Carbon Copy Read online

  CARBON COPY

  An Ellora’s Cave Publication, August 2004

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.

  PO Box 787

  Hudson, OH 44236-0787

  ISBN MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-84360-963-0

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) HTML

  CARBON COPY © 2004 ASHLEY LADD

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. They are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Edited by Briana St. James.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Carbon Copy

  Ashley Ladd

  Chapter One

  Lines of stress etched the Balderian judge’s face as she arose from her seat, black robes billowing around her, as she banged her gavel on the podium. Her thinning silver hair and heavy jowls gave witness to her one-hundred-thirty plus years. “The defendant and her defense barrister will rise for sentencing.”

  Captain Siobhan Mallory drew herself up to her impressive height of almost six feet and held herself proudly. Even if every pair of eyes in the room regarded her disdainfully, she could attest to her innocence. Beside her, her two-headed sorry excuse for defense counsel, Cornelius Besnea, stood, his taller head barely reaching her shoulder, the second dozing on his arm.

  The jury leader, a long-tailed slosh from the Balderis system, handed the verdict to the judge then scuttled back to his seat, his reptilian head hung low, his beady black gaze slithering away from hers. This didn’t bode well.

  The judge slipped glasses on the end of her nose and peered at the page as if digesting every word. “We hereby sentence the prisoner to hang by the neck until dead for her heinous crimes against humanoidanity and the galaxy. Take the accused back to her chamber until the execution can be scheduled.”

  Siobhan choked on roars of rage and her fingers itched to throttle the insipid man about to lead her to the gallows. She’d emasculate him here and now except it appeared that someone had already beaten her to it. She leaned over her table, glaring at the adjudicator, and then turned her sizzling gaze on the ragtag jury comprised of every space deviant and slog that could be rounded up at this unsaintly hour of the night. She leapt to her feet, hurtling herself over the table at her accusers.

  “This is a farce! I didn’t commit any of the crimes of which I stand accused. I have never been in that quadrant of the galaxy. I have witnesses that will testify that I was two hundred parsecs away at the time of the massacre. This sad excuse for representation refuses to bring forward any of them to plead my innocence!”

  The sharp pounding of the judge’s gavel jarred Siobhan’s bones. Her throat grew raw from defending herself. What in the seven galaxies did her defense counsel think he was here to do? Take a siesta? Carve her up in little chunks for the Klemtok of Arubia?

  “I will tell you again. We have photographs and irrefutable DNA evidence that place you at the scene.”

  “It’s obviously been planted.” Fuming, she spun on Besnea. He had a lot of nerve sitting, or rather sleeping, in the defense seat. “Where are the tests of the evidence? You’re the defense counsel. Defend me!”

  Besnea cowered, scooting away from her, his chair scraping the pitted floor. His thin lips disappeared into his emaciated higher face. “Their evidence is solid. There is nothing more I can do to help you.” Then the esquire scurried away as if the hounds of hell were trying to devour his very soul, his club feet dragging the floor.

  “Guards! Remove the prisoner from my courtroom. Restrain her immediately.” The judge’s joints creaked as she stood and slowly ambled down the stairs inelegantly. Her gnarled fingers clawed the banisters.

  Siobhan snorted at the term “courtroom” as an eight-foot hairy beast sprouting four arms, grabbed hers then almost ripped them from their sockets. When she struggled, it snarled, exhibiting razor-sharp fangs and glowing orange eyes. She stilled, knowing the creature would gleefully rip her to shreds with his four-inch incisors at the slightest movement.

  Bring on the cavalry, Dennis. What was taking so blasted long? Her flesh crawled as the scaly reptilian beast dug his claws into her upper arm. Surely her fiancé would move the heavens to rescue her. He would die before letting anything happen to her. Or if her father was to hear of this outrage, heads would roll throughout the Confederation.

  The bailiff rose to his unimpressive height of four feet and announced, “That’s the end of this judging session. May the gods bless the justice in this courtroom.”

  Dispirited and disgusted, Siobhan wrinkled her nose. “With all due respect, this is a hanging chamber, not a hall of justice.” A vile, bloodstained chamber.

  “Watch it missy or your remains will be fed to the Klemtock of Arubius.” With that threat, the judge hobbled out of the room, her shimmering robes dusting the ground.

  Missy? Siobhan was a starship captain and the daughter of the most prestigious weblinthium mining operation in four galaxies.

  Roughly, the guard chained Siobhan’s hands behind her back, clasped a metal ring around her neck, and hauled her like a dog to death’s corridor. The heavy chain clanked on the floor, biting into her neck and making it almost impossible to hold her head up. With every scrap of strength she could muster, she held it up to meet her fate head on, marching proudly past the rows of the worst deviants and slogs in the galaxy.

  “What’d you do, sweet thing? Burn the muffins?” A particularly disgusting double-faced, four-legged Glitopuss taunted, coiling his long slimy tongue toward her. His genitals swelled and glistened grotesquely in the weblinthium’s pulsing glow.

  She veiled her eyes, looking away. Unfortunately, the view was no better wherever her glance fell.

  “Maybe the Diva Goddess stuck that perky nose up in the air at the King,” a single-breasted Pretadorn drawled. Sporting a single beady eye and three nostrils, she was as abominable as the Glitopuss.

  “You take a wrong turn? The debutante ball is in the penthouse, at the top of the compound.” Startled by the human voice, her gaze sought out the owner. He appeared to be the only man on the corridor. The inmate’s amused gaze dissected each and every inch of her. He leaned against the weblinthium bars nonchalantly as if he was hanging out at the cantina. Mischief danced in the man’s jade eyes, striking against his waist-length coal-black hair. He was simultaneously the most disreputable and sexiest male she’d ever seen, so much so, he made her forget to breathe. “Don’t mind them. They never heard of manners.”

  And he had? Regardless of his handsome façade, she detected no evidence of his so-called manners. “You’re on death’s corridor because you have such sterling ones?” Siobhan returned the favor, letting her gaze drink him in. Tall enough to make her look up at him, the man had to stand at least six foot four inches. Broad shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist, slim hips, and powerful legs. Mocking intelligence smoldered in his disturbing gaze. Unkempt though he was, she grudgingly admitted the man was ruggedly handsome, with sculpted cheeks, a braided beard with faded beads strung through the two braids, and a high forehead, which his unruly locks insisted on tumbling over. He was one-hundred-eighty degrees opposite her fiancé’s polished blond figure. He wore the outfit of pirates, her sworn enemies.

  “Just a little misunderstanding, sweet thing. My attorneys are working on my appeal as we speak.”

  Sweet thing? Hardly. If he’d heard the rumors of her supposed crime, he wouldn’t waste a drop of charm on her. “Hope your attorneys are better than mine.” Considering her own case, it was possible, if highly unlikely, he spoke
the truth. Danger seeped from his every pore, mixed in with his scallywag charm. Charming men made her internal alarms whir out of control—they couldn’t be trusted. Her father had tried to alliance her with several. Blatantly honest, she loved her straightforward Dennis. No artifice. No games. Thoroughly trustworthy, she could consign him her life. She had done so often and he had never let her down.

  So where was he now?

  Trying to find her, most definitely. She had been captured and arrested without due process…

  The guard disabled the weblinthium force field in the cell across from the pirate, then unclasped the chain from her collar and shoved her inside. In a reverberating, mechanical voice, he said, “Better pray fast to your gods. Your execution will be at the rise of the third Balderian moon.”

  Siobhan stumbled, falling heavily on her knees and elbows, banging her head on the concrete floor. Insects scurried out of her path, burrowing into shadowy crevices in the scarred, crumbling walls. Spikes of light floated before her eyes, clouding her vision as she struggled to stand up. Pain slashed her temples, shooting down the back of her neck, to the base of her spinal cord, so that she swayed and had to prop herself up against the wall.

  Moonbeams danced across the floor, and her gaze sought the window. Two moons were climbing high in the inky sky. The third couldn’t be long in following.

  “You okay in there, sweetheart?” Concern flitted through the man’s voice. Then curiosity drowned it out. “What could a pretty little wench like you do to warrant such special treatment?”

  Sure she was okay. She was terrific! These slogs were merely planning to separate her head from the rest of her body, that was all. She couldn’t be better. She glared at the smirking pirate. “They say I led the massacre on the Kaloba Colonies.”

  The man whistled long and low under his breath, taking a step away as if taken aback. An inscrutable light flickered in his eyes.

  She swallowed a sigh. She should be used to this reaction and worse, by now. Everyone assumed she knew all the details of her supposed inglorious crime since they believed her to be the perpetrator of the heinous acts. In fact, she had known nothing until she was arrested and questioned at length. “So you’ve heard about it. Can you tell me what you know?”

  “And you want me to tell you? Are you pleading amnesia?” He chuckled mirthlessly as he stroked his beard thoughtfully. His voice hushed to a conspiratorial, intimate whisper that scraped his spine. “You can tell me, sweetheart. Are you on the level or are you campaigning for a psychonet? If so, they didn’t buy it.”

  The last thing she needed was to forge a friendship in here. A dubious friendship it would be at that, considering he was a pirate. She tamped down her ire, and leaned against the bars so she wouldn’t have to shout to be heard. “I’m not psychotic, and if I have amnesia, I don’t remember it.” Obviously… “Amnesia or not, killing innocents isn’t my style. But there’s damning DNA evidence. Someone’s framing me.”

  “DNA evidence is irrefutable.”

  If he couldn’t help her, he should keep his own counsel. A huge sigh built in her chest and she released it slowly in a hiss of air. Plucking out a strand of her platinum hair, she stared at it, wondering that such an innocuous thing could determine her fate. “It’s wrong this time. What’d you do to get an invitation to this country club?”

  A mischievous grin lit the man’s face. “Just borrowed a bit of latinum. Accidentally blew up an unmanned space station.”

  One of her family’s mining stations? Or a Confederation one? “Oh, of course.” She massaged her neck where the metal chafed. If nothing else, the man proved amusing and distracted her from her dire plight, if only momentarily. “You have many such accidents?”

  “First this year.” He flashed a devilish gold-toothed grin at her.

  “Only one this year?” She shook her head, her bob swishing about her cheeks. Her stomach growled loudly, having gone without sustenance since the prior evening, but she doubted her jailors would serve prime rib for her final meal. Soothing the soreness, she massaged her abdomen.

  “Tell me your name. Perhaps I’ll recognize it.” Was he as infamous as she supposedly was? She racked her brain trying to remember news of such an incident. So many space stations were attacked, no one occurrence stood out, however. Her family suffered several mining station losses annually due to meteor showers, attacks, and accidents. Pirates, like this one, accounted for the majority of their losses.

  “Caid.” He bit out the word like a bullet, proudly as if she should recognize it, and bow down in deference.

  “Just Caid?” Unimpressed, she shrugged. The harsh single syllable didn’t fit him. She’d expected a flamboyant, romantic name like Pierre or André to match his dashing figure.

  “Captain Jeremiah Kincaid, but my mates and my crew call me ‘Caid’.”

  Ahhh, Jeremiah was more what she expected from such a dashing, romantic figure. Dashing? Romantic? She shook herself to dust the cobwebs out of her mind. This episode was playing havoc with her senses. She would never consider a pirate, the scourge of the universe, dashing, and particularly not romantic.

  “Does this mean we’re friends?” She couldn’t bite back the snort that escaped her lips. Like she would make friends in this horrid place? How long would the friendship last anyway? A few precious henseps until Balderian’s third moon climbed into the heavens?

  Explosions rocked the compound. Mortar rained from the ceiling, pelting her. Monstrous chunks of wall fell in, almost crushing her. Inmates screamed with furious fear. Guards shouted contradictory, impassioned orders. Lights flickered. Sirens shrieked.

  “What’s happening?” Siobhan peered through the weblinthium field to gain a better perspective, not that the rest of death’s corridor appeared to be much different than her own crumbling chamber.

  “My appeal just arrived.” A devilish grin lit up Caid’s words.

  “You’re busting out?” Hope flared in her gut and she tested the weblinthium field hoping its stability had been degraded by the quake. She cursed under her breath when an electrical burst shot nasty jolts up her arm. “Take me with you.”

  “I’ll need payment for breaking out a convicted mass murderer. Substantial payment.” Caid twirled his long mustache, his eyes twinkling upon her, making her tingle in odd ways she didn’t much appreciate.

  Siobhan swallowed a huge sigh. Every slog in the universe must know of her family’s wealth and thought they deserved a piece of it. Not that she kept latinum on her person and if she had, the prison guards would have divested her of it long ago. But she could obtain more, given a few dayseps. “I have latinum. Hidden treasure. Half is yours if you get me out safely.”

  “How much latinum?” Avarice reverberated in Caid’s voice, as she’d hoped. She was reeling him in. All hope wasn’t lost.

  “More than even you can dream of.” She counted on him to react in true pirate form and grab her lure. What pirate could resist such easy treasure?

  “Well, now, I can dream of a lot. You must be rich not to bat an eyelash. But fear not, sweet damsel, I do not have monetary compensation in mind.” Caid licked his moist lips, his gold teeth glinting in the flickering light.

  Fear not? If not latinum, what kind of payment could he want? She shuddered at the inner workings of a pirate’s mind, but henseps were ticking by and she couldn’t afford to parry words. “Just what kind of payment did you have in mind?”

  Caid puffed out his chest and stroked his beard. She had to quell a shiver when his heated gaze settled on her breasts. “I’ve been without a fine woman such as yourself far longer than I care to admit. I could use some feminine companionship.”

  Alarm bells whirred through her, and she recoiled. Companionship? Just what kind of companionship did he have in mind? “How so? I’m afraid you’ll have to spell it out. My mind is rotting in this filthy dungeon.”

  The pirate’s glance raked the grimy, tumbledown corridor, and grunted his acquiescence. “I’ve seen bette
r. But I’ve seen far worse, the likes of the third level of hell.” He stomped a giant, disgusting insect that was brainless enough to scamper over his booted foot, making her wince.

  Things couldn’t get much worse than death’s corridor, and the henseps of her hourglass ticked away deep in her soul. If she didn’t want to end up like that pathetic grech, squashed by fate, she would have to acquiesce to whatever he wanted—or at least pretend to until she could make her escape from him. “What kind of companionship?” she asked between gritted teeth, trying to hold onto her smile so as not to infuriate him and blow her one shot at freedom. Unfortunately, she had trouble voicing the word companionship without derision.

  “Your favors, at my command.” Caid licked his lips suggestively, making her stomach plummet.

  Why couldn’t the man just speak plain English and not dance around the subject? “Favors?” As best as she tried, she couldn’t keep her voice from wavering on the single, vile word.

  “Don’t be daft and crude, wench. You know what I mean.”

  Wench? She was not a wench, but now was not the time to correct him, when she required his help. “At the risk of being daft, you’ll have to spell it out for me,” she said from beneath an angry blush that suffused her entire body.

  “You shall let me bed you and have my deviant way with you at my leisure, comprendez?”

  Her pussy tingling against her will, she gulped hard. Fixating on his scandalous beard, she bristled. “What other choice do I have?”

  “I thought you’d see it my way, sweetheart. Now tell me, how much skill do you have with a taser?”

  She blinked. Was he serious? “You’re asking the scourge of the universe if she can handle weapons of mass destructive powers?” His demanded form of payment boggled her mind. Sex, down and dirty, upon his command… Would he at least ply her with romance? Spirits? Something to numb her senses so she wouldn’t find it too unpalatable?