Wings of Retribution (8 page)

Dallas prickled, but when she tried to veer away from him, she fell flat on her face.  Smallfoot bent down, threw her painfully over his shoulder, and headed for the door of The Shop.  She heard Giggles and some others laughing before she lost consciousness.

A Really Big Reward

Athenais met Ragnar and the colonists the next morning in the helm. 

She sat in her favorite chair at the control panel as they entered, an energy-pistol and a communications handheld in her lap.  The first thing she did once they stepped into the room was push the security-lock button for the outer door, slamming it shut behind them.  The next thing she did was swing around and say, “You lied to me.”

Ragnar looked like a space-rat before his execution.  It had been a long time since Athenais had seen anyone so pale.  She smiled at him, showing teeth.  When she’d first found him on
Beetle
, she had thought it odd that the color of his face had always remained the same, regardless of how nervous the rest of him looked.  He’d gotten better at it, over time, but now she knew why it had struck her as out of place.

She’d been dealing with an alien. 

“I assume you all know what this is?”  Athenais asked, lifting the weapon from her lap.

Confusion turned to fear and disbelief.  No one spoke.

“This,” Athenais continued, “Is a J-29 Phoenix quick-charge pistol.  It is set to recognize living flesh.  In the right hands—my hands—it represents certain death.”  She grinned at them pleasantly.

“Attie…” Ragnar began.

“And this,” Athenais said, lifting the communications handheld, “Represents six million credits, plus whatever they’ll give me for a couple of escaped colonists.  It’s got the number of T-9 police headquarters dialed into it already.  All I have to do is push a button and you’re going back to Millennium in stasis shells.”

The four men glanced at each other.

“Don’t even think about it, boys,” Athenais said sweetly.  “I
will
use this.”  She hefted the Phoenix.

“So what do you want?”  Paul asked.  The shifter looked like a wary cat that was trying to decide what kind of mutant rat he had just pounced on.

“Well, quite frankly, I want what you want,” Athenais said.  “Six million credits is useless to me.  I have twice that stored up in every major bank in the universe.”

“Then why…” Ragnar began.  He paused, his eyes catching the Phoenix.  He swallowed.

“Why turn you in?”  Athenais asked.  “Because even after infiltrating my bed, you still didn’t do your homework.  There’s one huge, glaring error in your thinking.”

“What’s that?”  Morgan asked.  Of the three, he seemed the least perturbed, though his eyes were still fixed on her gun.

“You failed to notice that I don’t like being lied to.  It makes me uncomfortable.”  She smiled at them.   “And as you know, I can hold a grudge for a very, very long time, given a good enough reason.”  She stared long and hard at Ragnar until he looked away.

“So,” Athenais continued, “Let’s start from the beginning.  The room is sealed.  The only way you’re getting out of here free men is if you convince me to help you.  If you don’t, I am pressing SEND.”  She hefted the com unit, the little green button clearly visible under her thumb.

Ragnar glanced at his brother.  “Attie, we—”

“Stop,” Athenais interrupted.  “For the rest of this interview, you will either address me as Captain or you will be shot.”

Ragnar bristled and went silent.

Morgan smoothly took the lead.  “Captain Owlborne, this is the best chance you’re ever going to get to undo everything your father has done.”

“Do I look like a crusader to you?”  Athenais asked.  “I’m a pirate.  I break the law for money.  If I helped you, I’d have to pay my crew’s wages myself.  I’d end up losing money.”

“You just said money doesn’t matter to you,” Paul said from against the wall.

“I said that it was useless to me,” she said, flashing him a smile.  “I never said it didn’t matter.”

“You’re nothing more than a hoarder, then,” Ragnar said.

Athenais beamed at him.  “This
hoarder
can always find more places to tuck away six million credits.”

“Athenais,” Morgan said, “What do you want from us?  We already showed you our underbellies.  We trusted you.”

“And I trusted Ragnar,” Athenais said.  “When all along, he was really only using me.”

“I was not!”

Athenais looked at him.

“I
wasn’t
,” Ragnar insisted.

Morgan spoke again.  “It seems to me, Ragnar, that you owe her an apology.”  His voice held a note of command in it.  Hearing that, Athenais examined the big man more closely.  Aside from the thick brown beard swathing his face, he had the general look of a grizzly bear.  All shoulders and torso.

“So if they’re both shifters, who the hell are you?”  Athenais demanded.

“Their father,” Morgan said.

Athenais gave Ragnar a piercing glare, “Odd, since he said he and Paul were the only two.”

“He did that for my protection, of course,” Morgan said.  “But since I’d be found out just as soon as you turned us in, there’s no use pretending anymore.”

Athenais was interested despite herself.  “So you’re their father?  Do they have a mother?  Or did you impregnate yourself?”

“Att—” Ragnar choked off his words, his face turning red.  “Captain.  That’s hardly important right now.”

Athenais glanced down at the Phoenix.  “Well, seeing how I’m holding the gun, I get to decide what’s important, don’t I, sweetie?”

Like a frog suffocating on his own tongue, Ragnar managed, “We’re here to talk about destroying the Millennium Potion, Captain.  Not my father’s sex life.”

“We’re here to talk about whatever I damn well want to talk about,” Athenais snapped.  She glanced at Morgan.  “How old are you?”

“Two thousand.”

She lifted a brow.  “A little long-lived for a shifter, aren’t you?”

“I’m old for my kind,” Morgan replied placidly. 

Athenais gave him a long look.  “So are you male or female?”

“Technically, I am neither.”

“A hermaphrodite, then?  You screw yourself?”  She grinned as both Paul and Ragnar gave her horrified, open-jawed stares.

“We’re off subject,” Morgan said calmly.

Athenais made an exasperated sound.  “What is it with you guys?  Can’t you just answer the question?”  She glanced at Paul and Ragnar, waiting.  “Oh, come on!”

They gave her flat looks.

When it was obvious none of them were going to humor her, Athenais growled, “The way I see things, you need me a lot more than I need you.  I also see that if I don’t agree to help you, you will probably find some nasty way to
make
me help you, considering how much your son, here, knows about me.”  She gestured at her First Mate.

Morgan’s face was unreadable, but Ragnar winced.

“So my choice is either turn you in or help you.”  Then Athenais cocked her head thoughtfully and said, “Or just blow the three of you away and dump your bodies in space, but that leaves me out nine million credits.”  Returning her attention to Ragnar, she said, “As much as I would just love to spit in my father’s eye for what he’s done, there’s still that huge, glaring mistake you made when you decided to lie to me.”  She paused and looked at Stuart, who had remained quiet throughout the exchange.  “So is he another shifter?”  she demanded.

“What do you think?”  Ragnar growled.

“So you’re all shifters.”  Athenais glanced from one to the next, finally ending up on Ragnar.  “That’s strange, considering you want to destroy the Millennium Potion because Marceau kills colonists to make it.  Or is that a lie, too?”  She cocked her head at Morgan.  “Maybe there’s another reason why you want to get into my father’s labs.”

No one said anything for a long time.  Finally, Ragnar admitted, “Our family might still be in there.”

“And the Millennium Potion?  Was that a cover?”

“No,” Ragnar and Paul said together.  Morgan continued, “When we landed, we made Penoi our home.  Marceau is killing the people we have come to know as friends.”

“So by getting into my father’s labs, you have the chance to kill two birds with one stone, is that it?”  She looked at each of them.  “I’m sensing there’s something you’re not telling me.”

The four shifters hesitated.

“What
is
three million times four?”  Athenais asked, tapping the com unit against her cheek.

“We want to kill Marceau and put Paul in his place.”

Athenais stared at Morgan, a little tingle of excitement threading its way up her spine.  Breathlessly, she said, “That sounds like the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

The shifters glanced at each other uneasily.

“We might as well tell her,” Paul said.  When everyone scowled at him, he shrugged and said, “We’ve got several villages scattered across Penoi.  Marceau’s men raided one of these a few weeks ago when he was looking for Potion incubators.  They took five of us back with them.  After finding five of our kind in one spot, Marceau will know that we’ve got colonies of our own down there.  He’ll sweep the whole planet looking for us.”

Athenais let this information digest a moment.  “Why don’t you evacuate?”

“No time,” Morgan said.  “Marceau’s still trying to figure out which village his men raided when they found us, so he locked down Penoi until he can do a search.  Sneaking all of our people past the blockade would be impossible.”

“So why did you land on Penoi, of all places?”  Athenais asked.  “Seems like that’s the last place I’d go, with the center of the Utopia looking down on you each night.”

“At first, we crashed,” Morgan told her.  “Then we were hiding in plain sight.”

“It was working, too,” Paul said, “Until we figured out what Marceau was doing.  By then, there were too many of us to escape.”

Athenais rubbed the scar across her brow.  “So you want to break into the labs to destroy the Millennium Potion, eliminating the need to raid Penoi.  On your way out, you’ll grab any of your friends who are still alive and at the same time, you want to install Paul as Overseer of Penoi and Father of the Utopia to make sure the raiding stops and your colonies can exist in peace.”  She glanced at Morgan.  “Is that all?”

“You forgot the antidote,” Morgan said.