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  Birthright

  Deuces Wild™ Book Four

  Ell Leigh Clarke

  Michael Anderle

  Birthright (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2018 Ell Leigh Clarke and Michael Anderle

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  A Michael Anderle Production

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, October 2018

  Version 1.01, December 2018

  The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015-2018 by Michael T. Anderle and LMBPN Publishing.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Author Notes - Ell Leigh Clarke

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  Books written by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Books written by Michael Anderle

  Connect with The Authors

  Birthright Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Nicole Emens

  Kelly O’Donnell

  John Ashmore

  Peter Manis

  Mary Morris

  Daniel Weigert

  Larry Omans

  Micky Cocker

  Paul Westman

  If I’ve missed anyone, please let me know!

  Editor

  Lynne Stiegler

  Chapter One

  Unmapped Location, Aboard the Penitent Granddaughter, Bridge

  Nickie took her feet off the console and sat up to glare at the empty space around the Granddaughter on the screen. “Where the fuck did he go?”

  Adelaide gave Nickie an apologetic glance from the nav console. “He just vanished. There’s nothing to show where the Briar Rose went.”

  “A whole fucking ship can’t just disappear into thin-fucking-air.” Nickie got up to pace while she bitched. “I know he doesn’t have Gate technology.”

  Grim turned from his station. “This is why we should have traveled with John instead of tracking him from a distance.” He ignored Nickie’s icy stare. “Then we wouldn’t be here—wherever here is.”

  Keen wore a frown. “Where exactly are we?”

  “Dunno.” Nickie shrugged. “The ass-end of nowhere? There’s fuck-all around by the looks of it. Meredith, where did Prince Precious go?”

  There was a barely noticeable delay before Meredith answered through the intercom. “Oh, this is new. He has passed through the interdiction.”

  “Interdiction? Why aren’t we following?” Nickie demanded. “That word sounds familiar…” The ship shuddered. “Meredith, what’s going on?”

  “How much do you actually want to follow the prince?” Meredith asked. “This could become somewhat awkward for you.”

  Nickie glared at the speaker. “We wouldn’t be all the way out here in the first place if I didn’t want to know what he was up to. Just follow him, Meredith. I don’t care where you have to go.”

  “Which is what I thought you would say. We can go around…I think. Meredith came back a few seconds later. “Yes, we can. I’m correcting our course.”

  “Go around what?” Nickie demanded. “Will you quit being so fucking mysterious?”

  Meredith sniffed. “The planet’s defenses. Unless, of course, you want to go through Federation checkpoints?”

  Nickie dragged a hand down her face. Of course, it was Federation space. She should have known it was too much to hope, to avoid it forever. “As if. I might as well turn up waving a fucking banner to announce my arrival.”

  Grim chuckled. “I wonder how that would go down?”

  Nickie pulled a face at him. “It wouldn’t, because it’s not going to happen. Meredith, our route?”

  Meredith sounded smug. “Luckily for you, I have an idea where we are, which tells me where John is headed. We’ll arrive shortly after he does.”

  Nickie looked around at the others. “Yeah, but where is he going?”

  Neither Adelaide, Durq, nor Keen had the faintest idea.

  Grim gave her a look but just lifted a shoulder in reply to Nickie’s questioning glare. “I know nothing. But you want to find John? Just go with it.”

  Nickie sat back down in her captain’s chair with a heavy sigh. “Whatever. Mere, just get us to wherever he’s going.”

  “That’s the plan,” Meredith chirped.

  Nickie frowned and got back to work. She had a sinking feeling that whatever Meredith knew was going to piss all over her already-less-than-stellar mood.

  However, her mind was stuck on the same track it had been on since she’d accepted that she had a crew. Especially now that the first few days had passed, and everyone had begun to fall into a comfortable routine.

  Nickie ate and worked with the others, and she had even stayed behind in the mess after dinner a couple of times. She knew that fully immersing herself in the easy camaraderie was going to take a little longer, though.

  The others respected Nickie’s need for space as much as any group living aboard a ship could. She still spent most of her free time alone, and when being around the others became too much, she went down to the training hold and worked her frustrations out on her bag.

  Her punching bag.

  It wasn’t just the adjustment to her living situation, though. John had gotten her back up in more ways than one. She was still more than a little uncomfortable with the breezy way he’d sailed into her life and straight back out of it again, trailing his assumptions about her behind him like a judgmental fucking bridal veil.

  Nickie still wasn’t sure she even liked him. While she might have been willing to overlook his…quirks for the sake of a wild night or two, boyish charm was only charming for so long before it began to wear on her.

  Sure, he was hot, but he had that relentless naivety that she loved to hate. Nickie didn’t want to admit to herself that part of the reason she was keeping her distance was that she didn’t want to find out if the attraction between them during the volcano mission remained now that the danger had passed.

  Nickie was well aware of how emotions got ramped up when lives were on the line, and how easily the relief of survival turned into the urge to grab the nearest warm body. Shit, she’d picked up her last lover that way.

  The memory cut her for a second, but she shook it off. That was the past. Prince Pretty should have taken her up on her offer while she was feeling generous, but he’d missed his chance. Nickie was back to
thinking of him as an annoyance, albeit a reasonably interesting one.

  What Nickie really wanted was to find out what John’s secretive behavior was covering.

  They’d followed him to Zuifra and waited just outside the planet’s detection capabilities while he’d delivered the plant that would save his father’s life. Nickie had intended to hail him once he’d taken care of his family business, but the prince had all but snuck away from his home planet afterward—which set off alarm bells with the whole crew.

  Nickie’s instincts had told her to follow John and remain hidden. The others had agreed at the time, despite Grim’s current stance on the effectiveness of their surveillance now that the Briar Rose appeared to have vanished.

  Nickie found the situation confusing. John had been pretty forthright during the volcano mission. Almost too open, if she were honest. In fact, if she were completely honest, there was no “almost” about it. Whether or not he’d meant to affect her that way, her conversations with him had forced her to examine some hard truths about herself.

  Consequently, John’s sudden vagueness about his destination after he’d taken the plant back to his planet had tickled her curiosity.

  Some things just don’t change.

  Nickie scowled mentally at Meredith’s intrusion. What do you know?

  I know you, Meredith replied.

  Yeah, well, then you know to leave me alone unless you’re going to stop being a pain in my ass. What’s going on here, Mere?

  You know what’s going on. We’re following your prince.

  He’s not my fucking prince, she grumbled. How long until we get around this interdiction?

  A few hours.

  The bridge was companionably silent while Meredith took care of the ship. Nickie alternated between brooding in her chair and pacing the bridge while she waited for the EI to announce that they’d reached their destination.

  A short time later, Grim took Durq with him to get a start on dinner. Keen sat back in his chair and practiced the ancient military art of sleeping while there was a minute, and Adelaide did what Adelaide always did when she wasn’t fixing things: she read up on how to fix things.

  Eventually, Nickie gave up pacing and flopped into her chair to take a leaf out of Keen’s book. Just as she felt herself begin to drift off, the ship ground to a halt.

  She opened one eye when she felt the almost imperceptible change. “Meredith, why have we stopped?”

  “We’ve reached the planet,” Meredith replied. “We’ve stopped because we don’t want to get caught in that shielding.”

  Nickie’s heart sank. “It’s an outpost? Shit. Well, take us into the dock as quietly as you can. We might be able to sneak in and out without anyone noticing.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” Meredith told her. “We’re being hailed.”

  Nickie sat up and narrowed her eyes. “Who’s hailing us? Put them onscreen.”

  A man in a familiar uniform appeared on the screen. “Skaine ship captain, identify yourself and your purpose… Oh, you’re not a Skaine.”

  Nickie scowled at the Guardian as she sent the ship’s registration over. “It’s pretty fucking obvious I’m not a Skaine. We can dispense with the niceties. Which outpost is this?”

  The Guardian looked at her as though she’d hit her head. “You don’t know where you are?”

  Nickie rolled her eyes. “Would I be asking if I did? I’ve been away for a while.”

  “Must have been a long while,” he replied.

  “You could say that,” Nickie deadpanned. “So, are you going to let us in?”

  “I don’t know. Wait a minute.” The Guardian held up a finger and reached down to pick up a handset. He half-turned while he waited for an answer.

  “Get me Jennifer or Charles. Yes, it’s urgent. There’s a Skaine ship here with a human captain who wants to know where she is.” A pause while the person on the other end spoke. “The Penitent Granddaughter,” he replied. There was a longer pause. “No, they don’t know where they are, but they have Federation verification. I know that’s weird. Yes, ma’am. Of course.”

  He hung up the handset and turned back to Nickie. “This is High Tortuga, ma’am. You have clearance to land just as soon as someone gets there to confirm your identity.”

  “Oh, fuck my life,” Nickie groaned.

  The Guardian smiled. “Welcome back to the fold, ma’am.”

  He cut the connection before Nickie could tell him to fuck off, which she appreciated since she was making an effort to be pleasant to people unless they deserved differently. It wasn’t the Guardian’s fault she’d ended up in the very place she’d been avoiding like a Baka avoided soap and water. She would save it for John. He was the one who had enticed her into coming here. The fucker.

  The screen returned to showing the planet, and the ship resumed its usual thrumming as the engines kicked in again.

  “I’ve received a course for safe passage through the defenses,” Meredith announced. “We’ve been instructed to dock at the platform over the southern continent. Last chance to turn back, Nickie.”

  Nickie considered it for a moment. There was a chance that some of her family were here. She was surprised to find she could admit she cared. Could she face them? She wasn’t sure.

  She had changed for the better—that much she knew. That she still had so far to go was arbitrary. She had hit rock bottom and was clawing her way back up one good deed at a time. That had to be worth something.

  She was torn for a moment. The urge to run was strong, but something in her refused to back down to her fears. She was Nickie-fucking-Grimes, for fuck’s sake.

  She never backed down.

  “Take us in, Meredith. It’s about time I stopped running.”

  “As you wish.”

  The Granddaughter jerked as Meredith turned the ship to follow the path through the deadly satellites to the platform in high orbit above the planet. The ship came to a stop again when they reached the dock, and the majesty of High Tortuga slowly revealed itself.

  Keen and Adelaide drank it in. They were awed by the shining cities stretching from one end of the northern continent to the other, and then again by the sharp contrast when the wilderness of the southern continent came into view a short time later.

  Adelaide tilted her head. “This planet is beautiful!”

  Nickie put her head in her hands and silently cursed the day she’d met John-of-fucking-Reinek. “This place has my aunt’s size seven footprints all over it.”

  “I didn’t know your Aunt Tabitha wore size sevens,” Grim commented as he arrived on the bridge with Durq.

  Nickie scowled. “Not that aunt.”

  “Just how many aunts do you have?” Adelaide teased.

  “Enough to make war on the entire galaxy,” Nickie shot back. “Right now I’m talking about my aunt who is the former Empress.” She winked at Adelaide’s shocked expression.

  Adelaide recovered quickly. “The Empress? Do you think she’s here?”

  Nickie grimaced. “Fuck, I hope not. Otherwise, Meredith’s prediction about this being awkward might be a little bit of an understatement.”

  “We have visitors,” Meredith cut in. “Shall I allow them to board?”

  High Tortuga, Above the Southern Continent, Aboard the Penitent Granddaughter

  Nickie stomped through the ship’s corridors to meet the Guardians at the airlock. She had swung by her quarters on the way, and the boarding party was annoyed by the delay. That was okay, she was annoyed by having to divert to the southern continent just so they could verify her identity.

  Nickie? The Guardians won’t wait forever. They are Wechselbalg, remember. They’re not famed for their patience.

  Nickie slowed her pace. I’ll be there in a minute; they can wait that long. I have a bone to pick with you. She was tempted to refuse to allow them onto her ship, but they had already docked and were requesting entry.

  A bone?

  Yeah. You knew all along where
we were headed.

  I had an idea when we came across the shielding at New Devon. You were more interested in finding Prince John, so—

  Nickie cut her off as she turned into the corridor that led to the airlock the Guardians had docked at. Don’t give me that shit. You could have told me we were headed right for Federation space. You’ve wanted me back in their clutches ever since I reactivated you.

  Meredith sniffed. This isn’t exactly Federation space. And this isn’t exactly a Federation planet, either.

  If they bow to my aunt, then it’s a fucking Federation planet no matter what they dress it up like. I bet there’s Coke in every bar, a huge cemetery, and a suspiciously low crime rate planet-wide.

  Um…

  Nickie hit the wall next to the airlock. Just fucking let them in already.

  Okay, but let’s not break too much of the ship in the meantime.

  Shut it, Meredith.

  The airlock completed its cycle and disgorged a quartet of Bethany Anne’s finest onto the Penitent Granddaughter.

  Nickie looked them over as they filed aboard—three men and a woman. The woman was clearly in charge. She returned Nickie’s appraisal with a cool smile and produced a small device. “Hello, Captain—”

  “Grimes,” Nickie supplied. “Guardian?”

  “Lakshmi,” the woman supplied. She held out a hand, which Nickie looked at for a moment before turning her attention to the other three Guardians. Guardian Lakshmi stowed her hand, and her cheery tone dropped a touch. “Nice name to have, Captain Grimes.”