Wreckers: A Denver Boyd Novel by George Ellis (ebook reader ink .TXT) 📕

“Such as?”

Batista threw another look at Edgar, but she had no choice except to answer. “He was the best scout I ever saw.”

Scout was a nice word for thief. Often, killer. On a ship like the Rox, a scout’s job would be to throw on the space suit and sneak onto enemy vessels in close proximity. And there was only one real reason to do that: to board the other ship or sabotage it. Calling that person a “scout” was suggesting their main job was reconnaissance, which it usually wasn’t. When we were teenagers, Avery and I snuck off our dad’s ship plenty of times to cause mischief. I was never fully confident floating in the vastness of space, nothing between me and the vacuum besides a few layers of nylon and aluminized kevlar, with nothing to guide myself but dinky little pressure packs. Avery was fearless. Because of that, he was also faster and more willing to take risks. He used to call it floating the line, but I often felt he crossed over the line in hopes he might not make it back.

As a scout on the Rox, he lived on the other side of the line.

“He’s good, but I’ve seen better,” Edgar interjected.

“I don’t remember asking your opinion,” Batista snarled. “And I never said you hadn’t seen better. I said he was the best I’d seen, which still makes him pretty damn good. Got it?”

Edgar put up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender.

“How do you know all this?” I asked her.

“He finds ways to leave me messages,” she replied. She didn’t offer any more detail. Fine. We’d return to that later, I decided.

“And one of those messages was about Jasper?”

“The Rox will be there in six days. They’re going to destroy the federation ship guarding the station, and then they’re going to destroy Jasper itself.”

That was a ruthless move, even for the Rox. I had no love for the Believers, but there were kids on that station. Perhaps reading my mind, Batista nodded.

“He didn’t tell me why,” she said. “He just said to get there so I could help him stop it.”

“Why not just tip off the feds?”

“I tried that. Didn’t work. So then your brother told me to get your help.”

My help? What was I supposed to do? Sure, now I was involved thanks to Desmond, but my brother couldn’t have predicted that…I didn’t think.

Edgar moved back to the table, licking the chocolate from the candy bar off his fingers. “I couldn’t care less about Jasper or the people on it.”

“Touching,” Batista said.

“They’re all loons and you both know it. Verse is better without them. I’d blast them to pieces myself if it wasn’t so much trouble,” he shrugged. “Now the Rox? That ship’s actually worth a damn. Especially now.”

“Setting aside the fact you just placed more value on a band of soulless mercenaries than thousands of innocent people,” Batista growled, “What’s so special about the Rox right now?”

Edgar smiled, showing the nougat and caramel stuck in his crooked teeth. He had no intention of fully answering the question, but he knew he’d piqued our interest.

“Let’s just say in a few months, the rest of us will be struggling to keep up with them,” he teased. “Unless Desmond captures it first.”

I wanted to press him, but there was no point. The big man wasn’t going to spill. Not willingly, anyway. Batista came to the same conclusion and decided to set aside her curiosity for the time being.

“Bottom line. We help Desmond, and the Rox doesn’t destroy Jasper?” she asked.

Edgar spread his hands and looked down his nose at Batista. “Probably. It’ll distract them at least. You a Believer?”

“No.”

“Then why do you care about Jasper?”

“Preventing mass murder isn’t reason enough?”

Edgar shook his head. “I’m gonna go with no.”

Part of me suspected the same thing: Batista had some other motive here. Stopping the Rox was noble and all, but there was a missing piece. They’d already described the kind of person my brother was these days, so his reasons might not be so pure, either.

“Maybe they’re after what’s on the Rox, too,” I offered.

Batista looked at me with a mix of surprise and anger. But I saw past that and recognized I’d hit pay dirt. I was right.

“Tell me what it is,” I demanded of her. Or Edgar. Or even Pirate, who had just sauntered into the room and was mewing near the fridge, hoping for a second dinner.

“Maybe…” Batista admitted, tentatively. “Maybe for Avery. He hasn’t told me what’s on board, though. It must be important because he usually doesn’t hide things from me.”

Edgar whistled. “You do know you’re breaking the captain’s heart, one lie at a time, don’t ya? And you’re already nailing his brother. It’s sad –”

Before Edgar could finish his sarcastic remark, I saw a black blur cross in front of my face. It was Batista’s boot. Somehow she’d flashed her leg out and kicked Edgar right in the jaw with a vicious roundhouse (from a seated position). Her steel-toed boot connected flush with a loud crack that sent Pirate screeching out of the room.

It merely stunned Edgar. For a nanosecond. He flinched and shook it off at the same time, then caught her leg as it recoiled. With a flick of his wrist, he yanked Batista out of her chair and onto the floor. She rolled with the momentum and got her leg free from Edgar’s grasp. Suddenly they were both crouched, facing each other. They began to circle.

This all happened before I could put down my coffee.

“We don’t need this right now,” I said, trying to sound authoritative. They both ignored me. It was a sight that defied logic: a hulking beast of a man squaring off with a slender woman maybe a third his weight. He wasn’t taking her lightly, though. The lightning quick kick must have instilled a bit of respect.

“I was wondering how long it’d be before we tango’d,” Batista hissed.

Edgar blinked. He had no idea