Page 35 of Claim
Considering he’d done it twice with theDeepWander, Mag appreciated the other captain’s wary concern.But their competition was at an end, and Illgattoa had won.
He couldn’t make himself voice the concession, but he held up all his hands.
“We will take theDeepWanderin tow,” Szakh said.
“Ah.No.”Mag lowered his hands.“As I said, I am here to pay my debt.”
Szakh flashed his fangs.“The debt is secured by your ship.”
“Close.I’ll wait while you review the contract with Illgattoa.”He flashed another side message on the comm while Szakh sputtered.
“Wait right there,” the Sauronilan said.
“I don’t have all day,” Mag shot back even as he kept an eye on the messages.The light blinked back at him.
The Ajellomenes must have been gloating into its morning tea or whatever sea monsters drank for breakfast because the agitated tentacles filled the datpad screen within moments, split alongside Szakh and his fangs.
“Apex?”the Ajellomenes snarled.“Your name is on the contract.Your ship and its crew are forfeit.”
“My name it is,” Mag agreed.“And per orc mandate, the apexisthe ship.”
Even the bubbles around Illgattoa froze, and Mag’s pulse did the same as he waited for the Ajellomenes to review the contract and come back online.
It had been a fraught moment when he signed the debt.Desperate to keep theDeepWanderflying long enough to join the Luster, he’d always known this moment might come.Now that it was here, the risk seemed untenable.If he lost…
Yes, he could order Teq to open fire on thePratorimagain and hopefully flee.But theDeepWanderwould forever be a marked ship, never welcome at any respectable station, thePratorimalways within its rights to take its due on Illgattoa’s command.Because Mag had signed the debt, but only for himself as apex.
He didn’t doubt Illgattoa would kill him for this trick, but Sil would step up to take command and theDeepWanderwould be free.
On his screen, the bubbles finished floating up, but Illgattoa didn’t even twitch a tentacle.
Mag leaned back.“I realize you wrote the contract under orc mandate because it seemed simple and straightforward—or let’s say it as you saw it: stupid—compared to your own negotiations.And we may be simple, but our way is clear.Only I am apex.”
One tight stream of bubbles eked from the Ajellomenes’ beaky mouth, and Mag imagined at the surface of that far-away world, the bubbles would break from the water in vicious curses.But he was very far away.
For the moment at least.
“Szakh,” Illgattoa said.“Destroy that shuttle.Once there is no apex, the ship is mine.”
The Sauronilan captain flashed his fangs.“Finally.My turn—”
The comm blanked.
And then flickered to life with the Dastard’s bored visage.“This is my space.Iam the only one allowed to blow up ships around here.”
The shuttle scanners beeped, announcing the proximity of a new, much larger ship.And all its weapons were aimed at thePratorim.
“I’ve been told my Luster is ugly and unfair,” the vreign growled.“But if we don’t believe in dreams, we do uphold contracts.And you have yours, Ajellomenes, so that is all you can take.Pratorim, stand down or you will be dust.”
Mag didn’t want to be grateful that the rules the Dastard had established had shut him out—but it was working for him now and that had to be enough.
He inclined his head to the Dastard before igniting the shuttle thrusters.“The deal is done.Pratorim, it’s me or nothing.”
He wouldn’t tell them that without his ship and his crew, he was already nothing.
***
In retrospect, now that heactuallyhad nothing, Mag wished he’d indulged in more of the pleasures and powers of being apex.But in the cold darkness of his empty cell, as he tried to imagine what that might’ve been, he could only think of June.
