Dreadnought (Starship Blackbeard Book 3) by Michael Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

middle-aged Ladino sat with her, gesticulating as he spoke.
    Capp nudged Tolvern. She stared in dismay, waiting for Drake to finish talking to the proprietor, who insisted on taking their drink order before allowing them to sit. As soon as Drake looked up, he’d spot her.
    Why? Brinetown was small, no more than a few thousand people, and the whole planet only had a handful of ports. So it wasn’t that big of a coincidence on the surface, but if you considered all the other systems, all the other places Catarina might have gone, why here?
    “Hey, Cap’n,” Capp said. “You see what we’re seeing?”
    Henny Capp seemed to have one volume level—loud—and her voice drew the attention of Catarina Vargus and her companion. They looked up, and Tolvern did a double take. It was not Catarina Vargus after all, but some other woman.
    This woman was a few years older than Catarina, perhaps in her early thirties, and had an ugly scar from her forehead to her cheek and across one eye. It looked like a saber slash, and she’d lost her left eye to it. In its place was an artificial eye whose pupil dilated and narrowed as the woman studied the newcomers. She was not Catarina, but she looked awfully similar.
    “Now this is interesting,” Drake murmured. “Come on.”
    The woman and her companion rose warily as the three officers from Blackbeard approached. Everyone was armed, but all parties kept their hands in the open.
    “Are you the bloke who was asking about my ship at the yards?” the woman asked. “Yeah, they called to warn me—did you think they wouldn’t?”
    “That’s right. I’m looking to hire a few ships.”
    “What for?”
    Tolvern stared. That voice. So similar. The face, too. And it had said ‘Vargus’ on the back of the frigate at the yards. This woman’s accent was rougher, and that scar and artificial eye had altered her appearance, but she had to be related to Catarina.
    “Are you available for hire?” Drake asked.
    “Matter of fact, I’m not.” She nodded toward her companion. “Just formed a partnership with this fellow here. We’re waiting for one more bloke, then we’re figuring on heading into orbit and hoofing it out of here. You got a ship of your own? You look like it. We could use a fourth, especially if you’ve got cannon and a couple of torpedo bays.”
    “Oh, we have weapon systems,” Drake said. “That’s not what we’re lacking.”
    The woman looked intrigued. “Let’s hear it, then.”
    She gestured at her companion, who dragged over chairs from a nearby table. Drake nodded at Capp and Tolvern, and the three of them sat.
    “I gotta know,” Capp burst in. “Are you sister of that lady what’s captain of Orient Tiger ? Bloody hell, you look just like her, except for the . . . ” Capp tapped next to her eye, “you know.”
    “Ensign, hold your tongue,” Tolvern said.
    “It’s all right,” Drake said. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. You and Catarina Vargus must be related somehow.”
    They stopped as the proprietor approached with a tray holding shot glasses. It smelled like tequila filtered through an old sock. Tolvern took a sip of hers and tried not to grimace.
    Capp downed hers and smacked her lips. “That’ll do the trick.”
    “Yes, I am,” the woman said at last. “I’m one of the Vargus girls. Isabel—the oldest. What do you know of me?”
    “ One of the Vargus girls?” Tolvern asked. Wonderful.
    “There are four of us. The old man loved his daughters.” A note of sarcasm entered Isabel Vargus’s voice. “You know my father is dead, right? Shot in a fight in the San Pablo yards.”
    “Yes, so they say,” Drake said smoothly. “Sorry to hear it.”
    Isabel shrugged. “Didn’t get along with him much, so . . . ” She downed her drink.
    Still, Tolvern thought it best not to offer details. She’d been the one to kill the pirate captain. Her own gun, a lucky shot as the elder Vargus ran for cover.
    “You could say we have plenty