Chapter 4
GARK
The alarm's wail and the orange warning lights were starting to get to Gark. The ship jolted as Vox dodged and weaved to avoid being hit.
He’d found his mate. The one person in the entire universe suited to him perfectly. It was a miracle.
And, of course, it would have to happen with the worst possible timing.
“Who is firing at us?” Gark demanded, his hands gripping the arms of his seat as he leaned forward, straining to see on the viewscreen in front of him. “A’Kar!”
A’Kar’s voice was shaky as he replied. “I’m…I’m not certain.”
Gark growled in frustration, turning away from his less-than-adequate security officer to someone more reliable. “Vox?”
“Purists.” The usually smiling pilot practically spat the word. “They have a scout ship.”
Gark frowned. What would a group focused on the supposed preservation of the Taurean race want with The Lady? And how did they get a Taurean fleet scout ship? It made no sense. He shook his head.
“Jarden?”
The navigator had been tapping away on his screen since his butt had landed in his seat.
Ever reliable, Gark hadn’t needed to tell him to chart a course to get them the hell out of here.
So Gark was unsurprised when Jarden swiped across his tablet and, with a flick of his wrist, displayed a map on the main screen.
He quickly outlined a plan that involved a loop around the planet’s moon.
“It should give enough additional velocity to outrun them,” Jarden said.
“It’s the best chance we have,” Vox added his agreement to the plan.
Before Gark could give the command to do it, a second hit shook the ship. The siren stopped, and all the viewscreens flickered and went out.
“Arik?” Gark was thankful the comm system ran on a backup, so any power outage didn’t kill their ability to communicate. That was one upgrade the big mechanic had insisted on.
“On it.” Arik would already be hunting for a solution in engineering.
The inter-ship comm beeped with an incoming message. Gark displayed it on the main screen, keeping their own video off. It wouldn’t do to give too much away until he knew what their attackers wanted.
The image flickered, then a Taurean in black—not military but close enough to make Gark snort—appeared on the screen.
“You have something we want.”
Gark ran a hand over his face. Pirates were always so predictable. Sometimes, Gark was paid extra to see just who else wanted what he was sent to retrieve—intelligence gathering, of a sort he supposed. But today, he did not have the energy to deal with the posturing. He sighed.
“What do you want?”
The Taurean smiled, showing a missing tooth, and started with the usual spiel. The we won’t hurt you or your crew if you give us what we want spiel.
But today it had more weight. Gark ground his teeth together in an effort to force down his protective instincts. His instincts to protect his mate.
Gark hit the mute button. “Jarden. Vox. Get us ready to get out of here. Arik?”
“Go ahead, boss.” The mechanic’s voice echoed, as if from a tunnel.
“Keep me updated, but don’t let them know we’re not dead in the sands yet.”
“Got it.”
He took a slow breath in, forcing himself to calm before he unmuted the pirates.
Gark was struggling to concentrate on their demands when his mate—his mate!
—was on his ship. His suppressed Gnaggarian genes—the part of him driven by scent—had been awakened by her presence.
Whenever Gark’s Gnaggarian father had told the story of meeting his mother, he’d rolled his eyes and dismissed it as a tall tale.
But now, his father’s words ran through his head.
Meeting your mother was the most profound experience of my life. It was like I’d found something I didn’t know I was missing, and the entire universe suddenly made sense.
Now Gark understood. He wished his father were still alive so he could apologize.
He shook his head, dismissing the thought, and unmuted, looking back to the viewscreen and their attacker, who had stopped speaking and was waiting expectantly.
“You attacked a ship that was on a lawful retrieval job, and in the process, you’ve violated no fewer than nine interstellar laws. ” Gark paused. “To get what, exactly?”
“The information you retrieved is of no value to you, so why do you care? We’ll pay you twice what you’ve been promised.” The Taurean crossed his arms. “Besides, we acknowledge no such laws.”
Gark bristled at the implication that he would break his word and sell to the highest bidder, even if he could do with the credits.
He might not ask questions of his clients, but Gark wasn’t stupid.
He ran background checks through his contacts, and this job hadn’t revealed any of the usual shady characters.
So either it was a legitimate collection, or he was inadvertently working for someone who knew enough to cover their tracks and do so extremely well.
He suspected it was the latter.
Gark had learned long ago that compromising your integrity was not something you walked back from. It lived with you for the rest of your life. Only if you were really lucky did you get a chance at redemption.
But the Taurean on the other end of the comm didn’t know that, so he played along. He didn’t need to engage with this fool, just gain some time for Arik to fix whatever these idiots had managed to damage in that lucky shot.
He pressed his lips into a thin line, tapping them with a finger as if considering the offer. “What did you have in mind?”
The Taurean stated a number that brought an incredulous grunt from Jarden.
Gark tilted his head. “That’s quite the offer.”
Far too rich an offer to be genuine, and Gark had dealt with enough pirate types to suspect it was a stalling tactic.
Make the mark get excited about the windfall heading their way, kill them all, and steal the ship.
He’d seen it before, many times. But that was usually for tangible goods, such as jewelry, precious gems, and rare ores, not for information.
He frowned, attention returning to the viewscreen.
“We’ll pay once we have—”
“Are you Taurean?”
“More than…most.” The on-screen image zoomed in slightly, which exaggerated the way he puffed his chest out. “I’m from a long line of Taurean warriors going back—”
Gark hit the mute button. More than Gark is what he meant.
It was no secret who owned The Lady. In dock, there was always someone who wanted to comment on a half-breed being given advantages above his station.
In comparison, being subtly told that he was less Taurean than this jumped-up idiot did not even make Gark flinch.
The comm light flashed from engineering. Ignoring the monologuing fool on the viewscreen, Gark opened the channel with Arik.
“Good to go, boss.”
Gark smiled grimly. “Fire her up then and let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Give me half a minute to run the first cycle.”
Gark turned to Vox and Jarden, who were turned in their seats facing him. “As soon as you feel those engines starting, get us out of here.”
He turned to A’Kar. “Is there anything wrong with the weapons?”
A’Kar frowned. “No, there’s nothing—”
“Then this time,” Gark growled, cutting him off and leaning menacingly toward him, “use the damned things if we’re being fired upon.”
A’Kar swallowed and flushed, his cheeks turning a darker bronze as he looked away without replying.
Gark narrowed his eyes at the young Taurean’s back.
He was beginning to suspect that A’Kar was more than just a little trigger-happy.
He’d need to talk to Vox about him. Pushing the thought aside to deal with later—adding A’Kar’s insubordination and laziness to a long list of tasks that fell to the captain of a contracted ship—he unmuted the still cursing Taurean on the viewscreen.
“This has been delightful, but I feel we’ve overstayed our welcome.”
The Taurean stopped speaking and frowned. “Give us the package, and then you can go.”
Gark paused, watching as Vox and Jarden readied their stations, hands on the controls. When the main power flicked back on, Gark smiled.
“I think not.” He ended the call.
“Get us out of here!”
The satisfaction of seeing the other ship left behind as they shot toward Earth’s moon made Gark’s lips twitch before he forced himself to focus.
They weren’t out of the sands yet. It would be days before they could hand over the package he’d safely stowed in the safe in the tiny space that served as his office off the bridge.
Vox and Jarden were all business, the two working as a well-oiled machine, guiding The Lady toward Taurean space. It wasn’t a short trip, but the ship had a few tricks up her sleeve, including an enhanced FTL drive and some other tweaks Arik had recently completed.
As seconds turned to minutes and they weren’t pursued, Gark drummed his fingers on the arm of the captain’s chair. Why weren’t they following? Unless they had been bluffing, which made no sense. Or… Gark sat up straighter, eyes darting to A’Kar sitting with his back to Gark at the security station.
Why hadn’t A’Kar fired when they’d been attacked? It was, quite literally, his one job in a situation like that. And Lady knew he was trigger-happy more than most. Gark’s lips twisted.
Was his security officer a security risk?
He snorted at the irony.
When he was sure they weren’t being followed, Gark stood from his seat, stretching his arms overhead to ease the kinks in his back. It had been a long day, and he wanted nothing more than to eat something hot, shower, and sleep—in that order.
Well, that was a lie. He wanted nothing more than to be in the presence of his mate.
For once, he took advantage of having a second-in-command, ordering Vox to sort the crew rotations. He was almost at the door to the bridge when he pulled up short. Going back to his cabin was not an option. No matter how much he wanted to be in her presence, he had work to do.