“I hope you’re right,” the officer said, turning away from Max and heading over to sit on one of the cots. “Either way, not much to do now but wait.”
“Unfortunately, you’re right there,” Max said. Looking out, he saw the guards had resumed their game, their faces looking less bored, a mixture of relief and worry replacing it.
Yeah, you guys just get to wait and see like us, huh? You don’t have to worry about staring down the mercenary guns of my buddies, but you’re not stupid enough to think you’re safe up here if they fail.
***
Somehow knowing things were finally happening had more of a calming, rather than agitating, effect on Max’s nerves, despite desperately wanting to know what was going on, and he was at least able to lie down rather than pacing endlessly.
This meant that the first he knew anything was going on was when the unmistakable sound of penetrator rounds mixed with regular bullets shattered the background murmur of voices in the holding cell.
Max’s first instinct was to vault off the bed and see what was happening, but that instinct was overridden by years of training, and he rolled off the cot to hug the floor.
“Everyone down!” he yelled in his best drill instructor voice.
Not waiting to see if people were obeying, he crawled toward the nearest wall, inched along until he could see at least a little of the room beyond the windows.
He could see the room, but none of the interesting parts, so he ducked back down and crawled forward until he was directly under the window.
Popping up his head for a moment, he laughed in surprise and joy, standing up fully.
Standing just in view in the corridor beyond the guardroom was Morgan, along with a woman Max didn’t recognize. No, not a woman, a girl, a little slip of a thing that probably was quite the bombshell under more conducive circumstances.
Right now, both girls had the best accessory a girl could want, however, in the form of beautiful polymer molded firearms. He could also see Morgan had a heavy duffle bag slung over her shoulder; hopefully that had more useful tools.
The guards were… well, their card game was blasted to pieces and scattered across a good portion of the room. How they fared under the same barrage of fire didn’t bear dwelling on.
“I take it, you know this young lady?” the officer asked Max.
“That would be one of STEVE’s lieutenants,” Max answered.
Waving to get Morgan’s attention, he pointed toward the guard he knew had the key, miming him turning it in a lock to get her to understand.
Nodding, Morgan moved over and gingerly reached into the corpse’s pocket, fishing out the key in short order.
Max wanted to be the first to greet her, but of course a bunch of the other miners had beaten him to the door.
“Back up, back up,” their officer ordered, allowing room for the officer and Max to approach.
“You are the prettiest thing I’ve seen all year,” Max said, his smile fit to burst.
Morgan frowned at his words, looking down at herself… and at the bare footprints tinged in red she was trailing behind her. She shuddered before answering.
“Get your eyes checked,” she said, and then the frown disappeared for a moment, “but it is good to see you.”
“We need to hurry,” Max said, holding up his hand to forestall more chatter. “Unless my guess is wrong, they’ve got a standoff going on down by the airlock, and they grabbed some of us as hostages.”
Morgan’s frown deepened.
“I guess STEVE got my message, at least. Will we be safe to use the lift to get down there?”
Max turned to the officer.
“There any other quick way down to the airlock?” to which the officer just shook his head. “Guess it will have to be. The good news is that they’ll probably have everyone focused on the airlock. I don’t think they know yet that you got loose. I want to ask how, but that will have to wait.”
“How many weapons do we have?” Bolton asked.
Morgan jerked her head back toward the guardroom; she headed for a long table that still held the remnants of what Max assumed was the guard’s lunch.
Carefully she laid out the various weapons on her, to which the other girl added the rifles the guards had never had time to reach and the pistols that Bolton had taken a moment to recover from their belts.
“Eleven pistols, seven rifles, and one spare magazine per rifle. That’s far better than I expected,” Max admitted. “Just, um… how many pirates did you shoot on your way here?”
“Only two spare magazines for one of the pistols, though,” Morgan pointed out, obviously ignoring his question. “Once we get to the lift, I can grab my pistol and spare magazines, plus one more rifle,” Morgan added.
“Stashed them in the shaft?” Max said. “Good thinking, but they might have gone in looking for them.”
“I hope not. Tell me, did they seem surprised about STEVE sending over the mercs?”
“Hard to say. They definitely seemed rushed, maybe because they didn’t realize they were coming until they were already here?”
“They probably didn’t, then. If they’d found the weapons, they also would have found my uplink, which is how I got a message out.”
“Either way, our goal is the same,” the officer said.
“How many of your men have military training?” Max asked.
“I’ll go find out,” he answered.
Max was distracted by the other girl, who was wandering about among the men who were busy filing out of their prison, looking more worried by the moment.
“Pa?” she called out. “Pa? Where are you?”
This went on for a minute or so, and unless Max was much mistaken, most of the men were avoiding her gaze. She didn’t seem to notice, however, probably too focused on finding her father.
I didn’t think any of the miners out here had kids, did they?
Finally, the second officer came back out, frowning as he headed her way.
“I’m afraid he was one of the six taken,” the officer said as reached her, stretching out her hand and resting it the girl’s shoulder. Turning back to Max, he reported in in a louder voice. “Fifteen of them are comfortable with weapons. If we add in yourself, your other man here, the lady officer, and myself, that only leaves one weapon unused.”
“I’m coming too,” the girl insisted.
“Linda, it isn’t going to be safe. You need to stay here,” Morgan insisted right back.
Linda let loose a stream of spacer cussin’ that honestly impressed Max, despite his presumably greater experience with the habit.
“I’m not staying here while Pa is in danger.” She suddenly blushed, stammering a bit and speaking much quieter as she added, “And you’re not tellin’ Pa that I know those words.”
Morgan looked over at Max, obviously seeking his opinion. All he could do was shrug.
“She already has a pistol, and we don’t want to waste time arguing the point. Besides, the more people we have to come at them, the better chance we have of forcing them to surrender.”
“Please don’t make me regret this,” Morgan said to Linda.
“Of course not. ‘Sides, I already saved you once today. I don’t want my work to go to waste.”
Max raised an eyebrow and looked over at Morgan, who just shook her head and mouthed, ‘later.’
“All right, get your men armed. Make sure Max and Bolton have two of the rifles,” Morgan said, picking up the rifle she’d had before, then pausing and handing it over to Bolton. She caught Max’s attention, jerking her chin off to a corner. He followed her, and she leaned in to whisper to him.
“You have to keep her safe, Max.”
“I was planning on doing what I could anyway, Cutie, but…”
“No buts, Max. She’s barely eighteen, and has been held captive for almost six months now. I want to sleep at night. Keep her safe.”
Max didn’t disagree with her, but there was one bit of irony in all
this he couldn’t ignore any longer.
“Cutie, how old are you? I mean really?”
“Now? You want to do this now?” Morgan asked, exasperation clear in her voice.
“How old? Don’t think you’re the only one who has ever lied about their age for one reason or another.”
“Fine. I’m… not barely eighteen.”
“But you are eighteen.”
“Near as I can tell, yeah.”
Max paused as he parsed her meaning, then shook his head.
“We’ll talk later about how you don’t know exactly when your own birthday is. Right now, I will keep Linda safe, and I will keep you safe. These miners look like tough sorts. I’d bet at least half of the ones coming along are veterans themselves. You’ve done plenty to get us this far. Both of you will be hanging back once we get down there.”
“And how are you going to make me do that?” Morgan asked with a laugh. “And don’t forget, I have more experience with combat than you do.”
Max looked down, his gaze taking in once more her bare legs and the bloody footprints she was still leaving behind her, though not nearly so defined.
“I didn’t forget it, Cutie. I certainly wouldn’t suggest you can’t handle yourself. You should remember, though, that I’ll have most of twenty men to stand in front of you, myself included.”
“I’m not more important than you.”
Max just shrugged.
“We disagree.”
“You mean you disagree.”
Max just smiled.
“Fine then, I disagree. You’re my friend, Morgan. That makes you more important to me than my own well-being.”
“Idiot.”
“Don’t I know it. Now, how about we get your feet cleaned up? I think I saw some water over on that table, and I’m sure someone can find us some bandages.”
“We don’t really have time… woah,” Morgan said as Max finally just rolled his eyes and grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her onto the table.
“Bolton needs to go over the basics of these weapons with the men. We have time. Just relax. We can’t have you wandering around with injured feet.”
Max tried to get one of the men’s attention, but they seemed a bit distracted by the weapons. The girl did come over after a moment, though, which was certainly enough help for his purposes.
“Linda, right?” Max asked, giving her one of his better smiles. “Could you head into the prison area? There was a cot they were using for basic medical stuff, I think back and to the left as you head in. Could you grab a bunch of bandages and anything that looks like disinfectant?”
“Sure,” Linda replied, but she looked a bit confused. Pursing her lips, she bounced on the balls of her feet a moment before venturing to ask a question. “Isn’t there someone ya know, trained in that here?”
“I think so,” Max replied, pointing to one of the men holding a rifle up and looking it over. “Pretty sure that’s him. Don’t worry, this is all pretty basic stuff, I’ll be fine.”
Turning back to Morgan, he saw she’d scooted back on the table a bit, and tucked the sides of her overlarge shirt under her legs.
“First, let’s see what we’re working with,” Max said, grabbing the water he had previously mentioned. Since he didn’t have a clean towel yet, he just slowly poured it over her feet, washing the blood and grime off as best he could.
Once he got a good look at her feet, he couldn’t help but laugh.
“I should have known, shouldn’t I? Not your blood, huh?”
“I was trying to tell you that,” Morgan replied.
“Eh, still a good idea to get them cleaned. And there are a couple small nicks on your feet, so this won’t be a complete waste of time.”
While he waited on Linda, Max poked a bit at her feet, checking for anything that wasn’t immediately visible.
Morgan squirmed a bit, biting her lip and visibly trying to keep herself still.
“Don’t tell me you’re ticklish?” Max asked.
“Is that so hard to believe?” Morgan said in-between two bouts of rubbing her lower legs together as he poked at the arch of one foot. “Stop that!”
“You are so lucky I didn’t discover this weeks ago. It would have made our sparring sessions so much funnier.”
“For you, maybe. At least until I got fed up with it and tossed you.”
“That would have just encouraged me more,” Max said, only mostly teasing.
Linda arrived, handing a clean cloth to Max first, keeping the bandages and a bottle in her arms. She gave Max a strange look as she did so; it was not something he could immediately identify.
“Thanks, Darling,” Max said, Cutie having already been taken by Morgan and anything more familiar being a bit premature.
“I take it you two know each other?” Linda asked while Max dried off Morgan’s feet.
“We met on this trip,” Morgan answered before Max could say anything.
A mental alarm was going off in Max’s head, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be warning him of.
“Friends, then?” Linda followed up with.
“Yeah. He’s been teaching me some self-defense stuff. Things I can use short of shooting someone.”
“Has he now?” Linda said, another odd note in her voice. “I’ve been thinking such things could be useful for me, too, as I’m sure ya can imagine.”
Well, yeah, being kidnapped by pirates is enough to make anyone rethink their personal protection plan, but why… oh. Oh, blast it. It clicked as he was thinking. I was wondering why she was out here, since the miners don’t have their families on the station. She must have been caught earlier, with her father. Morgan even told me she’d been captive for months. That means small private vessel. That means she’s been out here with just her family for who knows how long.
That means I might be the first boy she’s seen close to her own age in years.
Panic? Yes, I think panic.
Morgan said something else while his brain was locking up, but he had no idea what. He had no good options, so he took what might be the least bad.
“Sorry, Cutie, what did you just say? I was lost in thought for a moment, there.”
“Oh, I was just saying it’s almost a pity the return trip will be so short. You won’t have much chance to teach her anything,” Morgan said. Her tone was perfectly sincere, but something about the carefully-controlled expression she wore also set off warning bells.
Max, you idiot. Sure, friends first, then develop from there. Great plan, brilliant, he thought to himself. Maybe you should have considered she might get to meddling in your fake love life in other ways, if she only sees you as a friend.
“Okay, that’s the small cuts bandaged,” Max said, thankful that he was trained enough in basic first aid to be able to completely lose control of a conversation and work at the same time, “Let’s wrap it all, anyway. Not as good as a shoe, but better than nothing. Then we can see about getting your weapons back.”
“Great. Time we ended this,” Morgan said.
Chapter 31
Fear is a perfectly normal reaction to danger. Tears are, too. Breaking down into a blubbering mess, while undignified, is completely understandable. Really, everyone feels such stark fear to a degree. The difference, then, between cowardice and bravery, is not so much one of what people feel, but when, and what they do with it. Dropping your weapon in the face of the enemy and fleeing is abject cowardice, and deserving of being shot in the back by your own side. Crawling into a hole and coming apart at the seams – after the battle is won – is nothing to be ashamed of, and in fact can be a very healthy part of dealing with stress.
- Admiral Robert A. Hearn, Wolf Lunar Fleet.
EVENTS STARTED moving along very quickly at that point. There was a brief pause after Bolton finished his crash course on the models of firearms Morgan had liberated while they debated heading straight to the airlock or if they wanted to head over and free t
he women first, but in the end it wasn’t much of a debate. Simply put, if they forced the main group to surrender, that would all but certainly force the few men guarding the women to also surrender, and any delay now could easily hurt everyone.
Morgan almost felt out of place as the group hurried along toward the lift, and not just because she was almost the only woman amongst them, but also because (for the moment) only she and Max were unarmed, and then furthermore because of her present outfit.
That last was unlikely to change, unfortunately, given she had no clue where the pirates would have taken their surrendered skinsuits. The only good news was that skinsuits were so individualized that there wasn’t anything else the pirates could have done with them besides storage.
For a moment, Morgan imagined reporting back to Captain Rain on the bridge, still wearing the ridiculous oversized shirt and nothing else beyond the bandages on her feet. She could feel her face heat up at the mere thought, and she tried to push it out of mind.
Morgan knew her wandering mind was simply a way to distract herself from the fear by conjuring embarrassing fictions, but that didn’t make the embarrassment any less real.
Or the fear any less present, in the end.
Beyond both of those emotions was the other thing she was desperately trying not to think about. As much as she understood – and even agreed with – what Linda had said earlier, it was bothering her how efficiently, how coldly, she was able to kill the pirates. If she was being honest with herself, Morgan was feeling cold in general, and not in the physical sense.
Okay, maybe in the physical sense, too.
Even her momentary humor at her little joke felt deadened, muted. It almost felt like a switch had been flipped inside, and ‘Morgan’ was locked behind a wall of ice that kept her from really processing what was going on, at least until the danger was past.
Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Did it matter that she didn’t care that men were dying, since they were bad men? But then she cared that she didn’t care, at much as she cared about anything through the emotional wall of ice around her heart.
They’d reached the lift as Morgan thought through all her confusing, contradictory thoughts, and now it was time for some action.
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