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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-Gu
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, Gu
"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 pla