Alexander Outland: Space Pirate (29 page)

“What are you thinking, Alexander?”

“That something’s wrong, Governor. As Lionside just confirmed, there’s been space traffic, at least inter-system. Most inter-quadrant arrivals would jump into Herion’s solar space—it’s just good flying policy. But let’s say you knew the system was having problems. Then you’d go in by Runilio. It may be far out, but it’s a good center of trade.”

“You mean it’s a good center for piracy and smuggling, Outland.”

“Yeah, I like Runilio. And, Lionside? Let’s not play pretend now. You’re on my ship, as part of my crew. Bloodline of kings or not, there’s no way you’re going back to Herion any time soon. Am I right?”

“Yes, you are.” He sounded somewhat regretful, completely resigned, and a little excited. I hoped the excited part was getting to do something out of the Herion Military norm, not because he was going to get to spend quality time with Slinkie or had some great plan to turn on us and turn us in for whatever money he could claim.

“Then, stop whining. Yeah, we’re smugglers. I’ve done piracy without a lot of guilt attached to it. But I’ve never blasted someone’s ship to smithereens or denied them the ability to live to carry good cargo another day. So, stop acting like Herion Military. As of this moment, you’ve retired from active service to join the private sector.”

“Nice spin.” He waited a beat. “Any Herion Bitterroot on board?”

“Bryant, really.”

“I’m thirsty.”

“You’re as obvious as a hatchling.”

“I’m truly thirsty.”

“Tanner?”

“Can’t read him, Nap, sorry.”

“You like him?” I tried not to sound shocked.

“Many people don’t find me offensive, Outland.”

“Name three.”

“Alexander, don’t we have a pirate armada to stop? As I recall, Janz the Butcher wants you doing a job for him.” The Governor’s tone was both peevish and authoritarian. No idea how he managed it, but it was annoying in the extreme. Especially because he really sounded just like my Great-Aunt Clara.

“Janz the Butcher?” Lionside sounded like he was vibrating. “The notorious crime lord of the galaxy? You work for him?”

“In a way.” I wondered what the Governor was going for, bringing Janz in all of a sudden. Old fashioned senility seemed the most likely answer. “More like we run certain ideas past him and get his impressions.”

“You’re the ones the Butcher runs his master plans through.” Lionside sighed. “I’d be excited about this—if I weren’t most likely now a more wanted criminal than you are, on Herion at least. As it is, seriously, do you have any Bitterroot on board? Sniffing raw sewage for the better part of a day makes a man thirsty for something that doesn’t smell like a latrine.”

I gave in. He had a point. “Tanner, give the new Communications Chief a brew. In the icebox. In the back. He only gets one. And, trust me, I know how many are in there.”

The sounds of pouring liquid, lip smacking, and the happy sighs of quenched thirst floated over the com. “How many of you are drinking our meager supply of the most expensive beer in the galaxy?”

Slinkie came in and handed me a glass. “All of us. Nap, seriously, the chances of us dying are pretty high. Why leave this for Lucky Pierre to either drink, destroy or sell himself?”

She had a point. “What happened to that all-encompassing belief that we’d survive because I’m so special?”

Slinkie tousled my hair. It felt great. “We’re all tired, thirsty and sick of smelling stink. And yet, we’re all still alive. About the only celebration we’re going to get is drinking a Bitterroot. Let it go and drink your beer.”

She had another point. I pulled her into my lap. “Works for me. Audrey, you want a beer?”

“No, thank you, Captain. I don’t enjoy them like humans do. If I may, however, I’d like to join Randolph for the impromptu celebration and before we’re facing life-threatening circumstances again.”

“How long do you figure we have?”

“With the way our luck runs, Captain? I’d give it no more than thirty minutes.”

“Go for it, Audrey.” Randolph must have programmed her for optimism. I gave us no more than fifteen. Less, if Slinkie and I got amorous.

I considered the options. Finish the Bitterroots, give amorous a shot. That way, we got to fully enjoy something before the next disaster hit. Besides, if the next disaster took its time, maybe after a relaxing cold one Slinkie would be in the mood to retire to the Captain’s quarters and play Around the Galaxy.

As my Great-Aunt Clara always said, why not go for rich instead of broke?

“M
mmm.”

“Nap… ooooh.”

“Talk turkey to me, baby.”

“You are such a bad egg.” Slinkie didn’t say that like it was a bad thing. She might have come from a bird-based planet, but she was purring like a happy kitty.

We were still in the cockpit and she was still on my lap. The beers were done, however, and we were definitely into amorous. By my mental clock, we had about five minutes before hell was going to break loose again. I planned to make the most of those minutes.

“What do you do to bad eggs?” I asked this against her neck. She liked my mouth against her neck, at least if her body’s movements were any indication.

“Mmmm, we do just terrible things to them. Takes hours. Sometimes days.”

“Can’t wait.”

On cue the
Sixty-Nine
’s alarms went off.

Slinkie sat up and heaved a sigh. “Guess we have to wait. What’s trying to kill us now?”

I moved her off my lap and took a look. “Absolutely nothing, so that must mean Lucky Pierre’s around. Hulky, you have anything?”
The Hulkinator grid shifted around.

“You’re calling it Hulky?”

“Why not?” Hulkinator seemed so formal.

Slinkie laughed and kissed the top of my head. “You’re totally cracked, you know that, right?”

“As long as you like it, it’s fine with me.”

She kissed the back of my neck. “I like it.”

I cursed whatever fates were causing me to have Slinkie this ready to go and yet be unable to take advantage of the moment. Clearly I’d made a variety of the various worlds’ Active Gods angry. “Mmmm, good.” The grid stopped moving as Audrey came back in. Along with everyone else.

“Why is the entire crew in here?”

“We want to know what’s going on.” Randolph sounded embarrassed. Must have caught a nanosecond of me and Slinkie being chastely intimate. Maybe he just had a thing against human girls. “I ran a diagnostic—the alarm system’s in perfect order.”

I stared at the grid. “Interesting.” It was truly working like a remedial Ultrasight. Nothing was near us, but there were ships out by Runilio. A dozen of them. “They knew we’d go to Runilio. How did they know that?”

“Why do you make that assumption, Outland?”

“Because they were hiding somewhere just outside the solar system. We were supposed to jump to Runilio, then they’d hit us there. And we would have, if Hulky hadn’t shown me there was nothing here.”

“You’re calling it Hulky?” Randolph sounded like he was warring between being touched and laughing his head off.

“Audrey was taken.”

“Point made. But, Nap, what are you thinking? How would they know we’d head to Runilio?”

“It makes sense,” Slinkie said. “We have an order for magma.”

“But who knew that? Besides us, I mean?”

“I knew because you mentioned it,” Tanner said.

“Same here. You brought it up when….” Lionside’s voice trailed off. I didn’t have to look at him to know he was thinking. So was I.

“I mentioned it when Slinkie and I were being interrogated by you and Nitin.” I pondered. “Tanner, am I safe in assuming Lionside isn’t in league with Lucky Pierre?”

“Pretty darned sure, Nap.”

“Why do you keep on calling this person Lucky Pierre?” Lionside sounded peeved. How nice—we had someone to cover that if the Governor was feeling tired.

“Because this is an old signature and the original guy who did this went under the moniker of Pierre de Chance and he leads the Chatouilleux Français Armada.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“Lucky Pierre and the French Tickler Armada?”

“Yes.” Something was tickling me.

“Who names these people?” Lionside sounded stunned.

“Wait a second. Lionside, have any of us ever told you the name before?” I turned around and looked at all of them. It was easy, since the cockpit wasn’t all that large and they were all squished in it.

“No. Why would I have asked about it if you’d already explained?”

“Slink, neither one of us mentioned a name when we were being briefed by Herion Military, right?”

“Right, Nap. You said ‘pirate armada’ a lot, but nothing else.”

“You were also the second one to say it, Outland. The only other person who said ‘pirates’ in relation to what was going on was the last captain to manage to land… before you, I mean.”

“So, that would be the captain of the ship I came on, Nap. And I had no idea what anyone’s name was.”

“Speaking of which, what’s going on with young Not-Really-Almondinger?”

“He’s a spy. Oh, and a limited telepath. Don’t hate him for it, he can’t read you any more.”

“Ah, because he likes me, right. That all makes sense now.”

I decided not to argue. I had a sinking feeling Tanner did like Lionside. I had a worse feeling that somewhere along the line, I was going to like Lionside. “You know what doesn’t make sense? When I was trussed up in Military HQ and Nitin had the others in his gas chamber and Audrey tucked away, he and I were talking. He told me he wanted me to allow myself to be captured by the armada. Me and my ship. So, supposedly, Herion Military could track on us and save the day.”

“He had a noble purpose?” Lionside sounded like he didn’t think that was possible by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. My estimate of his intelligence rose.

“No. He threatened to hurt Slinkie if I didn’t comply.” There was a lot of male snarling at this. “Keep in mind that he planned to kill Slinkie, and Randolph and the Governor, whether I complied or not. In fact, before I could comply, since they were in the gas chamber and would have died if Tanner hadn’t given the assist.”

“That makes no sense.” Lionside sounded both frustrated and angry. “If his hold over you was Miss Slinkie, how in the world would killing her before you’d done what he wanted work out? Why kill any of your crew? Kill them and lose the only incentives you might have to cooperate.”

“He wanted Audrey,” Tanner replied. “He used Slinkie as an incentive, but what Nitin wanted was Audrey.”

“Why?” Randolph asked. “I mean, she’s wonderful, but I have to be honest in that she’s not the only advance robotic in the galaxy.”

“She’s the only one in our solar system,” Lionside replied.

“So, he wanted Audrey from the moment he knew about her—but how could he know about her?
I
didn’t know about her until we were already on Herion and through our interrogation.”

“Maybe he saw her when Randolph brought her off the ship, Alexander.” The Governor’s eyes were narrowed. I hoped in thought, not due to constipation.

“How? Was he watching us? And if he was, why?” Randolph asked again. “And, why did he threaten you with hurting Slinkie?”

“You mean besides the fact that he’s an evil bastard? He used Slinkie as a diversion. He dragged her in and showed her to me, then dragged her out again.”

“Wait, Nap, what?” Slinkie looked confused.

“When I was in the nasty room, tied up to the chair, remember? You were brought in also tied up, struggling, yelling at me not to do it. Right before one of the goon squad shoved a gag into your mouth.”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t me. Nitin trussed us up and tossed us into that gas chamber. I never saw you until you came and rescued us.”

“Then it was a damned good facsimile of you. She even bit the goon when he was gagging her. I was all proud of you.”

Slinkie shrugged. I enjoyed the view. “Glad she represented, but it wasn’t me.”

Randolph and the Governor nodded. “Miss Slinkie was never out of my sight, Alexander, from the time we were captured by Nitin.”

“She called me Captain, not Nap. I should have realized it wasn’t the real Slinkie from that.” And I hadn’t. Well, I’d been distracted. I looked at Audrey. “Did you pick up any other robotic signatures while we were on Herion, especially at Military HQ?”

She shook her head. “No. But I wasn’t monitoring for them, either.”

“Tanner?”

“Nap, I keep telling you, I don’t do robotic minds.”

“I’m getting the feeling it’s time for you to branch out.” I thought back. It hadn’t been that long ago in terms of hours, but in terms of activity, it seemed like a month, easy. Nitin had been blathering about how I had to do what he wanted, he’d threatened to hurt Slinkie by having his goons show her to me, and when I’d said the pirates would just kill me, he’d told me to make a deal. A deal with the pirate leader. “He said the name.”

“What name?” Lionside asked. “Lucky Pierre?”

“No. He said de Chance. He was talking about the pirates and said that de Chance would want me to fly for him.” I leaned back
in my chair. There was something more, something else I knew I’d noted and filed away.

The Governor spoke slowly. “Now, how would Nigel Nitin of Herion Military know that the head of the heretofore invisible and unknown pirate armada was named de Chance? Particularly since we only figured it out because Janz the Butcher recognized the signature.”

“I have a better question,” Tanner said quietly. “Why is Nigel Nitin on Herion in the first place?”

“I’ll top that one,” Lionside said. “Who is Nigel Nitin, really?”

“Is the enemy of my enemy my friend?” Randolph sounded nervous. “Or is he my enemy?”

“I see your bets and raise you this—why are we assuming Nitin is de Chance’s enemy?”