Viktor tapped his comm-patch. “Garland, got a task for Sequoia.” He waved at Jamie. “Send over the images.”
“Yes, sir,” Jamie said.
Borage stirred. “Did she just call you sir? She’s been on a partial apprenticeship down in engineering for months, and she never calls me sir. She just tosses her braids and smiles at me.”
“Aren’t you two getting our microbiologist?” Viktor asked.
“Er, yes, sir.”
“Take Ms. Flipkens with you,” Viktor added. “Once you’re back in the shuttle, gather all the information Dr. Keys has found, everything all of you have found, and ship it off to the news outlets and the president of the board here. At the least, I want that quarantine lifted so the Albatross can get out of here.”
“Yes, sir.” Borage paused before he had gone more than a step down the stairwell. “What are you going to be doing, sir?”
“Visiting the mafia, apparently,” Viktor said, lifting an eyebrow toward Ankari.
She smiled and nodded. Now, he just needed to find out why she believed confronting the mafia was necessary.
11
Ankari felt odd leading Viktor through the bowels of Midway 5, but thanks to his day in jail, he was behind on her plans. She filled him in as they wound through employee areas and maintenance access shafts on their way to the side of the space station that hosted the two freighters with the partial names. They were still waiting to hear back on whether Sequoia could figure out the full names and whether anything untoward had been happening with either of the ships. Unfortunately, they had no idea as to the name of the third vessel Jamie had located.
“I’m still not clear on why you want to make enemies of the mafia,” Viktor said. “Why not take the information Lauren found about the venom to the authorities? You said you also have a copy of a video that shows two mafia people threatening a storekeeper? That could be turned in anonymously, so they wouldn’t know you had picked a fight with them. Those two things should be all that’s needed to get Security to lift the quarantine and to turn them onto the true threat.”
The fact that Viktor—the strong and fearless Captain Mandrake who had spent his entire life fighting—thought they should avoid the mafia made Ankari doubt herself. Was she being too blithe about all of this? Despite the gangs in the slums where she had grown up, the mafia hadn’t operated in the area, so she had never crossed paths with them. They ruled numerous stations and moons on the outer core, though, in some places so openly that they were the entity that collected taxes and enforced laws—such as they were. In other places, they did what they had been attempting to do here, siphoning earnings from businesses and paying off police and private security companies to look the other way.
“I have two reasons,” Ankari said. She would see if Viktor still objected after she explained. “First off, neither you nor I can go to the authorities, not without being arrested. Or shot. Second, causing the quarantine to be lifted wouldn’t change our criminal status here. It wouldn’t make it so we could return to this station again. Whether it’s fair or not, because of the Fleet’s meddling, we’ve got giant black marks by our names in the Midway 5 database, and who knows if that might affect our ability to do business elsewhere?
“I know you don’t worry too much about being wanted,” she went on, “because the ship is your home and it doesn’t seem to matter to you if you ever leave it, but I need to visit planets and stations to effectively run my business. I’m hoping that helping with the situation here—maybe even depositing a tied and gagged mafia leader on Security’s doorstep—would prove that we’re on the side of the law and that we haven’t done anything wrong.” True, Security might already know they hadn’t done anything wrong, thanks to whatever blackmail and string-pulling had been going on in the background, but she hoped Sergei would be able to find the right people and convince them that the truth was a more scintillating story than the version the Fleet wanted spread. If nothing else, he should be able to threaten and blackmail as well as any Fleet officer. If the truth came out, Security would have a hard time continuing to claim Viktor was a criminal. Her own fate was more questionable, since she had committed a crime, however minor. “My dad used to say that stealing always makes more problems than it solves,” she muttered to herself.
“Putting aside for a moment that depositing a mafia leader on anyone’s doorstep could have long-term ramifications to our health, you’ve neglected to explain why you’re being pursued by Security. All because of the tablet you lifted?”
“It started with that, but somewhere along the way, it escalated. The last time I got close and snuggly with some security officers, they tried to shoot me.”
“They shot to kill?” Viktor’s tone grew chilly.
“According to the warrant I later found, they weren’t supposed to kill, but those laser blasts came awfully close to my head.”
“Did you do something else that would have elevated your crime in the eyes of Station Security?”
“No.”
Ankari thought about mentioning a notion she’d had, that the same Fleet people who wanted to use Viktor as a bargaining chip had found out that she meant something to him and might be used against him if their first plan failed. But she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to give him another reason to think about sending her away. She believed he had her safety and her future in mind, but that didn’t make the rejection any easier to stomach. She didn’t want to leave. No matter how many times her mother called, worrying about her.
She pulled out her comm unit and glanced at all of the messages waiting for her. She would contact her mother as soon as she had a few free minutes, but she would not give up Viktor without a fight. Even if his face had grown stony and unfriendly. She hoped it was not because of her and her crazy plan. It did feel presumptuous to take charge when he was the experienced military commander. But she was afraid he would choose the simple path, the one that would most likely keep his ship and his men out of trouble here, rather than one that could clear their names for the future. And she wasn’t sure that was the wrong choice. If she paused or handed over the flight stick, she might lose her momentum and falter.
They had reached the landing of a stairwell on the fourth level of the station, and Ankari peered through the window in the door. The hour had grown late, and as far as she had heard, the quarantine was still in effect, but numerous people were striding past, some of those die-hard casino goers, along with Security and other station personnel.
“I think this is as far as we can go in the maintenance tunnels and back alleys,” Ankari said, checking her map. “The atrium is to the right, and the docks where those two named freighters are secured are to the left, one on this level and one another level up.” She patted his chest. “Too bad we don’t have a costume for you.”
He touched the brim of her purple hat, but did not comment—or make a joke. Surely the hat deserved a joke. But he remained silent, either annoyed with her or deep in thought.
“Maybe we can find a large, broad-shouldered, and muscular security guard,” Ankari said, “and you can beat him up and steal his uniform.”
“I thought we were trying to clear our names, not add to our list of crimes.”
“So you’re saying you’d prefer we swing by the casino for a hat and glasses for you instead?”
Viktor pointed through the window. “The way is clear.”
Right, they should stick to business for now. She could attempt to draw out his humor later.
Ankari waved at the sensor, but the door did not open. Not surprising, since this was an employee exit. She slipped out Viktor’s Lock Master and pressed it to the cool metal.
“I’d wondered where that went when they were searching me,” Viktor murmured.
“I thought I might need it to break you out of jail.”
“Thoughtful.”
“I try to be.” She smiled over her shoulder, hoping for a smile from him.
His eyes were half shut
as he regarded her thoughtfully. “Are you sure you haven’t committed any other crimes to cause your arrest warrant to escalate?”
“Positive.”
The Lock Master finished working with a soft click. Ankari waited for a pair of robots to roll past, pushing hover pallets loaded with crates. They were heading toward the docks, so she slipped out and hustled to catch up with them. She strode along directly behind them—the crates blocked her view, but they would hide her and Viktor’s faces from people ahead of them. He joined her, matching his pace to hers.
“What are you planning to do if we find the mafia ship?” he asked.
“Chat with them.”
He slanted her a dark expression. “Chat?”
“More specifically, because I sense you want specifics, I intend to make them a business proposition so they’ll invite me aboard their ship and I can look around, maybe get some pictures of evidence. Tortured prisoners dangling from shackles—whatever’s common in the holds of a mafia ship.”
Viktor grunted. It wasn’t an encouraging grunt. He was paying attention to the route ahead of them, watching around the edge of one of the crates to see what was coming, so maybe he was simply too preoccupied to comment.
Or maybe he thought she was an idiot. Ankari sighed. Maybe she was.
Viktor’s comm-patch beeped. “Mandrake here,” he murmured.
Two men in mechanic’s coveralls were walking past, toolboxes in their hands. Ankari glimpsed the gray of a security officer uniform heading in their direction. She eased closer to Viktor—and to the robots ahead of them.
“It’s Sequoia, sir. The Fat Tiger is a freighter recently reported stolen while it was loading cargo on Perun. The hijackers used the chaos of nearby Nimbus as a distraction. Some of the freighter’s crew was murdered, but the thieves didn’t catch everyone. A few got away, and they’re the ones who reported the incident.”
“Mafia?” Ankari asked, leaning close to Viktor. She hadn’t expected the mafia to be in one of the freighters, only that they might be docked nearby and that the thugs had tramped through some spilled talc on their way to harass the Midway 5 inhabitants.
“Pirates is what the report says,” Sequoia said, “but those doing the killing and stealing probably didn’t announce their organization. Could be mafia.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Ankari said, keeping her voice low. The security officer walked by without glancing in their direction, but the voices of more people came from the bay ahead.
“You’re welcome. Captain? Anything else while I’m sitting here on the bridge, pretending I know how to do Thomlin’s job?”
“No,” Viktor said.
“You’re sure? Because—” Sequoia lowered his voice, “—Commander Thatcher has been drilling the pilots on math theorems, giving impossible flight tests with those goggles of his, and making us watch footage of the landings and takeoffs on Nimbus. He’s quizzing us to come up with things we could have done better.”
“Those sound like worthwhile endeavors.”
“But fourteen hours a day? While we’re in dock and would be on leave, if not for the quarantine? Last night, Lieutenant Calendula started ripping parts out of the control panel in her shuttle, so she would have an excuse to stay down there for repairs today. She claimed that someone spilled coffee, and that the entire shuttle would need a complete systems overhaul before she could return to Thatcher’s classes.”
“I see. I’ll let you know if—”
Laser fire squealed from ahead. Ankari scooted closer to the robots, placing her hand on one’s solid shoulder as she yanked out her pistol and peered past the crates. Viktor was doing the same thing on the other side.
“Sir?” Sequoia asked.
“Later,” Viktor whispered.
A crimson beam streaked across the chamber ahead, a long narrow room that ran along the side of the station. As she and Viktor drew closer, Ankari glimpsed rows of windows alternating with ramps that led up to tubes secured to the ships’ airlocks. Shouts came from the right of the corridor, but she could not see the source yet. She could see a pair of androids ducking behind their ramps as more laser fire spat down the bay, their identical faces expressionless. They did not run toward the commotion—they were probably programmed to guard the entrances to specific ships—but they withdrew weapons of their own.
The robots with the crates halted abruptly, and Ankari almost smashed into the one in front of her.
“Unsafe situation detected,” it said in a tinny voice. “Return cargo to point of origin.”
The robots turned slowly, rotating their hover pallets back the way they had come. Viktor shoved one of the heavy crates off, and it landed with a thud, right at the end of the corridor. He ducked down behind it, waving Ankari to his side. If the robots noticed the loss, they did not stop to do anything about it.
Once Ankari knelt behind the three-foot-high crate, she could see more of the chaos in the long bay. Nothing was happening to the left, but to the right, more laser beams streaked outward from a knot of men crouched at the base of the ramp leading up to the ship docked at the far end. More men waited in the mouth of the tube behind them. Most of them were armed with heavy laser rifles, but even as Ankari was trying to count heads, one jumped into view with a grenade launcher pressed to his shoulder. He aimed it at the androids guarding the next ramp over. The two androids at the bottom of their ramp had already been flattened, their metallic eyes unmoving as smoke wafted from their inert bodies. All of the other androids in the bay—there were eight docked ships, all guarded—started firing toward the troublemakers.
Ankari stayed low, but nobody was aiming at the corridor, at least not yet. From her spot, she couldn’t see if this was the only entrance to the bay, or if there was another one down by the escaping men. If it was the only exit, she and Viktor would have to make a choice soon—assuming the androids did not win the day. Did they try to stop the men breaking onto the station, or did they step aside? And why were those men trying to get on to the station, anyway? The two mafia people she had overheard had been worried about escaping before the Fleet arrived, something that was already happening, according to the Mandrake Company people.
The answer to her question came by way of two big men in armor racing down the ramp and toward a control panel on the wall. Their comrades covered them with a barrage of fire. Ankari recognized one of the men from the video—he had been a part of threatening the store owners. Now, he and his comrade were poking, prodding, and smacking the control panel. It was one of eight lining the inside wall of the bay, and she assumed they were responsible for airlocks and docking clamps. Ankari was too far away to see the details of its display, but judging by the irritated red flashes coming from it, the panel did not care for the men’s savage input.
Viktor had his pistol out and was also assessing the situation, as well as glancing back over their shoulders. Yes, more security men should come racing down that corridor at any second. Ankari hoped they would not stop to worry about her and Viktor with this mess going on.
“I can’t tell if that’s the talc freighter from here, but I think those are the mafia thugs,” Ankari said over the squeal of weapons. “I recognize that big fellow slamming the butt of his rifle against that control panel.”
“He looks bright.”
“Not every warrior has your smarts.”
Viktor grunted. “If the mafia came in on the stolen ship, they might have come in using a dead captain’s credentials.”
A boom rattled the walls and the floor. The crate jumped two inches, and Ankari jerked away, nearly tumbling into Viktor. Clouds of dark gray smoke filled the bay. Shrapnel—or were those pieces of one of the ramps?—flew in every direction, clanging against the walls. A triangular metal shard slammed into the top of the crate, and Ankari ducked, wondering why she hadn’t done that sooner.
“Fools,” Viktor said—Ankari barely heard his voice over the ringing in her ears. “They’re right next to the exterior hull of the st
ation. They could kill everyone in the bay—and us too.”
The rapid bangs of the machine gun rose over the last pings of wreckage clattering to the floor. Ankari risked looking out again. The two men at the control panel had left it. Given up? Six other men were racing from their ramp toward a corner of the bay. There had to be another exit down there, but potted plants along the wall blocked Ankari’s view of that corner.
At least the men were not charging toward her and Viktor. But should she do anything? Try to stop them?
The androids fell without making noise, so it startled Ankari when a human cry came from the end of the bay. At first, she thought one of the armed men had been hit, but a stray energy bolt had slammed into someone hunkering behind a bench near the wall. At least a dozen other people were trying to hide, as well, but the bay did not offer much more than those slender benches and the infrequent potted plants for cover. One of those plants had already been struck, the pot shattered, with dirt and dead leaves flung everywhere. Seeing that made Ankari think of the man-eating plants she and Viktor had dodged back on Paradise. Unfortunately, none of these appeared to have such qualities, so she could not entice any mafia men over to be munched.
Besides, the combatants were heading for that corner. Another six crouched on the ramp, firing at the remaining resistance from behind their force field and waving for more of their comrades to escape the ship.
“What are they doing?” Ankari asked. She could understand trying to hack into the control panel and free the ship. But if they hadn’t been successful at that, what were they up to now? Why take all these men and charge into the station?
“This isn’t our fight,” Viktor said, even though he did not move from his spot. “Security will be here any second. We should find a closet or stairwell to duck into until they pass and things settle down.”
Someone else cried out—another civilian caught in the crossfire.
Despite his words, Viktor growled and leaned around the corner to fire at one of the men racing toward that rear exit. Even though dozens of meters stood between them, his shot blasted into his target with accuracy, striking the man in the shoulder and hurling him to the floor. It wasn’t a killing shot, but he probably hadn’t meant it to be. Those on the ramp might have a force field, but the mafia thugs racing through the smoke toward the rear exit were vulnerable. Viktor fired twice more, blasting armed men in the knees before the combatants realized where the laser bolts had come from. The men providing cover fire from the ramp shifted their aim. Viktor ducked back, pushing Ankari back, as well, before shots streaked past the mouth of their corridor.
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