“One hundred and eighty thousand credits,” I replied, horror settling in my gut as the truth hit home. The average dimari was sold for forty thousand credits. Jai was apparently worth more than four times that amount. “You’re right. They just decided to royally screw him over in exchange for a big payout.”
“So perhaps the better strategy would be to forget all about him being an erotic companion and just focus on his combat skills. I’m assuming, of course, that that was a skill he was actually suited for. Getting him to trust you will also take a bit of work, but at least we’re heading in the right direction. The other thing,” he added, leaning forward and regarding me more intently, “that I think it’s very important you figure out, is what he knew about his master before he was shipped out. Because my guess is that he’s making a number of assumptions about you that would be steadfastly untrue, given that you’re not his intended master.”
I shook my head at that one. “The dimari aren’t told anything about their masters before they’re shipped. Not even what species their master is, or what planet they’re going to.”
“Not true,” Bryce contradicted me. “They’re not told anything specific, no, but they’d still be able to make a number of inferences or assumptions. Kade was trained as a combat specialist. So it would be an entirely reasonable assumption, either from him or from any other combat specialist, that his master would likely be in the military. It’s not an absolute certainty, but it’s a reasonable assumption. If a dimari was trained as a nurse, they might suppose that their master was a doctor, perhaps, or they might think that they could be sent to a planet or a colony that was in need of medical skills. Perhaps a new colony on a fringe planet. But they would end up being very surprised if their master was a hoverbike-racer with a penchant for buying expensive art. It just doesn’t fit their training. So do what you can to figure out, with or without Jai’s help, what sort of master pays a ridiculous amount of money for someone who’s simultaneously a combat specialist and an erotic companion.”
I pondered that as I sipped my coffee. “Nothing springs to mind,” I said, a minute or two later. “I don’t see the connection between the two.”
“There are corners of the galaxy that are dark and dingy places,” Bryce reminded me. “I’m not saying this is the only option, but consider; a cage fighter in a ring where the owner of the den gets to have sex with whoever wins the fight.” He gave my arm a nudge. “Stop thinking so cleanly. There are plenty more options that are just as sordid. So do a bit of digging through Jai’s brain, and-”
He was cut off by a shrill beeping from his comm – an emergency alert from the base. He cursed and hastily checked the message, just as my comm started beeping just as urgently. I pulled up the message.
All available staff report to Hon Base ASAP. AEV Navigator has been shot down by pirate vessel. All hands needed for rescue operation.
“Fuck me!” I cursed, immediately jumping to my feet, and then instantly reconsidering my next course of action. I needed to get home, but first, I needed to tell Kade and Jai to meet me there. Bryce was on his feet just as quickly.
“I need to find Kade and Jai,” I said, fumbling the buttons in my hurry to pull up Kade’s contact.
Bryce, in typical fashion, bypassed my panic entirely. “I’m going home to grab my gear, then I’ll call a taxi to pick me up. We’ll swing by your place and collect the three of you. It’ll be quicker than you taking the train to get there.”
I nodded, while I focused on sending a quick message to Kade –Go home NOW. Emergency at base. I’ll meet you there.“Good plan. I’ll see you soon,” I said to Bryce, then he was off, sprinting for the exit. I headed in the opposite direction, my house to the south of the shopping centre, while his was to the east.
A rigorous fitness routine meant it wasn’t a huge ask for me to run the entire way home, though I was certainly out of breath by the time I got there. I was simultaneously a little embarrassed and a bit proud to find that Kade and Jai had beaten me there. I’d noted before that Kade was significantly fitter and faster than me, and it was reassuring to find that Jai could match him, in terms of physical capacity.
“Uniforms, military comm for you, Kade, and grab some food to eat on the way. It’s going to be a long afternoon. Bryce is picking us up in a taxi in a few minutes.”
I dashed into my bedroom, hearing the muffled, “Yes, sir,” from Kade as he pulled his t-shirt over his head… and then, to my relief, another “Yes, sir,” from Jai, from the spare bedroom where his clothes were kept. I stripped off quickly and re-dressed in my uniform, and by the time I was ready, Kadeand Jai were both waiting by the door, and Kade had a bag in hand that contained a variety of items from the kitchen. I didn’t bother asking what he’d brought. He was smart enough to have figured out something appropriate. I hustled them both outside and locked the door, waiting impatiently for Bryce to arrive.
“Okay, Jai, I’m aware that you haven’t been trained on how the Alliance runs our systems or our missions, so today, you simply need to stay near me and do as I tell you to. I have a great deal of confidence in your abilities, having seen how easily Kade adapted to Alliance military standards. You are to follow allreasonableorders from anyone in the military, however you are also allowed to ask questions or object if you believe the order is unnecessarily risky or you can see a better way to proceed. If I tell either you or Kade to do something, you can figure out between the two of you who is going to do the task, and so long as one of you does it, you can both consider yourselves to have obeyed me.” It was a sloppy order at best, but given that we had next to no time to prep for this mission, it was the best I could do under the circumstances. I’d have to get some advice from Kade later as to how to word it better, but I hoped it would keep us all out of trouble for the rest of the day, at least.
I heard the hum of an engine, and then a car came around the corner and pulled to a stop in front of us. “Here we go,” I said, feeling trepidation at the upcoming mission, but also excited to be getting back into the action. “Let’s see how much trouble the world is in today.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JAI
Istood at attention beside Kade, keeping a surreptitious eye on him for any cues about what I should be doing. Being thrown into a military operation with no briefing whatsoever on how the Alliance ran things was daunting, but at the same time, I’d had extensive training from the Eumadian military, and I didn’t think things could betoodifferent.
A large Denzogal was speaking up the front of the room, brown fur covering his entire eight-foot-tall frame, and I thought it likely that this was Colonel Henderson. I’d only seen one brief picture of him, and before that, I’d never seen a Denzogal before, so I was keeping an open mind about the possibility that I could be wrong.
“The AEV Navigator,” Henderson was saying, “has two hundred and seventeen crew on board. They’ve crashed into the desert south of Hon, touching down roughly…” He checked the time on his comm. “…twenty-three minutes ago. Initial scans indicate that they’re here…” He pointed to a region of the large holographic map lit up at the front of the room. “Theircommunications have stated that there are multiple injuries and several crew members unaccounted for.
“There are known Geshtoch in the region, but we’re not expecting them to be hostile. We’ll be sending a team to distract them and keep them away from the crash, since they’re likely to try looting things from the wreckage, and we don’t need them getting in the way of the rescue operations.
“Roughly a quarter of the crew of the Navigator are military, the rest are civilians – astronomers, cartographers, physicists, and various support staff. They’re returning from a mapping mission of the Raydal sector, and there’s likely some valuable data on the ship’s computer systems, but recovering that is secondary to saving lives. Your teams and team leaders will be sent to your comms. Teams one through five, your mission is search and rescue. Teams six and seven, you’re on security and resource recovery. Teams eight and nine, you’re going to be in the air, keeping an eye out for any additional hostilities from the pirate vessels. Our beacons detected two unregistered vessels which appear to be of Rentral design, but that says nothing about who might be piloting the ships. Initial attempts to apprehend them by Wormhole Security have failed. If you have any questions, direct them to your team leaders. Move out.”
I didn’t have a military comm, so I turned to Kade, hoping he’d know where I was supposed to be. It seemed an obvious assumption that I’d be on a team with my master, but I didn’t know any more than that. But before he could check the instructions, our master’s voice got our attention.
“This way,” he called, waving to us from across the room, and we both hurried after him. He was busy talking to someone via his comm, so I simply fell into step behind him, travelling across the base at a jog. “Transporter bay three,” my master was saying. “Can you meet us there? Yeah, that’d be perfect… Yes. Has Henderson approved that? Fantastic. See you soon.” He endedthe call, glancing around to make sure I was following him. I felt a brief regret for my uncooperative behaviour so far. Military missions came with an inherent level of danger, and I wanted my master to know that he could trust me to follow orders, at the same time as I wanted to be able to trust him and Kade. Belligerence in life threatening situations was what got people killed, and I wasn’t reckless enough to want to throw a spanner in the works under those circumstances.
We stopped by the armoury on the way to the transporter bay. I would have had trouble navigating the base by myself, but I recognised enough of the landmarks from my brief tour. My master told me to wait at the entrance to the armoury while he and Kade went inside to collect their weapons, and I was concerned to realise that I still didn’t have proper clearance to access this part of the base. While this was primarily a search and rescue operation, there were potentially going to be hostile forces around, and heading into that without any kind of weapon was making me nervous.
“”We’re on team three,” my master informed me, when he emerged from the armoury again, two pistols secured to his belt. Kade had two more. “Six more soldiers on our team as well. We’ll meet them at transporter bay three.” He was talking quickly, ducking around a flurry of soldiers heading in every different direction as we tried to get through the crowd. “The medics are going to be dealing with the more serious injuries, so our job will be to help anyone who’s stable enough to be able to walk. We’ll be freeing anyone who’s trapped, then getting them out of the ship and onto transporters to be brought back to the base. Don’t move anyone who can’t walk or who seems seriously disoriented. Just let the medics know where they are and they’ll take care of it. These are short range locator beacons,” he added, handing me a packet of small, dome-shaped objects. “If you can’tfind a medic, stick one of these on the floor beside the injured person and press the top firmly to activate it.”
I wanted to ask questions – the most urgent one being how I was going to communicate with the rest of the team if I didn’t have a military grade comm – but my master wasn’t giving me time to get a word in edgewise.
“Don’t go into any enclosed spaces alone. Parts of the ship might be unstable and we need to make sure all members of our team are accounted for at all times.” We arrived at the transporter bay, and I could see that there was already a team from the ground crew loading crates of medical supplies and rescue equipment into the transporters. One Wasop woman dashed over to my master when she saw him, carrying a metal box.
