Gabriel, p.3
Gabriel, page 3
“Drop the bat and get the hell out of our store.”
It was the Nobek’s turn to gawp in astonishment. Kisk had no need to pretend admiration as he and Baknu bowed in respect. A warrior Earther female. Clans on Kalquor would be all over themselves trying to impress such an incredible woman.
“That was a fantastic response to perceived, if nonexistent, threat. Good morning, Matara Iliana.” Takat had paused in his foraging to acknowledge her, clutching packages in both fists as he rose from his own bow.
Baknu’s delight was just as apparent. “Greetings again, Matara Iliana. I take it you heard our conversation thus far?”
She kept her guard up despite palpable confusion at their enthusiastic response. “I heard it.”
“Excellent. As I said, I don’t abduct people, particularly young, unwilling women. If you refuse to go to Kalquor, we’ll accept your wishes.”
To underscore his Dramok’s assertion, Kisk stepped forward. He extended the bat to Gabriel. The siblings stared at him in bewilderment, but Gabriel accepted the length of wood.
Since he had the lovely boy’s full attention, Kisk took advantage of the moment. “You really should consider coming to Kalquor with us. Did you know there’s a substantial bounty on your head, Gabriel?”
Iliana gasped. Gabriel turned so pale that Kisk feared he would faint. He readied to catch him if he fell.
“On Mercy Colony?” The Earther glanced at his bat, as if he’d suddenly discovered he gripped an explosive that was a single second from detonation.
“On Dantovon.”
“Dantovon? Why would the police want you there?” Iliana relaxed her stance to eye her brother.
“Not the police. It’s a private bounty.” Takat showed Baknu one of the small packages he’d collected. “These smell really good. Chocolate chip cookies.”
“Are you actually asking first, for a change? Get them.”
Kisk kept his attention on Gabriel. “Ever hear of a lowlife scum by the name of Nal? He’s certainly heard of you.”
“The brothel owner? He put a bounty on me?” The kid seemed genuinely confounded.
“Oh, these are amazing. I’m taking all of them,” Takat garbled around a mouthful. He seized a canvas shopping bag from the nearby rack and returned to the shelves to add to his bounty.
Kisk ignored his clanmate. “Nal’s far nastier than a mere brothel owner. He’s obsessed with obtaining your services.”
“Prostitution.” Iliana made a face.
“Worse. From what I could find out, Nal fixates on those he finds attractive. Keeps them to himself for private games, the likes of which I refuse to guess at. When he gets tired of those in his personal service, he puts them in degrading sex shows to amuse audiences.”
“Several performances a day, you said?” Baknu’s disgust was a match for Iliana’s, with rarely seen rage simmering beneath it.
Kisk had already vented his wrath in the training room on board their freighter. Despite the brutal workout he’d put himself through, fury was intent on making a comeback. His research on Nal had uncovered horrors that urged him to reclaim Gabriel’s bat and bash in a few heads. Especially Nal’s.
He allowed none of that to surface. “Nal uses up his playthings pretty quick, usually within four months or so. The fuck shows finish the job within another two or three. When his slaves rebel or crack from the pressure, he sells them for blood sport. Snuff sex.”
Gabriel and Iliana stared at him in naked horror. Behind him, deep in the shelves, Takat hummed a droning tune and crackled packages as he cleaned out the Rossis’ inventory.
He wasn’t immune to Kisk’s report. Takat had run out of their quarters the night before when the Nobek had shared the information. Baknu and Kisk had found him in the cargo hold later, throwing bins around and shouting curses at the top of his lungs.
For the clan leader’s part, Baknu kept quiet, though his usual easygoing demeanor was shadowed with a scowl as he watched Gabriel.
Iliana turned to her brother. “Tell me more about this asshole Nal. Is that who the Aksukt works for?”
Kisk went on alert. “Aksukt? Mit-noc? He’s been here?”
The Aksukt were an insular species, rarely leaving their world to mingle with other societies. At least, not by choice. Kisk had only come across one Aksukt in his many years of fleet service that spanned the length and breadth of Galactic Council of Planets’ member worlds.
Gabriel was emerging from his stunned silence. “He was here yesterday when you showed up.”
“What?” Fresh anger flashed through Kisk. How had he missed seeing Mit-noc?
“We were in the storeroom, discussing an offer from Nal. Mit-noc was trying to talk me into working for him.”
“That knobby bastard.”
“You know him?”
Takat joined the group, his bag bulging as full as his cheeks. If Baknu didn’t rein him in, the Imdiko would eat his way through the entire shop.
He swallowed what was in his mouth. “Kisk beat the hell out of him for stealing cargo from our ship. How long ago was that?”
“A couple years. I wouldn’t mind pounding on him again. Nobody steals from my freighter. Or targets innocents.” Kisk growled, then stopped when Gabriel edged back a step.
“He was gone after you left. I guess he remembered you,” the Earther said.
“Is Gabriel in danger?” Iliana’s cheeks had turned pink. Her fists clenched.
“Nal is bad news. Doesn’t take no for an answer. In addition to a general bounty for whoever wants to win it, he has seven hired hardcases, including Mit-noc, who’ve been trying to track Gabriel down. Obviously, Mit-noc found you first.” As much as he hated to scare the kid, Kisk felt it important Gabriel realize the jeopardy Nal posed.
“We’ll see to Mit-noc.” Baknu brushed the issue aside, looking to calm the siblings. “What happened on Mercy? You seemed pretty certain your trouble was coming from there.”
Gabriel and Iliana glanced at the baseball bat before exchanging looks.
Kisk seized on the obvious. “You make it a habit to crack skulls with your big stick?”
Gabriel’s glare was surly and defensive. “Just one asshole who was trying to force my sister into a compromising situation.”
Takat looked from sibling to sibling. “You two sure catch a lot of shit. Being pretty Earthers must be a recipe for disaster.”
“It hasn’t done us any favors,” Iliana snarled.
Baknu at last noticed Takat’s feeding frenzy. He frowned at the empty wrappers in the Imdiko’s bag. “The recycling bin is over there.”
“I have to hang onto them so they know what to charge you.” Unrepentant as ever, Takat started nosing through shelves on the other side of the aisle.
Kisk was intent on Gabriel’s apparent violent past. “I didn’t see any warrants out on either of you when I broke into Mercy Colony’s database. Did you kill the asshole?”
“Last I heard, he was in a coma.” A note of regret threaded through Gabriel’s anger.
“That’s why you two cleared out so fast and came here six years ago?”
Gabriel’s lips thinned. “I don’t like that you’ve researched my past so thoroughly.”
“I haven’t learned half what I’d like to find out about you.” The purr in Kisk’s tone brought a flush to Gabriel’s cheeks. Iliana smirked. “Give me a name. I’ll see if they’re looking for you.”
“If he didn’t mention you to the authorities, we could always go back,” Iliana suggested to her brother.
“To Mercy?” Gabriel gaped at his sister with undisguised shock.
“That Dantovonian freak can’t touch you there.” She shrugged at Kisk and Baknu. “Mercy is strict about non-Earther visits. The Aksukt and any other bounty hunters would be refused entry to the colony.”
Gabriel shook his head, his jaw set in a stubborn expression. It was clear to Kisk the young man had no love for his former home colony.
Kisk pounced. “You owe Zblyx for the loan he gave you to set up this shop. Adrafs are almost as bad as Dantovonians about collecting debts. You won’t be allowed to go to Mercy until you pay him off.”
“Damn it! Do you know my shirt size too?” Gabriel’s grip tightened on the bat as he glared at the Nobek.
“There’s a way out of this that’ll keep you safe.” Baknu’s reasonable tone sought to calm him.
Iliana snorted, intuiting his hint. “Won’t Zblyx still expect his money if we agree to go to Kalquor?”
“He’ll get it. I’m authorized to pay off all debts on your behalf, as well as purchase whatever you feel you need for a comfortable journey to my planet.”
That brought Takat in from his grazing. “That reminds me, Matara Iliana. Here’s a gift as a token of our empire’s esteem.” He shoved a praline in his mouth and fussed with a pouch on his belt.
“I’m glad you could pause between snacks to give it to her.” Baknu met Kisk’s amused glance and rolled his eyes.
Takat opened the pouch and removed a stunning gold necklace. The five-carat sapphire pendant was a match for Iliana’s eyes. She gasped as he held it out to her. “Is that real? Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. The empire and your prospective clan sent this to symbolize their intention to pay any price to earn your cooperation. May I?”
“Um. Oh. Well…”
As she lifted her hair so that Takat could fasten the necklace around her neck, Kisk caught Gabriel’s eye. The lovely young man looked at him with an expression of pleading, as if begging for rescue from the impossible snare he found himself in.
The Earther man’s upset over the situation with Nal sparked a flash of protective anger. Kisk edged closer to him. “Let us help you and your sister. I swear if you come with us, you’ll never have anything to fear again.”
The Rossis exchanged a glance. To Kisk, they looked like frightened children, lost in strange territory, with the howls of zibgers coming from every side.
He had to help them. Kisk vowed to himself he would. Starting with that thieving shit Mit-noc.
Chapter Four
An hour after the Kalquorians left, Gabriel and Iliana were still restocking the shelves. Takat had grazed his way through a sizable portion of their snack inventory. Gabriel was amazed at how much the Imdiko had eaten. He’d also bought a bag full of snacks for later—or rather, he’d had Baknu buy them. Along with a couple of plug-in book files of surprising subject matter.
The aliens, beyond their attractive physical attributes, fascinated Gabriel. He wondered what they did when they weren’t stuffing their faces and reading women’s novels.
“You should go with them.”
Gabriel started at Iliana’s surprising comment, dropping packages of dark chocolate truffles. He huffed and picked them up. “You’re interested in joining a clan?”
“I didn’t say me. I said you.”
“You expect me to leave you alone? With all that’s happened? All that could happen? Like the man stated, you catch a lot of shit.”
“There’s a bounty on you, Gabe. The kind of money that makes awful people do awful things.” Tears shimmered in her eyes.
“Kisk plans to warn off Mit-noc.”
“There are others who’ll take his place.”
Gabriel’s stomach churned. The Kalquorians could have been lying about the bounty as part of their campaign to coerce Iliana into going to their empire. It was more than a little possible.
As someone who’d spent most of his life in a falsehood, he had good instincts for deception. He suspected Clan Baknu was honest in their assertions Nal would go to great lengths to bring him to Dantovon. He was positive they were telling the truth.
No matter. The circumstances boiled down to one inescapable fact: he couldn’t leave Iliana, even at the risk of life and limb.
“I’ll be fine.”
They worked in silence for several minutes before Iliana spoke again. “I can learn if the Kalquorians are sincere about making Earthers actual wives. Mates. Whatever it is they call their equals. If they’re on the level or if they’re collecting slaves.”
He should have told her to drop the matter. He had no right to consider letting her sacrifice herself for him. Yet, when his mouth opened, what came out was, “How can you be sure?”
“The Overlord would be able to find out.”
The Overlord was the private nickname the Rossis had christened Zblyx. The Adraf businessman held their loan, and for the most part, he was as avaricious as the rest of his kind. When they’d arrived six years prior, desperate to sell everything they’d brought with them from Mercy just to survive, they’d had the good fortune to present their case to Zblyx first.
“I can set you up in your own place. An apartment and a shop,” he’d drawled, touching the gorgeous blouses enhanced by Iliana’s talents. “We get periodic visits from Earther ships, and they’re always disappointed no one carries familiar items so far from home. I won’t lie; the terms will be quite advantageous for me. It’ll take most of your lifetimes to repay the loan with the interest I charge. If you’re late with a payment, you’ll wish you hadn’t been. In my opinion, you’d do better whoring on Dantovon.”
He was an Adraf and greedy, but he was honest about it. Zblyx was also shockingly generous for a member of his society. Gabriel and Iliana agreed they owed him much more than money. Despite his warning, the Overlord had been understanding when they’d been late twice making their payments, during dry sales periods when there’d been lengthy gaps between Earther ships docking at the station. He’d become a sort of guardian, albeit a godparent they handed over seventy percent of their earnings to. All in all, Zblyx could be trusted.
That didn’t change the critical facts of the Kalquorian situation. “You don’t want to join a clan,” Gabriel insisted.
“I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. Aren’t you tired of running and hiding, Gabriel?” She gazed at him earnestly, her eyes as blue as the fabulous sapphire glinting at her throat.
“As long as you’re safe and sound, I can handle whatever.”
“If Nal’s flunkies get to you, I’ll be on my own. Or tearing apart Dantovon searching for you. You know how easily people disappear there.”
Her words brought a stab of hurt. Their mother had vanished on Dantovon after abandoning them. Weeks of searching had turned up no hint of where she’d ended up. It had been that trip, their attempt to track her down, which had landed Gabriel on Nal’s radar.
“I’m talking to the Overlord. It won’t hurt to get the facts.” Iliana’s tone had hardened, indicating that no argument would sway her. She pulled her handheld out of her pocket, tapping out a request for an appointment.
Gabriel watched her, depressed and guilty.
He was tired. So very tired.
* * * *
Ducking instinctively as a Dyrl flew over his head, its wings whirring, Takat chomped the spicy ruwta sausage Baknu had paid for at the Sutpra food stall. He sighed, delighting in the juices that exploded against his tongue. He’d eaten a better version to be sure, once having dined in Suptra’s finest hall in the company of that planet’s Acclaimed Leader. Nonetheless, his sausage was pretty good for shopping concourse fare.
He followed his clanmates, eyeing the next food kiosk they approached. Takat bathed in the wondrous scents of cooking, exulting in the sounds of grills sizzling. He’d eaten his way through half the station’s pick-up-and-go selections the day before. He’d most certainly sample something from the rest of Zryktysk before this particular day was out.
Plus he had all those unexpected treats from the Rossis’ shop filling the canvas bag hanging from his arm. Takat judged his days by not only how excellent the food and sex had been, but also their plentifulness. He had an enormous appetite for both, and it took a lot to sate him. Having started the morning with an hour-long romp with his clanmates and enjoying the varied edible treats that happened along his path, today was shaping up to be outstanding.
Even the intense conversation between his clanmates, bordering on an argument, couldn’t mar Takat’s sense of pleasure. He swallowed the last of the sausage and licked the juices from his fingers as he listened and subtly steered them towards the Joshadan tefu stand.
“I refuse to end my fleet career stuck here because you’re up on murder charges. Rough him up, encourage him to go back to Dantovon, and that’s it.” Baknu paused to bow to the emerald-furred Joshadan. Kisk did too.
After offering his bow, Takat pointed to the various meats and cheeses he wanted, his mouth watering as the smiling Joshadan generously layered his choices into a fresh-baked roll. Baknu absentmindedly paid the bill, his attention riveted on the scowling Kisk.
Takat bit into the tefu roll and announced his delight with a happy moan, ecstatic eye-rolling, and a second, deeper bow to the chuckling Joshadan. They moved on.
Kisk tapped furiously on his handheld as they wandered the dining area. “Mit-noc would be accessory to torture and murder if he were allowed to carry out his assignment. Homicide in such circumstances would be justifiable.”
“Just as it would be if I strangled you here and now to keep you from attacking him.” Baknu’s tone would have been just as mild if he’d been discussing the latest book he’d read. Takat could have counted on one hand the number of times he’d heard his Dramok raise his voice. It took a lot to rile the unflappable freighter captain.
“You know I’m right. What Nal has planned for Gabriel is vile. Depraved. Downright evil.”
“Look, I’m as enthralled by the kid as you. I’m outraged about Nal’s intentions, and I agree he must be held accountable. Mit-noc isn’t worth the trouble though. Let’s concentrate on taking the boy out of harm’s way.”
Takat nodded approvingly as he finished the meat and cheese roll. He gazed at the next food booth they approached with hopeful yearning, all the while keeping up with his clanmates’ conversation.
