Mira snorted.
After the last encounter with the so-called loyalists, she wasn’t terribly eager to put her crew’s head in that particular noose again. Unfortunately, they were going to need hard currency soon, or they’d be forced to eat the supplies they’d raided.
Since they’d dumped all the actual food off with the refugees, that would be problematic.
“All right.” She nodded. “What’s on the list?”
“The expected items mostly,” Gaston said. “Lase cartridges in any available caliber; combat tech of basically any stripe. I think they heard about the fight with the cruisers, though.”
“Oh?”
“They requested MACs, rounds, the works.”
Mira snorted. “Not a chance. We’re keeping what we have. The kid probably saved our rears with that Naga and those guns. Besides, we don’t have enough to make it worth selling anyway.”
Gaston nodded. They’d grabbed cases of the munitions, certainly, but it wouldn’t last a unit of any size longer than the opening rounds of a real fight. It would probably keep a single Naga topped off for a while, though.
“The normal stuff we can sell, aside from keeping our own stores in good shape,” she said. “Send them a confirmation and get a location for a meet.”
“You got it, skipper.”
Dusk found herself wandering through the cargo hold of the Andros, amazed by the near constant commotion.
The Andros didn’t have a huge crew, but there always seemed to be someone working or training in the relatively large hold of the converted luxury yacht. She wasn’t certain what the space had originally been, though the mottled green-and-brown military skimmer Brennan had brought on board looked oddly natural where it was locked down, so she suspected that part of the area had been used for a personal skimmer before.
Now, much of the space had been gutted. While it had clearly been richly appointed at one time, the bulkheads were now bared to the wires, the only hint of the old finish seen around the corners where small bits still remained. The crew now had instant access to the control systems hardwired through the bulkheads, with far less mass weighing them down.
Dusk was looking for Mik. He’d taken to hanging around belowdecks with some of the rougher members of the Andros’s crew. He worried her. She’d grown up with him watching over her almost as much as their parents had, but since the … well, camp and what had happened before, Mik had been even more obsessive.
She was therefore unsurprised when she found him at the makeshift sparring section drawn off on the composite deck plates, getting fighting tips from one of the less reputable men who crewed the cargo deck.
“Lead with the point,” the man said, holding up a wicked-looking knife so that the flat of the blade was parallel to the deck. “But remember to keep the angle so you’ll go between the ribs. You’ll glance off as easy as not if you grip the blade overhand, not to mention it’s easier to spot tells on someone holding a blade that way.”
Mik was nodding seriously as he twisted the blade in his own hand and jabbed the air a couple times while holding up his free hand to protect his own face and chest.
“Good, just like that. Practice what I told you, kid, and come talk to me later for more.” The man grinned toothily. “But for now I think your sister is looking for you.”
Mik looked around and spotted Dusk, waving to her before saying, “Thanks, man.”
“No problem. You kids are OK.”
Dusk waited for her brother to make his way over to her, eyebrow arched as she watched the friendly camaraderie he seemed to have established with the rough-looking crewman.
Mik had always been like that, though. She was more introverted, but he could make friends with almost anyone. Sometimes it pissed her off, honestly, but most of the time she couldn’t help but shudder a little at the idea of having people flock around her the way they seemed to flock around him.
She liked her peace and quiet.
Still, she had to worry about how easily he seemed to trust people. Especially in their current circumstances, it seemed like a bad idea.
“Who was that?” she asked, modulating her tone so as not to sound too accusing.
“Hmm?” Mik asked before glancing over his shoulder in slight surprise. “Oh him? That’s Burke.”
“First or last name?”
Mik frowned. “You know … I’m not sure. I saw him with that huge knife on his belt, so I asked him about it, and he showed me some tricks.”
Dusk shook her head. It seemed more than a little strange to get knife-fighting lessons from some guy you barely knew, on a known pirate ship no less. Of course, she might be the one who was a little strange in the current version of reality they were occupying. Perhaps, being that they were on a pirate ship after all, getting lessons in fighting was the normal thing to do.
It frightened her, just a little, to realize that particular thought made sense to her.
Ugh. I’m starting to think like my brother.
“Do you really think it’s smart to hang around … them?” she asked, looking askance at the crew as they went about their business.
“Sure, why not?” Mik asked with a shrug. “They’re good sorts.”
Dusk sighed but knew her brother well enough to know that he wasn’t going to be turned from his path.
“Did you come for something, Dusk?”
“Just looking for you, Mik,” she told him. “I felt the ship turn and it woke me up.”
“Ah …” Mik nodded. “The guys were talking about that. Captain has a lead on a buyer for the stuff they raided from the depot.”
“The ‘guys’?” Dusk asked, amused at how quickly the crew of a pirate vessel—albeit a relatively friendly one—had become “the guys.”
“You have a better name for them?”
That, she had to admit, she did not.
When Lydia shivered as she stepped out on the open deck, it was only partially from the cold.
The image of the height they were at was so unreal that she didn’t have quite the same problems with it as she did when flying with Brennan, but she knew just how high they were and that was enough. Even so, she needed the air. It had grown stale within the ship, though she was aware that was mostly in her head.
The winds cut low over the curve of the deck, racing across as the Andros tucked in behind the gleaming light sails. The Andros was a midsize skimmer, big for a private yacht but small by military standards. But it was large enough that instead of using wings, the ship was designed as a lifting body in total. It wasn’t much, but combined with the control surfaces embedded across the gleaming hull, it allowed the nimble vessel to maneuver tightly in conjunction with, or independent of, its sails.
That meant that there was little shelter on deck, as the lines of the ship were designed to facilitate airflow more than comfort. But the air was crisp and clean, and she’d felt too cooped up inside. It reminded her of the palace at times, only in the worst ways possible.
Lydia was only mildly surprised to find that Brennan was already on deck instead of below with his Naga, but she was more taken aback to find him standing behind the wheel of the skimmer. The goofy grin on his face … now that didn’t surprise her in the least.
“Please tell me someone is watching him,” she begged, not really talking to anyone in particular.
A low chuckle caused her to turn and spot the skipper leaning on a rail. Lydia flushed a little in the cold wind.
“You may relax, Miss Scourwind,” Mira told her. “I have Gas watching over him.”
Lydia followed the woman’s nod and noted that the large man was indeed standing fairly close and shooting the occasional glance over to where Brennan was handling the ship. She couldn’t help but let out a little breath of relief.
She loved her brother, she really did. She just didn’t trust him to know his limits in a skimmer of any sort.
“We’ve a sale lined up for the kit we raided,” Mira said conversationally.
“Oh?” Lydia asked neutrally, uncertain why she was being told. For all her name was worth at the moment, she might as well be cargo on this run.
“I’m going to have Brennan fly me in for the initial meet.”
That caused Lydia to stiffen and pay attention.
“Pardon me?” Lydia’s tone was as cold as the biting wind that blew between them, and her gaze had narrowed on the skipper like the focus of a lase blast.
Mira had the nerve to smile blandly at her, igniting a sharp, cold fury in Lydia.
“I need a pilot,” she shrugged casually. “And he’s willing.”
“You need a pilot like my family needs another former Cadre member getting us killed, one by one,” Lydia hissed coldly.
That got Mira’s attention, and the casual smirk was now gone as she pushed off the rail and lifted herself to her full height. Barely into her twenties, Delsol was one of the youngest Cadrewomen ever, but she was still full grown and towered over Lydia as she stepped closer.
“Watch your mouth, princess,” she returned flatly. “I’ll take a lot from you, but no one compares me to him.”
Lydia wasn’t in a mood to back down, regardless of how much she was outclassed by size or other factors. She stepped right into Delsol’s personal space and tilted her head back to glower at the taller woman.
“I am Lydia Scourwind, Cadrewoman Delsol. Whatever the situation we find ourselves in, remember that. I’ll not have you getting my brother killed on some whim.”
The two glared at each other for a long moment before Mira suddenly grinned and barked an amused laugh.
“Some of the Scourwind steel in you after all, then? Good. You’ll need it,” Mira said as she stepped back to clear some space between them. “Since you asked so nicely, I’ll tell you why Brennan’s flying me. The sale is to a loyalist group, and the contact man is William Everett.”
Lydia settled but looked puzzled for a moment. “Why not take in the Andros, then?”
“Multiple reasons”—Delsol shrugged—“including the possibility that maybe it’s someone faking Everett’s recognition ciphers. I’m not going to risk both of you at the meet without confirmation.”
“Then I will go,” Lydia insisted.
“You can’t fly like it’s your second nature, and you’re not much for gunning either,” Delsol reminded her blithely. “Also, you’re the next in line for the throne, not your brother. No, Brennan will fly me in his little Naga. You’ll join later at the transshipment point.”
Lydia scowled openly again, but she didn’t get as angry as she had before. There was, truthfully, a lot of sense to what the Cadrewoman was saying this time.
“Fine, but I do not like this.”
Mira snorted, clearly amused. “Miss Scourwind … what, in all of this, is there to possibly like?”
Lydia had no answer for that.