A truth of Valor

NINE

"Who's she?" CAPTAIN CHO frowned up at Torin, obviously trying to remember where he recognized her from.

Hands locked together behind her back, her body between Craig and the pirate captain, Torin tried to work out what would happen if she locked them around Cho's throat instead. Craig was in pain. The injury could have been accidental, but allowing the pain, that was something else entirely. That was purposeful. That was torture. That was the reason she should kill son of a bitch right now.

Except…

If she killed him…

"She is the H'san's mother," Big Bill said. "This is Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr."

The roaring in her ears made it sound as though Big Bill had answered the captain from the bottom of a vertical.

"The one who discovered the gray plastic aliens?" Cho's eyes narrowed. "I thought she left the Corps."

"She did."

"Doesn't that make her an ex-gunnery sergeant?"

"Not possible."

"What's she doing here?"

Torin could snap Cho's neck before Big Bill realized she'd moved.

Then…

She tried to shift the flood of pros and cons into some kind of order, into some kind of strategy, but the anger kept getting in the way. She couldn't kill Cho, no matter how much she wanted to, until she knew she could get Craig off the station. And she couldn't plan a way to get Craig off the station when the need to make Cho pay pushed everything else aside. It was almost funny how, temporarily, the anger was the only thing keeping Cho alive.

"She is going to teach the free merchants how to use the weapons in the locker as I have no intention of allowing untrained persons to carry weapons inside my station. Projectile weapons," Big Bill added, "in case you've forgotten what the Corps carries."

Even while speaking to Big Bill, Torin noted Cho kept part of his attention on her; although he very deliberately didn't look her in the eye. "She works for you?"

"She will. When your people finally get this thing open." Arms folded, Big Bill half turned toward the locker. "About that, Captain; do we have a time frame or am I giving you access to my station indefinitely for no apparent reason?"

"Nadayki!"

The young di'Taykan was unarmed, Torin noted as he stepped forward, adding a fourth point, shifting their triangle. He favored his left leg and moved as though he were uncomfortable in his body-unusually graceless for a di'Taykan. If it came to a fight, he couldn't protect his captain.

Depending on how he got the wound, he might not want to protect his captain. Nothing said Craig had been the only one taken and tortured.

"We're down to the last section, Captain, but…" Nadayki's hair lay flat against his head. "… it's a date."

Cho blinked. His attention split three ways between Torin, Big Bill, and Nadayki and unable to watch all three of them at once, he couldn't seem to get a handle on the information he'd just been given. "A date?"

"Yeah, a date. Eight numbers, two sets of two and a set of four. And I can't run a number from a slate without slagging the seal, and slagging the seal will set off the Marine seal and that'll blow the armory."

"We know all that." Cho made the statement a threat. Torin barely stopped herself from a fatal reaction. She shifted her weight forward, back muscles knotting when she didn't throw the blow. Craig moved behind her, she could hear him breathing heavily through his nose, but she didn't dare turn. It helped that the movement sounded deliberate not involuntary. Not controlled by the pain. Hopefully, he'd remained sitting on the deck to conserve his strength because if it turned out he was unable to stand, she'd have to…

Have to…

She bit through the inside of her lip. Focused on the taste of iron and Nadayki's voice as he said, "Without the slate hooked in, coming up with a specific combination of eight numbers, that's impossible. Well, technically, not impossible, but the time I'll need to…"

Big Bill cut him off with a raised hand. "Dates are relevant to the people who set them, are they not?"

Nadayki glanced over at Cho and when the captain didn't respond said, "Yeah, almost always, but we know shit about the people who set this."

"You know the name of their ship," Big Bill sighed. "A little research into public databases and you'd learn several possible dates I'm sure. However, in the interest of saving some time, which you seem to believe I have an indefinite amount of…" He nodded past Nadayki at Craig. Torin turned to follow the gesture. Enough to see Craig's face but not enough to remove her primary focus from Cho. "He's a salvage operator. Perhaps he knows them?"

Craig rolled his eyes; all familiar attitude, like he hadn't just been tortured. Torin began silently listing the parts of a KC-7 to keep herself from doing something stupid. "Oh, sure, all salvage operators know each other," he muttered. "It's not like space is big or anything."

He was right, Torin realized. The sons of bitches who took him had no reason to believe he knew the CSOs who'd lost the original cargo. Space was big. Trite but true. And Craig could bluff a table off a substantial pot while holding nothing more than trip eights.

Cho muttered something in a Human dialect Torin didn't know, then took a short, jerky step toward Craig and snarled, "I should have left your toe where it was and cut off your useless fukking nuts."

Craig saw a muscle jump in Torin's jaw and decided to save Cho's life.

More importantly, he was saving Torin's.

"It's a long shot, kid, but try 23, 14, 1552. Date of the first big civilian salvage find," he explained as they all turned to stare at him. Where all did not include Torin; she continued to stare at Cho like she was deciding how to cark him. Odds were high she was doing exactly that. "The first find that wasn't just scrap. We…" He snorted, remembering what side he was supposed to be on. "They use it for luck."

In point of fact, he had no clue when the first salvage find had happened. The date he'd given Nadayki was the day Jan and Sirin had finally saved enough dolly to buy their license. He'd just happened to have been on station for the party and knew the date only because it had also been the day Jeremy'd been born. If that wasn't the code, well, he knew a couple of other dates it might be and, more importantly, he'd distracted Torin long enough for her to get a grip.

"Aren't you helpful," Big Bill said.

"Aren't I?" he muttered, watching Torin's fingers flex. He knew her rep. He knew her life before joining him had been spent dealing with the kind of shit that would have most people bringing engines on-line to get away. Hell, he'd seen her get her people off a sentient space-ship and then attempt to save her surviving enemies as well. He'd seen her angry, but he'd never seen her so close to losing control.

He supposed he should be flattered that she gone this close to the line for him. All things being equal, not so much.

"What if he's decided to blow us up?" Nadayki asked, taking a step toward the armory then a step back toward the group at the hatch.

"He'll be blowing himself up as well," Big Bill pointed out. He stared at Craig for a long moment while Craig attempted to look like his foot hurt so fukking much he didn't give a H'san's ass about what Big Bill thought.

Not exactly acting.

Big Bill didn't look convinced.

"He doesn't want to blow himself up." Torin made it a definitive statement. No others need apply. If Craig hadn't known he didn't want to blow himself up, she'd have convinced him.

When Big Bill turned to look at her, so did Craig. The station manager… head pirate… everyone's chum… whatever the fuk his actual title was, Big Bill stared at her for a long moment and she looked away from Cho long enough to meet his gaze. Craig had no idea what game Torin had to play to get onto the station, but in spite of maintaining a mere fingertip hold on her temper, she seemed to be playing it well.

Of course she was playing it well. Ex-Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr was still the walking definition of overachiever.

And as possessive as all hell.

He wanted to tell her he was good, now she was here. That he'd known she'd come for him. He hoped she already knew all that.

Big Bill finally nodded and spread his hands. "There you go, then," he told Cho genially as Torin locked her narrow-eyed gaze back on the captain.

Cho looked like he smelled something foul. "She can't know…"

"I say she can."

"But…"

"I can't provide free air to this part of the station indefinitely," Big Bill sighed.

"Nadayki!"

"Captain?"

"Do it!" Cho snapped, unable to stop his eyes from flicking toward Torin.

Yeah, Craig acknowledged, the captain had pressing personal problems that put merely blowing up into perspective. Under the circumstances-and he could only see part of Torin's expression-Craig gave him credit for not pissing himself.

Nadayki entered the eight numbers-he didn't need to have them repeated and Craig made a mental note about the kid's memory to go with previous notes about his unfortunate powers of observation-then jerked back, propelled by an ominously final sounding click.

The CSO seal split and dropped to the deck.

The Marine seal, still securing the armory, beeped once.

After a long moment that did not end in being blown to his component atoms, Craig started breathing again.

Big Bill cocked his head. "Can you get into it, Gunnery Sergeant?"

"No." Not a refusal. "My codes have been retired."

Craig wondered if he was the only one who heard, You're a dead man when Torin opened her mouth, regardless of what she actually said. Cho twitched randomly, so probably not.

"Retired codes," Torin continued, "will initiate the armory's self-destruct."

"The government doesn't trust anyone," Big Bill said with exaggerated distress. "And that's just part of the problem. How long to get in?" Playacting done, he whipped the question at Nadayki.

Nadayki flinched, his eyes lightening. "Twenty-eight hours."

Big Bill glanced at his slate. "It's 0230 now. You have until 1630."

"Station time?"

"Unless you were planning to leave." When Nadayki made no response, Big Bill turned to Cho. "Of course, as you owe me fifteen percent of what's in that armory, I wouldn't advise it. You have fourteen hours. Gunnery Sergeant…"

Torin didn't want to walk away and leave Craig in enemy hands, but she couldn't just grab him and go. With no exit strategy, even if they got off the ore docks, they'd be dead before they got back to the ship. She could tell Big Bill that she wanted Craig as part of her payment for the job she wasn't going to do, but that would give Big Bill a weapon he could use against her.

Putting Craig in an entirely different kind of danger.

She paused at the pod's hatch and, before he could look away, locked her gaze with Cho's. Jerking her head toward Craig, still sitting on the deck by the armory, she snarled, "What happened to his foot?"

"It was an accident," Craig said before Cho could answer.

Why was he defending the son of a bitch? Torin actually felt her lips pull back off her teeth as though she had no control over her expression.

Cho's pupils dilated. "An accident," he agreed. "Couldn't happen again."

Big Bill's footsteps placed him almost halfway to the exit. Torin ignored him and listened to Craig breathe. She wanted to say that she'd get him out just to hear him say he knew it. She wanted to hear him say a lot of other things. She needed to touch him.

Wouldn't be able to let go if she did.

"It couldn't happen again?" She watched beads of sweat form along Cho's hairline. "Good."

Cho waited just inside the storage pod until they heard the hatch leading into the station close, then he took a deep breath. Craig half suspected it was the first breath he'd taken since Torin's final comment.

"He's going to try for more than his fukking fifteen percent."

Not what Craig had expected the captain would say. While he hadn't thought Cho would suddenly spill his last will and testament, some acknowledgment of the danger Torin posed to him might've been a more aware response.

"He's up to something," Cho continued, fingers tapping against his thigh. "Big Bill thinks we're all going to end up working for him."

From Craig's understanding of how the station worked, Cho seemed to have come to that realization a little late. Big Bill might be blatant about taking his fifteen percent off the top, but the station master grabbed fifteen percent off the back and sides as well. The pirates paid fifteen percent to Big Bill, but so did every service on the station, and they got their money from the pirates with prices adjusted up to cover Big Bill's share.

Nice gig.

"You." Cho's attention jerked suddenly back to the here and now. He pointed at Nadayki. "What the fuk are you looking at? Get to work. Big Bill thinks he's getting into this armory in fourteen hours. I want it open in twelve."

"But…"

"I thought you were good at this?" Cho sneered. "The best, they told me. That's why I agreed to take you and your thytrins on. Fukking di'Taykan, lie soon as fuk you."

Nadayki's hair flipped out. "I am the best!"

"Prove it!"

The young di'Taykan glanced down at his slate and then up again, squaring his shoulders. "You'll have it in eleven," he said, turned, and bent over the seal.

Funny how young and stupid were so much alike.

"And you…"

Craig could tell Cho wasn't really seeing him. Suspected he hadn't seen Nadayki either in spite of the crude manipulation. That he was still worrying at what Big Bill might be up to. Or Torin had rattled him, and the Big Bill reaction was a cover. Wouldn't do to look rattled in front of the two junior members of his crew, would it? Might give them ideas.

"You get over here." Cho pointed to the deck at his feet. "Anyone comes through that hatch…" He pointed down the docks. "… you let me know immediately. No matter what happens, the kid keeps working." Pivoting on one heel, he stepped out of the pod without waiting for a response.

Interesting, Craig thought, listening to the captain walking quickly back toward the Heart. He'd seen Torin make that exact same move and that made him think Cho was military. Navy, though, not Corps. Craig had been up close and personal with ex-Corps long enough to be able to eyeball their ticks. Navy might explain Cho's reaction to Torin. Junior officers defaulted to terrified by senior NCOs and, unless the Navy was a lot more fukked than was safe, Cho had never held anything close to command rank. Maybe he found the kind of terror Torin evoked familiar. And so ignorable.

Holding his left leg up, sucking air through his nose, teeth clenched on the whimpers that threatened to escape, Craig scooted across the deck on his ass-dignity be damned-until he could see out the hatch. It just happened that Cho's orders dovetailed with what he'd planned to do anyway. Watch the hatch Torin had left through. And would return through.

For him.

And for the armory.

She'd no more leave weapons with these people than she'd leave him.

When he finally stopped feeling like he wanted to cut his whole fukking leg off-it was just a toe for fuksake, moving two meters shouldn't make him feel like shooting himself-he glanced at the stripped slate he'd been given. Twenty-six fifteen ship time. No wonder he felt stuffed. It had been one fuk of a day.

He looked up to see Nadayki watching him, eyes so dark barely any green remained. With the light receptors that open, he wondered what details the di'Taykan could see.

"Twelve hours," Craig reminded him.

Nadayki blinked, and his eyes lightened enough they looked green again. "She's fukking scary, isn't she? I mean…" His hands sketched impossible meanings in the air. "She doesn't look that scary in the vids."

"Yeah, well…" Craig stretched out his legs, sucked some air in through his teeth, and set his left heel gently down on his right ankle. "The vids add almost five kilos and a veneer of civilization." "What can Big Bill do with fifteen percent if we control the other eighty-five? I mean, basically it's fifteen guns to eighty-five guns, isn't it?" Nat lifted her hand to scratch, glanced across medical at Doc and lowered it again.

"Look what he's already done with fifteen percent?" Cho snarled. "Made himself his own little kingdom. Having any gunnery sergeant train his people would give him an advantage, but that gunnery sergeant? She's got a rep outside the Corps. This lot'll actually listen to her."

"This lot," Doc sighed, "will challenge her repeatedly to see if she's all the vids say she is."

"Not repeatedly," Cho corrected grimly. "Once."

Nat opened her mouth, frowned; her gaze flicked across sick bay to Doc-who continued to tidy away medical instruments-and closed her mouth again. The quartermaster wasn't the brightest star in the cluster, Cho knew, not by a fukking long shot, but she had excellent instincts for self-preservation. "Like that, then," she murmured. "Good to know."

Doc had been challenged once by someone too stupid to recognize the difference between threat and certainty. The fight had lasted seconds. Doc had dropped the fool's eyeball on the body when he walked away.

Kerr's eyes held the same certainty Doc's did.

"But ex…" Cho came down hard on the ex. "… Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr isn't our problem. Her kind's shit without an officer…" According to the vid, she'd even followed an enemy officer out of the prison, more than proving his point. "… and Big Bill's holding her leash. Big Bill is our problem. He threatened me with her. Reminded me that he's in control."

"His station," Doc pointed out mildly.

"This goes beyond the station. He says he knows where I can sell the weapons to my best advantage, that my best advantage is his because it increases his fifteen percent. I say, any sale Big Bill sets up is to his best advantage period." When neither Nat nor Doc disagreed, Cho continued. "He thinks he can sit here in his web and send us out to do his bidding. I walked away from that kind of shit once." They hadn't needed to court- martial him; he'd been all but gone when the MPs had shown up.

"We sail under no colors but our own. A phrase the ancient sea pirates used to use," Doc added when Cho turned toward him.

"Exactly." Cho might be seeing other ships move out through known space under his colors, under his command, but command wasn't like control. "You two need a drink."

Nat grinned. "Well, aye, Cap, but didn't you say we were to stay with the Heart? Loose lips and all that. Don't want folk to find out what we have until we're actually holding it and can return fire, you said. Don't want them ganging up on us."

"I know what I said!" He wiped the grin off her face with his tone. "Now I'm saying get out there and find out what the fuk Big Bill is up to. Something this big, there has to be someone who can't keep their mouth shut."

"Someone who knows what's going on." Nat nodded. "Loose lips in our favor. So, we won't be actually drinking then?"

"You'll keep your fukking mouths shut." Huirre had hit his bunk and couldn't keep his mouth shut besides, Krisk was a brilliant engineer and a useless shit if dragged from the engine room, but the di'Taykan… "Find Dysun and Almon, make sure they know they're to be listening during sex, not talking. I'm sending the code to get back in the docks to your slates, don't fukking lose it. And you all stay away from ex-Gunnery Sergeant Kerr."

"Once," Doc murmured, closing the equipment drawer and activating the lock. "That's a fight I'd like to see. "You're very quiet," Big Bill said as they crossed the Hub.

Mapping alternative routes from the docking arm to the Second Star, Torin unclenched her teeth. He'd said nothing after she'd caught up to him at the hatch; it wasn't like she'd been ignoring his conversation.

They skirted a mixed group yelling profanity at a large vid screen showing the Dar peed finals on the Taykan home world. Torin had watched the finals on Paradise. With her family. And Craig.

"You must have questions, Gunnery Sergeant."

The distinctive sound of half a dozen or so di'Taykan working out logistics drifted down from an upper level. Torin pitched her voice under the argument. "Neither the time nor the place."

"You think this lot…" Big Bill's gesture included both the seen and the unseen. Those behind bulkheads in the pubs and the shops and the pleasure palaces as well as those actually out in the Hub, drinking, dealing, and fighting. "… hangs on our every word?"

It took every moment of every year of experience to plant a gunnery sergeant face firmly in place over her rage before Torin turned toward Big Bill and raised a brow.

Big Bill laughed as he stepped over a Krai lying in a puddle of mixed blood and vomit. The sound sent a ripple of imitation laughter through the Hub. "All right, then. We've covered that we're both smarter than we look." He paused and raised his voice only little. "Can we get this mess cleaned up before the stink adds to the load on the ventilators? Remember you pay extra for repairs."

The vertical smelled of unwashed bodies. Torin hung onto a rising strap and listened to Big Bill greet everyone who passed. No one seemed too thrilled by the attention although everyone did a reasonable job of faking it. About half of them recognized her, which made a station full of thieves and murderers more observant than the general public.

When they got back to the outer office, the Grr brothers were still watching news vids. This time, only one screen had anything to do with her. Both Krai looked up as she entered, stood as Big Bill came in, and headed out into the station as soon as the hatch was clear.

Torin saw no hand signals. Big Bill and the Grr brothers had implants, then. But Big Bill wouldn't want his conversations recorded by the station-too much risk-so there had to be a way of opting out. A way for her to be in contact with Craig. Ressk would know.

"So." Big Bill settled in behind his desk and smiled up at her. He didn't look like a man heading into his second 28-hour day. Maybe he didn't sleep on the station's day/night schedule. "Your best guess as to the armory's contents."

No reason not to tell him, Torin acknowledged silently. He'd never get a chance to use the weapons. The way Craig saw it, he now had a few options.

He had somewhere to go if he made a run for it. He'd made it from medical out of the ship to the storage pod; he could make it to Torin. Now he knew she was on the station, now they weren't watching him so closely-or at all-he could get to her.

Except there was a chance that Nadayki could crack the seal in the eleven hours he'd claimed-the kid was almost as good as he thought he was. Once the armory was open, Craig didn't trust Cho not to siphon off guns immediately regardless of what Big Bill's plans were.

If that happened, Torin had to know.

The farther the guns got from the armory, the harder they'd be to destroy or remove or whatever Torin planned on doing with them.

As much as he wanted to be anywhere else, anywhere Torin was, he had to stay here with the Heart to keep an eye on things.

Torin's eyes inside. Undercover work.

"What are you smiling about?" Nadayki demanded petulantly.

"Grown-up stuff." He hadn't realized he'd been smiling.

"Fuk you."

"Missed our chance, kid."

Problem: if Cho started moving the weapons, how did he let Torin know?

The only thing Torin had been able to tell him in that first instant of contact was that the implants were tapped. He didn't know how the fuk that was even possible, although Nadayki might, but he had to respect the importance of information given top billing over everything else she'd wanted to say. Over everything he'd seen on her face.

No matter how frustrating it might be. Torin attracted more overt attention crossing the Hub back to the Star than she had crossing the other way with Big Bill. No surprise. He was a known factor. She had yet to define her place. If she were staying, if she were planning to do the job, she'd have to prove to the locals it was in their best interests to listen to her.

The pair of di'Taykan watching her from over by the verticals, the Krai and Human on the bench by the kiosk selling cumot'd-on-a-bun, and the Human crossing diagonally from her, laden down with boxes-even a cursory sweep identified them as having spent at least one contract in the Corps. The ex-Navy were a little harder to spot, but the three Krai who'd paused to stare before going through the hatch into one of the bars, definitely.

Ex-military had specific responses to senior NCOs conditioned in, but the ex-military on this station had you're not the boss of me shoved so far up their collective asses it had impacted on their thinking. Yet another parallel between the pirates and the CSOs.

Because the ex-military thought they knew what she was, they'd see to it that the first challenger wouldn't be a loser with more balls than brains but would be handpicked to beat her.

Wouldn't happen.

The first fight would also be the last fight. Fear would give her the control she needed; respect could come later.

If she were staying. If she were she planning to do the job.

If Big Bill hadn't decided to wait until the armory was open to announce her position, she'd be fighting right now. Beating her frustrations out on a thieving murderer no better than the bastards who took Craig. Tortured Craig. Bastards she couldn't yet touch.

In a just universe, she'd be accosted by another drunk declaring she didn't look like such hot shit, but although they were staring, the scum in the Hub were giving her a wide berth.

Recent events, she decided, reaching the decompression door un-accosted and digging her thumbnail into the gray plastic trim, had proved that the universe was anything but just.

"An armory? Intact?" Mashona swung her legs out over the edge of the bunk and sat up, her gaze never leaving Torin. "Fuk."

Werst's nose ridges flared. "Good thing we dropped by."

"An intact armory in the hands of pirates would light a fuse under the Wardens," Ressk pointed out from the second chair. "They'd send in the Navy for that."

"And what would the Navy do?" Torin asked, stopping in front of him. Unable to remain still, she'd paced the cabin while she filled them in. "Send a warhead into the station to blow the armory? Kill citizens of the Confederation no matter how misguided? No. Confederation law states explicitly that the military will not be used against citizens of the Confederation."

"But the Wardens can send the Navy against pirates," Ressk protested.

"Specifically pirates," Torin reminded him. The damned cabin was too small. "Not everyone on this station is a pirate." She started pacing again. "Some live off theft and murder second or thirdhand. The Wardens can't legally send the Navy after them, and the Wardens are all about the bureaucracy. What's more, even if the Wardens get their slates out of their asses and send out the Navy, the Navy will argue for landing Marines to take the armory back."

"The Corps' armory, the Corps' problem," Mashona muttered.

"Exactly. Even if Presit allowed Merik to fold the moment they got the first image…" Presit's camera now rested on the edge of the control panel with no way for them to tell what Presit's reaction had been to the new information. "… what are the odds of the Corps getting out here in under fourteen hours when they're not going to be able to cut the orders without a Parliamentary decree?"

"Slim," Mashona offered.

"Slim," Torin agreed.

"So it's up to us." Ressk nodded at whatever plan he had unfolding inside his head. "We rescue Ryder. We get the armory far enough from the station to blow it without the explosion sending pieces back through the station."

Torin stared at Ressk for a long moment. "We figure out a way to blow the armory," she said at last. "We're not military, and I don't give a H'san's ass if the station goes with it."

The silence thickened until it dragged at her legs. Six paces across the cabin. Six back. That was weird. Seven paces across Promise's cabin and the Star was larger. One. Two. Three…

"Gunny." Werst stepped out in front of her. No room to go around him, so she stopped. "Bartenders. Waiters. Whores. Shopkeepers. Maintenance personnel. Techies. Hell, even that weird black-and-white di'Taykan with the hots for you. Okay, sure, they live off theft and murder second- and thirdhand like you said, but they don't deserve to die. And you don't get to make that decision." His nose ridges opened and closed, slowly. "You don't have to make that decision. Not this time."

Werst didn't look bad, all things considered, but his natural mottling couldn't hide the bruises, one eye was swollen almost closed, and Kyster had definitely been supporting him as they moved toward her. Torin could see abrasions on one wrist and knew there'd be a matching set on the other wrist and both ankles. He hadn't just laid there after he'd been staked out, he'd fought the bindings. A bloody scab weighed down one corner of his mouth, but his lips still rose off his teeth. "Harnett?"

"Dead."

"Edwards?"

"Also dead."

His grunt suggested he found the news of Edwards' death disappointing. Torin assumed that was only because he'd had plans to take care of it himself. "How many total?"

"Seven. Eight, including Harnett."

A sudden impact jerked Torin out of the memory. She blinked and stared at the blood smear marking the place where she'd slammed her right fist into the bulkhead.

The pain hit right after the visuals.

"Gunny?"

Raising her left hand, palm out, she drew in two deep breaths and let them out slowly. Clear and bright, the pain sliced through all the shit in her head and left only three things behind. Craig. The armory. The certain knowledge that this couldn't happen right now. The shit couldn't win. She had to hold things together for just a little while longer. One more deep breath, then she let her left arm fall back by her side and nodded.

She'd barely finished the motion before Ressk, holding her right wrist in a gentle grip, pushed her back into the pilot's chair. Mashona knelt beside her and opened the first aid kit.

"That was stupid."

"Werst!"

Looking over their heads, she locked eyes with Werst. "No, he's right. Seeing Craig threw me, but I'm thinking clearly now."

"So you punched the wall to clear your head? Bullshit."

"And yet, my head is clear." Her tone told him to drop it. Trouble was, Werst hadn't listened back when she had actual rank to enforce the order. And now…

He folded his arms, his tone matter-of-fact. "If you're losing it, Gunny, we need to know."

"Fuk you."

"He's right, Gunny." Mashona's hand rested warm on her thigh. "You don't have to prove anything to us. We're here."

Yes, they were.

Ressk flashed Werst a look that made Torin suspect Mashona might be right about something going on between them then, nose ridges flaring, asked, "What would you say, Gunny, if one of us pulled a dumbass move like punching a bulkhead?"

Good question. The pain blocker he'd shot into her hand dulled the edges of the clear and bright but not so much the shit could creep back in. It was all still there-Cho, Big Bill, Craig's injury, a station not entirely full of thieves and murderers-but she owned it now, not the other way around.

"I'd tell you to not let it get so bad again."

"Yeah," Mashona snorted. "But you'd be more emphatic."

She'd have been as emphatic as required for them to hear her. "True."

"So, consider yourself told." Werst's teeth flashed white. "What's the plan?"

"First…" This was the easy part. "… we need to be able to communicate with Craig. Not only to get him out, but because he's with the armory." She sucked air in through her teeth as Ressk's thumb pushed at cracked bone.

Ressk's grip tightened. "No point in bonding the knuckle when it's halfway down your fukking hand," he reminded her. "Stop twitching. If Big Bill's blocked his codes, then I can block yours and Ryder's. I just need to get into the sysop. Once in… Gunny!"

"I'm not twitching."

He snorted noncommittally and maneuvered the bone into place. The pain flared bright and clear for an instant, then settled back to a constant reminder of why punching bulkheads was definitely dumbass.

"Once in," he began again, "I can lock our slates out, too."

Mashona handed him a tube of sealant and sat back on her heels. "Wouldn't it be easier to just lock out the Star? Since we use her as our SP?"

"If I lock out the Star, the docking clamps release because the station thinks we no longer exist."

"So you'll be locking out the codes." With the split skin over Torin's knuckle sealed shut, Mashona dropped the empty tube back into the kit. "Good thing you're an evil genius."

"Doesn't take a genius to lock out codes," Ressk snorted, frowned down at the repair, then set the hand gently on Torin's knee with a look that said it was the best he could do. "But it'll take time to get into the system unnoticed."

"We now have less than thirteen hours for the entire mission." Torin reminded him.

"Then I need to get to one of the station's boards. Easy in from there."

"I have an all-access pass to the station-apparently the free merchants need to see I have Big Bill's trust," she explained as she handed Ressk her slate. "But whatever I do, wherever I go, Big Bill will be watching. That's a given."

"Then we need him to look away." Ressk dropped back into the second chair and worked both thumbs across the screen. "Or we need him to believe he's seeing something he isn't. This…" He tapped the lines of code. "… is almost too simple. Your slate will identify you to any locked hatch. The lock, in turn will record your presence."

"Tracking me."

"Yeah. But it's not hard to see Big Bill's point. He's just given the most dangerous person he's ever likely to meet the run of the station. He's going to want to know where you are."

"Serley suck-up," Werst snorted.

"Best part of it is," Ressk continued, ignoring him. "I can separate out the ID code that makes this work. These things aren't random, they're sequential. I copy the whole thing into my slate and give myself the next lower number, and I now also have an all-access pass."

Mashona held out her slate. "Do one for me."

"The next lower number that Ressk is using already belongs to someone." Torin took her slate back as Ressk began messing about on his own. "Let's send up as few flares as possible."

"So how does chrick and geeky here get to a board?" Werst asked.

"Alamber."

Torin stopped checking the movement in her hand-eighty percent, she could work with that-and stared at Ressk. "No."

Ressk shrugged. "At worst, Big Bill will think you're heading to Communications to build and consolidate a power base."

"Fukking a di'Taykan is like breathing air," Werst pointed out. "Evidence suggests Big Bill's too smart to see anything else in it."

"Then he'll just think Gunny's getting some."

Mashona raised her hand. "I volunteer to get some."

"Weirdly, Alamber wants Gunny."

Werst unsuccessfully hid a snicker. "You'll have to use your wiles, Gunny."

"I don't have wiles," Torin snapped. Unfortunately, she couldn't think of a better idea. "What if Alamber was lying and Communications is under surveillance? You think Alamber and I getting it on will make Big Bill look away?"

Ressk looked up at that. "Who notices a di'Taykan having sex? If Big Bill happens to stumble over the recording, he'll think nothing of it. And, if it turns out he's still up and watching live, you'll be distracting him while I slip in and crack his system. More to the point, you'll distract Alamber."

Unfortunately, Ressk was making sense. "If I'm there to see Alamber, why would I bring you with me?"

"You wouldn't. Aren't. I'm bringing myself." Ressk patted himself on the chest. "Most of the station maintenance is done by Krai wearing blue overalls much like these. Unless they're into seams and pockets, anyone watching will just see another maintenance worker. Humans usually can't tell us apart."

"True." Mashona rolled back up onto her feet and moved to stow the first aid kit.

Gross physical features like height and weight aside, Humans-with their substandard sense of smell-could only identify individual Krai by the pattern of mottling on their scalps. Put them in uniforms, remove the individuality of clothing choice, and the Humans working with them when they were integrated into the Corps had to learn new recognition skills. Fast. Outside the military, most Humans never bothered.

"If the Grr brothers are watching?" Torin asked.

"Acceptable risk."

Werst suddenly grinned. "So he slips in while Alamber's slipping in?"

"Oh, fuk you," Torin sighed.

"That would make a stronger man than Big Bill look away," Mashona pointed out, rolling back up onto her feet and moving to stow the first aid kit.

Werst raised both arms and flexed. "Not the first my cernit's scared off."

"Deformed?"

"Enormous."

"Enormous would be deformed on a little guy like you."

It sounded like business as usual, but Torin could hear the concern under the banter. She was the one thing they shouldn't have to worry about. Be a whole lot easier if people started shooting at them. That, she could deal with in her sleep.

Speaking of… It was 2426 ship time, and there'd be no chance of rest until this was done.

She stood, flexing her hand. "I hope you caught some sleep while I was gone. Werst, Mashona, go back out into the Hub and find out everything you can about the Heart of Stone. How many in her crew, who they are, what kind of training. How many weapons they have. Their captain, Cho…" The bonded knuckle pulled painfully but held as her fingers curled into a fist. "… he's ex-Navy. And there's a young di'Taykan named Nadayki working the seal, doing the same sort of shit Ressk can. If necessary, use that information to get people talking. Take into account that anyone off a ship is an amoral s.o.b., and the support staff isn't a lot better. If you're done before Ressk and I are back, the armory is in an old explosives storage pod off the ore docks, up against the back bulkhead, maybe ten degrees off from the lock. The Heart's at the lock. Go into the schematics of this place and find the fastest way to get the armory off the station. Quick and dirty, we've got no time for finesse. And speaking of no time for finesse…" She sighed and headed for the air lock. "Come on, Ressk. Let's see if Alamber really does spend all his time in Communications."

"What are you going to…?"

Torin cut him off. "I'll decide when I get there." She glanced down at the camera on the edge of the control panel, thought briefly about pretending to forget it, and changed her mind. Ultimately, rescuing Craig trumped her ego. "Whatever happens," she muttered, reaffixing the camera to her tunic, "you're editing this bit out."

Torin would have preferred to have avoided the Hub entirely, but it was the only way to get from the docking arms into the station. "Remember," she said quietly, pitching her voice under the noise of the games on the big screens and a fight between two di'Taykan under the nearer one, "play nice. Recon only. Do not engage."

"If they swing first?" Mashona asked, arms folded.

"Win." Torin swept a disdainful gaze around the Hub. At first glance, she couldn't tell the pirates from the station crew. The thieves and murderers from the support staff. Fukking Werst. "Might makes right with this lot." The two di'Taykan were rolling around on the deck. Given they were di'Taykan, it wouldn't be a fight much longer. "If it comes to it, I want this lot to think twice about pissing us off."

Wrest flexed his toes against the deck, cracking the knuckles. "Just twice?"

"Twice is fine. It's 0341 now; if we're not back at the ship by 0830 station time…" Five hours was more than twice the time Ressk said he'd need. "… assume we've been caught. Abandon subtlety. Blow the docking clamps, haul ass, and call in the Marines to deal with the armory."

"This is subtle?"

"Werst."

His nose ridges flared. "These are bad guys, Gunny. You get caught doing bad things, they'll assume it's because you're a bad guy, too. Not because you're a good guy trying to screw them."

"Figuratively speaking," Mashona muttered under her breath.

"You get grabbed," Werst continued ignoring her, "precedent suggests you'll haul your ass and Ressk's out of the fire. We'll wait."

Torin opened her mouth to tell him she'd just given him an order and, from his expression, he knew exactly what she was about to say. Easy enough to figure out his response. With less than fourteen hours, they didn't have time to argue. "Fine. Presit can call in the Marines. She'll know before you do." Nodding toward the nearest bar, she added, "Put your drinks on my tab."

Mashona grinned. "So we can skip out without paying it."

"Cherish the small things," Torin agreed. "Now go before I get any older and this plan gets any more ludicrous."

There were three ways to get to System Administration from the Hub. With no reason to be anywhere near the staff quarters or the maintenance tubes, Torin took the obvious and most public route. What was your business in Admin? would be a lot easier to answer than, Why were you skulking about? should her journey come to Big Bill's attention in the next…

Torin glanced at her slate.

… twelve hours and forty-one minutes.

The section of corridor directly off the vertical was utilitarian. Gray. Cleaner than the public areas, granted, but also less streamlined. Not all the mechanicals were hidden and it reminded her of the engineering sections of a battle cruiser. It was stupid o'clock in the morning station time, between shifts, so she expected to be alone, but four meters away at the access to a second vertical, a Krai in maintenance overalls stood swearing at an open panel. Glanced up as Torin's boots hit the deck, dismissed her as unimportant, and returned to profanity. Big Bill could almost definitely pick the Grr brothers out of a crowd, but his maintenance workers? Not likely. Not unless they were behind on their fifteen percent. Ressk would get to Communications right after she did, and no one would see him coming.

System Admin had its own set of decompression doors.

According to the schematics, Communications was at the end of the next corridor, the last in a line of closed, unlabeled hatches leading to Records, Finance, and Weapons Control.

Torin couldn't see the surveillance cameras, but she didn't doubt they were there. To be on the safe side, she stayed as far from the locks as the corridor allowed. Her new code opening them in sequence would sure as shit attract the wrong kind of attention. Enough attention to justify waking Big Bill should he have gone to sleep.

The hatch to Communications was already open.

Unable to see how it could possibly be a trap, Torin stepped in over the lip. A glance at her slate showed Ressk's sweeper program had picked up no surveillance in the room. So far, so good.

Communications was long and narrow. Two extended boards ran along both side bulkheads with a double row of monitors over each. The monitors offered a tour of the station's surveillance cameras, three seconds on each view. Torin noted four different angles on the Hub, the interior of half a dozen bars or half a dozen interiors of the same bar, interiors of the shops-Vrijheid had a masseuse? Pirates got stressed?-and one fuk of a lot of empty corridors. Looked like a dedicated monitor on the last hatch before the ore docks. Each monitor had its own station. The room also held two wheeled chairs; minimum staff to cover maximum distance. An ocher-haired di'Taykan sprawled in one chair. The other chair was empty.

The di'Taykan looked up and frowned. Although the Taykan showed few visible signs of aging to non-Taykan, Torin's experience with Staff Sergeant Beyhn on Crucible made her think this was a di close to turning qui. That meant she wasn't here because she was young and stupid. She was here because she chose to be here.

"Who the fuk are you?" she demanded.

New plan.

"New hire," Torin said, moving closer, careful to make it look like she was watching the monitors.

"And I'm supposed to train you? At this hour? Fuk that. Wait…" Her eyes darkened, most of the ocher disappearing as the light receptors opened. "… I saw you with the boss. Couple of times."

"That's what I said. New hire."

"What, and you're here to keep an eye on me? I don't fukking think that…"

As a species, the Taykan had long slender necks. Easy to get an arm around. Lots of room to cover the mouth and nose. Easier for Torin to kill her than disable her, but Werst had made that impossible. Ignoring the fingers clawing at her sleeve, Torin wondered if she should thank him.

As the ends of agitated ocher hair stung her face, Torin moved her mouth in close and murmured, "Big Bill sent me."

The di'Taykan stiffened momentarily before finally going limp. Message received.

The thin plastic panels fronting the vertical bottoms of the control boards-solid and unchanging under her touch-were easy enough to slide off although Torin had to open up four sections before she had room for the unconscious di'Taykan. Stretching her out on her side, Torin turned her masker up full, slid the panels back on, and stood. No way the di'Taykan would be out for the full twelve hours and thirteen minutes, but she'd be out of the way for a couple of hours at least. And when she came to, she'd remember Big Bill had been responsible and she wouldn't raise the alarm.

For a while.

With any luck.

If the vids were right about bad people being willing to suspect other bad people without question.

With luck, with her masker turned up, Alamber would consider any whiff of the other di"Taykan just a part of the ambience of the small room.

"I knew you couldn't resist me, trin."

Speak of the devil. Torin turned to face the young di'Taykan as he closed the hatch behind him and leered at her, pale hair fluffed out in anticipation.

And, back to the old plan.

Before Torin could speak, he frowned, his hair flattening. "Where's Nia?"

"I told her to leave."

He smiled and his hair lifted again. "That's right. You don't like to share. Doesn't mean you can order people around, trin. Naughty, naughty."

"Big Bill's hired me on."

"A man with taste, our employer." If anything, Alamber's mannerisms broadened at the mention of Big Bill, a shield he could hide behind. "He's hired you on to do what?"

"Can't say. Not yet." She could deal with him the way she'd dealt with Nia. Faster, definitely, but she suspected that rather than slink off to safety, Alamber would raise high holy hell when he came to.

In order to save Craig and destroy the armory in less than twelve hours, high holy hell topped her list of things to avoid.

Not to mention that taking out both people in Communications would leave no one watching the store and definitely attract unwelcome attention.

"You can't say, but Big Bill's hired you to a position that not only lets you tell Nia to leave but has Nia actually listen? Interesting." Alamber dropped into the chair, sprawled out with effortless grace, and looked up at her from under half lidded eyes, more blatantly seductive than di'Taykan usually wasted time bothering with. "Well, if you're here to see me, trin, I'm all yours."

Torin sat on the edge of a board, rested one boot in the space between his spread knees, and held him in place. "How old are you?"

His smile picked up edges. "None of your damned business."

It was hard to tell under the black-and-white makeup-Torin had never seen a di'Taykan use makeup, so she had no basis of comparison-but up close he didn't look old enough to join the Corps, and that was far, far too young to be here on this station although Torin knew better than to assume lack of years meant lack of life experience. Humans had a tendency to be delusional about the Taykan because of the way they looked. Torin didn't. There were bastards in any species. She shrugged. "You know about me. You want me. I want to know about you."

He spread his hands, the fingers nearly bone white against the dark, fingerless gloves. "I'm awesome."

"Details?"

"Recordings, if you like." A nod toward the monitors, hair moving fluidly out over his face and back again. "I like to leave my quarters active."

"I'll bet." That might mean he could turn the surveillance cameras off. It also might mean SFA. "How did you get the hell and gone out here? Tagged along with thytrins?"

"Tagged along?" He sighed, the sound suggesting he'd expected better from her. Long fingers stroked her ankle above the boot. "I came with my vantru, okay?"

Torin hid her reaction. A vantru? The rough translation may have been primary sexual partner but the way Alamber said it layered on shades of meaning that took it a Susumi fold from the relationship Jan and Sirin had. And for a di'Taykan to choose to have a vantru with or without shading at Alamber's age? Not impossible, but…

"She died in a bar fight almost a year ago." His eyes darkened so they nearly blended with the thick band of black makeup around them. His lips were pale enough his tongue looked shockingly pink as he swept it along the lower curve, rising and falling over the piercings. "You could make me feel better about it."

"Why me?" Torin wanted to hear his answer, but she didn't need to. Not all relationships were between equals. His vantru had definitely been older. Female. Stronger personality. In charge. Almost a year ago, Torin's presence on Presit's vids about Big Yellow and Crucible had been inescapable. Alamber didn't want sex-actually, he was di'Taykan, so of course he wanted sex-but he was also looking to her for familiarity. Comfort.

"What happened to that salvage operator you hooked up with?" he asked running two fingers up the back of her calf.

"We're spending time apart." The pull on the broken knuckle reminded her to relax her hands.

"You don't sound happy about it." His voice dropped to a purr. "I can make you happy."

Considering the way he was working this, working her, Torin had started to be happy his vantru was dead. Particularly, given the suspected age difference. Particularly, because Vrijheid was a place where bad people ended up. "You can make me happy by teaching me how the communications system for the station works."

"Not what I meant."

The panel by the door flashed green and in her peripheral vision, Torin caught sight of a Krai outside a closed hatch on one of the monitors.

Ressk.

She stood and went around behind Alamber's chair, one hand on his shoulder, keeping her body between him and the door. "But it's why I'm here. We'll start at the far end." No surprise the chair ran smoothly along the deck.

"What exactly did Big Bill hire you to do?"

As she swung him up to the section of control board farthest from the door, still blocking his view with her body, she leaned forward until she could have touched the curve of his ear with her tongue and whispered, "Not you."

"Too bad." His gaze dropped to his hands on the board. "You could do me during your free time."

This close she could see the fine tremble underlying his cocky delivery and she felt a little dirty watching him react as she growled, "You can do as you're told." But not as dirty as she would have had she let him talk her into applying the power he granted her to sex. Sitting on the deck, propped against the edge of the hatch, fighting endorphins and the hour to stay awake, Craig straightened as the exit to the station opened. He sagged in place again as Almon came through carrying a shallow box. As Almon crossed the docks toward the pod, Craig wondered if he should be worried. If the big di'Taykan decided to bail him up, he was in no condition to fight back.

On the ups, he had one less body part to have beaten than the last time.

The box turned out to be the bottom cut from a supply container. Inside, smaller containers.

Hair flicking back and forth, Almon stopped just before he'd have had to step over Craig's legs and peered into the pod. His hair sped up as he looked down and snarled, "Where's Nadayki?"

"Went to take a piss."

"I don't like you being alone with him."

"Yeah, well, I don't like being alone with you, so it seems neither of us can have what we want." He was still reacting to Almon's pheromones, but the effect had gone from painful to endurable.

"Smart mouth on you, Ryder." Almon set the container bottom down on the deck. "Maybe I should smack you in it a couple more times. Teach you to keep it closed."

Maybe I should have my girlfriend kick the crap out of you. Craig snickered. And now he's going to ask…

"What's so fukking funny?"

"You're just very predictable, mate."

"And you think you're…"

"Leave him alone." They turned together as Nadayki closed the hatch behind him and hurried across the dock. "I'm serious, Almon. Back off."

"He tried to kill you."

"Yeah, but he didn't."

"You're still limping." Almon sounded confused.

"Doc cut his toe off and fed it to Huirre. I win. Now move." He shoved the larger di'Taykan out of the way, and stepped into the pod. "I don't have time for anything if that's what you're here for. This fukking seal has fail-safes on the fail-safes."

Almon's hair flattened slightly. "I got you some takeaway from that kiosk you like."

"Give it to Ryder. He can divide it up." Hands in the small of his back, Nadayki stretched, moving his hips in a sinuous curve that-if he was translating the noise Almon just made correctly-put Craig on the same page as Almon for the first time ever.

"I didn't fukking bring it for him."

"Whatever."

"Nadi, dir sal veranin ka bor savitor."

"No." Dropping to his knees, Nadayki pulled out his slate.

"Nadi…"

Eyes locked on the Marine seal, Nadayki ignored him.

Almon growled something Craig didn't catch.

"He told the captain he'd have the seal open in eleven hours," Craig said quietly. Not because he gave a shit about Almon feeling rejected, but defusing the big guy's temper seemed like the smart thing to do. "He's good, but…"

"You saying he can't do it?"

"I'm saying you're a distraction he doesn't need."

"And you?"

"I don't smell like baby, baby, fuk me, do I? Besides," he added, as Almon's hand rose to his masker. "Captain's orders. I stay until he tells me to go." He leaned around the di'Taykan's legs as the air lock door opened. "And speaking of the captain…"

"What the fuk are you doing back?" Cho yelled, his voice echoing in the empty docks.

Craig thought about tripping Almon as he turned and headed for the air lock, but his sense of self-preservation kicked in at the last minute.

"No one's saying anything specific about Big Bill, but I heard that little freak Alamber is chasing after the gunnery sergeant with his kayt in his hand."

"Ex-gunnery sergeant," Cho snarled.

You keep telling yourself that like it matters. Craig kept his eyes on the drama across the docks while his hands worked over the nonreactive plastic containers. The captain all but dragged Almon into the air lock and although Craig could hear his voice, he couldn't make out the words. He sounded pissed, though. Good. Craig had a long list of body parts he'd like to see Almon lose. "So he responds to slutty authority?" Ressk asked, falling into step beside her as Torin crossed the Hub on her way back to the Heart. "I'm not judging," he added when she growled wordlessly. "It certainly seemed to work."

When Alamber had finally scented a Krai in the room, a growled command and Torin's grip on his chin had been sufficient to turn his attention back to teaching her the boards.

"Did you clear the codes?"

"I did. According to the station sysop, all our slates and yours and Ryder's implants don't exist."

Torin seemed to be having a little trouble breathing. She could talk to Craig. Now if she wanted to.

"Gunny?"

"I'm okay." When he glanced at her injured hand, she used it to smack him lightly on the back of the head. "Good job."

Given the placement of the surveillance cameras, she waited until they were through the decompression doors and into the docking arm before she tongued her implant. If Big Bill was watching, the angle in the arm wouldn't allow him to see her fukking jaw muscles move.

"Our codes are blocked. If you can talk, it's safe."

She'd been trained to use her implant and not be overheard while surrounded by the enemy. Most civilians weren't able to subvocalize to that extent, but translating the mumble was part of the training. If Craig couldn't talk out loud… *Who the fuk is Alamber?* He sounded amused. He sounded alive.

Ressk grunted, and Torin realized she had a death grip on his shoulder.