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"The armory? Yeah."
Craig waited.
Huirre snickered. "I'm not going to tell you. Ask the captain. Or Almon. He could beat you up again before he fuks you." He took another bite of the box. "I don't give a shit about Doc's pirate guidelines. Far as I'm concerned, you're not crew until you're in deep enough you can't screw us over with the Wardens. Until then, you're walking snack food." After showering, Torin felt a lot more Human. They still had ice in the hopper, and the Star had a top-of-the-line recycling system; they'd have plenty of water to get them through the next…
She glanced at her slate.
… five hours and seventeen minutes. Given what Big Bill charged for water-up front-that was no small thing.
The station schematics had proved without a doubt the armory had come through the ore dock's decompression doors-the armory was just too big to have gotten onto the station any other way. But how had they maneuvered it from the doors to the storage pod? That was the question. The schematics showed nothing capable of maneuvering that kind of…
Her implant didn't so much ping as ring loudly enough she felt her jaw vibrate. *Good morning, Gu
Torin had survived under fire more times than Big Bill had charged his fifteen percent. No way was she going to show that the son of a bitch had startled her. "I'm up." *Good. Meet me at the old smelter in thirty. I'll send a route to your slate.* The ping when he broke the co
Torin fought the urge to beat her head against the bulkhead, reached for clean clothes instead, and began dragging them on. She couldn't believe she'd forgotten that Big Bill had her codes. Technically, he was her employer, so she'd had no good reason to refuse when he'd asked. Actually, she'd had any number of good reasons, but none she could give him.
She paused, one arm through her shirt. Big Bill's implant codes didn't go into the system. As far as the station sysop was concerned, that call hadn't happened. Therefore, her codes hadn't been put into the system and she could still contact Craig without putting him in danger.
"Probably," Ressk agreed as she put her boots on. "I'll go in and check. Easy enough to take them out now anyway."
"Easy enough?"
"I set it up as a link to the communications boards." He waved his slate. "Full access from here."
"Can you eavesdrop on Big Bill's implant?"
"Not yet. But I'm working on it."
"Good." Second boot on, she took a moment to lay her head on her knees and get her shit together. "I'm a soldier," she muttered. "I fukking suck at this undercover shit."
"You're doing okay so far, Gu
She straightened then and glared across the cabin at Ressk. "Just okay?" That pretty much proved her point.
He gri
They did. She crossed the cabin and lifted the tiny white pill on her fingertip. "How many?"
"Two. I took the other one. Mashona and Werst'll have to do it the old-fashioned way. They've fought a war on less sleep."
"War." Torin swallowed a mouthful of saliva caused by the familiar, bitter taste of the stim. She shrugged into her tunic, checked that Presit's camera was secured, and headed for the air lock. "War has rules. Whatever this is, it could use some rules."
"Harder to break an arbitrary decision," Ressk agreed as the lock cycled closed.
Five hours and six minutes. They needed a plan.
The route Big Bill had sent to her slate would have taken her more than thirty minutes even if she'd left the ship immediately after receiving it. With only nineteen minutes remaining, she took a short cut. First up to the Hub's mezzanine level, moving quickly through the public areas-senior NCOs did not run in order to reach their destination on time. At least not where they could be seen. Once through a locked hatch, Torin picked up the pace, racing down the pale gray corridor that led to the staff quarters, left at the t-junction, then past twenty identical darker gray hatches…
"Hey! What the fuk are you doing up here?"
Torin ignored him, opened the maintenance access she'd been aiming for, and stepped into the darkness, closing the access behind her. Using her slate as a light, she hooked two fingers under a bit of gray plastic conduit, and, having given it as much time as she could spare to respond, pushed herself down toward the smelter level-for representational rather than gravitational values of the word down. Like the verticals, the maintenance shafts were kept at zero G-one of the reasons so many maintenance workers were Krai. The Krai, as a species, suffered no nausea, no disorientation; without gravity, they were able to use both hands and feet to double their efficiency.
She skimmed her free hand along the plastic cables.
One deck. Two. Three.
Snapping her slate back on her belt, Torin snagged another conduit to stop her descent and flipped the access panel open with her free hand. She swung her feet out onto the deck, twisting sideways to clear her shoulders as gravity took over and her weight pulled her clear.
Six seconds to twitch everything into place, and she walked around the corner to the smelter with a minute and a half to spare.
The Grr brothers noticed her first, turning slowly, nose ridges flared, hands out from their sides. The position was half reassurance that they weren't reaching for weapons, half loosening up for a fight. The swelling had mostly gone down, and although the mottling made it difficult to tell for certain, it looked as though the bruises had begun to darken.
Bruises made her think of Craig and the evidence of violence still marking his face.
Both sets of nose ridges slammed shut. Torin fought to get her expression under control before she faced Big Bill.
He started to turn as she passed his bodyguards, frowned when he saw her, then glanced back in the direction he'd expected her to arrive from.
Torin fell into parade rest and waited, counting the seconds they were wasting. She'd counted to six when Big Bill said, "I see you found your own way."
It wasn't a question, so she didn't answer it.
His slate chirped.
One of the Grr brothers snorted.
Big Bill had intended her to arrive late, putting her on the defensive, allowing him to give her shit or grant clemency depending on his mood. Torin kept her expression neutral. Compared to General Morris, he was a complete amateur.
"Why didn't you use the route I sent you?"
When she looked directly at him, his gaze slid off hers-not so obviously it seemed deliberate but consistently enough Torin knew it had to be. "You expected me in thirty."
"And you always do what's expected of you?" His tone sounded more speculative than curious, no doubt wondering how he could use that information.
"It's part of the job."
And the camouflage.
"Well, as you're here so promptly, let's use the time you saved and have a look at the smelter. Boys, open the hatch. It's a community arena now," he added as the Grr brothers hurried to obey. "Used for courts and fights and the like, but I thought you might use it as a training facility."
The small decompression hatch led into a large rectangular area, with high ceilings and nearly as much floor space as the central part of the Hub but empty except for black metal bleachers around the bulkheads. At first, Torin thought the walls had been allowed to rust. A moment later, she realized they'd been painted a dark red-brown-the shade somewhere between rust and dried blood. A double set of glossy black decompression doors broke up the seating at ninety degrees from her zero. Patches rough welded into the floor showed where large machinery had been removed.