NASTRAGULL: Pirates (38 page)

Padda laughed so hard that she sneezed, hawking yellowish goo all over the two servants. Nina was covered from head to toe. Once she got over her shock, she spat back at Padda, and punched her in one of her three glassy eyes. Padda laughed even harder, then grabbed Nina like a child and forced her inside a large pouch on her belly. Alec thought that Nina had just been eaten alive, and he leaped up from his seat.

The trader placed her hand on Alec's arm and assured him in a calm voice, "Don't worry, sir, she is only putting the girl away in her womb so that she can teach her a lesson. It's a normal thing they do among her species. The girl will be all right, perhaps a little groggy after...well, I don't think you want to know."

"Buy her. Buy her now," Alec said, agitated.

"If I may say, sir, it would be better if we wait until after the game, or Lady Padda will think that you are desperate and increase the price for the product."

"I
said
, buy her now. It's been several weeks since I got to this Gull-forsaken place. You promised me results, and we can't linger here much longer."

A low voice from behind them threatened, "You heard my Captain. Buy her
now
!" Brown glared at the trader, malice in her dark eyes. 

"There is no need for any unpleasantness." The trader's eyes flickered from Brown to Alec.
"As you wish, sir. One moment."

Alec shot Brown an appreciative look as the trader talked into her wristcomp.

Alec kept his binoculars focused on the skybox opposite, having completely lost interest in the game. An assistant or servant of some sort spoke into Lady Padda's ear. The fat frog-woman smiled and laughed, shaking her head.

"Increase the offer significantly," Alec instructed, while looking through his binocular.

Again the servant whispered, and this time Lady Padda looked puzzled. She placed one of her long arms inside her pouch and dug around; a thin, watery gel splattered on one of her neighbors, who glared at her disapprovingly. She finally pulled out a small non-omanoid who panted for air and spat out something nasty at the same time. Padda held him up by his hair towards Alec's skybox with a questioning expression.

"No, not him," Alec muttered, making no attempts to hide his frustration.

Lady Padda pushed her property back inside of her pouch and dug around some more. She pulled out a larger male Orchid Oman who kicked and screamed. "No!" Alec snarled. Again, Padda shoved the alien back inside after listening to her servant, who was chattering into her communicator device. Frowning, Lady Padda reached in and pulled out yet another slave, and this time it was Nina. She held her the girl up her ankle, as she gasped for air and spat out some type of watery gray filth.

The servant whispered something, and Lady Padda laughed, nodding in consent. She then proceed to lick all the slime off Nina as the girl screamed and swung at her with both fists.

"Holly Gull, how many can she fit inside?" wondered Alec, feeling a bit sick. He perked up considerably when the trader informed him that the merchandise was now his.

So focused was he on the spectacle that Alec never noticed that both of the Key Administrators had followed the development with great interest.

The transaction was observed with even more interest from yet a different part of the arena. At the rear of the SRO section, Coco Cabelle lowered her binoculars, pursed her lips thoughtfully, and walked away with a neutral expression. Two of her assistants followed in her wake.

"Has he made any more inquires about illegal trade?" she asked one of her aides.

"No, ma'am, not him personally," the young man answered respectfully, "but several of his crew and even his trader have made discrete inquiries."

"His trader wouldn't risk her trade-license for any illegal trade, surely."

"Yes ma'am, I quite agree."

"So you don't think he's particularly interested in Gormé?"

"No ma'am, I don't. It appears he's looking for a particular slave. A woman."
 

She harrumphed. "A
pirate
woman, perhaps?"

The other aid, a crested Marengan woman, cut in, "We believe that most of the slaves he purchased came from the same source, and yes, all of them have questionable backgrounds."

"But they do check out?" Coco asked, passing her hand over an unremarkable section of wall. A hatch irised open, and they entered the lift it exposed, which immediately started to rise.

"Yes, ma'am. All of them were signed off on by Key Administrator Zala."

Coco turned and looked at her aide, hiding her surprise. "A Key Administrator personally signed off on a few slaves?"

"Actually, there were more than two thousand in the bunch she signed off on," the aide said thoughtfully. "But these were the only ones actually placed for sale. The others were retained for what the records note as 'administrative purposes'." He shrugged and added, "It's unusual, but it has happened from time to time."

"Maybe...but not during my tenure on NF-16." Coco scowled. "Any further developments in your research on what might have happened to the
Bright Star
?"

"Nothing as of now," the younger woman replied, "but I'm still looking into it."

The elevator took them straight to the main security office at the center of the huge space station, where they were met in the lobby by Major Lizza and a high-ranking military officer from the Nastasturus Federation. Coco dismissed her aides to their tasks, concealing her frustration at not being forewarned about the newcomer's presence.

Major Lizza made the introductions. "Security Chief Coco Cabelle, this is Lieutenant Admiral Alistair Busch of the 11
th
Galactic Fleet, Nastasturus Federation."

Coco took a moment to size up the Admiral, who responded by eyeballing her from top to bottom, more arrogantly than she liked. She noted the glee in his eyes, and realized that he was enjoying what she perceived as a particularly tense and dangerous situation.
A killer... The type of killer who shoots first and never asks any questions later.
She'd encountered his kind, on both sides of the law, many times while serving in the CPH ranks.

She did not deign to let her true attitude of him show. "Welcome to New Frontier 16, Admiral. Perhaps we should retire to my office...?"

When they entered her office, Busch sat without being invited. Again, Coco hid her dislike. Major Lizza, of course, waited for the invitation before she sat down at the small round conference table.

"So, Admiral, what brings you here?" Coco asked after a brief silence.

"Our business is our own. However, we expect full cooperation from you and your Key Administrators. Is that clear?"

Since he'd laid his cards on the table in the rudest way possible, Coca felt no further need to hide her opinion of the man. "You should have paid a bit more attention to your diplomacy classes in War College, Admiral Busch. This is not the way to get whatever it is you want. Threats are pointless. You have no jurisdiction over NF-16, the Traders, or the Merchants. Your fleet presence has begun to make people in this sector uneasy. This is neither your territory, nor..."

To her disgust, Coca was interrupted. "Three months ago, a civilian transport cruiser carrying over nine thousand passengers and about a thousand crew members was attacked by pirates a few systems away, well within the region that you people supposedly police. Some of the passengers came from very distinguished families in our Federation. And you
will
cooperate, by Gull, because we believe people associated with your outpost are involved in the attack up to their elbows. No Brakk in the universe can protect you if I discover that this is the case. Is that diplomatic enough for you?"

A strange silence fell; and after a long moment Coca nodded towards Major Lizza, who inclined her head and left the room. Coca pressed a button on her desk, and a force field snapped into place around the conference area. She rose, still silent, then walked over to a bar and poured a couple of drinks. She sat down one glass hard on the desk, causing some of its contents to splash onto Admiral Busch, who ignored the stains and the glass while staring at Coco.

She looked at the glittering force field and took a deep breath before breaking the silence. "Admiral, I will cooperate, but you must understand that I'm more or less alone in this, except for a handful of my people."

Admiral Busch looked at her straight in her eyes. Then he picked up his drink and nodded sharply, while muttering something diplomatically unheard about unreasonable civilians.

Nina felt like a scared child who was about to be spanked by her parents. She was in a spartan office aboard a spaceship of some kind—from what she had seen from the outside, it looked like a frigate—bound head and foot. She stood before a large desk with the back of a large, comfortable-looking chair turned towards her. Whoever was in the chair was busily tapping away at a keyboard, and just as busily ignoring her. She glanced to either side at the two brutes guarding her. One of them was in a desperate need of a dentist, while the other needed to take a very long shower. She wiped her forehead against her shoulder in a futile attempt to remove some of the doughy slime.

"You stink, pirate scum!" the dentally-challenged guard snapped.

Nina jumped when she heard the word "pirate." So they knew...and she knew far too well what could happen to any pirate caught by, well, just about anyone. She could be put in prison for life, raped, abused, executed in a variety of inventive ways—or worse, placed in an arena where she would be tortured to death while thousands of onlookers cheered on her demise. She started to shudder, frightened, thinking that this might be one of the notorious Predators that she had heard so many rumors about—a pirate hunter, someone who had absolutely no pity for those who preyed on the innocent and mercantile alike.

She quickly gathered herself and stuttered, "I-I-I'm no pirate, I'm a, a..."

"Pirate." The office chair had turned around, the man in it correcting her ironically. There was no mistaking who those deep blue eyes belonged to.

"You!" she shouted.

"Release her," Alec ordered, and the two guards unlocked her manacles and carefully stacked them in a corner. When she was loose and rubbing her wrists to restore circulation, he demanded, "Where is she?"

"Who?"

"As if you didn't know. I'm looking for your little friend, the one who was so eager to dine on me at her little initiation party. The girl with the black dreads. I heard everything from your Captain—believe me, he didn't dare leave anything out. Now answer me."

"
Eat
you?" she rolled her eyes. "By all the asteroids in the universe...What are you...?"

Alec slammed his hand on the desk, and Nina jumped.

"That black-haired devil! Give me a name!"

"Ah, you mean Zuzack. He..."

"
No
, Gulldammit! Not
him
, your dear little girlfriend. 
What's her name?
"

Nina blinked. "Oh, you mean Alexa? She, uh, she was kind of my owner, and, uh, we got in trouble with Zuzack and he ordered us sold. I, we were on the same slave block at first, but got separated. I sat behind her, gagged. I doubt she knew I was even there."

"Then how do you know
she
was there?"

"Because I heard when Hughes and..."

"Who is Hughes?"

"The rat-lizard transgenic. He's one of Zuzack's officers."

"Oh. That one. Go on."

"I heard Hughes torturing her, and saying what they were...what they were going to do to her."

Nina's self-control cracked then, and she started to sob, then buried her face in her hands. Alec gestured to Wolf, who placed a chair next to Nina and sat her down in it. Once she'd settled down a bit, Nina begun to tell Alec everything she knew. A tiny flame of hope began to grow inside her as she spoke, and she looked up gratefully when an elderly smooth-skinned woman with a colorful crest entered the room, gave her a motherly smile, and handed her a cup of herbal tea.

"I am Lady Fuzza of Marengo," she said gently. "But dear, dear...by the way, what is your real name?"

"Nina."

"Just Nina?"

Nina nodded, looking down at her glass. "Just Nina," she mumbled. "Never had any more names."

"Come, my child, let me help you—and perhaps we can come up with a few more names." Lady Fuzza glared at Alec while helping Nina up from the chair and out of the cramped office.

"You two!" Alec gestured to Wolf and Pier. "Continue drilling and training with the others down below, and let me know how you're progressing later this evening." The two guards nodded, and saluted Alec before smartly turning around and leaving the room.

Behl entered immediately thereafter, and without preamble stated, "We have enough crew now, and considering that a fourth of them are known to be reliable, I think we can leave soon."

Alec gestured for Behl to have a seat in Nina's recently vacated chair, but the captain declined when he noticed what it was smeared with. With a disgusted expression, he continued with his report. "I've recovered almost fifty of my old crew, and all but five have signed on with us. I gave the other five enough money to pay off their contracts, and put them on different shuttles and transports away from here. None of them will talk about what happened until they reach a safe port."