by Huff, Tanya
The rates were murderous, but they wouldn’t be there long enough for anyone to discover the account Ressk had set up was imaginary.
“We can afford it.”
“Good.” He should have been furious that his bully boys had been defeated, but, if anything, he looked speculative. Behind the smile, he was clearly making plans. “All right. What are your immediate needs?”
I need to know if the Heart of Stone is docked here. If it is, I need you to stay out of my way while I take back what’s mine.
Torin bit back the words, kept them from showing on her face. The price for Big Bill’s cooperation would be far too high. She’d pay it if she had to, sell herself to save Craig, buy him and her people passage away from Vrijheid, but not until she’d spent everything else.
“Ship could use restocking,” she said.
“Then let me escort you to the Hub. I’m going that way.”
No one spoke during the sixty-meter walk down the arm to the Hub. Torin walked at Big Bill’s right, the two Krai, still bleeding from their nose ridges, followed on their heels, Werst, Ressk, and Mashona behind them.
The arm was narrow, clearly a later addition to the station, and although there were other ships docked between the Second Star and the Hub, none of their crews were out and about. Either Big Bill preferred not to be approached in a confined space, or people preferred not to approach him—Torin didn’t plan on being around long enough for the difference to matter.
A wave of sound hit as they stepped out through the decompression doors into the central cylinder on the lowest level. Torin could see four bars and half a dozen small businesses around the outer curve. Two large screens on either end showed sports and what looked like music vids—play-by-play and instruments competing for ears. There were people in the concourse—Human, di’Taykan, and Krai—talking, conducting business at small kiosks, moving from one place in the station to another. Torin thought she saw the bottom segment of a Ciptran disappearing into a vertical. A few people were drunk, and a couple of voices were raised in an argument heading for a fight, but they could have been in any one of a thousand stations.
Heads turned as they emerged, and although no one seemed to be overtly watching them, suddenly everyone was. Even the drunks.
No, not watching them. Watching Big Bill.
The ambient noise level dropped further when the Grr brothers emerged, still spattered with blood. Even the volume of the big screens seemed lower.
For a moment, Torin thought Big Bill was going to clap her on the shoulder. When she turned to face him, he thought better of it and let his hand fall back to his side. He made it look like it had been his decision. “If you need anything, Gunnery Sergeant, Mashona, Werst, Ressk,” he said jovially, his voice carrying, “let me know. Good luck finding work.”
“Good luck finding work?” Mashona repeated, coming in closer as Big Bill and his companions moved out of eavesdropping range. “What the hell does that mean?”
Torin watched people watching Big Bill and the injured Krai as they passed. “It means he’s identified us, all of us, as his. No one will hire us, the cost of being here will put us dangerously into debt, and we’ll have no recourse but to go to work for him.”
“He wants us for something specific. You, anyway, Gunny,” Werst amended.
“And that means no one will question us being here, so it works in our favor.” As Big Bill moved off the concourse, all eyes turned on them. Lip curled, Torin swept her gaze around the space and noted reactions. Not as many ex-Corps as she’d feared.
“Gunny, about the . . . them.” Ressk sounded worried, so she turned. “You ate their souls?”
“They believe, Ressk, I don’t.” Glancing between the two Krai, she exchanged raised eyebrows with Mashona and said, “And?”
“And they’re lovers,” Werst snorted. “Not brothers.”
“Actually . . .” Ressk’s nose ridges opened and closed. “They might also be brothers. Their scents are so tangled.”
“Yeah, well ...” Werst waved that off. “. . . consenting adults. Who the fuk cares. More to the point, no one smells like that living on protein patties and vat steak. Big Bill, he wasn’t kidding about them eating his enemies.”
“I doubt Big Bill kids about much,” Torin pointed out. “Now, let’s find the Heart of Stone, find Craig, and haul ass out of here before it matters.”
EIGHT
“SO WHERE DO WE START,Gunny?” “With the bars. Drunks aren’t known for their discretion. The Heart of Stone scored big with Jan and Sirin’s salvage. People brag. They got hit with a Susumi wave. People talk. And I’m betting . . .” Torin remembered the look on the gray-haired woman’s face as she pushed past her toward the game. “. . . that Nat owes money to more than one person on this station.”
Mashona snickered. “Interesting emphasis, Gunny. I like how you make her name sound like a target.”
The four of them had taken half a dozen steps away from the docking arm hatch when the hatch of the bar directly opposite them opened and a roar of laughter spilled out onto the concourse, closely followed by a flailing Human—traveling about a meter and a half off the deck and covering an impressive distance before landing.
“Gravity always wins,” Ressk observed as the middle-aged man hit the deck, rolled twice, and finished flat on his back.
Arms and legs splayed out, breathing heavily, the man waved a stained finger in the general direction of the bar while a turquoise-haired di’Taykan yelled, “And don’t come back!” out the open hatch. He jerked as the hatch slammed shut, announced with the overly precise diction of the very drunk that it had totally been worth it, flopped over onto his left side, and went to sleep.
“We’ll start there,” Torin said.
The Vritan Kayti was a di’Taykan bar, and the trick with di’Taykan bars was to take a good long look into the corners, realize that sex was not a spectator sport, and get on with things.
Not a spectator sport for most people, Torin amended, dropping into a chair at an empty table and ordering a beer from the center screen. Took all kinds. Werst was at the bar, Mashona had disappeared behind a drape of multicolored gauze, and Ressk had joined a game of darts. Torin doubted she had any subtle left, and since the last thing they wanted to do was give the game away and spook the bastards into killing Craig, it seemed like a better idea to let people come to her.
She ran her thumb around the inert plastic edge of the screen.
As more of them recognized her, someone would.
It was merely a matter of time.
Or would have been if she’d had any time to spare. Not counting time spent in Susumi space, Craig had been with the pirates for approximately twenty-eight hours. If they’d folded directly here after scooping him out of the debris field, he’d spent anywhere from three-and-a-half-to-five days in Susumi—couldn’t be more precise without the exact equations but three-and-a-half days minimum.
The militaries of oldEarth had a saying: Everyone breaks on the third day.
But Craig had information they needed. Page’s death had been an accident, an accident that said they’d wanted him alive more than they’d wanted him dead. They’d take their time with Craig.
Three-and-a-half days minimum in Susumi. Another day in real space.
Four days.
If it was true that everyone broke on the third day—and Torin had no way of judging because the Primacy hadn’t taken prisoners—what happened on day four? Did they keep him around, keep him alive, in case they had other questions?
What if she was wrong?
What if he was dead?
What did she do then?
Destroy the people who killed him. Easy answer. But what happened after?
“. . . think you’re too fukking good to pay attention?”
The voice had been a constant background drone for a few minutes, but that last bit had volume enough to break through her thoughts. The grip on her shoulder snapped her the rest of the way back to the
here and now.
The slam of bone against the table brought a moment’s silence, a roar of laughter, then the business of the bar carried on.
He was Human, Torin’s height, and his bare arms were heavily muscled. He might have been attractive, but the blood running down his face from above one eyebrow made it hard to tell.
Torin grabbed a fistful of vest and hauled him up onto his feet. Looking past him, she spotted three di’Taykan and a Human who were still finding the situation funny. “He with you?” she asked, raising her voice slightly. When one of the di’Taykan indicated he was, she shoved him in their general direction, sat down, and accepted a fresh beer from Werst.
“Price of these things is fukking proof piracy isn’t confined to space,” he said, as she took a drink. They sat silently, watching an orange-haired server clean up the blood with practiced efficiency. “Seems like you’ve solidified your more badass than thou reputation, though,” he continued once they were essentially alone again. “Nicely done, Gunny. I know how you did it and barely saw you move. You okay?”
“Thought you said you were watching?”
“Not what I meant.”
“I’m fine.”
“Really? Because I’d be willing to bet you haven’t bothered doing anything since Ryder was taken but try to get him back.”
“Your point?”
“I’d be willing to bet,” he repeated, “you haven’t ranted or raged or used any of time you spent in Susumi to fall apart for a few minutes.”
“Who would that help?”
“You.”
Torin thought about sticking with the party line, gunnery sergeants didn’t fall apart—not for a few minutes, not at all—but gunnery sergeants had the entire Corps helping to hold them together, and she’d given that up.
“All that pressure you’re under . . .” Werst tapped a fingernail against his glass. “Cracks are starting to show, Gunny.”
A missed drop of blood gleamed a translucent crimson in the light from the menu.
“I’m not under . . .”
What if Craig was dead? What if they were too late?
Fuk it. Torin took another swallow of the overpriced, watered beer. “Trust me, I’ll use that pressure, let it blow when we find the Heart.”
Werst shrugged. “As long as it doesn’t use you. The Heart’s here. It was here with a cargo. It went away. It came back sometime yesterday.”
“But while they were here the first time,” Ressk added, sitting down, “word is, they were acting strange. Rumor has it they’d scored big but weren’t sharing. Were selling only a small fraction of what they had, and weren’t talking about the rest. And then Big Bill got involved. That Krai ship, the Dargonar—you questioned the crew . . .”
“I know what I did, Ressk.”
“Right, well, it left the same time as the Heart. Sent out with the Heart by Big Bill. They aren’t back yet.”
“Given their last meeting with the gunny, that’s a good thing,” Werst muttered. “And now the Heart’s docked down where the processed ore used to get loaded onto the drones. It’s not on an arm, it’s sucking on the actual station. And no one docks way the fuk down there without Big Bill’s approval.”
“No one docks at this station without Big Bill’s approval,” Torin reminded them.
“Yeah, but where the Heart is now, that’s off the beaten path.”
“Considerably off,” Ressk agreed. “Question still outstanding is why?”
“You could always ask Mackenzie Cho, ex Naval officer, current captain of the Heart of Stone.” Mashona grabbed an empty chair from the next table and sat carefully. “Seems he finds di’Taykan service distracting.” Her teeth flashed white in the dim light of the bar. “He drinks down the concourse at the Sleepless Goat.”
Mashona watched Werst go into the Goat through narrowed eyes. “You sure this is going to work?”
“You’ve known me almost ten years,” Ressk snorted. “If we switched clothes, could you tell the two of us apart?”
“Are you likely to switch clothes?” Mashona’s brows went up. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Fuk off. Point is, it’s a Human bar. Werst asks the bartender if he’s seen Cho because the serley chrika stiffed a friend of his, bartender’s not going to suddenly ID Werst from the furball’s vids.”
“You know she can hear you, right?”
“Doesn’t scare me.”
“And you’re supposed to be the smart one.”
“Smart enough not to sit on that bench. Your nose is just decorative, right?”
Leaning back against the recycling chute, eating a steamed momo she’d bought from a food cart, Torin kept the camera attached to her tunic pointed toward the door of the Goat and listened to Mashona and Ressk fill time with meaningless chatter. She chewed a little more vigorously than the minced filling required, the burn of the chutney almost covering the familiar taste of the vat. Years in had taught her how to wait but didn’t change the fact that waiting sucked.
Craig was on the station. Or on a ship attached to the station.
So close.
When Werst finally emerged, although objectively he hadn’t been more than ten minutes, he stopped by the same food cart for a kabob before joining them. Torin had known he was going to do it, throw off any attention he might have gained, but she still had to bite back an order that he get his ass in gear and deliver the damned sitrep.
“Cho hasn’t been in since the Heart got back to the station.” Werst took a look at the bench and stayed standing. “None of his crew have. Whatever they needed your boy for, it’s keeping them at the ship.
Ressk held out a hand and Werst dropped the last bite of kabob into it.
“Seriously, guys . . .” Mashona’s brows were back up. “. . . is there something you want to tell me?”
“You’re sitting in . . .”
“Not about that.”
Torin crumpled the momo’s wrapper and tossed it down the chute as she straightened. “They’re all in one place. Let’s go.”
“I warned him about fukking around.” Cho’s voice was an ice pick that slammed into Craig’s head beside the hot pokers.
Hot and cold shifted when Huirre let go, and Craig’s knees hit the deck. Feeling like his head was about to explode, he curled forward, hands digging into his hair trying to relieve some of the pressure. Somehow, he managed to get an eye open as footsteps approached and stopped, and he found himself staring down at the toe of Doc’s stained boots.
“He was alone with a di’Taykan, Captain.” Doc sounded amused. “I’m not surprised.”
“Not actual fukking!” Cho snarled. “Not this time. Nadayki says Ryder forced himself to vomit.”
“And Nadayki’s an expert on Human physiognomy now? Beyond the obvious? Isn’t it more likely,” Doc continued, before the captain could answer, “that as he defines himself by his skills, he hates needing Ryder’s help to get into the armory. Odds are high, he’s lying.”
“Doesn’t matter if he is. He says he can get through the last layer on his own. You said the station medic needs organs ...”
Cho’s foot connected with his ribs. Craig slammed down on his side, gasping for breath. The way he felt right now, they could take his brain. He wouldn’t miss it.
“While breaking him down for parts . . .”
Oh, fukking hell. Craig tensed, sending muscles into painful spasms. They weren’t kidding about the organs.
“. . . would bring us a tidy profit,” Doc agreed, “consider two things.” Even through the pain, Doc sounded terrifyingly reasonable. Craig tried to crawl away, but another kick from Cho dropped him flat on the deck. “All right, three points. One, stop bruising the merchandise. And two, at this point in the proceedings, I have to reiterate that Nadayki could be talking out of his ass. He says he can get through the last layer on his own, but you have no reason to trust that and every reason to believe it’s what he wants you to believe to maintain his place in th
e crew. It might be wise to keep Mr. Ryder around until the job is done.”
Cho snorted. “In case Nadayki is, as you say, talking out of his ass.”
“As far as his organs are concerned, a few more hours will make no difference.”
“And your third point?”
“Ryder’s crew. No one gives a shit if you kill a prisoner, but you can’t kill a member of the crew for puking.”
“Doc’s right, Captain.” Huirre sounded pretty much exactly the way Craig imagined a man caught between a rock and a hard place would sound. “I mean, you’ve got to keep discipline, sure, but if puking’s a killing offense, whole crew’d be dead a couple of times by now.”
“I can kill anyone I want to!”
“Yeah, but ...”
Craig cracked the eye again. Huirre was looking to Doc for support. Surprisingly, he got it.
“You can kill anyone you want to,” Doc agreed. “But that’s not a philosophy people will follow, and you need a minimum of four crew to keep the Heart of Stone profitable.”
Huirre shifted nervously back and forth, toes flexing against the deck, but it seemed that Cho was actually thinking about what Doc had said. From anyone else, the observation would have sounded like a threat, but it hadn’t taken Craig long to learn that Doc didn’t make threats.
Breathing shallowly, one arm wrapped around the newly rebruised ribs, Craig began to relax. He didn’t want to die and now, it seemed as if he might get through this little adventure in one piece. Not counting the pieces of his gut he’d already hurled to the deck down in the pod.
“You’re right,” Cho said at last. “If Ryder’s crew, he gets treated like crew. Nadayki could be full of shit about his chances of getting through that last bit of code, and he could be bullshitting about Ryder doing this ...”
The toe of his boot jabbed the bruise rising from the earlier kicks. Pain surged out from the contact like waves of flame. In its wake, his body felt burned.
“. . . to himself, but maybe he isn’t. Maybe Ryder’s worried that once he gets me into that armory we won’t need him anymore, so he’s fukking around. Fukking around delays the payout to the crew. We can’t have that.” Cho sounded pleased with himself.