Captain Navarre, page 17
That got a smile on her face.
“Maybe I will,” Mila replied with her own leer.
Javier doubted it would be anything more than a roll in the hay. Women suddenly becoming besotted and seeing the error of their ways after a good romp was a male power fantasy that only happened in books. Mila might be more involved and acrobatic than some women, but it would be raw sex.
Not life changing.
He nodded as a rain check and turned to Zhenya, assuming that she’d be sizing him up as tonight’s dessert.
Beautiful in that classical way that was symmetry. Pretty blue eyes. Cute nose. And big tits. Hips meant to be grabbed while dancing. Or dancing.
Not as sleek and athletic as Hajna, but probably not into tango, either.
She studied him from close enough that he could have leaned in and stolen a kiss. If he wanted to risk being bitten.
Mila, at least, looked to have some passion hidden under her cool exterior.
Zhenya, from here, looked more like a woman he’d once heard described as the queen of ice and darkness.
Deadly cold, all the way down.
And Javier knew WAY better than to think that he had a magical penis capable of melting her.
Be more worried his dick would freeze solid and break off.
Still, amazingly beautiful. But then, so were some of the classic statues done by Hellenic sculptors eight thousand years ago. They were probably warmer, too.
“So you want to make a statement at Surayya?” he asked, mostly to see what story her eyes told. “What’s the most valuable target we could get away with?”
Also a trap, but one for her foot to step into, rather than him and his dick.
Dream too big and you might not be able to pull it off. Dream too small and you might relegate yourself down a league in front of someone supposedly playing elite ball.
Her eyes got calculating.
“How do you feel about art?” she countered.
He shrugged.
“Portable value, if done correctly,” he replied. “Bethany is my expert when it comes to that sort of thing.”
He nodded down to his librarian, watching Zhenya turn. Bethany looked up from her conversation with the Witch Doctor and got his nod, but no words followed either direction.
“I’ve noticed that you keep a number of women around you, Navarre,” Zhenya said when she turned back. “A harem, perhaps?”
“Eye candy,” he lied breezily. “All of them are pretty smart, but having babes easy on the eyes makes it all the better. I can do that when I’m in charge.”
He specifically didn’t draw their attention to Hadiiye. Best if they thought of his women as pretty, instead of measuring them on a scale of deadly competence like Javier did. That would give away too much of the game.
At least today.
Still, both Zhenya and Mila nodded. Like they’d just lowered him a whole peg in their overall estimation.
Anything to confuse and distract them.
High stakes poker.
Deadly pots.
“There’s a museum on Surayya,” Kovalev took up her narrative a moment later. “On the outskirts of the capital, not that the city is all that impressive. But there’s money. Quite a lot of it, from a few families that managed to build a narrow social pyramid with themselves at the peak.”
She paused there, waiting for him to nod.
He did. Probably a company town, from the implications. One family who owned the main factory. And had the money to own the bank. And the bankers. And the politicians. And anybody else important.
Laws would favor them to the exclusion of the everyday people. Rather like Valadris, as it existed today.
Exactly the sort of place a Robin Hood gambit like his would want to nail if he was all about public relations.
“Assholes?” he asked, mostly to see her opinion of the family.
“First water,” she said, comparing them to the finest diamonds.
Javier hated them already.
Almost as much as he hated Kovalev and her entire culture.
Almost.
Two birds, one stone?
Or rather, two sets of assholes, one terrible warlord?
He’d done crazier things in his time.
“How portable is their wealth?” Navarre-the-killer asked. “We talking paintings easily pulled off walls, or statuary that might break if not handled with infinite delicacy before the reward?”
Again, double entendres. Lots of things worked better if you took time and patience, instead of just bulling ahead. The rewards were much better.
“Some on walls,” she nodded. “Some objects that could be taken out of cabinets and put into carriers one person could haul. Jewelry and the like, some of it ancient.”
The way she said the word suggested handmade in the times before industry, back on Earth itself. Today, you could program one of Suvi’s dumber cousins to make something with that same, infinite patience, then have ten thousand copies kicked out, each identical.
In an era of Sentient manufacturing precision, human artisans became valuable for the ability to lord it over your friends that you had artists on staff.
The Medicis, in ancient Italy during the Renaissance, for example.
“Hard to fence later?” he asked.
In the old days, you might melt down precious metals for specie value. Separate stones to sell.
Today, those Sentient factories could spin the specie back up. Make new stones perfectly from raw materials.
The artist was the value. Especially when you could mine gold and other inert metals from asteroid fields.
“We have connections,” Kovalev purred. “Folks who might even dislike Surayyan society enough to enjoy the deal.”
He nodded. Stacia was close and filming, but he doubted that she’d caught that hint. Maybe Suvi could wash it out of the ambient sound later.
More conversation ended, however, when somebody delivered him what looked like a kilogram of prime rib on a hubcap.
Fattening him up for the slaughter?
Part 8
Javier noted that the pirate scum and villainy at the lower tables had all eaten then bailed, heading off to whatever private parties and crap they did before leaving on a raid in the morning.
Personally, he’d have gone for a quieter evening of reading. Maybe a decaf tea with a little tequila in it and a good book.
But he was also a decade or two older than a lot of those yahoos. Older than even Mila, if he was judging wrinkles and sprouts of gray hair correctly where they peeked out from that turban.
He’d learned the value of not pushing to collapse and exhaustion, because he wasn’t young enough to get up in the morning wearing the same uniform as last night to stumble to work, maybe still wearing the bracelet the club put on him.
Food was gone. First dessert as well. Nothing exotic. A kind of bread pudding lighter on rum than he made them, but still tasty.
The top table was still full. That was it.
“If we’re going to fly off to some target in twelve hours or so, I need to talk to my people in orbit,” Javier announced in a conversational voice. “Clear everything with them so they don’t panic at you flying up to meet them without me aboard. Twitchy, ya know.”
“Come with me,” Zhenya said, climbing up off the bench.
That was a general signal, as the others stood as well.
Zhenya had heels that put her at his height. He figured that might be another tell, if she had physicality issues to deal with. Reminded him of the tall killer in his shadow, until Djamila had gotten over herself for and at Shangdu.
“Mila, you get everything set for the morning,” Zhenya continued. “We’ll launch an hour after dawn.”
Javier watched the shorter, heavier woman nod and begin acting like a proper First Officer. Something he’d seen, but never really accomplished. Witch Doctor, Afia, and Bethany went with her. As did Stacia and Suvi.
Zhenya started walking. He fell in behind her, far enough back to watch her ass move. It was a great ass.
A glance back confirmed that Hadiiye was trailing in deadly silence.
As she did.
Zhenya got to a chamber and opened it before she realized that he wasn’t alone.
“Not you,” she said, looking up at the looming Hadiiye.
“Where he goes, I go,” the giant growled down to the lowly folks around her.
Zhenya had a moment of pure, unbridled rage flash across her eyes as Javier watched, then got control of it.
Control freak. He added it to the list of buttons to push later.
“Oh?” Zhenya sneered. “Did you want to join us?”
Lots of ways to answer that and stay in character as a bodyguard.
Javier doubted that the pirate was expecting Hadiiye’s dismissive laugh.
“I wouldn’t fuck him with your dick, lady,” Hadiiye replied.
Dead honest, too. They’d mostly gotten over themselves, but there were still hard lines in their relationship.
Zhenya looked at him. Javier shrugged.
“Hired the best,” he offered. “Shouldn’t really argue with her expertise on a subject.”
“Fine,” Zhenya snapped, turning and stepping through the door.
Her suite, obviously.
Nice, too.
Better furniture in a front room that felt like a salon, with a small office desk in one corner. A few paintings on the wall that had bright colors. He wasn’t enough art critic to judge past that.
Open door to a hallway. Probably a couple more offices or bedrooms, plus a common bath, like he had, with a main sleeping chamber at the back. Again, like his a few corridors away, but more lived in.
Zhenya moved to the desk while Hadiiye took a spot close to the front door that happened to have her facing directly down the corridor, in case an ambush was waiting.
Javier had known dumber people in his time.
He followed Zhenya at a respectful distance. Came to rest as she pulled out a comm and handed it to him.
“Your ship is on channel eleven,” she said, professional again, instead of angry.
Not as much fun as the flirty woman she’d been at dinner. Hopefully, he’d find a way to dial that back in later.
Shame to come all this way and screw it up at this stage. He even had a plan.
The pirate babe watched him as he played with the gadget.
“Excalibur, this is Navarre,” he said when he got there.
“Go ahead, Captain,” Suvi replied instantly in her excited, young Yeoman voice.
Probably waking Zakhar and a few others up to listen in. Piet should have had bridge duty, if he had the time right in his head.
“Roust that lazy bum Sokolov and get him on the line,” Navarre groused now.
“Stand by.”
Javier stood by.
“This is Sokolov,” Zakhar answered a moment later.
They didn’t bother with code words on this run, because he had the Suvi Probe occasionally chatting with herself on the ship, once she’d confirmed that the locals had no equipment to detect her signal.
How many pirate organizations really understood signals encryption standards, anyway?
“An hour after sunrise, this whole mob is taking off,” Navarre explained grandly. “We’re going with them and headed to a place called Surayya, where you’ll sit in orbit and keep the ticks off our backs.”
“Very good, sir,” Zakhar replied in a neutral voice, all characters in a Kabuki at this point. “And where will you be?”
“Flying aboard the Second-in-Command’s assault ship,” Navarre said. “Taking most of my crew, but you’ll need to put Smith on the ground to transport Burakgazi and Durbin up to you at local dawn.”
“Understood, sir,” Zakhar said. “Are there other orders?”
“Nothing at present,” Navarre announced. “Be ready to go tomorrow.”
Javier cut the line and handed the device back to Kovalev with a warm smile. She took it and put it on the desk, then gave Hadiiye a hard once-over like a side of frozen meat.
Didn’t want to have an audience, did we? Pity.
Javier had never suffered that sort of performance anxiety. A few good drunken orgies along the way and you realized that everyone else was just as nervous.
He took a slow, measured step towards Kovalev. Got her attention centered back on him, without getting close enough to touch.
She could still punch him if she wanted. Not even the first woman in the room to do that.
Kovalev let her attention be distracted. Javier took a moment to ogle her like he had Vinogradov at dinner.
One should always appreciate a beautiful woman who wanted to be noticed.
And Zhenya Kovalev was beautiful, whatever else she might also be.
He waited. She was in command around here, so she should be issuing orders. Or something.
Plus, woman, so she should be the one asking. Or not.
He was just a visitor. A Johnny-come-lately with a big warship and a bigger reputation.
As it were.
Kovalev turned back to Hadiiye.
“She follows you everywhere?” the woman asked.
“And never talks afterwards,” he nodded, just to see if they’d hit a hard stop for her.
Interesting, but you never knew where somebody’s lines were until you hit them.
Frequently, at full speed.
Kovalev turned back to him.
“Are you as good as you present?” she asked, voice loosening up some finally.
“Depends on what you have in mind,” he countered. “I can stay. I can go back to my quarters. Your call.”
Probably a novel experience for a woman like that. She’d come up through the ranks, from what small talk he’d gotten at dinner. Been a better pilot, a better killer, a better pirate than any of the rest, until folks had to give way.
He liked that in a woman. Pity they had to meet like this.
Javier held out a hand. She took it after a moment. Probably never been treated like a lady, either.
Either just one of the boys, or it would turn into more power games naked. Those were far more common than most people realized.
Just another form of social combat.
He took a half step, finally entering her space.
Something jarred loose, because she took the other half step and was touching him, chest to chest.
“And after this raid?” Kovalev asked.
“Once we’re done at Surayya, I’m back to Valadris, then on to my next mission,” he said. “Unless I get an invitation to return to Syntha at some future date.”
He left that dangling. Open-ended, like they might coordinate vacations occasionally. Peers, when he doubted that she had any men under her smart enough to let her be in charge without thinking with their dicks.
Like most of the men he knew. Occasionally including himself.
At least he had a cast of smart women around him that didn’t have to genuflect before his glory.
Kovalev considered it for a long moment. Then she nodded at him. Added a challenging smile.
“Okay, hotshot,” she said. “Let’s see what you got.”
He could almost hear Djamila’s eyeroll from here, but this was all part of the mission.
Even the beautiful women.
Surayya
Part 1
Zakhar sat on his command throne and pondered the planet in the distance. Neu Berne had built the space for the captain at the center of a ring of stations facing in, with a second ring around the outside of the large, round chamber facing the walls.
He was elevated above, on a gimbal that let him spin to face any of his Centurions as he needed. Silly design, but he’d only stolen the ship, not redesigned it to be more like he’d prefer.
He’d make do.
“Piet, Suvi, talk to me,” he announced, looking down on his Pilot and First Officer.
“Surayya was originally terraformed in the third wave,” Piet replied after a glance down to where Suvi appeared on a small screen in front of him, like she did Zakhar. “Like a lot of those worlds, ignored for several centuries while things got settled, then forgotten because of some of the wars and other issues in those days. Didn’t have a large, permanent human settlement until starting around three hundred years ago. Small even today by most standards, but strongly centralized around a single city, with rings of farms and ranches ranging outwards from that.”
“Trade?” Zakhar asked.
“Largely export of raw goods, Captain,” Suvi replied. “The economy is still too small to support itself industrially, but slowly improving and industrializing as a small number of factories are added every few years for various goods. All of them appear to be owned by a single family unit. A clan, I think you would classify them, with marriages that don’t fall far outside of a narrow group. Like European aristocracy in the early Industrial Age on Earth.”
“Defenses we’ve been able to detect?” Zakhar pressed.
That was all he really cared about. Javier had only given him the basics. Afia and Bethany, watching from the outer ring, hadn’t been able to add much.
Fortunately, his own paranoia was sufficient to have folks research things like that and keep sailing directions as up to date as possible.
“Two squadrons of one-man fighter ships that appear to have been an early generation design from the Great War,” Piet replied. “Total of twenty-six, but I doubt that they can get all of them flying these days. If we see twenty, I’d be surprised. Still, purpose-built craft, rather than junkyard models welded together, so probably worth two to three times their weight in pirates. Nothing at all that is a risk to us.”
“I presume Javier still expects us to hover in place over the city while they hit it,” Zakhar said. “Not go hunting. Still, keep all transponders and identification signals off until we leave the system permanently, Suvi. They might recognize us, but I don’t ever plan to fly this way again.”
“Continuing, Captain,” she said.
“Mary-Elizabeth, how good are the horde?”
His Gunner was a lot of things. A good judge of pirates was among them.
“They got numbers,” she replied with a sarcastic drawl. “That’s always good for something. Maybe a handful of them actually know more than flying and shooting. Most would wash out of piloting school with anybody who wasn’t desperate.”
