Blowback

by Lyn Gala

  Tom sighed and leaned back, relieved at that. Fact was that Becca wasn’t much of a pilot, but she was someone who made Tom think of the girls back home—all sweetness until some storm ripped through and then you got to see how strong they were. His worst fear had been that the Kratos had gone up, taking Becca with it.

  “Turns out the crate was booby trapped. When the heat from the engines hit it, the whole shipment blew sky high.”

  “Da’shay?” Tom wasn’t a fan, but he didn’t like the thought of her blowing up without any warning.

  “You know genta.” Ramsay shrugged and then he gave a hiss of pain that suggested he had more injuries than Tom could see. “She said that the heat was a new experience.”

  Tom sat up, ignoring the unhappy squawk the doctor gave and the even more unhappy flare of pain in his hip. He grabbed at his leg and groaned in pain before he could get his words out. “She knew. That fucking daughter of a pox-sick cow knew.”

  “What? Tom, calm down,” Ramsay said, his voice dark with warning.

  “Tick tock, isn’t that was she was saying right before we all just about got blown to pieces? Tick tock?” Tom demanded. He might have gotten out of bed so he could stalk over to Ramsay’s bed to make his point better, but his hip felt as if it were on fire from the inside.

  “Corporal!” Ramsay barked out. He wasn’t a big man, not like Tom, and he was actually kind of average looking and starting to look like a curly haired grandfather, but when Ramsay got mad, he had a terrifying ‘do not fuck with me’ expression. He glared at Tom now, daring him to push this any farther, and Tom pressed his lips into a thin line, struggling to pull back before he went too far. He respected Ramsay enough to not say all things he was thinking right now.

  “Sir,” Tom said more carefully, “I’d like to point out that Da’shay was saying something about whispers and ticking before the bomb went off. It might be, sir, that she knew there was a bomb in there.” He felt as if he were going to explode with emotion, but he reined it all back in.

  “That had occurred to me,” Ramsay agreed. “Tom, let the doctor tend you. I need you healthy and on your feet, not lame and hobbling around on crutches.”

  “And Da’shay?”

  “She’s already walking around fine,” Ramsay said, and Tom frowned, wondering if the man had misunderstood him or if he was being too damn stubborn to discuss this. Genta, full-genta or the half-breeds that wandered in and out of Corps space, were pretty damn hard to kill; they tended to engineer their bodies to take all sorts of damage without breaking down, but if Da’shay was going to take up with explosives, he would put a bullet in her brain stem. “I know that look.” Ramsay sounded unforgiving.

  “I ain’t saying anything.”

  “You’re thinking it loud enough. Tom Frieden, you couldn’t lie if you tried, and I’m telling you right now. Let this go.”

  “But Cap…”

  “You’ve known me six years, Tom. Six years we’ve had each other’s backs, right?”

  Tom didn’t answer, but that was true enough.

  “I’m telling you—drop this. Da’shay didn’t set that bomb, and if you go after her, you’re going to go stirring a whole hornet’s nest of trouble. Drop it. I’m more interested in whoever set that bomb.”

  “Oh I’m interested in returning that favor too,” Tom complained before turning his attention back to the hands picking at him. “Stop fussing over me.” He shoved at the white-coated man before he settled back into bed. When the machine beeped and released painkiller into his system, Tom sighed happily and let himself sag. It felt good to not hurt for a while.

  “Captain?” A new voice asked. “I heard you were awake, sir.” Tom cracked his eyes open and watched as Eli walked in. He smiled at the nurse and she smiled back, blinded by that charming grin of his. Tom could practically smell her disappointment as Eli focused on the captain. That one was wet in the pants.

  “They woke both of us this morning.” Ramsay gestured over toward Tom, but the painkillers made Tom too tired to do much other than blink his already half-closed eyes.

  “Sir, he doesn’t look all that awake.”

  “Not one minute ago, he was ranting about Da’shay. I think he pissed off the doc.” Ramsay looked almost amused.

  A white coat walked past Tom’s bed. “I think it’s best to avoid letting him upset himself. The sedatives will wear off in a few hours,” the doctor told Ramsay.

  “Why do I think you’re off duty in a couple of hours?” Ramsay grinned.

  “I very well may be,” the doctor agreed. “If he’s going to rip out all that work on his hip, I don’t want to be here to listen to the surgeon ranting about our post-surgical care. Now how is your shoulder?”

  “Hurts like hell, doc. I’ve had bullet wounds that didn’t sting this much and I really am getting too old to bounce back from this kind of damage.” Tom would have commented, but his tongue was too big for his mouth. Ramsay was older than most active officers and he showed every year with his white hair and leathery skin. However, he wasn’t too old. The man could still shoot and fight with any twenty-year-old and he often had to in order to get his arrest.

  The doctor nodded. “Joint pain always hurts worse than muscle damage. I’ll leave instructions that you can have painkillers as needed. Now unless there’s anything else…?”

  “Nope,” Ramsay said. The doctor left, and Tom was surprised that the nurse left with him. He figured she’d hang around and try to corral Eli into dinner. The man certainly didn’t look as if he’d been blown up with the rest of them. Damn sergeant looked as though he was ready for a magazine cover. Tom’s eyes drifted shut since there wasn’t anything interesting going on.

  “Do you think Da’shay knew, sir?” Eli asked.

  “No way of telling with that genta. I will say this, if that crate had gone up when it was inside the Kratos, we all would have been floating in space without suits.”

  “It does look like a trap.”

  Tom had almost drifted to sleep, but Ramsay’s tense tone as he replied made Tom not only wake up, but reach for a gun he didn’t have. “Something’s not right, Eli. If this was a trap, why was Smyth was refusing to sell? Seems like if he was trying to get a bomb on the Kratos, he would have offered us a better deal.”

  “Command thinks that maybe our cover held, sir. They believe that Captain Smyth was trying to get you to walk away from the deal so he could sell the crate to an undercover team.”

  “Idiots,” Tom mumbled from his bed. Both of them ignored him.

  “Any particular target?”

  “The Prydwen. Captain Liang got a message saying Smyth had merchandise.” The room went silent for a while and Tom had to struggle to focus on his shifting thoughts.

  Tom had never served with Liang, but he was another of those captains who insisted that everything be pretty. Tom had been drinking buddies with the engineer from the Prydwen when they were both in for repairs after a really bad set-to with a fleet of slavers they’d cornered in Omega sector. Liang was also one of those captains who did more arresting than undercover work because he ended up on the news-vids standing next to confiscated goods more often than most captains. Probably because he was a pretty man. Tom didn’t figure any of them on the Kratos rated as pretty. Well, Eli would, but he hadn’t really been on the ship long enough to count. Tom was a rough man, Becca was cute as hell and Ramsay had a distinguished sort of presence, but none of them was handsome the way Liang was.

  “Things are getting more serious if they’re moving from smuggling to terrorism,” Ramsay said, his voice slow and thoughtful. That was a tone that usually meant he was thinking on ways to kill someone, and Tom smiled. Hell yeah…if he was going to get blown up, he wanted revenge on whoever had given Smyth that damn bomb. He thought about Da’shay lying on the crate, her long fingers stroking the wood. Might be that he wanted revenge on several people.

  “Sir, terrorism means targeting civilians. I think this makes them cold-blooded murde
rers.”

  Ramsay’s snort made it clear that he didn’t agree.

  “I’m with the captain on that,” Tom said blearily. He forced one eye open, and Eli was undulating back and forth as he stood by the captain’s bed. Either that or Tom was overmedicated.

  “If they wanted to kill cops, they could have called Liang or us and asked for a meet and then had snipers take us out,” Ramsay pointed out. “Bomb seems like overkill.”

  “Wouldn’t happen,” Tom interrupted. He stuck his tongue out as he tried to get the awkward thing to work right. When he opened his eyes, both Eli and Ramsay were looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Took those two out at five thousand meters,” Tom explained with a smile. He was the best, and if another sniper tried taking out his crew, they’d be buried before they figured out how wrong they were. “Ain’t a sniper who can outthink me.” Tom knew he wasn’t particularly bright, but he knew how to sling a gun and he knew it better than anyone. He wouldn’t let the captain walk into a meet that was vulnerable to sniper fire, not unless he was there on the high ground making sure he was the only sniper.

  A warm hand patted Tom, but his eyes were too heavy to open, so he wasn’t sure who it was. Damn sedative.

  Ramsay cleared his throat. “Putting a bomb on a ship is playing off every spacer’s greatest fear. Having your ship blow up under you without any chance to fight back…that’s terror. They’re trying to terrorize the entire Corps into backing off and letting them have all the Omega colonies. As more immigrants move in and expect Corps protection, they’re worried about losing influence, even over the slave colonies.”

  “Could be, sir,” Eli agreed. “Command wants to debrief you. They implied we had a mission, but they weren’t willing to debrief me.”

  “Eli, you’ve got to finish that training so we can get you officer status. I’m sick of them playing these political games with rank.”

  “Yes sir,” Eli agreed. “However, I got the impression they want us to go in deeper.”

  “Deeper?” Ramsay sounded suspicious, and he should. The Omega colonies had voted to reject government protection, making them havens for slavers and smugglers. The Corps had no authority there at all. They went in that far and they’d be on their own.

  “We were negotiating in good faith when the cargo exploded. If we were truly smugglers, we would go running straight to Smyth’s contacts demanding restitution for a disaster of that size.”

  “And you’re just guessing on all this?”

  “Sir, you know I never guess until I have good reason to believe I’m right. I’m not a gambling man.”

  “Sure you are. You signed up with me.” Ramsay sounded amused at that. Tom pried one eye open again and sucked in a fast breath. The huge eyes staring at him were so dark that the brown nearly blended with the pupil, giving the impression of something inhuman sitting next to his bed, her blue hands resting on his arm. Tom opened his mouth, struggling to curse and demand that she get away from him, but the energy seemed to drain from him and sleep clung to him like cobwebs that he couldn’t shake loose. His eyes fell shut before he could figure out if Da’shay had broken into the men’s ward or if he was having a particularly bad reaction to the sedative.

  Chapter Three

  Tom stretched out his legs and watched the crowd in the bar. More than once he’d managed to shoot someone a mere second before they shot him, and Tom had developed an instinct for keeping an eye on everything around him. Living with his stepfather had given him a good eye for trouble coming his way, and now that he was big enough to end any problem that started, Tom enjoyed sitting in places like the Golden Absolute where trouble was sure to start.

  A woman at the bar caught his eye. She was older, no girl to giggle at him during sex, and the gun on her hip suggested that she could take care of herself. Tom liked that in a woman. He never did understand why men flocked to the young doxies who stood around the newsfeed screens and watched the vid stars with their fancy-pants fashions. Tom sure as hell didn’t want that in his bed.

  No, this new woman was more his speed. Her hair was streaked with blue, but her skin was honey colored and all human. She had wide hips and a strong body that her tight pants showed off very nicely.

  Tom could feel himself start to harden, but just as he got up to see if she was interested, a man slid into the chair next to Tom.

  “What the…?” Tom jerked back, his hand going to his gun.

  “I don’t want trouble.” The man dropped an envelope on the table and held his hands up in surrender. The guy looked like a toothpick compared to Tom. Of course, physical strength wasn’t everything. One of the meanest soldiers Tom had ever met was this tiny, wiry little man who’d had a real thing for knives, but this guy moved like an office worker.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Tom leaned forward, crowding into the man’s personal space and smiling when the guy started sweating. He was acting like an escaped slave, searching the shadows for boogey men all rabbit-like. Lots of people thought rabbits weren’t determined. However, Tom had spent plenty of time watching them on the farm. They’d get where they were going every time even if they were nervous as hell and twitchier yet while doing it. That was this guy.

  “I wanted to show you something.”

  Tom narrowed his eyes. “If you’re some perv who’s about to pull his pecker out, I really don’t have a problem cutting it off,” Tom warned. From the way the man turned bright red and started spluttering, that hadn’t been his plan. Tom crossed his arms and leaned back, waiting for some sort of explanation. The twit’s hands shook as he reached for the envelope.

  “No, I wouldn’t—you—” He stopped and took a deep breath. “There are things you need to know.” His hands were shaking as he pulled out a display unit. It was one of those disposable units that stored a certain number of pictures, and when you were done, you wiped and tossed the whole thing. Smugglers loved to use them because the cops couldn’t retrieve images of the illegal goods once the memory was wiped.

  “You got something to say, you should say it to Captain Ramsay,” Tom said as the little man turned the unit on and pushed it toward Tom.

  “Maybe he’s not the best man for the job. After all, he has to follow orders.”

  “So do I,” Tom said, but the image on the screen was distracting him. It was Da’shay. Her long black hair was braided in back and she had a big honking knife in one hand and a gun in the other. After years in the Corps, Tom knew what a man or woman looked like when enjoying the kill and Da’shay had that look. Blood was smeared across her simple, tight uniform. Tom hadn’t ever seen her touch a weapon or wear anything other than those silly dresses of hers, but there was something in the way she held her body that told him this wasn’t some photo patch job. This was Da’shay.

  “This from her file?” Tom flipped the unit over and used a thumbnail to pop off the cover to the power source. If someone wanted to tamper with a disposable unit, he had to disconnect the unit power and jack in an alternative power source while he edited the pictures. Tom sure didn’t have those sorts of skills, but he could spot tampering like that easy enough. This unit, however, hadn’t been rigged up. Tom clicked the cover back in placed and turned the unit over again.

  He poked the controls for the next image. This one showed more of the background. Wire pens were crammed in under a bulkhead. This wasn’t one of the legal slave pens on the colonies—in those places they put collars on people and paraded them around. This was a smuggler taking slaves to some illegal work camp in free space where the boss would deny he had slaves while slowly starving them to death because they weren’t valuable enough to feed. Each pen had a body in it, some curled up and others splayed out in a grotesque sprawl. Tom had seen ships like this.

  “Da’shay ain’t the one who killed those.” Tom pointed to the cages. Those people had been poisoned. He’d seen other slaves with that white foam at the corners of their mouths, their limbs twisted in inhuman shapes as they struggled for air.
It wasn’t something he ever wanted to see, but he couldn’t blame Da’shay for it. More than likely, a Corps ship had hailed them and the slavers had killed the cargo to avoid having the extra life signs on board.

  “No, but she killed others.”

  “Ain’t like genta are saints. They’re just as likely to kill as a human, maybe not for the same reasons, I suppose.” Tom shrugged and studied the pictures. If someone had used the unit to take a picture of something that’d been cobbled together, he’d see a stray shadow, a missing shadow, an odd angle that didn’t make no sense. The scene was shocking, but every instinct Tom had said it was real.

  “This…this woman is a devil.” The little man reached over and turned to the next image for Tom.

  Holy hell. Tom wasn’t even sure how many smugglers he was looking at because the way the bodies had been cut into pieces and scattered around made calculating a little more difficult. “You’re saying that she did this?” Tom turned to the next image, and Da’shay was clutching her gun the way a child might hold a bear, but with the other hand she was swinging her knife toward some guy who wore a panicked expression. That was one less smuggler Tom had to worry about arresting. From this angle, Tom could see the tears in her plain, gray uniform. Some of the blood covering her was her own. That made sense because in a small space with the hull ricocheting the bullets around, she’d have to be a ghost to avoid getting shot at least a few times.

  “She took care of the smugglers,” Tom said. He felt something heavy in his stomach, something like disgust. He was all for shooting people when they were on the wrong side of the law, but this…she was taking joy in killing these people. However, she was crew and that was reason enough not to tell this pencil-necked twerp just how uncomfortable this made Tom.

  “You want someone to see this, then you show Ramsay.” Tom pushed the display away.

  “They were calling the Corps captain, begging to surrender. By the time crew got there, there wasn’t a smuggler left alive.”