Stealing Jax

Stealing Jax

Distant World Book IV

by

Kelly Lucille

Copyright Kelly Lucille 2017

Published for Smashwords

All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

CHAPTER ONE

Tolan Lark cursed fluently in several languages as his ship bucked and beeped at him in warning. The Fire was taking a heavy pounding. After the battle at the death games space station his ship had already needed repairs. If he didn't make something happen and fast he was going to lose more than the light-speed capabilities he already had, which in his present situation was bad enough. He cursed again with the realization that Warrung was going to slip through his fingers one more time.

The worst part was that this time it would be his own damn fault. He should have gone cautiously, slowly and with purpose. Instead, he had let the rage of his Shakien nature rule his actions and raced right into Warrung's trap like the green recruit he had never been.

Tolan Lark had pursued the evil bastard with everything his ship was capable of, which was significant. The Fire was faster than most racing vessels, better shielded than an Alliance ambassador frigate and had enough weapons to fight a war all on its own. It was the best; he had made damn certain of that by any means necessary, including outright theft of new tech when it was called for. Cor Warrung still had him outgunned.

Now Tolan was having to use every iota of his skills as a pilot to dodge and evade the five heavily armed monstrosities that the Gorson raiders called ships. Worse, warping into the trap at top speed as he did, the warbirds had taken out his light-speed before he could evade. He was limited to standard engines only. That gave Cor Warrung the time he needed to limp away in his damaged, but still operable, luxury skiff and do what he did best, besides spread pain, and that was to disappear. A-fucking-gain.

With another warning from his ship sensors Tolan took a hard spin out of the path of yet another Starburst, a pretty name for a weapon that shot wide, random bursts of laser fire that were powerful enough to incinerate cold steel. The Gorson ships might lack the maneuverability and speed of The Fire, but they made up for it in illegal weaponry and numbers.

Now would be a good time to call in some backup, Tolan though with a self-deprecating smirk on his hard-edged face as he flipped a hard left and then shot between two warbirds, close enough to briefly scrape across their shields, thinking of Pirate Captain Conall Barnos, his partner for a time on this venture, and what his likely reaction would be if he received a call for aid from The Fire.

Something highly inflammatory and crude at a volume that could be heard across two solar systems no doubt, Tolan mused with an amused wince. Even as he was pondering his onetime partner’s likely reaction, he fired at one ship and spun out of the weapon range of another.

If it had just been Barnos he knocked out and sold to the death games things might have been different. No doubt they could have come to an understanding, after he rescued him, and when the big bastard calmed down...eventually. But Tolan had managed to get the Lady Lara of the Heti, and high ambassador’s daughter, unintentionally taken as well. He had burned several bridges quite thoroughly when that happened. Barnos was just the start of a long line of dangerous people who now wanted his head on a pike.

If he was truly lucky they would locate Lara with Barnos through the tracking sensor he had planted on the man, and all would be well. At least well enough that Queen Nori and her mate King Menelaus would not feel the need to hunt him down and skewer him on a pig pole, as she had repeatedly threatened when he communicated the unfortunate series of events that led to her adopted sister’s predicament to her via ship com. That was one conversation he would not have hung around for, even if he was not chasing Warrung at the time.

Nori and the rest were too busy, hopefully, collecting their wayward charge, rounding up death games personal for judgment, and releasing gladiator slaves to return them to their homes to bother with him. Though at this precise moment he might welcome their pursuit.

He took a hard hit to his rear deflector and cursed again, his mind immediately redirecting to the problem at hand. Normally he would try his luck with the Gorson firewall, hoping to hack the computer and thereby disable the ship, but five separate hacks were beyond even his abilities.

Tolan narrowed his eyes as a thought occurred to him, then he set the computer to evasive maneuvers, which basically left him spinning wildly in random patterns while he worked at his computer. His fingers were nimble on the screen as he moved nearly as fast as his ship through the various screens and tech language, a language he spoke fluently. He chose his victim carefully, bracing himself in his seat against the pressure of sudden turns and hard spins while he worked. He had taken two more bad hits to his shields when he cracked the code.

With a satisfied grin despite the dangerous circumstances, he plunged into the Gorson command ship’s matrix and started tinkering. Typical raider philosophy, spare no expense for the firepower and shields, minimal computer security and firewalls. Though in their defense, there were probably about four people in the known galaxies that could do what he did from a remote location. He was just that good.

First, he sent out a warning flag of imminent core eruption from the flagship, simulating a reactor breach to every com station on the ship, ordering an evacuation and shutting down all other communications on the warbird while he was at it. Then he boomeranged a notice from the hacked computer to the other four ships with a warning for the other ships to find a minimum safe distance and watch for survivors to pick up. Within seconds the bombarding of his vessel stopped and he watched with satisfaction as all but one of the heavily armed Gorson warbirds made a run for it. Life pods shot out of the Command ship at the same time. A perfectly undamaged Command ship where he figured the Gorson Commander would be more than a little angry. He did not envy the communications officer trying to explain what happened and why they were floating blind and deaf without shields while his raiders abandoned a perfectly safe ship.

Tolan Lark did not bother to wait around to see how long it would take them to figure out it was a computer virus and not a core breach, but set course away from the floundering Command ship and in the opposite direction the other raiders had chosen. He did not have light speed, but on standard he should have enough time to evade pursuit until he could get to a ship mechanic and get his ship fixed.

At the thought his mind immediately traveled the well-worn path to Rindel, and the pretty golden-haired mech whisperer that had knocked him out and hacked his ship. The deceptively fragile Dainaree had never been far from his thoughts since that fateful meeting. And it never failed to have his Shakien side flashing to feral rage when he remembered waking up on The Fire, far from the pretty mech. She had warned the Lady Lara and Barnos after she knocked him out that he was not welcome back. He had vowed to himself that one day he would return and have a whole different conversation with the tricolor-eyed tech witch.

No time like the present. With the thought Tolan Lark smiled, his eyes flashing from his normal sky blue to Shakien lavender, his teeth sharp and white against his dusky skin. Shakien battle form shifted like a tide over him for just a moment before flowing back to the human form he habitually wore. The nanite battle armor he favored settled back to skin tight over the hard planes of his well-defined muscles, and he was too busy thinking of scenarios involving a pretty golden-haired mech to notice his momentary loss of control. For a man who had successfully passed as human for years, both as a spy for the Alliance command and as a mercenary among the dregs of the Universe, it was a telling reaction.

***

Without his light breaking technology, he was forced to take his time getting to Rindel. He used the time he had to make what repairs he could perform with his limited skills and while in flight. Mostly he used the time to clean up the damage the attacks left on his ship. There was a hum of expectation in his blood he ignored, immersing himself in work. The closer he got to the planet the more he had to work at suppressing his Shakien side. He was really looking forward to a second meeting with the little mech witch and the satisfaction at the thought was a buzz in his blood and brain.

The satisfaction and excitement he was attempting to suppress lasted right up until he was within hailing distance of Rindel, and all he got on the com was static. But it was only when he was within visual sensor range and saw the devastation wrought upon the small civilization post there that he went stone cold.

CHAPTER TWO

Tolan kicked away the debris in his way and used his Shakien strength to shove his large body with undue violence into what was left of the mech whisperers’ repair hangar. He should have made the connection that Cor Warrung had a damaged ship and just what it would mean that Rindel was the nearest inhabited planet where a mechanic might be found. Wasn't that what led The Fire here the first time? He continued to berate his lack of foresight while he scanned every inch of debris-strewn space around him. What had once been a somewhat organized and, in his opinion, haphazardly kept mech space now looked like a war zone, with pieces of machinery, tools and building mingled in the rubble. In some places, there was still smoke from the blaster fire blackening the air, and black char coated most of the surfaces. This was not the only place on Rindel that had been hit, but it had taken the most damage.

No one could have survived this.

He knew his eyes had permanently bled to Shakien lavender, and that his battle form was rolling over him at random. A feral haze that was threatening to take him over was slowly winning the more he saw. Cor Warrung had done his job well here. The question was, did the bastard have Jax, or had the tricky mech whisperer managed to elude the scourge of the galaxy?

His only solace, such as it was, was that Warrung needed the mech alive to fix his ship, but it was cold comfort when he knew Cor Warrung would take one look at Jax, with her delicate golden Dainaree looks, and the last thing he would be thinking about was her mech skills. The thought of his little witch in Warrung's hands was what had him in a constant state of losing his control. Shakien’s had a reputation for being dangerous berserkers for a good reason. He needed her to be safe. And so did everyone else left alive on this rock.

He was near to growling his rage at the possibilities when a golden flash dropped down on him from the twisted metal of the rafters. Tolan felt the broadside of an energy stick across his shoulders, the pain leaving a lingering scorch across his nerves. He roared, sending the attacking form flying toward the buckled wall of the hangar before he realized who it was. His Shakien battle form flowed like midnight water over him and he grew a solid foot in muscle and height. Then he roared again, sure he was going to see her gutted against the jagged protrusions of the wreckage. The delicate female form twisted in midflight and landed a few feet away, crouched on her feet and ready to spring at him.

It was a large and impressively dangerous figure that turned feral lavender eyes toward the pretty mech witch. Rather than let the sight of a fully transformed and battle-ready Shakien intimidate her, she hissed out something in a language he didn't understand. Her tricolored topaz, gold, and purple eyes shot sparks he could practically feel sizzle off his skin. Some of the floor-length curls of her gold hair escaped the elaborate braid she had them trapped in and fell around the angry blaze of those unforgettable Dainaree eyes, giving her a wild look that suited the gleam in those eyes. Then she flipped her wrist, twirling her stun stick with dexterous familiarity, and attacked.

Jax was enraged. When the command center had notified the populace that Cor Warrung was destroying the fighters that patrolled the borders of Rindel she had wasted no time contacting a friend at Rindel command for particulars. Hearing that they had hesitated to allow him entrance to the planet to make repairs on his ship and were paying the price for it, she had known she was in serious trouble. Jax did not need the hurried warning of her contact to get somewhere safe before the com went dead. She had not survived on her own since her sixteenth year by being foolish. So, she burrowed down into her personal secret bunker to wait out whatever was to come. No one had any idea where her hidey-hole was so no one could betray her location if