Outrageous Fortune-Errant Freight Book One

Chapter 33

John woke not so much with a start as with a slow, unenthusiastic sally.

As consciousness poked him back to reality, he did a quick assessment and found one head, aching; four limbs, tingling (though his right arm seemed twisted in an odd fashion as well); one mouth, dry and cottony; and his breathing labored. All signs every aeronaut recognized as hypoxia, often the result of flying at high altitudes without pressurization.

Something that should not have happened.

Not on the Errant.

Not with his crew.

As he came more fully awake, he noticed a relative silence that told him the engines had been shut down, but the gentle sway of the deck said they were still aloft, but not in flight, so most likely at high anchor.

Another poke had him hissing, and one eye peeled open as he came to realize it wasn't just consciousness poking him, but...

"Jagati," he said, peering lopsidedly at his first mate. "I wish you wouldn't do that."

"I wouldn't have to poke you if you woke up when I said your name the last thirty-two times," Jagati grunted.

He began to sit up then froze as he realized his right arm hung over his head, secured by a shackle, the chain of which ran through one of the D-rings used to secure cargo nets.

On the other end of the chain, a second shackle held Jagati's left wrist.

"Ah," he said, meeting her gaze before peering through the bay. "Where," he asked as a cold ball formed in his gut, "is everyone else?"

"Haven't seen Rory or Jinna, but Eitan's over there." She jerked her chin aft, past John's shoulder, and he turned to see the soldier slumped against the pallet holding the emergency water rations. His right arm hung suspended by a length of rope tied to the bar that held the water casks in place on the pallet. His shirt draped loosely over the stump of his left arm, resting on his lap.

"Shouldn't he be awake by now?" John asked.

"He may be out a while longer," said a deep, unfamiliar voice bearing the lilt of Harp.

Both John and Jagati turned to the forward section of the bay to see a pale, dark-haired man descending the companionway. "I perhaps misjudged the amount of morph in his wine," the not-quite-a-stranger continued speaking while he stepped under one of the overhead lamps.

On spying the newcomer, John's eyes narrowed. He didn't know where, but he felt certain he'd seen this man before. "You drugged him," he said, struggling to his feet and rubbing his right arm, now thoroughly numb.

"Why?" Jagati asked, rising as well and shaking her no-doubt-numb left hand.

"It seemed the best way to avoid being murdered on sight," the man explained.

"Sensible," John admitted.

"And where is Jinna?" Jagati pressed. "And Rory?"

"The little mother is safe. As is your mechan—"

"The docking office," John blurted as he matched the stranger's face to a memory. "That's where I've seen you before."

The dark eyes moved back to his. "Very good."

"What?" Jagati looked from John to their captor and back. "What?" she said again.

"The day Sameen—or rather, Mary—hired us," John said as he glanced in her direction, then back to the other man, "you were there in the Nike docking offices." Now he recalled, he could see it clearly. A tearful, somberly dressed Mary exiting the room and stumbling against John. "You were standing near the control-tower door," he said, meeting the dark, assessing gaze. "You were watching her...us."