by Huff, Tanya
“Two reasons he’s not dead. One . . .” She resisted the urge to raise a specific finger. They were wasting her time. Craig’s time. “The pirates need him alive, and they’ll have learned from their handling of Page.” Handling. A neutral way of saying tortured to death. Torin squared her shoulders and swept her gaze over the crowd. Craig had been well liked—they were listening, but she needed them to do more than that. “Taking salvage is one thing, but taking the salvage operators is something else entirely. Too much of that will get the Wardens moving and they won’t risk it.”
“You don’t even know it’s the same pirates!” shouted a di’Taykan, dark orange hair in constant movement.
“In the Corps, we called those kind of coincidences a reason for artillery.”
A woman in the front row shook her head. “You aren’t in the Corps now.”
“And we don’t have artillery,” added the man beside her.
Torin stared at him, brow up.
“Much artillery,” he amended, rubbing the back of his neck.
“You said there were two reasons.” One arm around Kevin’s waist, the other across Jenn’s shoulders, Pedro stared at her over Alia’s head. “What’s the second reason?”
Torin met his gaze. “He’ll do everything he can to stay alive because he knows I’m coming for him.”
“You also said there was an explosion. He probably thinks you’re dead.”
“He are not being so stupid,” Presit snorted, moving forward and answering before Torin could. “I was being with Craig Ryder the last time Torin was being thought dead and even when he are being told she are dead by the Commandant of the Corps, he are not believing it. When he are standing on the glass that are having been a battalion of Confederation Marines, he are still not believing it.” She stroked her claws through the silver fringe of her ruff and glanced up at Torin. “As it are happening, he are right.”
“And what are being your part in this?” a Katrien perched up on one of the kiosks called out, sounding suspicious. The reporter was a stranger. Even more than Torin.
Presit’s ears flicked, the Katrien equivalent of a shrug. “I are being brought in to expose the pirates so the Wardens will be getting the Navy involved. It are being for your benefit.”
“Oh, yeah, like you are doing us a favor!”
“I are benefiting you,” Presit responded dryly. “It are not the same thing. I are also planning to be benefiting from the story.”
“There is no story.” Pedro’s voice cracked. He swallowed and continued. “Craig is dead—just like Jan and Sirin. Just like Page. If we band together and go after him, if we go after the pirates, more of us will die.”
“Let the Navy do their job!” spat a dark-haired woman.
“The Navy has to be called in by the Wardens,” Torin snapped.
“So let it!” someone yelled from the back.
“Some of you have military experience ...”
“And we got the fuk out, didn’t we?” snarled a di’Taykan. Torin had met her at Sirin and Jan’s funeral. Kiku; served one contract in the Corps as a comm tech. She’d told a few “war” stories then. When it became obvious Torin wasn’t interested, they’d talked together about one of the guys in the band. “You think you can just waltz in here,” Kiku continued, “all I’m Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr and I survived a prison planet and I found the little gray aliens, and now we have to march in straight lines and do what you say? Fuk that. We don’t fight. We prefer to survive.”
“We have families,” Pedro added before Torin could respond.
They weren’t going to help, she realized. Her business was none of their business.
“You are losing them,” Presit murmured as people began to shuffle from the shuttle bay.
“I never had them,” Torin admitted, cutting her loses. She didn’t have time to convince them of the obvious. She raised her voice until it filled all the empty spaces. “I need to buy a ship. And I need it now.”
That got their attention. Every face turned back toward her. To her surprise, the first question was, “Why?”
“The Promise is damaged, and pirates aren’t likely to welcome reporters.”
“Everyone are playing to a camera,” Presit snorted quietly.
“You’re going after Craig alone?” Kiku again. When no one laughed with her, she flushed, her hair flattening, but she didn’t look away. “You don’t even know where the Heart of Stone is, do you?”
“I’ll find it.”
“Because you’re Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr?”
“Because they have Craig.” At least some of those in the room who were ex-military had served with combat troops in a time of war. Pulled a trigger and saw a distant body fall. Torin had killed up close and personal. People near the stage backed up as they heard that in her voice.
“How,” asked a narrow-eyed woman with three black lines tattooed down the center of her forehead, “are you planning on paying for this ship?”
Given the audience, that was the question Torin had expected to hear first. “I’ll cede my military pension.”
“How much of it?”
“All of it.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s just great.” A mocking voice rose above the murmur as the man with the ginger mustache who’d confronted her at the funeral moved to the front of the crowd. “You take that ship off to play hero against the pirates, and we’ll get sweet fuk all because you’ll be dead, and they don’t pay pensions to the dead.”
“I don’t plan on dying.”
“No one plans on dying.”
“You’d be surprised.”
He had his mouth open again, and Torin was seconds from putting her fist in it when Pedro called out. “You can have our small ship.”
He didn’t mean have as have it to save Craig, he meant have as in he’d take the pension. She could hear it in his voice. “I need a ship with a weapon mounted.”
“The Second Star has a recessed BN-344. We use it to cut debris apart.”
The BN-344 was the big half sister of the BN-4, the cellular disrupter /tight band laser the Corps carried in those places a projectile weapon would be unwise. Without the cellular disrupter attached, the big laser could also be used as a cutting tool. Her lip curled, but she nodded. His small ship was almost the same base model as the Promise. She could get it from point A to point B. “Deal.”
The crowd parted as she jumped off the stage. For a moment she wished they hadn’t—laying hands on even one of them would have helped her mood—then she ignored them. Their business wasn’t her business. The crowd stayed parted behind her, and she could hear Presit following. The reporter had sharp claws and no compunction about using them.
“If you come back, chica ...” Pedro closed a hand on Torin’s shoulder. “We’ll do another deal.”
Words that would wound rose to her tongue. She could see the damage stitching across his chest, spraying blood. Teeth clenched, she settled for shrugging out from under his touch and saying, “I’ll arrange for the transfer on the way to the ship.” She pulled out her slate. “Let’s go.”
“I are still coming with you,” Presit announced before Torin could move. “As much as I are hating to admit it, you are being right. This are going to be an amazing story.” She closed her hand on Torin’s wrist—claws dimpling the skin, fingers barely making it halfway around—and held her in place as she turned a sneer on the listening crowd. “And besides, as are having been mentioned before, Craig Ryder are being my friend.”
“There’s information on the pirates coming in from all over the station—I’ve directed it straight to the ship.” Pedro stood by the air lock, arms folded. “People want to help.”
Torin ignored him. She knew defensive when she heard it.
*Merik, what the hell is taking Presit and Ceelin so long?*
*They are being on their way. Presit are making sure she are having full remote access to Sector Central.*
Of course she was.
“
You’ve got supplies on board for a tenday—there’s ice in the converter, you shouldn’t have to capture more. Torin ...”
Torin was fully capable of looking out over a platoon of Marines and keeping her opinion of the situation—of any situation, good or bad—from showing. Here and now, she didn’t bother.
Pedro winced. “It’s your life to throw away, but you’re delusional if you think he’s alive. Craig’s dead.”
“No, he isn’t!” Helena pushed past her parents—the other three had gathered at the far edge of the cargo bay, unwilling to be contaminated by hope. She ran across to the air lock as they shouted her name and followed. Instead of her usual station overalls and soft shoes, she wore scuffed boots and a jacket that was just a little too big for her. A small green duffel bag hung over one shoulder. “I’m going with you. I’m probably a better pilot than you are,” she added quickly, “and I know what to do if the Star gets weird.”
“I’m sorry, Helena,” Torin stepped forward, physically cutting off whatever Pedro had been about to say. “But you’re too young.”
“I’m not!”
She closed her hands on the girl’s shoulders, met her gaze, and held it. “Thank you for offering. I don’t doubt your courage or your commitment, but I can tell you right now, that in order to get Craig back, I’m going to do things no fourteen year old should have to deal with. Even if you survived the experience, parts of you would die. I won’t be responsible for that, and you’re three years away from taking responsibility for yourself.”
“But I want ...”
“I know.” And she did. She’d seen it a hundred times. Kids who’d lost friends or family in the war—a station destroyed, a colony attacked, a ship lost—and had joined up because hitting back was the only way they could make sense of what had happened. It wasn’t as simple as just taking revenge—although she’d seen plenty of those kids, too—they didn’t join because they hated the enemy, they joined because they’d loved something and lost it.
Helena searched her face for mockery and finally nodded, eyes glistening. “You’ll bring him back?”
“I’ll bring him back.”
Leaning in a little closer, she peered into Torin’s eyes. Torin knew what the girl was searching for and she let her look. Finally Helena nodded, one corner of her mouth twisting up, and she said, “They don’t know what they’re in for, do they?”
Torin gave her back the smile she’d been attempting. “No, they don’t.”
“The child are not going with us, right?” Presit’s voice carried.
“No, she isn’t.” Torin gave Helena’s shoulders a final squeeze and released her, the space where her hands had been almost immediately taken by Alia, who clutched her daughter to her protectively. Helena shook her mother off, eyes rolling.
“Good. It are an old vid adage never to be appearing with the young of any species. One way or another, they are always going to be making you look bad.” Presit patted Helena’s arm approvingly as she passed. The girl looked startled but pleased. “Ceelin, you are being careful with the camera. It are being the conscience of the cowardly.”
The Elder Races may have brought Human, diTaykan, and Krai into the Confederation to fight their war, too pacifist to take up weapons and keep themselves from slaughter, but some of the Mid Races were clearly willing to draw blood.
“He agreed to come?” Torin asked quietly as Ceelin crossed the cargo bay all but buried under an impossible amount of gear.
Presit snorted. “Please, I are practically having to lock Merik in the ship to keep him from coming.”
“Merik has his . . .” She closed her teeth on orders. “. . . part to play before he meets us at Val Doron Station. But Ceelin . . .”
“Ceelin are knowing the odds. He are also knowing you and I are where the career-building stories are being. He are ambitious. Also . . .” She fluffed her ruff. “. . . I think he are having jurnifa for me.”
“You honestly don’t think they’ll be any help,” Pedro muttered as Presit disappeared into the ship. “And don’t give me that bullshit about her being Craig’s friend.”
Torin thought about flattening him. Didn’t. But it was close. “You’d be amazed at how few people shoot at the media, all things considered.” She nodded again at Helena—good-bye and thank you and don’t worry, we’ll bring him back all layered onto the movement—then paused, just inside the Second Star’s air lock. “You went out after Jan and Sirin.”
Alia had the grace to look embarrassed. “To find out what happened. We know what happened to Craig.”
Torin laid her palm against the control pad, one finger bent to touch the plastic trim. “No,” she said quietly, “you don’t. Craig told me once that you took care of your own. He was wrong. All you’re willing to do is throw parties for the dead.”
Pedro’s small ship was the same basic model as the Promise—rectangular cabin with the control panel and two chairs across one narrow end, bunk and the hatch into the head across the other. The air lock and suit storage took up the majority of one long wall while across from it were general storage, cooking facilities, and a half-oval table with two chairs that snapped out from recesses in the wall. Because the Second Star had an additional three-by-three module, some of the storage space had been replaced by another hatch across from the air lock. Presit claimed this space as hers and graciously permitted Ceelin and their equipment to share it.
“I are willing to support you in front of fools and cowards,” Presit announced, climbing up into the second control chair and tucking her feet under the thick fringe of her fur, “but now it are just you and me, I are wanting to be assured you are knowing what you are doing.”
“The station’s docking computer is in control until we clear the panel array,” Torin told her without looking up from the board. She’d been surprised to learn the station had a docking computer and wondered if they hadn’t trusted her to leave on her own without causing deliberate damage. Fair enough. She didn’t trust herself.
“Not what I are asking. You are having a plan?”
A call from the station pinged the ship before Torin could answer. Unlike the steady stream of data still being downloaded through Pedro’s personal comm to the Second Star, this message was addressed specifically to her.
“Kerr, go.”
The Krai on the screen looked nervous, his nose ridges opening and closing so quickly they seemed to be fluttering. “Gunnery Sergeant Kerr, this is Kenersk. We uh, spoke, back at the funeral.”
“I remember you.” An ex-Marine who’d done two contracts, Kenersk had fought with the Four Three, holding the line during the evacuation of the Denar Colony, so she let the form of address stand. Turned out, he’d also been the Krai who’d allowed Winkler to get his hands on the cup of sah—which was why she remembered him.
“I don’t know if it’ll help, but I can tell you where you can find a pirate ship.”
Torin waited.
After a moment, Kenersk rubbed a hand over the bristles on his head and continued. “It’s a Krai ship, the Dargonar. All Krai. Captain Firrg hates Humans, I mean, really, really hates them. Don’t know what she thinks about di’Taykan, but Humans, Humans she obsessively hates.”
“I got that, Kenersk.” The information might have been a warning. Or possibly merely Kenersk trying to talk himself into the betrayal.
“Yeah, well, they say she likes to pick off the occasional ore carrier—just the drones, though, and never often enough to set off alarms—and they say she sells the ore at the Prospect Processing Station. They say, she’ll be at Prospect in two days.”
“Who are saying . . .”
Kenersk broke the link.
Presit snorted. “If he are not supplying his sources, I are not trusting his information.”
Torin drummed her fingers against the control panel’s inert trim. “Good thing it’s my call, then.”
“Why are you trusting him? Because he are stroking your ego and calling you Gunnery Sergeant
.”
“No. Because he feels guilty about Winkler getting the sah, and he owes me for not calling in the Wardens. Salvage operators don’t like to be beholden. It makes them feel dependent.”
“They are not liking to be dependent on the kindness of others. It are a quote from Human literature,” she added, sounding annoyed that Torin hadn’t recognized it. “I are having read it at university in XenoHistory. You are being familiar with it?”
“No.” She slid her hand between Presit’s fingers and the board. Presit’s claws caught against her knuckles but didn’t break the skin. “Don’t touch that.”
“I are turning light levels down! Humans are always keeping the lights too bright.”
“I’ll turn them down after we fold. Until then, I need to see the board.”
“I are thinking that the station’s docking computer are doing the hard part,” Presit sniffed.
A ship the size of the Second Star was no harder to fly than an APC was to drive. Easier, since dirtside driving provided a lot more solid objects to hit. Also, APCs were seldom empty, the driver responsible for every Marine on board. APCs, however, didn’t have Susumi engines. Torin had read somewhere that eighty percent of all accidents in space were a direct result of a Susumi error. “Firrg’s taking the unmanned drones because they’re the most likely to go missing in a fold.” No computer could compensate one hundred percent for the unexpected.
Presit made a noise that sounded remarkably like the Katrien version of, Well, duh. and then said, “Who are being his source, I are wondering.”
“He said it’s an all Krai ship,” Torin muttered studying the charts to place Prospect in known space. “Four-day fold from here . . .”
“Four days are not so long, but even you, ex-Gunnery Sergeant Kerr, even you are not being able to go up against a ship full of Krai pirates on your own. Not even if they are out of their ship and under the influence. You are being weighed down by numbers alone. Although,” she added thoughtfully, head cocked to one side, “that would be having amazing visuals.”
“I don’t have to go up against a ship full of Krai pirates. I only need to get one of them alone.”
