“Tell me why I should let any of you live,” he said, and I heard suppressed fury in his tone.
“Since Mack took a shot for you,” Tens replied, “and since he stood in front of Delight’s gun, and since Mack got your wife her child back, unharmed.”
An alarm sounded on my console, and I ran towards it. As I reached it and slid into my seat, the air shuddered at various points around the command center.
“Oh, nice job,” Tens said, and turned to me, even as his hands moved like lightning over his console. “Stay very, very still.”
On the screen, Sandoval smiled, and it was as cold as any smile I’d seen from Delight. He didn’t say anything, though, just watched as his men materialized in the command center, and brought their weapons to bear.
“Hands!”
“Show me hands!”
The shouts rattled around us, and I lifted my hands away from the console, but not before checking that Delight and Pritchard were well and truly locked in their cabins—and then I added a layer of security to the one that Tens had already laid down, and looped the security feeds to their cabins so they’d show empty no matter how long they ran.
“Nice.” Tens said, but his presence was brief, and he was sitting just as still as I was, when he lifted his hands.
I swiped the console in front of me, locking it down tight, before I raised my hands, and held them up near my shoulders. A brief glance at Sandoval showed that he hadn’t moved, even though his eyes had followed every move Tens and I were making. It was hard to split my attention between him and the men moving purposefully to the consoles around the command center.
I watched as one walked towards the security console. He stopped when he was a couple of paces away.
“Get up,” he said, but I shook my head.
He frowned, and glanced at Sandoval. Sandoval nodded, and the trooper levelled his gun.
“Move.”
I was about to refuse, again, when Tens spoke.
“Move, Cutter.”
His order was followed by Sandoval’s next comment.
“You can’t negotiate when you’re dead.”
“Move, Cutter,” Tens repeated, this time in my head, and I obeyed, standing slowly, and moving to one side so the trooper could occupy my seat.
“You’re taking the ship?” Tens asked?
“We need to negotiate,” Sandoval said, “and your ship is dead in the water. My men will run up the drives and we’ll move it into port.”
There was a port? I glanced over at Tens, glad to see the same question flit briefly across his face.
Sandoval looked from one to the other of us, obviously enjoying our confusion.
“You didn’t know?” he asked, and we shook our heads.
“Truly?”
And we shook our heads, again. He frowned, managing to look truly puzzled.
“Your pilot flew you right to my doorstep,” Sandoval said, and I felt my jaw drop. “What? She didn’t mean to?”
“What she was doing isn’t an exact science,” Tens said. “It makes us hard to track, but it’s virtually impossible to navigate.”
Sandoval’s expression turned to mild disbelief.
“How do you not end up in a sun? Or smeared across a moon?”
“There are safeguards,” Tens explained. “We just put on as much speed as we can as we hit the warp point, and then do a second warp straight after taking a random course heading. Theory is that the warp points are usually in clear space, and the safeguards won’t let us collide.”
The mild disbelief turned to absolute disbelief.
“That’s insane.”
“We won’t tell Case you said that.”
“And you didn’t know the warp point you chose was the exit point I needed to take to get home?”
Tens seemed to sag.
“No,” he said, sounding tired.
Well, I thought, at least that explains how they found us so fast. They hadn’t even had to look—and Case just hadn’t randomized enough.
Tens shot me a look that said he’d caught that thought and disagreed, and then he turned towards to the command console that Mack usually occupied.
“Please don’t,” he said, looking at the trooper standing near Mack’s seat, and getting ready to reverse the stasis cycle so he could take the chair. “He was shot.”
“Shot?” Sandoval was curious.
“Delight lost her temper when she handed over the child.”
Sandoval’s gaze sharpened.
“This Delight. Do you have her?”
Tens shook his head, lying so smoothly, I almost believed him.
“We sent her to the nearest Odyssey ship. We didn’t want her aboard.”
“Hmm. Understandable. Where are your crew?”
“We put them into stasis before we warped. Those kinds of jumps; they’re not safe to do outside a pod.”
Sandoval gave a short huff of laughter.
“We’ll leave them in stasis. What about your engineers? You shut down your drives after you saw my ship.”
“They’re standing by.”
“Tell them to stand down,” Sandoval said. “I would like to continue our negotiations when Mack has been treated. I’d rather not jeopardize those by shooting his crew.”
Tens looked to the man who’d seated himself behind his console.
“May I?” he asked, and the man nodded.
It didn’t take Tens long to send the message. Once he had, the man at my console looked at me.
“Unlock it,” he said, but I shook my head.
“You don’t need live weapons.”
“I do need to see your security feeds.”
I shook my head.
“No, you don’t,” I argued, but Sandoval didn’t agree.
“Unlock the feeds,” he said.
The trooper pushed the seat back, so I could reach the console, and I did as I’d been asked, isolating Delight and Pritchard’s rooms from the system, and hoping Sandoval’s goons would be gone before they thought they needed to go looking.
He checked what I’d done, and nodded.
“There are people in Medical,” he said, and Tens hastened to explain.
“We had injured. They’re being treated.”
“Lock them down,” Sandoval instructed, and Tens spoke, again.
“I need to get Mack to Medical,” he said. “He needs regen.”
“We’ll see to him,” Sandoval said, and the air around Mack’s pod rippled.
It was little more than a heat-wave shimmer, but when the air had steadied once more, the pod was gone.
“But—” Tens started, and Sandoval held up his hand.
“You and the girl will be joining him as guests on the cruiser,” he said. “Kindly put down your weapons.”
I didn’t move. I’d put the unfamiliar weapon down to operate the console, and it was still where I’d left it. Tens, on the other hand, took several minutes to disarm himself, and was then thoroughly checked by the two troopers who had stationed themselves between his console, and the command console. When they were done with him, they moved to me, and did the same.
“All clear,” and, for the fourth time that day, I was pulled apart, and reconstructed elsewhere.
I can’t say it was an improvement. Sandoval’s teleport team was just as good as the one Mack had on board. I ended up in a different room to Tens, and without access to my implant. I mean, it was there, but inoperable. I poked it a couple of times, and then set about exploring my new quarters: bare walls, bare floor, enough room to stretch out in...
I tried the first logical place for a control pad, and opened a small panel that fitted seamlessly into the wall. At least the buttons were clearly marked: bed, san, shower, food replicator. Nothing to indicate an intercom.
I poked them all, and surveyed the results.
“Huh,” I said, wondering if Sandoval was listening in, or if we just weren’t that important. “I guess this is what the naughty corner looks li
ke.”
I sighed, but that’s as far as I got, because everything got sucked back into the walls, and I could hear it being locked again. Sandoval’s voice drowned out my second sigh.
“Wrong,” he said, and the walls of the room contracted around me, until I was standing in a space that was three-feet square. “This is what the naughty corner looks like.”
I froze, but the walls expanded to their previous settings, and Sandoval continued.
“However, as you have yet to be naughty, so to speak, you can have this configuration. My apologies for the entertainment, but Odyssey’s training files indicate you are able to exploit equipment more complex than that provided—and we don’t want a repeat of what happened when we tried to accommodate Delight in something less spartan.”
I sighed, and glared in the direction his voice was coming from, but I didn’t say a word. Not even a thank you. I figured it would be better if I got some rest, while I could. No doubt Mack would have a busy schedule, when he woke up. I wondered what Tens was doing, and then decided it didn’t matter.
I hit the shower, reluctantly changing back into my combat gear, rather than running the risk of getting caught wearing nothing but the dressing gown I found hanging on the wall. Run of luck I’d had? I wasn’t betting the odds that wouldn’t happen. If Sandoval felt disappointed, he didn’t show it.
In fact, he didn’t show anything. He remained ominously quiet, and I hoped he hadn’t found a reason to pay Tens and Mack any more attention than he was paying me—except maybe Mack, because, in Mack’s case, I hoped Sandoval was making sure Mack got the medical treatment he needed. With that thought in my head, I lay down and closed my eyes, wishing I had the Zakrava, or Blazer, or something else close to hand.
20—Contractual Negotiations
Time blurred into a pattern of sleeping and waking. Without access to the implant, I couldn’t keep track of how long had passed, so I had to rely on a routine of sleep, exercise, and san to try and track when I needed to eat. I already knew hunger could be brought on by boredom.
I don’t know how long I spent alone, but I do know I was half-way through a defensive kata when the bed tilted sideways and folded back into the wall. I slowed, letting the pattern take me around in a circle so I could watch the rest of my room fold itself away, leaving just the bare walls that had greeted me when I’d first arrived. By the time the last panel had closed, I was standing with my back to the panels I knew contained equipment.
I waited, not entirely surprised when the wall nearest the control panel proved to be a door. Sandoval stood, centered in the doorway, his eyes taking in the defensive stance I’d settled into, his lips twitching in amusement.
“I didn’t come to fight,” he said. “Mack is waiting.”
He turned away, and I walked cautiously to the door, hesitating when I reached it. I didn’t hesitate for long, because Tens reached in and grabbed me by the bicep, hauling me into the corridor beside him.
“Let’s not keep him waiting,” he murmured, and I felt my implant go live.
Tens caught my expression, as I looked back at the room.
“They’re shielded,” he said. “Mine didn’t work, either.”
If Sandoval found that entertaining, he didn’t show it, so we followed him, ending up in the same room as we’d seen when he’d first contacted us. Mack stood when he saw us, but Sandoval waved him to return to his seat, and the two men stationed behind him, reached forward.
Mack glared at Sandoval, and evaded the hands of the men trying to restrain him.
“Cutter,” he said, and then, as his gaze travelled to Tens. “Tens.”
There was great relief in the greeting, but he was seized as he made to move towards us, and, when Tens and I went to close the distance, we each felt a hand take hold of us, and the muzzle of a Blazer pressed hard into our sides.
“So,” I managed. “This is not a friendly meeting, then?”
Sandoval looked back, scowling at his men, but not ordering them to stand down.
“These are negotiations,” he said. “Friendship has nothing to do with it.”
Well, alrighty then.
I stayed frozen, watching as Mack did the same. He had a Blazer tucked hard against each kidney. As far as I could see, he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’d like a coffee,” Tens said, lifting his chin towards the table. “That is protocol, is it not? A coffee while we discuss terms?”
Sandoval turned his head, taking in Tens’ face, before he nodded, and looked towards the door on the opposite side of the room, where two more troopers stood.
“Make it so,” he said, and waved Tens and I towards the seats around the table.
At his gesture, I was released, and the pressure in my side vanished. Mack was released at the same time I was, one of the troops giving his shoulder a pat as he stepped away. He glared at her, but returned to his seat, as we joined him. Sandoval waited until we were all seated, before he moved to join us.
“As you can see,” he said, addressing Mack as he approached, “they are unharmed.”
“I can see,” Mack said. “What about the rest of my people?”
People, I noted, not crew. I saw Sandoval register the choice of phrase, and wondered what he made of it.
“I see,” he said. “Your people are fine.”
He turned a disapproving gaze on me.
“Including the two you had off the grid.”
I tensed, wondering what had happened, when he’d found Delight and Pritchard.
“On the whole, I thought it best we leave them where they were, but that means,” he said, turning to Tens, “that you lied.”
I opened my mouth to say that, if he had lied, so had I, but Sandoval was ahead of me, because he turned back.
“And you helped him.”
Now, it was Mack’s turn to shift uncomfortably, but the number of weapons that had been raised to cover us, made moving a very unwise choice—and we’d all grown tired of being injured with nothing gained... or even with something gained. Sandoval looked at Mack.
“What do you suggest we do with them?” he asked, and I watched Mack’s expression tighten.
“Personally, I’d say they’ve done their jobs well,” he said, and hesitated as the gun barrels shifted to focus on him. Sandoval indicated he should continue. “They are loyal to me, not you, and they protected my interests as I expected. You surely know how valuable loyalty is?”
Sandoval looked thoughtful.
“Then how do I know I can trust you?” he asked.
“Because you know that I’m bargaining as hard for my interests as you are for yours, which means that whatever agreement we finally reach will be something I want as much as you do.”
“And your reputation relies on you keeping your bargains.” Sandoval’s tone was not a question, but Mack nodded all the same.
“Yes.”
“So, your people will not gainsay it.”
“No,” Mack said, and his voice said he had complete faith that neither Tens nor I would cross him.
Given my history of doing exactly that, I wondered where this faith came from.
“You have never broken a contract,” he said, and I understood.
I might defy him at every turn, but he was right—I had honored every contract I had made with him... and I would honor this one, as well. The only contract I had issues with was the one Odyssey had forced on me. I had not agreed to it, and I refused to honor it, out of principle.
“I see,” and Sandoval’s intrusion into our implants, made us all remember that he’d hacked them some time back. “In that case, let’s negotiate.”
His voice pulled us from our implants in time to register the scent of the coffee Tens had requested. Sandoval spared him a look.
“You have studied something of our customs,” he said. “We do negotiate over coffee, and we seal our deals with brandied ivanox.”
Tens paused, having taken his first sip of coffee. I watched as he swa
llowed it, and his face paled.
“Ivanox... is that safe?”
Around the room the hardened faces of Sandoval’s body guards broke into smiles of brief amusement. Sandoval’s expression echoed theirs—and his smile faded just as fast.
“We have much to decide,” he said, and I settled in for several long hours of discussion.
Delight and Pritchard came up, and were just as quickly discarded. As much as Sandoval wanted to see Delight dead, and Pritchard serving hard time for his part in the kidnapping of their child, Mack pointed out that the child had not been harmed, and that he had rescued both the child, and Sandoval and his bride.
“For which I should charge you protection,” he said.
“Or I could let you keep your Odyssey agent and her side-kick, and we could call it even,” Sandoval suggested, and Mack had reluctantly agreed.
He was happy with that, however, no matter what he’d lost in fees. Sandoval’s good will was more than worth it. The next sticking point came when we reached the question of Mack’s existing contract with Corovan.
“It has to be filled,” Mack said, and, again, weapons were raised around the room.
“You are not taking my bride,” Sandoval said. “Her safety is not negotiable.”
“But is she willing?”
Sandoval opened his mouth to respond, but the door behind him slid open, and Treivani’s voice carried clearly across the room.
“I am. This union was brokered before Corovan pressed his suit and my parents agreed to it. I did not inform them of what I already had in play, and they would not have approved if I had.”
Of what she’d already had in play? I thought, and it must have shown on my face, because Treivani gave us a self-satisfied smile in response.
“My parents would have considered the risks too great.” She cast Sandoval a glance that went beyond fond, making the bodyguards shift uncomfortably, and me feel like I’d intruded on an intimate moment. “I preferred it to what Corovan could offer.”
Her face twisted in dislike, and Mack frowned.
“You didn’t like him?” he asked, even though the answer was obvious.
“Blaedergil was a nicer man,” she told him, which confirmed what we’d suspected about Andreus Corovan, more than we’d ever wanted.
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