Ragamuffin (36 page)

P
epper watched the grounation struggle toward a consensus.

“It insane,” Ras Malik snapped. “After all the Teotl gone and done here, and they want protection?” Pepper was content to feel for people’s positions. He racked his memory for faces, trying to remember the opinions and beliefs and experiences.

“We go need they technology,” Don Andery pointed out.

“We take it,” Ras Malik said.

They wanted to move the Ragamuffins into Nanagada. They wanted control of the Teotl technology. They weren’t interested in helping the Teotl. But much of the Ragamuffin home base in this system relied on mines drilled into asteroids, a single cobbled-together habitat, and docks for the ships. Those couldn’t be moved to Nanagada, and there was no guarantee that the Hongguo would shut down the upstream wormhole only. If they pushed the Ragamuffins back and shut down the downstream wormhole, everyone would be split again.

Pepper pointed out that still left them at risk. The New Anegada downstream wormhole had Teotl’s former masters on the other side, masters that sounded awfully like the mind-controlling Satraps Nashara had described in an aside.

Pepper looked up as a far-off explosion echoed down through the ship.

“We die while you argue.” Metztli shook a plain tentacle in frustration. Pepper had taken all the tips off. The Teotl insisted on being a part of the grounation, speaking for its people.

It wasn’t out of nobility. Pepper suspected that Metztli was in bad shape and hanging on by a thread, and that Metztli was the only specialized type left that could speak for the whole nest. The others had probably died in the impact. Pepper felt an even deeper hint of desperation from the alien.

And the creature was right. Pepper looked over at John, quiet and huddled near the wall, still grieving.

“Well, we can’t stand against all them Hongguo that coming down to that upstream wormhole,” Dread Caine said. He’d arrived on the
Cornell West
, and his soft voice drew attention to him as effectively as raising his voice could. “So fighting to stay here ain’t go work. I agree, we evacuate and let them push we back into New Anegada, and we take these Teotl on all the
ship. With them technology, we might hold New Anegada against whatever go come through or maybe reopen this wormhole again.”

Pepper twitched. He wasn’t going to be trapped again for centuries more.

“Hey.” One of the Raga pulled a machine gun up and flicked the safety.

Pepper pushed over, and in the doorway floated one of the Azteca warriors, next to a Teotl like Metztli, tentacles wrapped around the doorjamb.

A bipedal Teotl floated behind them.

“There are one hundred and fifty-seven Azteca with us, five of us,” the new Teotl said.

“As I said,” Metztli announced from behind Pepper. “We want assurances.”

The Raga could take them. Recoilless rifles and more experience in zero gravity than the Azteca. Modern mongoose-men versus Azteca with rifles here in orbit.

But the Teotl might even that out. It would be bloody, Pepper decided.

Another dim explosion.

The alien craft was going to rip itself apart as they argued. Safeties clicked off all throughout the room.

T
he Azteca had stormed in and surrounded the conference room. The new Teotl shouted demands for written contracts and promises. The aliens’ world was falling apart, and so had John’s.

He’d been staying out of it, waiting to leave it all with his son’s body. Ready to run and let Pepper do his thing, be in his element.

For Pepper, John would wait to kill Metztli. He owed him that much.

The woman, Nashara, stiffened. “Incoming! Everyone,” she shouted, her voice amplified and booming from the mobile unit next to her. “Everyone grab something!”

The world exploded in debris around John. Thundering filled his whole world that screamed up and down his range of hearing until something popped and went silent. Hot white light filled the doorway and then faded away.

He drifted, watching silent screams until a large piece of rock smacked him in the head and he spun away from the wall, bleeding.

Nashara grabbed him using a mechanical claw on the mobile unit. It puffed its way through air to her dragging him with it.

“You okay?” Her lips didn’t move. “Your eardrums are blown.”

“I’m okay.” John looked around, dazed. “How am I hearing you?”

“I’m talking to you through the lamina.”

“Lamina?”John mouthed. “You mean data overlays?”

“Yes. I’m drilling straight in. I’ll let you listen in through the mobile unit if you want.”

He looked at her, impressed.

“Air’s getting low.” Nashara left him and grabbed Metztli from the middle of the air. “Can you fix the leaks?”

“Fix? Fix? The nest is falling apart,” the Teotl screamed.

Jerome’s body had floated free, eyes staring out at nothing. John gritted his teeth and turned. “Who the hell did this?”

Nashara looked over the mobile unit at him, face pulled into a grimace. Blood hung in the air in globules, leaking from scratches as people were flung into walls. “We’ve got Hongguo ships coming out of the upstream wormhole, looks like one of them snuck a missile or two through at us.”

John looked at the captains. “None of your ships caught that?”

“It won’t happen again,” one of them said. “We see how they jam it.”

John looked at Nashara, some of the things she’d been explaining to the grounation coming back through the haze. “And you saw it because you’re in the lamina, spreading out through other ships, wherever you can grab processing power, right?”

“I’ve taken over a Hongguo ship, the
Wuxing Hao
. That version of me picked up on the trick and passed back a warning.”

They had a ship of the enemy’s. “What are you doing with that ship?”

“Trying to run the Hongguo blockade. Warn the rest of humanity.” Nashara shrugged. “They deserve a chance to fight back as well.”

Fight back. Nashara looked frustrated sitting around waiting. They’d been talking about running for Nanagada. Cutting losses. Even Pepper had joined in, looking resigned to the idea but annoyed.

John looked around at bleeding Ragamuffins, still facing off against the Azteca despite the disruption.

Fuck running.

“Metztli tells us this ‘nest’ is unsalvageable.” John faced the alien. “You can try and force us around with the Azteca here and we rip each other apart and you become extinct. Or you can work with us and live.”

“You lie to us, you betray us,” Metztli said. “How can we trust you?”

“It cuts both ways,” Pepper said, before John could snap something else out. “You have to start somewhere. Besides, you and I both know you won’t make it out alive if you fire the first shot, and I’m pretty sure I will walk out of here alive no matter what choice you make.”

Metztli seemed to droop in the air. It waved a tentacle, and the other Teotl barked something out in Nahautl. The Azteca pointed their rifles away, many of them looking relieved.

“These Hongguo are coming through, but how are they going to close the wormhole?” John asked.

“A machine, the
Gulong
,” Nashara told him.

“So we’ve lost the Teotl machine, we’re threatened by the Hongguo, we need to take the offensive and capture the
Gulong
and hold it to keep the Hongguo away. Then we can negotiate. Until then we’re going to be showing them our backs as we try to organize a fighting retreat? That is how people die, they’ll hunt us down and scatter us. No. I’m not interested in that. How many of these ships do they have?”

“Just the one.”

Pepper moved over to John and put a hand on his shoulder. “We go for the Hongguo? We hold that wormhole and that ship while Raga evacuate to Nanagada, and if we lose that position, we fall back to this wormhole.”

“We take control of this,” John said, looking at all the faces.

“A vote, now,” said one of the captains. “We go lose people trying to board the
Gulong
, but if we can hold it . . .” Nods spread around the gathering of captains.

The grounation was done.

A vote was called, and Pepper shook John in midair as the captains weighed in. John grabbed his forearm and held on tight to it. “I’m okay, Pepper.”

“We’ll get . . . the body in a pod.” Pepper looked to his side at it, then back to John. “Then we take control of this situation. And when it’s done, then we’ll grieve properly.”

Nashara joined the impromptu huddle. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said to John.

“Thank you,” John muttered.

Nashara looked out at the gathering. “It may not come to a physical boarding. I may be able to infiltrate the
Gulong
. If it has lamina, I would like to take that ship.”

“Less casualties, and we have it as a weapon, I like that,” John said.

The vote finished, captains were sending messages back to their ships to prepare them to hold Azteca warriors and Teotl, and for others to start preparing plans for the attack.

Already simulations would be tested out, heads put together.

“John, Pepper.” Nashara grabbed both their arms. “You may want to stay on one of the larger ships, but you are welcome aboard the
Toucan Too
. We’re not armed, but we’re quick.”

John nodded. “Away from the Teotl and off here, yes, I’ll come. Pepper?”

“I think I’ll split us up and get on the
Duppy Conqueror
. Old friends there, I know the layout. That ship’s going to take on a bunch of the Teotl, and I want to keep an eye on them.”

“That makes sense.” John let go of Pepper’s forearm. “Be safe.”

“We’ll see each other again soon enough.” Pepper smiled.

“Soon.”

“Let’s move,” Nashara said. “Air levels are falling and I want to be out and ready to move, we’ve turned into sitting ducks all docked here.”

John floated away with Nashara.

S
omeone rapped on the hull of the
Toucan Too
. Kara looked around, wondering what to do. Nashara had left without saying anything; Ijjy lay sedated, eyes drooping.

The banging intensified.

Cascabel appeared in front of Kara. “Nashara didn’t tell you what was going on, did she?”

“No.” Kara was getting her head around the Cascabel/Nashara divide.

“There are friends at the air lock, they want to pick up you, your brother, and Ijjy and take them to get medical help.”

“But what about the attacks?”

“The
Xamayca Pride
is going to act as a flagship, it won’t directly join the fighting. From there they will also be able to transfer you out by tender to the other Ragamuffin hiding places in the system. It will be the safest place for you. There’s no room for you in the ship that’s going back right now, but there will be on a second trip, and you can join Ijjy and Jared there.”

Ijjy looked up. “I ain’t going. Let the girl go.”

“Ijjy, you are no shape to stay on. She’ll be fine here until the
Cornell West
returns for the second run, or we can drop her off ourselves when Nashara comes back from the grounation.”

Kara nodded. “Ijjy, please, get yourself looked at.” She could wait easily enough.

“You sure?” Ijjy looked at her.

“Very sure.” She really, really wanted to go with Jared. But Ijjy had risked his life for her and been hurt as a result. She could not let him stay here.

“Okay then.” Cascabel walked over to Ijjy. Since everything was weightless, it was odd to watch her stepping along the cockpit as if it had gravity. It just made the fact the Cascabel was a simulation hit home. “I’m going let the Raga in, okay?”

Kara nodded again, pleased to be included. Distant machinery whined, and the sound of boots clanked through the ship.

“Hello?” A heavily muscled man with silver eyes leaned into the cockpit. “I’m Dr. Aiken.”

“Hi.” Kara released her grip on the chair and floated over to Ijjy. “This is Ijjy, and my brother, Jared, is in another room. They both need to go with you.”

“Okay.” Two more men hung behind him, and a pair of women.

Ijjy coasted out toward them, and one of the men split off, towing Ijjy out toward the air lock.

The women both carried large machine guns, and they stared at Kara with silvered eyes that reflected and flashed light back at her.

Kara led them down to the room. “Is it safe to take him out of the pod?”

“No.” Dr. Aiken drifted over, looking at the pod. “Too dangerous.”

He nodded his head, and they moved to release the pod.

“Its battery life should keep everything going until we get back aboard the
Xamayca
. Fluids are low, almost out, but we can compensate.”

Once they’d pulled it free, they held the pod between them, quickly shepherding it out toward the lock. Kara followed closely and at the lock put her hand on the surface, looking down at Jared.

She’d be back with him soon.

It would be okay, she silently promised him.

She snagged the edge of the air lock and stopped drifting with the group.

“We’ll take good care of him,” the doctor said, turning to face her as one of the Ragamuffins fired compressed air from a waistpack to speed them onward. They seemed in a hurry.

The air lock sealed shut, and Cascabel stood upside down on the roof behind Kara, startling Kara as she turned.

“We need to get back to the cockpit and strapped in.”

“What’s going on?”

“Incoming missiles.” Cascabel saw the look on Kara’s face. “Jared will be fine. The missiles will head for us, the West will be clear and headed for the
Xamayca
long before they are a problem.”

Relief. Kara followed Cascabel back.

“How long do we have?”

“Minutes now. And the
Cornell West
is clear and accelerating.” Cascabel cocked her head. “Okay, Monifa says we won’t get any direct hits near docking, they’re chaffing the area pretty hard to draw the missiles away.”

Distant shivers and thuds made their way through the
Toucan Too
’s hull. “That was still bad, though,” Kara said. “If we can feel it.”