by Huff, Tanya
Torin concentrated on walking and taking the slate off her belt at the same time. After three tries to input the codes, she finally managed to access the Promise’s data storage. Requested as evidence by the Wardens, the ship had been tethered to a buoy just off station.
“What are you doing?”
Actual Federate syntax out of Presit’s mouth sounded wrong. “I’m copying everything from the last three tendays to my slate.”
“What are you going to be doing with Craig Ryder’s ship?”
“Nothing. It’ll be here, waiting, when I get him back.”
“You are being sure about that?”
“Given the speed the Wardens work at? Yes.” If she couldn’t free Craig any faster, if wouldn’t matter what she did with the ship; he’d never be returning to it.
“He are not going to be happy about the hole,” Presit said thoughtfully.
Torin would kill to hear Craig be unhappy about the hole. Literally.
Presit’s pilot was also Katrien, his fur paler than both Presit and Ceelin, the markings around his eyes extending down into his ruff. He was sitting outside the air lock chewing a stim stick when they arrived.
“Merik a Tar konDelasinskin are being at your service.” He tapped his index fingers together, a gesture Torin had never seen before. “I are being a big fan. I are watching your vids a hundred, no, two hundred times.”
“It are being my vids,” Presit snarled, pushing past him and into the air lock. “She are just being on them!”
The ship had been configured for Katrien. Torin couldn’t stand erect in any of the three compartments. Fine with her. Sitting was also good. Torin had nothing against floors.
“Hey!” Presit’s eyes were level with hers, the light levels low enough she’d removed her glasses. Had they not been narrowed so dramatically, Torin could have still seen her reflection in the gleaming black. “Where to now? The pirates who are having Craig Ryder could be being anywhere. Space are big.”
“No.” She decided against shaking her head when she felt her brain wobble. “They have treasure. They’ve gone to ground.”
“Again, could be being anywhere.”
“True. So we do this one step at a time. The salvage operators are taking the damage. They’ll have the most information. We need to go to Salvage Station 24; the coordinates are on my slate.” She couldn’t get her slate off her belt. “Fuk.”
“Ceelin!”
Small fingers snapped it free and pushed it into her hands. Torin frowned at the screen.
“If you are not able to find the equation, I are taking you back to the doctor who are no doubt going to be unbearably smug.”
Torin refused to rise to the challenge in Presit’s voice. “I don’t need to find it.” Activating the DNA reader by pressing her thumb twice in the lower right corner, she unlocked the memory. When she held the slate toward Presit, the reporter actually took a step back.
“You are being sure? This are giving me access to . . . everything.”
“I don’t have time to be unsure. Get us to the station. They’ll give us the pirates. I’m ...” Katrien feet—the same matte black as their hands—had long, prehensile toes. They didn’t look as dexterous as Krai feet, but they were close. Presit’s toenails were also metallic blue.
“Hey!” A small finger poked her shoulder. Hard. “Torin?”
She couldn’t remember her eyelids ever being so heavy. The doctor had been right about her needing to rest. “Just get us there,” she murmured, watching the light show on the inside of her lids. “I’m sleeping now.”
Twelve hours and thirty-seven minutes later, Torin woke up enough to crawl to the head—easier than standing given the ceiling height. Easy was good given the complex maneuvers needed to urinate in a Katrien toilet. After crawling back to the control room, she sat cross-legged, braced against the wall, and worked both thumbs over the screen of her slate.
“You are listing what you are doing to the pirates when you are catching them?”
“Fuk, Merik!” The pilot was nearly the same shade as the pilot’s chair. The low lighting made him remarkably hard to see. Torin had thought she was alone and that thought was a good indication of just how fried she still was. In the Corps, that kind of oversight could be fatal. “No, I’m not listing what I’m going to do to the pirates because that would be a very short list.”
Find them.
Destroy them.
“I’m calling in reinforcements,” she continued, saved the file, and crawled over to the board. “I need to hook in so the packets go as soon as we emerge.”
“Presit are going to want approval,” Merik pointed out as the comm screens lit up. “But Presit aren’t being here. Be laying your slate down there and I are hooking you in.”
“Because Presit shouldn’t always get what she wants?”
He smiled, pointed white teeth gleaming. “That is what I are thinking, yes. Are there being anything else I can do for you?”
Torin’s stomach growled as she placed her slate on the control panel. “I could eat.”
“I thought the point of the exercise was to get Ryder to join us,” Cho pointed out. “Why the fuk would the crew take a vote about him joining if he’s already agreed?”
Doc shrugged, eyes locked on the monitor. “If he thinks we don’t want him, he’ll want us more.”
“But we do want him!” Cho snapped. He glanced down at the screen. Beyond the labored rise and fall of his chest, their captive hadn’t moved in the last ten minutes.
“No, we don’t. We want his codes and, like you said, we can get those from anyone.”
“But we have him. And we have an armory we can’t get into. And I’ve waited long enough.” He’d waited long enough eight years ago when those fukking Marines had taken their own sweet time hooking their packets up to the ship. He’d been the one taking the crap when they weren’t ready on the captain’s schedule, so he’d had every right to hit the all clear. It hadn’t been his Goddamned fault their seals weren’t locked.
“Don’t think of it as waiting, think of it as amusing yourself by fukking with his head. Ryder can’t start on the armory until we’re back to Vrijheid,” Doc pointed out calmly. “Not unless you want to give him a chance to kill us all.”
“You said no one chooses to die.”
“He’d be choosing to kill. There’s a difference.”
“Between dying and killing? No shit.” Still, Cho had to admit getting the armory the hell off his ship before Nadayki began his hack had a certain appeal. Except . . . “If that thing blows, we’d need to be in the next system.”
Doc shrugged again. “Big Bill said he had an explosives locker. That should contain most of the blast.”
When he said nothing else, Cho shook his head, muttered, “Should. Most. That’s very reassuring.”
Craig had no idea how long they’d left him alone, but his erection had gone down and the ache to get off had eased by the time the hatch opened again, so they must’ve been waiting for the air scrubbers to clear out the Taykan pheromones. Made sense. He’d never met anyone who’d actually enjoyed wearing a filter. Then again, he’d never met anyone who tortured people to death before, so what did he know.
Same guy who’d made him the offer came back in and stood by the hatch. Craig tested his restraints. Still no give and the bruising under and around the straps hurt like hell. Seemed like the guy was just being careful.
“Have you thought about my proposal?”
This was a way to stay alive until Torin came for him, but Craig knew he couldn’t seem too eager. He swallowed, trying to get a little moisture down to the abraded tissue of his throat. The screaming had done some damage. “Your proposal to join up and become a murdering, thieving pimple on the ass of known space? So fukking tempting, how could I think of anything else?”
Dark brows drew down. “I don’t remember phrasing it exactly that way, but yes, that proposal. Join.” He held out his left hand, palm up, and then his right. “Or die.”<
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“Great choice there, mate.”
“It’s a choice. And as I said, the offer is on the table for a limited time.”
Craig let his head slump forward, then raised it again, figuring the damage from the Taykan’s fists as well as the sudden spike of pain the motion had caused would add a certain realism to his despairing expression. “It’s not like you’ve left me anything to go back to. Fine. I’m in.”
“Not quite. Now, we take a vote to see if the crew wants you.”
“The fuk? I thought you wanted my codes!”
“I want codes.” The dark-haired man twitched a nonexistent crease out of his tunic. “Not necessarily yours. You’ve made your choice. Now it’s the crew’s turn. It should be an interesting vote, I suspect Almon will be all for stuffing your ass out an air lock. You nearly took his thytrin’s leg off.”
“I nearly ...” Craig couldn’t believe this was happening. “You blew up my ship! You killed my partner! You fukking kidnapped me!”
“And you might be more trouble than you’re worth.” Smiling slightly, he turned his head to the side and yelled, “Doc! Come and help our potential crewmate out of this chair.”
When the hatch opened again, Craig recognized the man who came into the room. Hair tied back, muscles straining against the fabric of his gray sweater, fukking freaky thousand-meter stare—he’d been with Nat at the poker game. He hadn’t played; he’d just leaned up against the bar and watched. “You set me up!”
“You were convenient, and Nat showed some initiative. It was nothing personal.”
“It is from where I’m sitting.”
“Yes, and speaking of where you’re sitting . . .” Standing directly in front of the chair, Doc pulled out his slate. “. . . how much damage did Almon do?”
He sounded like he actually cared. A little confused, Craig took stock. “Nothing’s broken.”
“Are you sure? Your nose is distinctly crooked.”
“Did that six years ago.”
“Well, all right, then.” Doc tapped the screen, and the straps holding Craig to the chair fell away.
There were only two of them, and neither of them was armed. Torin wouldn’t thank him for sitting around on his ass, waiting for her to arrive.
Craig surged up onto his feet and would have fallen flat on his face had Doc not caught him as his right knee gave out. The pain in his leg caused the pain in his head to spike, and if he’d had anything left in his stomach, he would have spewed all over the other man.
His grip surprisingly gentle, Doc lowered him back into the chair. “I can’t help if you don’t tell me where it hurts.” He sounded annoyed.
“Forgot I did . . . that.” It hurt to breathe. First time Craig ever knew his knees were connected to his lungs.
“You did that? Ah!” Doc nodded before Craig had a chance to answer. “Fighting to get free. You can’t get free. No one can.”
Just for an instant there was enough crazy under the concern that Craig, in spite of being a good six to eight centimeters taller and just as heavily built, flinched away from his touch.
The cabin they locked him in had a bunk, facilities that folded up into the wall, a blank vid screen, and a good-sized locker. It smelled like disinfectant, but that might have just been the lingering fragrance of what they’d sloshed him off with. Ship this size would have been designed to give everyone a bit of privacy, so Craig had no way of telling if the cabin had belonged to officer or enlisted.
Half the secondhand ships in known space were decommissioned Navy ships; weapons removed.
Of course where weapons had been, weapons could be again. Promise hadn’t been . . . wasn’t armed—wasn’t because he would get back to her and his injured lady would fly again. Not that a salvaged weapon had done Jan and Sirin any good. Probably got them killed. If they hadn’t had the weapon, they’d have cut and run.
Survived.
Let the Navy and the Corps play silly bugger with their lives.
Civilians were supposed to be smarter than that.
Stretched out on the bunk, Craig shifted his bad leg and noted with fuzzy appreciation that nothing hurt.
“I’m not going to bother with a healing sleeve until we know we’re keeping you, but there’s no reason you have to be in pain.”
Something in Doc’s voice gave Craig the impression that, should there be a reason, Doc had no problem at all with pain.
The bunk was surprisingly comfortable. Or he was remarkably stoned.
Either/or. Both.
He woke when the hatch slammed open. The thrum of the engines hadn’t changed; they were still traveling through Susumi space.
“Thought you’d like to know . . .” Nat grinned at him from the open hatch; her expression lecherous enough that he realized he was still naked, “. . . we’ve decided to keep you. Welcome aboard, gorgeous.”
But she relocked the hatch when she closed it.
It hadn’t occurred to Torin that the salvage station might not give a ship from Sector Central News permission to dock.
“Oh, for fuksake!” Her head still throbbed, but sleeping through most of the fold had done her good. “Are we within a hundred kilometers?”
“Yes.” Merik glanced down at his board. “But we are being ...”
Torin cut the pilot off. “Keep heading in. I’ve got this. My codes are on file.” She tongued her implant. This was the station’s business whether they wanted it to be or not.
Pedro met her at the air lock, arms open, cheeks wet. As soon as the docking beacon had locked, she’d contacted him directly and told him the story. No point in wasting travel time. “Chica, I’m so sorry!”
Because Torin had been afraid, in the pause before he’d answered her, that it had been his ship the pirates had destroyed at the debris field, she went into his arms and hugged him hard enough to feel his heart beating. Hard enough to feel he was alive. Then she pulled away and said, “I need everything you know about the pirates.”
“Madre Deos, why are you pink?” He lifted her hand to eye level.
“Suit sealant.” She twisted free. “Focus. I need a list of every pirate attack; I need sightings, rumors, hearsay. I need it all.”
“Torin . . .”
“And we need to get everyone on this station together in the market. I’ll need access to the internal comm. No . . .” She shook her head, editing as she headed for the center of the station,” . . . better you do it. They know you.
Pedro fell into step beside her. “Torin, what . . .”
“We’re going after Craig.”
“What?”
Before Torin could expand on her plan, a small hand grabbed the back of her tunic and yanked her to a stop. She turned far enough to see Presit glaring up at her.
When she saw she had Torin’s attention, Presit shifted her gaze to Pedro. “You are probably knowing me, Presit a Tur durValintrisy of Sector Central News. Torin are not exactly having manners. Mind you, I are not exactly happy about leaving my assistant behind, so things are balancing out.”
The salvage operators had agreed to Presit’s presence but had refused to allow her to record within the station. As the law stated recording devices had to be visible to most species at ten meters, regardless of the actual size of the device, Ceelin’s absence was considered a gesture of good faith.
Pedro frowned, scrubbing a hand over damp cheeks. “Torin, why is she here?”
Torin opened her mouth to say something about the story but realized that wasn’t actually the reason. Wouldn’t have been the reason even had Ceelin and the equipment been with them “Craig was her friend.”
Presit snorted. “For all he are having a patchy pelt and a dubious love life.”
“Dubious?”
“. . . and we know he’s on the Heart of Stone. The image Promise recorded matched on all points the ship docked at the station at the same time we were. The pirates have what they need now, so they’ll have gone to ground somewhere they feel safe. We find the He
art of Stone, we find Craig.”
“They’re fukking pirates!” someone yelled from the concourse. “They feel safe with other pirates.”
“That’s my point,” Torin told him. “You need to band together and create an opposing fleet. We not only rescue Craig but eliminate a good portion of the pirate threat.”
One of the overhead fans had a loose bearing and made a metal on metal burr with every rotation. The people on the concourse were silent. Faces that had been turned toward her turned toward the deck.
“Torin. Craig’s dead.” Over against the bulkhead, Alia waved her hands as though she thought she needed movement to attract Torin’s attention. As if her name and the declaration weren’t enough.
“We can’t know that.”
“They’ve had him ...” Her voice broke. “They’ve had him for hours.”
It had taken roughly four and a half hours for Torin to get back to the Promise. Seven hours spent unconscious. Forty minutes to walk from the medical facilities to Presit’s ship. Ninety minutes to get far enough away from the station to fold. Ninety minutes to get from the point where they’d emerged to the salvage station. Thirty-three minutes to gather the salvage operators and their families in the concourse. Torin had been up on the stage in the corner, talking for half an hour. Craig had been with the pirates for sixteen hours. Roughly.
Except . . .
She’d been used to living her life like time spent in Susumi didn’t count—ships emerged seconds after they folded regardless of how long they spent inside. Time in the Corps, time spent being ferried from battle to battle and home again, had probably aged her another five to seven years. Med-op kept records. She’d never checked.
But time in Susumi counted when time in Susumi was spent at the mercy of people who’d already killed three innocents. Torin hung onto the certain knowledge that they’d killed Rogelio Page very slowly. Craig was younger. Stronger.
“He’s not dead.”
“Torin . . .”
She wasn’t sure who’d said her name, but she thought it was Jenn. Craig had been the next thing to a part of their family and they wanted to mourn. Torin wasn’t going to let them.