Vytln’s Trap (Delivery Service #3)

Chapter 1

Vytln

The wiring was different.

Vytln was crouched, glaring into the wall of the starship, the panel he’d taken off resting beside the opening, inspecting the mass of wires and cords inside.

Even on its best days, the Humility wasn’t a pretty ship.

It was old, very old, and it had been repaired and renovated many times in its life.

As a result, every part of the ship was a patchwork conglomeration of parts.

But Vytln knew every length of that patchwork intimately.

He knew exactly which wires went where. He had run most of them himself.

He’d rolled or taped up every single one.

Replaced or repaired practically all of them.

He didn't consider it bragging or an over exaggeration to say that, without him, this ship wouldn’t still be flying.

He held the life of his crew in his hands, and he took that job very seriously.

And now the wiring was different!

Vytln growled, finger tapping against his knee in annoyance.

Trying to remember exactly how this had looked before so he could figure out what had changed.

Because it had certainly changed, but it was so subtly done, there was nothing he could point to definitively.

Certainly nothing he could show to the others that would make them agree with him.

It was different. He knew it was different. He just couldn’t prove it was different.

It was the pest.

The others were starting to give him odd looks, but he knew he wasn’t wrong. There was a pest moving around the walls of the Humility. Messing with his wiring. Disturbing his ship. Touching things!

He just couldn’t catch it!

The Humility was their home. The only real home some of them had ever known.

The space station they escaped from, Rik-Vane, might have been where they lived, but none of them would think to call that place home.

It was the kind of place that respectable people compared to eternal religious torments.

It was a place where the wicked went to die.

It was a neglected, law abandoned, miserable place.

Compared to that, the Humility’s beaten, dented, broken hull had been beautiful.

Vytln had been only too happy to see it fading into the black when he escaped with the rest of the crew. If that place exploded, he’d sit back and watch it like a like a vid.

He was lucky. He knew he was.

He was free of that place. He had a home here. The captain had chosen him, of all people, to be his mechanic. He’d offered Vytln freedom, safety, and security and the only thing it cost him in turn was obedience. Really, he’d lost much more for much less.

Vytln had always been good with his hands.

He’d been tinkering with things since he was a youngling.

He’d never been able to pursue that interest seriously, however.

His duties to his family had always come first. Back then, he hadn’t considered that a loss either.

Mechanical tinkering had been little more than a hobby, and he was fine with it remaining such.

That simple passing interest, something so inconsequential in his youth, had proven invaluable when he’d been banished to Rik-Vane.

He’d survived there by fixing things, and he’d earned respect by fighting.

The combination of both parts of his life had been the only reason he’d been able to eek out any sort of life.

Not a good one, certainly, but at least he lived. That was more than many could say.

Rik-Vane chewed up souls like it fed the machines that continued to run it.

Any weakness was exploited. People were literally eaten alive just to sustain someone else.

Friends were just waiting for a chance to stab you in the back, and underlings were always watching for opportunities to betray you.

It was a life of distrust, pain, and betrayal.

But no one dared mess with the Brute.

Vytln earned his name for a reason. He was ruthless and evil and anyone who chose to fight him paid for their folly with their lives.

He dominated the fighting rings. People gambled food and fresh water and supplies.

Whatever they had that was worth anything.

He bet on himself, and he always came out on top.

And when he wasn’t beating in faces or breaking limbs, he was being offered trades to fix things.

No credz. There was no real purpose to money on Rik-Vane.

Value came in the form of what was real and tangible and useful.

There was always something around that needed fixing.

Sometimes, that included the station itself.

Vytln broke bones and fixed machines for his meals, and absolutely no one would think about trying to rip him off.

He did good work. What he didn’t know, he’d been able to figure out real quick. If you brought him a problem, he’d fix it for you. But if he wasn’t paid for it, he’d take the price in blood.

Living on Rik-Vane, he got good at working on machines, and he built a reputation for being brutal but honest. He didn't run scams and he didn't do subpar work. If he told you the cost of something, he was good for his word. He didn’t extort or blackmail or do anyone dirty. It was a matter of pride.

That was what had drawn Tanin to him. What had earned him this precious place on his crew.

And Vytln would not take that for granted. He’d earned his place here through honest work, and he’d keep it that way.

Even if it meant he had to work without sleep or replacement parts or even proper tools to keep this ship flying and all of them alive.

They were a delivery company now. It was a job Tanin picked because it was easy to do for a group of former thugs and killers.

Taking things from one place to another was the most basic of tasks.

The jobs they chose, however, were usually very dangerous.

Which fit right into their skillset, and let them charge outrageous prices.

They transported things no one else was willing to touch to places no one else was willing to go.

That meant their ship, the Humility, was their life. Keeping it running was the most important job on this ship as far as he was concerned.

The job had become easier since they got repairs done through the years.

He no longer had to run to the life support system every few days to fix a critical error that might end with them all dead in a matter of marks.

He also no longer had to sacrifice sleep to watch the subspace generator as they were moving to make sure it didn't go out and strand them in subspace forever.

He could even go days without anything going wrong

Yes, things had gotten much easier since the beginning.

Except they had picked up a pest while they had been docked during the last round of repairs, and nothing he did was catching the damnable thing! It was in the walls, he knew it. He’d seen traces of its presence. He could even track its movements in the subtle changes in the internals.

But he wasn’t quick enough to find it. He wasn’t small enough to go into the walls after it, and no trap he set up seemed to catch it. Despite his best efforts. He’d tried rope traps, sticky traps, even just basic alert traps meant to tell him where it was!

Nothing. It was a smart pest, whatever it was.

And it was messing with his wiring!

Grumbling, he thrust his hands into the open panel and began digging through the mass, checking to make sure that nothing was damaged or broken.

There wasn’t. There never was.

That was another reason the rest of his crew were giving him odd looks.

Though he insisted there was a pest, and though he knew for a fact it was there, he couldn’t actually produce any proof of it.

There were no chewed wires, no scat left behind, no scratches in the ship body – at least, nothing that could be proven to be new or different from all the other scratches and dings.

If nothing was damaged or missing, was it even a pest?

Yes, yes it was, because it wasn’t supposed to be here and it was messing with Vytln’s wiring!

Nothing was supposed to be on this ship without the captain’s approval.

That was a hard rule they’d all agreed to live by – alongside always making sure to complete their jobs and never killing without the captain’s permission.

Honestly, the male didn't ask for much. Vytln had no problems following those simple edicts, even if he sometimes tried to resist them.

The killing rule was really the hardest. Removing a problem was usually the easiest way to solve it, but Tanin hobbled them by forbidding them from doing so whenever it would be convenient.

Not because he didn't approve of killing, but just because maintaining their new freedom would be difficult if they were out here murdering whatever annoyance came their way. There was good logic behind the rule, even if it became suffocating at times.

Tanin was a good captain though. He could be much harsher, and they would all probably still fall in line under him. The freedom he offered, the security he promised and delivered, were so good, they wouldn’t dare risk it at this point.

That was why Vytln was so determined to catch this pest. It wasn’t doing any damage yet, but he didn't know what it was. He didn't trust it. He didn't like that it was messing with his wiring! Look! It had connected the-

Oh. Wait, actually. That wasn’t too bad of a-

“Vytln! There you are!”

Groaning, he snarled but otherwise didn’t move as he ignored the chirping little doll that came up to his side. Even from his crouched position, her head was still just barely over his.