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"Big serley coincidence," one Grr brother smirked, lips pulled back off his teeth.
"Is your name Gu
They blinked in unison and stepped back, squaring their shoulders. They'd been Corps, for however short a time, conditioned to respond to that tone. *I'm waiting.* Big Bill had not.
"They're wrong." They were moving forward again, although looking more embarrassed by their response than particularly fierce. "I've never seen him before in my life." *Kill him.*
She must have reacted because Craig started to reach for her. When she shook her head, he let his arm fall back down by his side. "I don't kill on your command." *You might not.*
The Grr brothers jumped for Craig; one aiming high, one low. As they passed, Torin grabbed a handful of their tunics, shifted her weight to her left leg, and spun around it, throwing them across the ore dock. In spite of their previous interactions, they hadn't expected her to react so quickly, but with one in each hand, she couldn't get a lot of distance. They hit, rolled… *Get your souls back, boys.*
… and charged. *Gu
"Cut the gravity!" As the gravity cut out, she folded into a crouch, then snapped her legs down, pushing straight up from the deck as the Grr brothers' momentum kept them moving toward where she'd been. Big Bill's last order had made this personal, so she had no worries they'd go after Craig while she was still alive. "Ressk! Secure the Heart's air lock!" She didn't need any more players in the game, and the last thing she wanted right now was to have her speculation about the possibility of the Heart having weapons on board to prove prophetic.
Both Krai recovered quickly. Torin waited until they'd committed to a trajectory, then pushed off one of the overhead railings and shot past them.
Except there were two of them. Using his brother as a launch pad, the other one headed right for her…
The gravity came back on.
Torin heard Ressk swear just before impact. Big Bill had regained control. "Ryder! What the fuk is going on out there?"
Craig watched Torin get her hands under her and push herself up onto her knees. Breath knocked out of her then, not hurt. He wanted to go to her, but she wouldn't thank him for getting into the middle of the fight. He yanked his borrowed slate off his belt. As long as Nadayki was in the pod, Cho had a potential weapon on the dock. Not a great one, but even useless shits could turn the tide. "It's the Grr brothers, Captain!"
"I know it's the fukking Grr brothers! Nadayki told me." Yeah, big surprise; the little shit squealed at the drop of a hat. "What the hell are they doing!"
"Fighting! With the gu
"She knows you!"
Fuk Nadayki's fukking ears! Had Torin admitted… He ran over everything he could remember of Torin's conversation with Big Bill. No, she hadn't. "The Grr brothers are causing trouble. They don't like that she's in tight with Big Bill."
"Then why is she supposed to kill you?"
"Not me, them!"
"Nadayki said.."
"He misheard! I was standing right beside her." Craig aimed for Cho's ego, not exactly a difficult target to hit even for a civilian. "You were right! Big Bill's up to something!"
"I fukking knew it!" "Captain, I can't get the air lock open." Nose ridges flared, Huirre ran through the sequence again. "Outer doors are under station control!"
"That son of a bitch!" Big Bill was going after the weapons. Cho had known it all along. Known from the start that anyone who stole an entire station from the government wouldn't settle for fifteen percent. Turned out they did want the same thing. "Dysun!" Cho slapped a hand down on the intercom by the hatch. "Dysun, haul ass out of your rack and get this hatch open."
"What? Captain, I don't…"
"You will! You want to see your share for those weapons, you'll get your ass to your board now! Get the tasiks," Cho snarled at Huirre, pivoted on one heel, and headed for the control room. "I want Doc out there with you the moment the door is open. If Big Bill wants a fight, he's got one!" "Ressk!" *Working on it, Gu
The Grr brothers had been farther from the deck when the gravity kicked in, but they were Krai and Krai bones bounced. Torin rolled up onto her feet, aimed a kick at the closer brother, missed his head, hit his shoulder, and twisted out of the way at the last second. She couldn't let them grapple. Once they got a hand or foothold, teeth would be next. Pain and physical damage aside, no one reacted well to being eaten alive. She had to use her greater reach and hope like hell she could use one of them to disable the other. Again.
Her odds went up if Ressk regained control. As a species, the Krai might be naturals in zero G but in specific, she'd had a lot more training. When the gravity kicked out, Craig anchored himself on the edge of the storage pod. He could hear Nadayki flailing and cursing inside the pod, and he realized the kid would have no trouble knifing either him or Torin in the back should Cho command it. Nadayki had to be dealt with before Cho remembered he wasn't permanently attached to the armory.
Even injured, Craig could take the kid in a fight. He was bigger, stronger, and although he had little experience with the kind of up close and personal violence Torin excelled at, Nadayki had even less. Craig could take him down, tie him up with his own overalls, and when Ressk opened the outer doors, the kid would die. Sure, Nadayki was low on the list for di'Taykan of the year, his blood sure as fuk not worth bottling, but he had to give him a fair go.
When the gravity came back in, a moment later, he took his weight on his good foot then hopped over the lip into the pod, grabbing Nadayki's upper arm. "Come on, kid, move!"
Eyes dark, the young di'Taykan struggled but couldn't break Craig's grip. "Let go of me, you senak!"
"No, like it or not, I'm pulling your head out of your ass!" Craig shook him hard, lime-green hair flicking back and forth against the motion. "They've already fukked with the zero G; what happens if they vent the atmosphere next? I've seen a di'Taykan sucking vacuum and it's not pretty."
Nadayki shoved his slate into Craig's face. "Fuk you! I'm almost done!"
"Is getting this thing open worth dying for?" Craig demanded. "You think Cho would die for you? He's locked himself in the Heart-all safe and warm-and he's locked us-you and me-out here!"
"No way!" Twisting free, Nadayki pushed Craig aside, surged out the hatch, and stared toward the ship. Even with Human vision, the lockdown was obvious from the storage pod. "That ablin gon savit!"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you!" Craig grabbed his arm again. "Come on, if we can't get onto the ship, we go out into the station."
Nadayki's gaze flicked over to where Torin and the Grr brothers were fighting. "But they said you're with her!"
"Right now, in the interest of not dying, I'm with you! Move!" He tightened his grip and hauled Nadayki around until he faced in the right direction. "We need to get the hell out of here before the crazy bastards finish with her and start on us!" Ignoring the fight, trusting Torin to survive, he hustled Nadayki across the ore dock to the hatch, cutting him off every time he tried to speak, finally shoving him through and slamming the hatch behind him.
Entry from the station to the ore docks had to be cleared through the station sysop. Craig doubted Big Bill felt much like opening doors right now.
He glanced at the big doubles, hoped Big Bill wasn't willing to sacrifice the Grr brothers for the win, and headed at his top speed toward the storage lockers and the suits. One of the Grr brothers couldn't see out of his right eye, and the other…
Torin stomped down hard.
… had at least two broken toes.
He screamed.