The Universal Theft (Stellar Outlaw Book 6) by Eric Warren

Author:Eric Warren [Warren, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Empyrean Press Books
Published: 2022-02-12T16:00:00+00:00

21

NOT A SMART PLAN

Ever since they’d left the Horus system, Dev had a growing sense of unease deep within his gut. It wasn’t because they were going after Grismatch or that they were leaving all those escape pods behind to fend for their own. It was because he could tell there was a tension on the ship from the Coalition crew who didn’t agree with Traxia’s decision but hadn’t quite built up the courage to say anything yet. But he could tell, when he passed them in the corridors, or entered one of the bunk rooms they would fall silent, their gazes going elsewhere, as if they’d never been talking in the first place.

Despite what they’d said when they’d first come on board, he wasn’t convinced there wasn’t a cold mutiny underway. After all, had the situation been reversed and his crew had been on a Coalition ship, under the command of a Coalition captain following orders, he might have tried to plan a mutiny too. The Coalition officers outnumbered the Mettle’s crew five-to-one. Even with Three’s impressive speed and strength, it was unlikely they could disable all the Coalition crewmembers if they decided to turn against Traxia.

But what were they going to do? Reports had already begun coming in from all over the Coalition, begging for help as outposts and planets were under siege from the Claxian ships. Zenfor had been right; they were attempting to spread the spores to other planets; other species, and there was no telling how successful they would be. She hadn’t said anything about humans or any other species being immune, but in her notes she mentioned other humans and a Yax-Inax working with her. Either they were careful and hadn’t risked contamination, or they couldn’t be contaminated. Either way, Zenfor had little definitive to say on the subject.

Dev made his way down the deck three corridor, planning to head back to the bridge. They’d been chasing Grismatch’s fleet for hours, and thanks to a little help from Dessa, had managed to triangulate his heading and speed, which would mean it shouldn’t be long before they caught up with him.

As he was thinking about just what they would do when they finally reached him, he happened to look up and see Tomasin disappear into one of the rooms ahead. But it wasn’t the room she’d been assigned to. Dev made a note of the door and climbed down to deck four instead of heading back to the bridge. It took some looking around, but he finally found who he was looking for lurking around back near the computer core.

“Three,” he said.

Her avatar turned, glowing bright blue. She had made a hard connection to the ship. “Dev.”

He nodded to the connection. “Doing some reading?”

“You could say that,” she replied, severing the connection. The tube retracted back under the panel on her arm. “What can I do for you?”

Dev decided now might not be the best time to broach the subject; but considering they might all be dead in a few hours, he figured why not.

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