The moment broke. She freed her arms from the filament and left her leg wrapped in it to hang upside down, stretching to reach him. When she got her gloves around his arms at the armpits, she flung him at the break in the lab’s wall-turned-deck in the most heavily weighted sit-up of her life. The mic probably put her wordless shout on the local channel.
At the rate the filament winch was pulling her by the leg, she almost beat him into the lab. She was half dragged through the hole in the printer lab with Tritheist less than a meter ahead of her. The thoroughly decluttered lab had never looked safer.
Danail was upside down in relation to her and perpendicular to the printer above them, cranking the filament spool with one hand while pushing on the printer housing for leverage with the other. One arm had about two patch-kits worth of patches along the outside of the forearm. Chi had her boots locked to the bulkhead beside the filament spool to put the finishing touches on her patching job.
Iridian pushed off the last intact panel on the deck she broke through as the filament pulled her into the lab. Once the lab bulkheads were between her and the escort ships, she took the time to shove the filament off her legs. In the low grav she sailed toward the printer base fast enough to expect a nasty crunch when she got there, but she deployed her shield and assumed a decent brace position before she hit, even though she had nothing but muscle resistance to brace with.
The impact rattled her teeth and tore her shoulder up a little more. It felt like tearing, and it should’ve hurt. When she got back to Rheasilvia, she’d also get her suit’s shoulder joints reinforced and take out the painkiller cartridge.
Chi and Danail shouted variations of “Whoa!” Iridian twisted to orient her boots toward the printer base and used the magnets to pull herself to it. By the time she got her hands in what was left of her own tie-down kit so she could take some weight off her ankles in the gradually increasing grav, the three others were swearing and flailing in an armored mass of arms, legs, and filament.
The last of the filament coiled around Chi’s leg and snapped tight against the spool with the leg at an awkward angle to the rest of her. She shrieked and, in her struggle to get free, flung Tritheist into the bulkhead beside the printer. He fell to the solid corner of the deck where it met the lab’s exterior bulkhead and latched onto a cabinet with both feet and both gloves. Danail hit the bulkhead near the deck at a high enough speed to rebound off of it with an emphatic “Fuck!”
Chi was either laughing or crying as she pried her leg out of the filament spool. Iridian hung from the remains of her tie-down kit with adrenaline and painkiller coursing through her veins while Danail and Tritheist pulled themselves back toward the printer using handholds built into the bulkheads. As her brain gradually accepted that they’d all survived, Iridian found the situation damned funny too.
* * *
“So of course,” Chi told the human bartender in Sloane’s HQ on Vesta three days later, “that’s when Captain Sloane calls in on the insertion team channel and says, ‘Do you need assistance?’ And the lieutenant says . . .” Chi, leg in a solid healing brace from ankle to hip, was laughing too hard to finish the sentence. The Vestan docs assured her she’d make a full recovery once the medical nannite culture finished its work, and Iridian’s shoulder would too. Adda reached across Iridian to catch Chi’s tipping wineglass before it spilled over the bar. “The lieutenant texts ‘Iridian survived’ while making this face like her coming back into the lab just killed him. After she saved his fucking ass!”
Danail looked bemused by the laughter ringing around the fancy gold-and-black-marbled VIP room of the club on HQ’s street-level floor. Thanks to Vesta’s twenty-four-hour schedule, the artificial lighting for the whole nightlife module made it feel like a quarter past midnight even though it was something like 06:30 station time. And the crew had a successful op to celebrate. They’d proved their worth and effectiveness to Oxia, which meant that Oxia would keep protecting them from the ITA, for now.
The time, Danail’s beverage, and his lapful of a skinny club boy allowed in from the dance floor for being pretty and higher than hell might’ve added to his confusion. The club boy played with Danail’s curly hair while batting stylized butterfly wing eyelashes at the dashing, injured medic next to him, never mind that the medic in question was old enough to be his grandmother.
Crew security stationed just outside the VIP bar had turned away five or ten of Sloane’s fans already. News of their success had already gotten around the station and impressed the locals. Iridian’s name had even come up in their protests as they were shooed away from the door.
Iridian took pity on the printer tech. “Captain Sloane and Tritheist made a bet, which they must’ve agreed on sometime after we stole the motherfucking module off the Sabina but before we fell out of it. By private text, I figure.”
They all glanced over to the balcony table, visible through a strobing window projection in the wall facing the club. Rich and lovely people surrounded Sloane, Tritheist, and a beautiful stranger presenting as female and flaunting it with a plunging neckline that framed her tigereye quartz skin. The captain was talking to one of the big shots, but Tritheist and the woman plastered themselves against Sloane’s sides and had eyes for no one else.
“Sloane is always betting on something.” Chi smiled into her wine as she sipped. Without her helmet, her dark hair was short on the sides and lighter and taller on top and down the back. It was a softer look than Iridian had expected her to wear, somehow. “So, tell me true,” Chi said. “The captain was really stuck on Barbary? Not just out there for the defensive value or whatever the official line was?”
Iridian paused with her own drink halfway to her lips. The captain had apparently said all there was to be said about it, officially, and Iridian sure as hell didn’t want to mess up Sloane’s version of events. The club boy and Danail were sitting right there, and she couldn’t tell how much attention they were paying or how much they’d talk later. But Chi was a teammate. If they were working together, they should be honest with each other. “Yeah,” Iridian said quietly enough that the club boy, at least, might not notice. “It was a hell of a fight, getting out of there.”
“Thought so.” Chi shook her head, still smiling. “Sloane spent too much time wheeling and dealing and making things work here on Vesta to ditch us. The captain before, Foster, would’ve done it, but not Sloane.” Chi took another sip of wine and her smile slipped. “The captain bet on the wrong one with Rosehach, though. Fuckin’ rat couldn’t sell out to Oxia fast enough.”
“Does Tritheist ever win those bets he and the captain make?” Adda asked from Iridian’s side. The words came out clearly, but considering how much she loved their new implants, speaking aloud was a good sign she was keeping up with Iridian on alcohol intake.
Iridian met Adda’s gaze and grinned while she subvocalized, Once, that I’ve seen. Like he’d know a winner if he saw one. Adda’s face went pink and her sip of overpriced but free-to-them beer ended up all over Iridian’s chest. It was worth it to see that big, adorable smile.
The club boy peered back and forth between them through pupils blown wider than the VIP room’s low lighting could explain. “So, you and her, huh?”
His accent was Jovian, the accent a hell of a lot of secessionist propaganda had been published in. Nobody’d played that anti-NEU crap in the years, and this guy was harmless—might’ve been too young to have fought, come to that—but the accent still made her jaw tense and her eyes narrow in a way that didn’t fit with the celebration in progress. She pulled Adda’s stool a few centimeters nearer to hers, despite her shoulder’s painful protest. “Yeah. Me and her.”
“Brawn and brains!” Chi crowed. “I like it.” The club boy’s hands on her back kept her on her stool.
And yeah, Iridian got by in the brains department, but she’d never have thought of taking the whole damned printer lab when moving the printer would’ve meant the ITA caught them or the escort tore up Oxia’s
ships. Even if she’d thought of it, she wouldn’t have run the numbers to make sure it’d work before she did it. Somehow, Adda had.
“I stimulated . . . Simulated . . . Some sintuations. Oh my gods,” Adda said, apparently in response to whatever Iridian had accidentally subvocalized.
“All right, mastermind, let’s see if you can find your way to our suite from here.” Iridian guided her wife—she wasn’t tired of thinking that yet—to their personal corner of HQ.
* * *
Sloane’s message alert on their suite’s projection stage woke Iridian and Adda. According to the time stamp at the top of the stage display, they’d slept for about five hours.
“Liu Kong wants to meet you,” the captain said. “With more context this time, I presume. Be in my conference room in an hour. Try to look . . .” One side of Sloane’s mouth quirked up as Iridian forced both eyelids open while raising the blanket between their chests and the stage’s cam. Adda covered her enormous yawn with both hands. “I’d request fearsome, but let’s aim for competent, shall we?”
Sloane’s figure disappeared from the projection stage, which cost more than Iridian’s last year of college tuition. Comm software with automatic vid enabled by default was an evil invented by people who, presumably, had separate clothes just for sleeping. Iridian hadn’t even checked to see if pajamas were among the free patterns in their suite’s stocked and functional printer.
The whole suite was theirs, and it was more modern than any place Iridian had ever slept. Everything in sight was tintable, the lights had an option menu, the furniture was intact and made of more comfortable plastic composite than steel, and the cleaning bot in the closet actually worked. They’d printed a couple sets of casual clothes and they could decorate the suite, if they had the time. It didn’t feel like home, yet, but it was the nicest temporary housing Iridian had ever been invited into. It was the kind of home Adda deserved.
Iridian winced as Adda slapped a saline hydration pack over the vein at Iridian’s elbow, then applied one to her own. The first aid kit in the bathroom had been stocked when Iridian found it, with supplies that weren’t expired and hadn’t been tampered with. “I don’t do fearsome,” Adda grumbled. “I could do suspicious, maybe.”
“You of him, or him of you?” Iridian chose Adda’s outfit and set the pieces to brighter colors than Adda would’ve selected.
“Both.” Adda tapped the tag on the pants to change the color to black but accepted the teal top as it was. Combined with the purple highlights in her sleep-styled red hair, she looked like a rock star’s stage avatar. Iridian had to find something else to look at before she dragged Adda back to bed.
Adda was blushing, so some of that observation made it over their new comm system. Iridian grinned. “The combat test went well.”
Very well, Adda whispered over their implanted connection.
Just like the isolated physicians on Barbary Station who’d inspired them to build their own implanted comms, Iridian and Adda met each other’s eyes before subvocalizing. It’d be odd to hear her voice without seeing the accompanying facial movements when they were both in the same room. Iridian held her hand in the doorway to keep the door open while Adda wandered through, looking at her comp projection instead of where she was going.
The captain’s conference room at HQ was several floors beneath the club. Rheasilvia Station followed typical spacefarer priorities for real estate. The most valuable locations had the least radiation exposure and the healthiest grav, which put the elite in defensible underground bunkers.
“Underground” wasn’t much of an advantage on Vesta. Both stations’ residential mods were underground and spun to generate grav, keeping plenty of heavy elements between Vestans and the cold and the black. Modern projection technology being what it was, everyone had a view of whatever part of the galaxy struck their fancy while they stayed cancer-free to enjoy it. Station councilors, high-level Oxia personnel, and four or five semicelebrities squabbled over positions relative to the station’s center with grav closest to one g.
Sloane’s HQ was squarely in that desirable range. How fucking lucky were they?
We’re here because of planning and hard work, Adda whispered over their implants.
Oops, Iridian thought at her, on purpose this time, and kissed her, grinning, in the middle of HQ. The security people, real people and not bots because Captain Sloane could afford them, found other things to look at. Adda and Iridian had never been inside a place this well furnished and fortified, let alone been invited to live there. And Sloane had already paid them for their part in the printer theft. “After we get out from under this megacorp to do things the way we want, we really will have it all.”
At the conference room door, Iridian straightened her spine and brushed wrinkles out of her clothes. She glanced over at Adda. “Ready?”
Adda’s face was set in the grim determination Iridian usually felt before a long college class or a rough flight. She nodded though, so Iridian led them in. Captain Sloane stood near the center of a black-tiled floor just large enough for a projector stage and six opulent-looking chairs. Tritheist, Pel, and anybody else who Sloane considered primary members of the crew were probably still asleep, and Iridian had to consciously decide not to feel bitter about that. A framed vat-grown crystal design in shades of red and orange decorated one wall, attributed in a corner of the piece to an artist from Albana Station on the other side of the ’ject.
The captain was already in conversation with the same well-dressed older man whose soldiers had taken Rosehach’s body from the mine. The projector stage here portrayed Oxia CEO Liu Kong in more flattering light than the mobile one had. As she’d suspected, Tritheist wasn’t present. It was odd for Captain Sloane to summon Iridian and Adda but not him. Either Sloane was letting him sleep in, or the captain had given him something more important to do. Iridian stood a few steps inside the conference room door beside a small bar, and Adda paused with her.
“. . . ten ships to collect this one item,” Liu Kong was saying. “The support costs alone will impact our profits for the quarter. I provided them when you asked for them because I assumed you required them to complete your task, but how do you justify your generous compensation, Captain?” Iridian hoped Liu Kong overlooked her eye contact and head twist toward the projector at the words “generous compensation.” She’d spent too much time with next to no compensation to ignore people talking about opportunities to earn more.
Sloane glanced at her, because of course the captain noticed. “We could have met our objectives with fewer ships. Taken risks with your pilots and your printer and your grand design, whatever that may be. The source signatures were hidden, but trust me when I say that your employees would divulge their allegiance in the care of a damaged escort ship’s crew, alone in the cold and the black. As it is, your ships are lightly damaged and no casualties will appear in either side’s newsfeeds. I’m speaking to you now because nobody but me could direct such an operation to so clean a conclusion, Mr. Liu. Please continue to trust my expertise.”
The CEO’s nod indicated that Sloane had won a point there, almost in real time. He must’ve been under 50 million klicks away from Vesta, but what a rich guy like him was doing on or over the border of NEU space, Iridian couldn’t guess.
Sloane turned halfway from the cam to extend a hand toward where Iridian and Adda were invited to stand. “You asked about my engineers. They’re here.” Iridian led the way to their mark and bowed as low as it took to be polite to a gods-damned CEO. Adda took her cue and did well enough not to be offensive. “Iridian Nassir and Adda Karpe. Unless there was a name change recently?” Captain Sloane raised an eyebrow.
“No, Captain, that’s us,” Iridian said. The Nassir name bought her more trust in pirate circles than Karpe would’ve, since her uncle had been in the business long enough to be known, if not respected. Adda kept hers as a reminder for anyone who met Pel that the weird AI whisperer was his big sister, and they’d have a l
ot more than a couple of pirates to tangle with if they messed with him.
The CEO looked them over. “Interesting. Young.”
“Field operations favor youth.” Sloane said it as if it were a regretful necessity, but the captain’s mouth curled down at the corners. The captain clearly resented criticism of how the crew was run. It irritated Iridian too, especially coming from their unwanted megacorporate overlord.
“Well. Congratulations on your success. My people report that the PR800i is in excellent condition, despite its—unusual—recovery. I look forward to your performance in acquiring the lead scientist for our project.”
“Sir, we don’t do recruitment.” Iridian glanced over at Sloane in case that was about to change, but this assignment was apparently unwelcome news to the captain as well.
“Neither does our candidate,” said Liu Kong. “But it isn’t up to ver, and I trust your captain’s expertise.” The CEO smiled unpleasantly when he refocused on Sloane. “Do whatever is required. At the end of vis time with you, I expect ver to sign our contract.”
CHAPTER 7
Second implant network vulnerability identified
After the projection stage shut off, Captain Sloane waved Adda and Iridian out of the conference room. “We’ll discuss this. . . operation this afternoon, in the VIP room. Tritheist will send a time.” It seemed like all the captain was able to say without shouting, which Adda appreciated.
The VIP room was at the back of the club, and Sloane, Iridian, and Adda reached the headquarters building’s club floor at about the same time that afternoon. Wide-eyed dancers moved themselves and their partners out of the captain’s way. If anyone had been too drunk for that, the captain would probably have stomped right over them.
Despite the fact that it was barely after two p.m. locally, Adda subvocalized to Iridian, Half the dance floor is full. The dance floor bar was too, and Pel leaned on one end of it talking to women at least ten years older than him. Adda would check on him after they met with Sloane.
Mutiny at Vesta Page 11
