Chapter 16 #2
“Isn’t it an Ulinial custom for the male to do the braid-lassoing?
” he remarked. He wore the specialized black armor I’d created for him, its expanding properties allowing the suit to accommodate any shape he chose to take, whether on four legs or two.
His glacial blue eyes seemed extra dramatic lined with black, but his expression was all teasing, his grin mischievous.
I shrugged. “He doesn’t have one, and he didn’t know.
I improvised.” Then an idea sparked in my head, one I was certain had already crossed the far-too-clever quartermaster’s mind.
This was why he was here. Not to tease, not to congratulate me, or poke at the way I’d gender-bent a ritual as old as time.
No, he knew I would need something, and he was just the male to get it for me.
“Can you get hold of a traditional Ulinial family book?” I asked him breathlessly.
It was a leather-bound, priest-blessed, blank little booklet handed to a newly mated pair.
In it, the couple could write down their family ties, their children, and all the places they’d been.
A history of the nuclear family they were about to create; and to a Ulinial, family was everything.
That booklet was traditionally given by the father of the male, but Thatcher had no family, and my only living family wasn’t Ulinial at this point.
“Of course I can,” Flack responded, chortling as if I’d said something hilarious.
His snout dipped in my direction. “I have a bead on one right now. How much are you willing to pay?” Nothing was ever without a price with Flack, of course.
I was not surprised by this; he didn’t even offer a friendly discount, happy to fleece every mercenary on this ship out of their hard-earned credits.
Not just when trading, either—he played an extremely mean game of Keflo too.
He bluffed better than anyone I knew; I was never sitting down at a Keflo game with him again.
Once was enough. He was extremely reliable when it came to getting you something, though, the best. His word was his bond, so if he said he could get me a traditional Ulinial family book, he could.
“Name your price,” I said to him. He grinned even wider, and then, for what had to be the first time in the entire history of the Varakartoom, he shrugged.
Like he wasn’t looking to get paid after all, but I seriously doubted that.
“I’ll figure out some nifty upgrades for your armor,” I suggested, because I really didn’t want to owe him down the line.
“Sure,” he agreed. “Oops, gotta run,” he added, and he jogged off with uncanny precision, timing it so that he was gone just before Thatcher reappeared wearing his new armor.
Flack was no dummy; he knew Thatcher would give him trouble if he saw him whispering with me.
Once we had this thing figured out between us, and my family mark was solidly on his skin, we’d have to talk about that.
Thatcher glared in the direction Flack had disappeared, but he did not say anything.
I fussed over his armor for several moments, checking the fit and testing his range of motion.
He let me do it with a patient look on his face, kind of like he was indulging me, but not.
Maybe he was just enjoying the moment, but I couldn’t quite tell from his expression.
All too soon, both of us were called to do our jobs, and I was forced to say goodbye.
I kissed his jaw quickly, because Aramon saw and began hooting.
I was very glad I hadn’t been to the mess hall that morning, because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have survived the stares.
Pacifist Ysa had caught herself a mercenary to take home.
I could just imagine all the things they’d been saying, and I really wished I couldn’t.
Unfortunately, I had good ears, and Grunn and Ivo were far too frank half the time when they thought I couldn’t hear.
Thatcher caught me by my braid as I tried to jog away, his big fist closing around it just at the base of my skull.
“Not so fast, my little engineer,” he drawled.
“You’re the one who did the public claiming; the least you can do is give me a proper send-off now.
For good luck, of course.” Sure, good luck.
Like he needed luck to come safely home to me.
He didn’t believe that either, he just wanted an excuse to kiss me.
Kissing me in front of our crewmates was just an added bonus to him.
When he covered my mouth with his, I felt the wildness, the adrenaline already surging through his veins.
He was pumped for the coming fight, excited, eager for it.
That would have made my mother shudder and turn away in horror, but she’d grown up in the safety of a never-before-breached colony ship.
She had never seen true violence and been unable to defend herself against it.
I had, and I’d lost my entire family to that kind of madness.
The mercenaries of the Varakartoom walked far past a line most people would never cross.
They dealt in blood and violence and mayhem, but if there was one thing I knew about them, it was that they were loyal.
Loyal, and protective. Here, on this ship, I was safe.
Thatcher had only proven that fact even more with his dogged insistence on following me around.
So yeah, I did not do violence myself, but I could because these males did.
The Varakartoom was not a ship that could ever be breached by an invading force like the colony ship I’d grown up on had been.
So I clung to Thatcher and let the heat of battle, already thrumming through him, sink into me.
Let it assure me that it would keep him safe, fulfill the mission, and keep the ship secure.
When he let me up, his hand unwinding from my braid, he grinned, and for the first time it was almost a full smile.
“Behave while I’m gone. Don’t go anywhere alone.
” Then he turned and jogged away, stomping onto the gangplank of the shuttle Aramon was flying, and disappearing inside.
I stared after him, wondering who he wanted me to keep company with.
All the males—every single one of them—were flying down to the Rummicaron outpost. They were mounting a full-scale attack, one the size of which I’d never seen before.
There were no males left on the ship to act as my bodyguard.
The only one with any fighting skills was Evie, and I knew she and the others were all gathering on the bridge to monitor the situation on the planet.
It was very tempting to return to the engine room after I’d watched the shuttles depart.
Very tempting. The entity messing with my ship hadn’t left much behind, and this mission had only allowed me a small part to play, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any work to do.
There was always something to repair or maintain, systems to check, armor to upgrade.
I found myself a little too worried about the mission to focus, though, so I headed for the bridge anyway.
All this just to kill or capture two men, it wasn’t right.
“Ysa, come to watch? Ruby had Brace make something that’s almost popcorn!
” Harper said cheerfully when I entered the bridge.
The massive viewscreen was lit up with live footage of the shuttles: a fleet of four black ones—ours—and two sleek silver ones that had to be from the Vagabond.
They met up over the planet, then angled down to enter its atmosphere.
Everything looked like it was going exactly as planned.
This was one of the outer worlds of the Rummicaron territory, right on the border with the Kertinal Empire.
I eyed the women, all hanging out in various seats by the different stations.
Harper was by comms, the station her mate, Mitnick, usually manned, while Mandy sat with her baby in her arms in the Captain’s chair.
Lyra and Evie were by the Navigator and Pilot controls, and Evie actually looked ready to fly the Varakartoom if necessary.
That wouldn’t surprise me; Evie was highly trained and very capable, while Aramon was nuts enough to enjoy throwing her into the deep end with a ship this size.
“Sure, what’s popcorn?” I asked. I was anything but interested in food, even if I’d kind of missed breakfast. My stomach was all in knots, full of nerves about what my boys were up to. Normally, I wasn’t nearly this on edge, but it was different now.
“Only the best snack ever for watching movies,” Ruby announced. “You’ve got to taste it.” Then, much softer, Brace’s mate said, “We’re all nervous, but they’ll be fine. They’ve done this a million times. It’s like twenty to one down there, those are good odds.”
Twenty to one, twenty gladiators and mercenaries to one escaped mass murderer. Good odds, but I still worried not all of them were going to come back alive. Thatch healed fast, I told myself, and Ivo and Grunn were strong. It was going to be fine.