told herself firmly. She’d spent the last fifteen years living by her mother’s rules. In the end, it hadn’t been enough to keep her safe. The choice had been taken from her, and maybe it was time. Time to embrace change. Time to let Pallas go.

T
hey’d barely stepped
out of the infirmary when Mercy stopped, placing a supporting hand against the smooth, nano-graph wall of the corridor. A diagram lit up in blues and greens under the touch of her hand, looking like a map. Mercy barely glanced at it. The sheer number of Talented minds around her was staggering. They blazed like individual stars, lighting the darkness with warmth and energy. It was at once comforting, familiar, and frightening.

“Mercy?” Cannon’s voice held concern. “Should I get Doc…?”

“No.” She definitely didn’t want a return to that medical bunk. “No, I just need a minute. I’ve never felt so many Talented minds before, all at once.”

“Ah.” Cannon leaned against the opposite wall, giving her as much space as the small hallway permitted. “I see. I imagine it’s a bit disconcerting. Doc has inhibitors up that shield the medical bay, so you wouldn’t have felt it until now.”

The idea of some kind of tech capable of blocking Talent was a new and intriguing concept. One she set aside to ask about later.

“I guess it’s different for you, having lived with it your whole life,” she said.

He hesitated. “It is different for me. Very different. Not all of us can sense the Talent in others, Mercy. It’s…an extremely rare gift.”

“Oh.” She closed her eyes. “Lucky me.” When she opened them again, Cannon was watching her with an odd look on his face, an expression she couldn’t quite identify that made her uneasy. “What?”

“Nothing. I just keep forgetting that you know basically nothing about us. I’m wondering how to explain it all without overwhelming you.”

Mercy laughed. She shook her head as she straightened away from the wall. “I’m already overwhelmed. But I’ll get over it. I’ve always been a quick learner.” Now she eyed the diagram, noting that it only covered a single deck, but one that contained a confounding amount of space. She frowned. “What class of ship is this?”

Cannon smiled, crossing over to stand beside her. He swiped a hand over the diagram, and it expanded and shrank at the same time, new lines of light tracing over the wall too fast to follow, until the entire ship was outlined. Mercy’s jaw dropped. There was only one class of ship with that silhouette, or that sheer size.

“A Monarch.” She stared at it, then looked at him. “We’re on a Monarch? That’s a military vessel.” The biggest class, the flagships of the Commonwealth Navy.

“I know.” Pride radiated from him. “We stole it.”

Mercy laughed, in disbelief for the first few seconds, then in realization.

“You’re serious,” she said.

“Two decades ago, this ship was the first Monarch off the production line out of the Ivaldi Shipyards.”

Mercy stared at the diagram. “The first military vessels to be built using nano-graph.”

“Yes. Taking her was an enormous victory for us.” He placed his hand against the wall, and the diagram disappeared. “Lilith was a young Queen at the time, and she immediately transferred her transponder flag and made this the flagship of our fleet. The Commonwealth was so embarrassed to have
misplaced
their prototype, they hushed up the whole thing. They said
Nemesis
had to be returned to Ivaldi and overhauled for design flaws that didn’t work with military needs.”

Mercy frowned. She vaguely remembered reading something about that when she was studying
A History of Shipbuilding
under the direction of Captain Hades. He’d insisted on a staggering amount of database learning, on top of the much more engaging lessons on piloting, navigation, and gunnery both Mercy and Atrea delighted in.

“Ivaldi couldn’t have been pleased by that.” She remembered the shipyard had taken a brief hit to their reputation over the whole debacle.

“No. We suspect a government payoff was involved, not to mention the exclusive contract with the Commonwealth Navy that Ivaldi has enjoyed for the last two decades. Then the
CSS Phoenix
came off the line as the first officially recognized Monarch-class ship.
Nemesis
was forgotten, and Ivaldi went into the history logs as the most influential innovator of spaceship technology in a century.”

Mercy shook her head, amazed. “We’re standing in a piece of history right now.”

Cannon grinned. “Yes. The Commonwealth’s, and our own. Now, if you’re finished admiring antiquity, let’s get that lunch I promised you. This way.”

Mercy couldn’t help but look everywhere as she followed Cannon. He led her down one corridor and another, into a lift, and down two decks before they reached the ship’s galley. Now that she knew what to look for, she thought she could see some of the changes made to what had been intended as a military vessel. The hallways and hatches were on the narrow side, as one might expect from a military ship. But the lift they used was spacious enough to allow for cargo, if necessary, and some of the walls contained a variety of artwork, very much not to military regulations. When they entered the galley, it didn’t have the narrow columns of tables a typical mess employed, but instead round or oblong tables throughout the room. It made for a more relaxed, conversational area.

Mercy didn’t have time to notice anything more, because in the next moment Wolfgang Hades was suddenly in front of her, a familiar, tall figure in a battered flight jacket. She had time to notice the uncharacteristic growth of white beard over his usually clean-shaven face, and then she was engulfed in a bone-crushing hug. She was struck speechless. Through the shredded remnants of her shields, his thoughts were disturbingly clear.

Still too damn thin. Thank the Mother she’s awake at last. At least one of them is awake and well. My girls.

To her shock, Mercy could feel a fine tremble in his arms. She was horrified to realize tears were prickling behind her own eyes, and fought them off. Wolfgang was the closest thing she had to a father, but she’d never realized how deeply her own emotions ran, or that he considered her in the same light as Atrea, his actual daughter.

What the hell were they doing on Yuan-Ki?

He finally pushed back from her, and Mercy was grateful her eyes were dry. Cannon, she noticed, had stepped aside to give them at least the illusion of privacy.

“What the hell were you doing on Yuan-Ki?” the old Wolf asked aloud, his voice gruff, unaware that his thought had already been heard.

“I…Atrea found information. A tip. My mother.” Appalled, Mercy closed her mouth. She’d just stumbled over words she never intended to say, reduced to babbling incoherently, explaining something she knew was bound to piss him off. She felt like she was thirteen years old again and he’d caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to.

Eyes the same dark blue as Atrea’s narrowed, and Mercy knew with a sinking feeling that she hadn’t been as incoherent as she’d hoped.

“Your mother! I told the two of you to give up that nonsense, that it was too damn dangerous.” He studied her face for a moment. “I see. You never gave it up, did you? I suppose Atrea never did, either. Damn it, Mercy.”

Mercy suddenly found her feelings of guilt giving way beneath a surge of her own frustration and anger. She glared at him.

“Don’t,” she said. “Just don’t. You knew I wanted to find my mother. You always knew from that first day. When did you figure out the rest?”

He stood there in that stupid, scarred flight jacket three decades old, all of the military patches painstakingly removed so long ago you could no longer make out where they’d been. The lines of age usually marking his face were hidden beneath that growth of beard, and he just stared at her in infuriating silence.

“When?” she insisted. Mercy flung a hand toward the galley and the handful of curious people seated there. “You obviously know these people.
My family
. You sent them to find us and bring us back.
You
know them
. When did you figure out who I was?”

“Mercy.” He said just that, her name, in this voice so weary it hurt to hear it. His shoulders, always so strong, slumped at her words, but he shook his head, saying nothing.

“
When?
” Mercy shoved at him as she said the word, hands against his shoulders, then immediately stepped back, dismayed. She curled her hands into fists at her sides. “Damn you, answer me.”

“I suspected that first day,” he said finally. “You look so much like the Bitch Queen. Later, I put together little things you did, and knew I was right. Remember that crate that fell on Atrea? It should have crushed her. It didn’t even leave a bruise.”

Because Mercy caught it with her Talent. Atrea had been fifteen, and some lazy dock worker had stacked the damn crates wrong. She wrestled with this revelation for a moment, filled with conflicting emotion at his words. She was still angry, but also sad that he could have known for so long who she was, and never said a thing. There was also an unexpected spurt of amusement, as well, at the title.

“My grandmother?” She phrased it that way on purpose, had the satisfaction of seeing him wince.

“Lilith, yes.” His voice held a surprising amount of bitterness. The kind only someone who had known her personally could possibly feel. Mercy stared at him as coldness swept through her. How much, she wondered, did she not know? The sense of betrayal was acute.

“You knew her.” The words were barely a whisper.

He sighed. “Not really. Tess did. Atrea’s mother. Mercy, none of it matters. Yes, I’ve known the pirates for years, worked with them now and then, done small jobs, passed information their way. Yes, I knew they were your family, but you were so afraid, so obviously running from something. I never would have told them. Never. I knew you were safe with me, or safer than you would be on your own. So no, I didn’t tell you I knew. I was afraid you would run if I did.”

Mercy stared at him for so long, his brow finally furrowed in irritation. The old Wolf wasn’t used to being questioned.

“Damn it,” he said, “I was protecting you. You’re like my own daughter, Mercy. I would have done the same for Atrea.”

“You mean if she had Talent?” A sick kind of guilt spiraled up through Mercy. She tried to hold onto her anger, and couldn’t.
Oh, Mother. Atrea
. How was she going to tell Wolfgang she’d as good as gotten his daughter killed?

“Of course. If she’d been born with Talent, if she didn’t want to be brought to her mother’s people, I wouldn’t have. I’d have kept it a secret.” He shrugged, a jerky movement. “She wasn’t, so the point became moot. But I would have.”

“Nice to know our partnership was so equitable,” said Cannon dryly, ruining the illusion of privacy. Mercy abruptly became aware of all the stares and attention being directed their way, and her cheeks burned.

Wolfgang glared at Cannon. “You know I don’t agree with everything you do, Cannon. I
especially
didn’t agree when Lilith was in charge. You tell me things have changed, but how do I know that until I see it with my own eyes?”

“Enough.” Mercy closed her eyes. “Go to the infirmary, Wolfgang. Be with Atrea. I’ll come by later, and we can talk.” She hesitated. “Please.”

He stared at her for another minute, then dipped his head stiffly, spun on his heel and marched out of the galley.

“Well,” said Cannon. “That was an enlightening conversation.”

Mercy gave him a sharp look. “Don’t start. Where is that food you promised me? I don’t think I can take much more enlightenment until I’ve eaten something.”

“This way.” He guided her to a table, set apart from the others. Mercy avoided looking at anyone as she followed him over, but she could feel the curious stares.

As Cannon gestured for her to sit, a figure darted around him, dancing back a few steps to avoid running into Mercy. It was a boy, maybe fifteen, with messy dark hair and familiar green eyes.
Family
, she thought automatically. The resemblance to Cannon was unmistakable. And, she supposed, to herself. He wore a flight suit that had seen better days, the top half open and tied haphazardly around his waist. Dirt of some kind streaked his chin and smudged the undershirt he wore. No small feat with self-cleaning fabric.

“Sorry,” he muttered, throwing her a shy smile and ducking his head.

“Max.” Cannon said the name with a frown, but his voice held an infinite patience that made Mercy smile. “Aren’t you supposed to be working for Bruzer today?”

“I am.” Max sounded defensive. “Just wanted to grab something quick. I was up three hours before shift start this morning.”

“Working on your secret project again.” It wasn’t a question. Cannon picked up two trays and set them on the table while Max stood and fidgeted. He was a gangly youth, thin and awkward with it. But Mercy could see the flex of muscle in his arms, and the suggestion of the man he would become in the stubborn set of his jaw. Cannon eyed him. No hint of a smile softened his expression. “I told you that project could only go forward if it didn’t interfere with your duty station.”

Max’s chin lifted, his green eyes sparking with a familiar hint of temper. “It doesn’t!”

Cannon lifted an eyebrow.

“Sir.” Max looked away. “I just missed breakfast.”

Cannon held a chair out for Mercy, then took a seat himself. Max cast a longing look toward the trays, but made no move toward them. Even without telepathy, Mercy could almost hear his thoughts. She hid a smile.

“If it wasn’t clear before, I am making it clear now,” Cannon said as he picked up a fork. “Skipping meals isn’t acceptable. Even if it means you’re eating a ration bar.”

Mercy winced, thinking of her own recent experience. Max grimaced, evidently familiar with the bars as well. But he heaved a sigh.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you better get back before Bruzer misses you. If he reports any delinquency to me…” Cannon left the threat unfinished, but clearly Max understood.

“That’s why I was running.” He muttered the words under his breath, but stopped when Cannon narrowed his eyes.

Mercy hid a smile as her cousin made the boy wait, watching as he fidgeted restlessly from foot to foot for an agonizing stretch of time. When Cannon finally lifted a hand in dismissal, Max darted away as quickly as he’d arrived.