Queen of Denial Read online

  Queen of Denial

  by

  Selina Rosen

  Table of Contents

  Queen of Denial

  By Selina Rosen

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Queen of Denial: Copyright ©1999 Selina Rosen. First Edition: May 1999 Meisha Merlin books

  A Baen Ebook

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  Cover art by Charles Keegan

  ISBN 10: 1-8920-6506-1

  ISBN 13: 978-1-8920-6506-3

  First ebook, March 2008

  Electronic version by WebWrights

  www.webwrights.com

  Chapter 1

  Zarco looked out into black, endless space and sighed. "It's like a dream, I don't dare believe and yet I must. Finally, after all this time . . . I had given up hope. I had begun to believe what everyone had been saying for years—that she was dead, and I would never see her again. Ironic that as I gave up praying for her safe return we should find her, and now all my previously unheard prayers are finally being answered. At last I shall be reunited with my great love. My Taralin will once again embrace me . . ."

  "Sire, please remember. Taralin has been at the mercy of our enemies for the last five years." Fitz's voice lacked the younger man's idealistic enthusiasm. "Who knows what horrors she's been forced to endure. It may be a while before she's her old self."

  "She is alive, Fitz. I had given her up for dead, and she's alive. So leave your pessimism behind. Whatever has happened is in the past now. Whatever damage has been done, we will fix. Our love will put things right. I have tried hard not to think of what she may have been going through. But on those endless, tortured nights when I could not sleep I thought of every possibility, every perverted thing they might have done to her, and I don't care, Fitz. If they've used her body, I want her back. If they've broken and twisted her body, I want her back. If they have marred her beauty beyond repair, I still want her back. This is my wife we're talking about, and I shouldn't have to remind you . . ." Zarco hissed through clenched teeth, ". . . your Queen."

  "My King, I was in no way suggesting that we should discard the Queen." He smiled apologetically and added with a chuckle, "Let's not forget that I have known her since she was an infant. I just don't want to see you . . . well . . . expecting too much. I don't want to see you disappointed. The transmission we received from Facto said that the Lockhedes had run some of their filthy experiments on her . . ."

  "Enough!" Zarco held his hands over his ears. "I will hear no more of your negativity, Fitz! We will go and pick Taralin up, and everything will be fine." He looked back out the porthole. "It has to be."

  "Get your feet off the console!" Erik screamed.

  She didn't budge, so he shoved her feet. "I said get your feet off the console!"

  "It's my fucking ship," the woman said, putting her feet back exactly where they had been and giving the pudgy, balding human a look that said she dared him to do it again.

  "It's my operation, Qwah."

  "Yeah, this week," she said with a shrug.

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Erik asked.

  The woman grinned impishly back, "Told ya, Erik. Someday I'm gonna take it away from you."

  Erik just laughed, then stopped abruptly. "Well, until you do, get your fucking feet off the console."

  "So who shit in your cereal?" She took her feet down, but only so she could walk to the cooler and pull a beer out of it. "Want one?" she asked, holding up the bottle.

  Erik's face turned red and she could see the little veins sticking out in his neck.

  "I guess that means no." She flopped back into the command chair and opened the bottle of beer on the corner of the console, letting the cap land where it may. Then, just to make Erik's day complete, she plopped her feet up on the console again.

  "Do you have any idea how unprofessional your entire attitude is?" Erik hissed, tucking his shirt back over his belly.

  Pot calling the kettle black, she thought, but just said, "Junk don' care . . ."

  "Yeah, but passengers do. Did you at least clean out the personal quarters, like I asked you to?"

  "Yes siree, Bob! Hosed it out myself." She hooked a thumb in the strap of her gray overalls.

  "Damn it, Drew. This woman's real important. Some King's lost wife . . ."

  Drew twirled her index finger around in the air. "Whoop de shit."

  Erik blew his oversized belly up, then exhaled slowly, trying very hard to keep his cool. He decided to talk in the only language Drewcila Qwah respected.

  "We're talking big bucks here, Drew."

  "Well, why didn't you say that in the first place?" Drew smiled. "How much?"

  "A lot."

  "How much is a lot, Fuck-head?"

  "I'm your boss," Erik protested.

  "I work for your operation because it's the most profitable one around—today. You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be my boss."

  "I helped you get your own ship . . ."

  "Because I'm the best Salvager in space, and you damn well know it."

  "Why you egotistical little shit-head! I most certainly know nothing of the kind. I have lots of men who bring in . . ."

  "Half of what I do," she grinned unashamed. "Everyone knows I'm the best. Now give me some incentive. How much is a lot?"

  "Your part is twenty thousand Inter-Galactic Dollars . . ."

  Drew jumped to her feet, spilling her beer. "What a dick on a baby! Say that again."

  "Twenty thousand IGD's."

  "She's got plague?" Drew asked suspiciously.

  "No."

  "We've got to go pick her up out of a radiation field?"

  "No, they're going to bring her to the ship. All you have to do is move her through space . . ."

  "I don't fucking get it. That's more than I make on six hauls. Why are they paying so much?"

  "I told you. She's a very important lady, and I'm a very shrewd businessman. You should be thanking me about now."

  Drew looked at her feet and squinted her eyes. "All I gottah do is haul em?"

  "That's right." He looked at her expectantly, waiting in vain for her words of thanks.

  "How much you gettin'?" she asked with a raised eye-brow.

  Erik grinned from ear to ear. "Enough that it's worth it to put up with your shit."

  Drew sat back down and watched as Erik left the bridge. She shook her head. "Anything that looks too good to be true, usually is." She mumbled to herself.

  "Twenty thousand iggys!" An excited voice screamed out.

  Drew spilled beer all down the front of herself and almost fell out of her chair.

  "You fucking asshole! You damn near gave me a cardiac!" She held her chest as if her hand were the only thing keeping her heart from jumping out onto the floor. "And you made me spill beer!"

  "Did I hear right?" The fur-covered humanoid sat down on the console in front of Drew.

  Drew nodded affirmatively. "Damnedest thing I ever heard. Twenty thousand iggys to haul some princess' lily-white ass a few light years. God, how I love the free enterprise system."

  She tossed her half empty beer to him and he caught it easily. She dug in the cooler till she found another one, and opened it the way she had the first one. She took a long swallow then looked up at her big friend.

  "Erik's feeding us some cock and bull story, though."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Ah, come on, Van. You really think anyone in their right mind is going to pay that kind of money to transport some royal
bitch? There's got to be more to it, that's all. Not that I don't think we're up for the challenge."

  She stood up and finished the beer. "Come on, let's go celebrate."

  "You really think that's a good idea?"

  "Probably not. Which is all the more reason to do it."

  Erik moved through the room towards the back where they had planned to meet. He slid into the booth.

  "Sorry I'm late. I had to fight a price war with Drewcila. She seems to think that with all the risks she'll be taking it's worth more money . . ."

  "I think that twenty million Inter-Galactic Dollars is more than a fair price . . ."

  "That's exactly what I told Drew. Don't worry, I can handle her. Just do yourself a favor and don't talk about the hazards. Any reminder of the danger she's putting herself and her ship in and she'll be trying to up the ante again. That's just Drew."

  "Is it safe? I mean, can she be trusted?" The man asked.

  "Drewcila?" Erik laughed. "She's a little unruly and she can be ruthless, but I've never known her to welch on a deal, and I've never known her to leave a job half done. You and your lovely companion will arrive at your destination safely. I can promise you that," Erik said with assurance.

  "Now let us dispense with business. Please introduce me to this charming creature."

  The man seemed only too happy to change the subject.

  "It is my pleasure to introduce our most noble and beloved queen, Taralin Zarco. My Queen, Erik Rider."

  Erik stood for the introduction, taking her offered hand and kissing the air just above it, as was proper. As he sat back down, he really looked at the woman for the first time.

  She was lovely, with aristocratic features and long thin fingers. Like the man with her, there was no doubting her planet of origin. Their hair was jet black, as were their eyes. The eyes were the real give away. In Barions it was almost impossible to distinguish the pupil from the iris, making their fair skin look even paler. These two were hauntingly beautiful beings, as were most Barions, made more exotic by the fact that one scarcely saw them off their home planet.

  Barions didn't trade much with other worlds, though they had the technology for interstellar travel, and spoke intergalactic. They seemed more than happy to stay at home and fight amongst themselves. On Barious, one nation was constantly fighting with another. In fact, the joke around the space ports was that war was the Barions' only real sport. Other than that, no one really knew much about them.

  Of course, Erik knew more than most. After all, he'd been working with Drewcila Qwah for years, and Drew was every bit as Barion as the woman he sat across from now.

  "It's . . . it's a pleasure to meet you," Erik stammered when he realized he had been staring far too long. "I was sorry to hear of your abduction," he added quietly, back in control.

  "It was . . ." she shuddered delicately. "Well, at least it is over at last, and I can go home to my people and my husband."

  "Please accept my sincere hope that your home coming will be . . . Son of a bitch!"

  "Excuse me?" The man was too surprised to be angry at Erik's outburst.

  "A thousand pardons, your Excellency. Please excuse a barbarian who has spent too much time with Salvagers. I stubbed my toe on the leg of the table."

  Erik glared across the room at the couple who had just walked in, the tall slender Barion woman dressed down in her very grubbiest coveralls. And the huge, fur-covered male Chitzky, Van Gar, wearing the match for what Drew was wearing—right down to the grease and the "Garbage Scow" insignia over the upper right-hand pocket.

  For some reason it always galled Erik to see her with that thing. Probably because he wasn't so sure that they weren't really a couple in the truest sense of the word. Of course, tonight their presence here was burning his britches for another reason.

  "If you could excuse me a moment, I think I'll just go to the rest room and check on my toe." He rose, bowed low and made his way through the crowd once more.

  "I don't trust him, Facto," Taralin said.

  "Don't worry. All he cares about is money, and he's getting enough of that to keep him honest. He gets nothing until we reach Jabar. Then the transfer to his account will be made, and he'll get the second half of his money."

  "He's stopped to talk to someone at the bar."

  "Can you see who?"

  Taralin squinted her eyes and shrugged. "Not through the smoke."

  Facto laughed, and patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry, we will not miss our meeting with Zarco."

  "I hope not," she looked troubled. They had gone too far, and been through too much to fail now.

  They saw him before he was halfway across the room, and waved broadly at him as if he were supposed to meet them there.

  "Erik! Darling! What a pleasure bumping into you here," Drew drawled out. "Join us for drinks, won't you . . ."

  "What are you playing at," Erik whispered angrily. "You've got an important shipment to deliver tomorrow . . ."

  "We gottah eat," Drew said.

  "Not here you don't," Erik said hotly.

  "Why not?" Drew's curiosity was aroused. "Ya got a girl here daddy?" She yelled. "Mama's been waiten' home all night!"

  "Shut up, you gaping renal pore," Erik hissed. "The clients are here, and I would rather they didn't see what morons they have entrusted their lives to. So pick your rude fucking asses up, and haul them outtah here before you get drunk and play a game of 'let's see how far we can pitch the bartender'."

  The bartender's eyes got big, and he smiled his warmest smile at the two Salvagers.

  "We only did that one time," Drewcila assured him sweetly.

  "He was being a jerk," Van Gar added solemnly.

  "What can I get you?" the bartender asked, smiling his most helpful smile.

  "They're not staying," Erik assured him.

  "I'll get you something in a carry out."

  The bartender started mixing a drink in a take-out glass.

  "On the house," he added.

  "Now get up and go," Erik said.

  Drewcila smiled and held out her hand. "What's it worth to ya?"

  "Fucking bitch," Erik grumbled, digging into his pocket. He took out a handful of oval-shaped coins and handed them to her.

  She took them, and stuffed them quickly into her own pocket.

  "Now go."

  "We have to wait for our drinks," Drew said sweetly.

  "Here you are," the bartender put two drinks on the bar in front of the Salvagers.

  "Thanks."

  "It was a pleasure to serve you. Come back any time."

  "Don't get drunk," Erik warned.

  "That'll cost ya extra," Drew smiled back.

  "You listen to me, Drew. You and this fur-ball had better be ready for takeoff in the morning, or . . ."

  "Don't get yer panties in a wad, Erik. I'll be ready for takeoff. Just like I always am."

  She patted Erik on the head, then linked her arm through Van Gar's. "Come, Van, I grow weary of this place."

  Arm-in-arm, they sauntered out the front door.

  Erik gritted his teeth together and headed back for his table. No one was there. Erik sighed. They probably got antsy and left.

  "She'll be the death of me yet."

  Drewcila and Van Gar walked down the crowded spaceport street, oblivious to the colorful night time crowd. They were busy counting the money Erik had just given them. Drew held it in her hand while the Chitzky counted it, neither of them being willing to trust the other with their free drink.

  "Wow! Damn!" Van whistled.

  "How much?" Drew asked.

  "Twenty fucking iggys." Van breathed. Drew stuffed the money in her pocket quickly. But not before a hooker saw it.

  "I'd do you for that, tall, dark and furry." The hooker called, following them down the street.

  "Not interested," Van said.

  The hooker ran around in front of them, so that they had to stop or run over her.

  "I'd do you for that, hot b
abe."

  "Bite me."

  Drew elbowed around her and they started walking again.

  "Would if you wanted me to," the hooker said, continuing in hot pursuit. "Do you both for twenty. That's a real bargain. Come on, what do you say? Two for the price of one. That's my final offer."