Страница 66 из 81
"Let's hope the interior decompression hatches work as pla
"Why would they tell him?" Mashona asked, shoving the last spoonful of scrambled egg into her mouth and shoving the tray in the recycler.
"From what I saw of Nadayki, if asked, he's likely to brag about it."
Werst emptied his mug. "Would it matter?"
"Big Bill believes nothing will happen until 1630. If he learns the armory's due to open at 1330, our cover story tightens up. Without those three extra hours, we blow our cover with Big Bill or we lose the armory. Either way, we're screwed."
"Or Cho is. Cho's betraying him," Werst expanded off Torin's look. "Pulling weapons out early."
"If Big Bill finds out before the armory's open, Cho'll argue he was just being gung ho. Wanted to surprise Big Bill with how efficient he is." Pain from her injured knuckle reminded her to loosen her fist. "If we control the information, we can aim and fire it when it'll do us the most good, so we have to keep Big Bill…"
"From the docking bay." Werst laid his palm against the air lock's i
"And if we see him?" Mashona asked, falling in beside Werst.
"Ping me." So far, the plan had more variables than actual points of reference. A few more variables couldn't hurt. "Let's mix things up a bit. Drop a few subtle rumors about Cho while you're out there."
"About how this big mystery haul of his is big enough to finally piss off the Wardens and have them kick the Navy into action, putting the station and everyone on it in danger?"
"That's good."
Mashona smirked. "More than just a pretty face, Gu
With half the crew gone, the ship felt empty.
Craig didn't much like the ship having a feel. It smacked of familiarity. Of becoming a part of something he wanted no part of.
Sitting on a bench outside the showers, he nearly fell on his face while carefully easing the overalls past his injured foot. Fuk, he was tired. As he bent to pull the dressing off-Marines used sealant alone in the field-small spikes tapped into his temples and, although Doc had bonded the ribs Almon had cracked, breathing became less an automatic function and more a painful chore.
But Torin was here. On the station.
It was almost over. *Craig. We know how they got the armory in-they cut the gravity, floated it out of the Heart and in through the exterior hatch. We'll take it out the same way.*
"Great." He stepped over the lip into the shower and pressed hot/ strong. "You can take me out with it."
He thought for a moment the hot water pounding down on his head and shoulders had drowned out her reply. Impossible given that the implant was jacked directly into his ear. *Are you up to it?*
He didn't know where his suit was, and he very much doubted Cho would just hand it over. Or allow him to unhook a suit from the Heart. "Are you serious?" *Easier to get you out the exterior hatch than through the station. Craig, are you up to it?*
She didn't think he was, or she wouldn't have asked again. But she'd take his word for it, or she wouldn't have asked the first time. One of the first things he'd learned about Torin was that when she asked a question, she wanted an actual answer to it.
Stepping out from the wall, changing the angle so the water could pound at the base of his spine, he took inventory. Everything hurt. But if he could walk out to the fukking storage pod right after Huirre ate his toe, he could do what he had to in order to get the hell away from the Heart.
"Yeah, I'm up to it." *Do you have access to a suit?*
"Not right now, I'm in the shower. Naked. Soapy." Actually, he hadn't even started soaping. So as not to be telling a lie, he pushed a little into his palm and began to carefully rub it around the bruising. *Ressk says the schematics show a suit locker on the ore dock, by the head.* It sounded as though she was smiling and trying not to. He really hoped it was because she was thinking of him naked and not because of Ressk. That would just be… wrong.
"Yeah, I saw the hookups. No suits, though." *Shit.*
"At least some of the stations are live. Maybe I can get a couple suits out there." *How?*
"Captain Cho already thinks Big Bill is up to something. I'll use that." *Don't take any u
"Safe?" He regretted the word the moment it left his mouth. Okay, maybe not the word itself but the tone, the sarcasm, that he regretted. "Sorry, I'm tired. It's been a long day." *Pain is tiring. Regrowing a toe requires only a small sleeve.* Worst of it was, she probably thought she was being comforting. Loss of body parts was no big deal in the Corps. Bam! Lose your head? Just regrow it. Pain? Pain was an inconvenience. Suck it up, Marine. You've got a job to do. Craig knew he was being unfair; he'd seen Torin's reaction, but he was just too tired to care. Losing a body part, even a small insignificant one, might not be a big deal to Gu
"Trust me, I won't provoke the captain." *Good.* Her intent to make Cho bleed seeped out around the edges of the word. Craig wasn't one hundred percent positive that if it came to it, he'd be able to stop her. He wasn't one hundred percent positive he wanted to.*Ping me when you've got at least one HE suit moved out into the ore dock. Make it sooner rather than later.* She took it for granted he'd succeed. He liked that. Braced against the tiles, he bent to wash his legs. "You have a time frame?" *Depends on Ressk.*
"He's got to take control of the program." *Programs. Gravity, hatches, and the ru
"Right." They were talking just to hear each other now. Since he knew it, Craig assumed Torin knew it, too. "Well, give me a heads-up and I'll go out with the armory. While you're getting the grapples on it, I'll hit Promise's air lock and be inside before they even notice I'm gone."
This new silence felt different.
"Torin?" *I'm not on Promise. I'm on Pedro's Second Star."
"God fukking damn it, Torin!" So much for her just calling in the Marines. And how nice she didn't mention it until now. "Pedro has kids!" *Pedro's not with us.* Her voice gave nothing away. Absolutely nothing. She never pulled that shit on him, never, so if the situation was so bad she couldn't not… Craig shifted into a more stable position as she continued.*I bought the Star from him, from the family, because the Promise was too badly damaged to use.*
"What? Damaged?" *Cho shot the shit out of it when he took you.*
His skin pebbled as a chill slid down his spine. Torin wasn't hiding how she felt about the Promise-or Cho's part in it at least. And she'd clearly gone back to the station if she had Pedro's Star. What would Torin have done when…
"You tried to turn the salvage operators into a ragtag battle fleet, didn't you? I could have told you that wouldn't work." *You weren't there.*
"They're not Marines, Torin," he said gently, turning the water off and reaching for a towel. "You can't feel betrayed because they didn't act like Marines." *Not the time to talk about it.*
"Granted." He added it to his mental list of thing they needed to talk about after the rescue. The list, not exactly short before he'd needed rescuing, had grown to the point where whatever this was between them needed to last for a good long time or they'd never get to everything. He crumbled the towel between his hands and sagged back against the bulkhead. "Torin, where the fuk is my ship?" *The Wardens have her. Evidence. The damage is external. Structural-not functional. I patched what I could in order to fold her back to the station…*