by Huff, Tanya
“The armory doesn’t matter.”
Nat rolled her eyes and slapped both palms down on the table. “Damn it, Cap, I thought the armory was the whole fukking point!”
“The contents of the armory are the whole fukking point. When Nadayki gets the seal open and we have three hours Big Bill doesn’t own to unload everything onto the Heart.”
“So Big Bill’s station, not the Heart, took the risk of Nadayki blowing the armory,” Nat said slowly, “and we end up free and clear with a load of weapons.”
It sounded good. Simple. Foolproof. Profitable. “And we renegotiate a better price. Our price, not Big Bill’s.”
“Why, Captain Cho,” Nat grinned, bloodshot eyes gleaming, “that’s practically piracy.”
Nat made him feel good about command. Always had. She was never obsequious the way Huirre could be and she always, eventually, understood what he was doing and why. For the first time since that gunnery sergeant had clued him in to Big Bill’s betrayal, Cho felt back in control.
The weapons were his, not Big Bill’s.
He might sell them to Big Bill’s people, he might not. His final decision would be based entirely on whether or not they could pay the price. That was what kept the system they had out here working.
Cho didn’t begrudge Big Bill his fifteen percent—not of the weapons, not of the price he got for them—the canny bastard kept the station running, a safe haven in a universe that tried to choke a man with rules, but Big Bill had to learn he didn’t control the other eighty-five per . . .
“Ryder.” He managed to stop before slamming the salvage operator to the deck. His eyes were red, face was still bruised, his hair was wet . . . the man looked like shit. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Looking for you.” He swayed in place and laid a palm against the bulkhead. “You think Big Bill’s trying to screw you, right?”
“Go on.” No point in denying it Cho realized, Ryder had been right there in the pod when Big Bill had tipped his hand.
“Okay, suppose Big Bill thinks that the hard part’s done. The CSO seal is the hinky one; the Marine seal is straightforward in comparison. He convinced a government that this station didn’t exist; surely he can get through a Marine seal. Why should he settle for fifteen percent when he can have the whole enchilada?”
“What the hell is an enchilada?”
“When he can have the whole thing,” Ryder amended.
“Why do you think . . .?”
“Weapons change everything,” Ryder interrupted flatly.
Cho’s eyes widened. His own words, thrown back at him.
“All he has to do is open the exterior hatch,” Ryder continued. “Any crew by the pod has sweet fuk all in the way of time to get to the air lock and into the ship. They’re sucked into vacuum. Nadayki’s brain is explosively decompressed pudding. Result—Big Bill’s the only one with the mad skills to get the seal open. And you know what they say: possession is nine tenths, not fifteen percent.”
“Fuk him!” Cho snarled. He could see Big Bill spreading his hands and smiling and saying exactly that.
“You can’t stop him,” Ryder pointed out, and kept going before Cho took off his whole fukking foot for being obvious. “But you can screw him in return. There’s a suit hookup right by the storage pod. You put suits in it and they’re just hanging there, charging behind closed doors, not giving anything away if Big Bill comes down. But, if the exterior hatch opens . . .”
“There’s no time to get into a suit.”
“Those are big heavy doors with a big heavy seal. There’s not much time, but there’s time.”
“Could you do it?” Cho looked him up and down. Right at the moment, Ryder didn’t look like he could get into a bunk without falling on his face, but before Almon had started in with his fists, Ryder’s body had worn the marks of long hours suited up. “Could you get into a suit in time?”
“Hell, yeah! Why do you think I’m telling you? It’s as likely to be my ass on the line as anyone’s.”
Cho thought for a moment while Ryder sagged against the wall. “Take two suits out and hook them up,” he snapped at last, using his voice to jerk Ryder vertical. “One for you, one for Nadayki.”
“Oh, no.” He actually had the balls to wave a dismissive hand. Cho glared it back down to his side. “Huirre said he was relieving me, that I could get some sleep . . .”
“That was before you got useful. Nat’s in the galley. Have her pull you a stim and, Ryder, if it comes to it, make sure Nadayki gets into a suit or as you float by, I’ll let Almon use you for target practice.”
“No, Gunny,” Ressk scrubbed a hand back over his scalp. “Big Bill’s got code set up like he expects people to try and crack it. It’ll throw alarms. Bastard doesn’t trust anyone.”
Torin sagged against the bulkhead. “So what you’re saying is . . .”
“I need more time.”
“Gunny.” Werst’s voice out of the comm panel. “Big Bill’s heading across the Hub.”
“Toward the docking bay?”
“There’s really no way of telling where the hell he’s going until he’s gone too far for us to stop him.”
“Right.” She pushed herself up straight. “Delay him.”
“Tell him you want to talk to him?”
“No. He won’t wait. He’ll expect me to find him.” Given it was Werst and Mashona, Torin could think of only one solution. “Start a fight. Make it inclusive.”
ELEVEN
THE WAVE OF SOUND HIT the moment Torin cracked the hatch from the docking arm. Yelling. Screaming. The soft slam of flesh on flesh and the slightly louder, moister noise of flesh making contact with a harder surface. Given the numbers, a couple of the bars had to have emptied and it looked as though every warm body in the Hub had gotten involved. Those not actually fighting screamed encouragement and made bets. As Torin stepped out of docking arm and the door closed behind her, a di’Taykan with scarlet hair came flying out of the melee horizontally and took out three of the watchers. All four of them threw themselves back into the fight.
Big Bill stood untouched, chaos bending around him like he was a rock in a stream. He didn’t look pleased. Torin caught a glimpse of Mashona over by the falafel cart but couldn’t see Werst. Given his size, that wasn’t surprising. She couldn’t see the Grr brothers either but didn’t doubt there’d be a few people using the mayhem to try and get their own back.
“About to charge in and rescue the boss, trin?”
“Doesn’t look like he needs rescuing.” She took another step into the Hub, making more room between her and the bulkhead.
“I need to talk to you,” Alamber murmured, sliding into it, his hands on her hips.
“Turn up your masker.”
“What?”
Torin would’ve sighed, but taking a deep breath with the young di’Taykan all but plastered against her back and attempting to influence the situation with unmasked pheromones would have been the definition of a bad idea. “If you want to talk, turn up your masker. And make it fast,” she added. “I have things to . . .”
Twisting out of his grip, she grabbed the front of his tunic and yanked him down to the deck as a stool moved through the space they’d just been filling and slammed into the bulkhead.
“. . . do.”
Getting a di’Taykan horizontal was never a problem. Torin took the opportunity to turn up Alamber’s masker while they were lying face-to-face. Getting back up again required a jab in a sensitive place.
“Ow!” His hair flattened. “What’s your hurry?”
“I told you. I have things to do.” She held out a hand and, when he took it, heaved him up onto his feet. The di’Taykan were tall but not usually very heavy, and she still had the benefit of the station’s lower gravity. “So talk.”
He twitched his tunic back into place, adjusting the layers until it looked exactly like it had when he started as far as Torin was concerned. “It’s about your implant,” he said, le
aning in—although, given the noise level, he could have been shouting and not significantly raised the odds of eavesdroppers.
The Corps installed implants in sergeants and above. As everyone knew who Torin was, the electronics built into her jaw were no secret. She raised a brow.
Alamber’s gaze flicked out over the Hub, settled on Big Bill for a moment, then returned to Torin’s face, his smile as self-satisfied as a cat’s. “I found Nia after you left.” He touched the side of his nose.
It seemed Nia’s scent, even with her masker turned all the way up, had been stronger than her ambient scent in the room. “And?” Torin prodded, keeping most of her attention on the fight.
“What went on between you and Nia—if I’m not invited to join, well, that’s none of my business. But it did make me wonder what you were up to, trin, so I checked things out. I could smell Krai by the boards. Not on the boards.” Alamber wiggled his fingers triumphantly at her. “He wore gloves but not boots so I know where he stood, I know how he got in. He’s good, but he doesn’t know the system like I do. I haven’t cracked the wave yet, but you’re using your ship as an SP, blocking the station’s rider. If you’ve got someone on the side who can crack Big Bill’s code—and, hello, you do—I want in on whatever shit you’re doing.” He pursed his lips in a mockery of a kiss. “Or I tell Big Bill what’s up.”
“And you haven’t already told him because . . . ?”
His shoulders rose and fell, the movement all grace and faked nonchalance. “Big Bill’s got this nasty habit of taking bad news out on the messenger. Just figured I might get a better deal from you.”
She didn’t have time for this.
“All right, fine. I have to . . .” Torin yanked him sideways as an unlaced boot slammed into the bulkhead. “. . . prove I’m invaluable right now, so go to the Star and wait for me there.”
“Nice try, but I’m going to need the entry codes, trin.”
“Nice try, but if you don’t already have the entry codes, you’re of no use to me.” As his eyes darkened and he grinned, telling her everything she needed to know, Torin grabbed his shoulder and spun him around to face the hatch. “Go. Ressk’s still at the ship. Tell him I sent you.”
The moment the door closed behind him, she tongued her implant, direct to the Star. “Ressk, Alamber’s incoming. Take him out, stuff him in the head. I’ll deal with him later.”
*Take him out? How?*
“You’re an ex-Marine, his balls have barely dropped. Try not to hurt him.” Breaking the connection, she moved into the fight.
Torin could have taken the path of least resistance to Big Bill’s side, read the movement of the brawl and put herself where it wasn’t, but she’d wanted to hurt someone, had wanted to rip Mackenzie Cho into pieces for so long now that she ducked under a wild blow, drove her shoulder into a beer-stained stomach, straightened, and threw the woman onto a pair of di’Taykan, all three of them kicking and flailing as they hit the deck. Close, but not quite. She blocked a piece of broken kiosk being used as a club, then jabbed stiffened fingers into a solar plexus. Spun and smashed her heel into the side of a knee. Cracked a nose with her elbow. Narrowly missed having a piece bitten out of her forearm, drove it instead in under the chin and stepped over the Krai now gasping for breath to stand at Big Bill’s side.
The Grr brothers ensured a relative circle of calm, but the brawl was a mindless beast reputation would not affect. If they fought their way to a hatch, and Torin had to assume they could or they were shit bodyguards, they’d leave Big Bill undefended. No one would go after him deliberately, but in the heat of the moment, accidents happened. The space around them suggested a couple of accidents had already tried to happen. Given the amount of blood on the deck, an orange-haired di’Taykan would not be getting up.
One of the brothers licked his fingers clean. The other swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Enjoying yourself, Gunnery Sergeant?”
Torin pulled her lips back over her teeth. “I was just heading out to find you. I’ve finished the designs for training facilities.”
“So quickly?”
“Yes, well . . .” She swept a disdainful glance over the crowd, noted that Mashona had worked her way out of the fight and stood watching, drink in hand, with a group from one of the bars, Werst was happily dancing around a di’Taykan and two Humans directly in front of the decompression hatch leading toward the ore docks, and . . . Torin frowned as a vaguely familiar Human male caught her gaze. His expression lifted the hair off the back of her neck—it was recognition on a macro scale. Not of her personally, but of what he thought she was. What. Not who. When she turned toward him, he disappeared behind a clump of di’Taykan. Trained instincts said follow him, but the situation required her to remain where she was. “If this lot is any indication,” she continued, the pause lost in the continuing chaos, “then the sooner they begin training the better.”
“No argument,” Big Bill sighed, arms folded. “Can you stop it?”
“It? This?” Good question. If they were Marines, or even Navy, then yes. She could stop the fight and temporarily stop a few hearts. No one made senior NCO without having learned to sound like a lifetime of authority figures all rolled into one—parents, teachers, jernil, bosses, sheshan. No problem being heard either as Torin would bet high that Big Bill could patch his slate into the Hub’s screens. Unfortunately, this lot was not predominantly military.
However . . .
“Fights like this have a limited duration.” Turning a gesture into a signal for Werst to break it off, Torin snorted. “With no actual goal . . .” She frowned. “I assume they’re not fighting for something?”
One of the Grr brothers snorted.
The other one said, “Never are. Fighting for shits and giggles. Scoring points. An opportunity for cheap revenge. More assholes than usual, that’s all.”
Sounded like a definitive sitrep to Torin. “If that’s the case, then it won’t last much longer.”
Areas of the Hub had already devolved to groaning and bleeding and, given the number of slates out among the spectators, payoffs had clearly begun. Without Werst’s involvement, the Human and one of the di’Taykan had slumped down to the deck in front of the hatch, looking miserable. The second di’Taykan continued to yell something about family honor and, possibly, ducks, but no one paid any attention.
Torin could see two dead—besides the di’Taykan the Grr brothers had killed. There might be more among the sprawled bodies, but those three she was certain of. She’d given the order to start the fight they’d died in. Not the first time . . . but the first time she didn’t give a H’san’s ass.
“I think it’s safe enough now for you to move on.” She turned so that Big Bill got her full attention. In order to stop him from heading to the ore docks, she had to become his primary focus. “Do we go to your office or the smelter to discuss these plans?”
“I was on my way to the ore docks.”
Past tense. She had him. “Success?”
He seemed amused by her oblique question. Not a problem. He could be amused by whatever the hell he wanted as long as he continued to focus on her. “No, not yet. But I thought it best, given the contents, to do what I could to remove foolish temptation.”
“Because that kind of content changes things, and Cho might screw you over if you’re not there when it opens?”
His brows rose. “I have every faith in Captain Cho to keep to our agreement.”
Torin kept her tone matter-of-fact. “He’s a thief and a murderer, and you assume he’s not a liar?”
“Harsh words, Gunnery Sergeant, I begin to think you don’t like Captain Cho.”
“Thief and murderer,” Torin repeated. “That’s his business, but given his business, having you and the contents together in one isolated place might be more temptation than he could resist.” Were she doing the job she signed on for, she’d be telling him exactly the same thing.
Big Bill indica
ted the two Krai, now looking speculatively at the closest body. “I won’t be alone.”
“You don’t allow weapons on the station, but that’s no guarantee Cho won’t have weapons on his ship. If he takes out the three of you, who’s left to go after him?”
“You?”
Torin shook her head. “I just got here. Cho won’t assume I’m a sure thing.”
“She’s right, Boss.”
Big Bill stared at the Grr brothers in surprise. “If you’re taking her side because she owns your souls, remember who owns your asses.”
“Not taking her side,” said one.
“But she’s right,” said the other.
“All right, you two go down to the ore docks. The gunnery sergeant and I will go to my office and look over her designs. Happy?”
Torin wouldn’t have called the expressions the Grr brothers exchanged happy.
Craig got slowly to his feet as the hatch from the station into the ore dock opened. With only a maximum of two hours and seven minutes remaining, he was expecting Torin. He got Doc.
“And the level of bugfuk crazy rises to code red,” he muttered, watching the other man cross toward the ship. No way he could have been heard, but Doc paused, glanced over at the storage pod, then changed direction.
When he got close enough, Craig realized he looked weirdly peaceful.
“How’s your foot?”
“The one you cut the toe off?” Craig couldn’t stop himself from glancing down. “It hurts like fuk, thanks for asking.”
“If fukking hurts, you’re doing it wrong,” Nadayki called from inside the pod.
“He sounds chipper.” Doc dropped into a squat and gently angled Craig’s foot so that he could see the wound.
“Yeah.” Craig fought the urge to pull his foot free and plant it in Doc’s face. “Apparently, the Marine Corps can kiss the kid’s lime-green ass; he owns their code.”