Star warrior complete a.., p.33
Star Warrior Complete: A Scifi Alien Romance Bundle, page 33
“If they catch us they’ll be able to accomplish plenty,” Talia said. “There are lots of them and only two of us.”
I turned to Talia and grinned in amusement. She met my amusement with a challenging glare of her own. “What did I say?”
“I never thought you’d be the type of person to tell me the odds,” I said.
“I’m not,” she said, hefting her small stealth blaster. “Now if you don’t mind could we please do something about getting out of here in one piece? I’d like to live long enough to keep that Sorei girl’s friends from going through on her master plan.”
“What master plan is that?” I grunted.
“She said they were going to start using the members of my crew down in the reclamation mines for their Bloodying. Something about how they wouldn’t have to go off world since you provided them with a supply of warriors ready for the taking.”
I shook my head. “I knew the nobles were pampered and mostly without honor, but I never thought they would stoop to trying to kill prisoners.”
“As opposed to keeping prisoners in horrible conditions where they’re bound to die from heavy labor and malnutrition? Yeah, I totally see the honor in that,” Talia said.
I shot her another warning glance. “You will watch your tongue when you speak of our traditions.”
She held up her blaster and made a show of pointing it at me. I felt irritation and amusement come through the bond so I knew she wasn’t serious about it. Mostly. Maybe.
“You know I could use this thing on you, right? It almost might be worth it if you’re going to keep talking to me like that,” she said.
“I will get you out of here alive and you are not going to shoot me,” I said.
“Oh really? What makes you think that big guy?”
I grinned. Maybe I could use some of that teasing she seemed to love so much against her for a change. “You know you’re looking forward to our bonding night as much as I am. I figure I’m safe from being vaporized until that night, at least.”
We burst into the main room at that moment and I stopped and blinked in surprise. Damn. I’d been so preoccupied thinking about the bonding night that I’d completely lost all situational awareness. Party goers stared at us as though we were tervinga fang flyers who’d burst into the room and some guards around the edge pointed and started making their way towards us.
“No time for subtlety here,” Talia said.
I turned to see what she was talking about, but before I could do that I knew she was going to do something stupid. She had that determined set in her mind. The thought that she was going to destroy all enemies in her path. Again, a trait that I so admired in her that was also likely to get me killed.
She hit a couple of buttons on her stealth blaster and pointed it at the crowd. A few nobles, some of them high ranking from the tattoos on their bare chests, looked on with curiosity. Like a fluffy kerlatha from the other side of the world being used for food at a zoo display that didn’t know what a tervinga fang flyer was or what that rustling flapping noise was off in the distance after it was tossed into a strange new enclosure.
Amazing. They were so divorced from combat that they didn’t know a stealth blaster when it was pointed at them. I’d been on the verge of stopping Talia from doing something stupid, but those stupid unknowing looks on their faces fueled my anger. They deserved everything they were about to get and then some.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked.
Talia actually looked up at me in surprise. “You’re actually going to let me do this?”
I gestured to the nobles. “Be my guest.”
That unpleasant grin came to her face again and a sense of immense satisfaction pulsed through the bond as I felt the bloodlust take her. Or something close to the bloodlust. I’d seen her move the thing to the stun setting, though that could still cause trouble if it hit someone who had a hearts condition or they were overweight or otherwise in poor health.
Which just about described every noble in this room. Again, they had it coming.
“Go on. Have fun with it baby,” I said.
I really hoped that was the right term. Humans had the weirdest terms for affection. There wasn’t a single reference to wanting someone forever by your side in battle or trusting someone with your life like was proper in a relationship. They had all these relationships to insect vomit and their young spawn. It was all so very confusing.
Talia didn’t waste another moment. Odd, that. Usually she was so eager to fire a weapon at someone. I suppose she was learning to show some restraint.
The blast lashed out and hit several nobles who went flying back. One rather large man went tumbling end over end looking for all the world like a boulder going rolling through the room where he knocked down several other people in his path. I couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous it looked.
The reaction from the others in the room was almost immediate. Screams of terror and outrage filled the room and I scoffed once more. So ridiculous. They didn’t know true honor or a warrior’s spirit. It was disgusting that these people considered themselves the pinnacle of our civilization.
“I agree,” Talia said.
She fired a couple more shots into the crowd for good measure and several other people went flying. There would probably be some damage from that even if she was using the stun setting, but I didn’t have time for that. I took her hand and pulled her through the path that had opened up in front of us as nobles trampled over one another to get away from us.
That gave the guards around the edge of the room a hell of a time as they tried to get to us. There was no way they were going to reach us through the press of terrified bodies. Good.
“I think it’s time we get out of here,” I said.
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Talia said.
We’d almost reached the exit when a voice rang out behind us.
“Jorav! What is the meaning of this?”
I paused at the sound of that voice. It sounded scandalized an angry. I would’ve expected it to sound pained as well, but perhaps he hadn’t yet heard the full extent of what had happened tonight.
“Ergohl,” I said.
“What are you doing?” Talia hissed. “We’re almost to the exit!”
“And you’ll find that your hover car isn’t waiting there for you,” Ergohl said. “I’ve seen to it that there will be no escape until you’ve given me an accounting of what happened here this evening!”
Talia glanced up at me and then over her shoulder to Ergohl.
“That the guy who owns this place?”
I nodded.
“Think he knows about what I did?”
“Only one way to find out,” I replied. “And it doesn’t look like we have much of a choice now.”
“I was afraid you’d say something like that.”
9: Adopted
Talia:
I searched Jorav’s thoughts, looking for any sign that there might be a miraculous last minute escape or something. I didn’t feel anything like that, though. No, he was as dour as he’d ever been.
Not a good sign. The stealth blaster I held in my hand felt like nothing as I turned to faced the father of a daughter I’d killed with that blaster. Sure she had it coming, but something told me that would be cold comfort to him.
“I can explain,” Jorav said, taking a step forward and trying to move between me and this Ergohl guy. Talk about a name that was a mouthful. Then again the Livisk didn’t seem to take stock in traditional sounding names any more than they took stock in reacting to the galaxy in a halfway sane manner.
“I know what you’re trying to do and it isn’t going to work,” I sent through the mental bond.
“Try me,” Jorav sent back, though his expression didn’t change. I was tempted to fire my blaster, on stun of course, into his back. I didn’t. That would be the height of counterproductive.
The temptation was very much there though.
“What do you want, Ergohl?” Jorav called out, his voice loud and clear.
The noble standing before us, Ergohl I presume, grimaced and looked past Jorav to me. The man was tall and muscular, though he looked like someone who’d been a warrior in his younger years and hadn’t exactly hit the gym as much in his old age. He still had the look of a person who was once someone to be reckoned with, though, and the bushy white mustache that ran down his face did little to take away from the sense of menace he projected.
“I have heard news from my servant,” he said. “News that your human has killed my daughter.”
The pronouncement was delivered in a flat monotone. There was no sign of anger or emotion. Though that emotion had to be lurking under the surface. He couldn’t be happy that I’d just killed his daughter. I had a feeling the murdery stuff was going to start any moment now, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
I’d be damned if I let him kill me before I got another chance to be with Jorav, though. I was not going to die without at least one more chance with that insanely hot and frustrating man.
“Your daughter…” Jorav started, but he was interrupted. Ergohl made a chopping motion with his hand and for a wonder Jorav cut off.
Damn. It was a pity this guy was about to kill me because I really would’ve liked to know how he pulled that off.
“Enough, Jorav,” he snapped. “I would speak with your human directly, or is she so timid and cowardly that she would hide behind you?”
I knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to get a rise out of me. Trying to get me to do something stupid. Trying to get me to do exactly what I was about to do, because it was working. I stepped around Jorav. He tried to grab my arm and stop me, but I pushed him aside and ducked out of the way.
I’d had a lot of practice avoiding Livisk trying to get me in a choke hold lately. Nice to know all that practice could be put to good use with Jorav as well.
“Your daughter deserved it,” I said.
It was only through sheer force of will that I kept myself from wincing. She deserved it? That was not a good way to start this conversation. Not when this man was obviously hurting. Sure he was hiding it behind that stoic face that wasn’t betraying any sort of emotion, but he couldn’t be happy at discovering that his heir had been killed off by a human.
I kept one hand ready on my pocket blaster. It was reassuring even if I knew there wasn’t a chance I’d be able to take out everyone who came at me if it came to a fight. I also didn’t see how I was going to talk my way out of it. I was fully prepared to die if it came to that, though, and I could feel the same grim determination from Jorav through the bond.
A hell of a way to go, though, and it was a damn shame I wasn’t going to get that final roll in the hay with Jorav that I’d been craving ever since he told me we were doing the whole waiting for marriage thing.
The jerk. If there was any justice there’d be an afterlife and we’d go to heaven or to commune with the spirits of his ancestors or whatever happened after you died. Either way, if there was an afterlife there was a chance I could sneak from my heaven to his so we could fuck like celestial rabbits all day long. I smiled at that ridiculous thought, but then Ergohl pulled me away from my pleasant daydream.
“She deserved to die?” Ergohl asked. Again, he didn’t seem particularly upset. More curious than anything. “Please. Elaborate.”
“Your daughter was weighed in combat and found to be lacking,” I said. “She brought me up to a private chamber in your house under the guise of being a good host an then tried to kill me so that she wouldn’t have to travel off world to an actual battle to go through with her Bloodying.”
That set tongues wagging all through the room. I was laying it on thick with all the dishonorable stuff and focusing on her being a bad host because I figured that was the sort of thing the Livisk would eat up. From how scandalized they were it seemed that I’d hit on something. I figured it was time to lay it on a little thicker.
“She also said that if it worked then her and some of her friends were going to start kidnapping my crewmates who’re being held in one of the emperor’s reclamation mines so they could do their Bloodying without inconveniencing themselves with an off world trip to a live battlefield.”
Oh my. I thought the reaction was scandalized with the first revelation, but now they were outright angry. I could see a few nobles through the room glancing at their children with less than happy looks. Whatever happened to me tonight, it seemed I’d dropped a bomb on the nobility.
I could only hope that would do something to save my crew. From the angry looks it seemed like they weren’t happy about this revelation. Considering how things had been going for me I almost figured they would’ve thought it was a great idea and led a raiding party to the reclamation mines to kill everyone right now.
“This is troubling news if it is true,” Ergohl said.
“Yeah, tell me about it. I think I’m here to enjoy the hospitality of your house and instead I’m dragged off and have some crazy Livisk teenager coming at me with a blade and not giving me a weapon to defend myself with. It’s a good thing I always carry an insurance policy.”
I waved my pocket blaster in the air with a smile. It only occurred to me after I saw the flat look on Ergohl’s face that waving around the murder weapon I’d used to kill his daughter might not be the best idea.
“Right, so anyways that’s what happened. If anyone acted without honor it was Sorei. Not me. I know you’re going to kill me anyway because I’m a human and easy to blame, but at least you know.”
I figured there were a few things that could happen. He could pull out a blaster of his own and shoot me. That didn’t seem like a very Livisk thing to do, but he was a grieving father. Even if he was doing the whole stone faced routine and not looking like the grief was tearing him up or anything. Or he could pull a sword out and try to cut me in half, though in practice that would probably end with Jorav pulling a blade of his own that he always seemed to have hidden about his person and getting into a fight and then I’d get torn apart by the guards after Jorav killed this Ergohl guy.
Something told me the guards wouldn’t react all that well to watching their employer getting cut down right in front of them. Especially when it was their job to make sure that sort of thing didn’t happen.
What actually happened was as far from anything I’d expected as could be. Ergohl looked over his shoulder and barked out an order in a voice that would’ve done any of the drill instructors I had back at the Academy proud.
“Is this true?”
There was movement in the crowd. A group of nobles in front of us parted and a figure I recognized from the room stepped out and nodded to me with something almost approaching respect. It was none other than the guy who’d called Sorei out on trying to fight me without a weapon. The one who went on about bringing dishonor to the emperor.
“Everything is as she said, father,” he said. “Sorei attacked the human thinking she was unarmed, and her dishonor and underestimation of the human was repaid with her life.”
I blinked. Father? This guy was Sorei’s brother? Well then. That was unexpected, to say the least. And it had me wondering. Had I just done this guy a favor? Sorei was the first in line. Did I just give him a promotion with the tip of my pocket blaster?
Ergohl turned back to me. Nodded in something that almost approached respect as well.
“Then what you say is true. Sorei was weighed in combat and found to be lacking,” Ergohl said.
“That’s an understatement,” I muttered.
That earned me a thin smile from Ergohl and a sharp stab of annoyance through the mental bond. Whatever. I was never going to be a prim and proper member of the Livisk nobility. If Jorav thought I was going to be anything other than myself then he was in for a serious disappointment.
The thin smile on Ergohl’s face continued to grow until it became a bona fide grin. Then his body started to shake with something I hadn’t seen that often from Livisk considering most of them I’d known before running into Jorav were trying to kill me and in my time with Jorav he hadn’t shown himself to be the joking type.
Ergohl seemed to be amused by the world’s funniest joke right about now though. I wished I was in on it. Instead I was just nervous that the punchline for this joke would be my death.
He looked up at me and there were tears streaming down from his face. Huh. I didn’t even know the Livisk could do that. Then again convergent evolution could do some weird things. It was a big galaxy. Infinite diversity and all that stuff.
“I’d heard you were a… spitfire? Is that the word you humans use?”
The human word sounded odd in his Livisk mouth. His pronunciation was just a little off with the strange accent almost all Livisk adopted when they were speaking Terran. Though it was a pretty good approximation. Probably better than some of my Livisk pronunciation. I smiled.
“That is the word, though it’s a bit archaic,” I said.
Ergohl stepped forward and slammed a hand down on my back as he pulled me in for something that felt very much like a hug. A hug that was strong enough that I worried he might actually crush me. Though Jorav didn’t seem too worried on the other side of the bond even though he was watching me being crushed so I figured maybe I didn’t have all that much to worry about.
“Nobles of the Livisk Ascendency! Hear me!” Ergohl said, his voice booming and nearly causing my teeth to rattle. That was a loud boom for someone standing right next to him. “By the ancient rites of our people I declare that I haven’t lost a daughter this evening, but rather I have gained a daughter who is a proper warrior!”
Huh. That sounded an awful lot like he was trying to adopt me or something. I had the sinking feeling I’d just found myself in the middle of another weird Livisk tradition that was going to wind up getting me in more trouble. Damn it. The bond told me nothing. Jorav was watching with caution, but he wasn’t making a move to stop this so it must not be all that bad.
Either that or he knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. Now there was a comforting thought.
