Страница 73 из 81
She ducked under an attack and came up off the deck, driving her stiffened fingers into his throat. Not a move the Krai were familiar with as opponents tended to stay the hell away from their mouths. Clearly, they hadn't been paying enough attention as she'd fought her way across the Hub. As his eyes widened and blood gushed out his mouth, he grabbed a handful of her hair.
Torin twisted under his grip, turned a little too slowly to meet the other Grr's charge, raised her arm to block…
… and got sprayed with blood as Craig slammed him in the back of the head.
His teeth snapped shut
The impact took them both to the deck.
"Torin!"
"I'm okay." They heaved the limp body off her together, and then Craig held out a hand. Torin didn't need it, but she took it anyway and let him help her up to her feet.
"You're bleeding."
She was covered in blood. "This isn't mine."
"On your arm?" He gently bent her right arm up closer to her face, his fingers warm around her wrist.
Her sleeve flapped loose, about four square centimeters of cloth missing, a smaller piece bitten out of her forearm. Adrenaline still buzzing through her system, Torin could hardly feel the injury but, later, it was going to hurt. "Okay, this is mine. But it's minor." She could use the arm. Right now, that was all that mattered. "Your foot?"
"Old news." He looked worried, relieved. And there. Right there. Right in front of her. When the corners of his mouth curved up, slowly, as though he wasn't sure this was real, Torin felt as though one of the Grr brothers had chewed a piece out of her heart not her arm. She could feel each beat, and it hurt. Craig released her wrist and laid his palm lightly against her chest, as though he knew. "I'd kiss you, but you're covered in blood."
"Something to look forward to, then." Her smile felt too wide, awkward, but she couldn't dial it back. "What did you hit him with?"
"Pipe wrench." Brows up, he lifted his other hand. Blood dripped from the heavy curved end of the tool. "Wasn't sure you'd want me to get involved."
"No, it's good." She took a deep breath and all of a sudden it was. It was very good. "I'm all for you participating in your own rescue."
He gri
Torin jerked back just before Craig's mouth touched hers. "It's Ressk."
Craig rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the little mood killer's patched me through." *I've got the Hatch, but Big Bill's unlocked the Heart!* "You need Nadayki for this, Captain." Dysun's eyes were nearly black as she worked both index fingers over the screen of her slate. "This is more his sort of shit."
"Well, I don't have Nadayki, do I?" Cho snarled. "Or his shit." He'd dragged Dysun down to the air lock controls when she'd been unable to free up the system from her board. Not that it had helped. Useless! They were all fukking useless! "Nadayki is out there on the other side of the…"
The telltales turned green.
"Finally!"
Dysun lifted both hands, eyes lightening. "It wasn't me."
"I don't care who it was. Doc! Huirre!" They each held a tasik, and the fingers of Doc's free hand kept folding into a fist and unfolding again. Cho doubted he knew he was doing it. Huirre had been less than enthusiastic about joining the fight until Cho'd reminded him his share of the weapons' sale was at stake. He watched them step into the air lock. Watched the door close.
"Outer door opening… Closing again!" Huirre sounded freaked. "Hey! What the fuk are you…
"Outer doors have closed and locked again, Captain." Dysun slapped her thumb repeatedly against the screen. "Looks like the signal's coming from the station sysop. No one can crack Big Bill's system."
"You can't," Cho sneered, tried of hearing excuses. "That doesn't mean no one can. Huirre, report!"
"Doc's out. Shoved me, threw away his tasik and squeezed through at the last second. He looked weird. Even for Doc."
"Captain," Dysun's eyes were dark again when she looked up, and her hair flicked back and forth in short jerky arcs. "A body in the path of the door, even a moving body, should have stopped the door from closing."
Vacuum being what it was, air locks had safeties built into their safeties; everyone knew that. Everyone also knew who'd programmed Vrijheid. William Fukking Po
"What part of Big Bill's trying to screw us did you miss," Cho snarled, rubbing his hands together. "Get that air lock open!" *Hostiles incoming, Gu
Torin pivoted around toward the exit to the station. Interior decompression hatches had access panels on both sides. "We can jam it from here." *It's complicated, you'll have to…*
"Smash the panel." *Yeah, that'll work.*
"Good." Torin bent to pick up the wrench, but Craig's hand on her arm dragged her back upright, and turned her in time to see the Heart's air lock close behind a Human male. Not very tall, broad shoulders, long dark hair. Vaguely familiar.
"It's Doc," Craig said quietly. "He's crazy. And when I say crazy, I mean certifiable. He was a doctor, an actual Navy doctor. His ship got destroyed, and it broke him. Literally broke him in two. There's the medic side and the likes-to-see-you-bleed side. And the likes-to-see-you-bleed side, it doesn't lose."
"What ship?"
"What ship? I have no idea." Craig scooped up the wrench and held it two-handed, across his body. "Does it matter?"
Torin shrugged, then continued the movement, working the stiffness out of her shoulders. "It might have. Go jam the hatch. I've got this."
"Why? Because he was military, you think you have to face him alone?"
Maybe. He wasn't Corps, but still… he'd been broken by his service and that made him her responsibility. It was entirely possible Craig knew she believed that; not that it mattered.
"No." She met his gaze and held it. "Because if Big Bill sends more of his people in after us, we're fukked."
After a long moment, a moment she wouldn't have granted anyone else, Craig nodded. Acknowledged her point. "Torin, Doc is… he's good at violence."
"So am I." She managed half a smile. "Your tax dollars at work."
He wanted to say more, but he nodded again and started toward the hatch, half hopping, half hobbling, most of his weight on his right foot.
Torin had almost forgotten his injury-pushed it to the back of her mind while she did what she had to. Injuries weren't unusual in her old job; dealt with and the job went on. She didn't much like that she kept forgetting Craig was a noncombatant.
As Doc came closer, Torin realized where she'd seen him before. Most recently, watching the fight in the Hub, but before that, heading into the bar, into the game, where Nat Forester had set them up.
No mistaking the tension that pleated the soft skin around his eyes. Ex-military-the tells were obvious to anyone who'd spent as much time in uniform as Torin had-with the look of someone who'd seen too much and not been able to let any of it go. He was the first person she'd met since getting out that she wasn't entirely positive she could beat if it came to a fight.
As much as Torin wanted to destroy anyone who had a part in Crag's abuse, she forced reason past reaction. Not fighting this man would be the smart thing to do.
"We don't have to get into this," she began.
"Yes, we do." For all the teeth showing, there was nothing Krai-like about Doc's smile. It was a very Human smile. The last time Torin had seen that particular expression, she'd been looking in a mirror. "I've been waiting for you."
"For me?"
He shrugged and continued closing the distance between them. "For someone like you."
His eyes were a flat emotionless blue, not gleaming in anticipation. He wasn't going into this fight for the fun of it; he was the deadly serious kind of bugfuk crazy. The kind that would methodically torture Rogelio Page. The kind who would cut off a man's toe when ordered to so that the pain would teach him his place.