ROSALIE
This place, this ship, for want of another word (althoughgarbage cansprings to mind) is bringing back memories I’d rather not revisit. I can’t imagine the conduits to be any more clean or the ability to scavenge food any easier than the filthy ship I shared with Kerra until I accidentally fired myself out of it in an escape pod and Kerra was rescued by her now mate, Darax.
But as much as I hated the creatures who took us, I’m not sure how I feel with two ships being blown to oblivion without warning.
Dante, however, seems to be in his element, as well as looking particularly magnificent with the daggers at his waist and a sling over his chest filled with what look like grenades.
He was calm, secure, and in control, at least up until the point the pirate captain, who looks like a cross between a slug, a panda, and an octopus, only with more slug and octopus and less panda, starts rambling about who wants the Sarkarnii.
It is an answer we already had, after the Veseli were targeting Vorostor with explosive devices and, if Scarlett is to be believed, weird clones of Sarkarnii.
So, of course Dante knows who’s been messing around with a species who can transform into space dragons and who, it would seem, has a death wish if they have any designs on the Sarkarnii themselves.
“I guess you are going to tell me.” Dante leans in closer to the captain in a move I wouldn’t have done, given his slug-like appearance.
The creature appears to gibber in his grip.
“Or I can do what you were going to do to me and my crew.” Dante drops him back on the floor. “Your choice. You have five nova seconds.”
My Sarkarnii warlord taps his foot and stares up at the ceiling as the pirate captain scrambles around, as if somehow the floor of his disgusting ship will provide answers he doesn’t want to give.
Dante looks over at me with a flash of fang before he swings his tail around and slams it into the captain, pinning him to the floor. There’s no exhale of breath from the thing, and it seems unlikely Dante has done any damage.
“An answer.” Dante bares his teeth. “Or I will toss you to my crew, who I think are hungry after their battle, such as it was.”
“Gonoz!” The word bursts out of the captain. “We work for the Gonoz, when we are not working for ourselves.”
“Gonoz,” Dante repeats. “Interesting,” he adds, looking over at the lead warrior of the boarding party.
“Dalix, is the cargo worth anything?”
“No, boss. It’s useless scrap.”
“Then put them all in the escape pods and scuttle this vessel.”
Dalix grins wildly. “Yes, boss!”
Dante lifts his tail from the prone captain, and it comes away with a string of goo attached. He gives it a flick and nothing happens. He gives it several more flicks, and eventually, theslime is flung across the bridge, hitting one of the other hapless pirates in the face.
Somehow, he can be chaos without being chaos. It would seem you can keep the Kursarkarnii from the Sarkarnii but you can’t eliminate it entirely.
But even as these thoughts are forming in my mind, I have a great big Sarkarnii male towering over me. I press my hand into his abdomen and feel the vibrations within him.
“I am sorry you had to witness that,” Dante rumbles.
“Which bit?”
He blinks at me.
“I’ve seen plenty in my time, Dante.” I watch as the pirates are herded away down the main corridor. “They had their chances, and they’re leaving with their lives, unlike the other ships.”
“Oh,” Dante says airly, “the crew of those ships also used their escape pods. I’m sure they will have colleagues along in no time to pick them up.”
“You didn’t kill them all?” My stomach rises where once it was a solid block.
“What do you take me for?” Dante grins. “A warlord?”
“That’s exactly what you are.”
