There's a pause. "My intel says no female is aboard your ship. I would never harm a female."
I roll my eyes at that. A bounty hunter with a code of honor? I don't buy it. "Your intel is useless, then. What, you think I've got some sort of sweets addiction? That I love the taste of sugar root? Those treats were for my female, you useless fool. You hurt her, and now you're going to pay. I'm going to gut you, and I'm going to make it hurt."
"The job was for a lordling, not a female," the voice calls out again. "My intel—"
"Is keffing shit," I bellow back at him, seeing red. Why am I arguing with this piece of space trash? "You poisoned a human! My human!"
There's a rustling on the other side of the door, and a moment later, a blaster is offered, handle first, through the crack. "Take my weapon. I'm surrendering."
I take the blaster and shove it into my belt, frowning as I do so. "You're what?"
"I'm surrendering. The bounty was to poison a lordling and bring his body back to Homeworld. No one told me there would be a female affected. I don't harm females. That's not part of the job." There's a pause. "You can come in. I won't fight any longer."
I'm positive it's a trap. I frown, deciding, as two of the crew—Kazex and Jerzec—rush up to me.
"Clear for now, my lord," Kazex says. "One escape pod launched. Should we pursue?"
That must have been the youth. With a shake of my head, I indicate the door. "Let's get the captain and then put a tow-line on her. Tell Aithar to contact the nearest scrapper and let them know we have something coming in." I gesture at the bridge. "This one says he's surrendering."
Kazex just cracks his knuckles. "That so?"
"I was misinformed," the bounty hunter says. "I was not told there would be an innocent female harmed. I am surrendering and placing myself at your mercy."
"We'll be the judge of who gets mercy." Jerzec shoves at the door, opening it wider. "Not you."
I keep my blaster at the ready as the men pry the door open and then the small bridge compartment of the ship is revealed. It's a navigator class ship, and a trashed-looking one at that. The interesting thing is that it's designed to be piloted by one person and one person alone. It means that whoever runs this ship doesn't normally have a crew. It also means that he doesn't trust that crew. Interesting. He must have picked up his “crew” on the cheap at the station for this job alone.
Not that it matters. I'm still going to take him to the brig on the Eye and question him.
Inside the bridge, waiting for us with his hands up, is a tall, rangy-looking mesakkah with a mean cast to his features. His horns are covered with dingy, battered metal and he's got a scarred face, and one of his eyes is cybernetic. It gleams red, adding to his unpleasant demeanor.
"What's the name, friend?" Jerzec asks as he searches the male. I notice that one of the hands he raises into the air is a synthetic. Another cast-off from the war, I suspect, given his age. It's a war I didn't serve in, being too rich and titled for that sort of thing.
"Jamef." He puts his hands on his horns, indicating he has no weapons as Jerzec pats him down. His lip curls as he looks at me, noting the house embroidery on the edges of my tunic. "No house name. I don't bother to claim that sort of thing."
I suppose I shouldn't, either. I don't like his tone, though, or the red cybernetic eye that scans everything, whirring and recording. So I punch it, hard, ensuring that his eye swells shut. Jamef recoils, staggering back against the controls of the ship. "Take him to the brig. I want to talk to him later." I tap on Kazex's shoulder. "You can handle everything here?"
"On it, my lord." He nods once.
Good. I need to check on Ruth.
60
RUTH
I'm drowsing in med-bay, curled up in blankets that still smell faintly of Straik's soap, when my stomach growls. No sweets, I tell myself with a yawn. They could all be poisoned—
I sit up with a gasp, eyes wide. Oh shit. They could all be poisoned.
At my side, Sakkar jumps, startled. "What? What is it?" The a'ani medic gives me a wide-eyed look. "What's wrong?"
He sounds panicky, and it makes me wonder if Straik threatened him with something if I was in pain. "The sweets," I say. "Please tell me no one else has eaten the sweets."
Sakkar relaxes, letting out a deep breath. "Kef me, you just took ten years off my life." He rubs his brow. "No, no one ate them. After you showed signs of distress, Lord Straik had all of the food supplies scanned for contaminants. Anything that might have an adverse reaction with a human's digestive system was spaced." He turns away, and I barely hear a mutter of, "Even my stash of roasted djorn tree nuts."