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Fuk it. Torin took another swallow of the overpriced, watered beer. "Trust me, I'll use that pressure, let it blow when we find the Heart."
Werst shrugged. "As long as it doesn't use you. The Heart's here. It was here with a cargo. It went away. It came back sometime yesterday."
"But while they were here the first time," Ressk added, sitting down, "word is, they were acting strange. Rumor has it they'd scored big but weren't sharing. Were selling only a small fraction of what they had, and weren't talking about the rest. And then Big Bill got involved. That Krai ship, the Dargonar-you questioned the crew…"
"I know what I did, Ressk."
"Right, well, it left the same time as the Heart. Sent out with the Heart by Big Bill. They aren't back yet."
"Given their last meeting with the gu
"No one docks at this station without Big Bill's approval," Torin reminded them.
"Yeah, but where the Heart is now, that's off the beaten path."
"Considerably off," Ressk agreed. "Question still outstanding is why?"
"You could always ask Mackenzie Cho, ex Naval officer, current captain of the Heart of Stone." Mashona grabbed an empty chair from the next table and sat carefully. "Seems he finds di'Taykan service distracting." Her teeth flashed white in the dim light of the bar. "He drinks down the concourse at the Sleepless Goat."
Mashona watched Werst go into the Goat through narrowed eyes. "You sure this is going to work?"
"You've known me almost ten years," Ressk snorted. "If we switched clothes, could you tell the two of us apart?"
"Are you likely to switch clothes?" Mashona's brows went up. "Is there something you want to tell me?"
"Fuk off. Point is, it's a Human bar. Werst asks the bartender if he's seen Cho because the serley chrika stiffed a friend of his, bartender's not going to suddenly ID Werst from the furball's vids."
"You know she can hear you, right?"
"Doesn't scare me."
"And you're supposed to be the smart one."
"Smart enough not to sit on that bench. Your nose is just decorative, right?"
Leaning back against the recycling chute, eating a steamed momo she'd bought from a food cart, Torin kept the camera attached to her tunic pointed toward the door of the Goat and listened to Mashona and Ressk fill time with meaningless chatter. She chewed a little more vigorously than the minced filling required, the burn of the chutney almost covering the familiar taste of the vat. Years in had taught her how to wait but didn't change the fact that waiting sucked.
Craig was on the station. Or on a ship attached to the station.
So close.
When Werst finally emerged, although objectively he hadn't been more than ten minutes, he stopped by the same food cart for a kabob before joining them. Torin had known he was going to do it, throw off any attention he might have gained, but she still had to bite back an order that he get his ass in gear and deliver the damned sitrep.
"Cho hasn't been in since the Heart got back to the station." Werst took a look at the bench and stayed standing. "None of his crew have. Whatever they needed your boy for, it's keeping them at the ship.
Ressk held out a hand and Werst dropped the last bite of kabob into it.
"Seriously, guys…" Mashona's brows were back up. "… is there something you want to tell me?"
"You're sitting in…"
"Not about that."
Torin crumpled the momo's wrapper and tossed it down the chute as she straightened. "They're all in one place. Let's go." "I warned him about fukking around." Cho's voice was an ice pick that slammed into Craig's head beside the hot pokers.
Hot and cold shifted when Huirre let go, and Craig's knees hit the deck. Feeling like his head was about to explode, he curled forward, hands digging into his hair trying to relieve some of the pressure. Somehow, he managed to get an eye open as footsteps approached and stopped, and he found himself staring down at the toe of Doc's stained boots.
"He was alone with a di'Taykan, Captain." Doc sounded amused. "I'm not surprised."
"Not actual fukking!" Cho snarled. "Not this time. Nadayki says Ryder forced himself to vomit."
"And Nadayki's an expert on Human physiognomy now? Beyond the obvious? Isn't it more likely," Doc continued, before the captain could answer, "that as he defines himself by his skills, he hates needing Ryder's help to get into the armory. Odds are high, he's lying."
"Doesn't matter if he is. He says he can get through the last layer on his own. You said the station medic needs organs…"
Cho's foot co
"While breaking him down for parts…"
Oh, fukking hell. Craig tensed, sending muscles into painful spasms. They weren't kidding about the organs.
"… would bring us a tidy profit," Doc agreed, "consider two things." Even through the pain, Doc sounded terrifyingly reasonable. Craig tried to crawl away, but another kick from Cho dropped him flat on the deck. "All right, three points. One, stop bruising the merchandise. And two, at this point in the proceedings, I have to reiterate that Nadayki could be talking out of his ass. He says he can get through the last layer on his own, but you have no reason to trust that and every reason to believe it's what he wants you to believe to maintain his place in the crew. It might be wise to keep Mr. Ryder around until the job is done."
Cho snorted. "In case Nadayki is, as you say, talking out of his ass."
"As far as his organs are concerned, a few more hours will make no difference."
"And your third point?"
"Ryder's crew. No one gives a shit if you kill a prisoner, but you can't kill a member of the crew for puking."
"Doc's right, Captain." Huirre sounded pretty much exactly the way Craig imagined a man caught between a rock and a hard place would sound. "I mean, you've got to keep discipline, sure, but if puking's a killing offense, whole crew'd be dead a couple of times by now."
"I can kill anyone I want to!"
"Yeah, but…"
Craig cracked the eye again. Huirre was looking to Doc for support. Surprisingly, he got it.
"You can kill anyone you want to," Doc agreed. "But that's not a philosophy people will follow, and you need a minimum of four crew to keep the Heart of Stone profitable."
Huirre shifted nervously back and forth, toes flexing against the deck, but it seemed that Cho was actually thinking about what Doc had said. From anyone else, the observation would have sounded like a threat, but it hadn't taken Craig long to learn that Doc didn't make threats.
Breathing shallowly, one arm wrapped around the newly rebruised ribs, Craig began to relax. He didn't want to die and now, it seemed as if he might get through this little adventure in one piece. Not counting the pieces of his gut he'd already hurled to the deck down in the pod.
"You're right," Cho said at last. "If Ryder's crew, he gets treated like crew. Nadayki could be full of shit about his chances of getting through that last bit of code, and he could be bullshitting about Ryder doing this…"
The toe of his boot jabbed the bruise rising from the earlier kicks. Pain surged out from the contact like waves of flame. In its wake, his body felt burned.
"… to himself, but maybe he isn't. Maybe Ryder's worried that once he gets me into that armory we won't need him anymore, so he's fukking around. Fukking around delays the payout to the crew. We can't have that." Cho sounded pleased with himself.