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Then she waited.
But not for long.
Firrg hadn't come alone. The five males from the bar moved into a semicircle behind her, eyes locked on Torin, lips drawn back off their teeth, their presence clearly saying that if a random hell should happen to freeze over and Torin should just happen to win, she'd still lose. Had Firrg stopped to pick up reinforcements, that might have been a problem, but five was doable.
Firrg's scar drew an angry red line against the mottled green of her scalp. Her nose ridges flared once, twice, then clamped shut. "I am going to kill you," she snarled and charged forward
Torin took half a step out to meet her, then slammed her as hard as she could in the side of the head with the iron pipe she'd been hiding behind her leg. Craig didn't have time for her to fight fair.
Krai teeth were among the hardest substances in known space, and Krai bone came a very close second. Firrg was unconscious and bleeding when she hit the floor but probably not badly hurt. By the time Torin had her boot on the captain's throat, the three Silsviss males-who'd arrived about the time the pipe made contact-had taken care of the crew.
"I need one conscious," she snapped, and the claws stopped just on the surface of the Krai's eyeballs.
It took the pirate's brain a few seconds to catch up to his situation, then he pissed himself and sagged in the Silsviss' grip.
"We were there," one of the others said, using the metal ring on his tail to smack down a bleeding pirate trying to rise, "when you accepted the pack's defeat."
Given the way they'd been looking at her, Torin had figured as much. If they'd learned Federate before their trip, they weren't bothering with it. The cylindrical comm units on their harness translated simultaneously with her implant. And thank tech support that her new translation program had lost the extra sibilants.
"These little ones were not very good fighters," another said. Like the two reptilian species already part of the Confederation, they flicked their tongues around an impressive array of pointed teeth when they spoke. "The little ones you had with you in the preserve were better."
"They're called Krai, not little ones, and these Krai aren't used to fighting for their lives," Torin told him. When male Silsviss reached the age that their body chemistry required them to challenge for position, they were sent to wilderness preserves where they formed packs and fought it out-pack to pack as well as within the pack for position. It was as much population control as training. If these three had been there on the hill when Torin accepted the pack surrender and had become, for all intents and purposes, their pack leader, then they were only just off the preserve. Fighting for survival was still very close to being their default setting.
She figured they'd been brought on this trip, not only because of the flexibility of youth, but because they'd had at least some contact with other species even if that contact had consisted primarily of trying to kill them.
Switching her attention to the only conscious pirate-although she suspected one of the others of faking-Torin leaned in until the watering eyes behind the points of the four-centimeter-long claws focused on her face. "Tell me where I can find the Heart of Stone, or I'll kill your captain."
"You are inedible!"
"It's ruder in Krai," Torin explained as the Silsviss looked confused by the translation. "Tell me where I can find the Heart of Stone, or I'll kill your captain and have your eyes gouged out slowly."
At Torin's nod, the Silsviss tightened his grip slightly.
Nose ridges flapping so quickly they sounded like crumpling paper, he gasped. "Vrijheid!"
"Coordinates?"
"I don't know where it is exactly! I'm not helm! The government thinks it was destroyed during the war, but it wasn't!"
"Was the name changed?"
"Why the fuk would they change the name? I told you, the government thinks it did a crash and burn!"
That was enough information to find it.
"Big Bill Po
"You can drop him."
As he hit the floor, Torin took her foot from Firrg's throat and pulled her slate off her belt. "Presit, I've got it. Head back."
"There are still being more to the story here. Those accidents…
"Can wait. Craig can't."
"On our way."
"What do you want us to do?" Given positioning, this was the dominant male of the three. They were all a little twitchy. The instinct to fight her for control had only barely been overlaid with more adult socialization.
"Wait with this lot until security arrives." Firrg groaned as Torin rolled her out into the camera's line of sight. "Tell them to check the load of ore that just came in with the Dargonar. The numbers on the sled will match the numbers on a drone that recently went missing during a fold. Someone in the station is accepting stolen goods."
"When they ask how we know this?"
"Tell them you heard it from Presit a Tur durValintrisy's pilot. If you convince them, you'll all gain status for bringing it to their attention."
"Then why do you leave this opportunity with us?" the dominant male hissed.
Torin smiled as she passed them. "I have a bigger enemy to take down."
Three tails tapped against the floor in unison. To the Silsviss mind-set, that made perfect sense. And they were another species who recognized the baring of teeth for what it was.
The exposure of someone on the station dealing in stolen goods, not to mention the capture of the thief, her crew, and her ship, would bring in the Wardens, and when Torin's involvement came to light-if not through the Silsviss then through the payment she'd made in the bar-it might actually light a fire under the ass of the law, given the finding of Page's body and the attack on the Promise that the Wardens already had on record. The problem was Torin no longer wanted the Wardens suddenly going all gung ho-enthusiasm from that quarter could easily provoke the pirates into killing Craig. Involving the Silsviss-who were not yet members of the Confederation-would slow things back down to diplomatic speeds.
"Strategy and tactics," she muttered, stepping into the Star's air lock. "Your tax dollars at work."
"There are being a lot of shouting happening down the docking arm," Presit said, leading Ceelin back into the ship. "I are being hustled past it at full speed. Apparently this station are not wanting what could be a diplomatic incident on the news. You are being responsible?"
"I am." Torin sealed the air lock doors behind the Katrien.
"I are suspecting as much. The Silsviss are seeming to be very involved, and I are seeing how they are watching you in the bar. Rumors are saying that with your platoon being pi
"Not quite what happened," Torin told her, sending a request to disengage from the docking arm. But, given that she had a Silsviss skull in her quarters, she could at least see how that rumor had gotten started.
"I are really wanting to hear that story someday." Presit pulled herself up onto the other chair and added her codes to the request. "They are not locking down the press, no matter how many unconscious pirates they are having at the feet of large lizards. Not if they are not wanting a world of trouble."
Torin had hoped they'd get clear before any lockdown happened. Maybe they had, she acknowledged as the clamps released, but it was equally possible Presit had just kept them moving. "Thank you."
Feet tucked up under her, Presit lowered the light levels in the cabin and took off her glasses. "Thank me by telling me what the story of the Torin Kerr and the Silsviss are being. But later," she added, raising a hand to wave off Torin's protest. "Right now, you are first telling me that we are having a location?"