Maverick Read online

  As conversations with his mother went, this one was fairly typical except for the part about taking good care of Althea. That he would do his best to ensure Althea’s safety went without saying. If she’d said give her my love, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But after holding Al in his arms—and purring—he couldn’t help but wonder…

  Was this another example of a mother’s intuition? Or was it simply a figure of speech?

  “I have absolutely no idea,” he muttered as he resumed his study of comsystem schematics, which were so much easier to comprehend.

  * * *

  Althea had spent many sleepless nights in the Baradan jungle before she realized what she’d been missing. The ever-present vibration of stardrive engines had lulled her to sleep her entire life. The nighttime calls of birds and other wildlife were too startling and random to qualify as white noise, and it was a given she’d never experienced a thunderstorm in space.

  She’d adjusted over time, but now she had the opposite problem, although she suspected emotional upheaval was responsible for keeping her awake. She certainly had plenty to think about. On top of having the most succulently bitable neck in the galaxy, Larry had been purring!

  Thankfully, he’d stopped before she’d had time to react.

  At least, she thought he had. She wasn’t completely sure. She’d been doing enough salivating to start with. A little more purring and she would have—

  Nope. Not going there. So not going there.

  Damn, this is going to be a long trip. What on earth was I thinking to blithely agree to this foolishness?

  The answer to her question wasn’t long in coming.

  You missed him, that’s what.

  Recording that message to her parents made her realize just how much she missed everyone, Larry included. She’d always heard you can’t go home again, but at the moment, she would’ve jumped at the opportunity.

  Truth be told, she’d been on the verge of going home even before Larry arrived. Those years in the jungle had matured her, and living in such a peaceful environment had allowed her mind to settle enough for her to come to grips with her powers. Or so she hoped. The only way to be sure was to go to another planet and see what happened. Palorka followed by Rhylos certainly qualified as trial by fire. A visit to Earth might have been better. That planet’s wounds were old, and many had healed, although the diversity of intelligent species living there would undoubtedly constitute an assault to her senses. She heard some species louder than others, and unfortunately, humans were among the worst.

  Her own mother was primarily human, and though her moods were often subtle, they were easily read. Reading Larry’s Terran mother hadn’t been difficult—or necessary—because Jack usually said exactly what she was thinking. She was unique in that respect.

  And a number of others.

  Larry was like her in many ways. He was intelligent and street-smart; pulling the wool over his eyes was tough. Where they differed was in volatility. Jack’s emotions were all over the place, whereas Larry had inherited his father’s more reserved temperament. If Larry had ever been truly angry, she hadn’t been around to see it. Nor was he what anyone would call dashing and heroic. Nevertheless, he was honest, dependable, and practical, and Althea was sensible enough to recognize the value of those traits.

  Hopefully Celeste did too.

  “The beautiful, blond, undeserving b—”

  Althea clapped a hand over her mouth. She was actually growling! Granted, she was alone in her quarters, but she didn’t even want to think about what Larry’s girl Friday would have to say about that if she happened to be listening. She might even pass such a juicy tidbit along to Larry or, may the gods help her, Brak.

  The funny thing was she actually liked Brak. Larry probably did too, or he wouldn’t have hired him as his navigator. She’d been a little surprised to hear that Larry’s brothers Moe and Curly had opted out of sharing the Stooge with Larry, but perhaps they’d felt the need to distance themselves from their families just as she had. Larry obviously hadn’t expected them to go out on their own, or he would’ve given his ship a different name.

  Had he been disappointed by their decision? Given Larry’s even temper, it was difficult to tell, but he must’ve been a little let down. Although after a few years, no doubt he’d come to terms with the current arrangement. Perhaps he even preferred it.

  She chuckled to herself, thinking there were now three crewmembers on board. Maybe the name was appropriate after all.

  Yawning, she turned over in her bed, which was the most comfortable thing she’d slept on in years. Larry really had done a nice job on her quarters. She’d never have thought of him as the type to bother with things like matching curtains and comforters. Then again, Brak might have been the actual decorator.

  Nah. Too stereotypical, especially for a giant bug—unless his quarters were similarly decorated. She doubted she would ever have any reason to check out the decor of his room for herself. Nor did she want to.

  Unless she were to get really bored, which was a distinct possibility. At least in the jungle, she had something to do; she hadn’t come anywhere close to drawing every plant in the jungle, nor had she ever tired of drawing the animals, especially the incredible birds. Sure, she could sketch from memory, but she preferred live subjects, and she’d always considered drawing pictures of pictures to be rather pointless. During the course of their tour, Larry had pointed out exercise equipment and entertainment modules, but after a while, even those things would pall. Cooking was a possibility. That is, once they’d worked their way through that massive quantity of hamburgers and found the other pantry staples.

  Geez. I never realized I was so damn boring.

  Maybe it was because there weren’t many people on the ship. With four adults and five litters of triplets, life aboard the Jolly Roger had never been dull. Here, with Brak being the only one she could read, as long as he wasn’t in the room, her mind and her emotions were entirely her own.

  Yeah. Boring.

  Never in all her born days would she have thought she would feel that way.

  She closed her eyes one more time.

  What we need is a good, rousing adventure.

  Or a sizzling romance, which wasn’t likely when one of her shipmates was a gay Scorillian and the other was already smitten with a blond Terran bombshell.

  Maybe someone on Palorka would have need of her talents. Her mother had become something of an arbitrator between feuding animals. Perhaps she could hire herself out as a lie detector or a ditchdigger, neither of which held much interest for her.

  She was still contemplating other possible careers when she finally fell asleep.

  * * *

  Hours later, a dream woke her. She couldn’t recall ever having a dream so vivid before—not the colors or the sounds so much as the searing emotions. Someone was in trouble or in danger. She could feel their pain, their fear, their hopelessness. But were they animals or some higher life-form? And where were they? On a passing planet? If so, how had their consciousness reached out to her across the vastness of space? And how far had those emotions traveled to contact her? Five light-years? Twenty?

  Solving such a mystery would be nearly impossible. They couldn’t very well stop on every world within a five-light-year radius.

  No. That’s two-dimensional thinking, Al.

  In space, distance from any given point could be measured in every direction, creating a sphere rather than a disk. A sphere that size would take centuries to explore. She needed a better clue. Unless, of course, her dream was only a dream.

  Perhaps it was a vision of the future. Zetithians were known to have prescient visions from time to time. To the best of her knowledge, she’d never had one. Was this the first?

  If so, she needed more information.

  A lot more.

  Chapter 7 />
  “We picked up a distress call from a buddy of mine,” Larry announced when Althea arrived on the bridge the next morning. “Keplok doesn’t have much of a ship, so I’m not surprised he’s having trouble.”

  “Are you picking him up or helping him with repairs?” Could this have had anything to do with her dream? Or was it something else entirely?

  “Probably picking him up. He had to make an emergency landing on some planet in a nearby system. Not one I’m familiar with, and neither is he. The best he’s been able to tell, it’s uninhabited, but apparently it does have a few plants and a breathable atmosphere. Not much fresh water, though.” He frowned. “Even so, I have to wonder why it hasn’t been colonized.”

  “Might have contaminated water and poisonous plants.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe so. We’ve seen stranger stuff.”

  “You mean like monsters and virulent viruses?” She was laughing when she suggested this, mainly because throughout the known galaxy, the vast majority of life-forms were relatively benign. They weren’t out to steal someone else’s planet or suck the life out of any unsuspecting explorers. Granted, there were plenty of predators and criminals on any given world, but actual monsters? Not many.

  Although this might be the place to find them.

  “Yeah, right,” he said, chuckling along with her. He nodded toward his navigator. “Brak is checking the charts, but he hasn’t found anything yet.”

  If nothing else, another side trip would assuage the boredom factor.

  Oops…

  That was twice she’d thought about being bored, which had been a big no-no while growing up aboard the Jolly Roger. Jack was a tad superstitious, and she was convinced that even thinking about the B word would result in utter chaos. As luck would have it, there’d been enough anecdotal evidence to support her beliefs, causing them to rub off on every person aboard her vessel.

  “What’s the damage to the ship?”

  “Pretty bad, apparently. He was having engine trouble, and the landing wasn’t what you’d call soft. Good thing we came this way. Otherwise, no telling how long they’d have been stranded there.”

  “He’s not alone?”

  “Um, no. He has a…friend. They’re a little…different.” Judging from Larry’s hesitant speech and the way he was avoiding eye contact, Keplok and this friend of his might not be very nice. “Guess I might as well spit it out,” he said with a sigh. “They’re Statzeelians.”

  “Oh great.” Even given that the women of Statzeel were working to breed the belligerence out of their males, any Statzeelian men Althea had ever met still qualified as pompous assholes. Plus, they tended to wear tight pants with no crotch in them and walk around with their women on a leash. Although this was supposedly the women’s way of being on hand to control their unruly mates, it still looked like slavery.

  Grimacing, Larry massaged his temple as though attempting to relieve a headache. “He’s not exactly a buddy of mine either. More like my half brother.”

  Althea’s jaw dropped. Then she remembered. “The breeding program?”

  He nodded. “The really secret breeding program. You remember those tall, blue-eyed warrior women we met up with on Barada Seven when we were there the first time?”

  “How could I possibly forget them?” Granted, she’d only been about four years old, but the two stunningly beautiful Statzeelian women had made a big impression on everyone. “You’re saying this guy is the offspring of one of their sisterhood and your father?”

  “Yeah. He’s one of the original crossbreeds, which would make him a year or two older than me. The other Zetithian bloodlines were added later.”

  Althea knew that story as well. Unbeknownst to her husband, Jack had provided the Statzeelian women with some of Cat’s semen after locating her sister on Statzeel in the hope that his bloodline might speed up their breeding program. When the truth finally came out a few years later, Manx and Althea’s father had also donated. “Damn. As much trouble as they went through to breed those kids, I’m surprised he was even allowed to leave the planet. You don’t suppose he escaped, do you?”

  “No idea.” Larry shrugged. “He was a little vague about what they were doing on a starship, so you might be right.”

  “And the friend?”

  “Um, Dartula would be a half sister of yours.”

  “I have a sister?” Althea squealed. “Seriously?”

  “On your father’s side. I’m guessing she’s maybe twenty-two or so.”

  “This gets weirder by the second. Are they mates?”

  Larry shrugged. “Dartula wasn’t chained to Keplok when I fixed their comsystem. Maybe they’ve gotten away from that collar and leash crap, but who knows?”

  “You never told anyone about them?”

  “Yeah. That’s the rub. They didn’t want anyone to know where they were—swore me to secrecy, in fact—although I’m not sure who they think I would’ve told.” His frown forced his eyebrows into a nearly vertical slant. “They’d landed on Pelos Ten after their comsystem went haywire, and the guy they took it to didn’t have the parts, so he called me. Turns out they should’ve had the engine overhauled while they were at it. Anyway, I’m still not sure they knew who I was before I showed up, but I had them pegged as soon as I saw them. They’re obviously Zetithian, but they don’t look exactly like us. Their noses are sort of flat, and they have six fingers like the Statzeelians—and probably six toes, although I didn’t get a look at their bare feet. Oh, and they have those glowing blue eyes like the women of the sisterhood.”

  Larry’s father also had a blue glow to his pupils, but he hadn’t been born that way. The color was the result of being healed by a female Zerkan. His mother had been bonded to Cat by a Zerkan male, giving her pupils a reddish tint.

  “Statzeelians…” Althea was still having trouble believing she had a sister, much less that she was currently stranded on a nearby planet. “They’re a long damn way from home. Wonder what they’re doing out this far. Heading for Palorka?”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Larry replied. “Although comparing where they were a month ago to where they are now, they must have been on a similar course. But like I said, I don’t have the first clue as to what they’re up to.”

  “You make it sound so…sinister.”

  “Not sinister exactly. ‘Covert’ might be a better word.”

  “Like some sort of secret mission?” She nodded slowly. “Yeah, that works, especially in light of the dream I had a while ago, although the two may be completely unrelated.”

  His left eyebrow rose slightly. “Was it a dream or a vision?”

  “It might have been a vision,” she admitted. “All I know is that someone or something was in trouble and really scared.”

  “On Palorka?”

  “No clue. I was picking up emotions, which would normally suggest someone nearby. But if it was a vision…”

  Larry nodded. “The source of those emotions could be anywhere.”

  “Exactly. And if it was a vision, all we have to do is go with the flow and see where it takes us. If not, I might have been picking up the emotions of—what did you say their names were?”

  “Dartula and Keplok.”

  “Dartula,” Althea repeated. “If she’s my half sister, I might be more attuned to her and can reach her across greater distances.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Larry said. “I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

  “Wherever there is.”

  “I have located and identified the planet,” Brak reported from his station. “It was never named, only having been given the alphanumeric designation of JR-51.”

  “Does the JR stand for anything in particular?” Althea asked.

  “Jerusalem,” Brak replied. “As in a holy site fought over by several groups claiming it.”

  That
didn’t sound good. “So anyone landing there is…”

  Brak’s response confirmed Althea’s fears. “Probably committing a felony on some world or other.”

  “Which means we need to get there and get there fast.” Larry skidded over to the pilot’s station and started tapping on the console.

  “Hold on a sec.” Althea stepped up behind him, doing her best to ignore the way he’d flipped his hair back before he began adjusting the ship’s controls. “How could people on several different worlds claim the same planet as a sacred place?”

  “Who knows?” he said over his shoulder. “Maybe they can see it in the night sky at a special time of year and it took them thousands of years to finally get to it, only to discover that someone else had already staked a claim. You never know how these things get started. Most of the people fighting over disputed territories forgot the real reason ages ago.”

  A slight increase in engine vibration made Althea place a hand on the back of the pilot’s seat to brace herself for acceleration, but the only evidence of their increasing velocity was the lengthening light trails on nearby stars.

  Larry patted the console. “Way to go, Stooge. Sure is nice to have the power when you need it.” Turning his head, he glanced up at Althea with wink and a truly devilish grin. “Still gives me a thrill.”

  If she hadn’t been staring at his neck, she’d have assumed her mouth was watering due to the exhilaration of incredible speed. After a quick swallow, she said, “Same here.” Taking advantage of his close proximity, she allowed herself a deeper-than-normal inhalation.

  Mother of the gods, he smells good.

  No soap or cologne of any kind was responsible for her reaction. Only him and his own unique essence. Another deep breath followed, flooding her senses with his intoxicating scent and quadrupling the need to sink her teeth into him. She closed her eyes and leaned closer.

  “You okay, Al?”

  Her eyes flew open. Registering his concerned expression, she raised a hand in protest. “I’m okay. Really.”