time on the air. I was already getting light-headed.
“Means somebody went and blew out the bridge galley.” Roy picked up his own cup and fixed
me with a prissy glare above it.
“Hey, don’t look at me. I was the one ducking, remember?” I felt the loss, though. Captain’s
galley always had the best grub. I swallowed, licked sweet crumbs off my teeth. “Doesn’t matter.
Crew galley’s a few decks down. So we got food, water, and air…” I stopped. It was, I realized,
already getting hard to breathe.
Romeo must have caught my expression. “I wouldn’t bet on the air,” he said.
“The life support’s out,” Roy added.
“How?” I hoped I sounded surprised enough. “The habitat bulb was airtight. We just have to
open the doors.” I prayed ShipMind would remember not to let them if they tried.
Romeo pointed the ear at the bridge doors. “I’d think about that if I were you. Check the
status light.”
I followed the direction of his ear. The light was red. Had to hand it to ShipMind; where it
thought at all, it thought of everything. “How can the seals be broken?” I asked. “It’s a
malfunction. Has to be. Habitat bulb was fine before.”
Romeo shrugged. “Seals were probably damaged in the attack. Just took them a while to fail.
Failure light came on shortly after I finished taking the bodies out. Go ahead and hit the override,
if you want. Vacuum’s a faster death than suffocation.”
“Yeah, but nastier.” I dropped back into the command chair. Even that small movement left
me gasping. At that, I was in better shape than Roy. Our Sprite had sunk to a squat, his head
leaning on the divider railing. His coffee cup dangled from his fingers, a dark circle of liquid
hovering just below its rim.
Romeo pushed himself to his feet. He stepped wide of Roy, handing himself along the railings
to my chair. With a start, I realized he clutched my torso armor in one taloned hand. “Let’s get
you back in your armor. At least you’ll have a chance-”
“No go on that one. Suit sprang a leak in the attack.”
“Then I am truly sorry.” He dropped the armor, shoulders slumping. “I had hoped we could
save you.”
Damn, the man really cared. I couldn’t say how I knew it, but I did. Bitter memories reminded
me what had happened last time I believed some man had cared about me. This time I could
ignore them. Somehow Romeo felt different. Somehow, I knew his concern was real.
“Well, hells…,” I clawed myself upright like I’d just had an idea. “Wait a minute! This is a
civ ship! There’ll be a life pod…” I finished the coffee, put the cup on the arm rest, then slid out
of the captain’s chair. I made a show of running my hands across the deck. I wasn’t faking the
wooziness, either. ShipMind must be pumping our air straight out to Jump speed.
Romeo was already beside me. He spotted the outline of the pod hatch before I did. He slid
back the control shield and held up a hand. Dark talons lined the backs of his fingers. I grabbed
his hand before he sank those talons into the pod door. “Let me handle the controls. You’d just
shred them.”
He nodded and backed off. I felt my way around the depression containing the manual
controls, hit the ‘open’ patch. The blast of air from the boat nearly knocked me over. Safety seals
triggered instantly, cutting the flow off, but it cleared my head. “Okay, get in.”
“Ladies first.”
“I’ve got to stay up here to handle the controls, remember?” I reached past Romeo, grabbed
Roy’s stockinged ankle. “Besides, I’m going to need you to catch sleeping beauty here.”
Romeo snorted. “I’d rather not touch that one if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t, then. Just get in.”
Lucky for me he nodded. He slid over the pod’s lip and dropped. Tightening my grip on
Roy’s ankle I hauled him toward me.
And nearly caught a heel in the face.
Combat reflexes let me block the little bastard’s follow up kick. I didn’t know where a pretty
boy toy could’ve picked up mano a mano combat skills, but wherever it was he must’ve been top
of the class. Only reason he failed to kick my teeth down my throat was because he was even
woozier than I was.
I rolled over my shoulder to drive my knee into his nose. Praise the gods for Spritely instincts:
he yelped and grabbed his face. I had his elbows locked behind his back before he recovered.
“What is wrong with you, idiot?” I hissed in his ear. “We got a rescue team inbound. I’m
tryin’ to keep us all alive ‘til they get here.”
“I know! Just let me handle it!”
Yeah, right. I yanked his elbows higher to shut him up before we both passed out. “Look,
I ain’t happy about it, either. So listen good. I’m going to tell ‘em Romeo’s my prisoner and
you’re his toy –”
“No!” He managed to wail in a whisper. “Your toy! Tell them I’m your toy! You’re an
interrogator! They’ll believe that!”
“I’ll think about it.” I ended his worries by planting my nicely healed foot against his butt and
shoving.
I heard his body thump on the pod deck below. Heard him swear like a Marine when he hit,
too. Confirmation, if I’d still needed it, that pretty the boy might be, but sweet he wasn’t.
“You next.” Romeo peered up at me from his side of the pod.
“Can’t, yet,” I told him. “Got to set the release timer. I’m going to start sliding the hatch back
so I can reach the controls. You stand clear, because I’m going to have to dive in pretty damn
fast. Don’t want you blocking my way.” I waited for him to back away from the opening. Then I
hit the ‘close’ patch.
Lucky for me that hatch shut fast. As it was, Romeo almost caught the lid before it closed
completely. The sounds of him pounding on the inside lock told me I’d been right to tell
ShipMind to turn off the boat’s internal controls. They’d be safe and snug in there, but they sure
as hells weren’t going anywhere for the next thirty minims. Assuming, that was, Romeo didn’t
manage to punch through the seal lock on his own.
Also assuming I didn’t suffocate first.
It took energy reserves I didn’t think I had to crawl back to the command chair. Could’ve
climbed a mountain for the effort it took to haul myself up into the seat. I nearly passed out twice
before I got my hand back in the sync link.
Cancel air flush, I told ShipMind. And open those damn doors.
Air flush cancelled, ShipMind announced. It will take fourteen minims to equalize air
pressure sufficiently to open the bridge doors safely.
Gob safety! Just give me some air!
Get in the life pod, ShipMind said. I’ll open the hatch for you.
Hells, no! My head was swimming, but I hadn’t lost total sense yet. I fell against the chair,
felt something shift under my knees. My armor! It was only the torso section, but every section
of armor had its own oxygen vents. With fingers gone clumsy I felt around the interior until I
found the oxygen pump. I pulled the shell over my head and breathed.
The armor’s smell confirmed my suspicions about the dirty sock smell. Inhaling my own
B.O. wasn’t my idea of a good time, but it bought me the minims I needed to get my head clear
and thinki
ng again. Between breaths I sync’d back in to try talking to our rescuers. Waste of
time. My first ‘howdy’ got me told to shut up. My second try earned me a detailed set of
instructions on just how I should shut up. I spent the remaining minims locating my armor and
suiting up.
The team that appeared on the screens turned out to be a pair of StelFleet fighters. I didn’t
even try asking what in hell fighters were doing out here on the DMZ. They joined syncs only
long enough to be sure our old tub couldn’t make Jump on its own. After that the first fighter
banked off to wing position. His buddy wasted neither time nor diplomacy in overriding
ShipMind’s boards and piggybacking itself to the freighter’s bridge. A moment later, it launched
our ungainly mass into Jump.
At least that piggybacked fighter would have to tell ShipMind our course. I undid an armored
glove, sync’d back in. The fighter’s override must have gone deeper into the freighter’s AI than
I’d expected. This time the sync link wavered. I fought down a fresh rush of terror. Praise all the
gods in the area, I passed whatever scan the fighter’s AI ran on me. The wooziness ended,
leaving me a clear link to ShipMind. Where are we headed? I asked.
Aram, it told me.
Could’ve been worse. Aram was one of those goldilocks worlds that were close enough to
Earth-like for humans to survive without adaptive gene-coding or breathing gear. The only
reason Aram hadn’t been settled yet was because it was closer to the Lupan Dominion than the
Commonwealth. From Aram it was just one Jump to Bogue Dast, the last station in human space.
From Bogue Dast, you were only one Jump away from Den Lupus.
It wasn’t a long trip. We dropped out of Jump deep in the Aram system, pre-empting the
regular traffic flow and scaring hell out of an orbiting Army post that system buoy insisted
wasn’t there. Through sync I heard our piggyback rider shriek “Friend!” on all channels.
On the freighter’s screens, Aram showed blue beneath swirls of white clouds. Like every
other goldilocks world, it looked wrong. Didn’t matter what my mind knew, I always kept
looking for the long squiggle of the Americas. On Aram, there was only a single pair of
continents on opposite sides of the planet and opposing hemispheres. The mountainous northern
land mass was shrouded in wintry white. The southern continent had the flat, dusty brown of
deserts everywhere.
I stayed in sync, listening to traffic responses. There was a lot of traffic for such an empty
world. The machine responses were predictable, other ships yelping protest while scrambling out
of our way. No human-chat, though. I snorted to myself. Civilian my ass. That port was civ like I
was Aryan. In a civ port, somebody would’ve been burning our ears off by now.
Our piggyback rider disengaged before we hit atmosphere. It stayed sync’d long enough,
though, to let me glimpse the fighter’s scan feed. According to ShipMind’s scanners, the only
thing tracking us was ground control. The fighter’s superimposed view said otherwise. The
fighter’s feed showed a bright orange ticker line following our movements. Weapons readings.
There were heavy grade guns down there. And they had us on target lock.
That ended any doubts I’d been clinging to. No wonder this whole mission was so secret
squirrel: the Lupans would have had howling fits if they learned we had a military base in their
back yard. I wondered for a moment about telling ShipMind to just run for it. The old tub had
smuggler’s engines; she could make Jump speed almost from a standing start. It was a short
moment. Those guns were already locked on us. If we even hinted at deviating from the
prescribed course the locals would be picking our pieces up all across the continent. Only thing
to do was tough it out until I found us an escape route.
We made planetfall on the desert side of the planet, around mid-morning, planetside local.
The freighter’s screens showed me a welcoming committee already screaming across the landing
field. By this point I wasn’t surprised to see that the officer’s skimmer had a troop carrier in tow.
Or that the troops in the carrier held combat rifles. I didn’t have to think hard to guess that
whoever was running this show had a good idea, already, of what had happened aboard our
freighter. Tucking my helmet under my arm I marched down to the freighter’s hatch to meet
them.
The officer storming up the ramp was a grim-faced veteran, all lean muscle and no nonsense.
The pair of guards behind her had the unmistakable polar bear build and curly white fur of
Streikern natives. Their branch of humanity was engineered to survive on a world of blue ice and
frozen seas, so Streikern kids started combat training in diapers. Any kid who couldn’t cut it was
left out on the ice to die. The ones who survived made up the Army’s elite shock troops. Cool as
the evening air was by desert standards these two were sweating. I didn’t think it was a case of
nerves. The only saving grace was that the power lights on their rifles showed yellow, sign they
were set for stun.
I waited til their officer stopped, then snapped off a salute. “Sgt. Katrina Vahrheitsyaeger
reporting for duty. I have a prisoner –”
“Save it for the Colonel. You’re under arrest.”
“What? ”
“You can come quietly or –”
I cut her off in good Aryan fashion. “On what grounds?”
“…not.” The officer turned aside. One of the guards swung his rifle around and fired.
Chapter 3
I came to in a world gone soft and warm and so comfortable I just wanted to curl up and drop
back into sleep. I was lying someplace long and lumpy and not too hard, covered by something
warm and clean-smelling and not too scratchy in a world that smelled fresh and antiseptic… I
shot upright. Cold steel around my wrist yanked me right back down. Frantic, I tried to jerk my
wrist free. No go.
I was handcuffed to a bed. A quick glance around showed me I was cuffed to a bed in a
hospital ward. I did a mental body-check: my armor undersuit was gone, replaced by a hospital
gown. My temples throbbed in a headache worthy of a three-day hangover. Old terrors welled
up. I ran inventory on the rest of my body. No pain, no wet, sticky blood anywhere. Just a
throbbing, full-body ache. I pulled my knees up and leaned my head on them, panting.
“Oh, Ma’am?”
It took me a second to recognize that sweet, innocent voice as Roy’s. I lurched around to see
the Sprite lying in the bed next to mine, dressed in the same kind of hospital gown as I was.
Somebody had patched his wounds up properly. Fresh synskin bandages had compressed the
gashes across his face into fine, white lines. He’d always be scarred, but the effect now would be
dashing instead of horrifying.
Beyond him stood a short row of empty beds with neat, white sheets and scratchy gray
blankets leading to a pair of swinging doors. I twisted to check my other side: same story. A
matching row of empty beds faced me across the narrow room. Skinny windows set high up on
the gray walls let in enough daylight to mellow the harsh glare of the ward’s ceiling lights.
Typical Army construction, too: the building walls were thin enough I could hear the rumble of
heavy equipment
through the plastiform. I recognized that rumble: those were loaders. Heavy
weapons loaders and a lot of them. That could mean only one thing: this Army base was
prepping for major action. Monkey’s luck: we’d got pulled out of the frying pan and dumped
into the line of fire.
“Oh, Ma’am.”
“What?” I didn’t need to fake the annoyance.
He rolled his eyes like some kind of dainty damsel in a FunNet drama. Only his gaze rested
clear and sharp at a tiny dark spot on the wall between our beds. I wasn’t surprised to recognize
the tiny vid cam, but I wouldn’t have noticed it on my own. I lifted a brow to let him know I’d
spotted it.
He lifted his eyes to point out a second vid cam built into the ceiling above us before he lifted
his wrist to show me the cuff encircling it. “I hope you don’t mind. I told your people who you
are.”
“So why are we cuffed, then?” I lifted a wrist for emphasis.
“I don’t know.” He gave me that wide-eyed innocent look I was learning to hate, then
brightened. “Maybe they didn’t believe me. After all, I’m just your slave.”
So he was sticking to the master-slave idea. Actually… come to think of it, that wasn’t such a
bad routine at all. Ranking Aryans usually kept a body slave handy. Having Roy play the role
suggested an idea, one that would give me the status of a ranking interrogator. In which case, I’d
better play my part. I turned my voice hard. “Where’s the Dog?”
“I don’t know!” His face puckered, tears glistening his baby browns. “They took him
prisoner. I just know they stuck him someplace dark and awful –”
“What’s it to you?”
“Nothing, Ma’am.” He gave me a guilty puppy look. “But you should be able to get him back
pretty quick.”
I’d have given much to know where he’d got that idea. I settled for giving him the stink eye.
“And just why should I?” I hoped he’d realize I was staying in character.
“But you’re Commander Sasaki’s back-up! And they already knew you’re an Interrogator.”
“Oh? Just what did you tell them?” “I’m sorry!” he wailed. “It’s in your name! Please don’t
be angry! They shoved a neural wand up my nose!”
Ouch. Any anger I felt vanished. A neural wand was hell’s own torture device. Touch one of
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