The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 114 —

Jo and AnyKaat put three meters between them, approached the shuttle cautiously. An unscheduled shuttle was unprecedented. One that asked for them specifically, claiming it had orders to lift them topside, seemed impossible. Had one of their letters gotten through? That had become too much to hope.

Far easier to believe that House Tregesser had sent someone to finish what Provik had begun.

One nervous spacer stood at the base of the boarding ladder, watching. Above, a scab-on weapons turret turned slowly. They were inside its angle of depression. Promising, but not entirely reassuring. The killers might want to make sure they hit the right targets.

The spacer sweated the weapons centered upon him. He gulped air before he croaked, "Lieutenant Jo Klass? Is one of you her?"

Jo asked, "What about it?"

"There's a Traveler at station looking for you. If you're her. They chartered us to get you."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

AnyKaat said, "I don't like it, Jo."

"If it's our friends from... the ship, they might not want anybody to guess who they are."

"Neither would our enemies."

"Still the best chance we're going to get. We'll be off the ground."

AnyKaat could not argue with that.

"You want to go in first? Or should I?"

AnyKaat darted forward.

"Wait a minute!" The spacer grabbed and missed. The muzzle of Jo's hairsplitter came to rest beside his left eye. "She can't go in there."

"Why not?"

"Klass is the one we're supposed to get."

"It's your lucky day. You get two for the price of one."

"But..."

"She goes. Or we all stay." She drew the weapon given her by the Ku. "One pop from this and that skin isn't fit for vacuum. Right?"

The turret whined. The air barked a baby thunderclap. Somebody watching had gotten too excited or too close. That would be the only warning shot.

"You got a way with words, Lieutenant."

"You want to get out of here? Let's move."

The spacer climbed a few rungs, stopped. Jo prodded him. He climbed.

AnyKaat waited inside the hatchway. She had another one sprawled on the deck plates. She guessed, "One more in the turret and one in Control. Four is all they have on one of these."

"Control, then."

AnyKaat led. The spacers followed sullenly. The shuttle, despite the turret, was not set up for rough trade. Control's hatch could not be locked and was not closed when they reached it.

The man at the controls was overweight and balding. He eyed women and weapons, shook his head, clucked his tongue. "STASIS can sort this one out." He punched a button. "Come on down, Mag. We're gonna lift."

AnyKaat took one of two empty seats. The older man rolled his eyes. "Plant yourself, Mark. Rest of you get back to the cabin so we can get this circus off the ground."

Jo eyed him, then nudged the man who had lost his seat. "Let's go. Watch comm, AnyKaat."

"I'm on it."

The turret operator was down when they reached the passenger cabin. She was a match for the older man. Was this a mom and pop operation? These days? But this was V. Rothica 4, almost wholly abandoned by House Merod.

Liftoff came so smoothly Jo barely noticed. She divided her attention only two ways, between the people she watched and the people she might encounter soon. The latter had become the greater worry. These seemed content to let station deal with two hardcases.

The shuttle clunked into its dock. Systems wound down. Jo popped her harness and backed to the Control hatchway. "How does it look, AnyKaat?"

"They behaved."

"What have we got? You get a visual outside?"

"There are two Haulers in, one Merod and one Majhellain Specialized. The Merod has been here five months with a down tractor vane. The Majhellain came in last week and is replacing the Merod's vane. I got a visual confirm. The only other ship in is a Pioyugov Traveler, Dawn Watch."

Which meant nothing. Pioyugov Navigation were mercenaries of the pure blood. They worked for anyone who met their price and would play all ends against the middle to squeeze the maximum profit.

"We'll go out with these four. How far around from the Traveler are we?"

"A kilometer."

"Great. What's the visual on dockside?"

"Dead except for a standard docking crew for a shuttle, a crabby looking bitch in Admins, and a kid wearing Spacers with Pioyugov patches. Looks like he might hit puberty any minute."

The shuttle's master shoved a gigantic smoke stick into his mouth. He did not fire it. "What kind of desperados are you broads, anyway? Besides crazy? This is V. Rothica 4 station, not some pirate hangaround."

"We're live desperados," Jo told him. "Going to stay that way, too. Get it shut down and let's go."

He went to work, shaking his head. "The people you got to deal with in this business."

Ten minutes later it was time to leave. Jo put the shuttle crew in front, which they accepted with more amusement than resentment. The older man went straight to the woman waiting dockside. "Made it one more time, Cyn." He gave her a cassette. ‘Twenty-six tonnes dry atmosphere. Credit us."

‘Two passengers? I've only got paperwork for one. What's going on?"

"They're real convincing."

"Which one is Klass?"

"The mean-looking one. Have fun." He started walking. His bunch followed. Jo saw no reason to stop them.

The Admin woman glared at something in her hand. "Klass, Lieutenant Jo."

"Yeah?"

"ID and documentation."

Jo showed her the business end of a haiisplitter. AnyKaat watched the dockworkers. They did not seem interested. "This is all the ID you're going to get. Let's take a hike over to that Pioyugov Traveler."

The woman looked at the weapon, maybe not recognizing the type but certainly the threat. "Regs say I have to..."

"Are regs to die for?" AnyKaat asked. She caught the Pioyugov boy's arm. "Where you going? Stick around. We need you both. Something happens, we want you right in the middle of it."

The woman said, "You people are crazy."

"And still alive after all these years." Crazy could be situational, sometimes. "Start walking."

No one paid them any heed the whole kilometer, except for normal curiosity.

The boy got restless as they approached the docked Traveler. AnyKaat told him, "Don't even think about running. You look like a nice kid. Be a shame to blow a hole through your head."

Same song, third verse with the Pioyugov purser. He didn't have any Karwin AnyKaat on his list. He relented when they showed him heavy caliber boarding passes.

"Operating bridge," Jo snapped the instant they were inside. "You two go ahead of us," she told the purser and boy. She had let the Admin woman go. "Hurry." They would be hearing from STASIS soon.

"Let's don't get trigger-happy now, Jo."

"I've got it under control."

A normal watch was on bridge for a Traveler in dock. They were startled when the human wave rolled in. Hands flew into the air, jaws dropped, one spacer cursed softly, thinking they'd been boarded by pirates. Jo thought they probably looked it. She wasn't wearing her dress blacks. "I'll cover. You hit the boards and see what's going on."

"Right." AnyKaat dragged a Pioyugov out of her seat.

The watch officer demanded, "What the hell?..." His question evaporated as Jo pointed the hairsplitter.

AnyKaat fiddled for several minutes. It had been a long time and she was not sure what to look for.

Jo heard something in the passage outside. She did not have her back to the hatchway. "Company, AnyKaat. Cover."

"Right."

Jo spun to cover the passageway.

Lieutenant Jo. I have found you at last.

"Seeker? You old sonofabitch! AnyKaat. It's Seeker. I think. What the hell is this? Was that really you in my nightmares?"

It was a thin thread and a weak one, Jo Klass. It has been a long, hard search.

"You found us. I could kiss you. Couldn't you kiss him, AnyKaat?"

"Yeah. Station's on with a bitch, Jo."

"Screw station." She had a thousand questions.

Now we must find your commander.

"Haget? He's dead. Long gone. You know that. You were there."

The one called WarAvocat Hanaver Strate Dictat. There is much to tell him.

"You bet your ass we're going to find him. We're going to let him know what the hell has been going on, then we're going to kick some ass."

"Jo."

She looked at AnyKaat. She saw a lot of pain that would not have awakened had they never broken free of Merod Schene. AnyKaat had a kid she hadn't seen in more years than they had figured out. Just one anchor point away. A lot closer than this station had seemed from Merod Schene till a few years hours ago. "Yeah. Right. Seeker, we got to go on down the strand to P. Jaksonica. Got to."

There, AnyKaat. That do it?

She fought the panic that boiled up from the pit of her stomach. All those days of peril, all those nights of fear, all those years, with nothing constant, nothing trustworthy, but AnyKaat. Gone on so long it was programmed into her cells, it seemed. And now maybe about to be lost.

Jo suffered an almost paralyzing dread of being alone. It had been bad down below, but now it was worse. Now it was not something she could hold back by being the fastest and deadliest gun around.

"Station is all excited," AnyKaat said. "Somebody is going to have to deal with them before STASIS gets righteous."

Seeker faced the senior Pioyugov. The man's half of their exchange made it sound like Seeker's people had all but bought the Traveler. The Traveler's operators seemed inclined to do anything he asked. If they could understand what he wanted done.

The crew went to work. AnyKaat drifted out of their way. Joe told the purser, "Guess you'd better show us where to bed down."

He glanced at her hairsplitter, said, "Yes, ma'am."