Scout's Duty: A Planetary Romance (Scout's Honor Book 3) by Vogel Henry

Author:Vogel, Henry [Vogel, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781938834455
Publisher: Rampant Loon Press
Published: 2015-10-21T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Martin turned to me and spoke in Mordanian. “I’m off to discuss treasure with these lovely gentlemen. You’re in charge until I return.”

Martin’s lines were for the recordings the pirates were bound to be making. In the short time we expected to be with the pirates, we doubted they would record a large enough sampling of Mordanian for their computers to complete a translation. Even so, we saw no reason to take chances.

“Yes, sir, Cap’n,” I replied.

Martin turned back to Quint, switching back to galactic basic. “Lead on, Captain Quint.”

Quint cocked an eyebrow as Laura and the man I assumed was her husband strolled, arm-in-arm, toward the boarding ramp to our ship. “And where do you think you be goin’, Mister Barrages?”

Laura’s husband stiffened and I heard a tremor in his voice when he replied. “I’m going to spend time with my wife, Captain Quint, as you promised I could.”

Other couples trailing along behind Laura and her husband stopped to watch. I saw fear written on the faces of the men and uncertainty on the faces of their wives.

“I know what be promised and what ain’t promised,” Quint growled. “You got a big ol’ room where all of y’all sleep. Git on along back there.”

Martin stepped between Quint and the couple. “I told you, Quint, I take care of my crew. That includes a little privacy for family reunions.” Martin turned to the couple. “You may carry on, Laura.”

Laura started toward the boarding ramp, pulling on her husband’s arm.

Martin looked at the other couples. “That applies to the rest of you, as well! Enjoy yourselves.”

Quint and the other captains scowled but said nothing as the couples streamed past them.

“You made a bunch o’ pleasure girls part o’ your crew, Bane?” Quint asked after the last couple had entered our ship.

“No, I made skilled techs my engineering staff,” Martin replied. “If I hadn’t done that, I’d still be on that lost colony and you wouldn’t be about to discuss the division of Caudill’s treasure.” Martin motioned toward the docking bay doors. “Shall we have that discussion, gentlemen?”

Watching Martin and the captains walk away, Megan said, “Those men are not happy with Martin!”

“Tell me something I don’t know!” I replied.

Typical of Megan, she took it as a challenge.

“Those husbands are all terrified of their captors,” she said. “All of them except Heidi’s husband.”

As Megan’s words sank in, I nodded my head toward our ship. “Let’s go inside and discuss this further.”

Switching from observant to obstinate, Megan asked, “Why? It’s not like any of the pirates can understand us.”

“Is ‘because I asked politely’ sufficient?”

“Oh, wait!” she said, comprehension dawning. “It’s because of those ‘recording’ things you’ve told us about, right?”

A few pirates looked up at Megan’s words. Well, at one of her words. There is no Mordanian word for ‘recording,’ so we’d simply used the gal base word. Hearing a familiar word from people who aren’t supposed to speak his language might make a pirate suspicious.

I looked at the men around us

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