The Truth of Valor (41 page)

“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.

She doubted there was much difference between the
courts
and the
fights
.

There was no visible plastic. That was less comforting than she’d expected it would be.

“The seats can come out if you don’t need them, or they can be rearranged into more useful configurations.” Big Bill slapped a meaty palm against the bulkhead. “Industrial reinforcing—it’s the best place on Vrijheid to put a range even with targets designed to absorb the impact.”

Not everyone would hit the target. On military stations, they built a barrier designed to neutralize the rounds from a KC-7 and set the targets in that. As Torin enjoyed the thought of pirates shooting holes in their own station, she didn’t bother correcting the flaw in Big Bill’s design.

“For the larger weapons, we may need to set up something on the planet. Although it’s not like the big stuff needs precision shooting, right?”

He was waiting for a response. “Just needs to be pointed in the right direction,” she agreed. Pirates blowing themselves to hell with heavy ordinance would also be celebrated. She scuffed her sole against one of the welds, frowned at the big double hatch, and laid out the station schematics in her head. “The smelter machinery; how did you get it out?”

“Why?”

Torin gave him her best
that question is too stupid to require a facial expression
. “We’ll need to move some large equipment back in.”

“Of course.” Big Bill moved out into the center space. “The double hatch leads to the ore dock. We cut the gravity in both sections, opened the hatches, ran leads in from the runners in the ore dock and floated them out. Then we cleared the ore dock by putting a couple of crews in HE suits and shoving the machinery—stripped of anything useful, of course—out the big exterior hatch the ore carriers used. The crews that did the work got to grapple the scrap in and sell the metal to my recycling contacts. You’ll merely need to reverse the process.”

Or repeat the process to get the armory off the station.

Torin nodded. “It’s a plan.” She needed to get the hell back to the
Star,
but Big Bill wasn’t finished.

“It’s more than a plan, Gunnery Sergeant, it’s a beginning.” He faced her, arms spread. “The Navy can shoot at individual ships the Wardens designate pirate—bureaucracy runs slower than a H’san in the sun, so no ships have yet been designated, but it’s only a matter of time before the Wardens get their opposable digits out of their anal passages and convince Parliament to declare the free merchants enemies of the Confederation. Ships will therefore only take us so far. But, if we take over stations, who’s to say who’s a free merchant and who’s part of the station crew? If we control stations, the government will have to talk to us. We can form a Free Merchant Alliance.” His voice bounced back off the metal surfaces, layering on a patina of aural crazy. “When we control enough stations, we’ll sue for representation in Parliament.”

Torin stared at him. There were holes in his plan a battle cruiser could slide through, but the son of a bitch thought big, she’d give him that. “And all you get from this . . .”

“Is fifteen percent.”

When Torin raised a brow, he smiled. She glanced over at the Grr brothers who looked more bored than impressed by the rhetoric. If she had to guess, she’d say they’d heard it before.

“Problem.” She made it sound like a single problem, not a problem with the crazy-ass concept in general. “Even with the armory on the station, doesn’t Cho control most of the weapons?”

“Captain Cho will, of course, be one of the leaders of the Alliance, and he’ll sell the weapons he and his crew don’t personally need.”

“To people you’ve chosen.”

“To the people who will give him the best price.” Smiling, Big Bill beckoned her closer. When she was an arm’s length away, he said, “I’d like you to have the training facility ready to use the moment the Free Merchants have weapons in their hands, but the ore dock is off-limits until the armory is open, so that’ll limit any large-scale changes.” With his volume dialed back to conversational levels, he might have been discussing sweeping out the Hub instead of the first steps toward violently commandeering stations and holding their inhabitants hostage. “It’s eight fifty-three now . . .”

Four hours and thirty-three minutes until Craig said Nadayki would have the armory open.

“. . . I’d like to see a design by 1130,” Big Bill continued, unaware of the change Cho had made in his schedule. “Include a list of everything you’ll need to make it happen—material, tools, workers—and once I’ve approved it, you can begin.”

“Then I’d better get started.” She pivoted on one heel and headed for the hatch, roughing out a plan that would not end with the Free Merchant Alliance gaining representation in Parliament or Big Bill using the weapons in the armory to gain fifteen percent of anything.

As Torin stepped onto the
Star
, Werst handed her a mug of coffee. “We cut the gravity, open the exterior decompression doors, use the overhead runners to get the armory out of the storage pod and out the doors, grapple it, use the
Star
to tow it away from the station, blow it up, and fold before any of the pirates come after us, illegal weapons blazing?”

Torin nodded. “Bare bones.”

“What about Ryder?” Mashona asked, breaking the seal on a packet of eggs.

Torin gripped the mug tighter, pulling at the bonded knuckle. “I said, bare bones.” With no time to waste, she’d filled them in while returning to the ship. Assuming Big Bill was watching, or would be watching at least fifteen percent of the time, she’d tried to look like she’d already begun to design a training facility for thieves and murderers. Ressk’s tracking program kept her face turned away from surveillance cameras.

“Okay, one and zeros.” Ressk cracked his toes and took a long swallow of
sah.
“Moving training equipment would be a great cover. Any chance of Big Bill changing his mind about waiting until the armory’s open?”

“No.” When it looked like he was going to pursue it further, Torin raised a hand and cut him off. “You’ve cracked the station sysop, can’t you shut down the gravity and open the exterior hatch from your slate?”

“I’m in Communications, Gunny.”

“Not what I asked you.”

He straightened, responding to her tone. “Yes, I can shut down the gravity and open the big hatch from the slate. But it’ll take time to find the right subroutines and more time to subvert them.”

“How much time?”

His nose ridges opened and closed. “Probably more than we have.”

Torin narrowed her eyes. “You hacked through ship security every time Sh’quo Company was deployed.”

“Yeah. But, Gunny . . .”

“Are you telling me Big Bill Ponner is more paranoid than the Navy with Marines on board?”

“Gunny, he created a digital history that convinced everyone who mattered that Vrijheid was destroyed in the war. He’s either written or adapted every program running on this station. I’m telling you he’s
better
than the Navy.”

“Better than the Navy doesn’t make him better than you.”

“Well, no, but . . .

“No buts. Get to work; we need the gravity off and the hatch open.” Torin dropped into the pilot’s chair and set her mug on the edge of the board. “All right, before we can open the ore docks to vacuum, we have to get Nadayki and Craig away from the pod. I’ll talk to Craig.” She frowned. “There’s no blast wave in vacuum. Does that change the result if we blow the armory in the pod?”

“Not enough. Atmosphere or no atmosphere, the pod’s not designed to contain large chunks of shrapnel. Pieces of the armory will go through the pod and then the station like cheese through a H’san. We have to get it, on an absolute minimum, thirty kilometers away and even then the station will take damage.”

Every mission came with collateral damage. The brass tried to pretend it didn’t, but the people on the front lines knew better.

“Let’s hope the interior decompression hatches work as planned, then. You two . . .” Torin spun the chair to face Werst and Mashona at the table. “Get down to the Hub and watch for Big Bill. We can’t risk him going to the ore docks and finding out he’s got three hours’ less time.”

“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 inner panel. “Check.”

“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.”