Crossways (14 page)

“Insurance.”

“Meet halfway. No weapons.” Ben took the derri out of his thigh pocket and placed it on the stubby wing of the flyer.

“There's two of you. I bring one more.”

“Fair.”

Ben turned to Cara crouched inside. “Close the hatch.” He saw from her face that she didn't like it, but she backed into the flyer with Ronan and the hatch slid shut.

*I'm listening in,*
she said.

*I hope so.*

“Are you all right with this?” Ben said quietly to Kitty.

“It's too late now if I'm not, isn't it?”

“Probably.”

They walked forward, as did Tengue and the big black merc Kitty had identified as Emmanuel Gwala.

Ben wasn't short, but Gwala was taller by a handspan and Tengue heavier by ten kilos, all of it muscle.

“What's your combat rating, Kitty?”

“I scored very well in pilot training.”

Oh, right. He was on his own if it came to a fight. Worse than on his own if he had to protect Kitty, too. Cara didn't
need protecting. She was fast and decisive. Maybe bringing Kitty had been the wrong move.

“Benjamin,” Tengue said as they halted ten strides away from each other.

“Captain Tengue.” There was a suspicious bulge in Tengue's thigh pocket. Bigger than the derri Ben had abandoned and much bigger than the parrimer blade tucked into his sleeve. “I don't believe we were formally introduced. You know Kitty Keely, I think.”

“Yes.” Tengue nodded to Kitty. “Ensign Keely.” It was almost, but not quite, a question.

“Just plain Kitty, now, Cap. I quit Alphacorp. Didn't like their style.”

“Van Blaiden's style.”

“That's right. I especially didn't like that.”

Gwala stood a pace behind Tengue, face impassive, but something in the line of his shoulders altered at the mention of van Blaiden.

Tengue's mouth turned down at the corners. “I lost good men on account of you and yours, Benjamin.”

Ben shook his head. “You lost good men on account of van Blaiden. You signed up for the losing team. No shame in that, but no malice either. I seem to recall you tried to execute me.”

“Nothing personal.”

“No offense taken.”

“What about her?” Tengue pointed past Kitty to the flyer. He couldn't see beyond the darkened screen, now, so he must have been watching them for some time.

Cara was a comfortable presence in the back of Ben's mind and would be watching their every move. “Cara doesn't take offense either. Her beef was with van Blaiden. That's over and done with.”

Was it? Would it ever be over and done with or would they be living with the aftermath forever?

“That's generous of her.”

“It was her idea to come. We're looking to hire.”

“Who is?”

“The Free Company. That's the psi-techs from the Olyanda team.”

“You work for the Trust.”

“Did. We're on our own now. Got a little security problem you might be able to help us with. Want to hear more?”

“I'm listening.”

“Seems we upset someone when we took this planet off the market.”

Tengue put up both hands, palms out. “We're not going up against the Trust or Alphacorp or any other corporation you can name because we'd lose.”

“Okay, stay here then. Olyanda's relatively mild in the winter. It only drops to forty below. But if you change your mind . . . We're not asking you to go up against the megacorps on their own turf, only to stand between us and whatever they throw at us on Crossways. Maybe that won't be anything. Garrick's stepping up security station-wide, but there may be sleeper agents. Job's yours if you want it. Trial basis only, of course, and we'll throw in the ride off this rock for free.”

“We don't come cheap.”

“Didn't expect you would.”

“Three hundred per man per week plus accommodations and meals.”

“Can accommodate you all together in Blue Seven.”

“Got three men banged up bad after the firefight. Olyanda base medic treated them. Wanted to hospitalize them, but we look after our own. Not leaving them behind—and they get full pay, too.”

“Of course. Got a medic here now if you want him to take a look.”

Tengue nodded. “Be right grateful.”

They thrashed out details of who paid for arms and armor, replacements, and necessary repairs while Ronan and Cara combined their Empathy to check for any signs of double-dealing. There were none.

*He drives a hard bargain,*
Cara said.
*But we both agree. It's one he's prepared to stick to.*

“And we stay an independent unit,” Tengue said. “Chain of command runs from you to me and from me to them.”

“Done.” Ben held out his hand.

The agreement was quickly registered with Oleg Staple and Leah Nolan, one in orbit with the fleet and the other on the ground with the miners. Tengue insisted on a down payment.

Ben authorized it.

Tengue hadn't finished. “And there's the madwoman. She's not rightly our responsibility, but she can't look after herself. Doesn't eat unless you put food in her mouth. Pisses herself if you forget to put her on the potty regular.”

Ben felt sick as he shook on the deal. He had a feeling he knew who Tengue was talking about. Why hadn't he considered the possibility that Cara's abuser had survived? He felt Cara stir uneasily, but he had to ask. “Madwoman?”
Please don't let it be her.

“Mrs. McLellan,” Tengue said.

Ben slammed down his mental shield as Cara's mind began to scream.

I
THOUGHT SHE WAS DEAD AND GONE.

I thought she was dead.

Why can't she be dead?

I need her to be dead.

I have to kill her.

Donida McLellan, chief mind-bender at Alphacorp's neural reconditioning unit and Ari van Blaiden's pet sadist, was alive, but not for much longer. Cara reached out toward her, mind-to-mind. She'd done it once. It would be so easy to snuff out her former tormentor. All she had to do was lock on and squeeze and squeeze and . . .

So easy.

Her mind touched McLellan's and she recoiled.

She's in a room, strapped to a chair. McLellan's mind is boring into hers. Deeper and deeper. In her imagination she can hear a voice saying: You think you're bad, girl? This is how it's done. Learn it well.

She'd learned it, well enough to kill their assailant in the warehouse, but even in this state, McLellan was the river she could not swim, the mountain she could not climb.

Madwoman, Tengue had called her. She'd always been mad in her own way, but evil genius rather than babbling idiot. Ari had employed her because of her fearsome psi
abilities, her psychopathic tendencies and utter lack of inhibitions when it came to twisting someone's mind. Cara had suffered her inhumane treatment and had not even been able to remember it until it was almost too late.

Now she remembered.

“You don't have to see her,” Ben said.

“Yes, I do.” Cara sat on the wing-step of the Dixie and watched Tengue and Gwala as they walked back to the mercs. “Tell him, Ronan.”

The young medic hoisted his emergency kit onto his shoulder and frowned. “Cara, I have to go and check on the injured. We should talk about this later.”

“No, we shouldn't. I want to see her now.” She looked at Ben and then at Ronan. Kitty was wisely hanging back, though she'd actually been a witness to McLellan's final attempt to break Cara's mind. “What? You don't think I'll try and kill her, do you?” She tried to laugh but it came out all wrong. Ronan and Ben were both staring at her. That was exactly what they thought.

“I won't.”

If she couldn't do it one way, would she do it another?

“I probably won't.” She raised both hands, palms out. “All right. Not today, but sooner or later I will look her in the eye. I need to know she's got no hold over me now.”

Ben nodded. “When you're sure you're ready.”

Ben snapped to attention as Yan Gwenn's general alert from orbit cut through all their thoughts like a klaxon.

*Detail?*
Ben asked Yan.

*We've got company. A Trust cruiser just showed up on the edge of our scanning range.*

*How close?*
Ben asked.

*Close enough and coming in fast. They've deployed fighters.*

“Shit!”
*Yan, bring the
Solar Wind
down and prepare for a quick pickup.*

*There's a second cruiser and—oh bloody hell—a battlewagon,*
Yan said.
*They really mean business.*

*We don't need to get caught up in this,*
Ben said.
*Staple and his boys are more than capable. Ronan and Kitty, get
Tengue and his mercs ready to evacuate. I'm not sure how mobile their injured are.*

“I need you to focus,” he said to Cara. “Are you with me?”

He could feel her pulling the threads of her mind together, dragging her attention away from McLellan, shoving the trauma deep down where it couldn't hurt her. She nodded and opened up a general channel for him. He felt the connection wobble and then it steadied. Good.

He flashed her a brief smile and her chin trembled as she tried to return it.

“Can we get them all on board
Solar Wind
?” Kitty asked.

“Do we have a choice?” Ben said. “Cara—”

“Already on it.” Cara, all business in an emergency, had patched communications through to Tengue and had linked with the Telepath on board Oleg Staple's command ship. “Staple's fighters are on standby,” she said. “And there are surface-to-air missiles ready for launch.”

As if to echo that statement a bright flare from the east announced a single missile fired from somewhere in the lee of the northern mountain range. A second contrail followed it, and a third.

“Reinforcements on their way from Crossways,” Cara said.

“By the time they get here it will be over,” Ben said.

Yan Gwenn kept up a running commentary.
*ETA twenty minutes. Trust fighters deployed. Two fighters have punched through Staple's outer cordon. Prepare for incoming. They'll be on my tail.*

“Wait with the Dixie.” Ben didn't want Cara confronting the shell of what used to be Donida McLellan, not yet. “Guide Yan down. When
Solar Wind
lands, get the Dixie into her cargo hold and prepare for a quick takeoff.”

He ran to the hangar where Morton Tengue's mercs were gathering, fully kitted out for combat and carrying their packs on their backs and weapons—the ones they were supposed to have handed over—in their hands. Three antigrav gurneys were neatly lined up. Ronan knelt over one of them. Ben wondered if Donida McLellan was one of the patients, but then he saw Kitty leading a tall, thin woman with dark hair and a vacant expression.

“Is that her?” he asked Kitty.

“It is. Doesn't look like much now, does she?”

“Looks can be deceptive. Are you okay with her?”

“She's pliant enough.”

“Keep her away from Cara for the time being.”

He checked. There was no flicker of understanding from McLellan at the mention of Cara's name.

“Understood.”

He hoped Kitty did understand. He'd felt Cara's intense satisfaction when she'd found a way to
turn off
the Telepath during the warehouse attack.
I can kill you with my mind
was nothing more than an old psi-tech joke precisely because it couldn't happen, but somehow Cara had found a way to make it happen and suddenly the phrase had lost all its humor.

Solar Wind
came in low over the horizon, antigravs already engaged. Yan dropped her neatly into the open space just beyond the Dixie and let down the ramp.

Cara rolled the Dixie into the hold on antigravs. Tengue's mercs jog-trotted across the open ground, neat and orderly. Ronan took one gurney, Gwala the second, and Ben picked up the controller for the third, noting it was occupied by a pale young woman, upper body swathed in burn dressings. She was conscious and watching him.

“I hope you know how to drive this thing,” she said.

“I can pilot a starship. How hard can it be?”

“I hope those aren't your famous last words. I hear we might be in for a rough ride.”

“Don't worry. Getting off this rock will be a piece of cake.”

As he said it the landing vehicle, which had been the center of operations during their time on Olyanda, exploded in a fireball.

*Incoming,*
Cara said.

*Yeah, thanks, got that.*
Ben pushed the gurney and ran for the
Solar Wind
, a hundred-meter sprint. Something whomped into the ground beside him: debris from the LV. He sprang sideways, and the gurney wobbled alarmingly.

“I thought you said you could drive this thing?”

“Everyone's a critic.” Ben scooped up the young woman, abandoned the gurney and ran like hell.

Three fighters screamed out of the sky and fanned out. Two flew low and straight, heading for where Nolan's troops were based. One strafed the ground behind them. Ben
clutched the girl to him and concentrated on the
Solar Wind
, legs pumping, breath rasping. His shoulder muscles pulled beneath the burn scar.

“Run, damn you!” she screamed. As if he needed telling.

He clattered up into
Solar Wind
's belly as the hangar they'd just left took a direct hit. The shockwave from the explosion shoved Ben forward and he barely avoided squashing the woman as he went down.

“Owww! I want a fucking refund!” The edge of panic had subsided from the young woman's voice.

“Fowler, is that you acting up again?” Tengue picked up the complaining young woman while Gwala dragged Ben up and off the ramp as it began to close.

“Sick bay's this way.” Ben led Tengue and Gwala up into the guts of his ship, Tengue carrying Fowler. “Don't worry, Fowler, Doc Wolfe has got some state-of-the-art gadgets up there. Tested them myself.”

“I should take your word for it? You can't even drive a gurney.”

“No, but I can fly us out of here.”

As Tengue delivered Fowler into Ronan's care Ben ran for the flight deck. Gwala stayed with him all the way.

“Do you mind?” the big man asked. “I was supposed to work tactical for van Blaiden before some bastard stole his ship.”

“Come and welcome.”

Cara knew why Ben had asked her to stay with the Dixie, but it galled her. Still, she did the job she'd been asked to do even though her hands shook on the controls. As the
Solar Wind
landed and dropped her cargo hatch she rolled the little flyer in there and locked it down, making a quick exit to the flight deck as the first of Tengue's mercs trotted up the ramp. Ben had a point. It wasn't the right time to confront Donida McLellan. Just knowing she was on board was bad enough.

Cara felt sick.

She took three deep breaths, ran up to the flight deck, slid into the comms chair, and patched into Oleg Staple's channel.

There was a full-blown battle going on above them, two
Trust cruisers, a battlewagon, and their associated fighters versus a Crossways fleet of one cruiser with an array of fighters and six smaller ships. She guessed Crossways wasn't yet up to full strength.

Fighters had mobilized from the planet's surface. The Trust had the advantage of numbers for now, but there were surface-to-air missiles prepped which could tip the balance.

Unfortunately, the missiles weren't picky.
Solar Wind
, being registered to an independent port rather than Crossways, sported a ship code that could get them killed by their own side as well as the Trust.

*We can give you eight minutes to clear before we release the next missiles,*
Staple said.
*Eight minutes and counting.*

Cara set her clock.

*Six minutes, Ben,*
she told him as he entered the flight deck followed by the big African Kitty had identified as Gwala.

Yan relinquished the pilot's chair to Ben and took the copilot's space. Kitty moved to systems and Gwala took tactical.

“Strap in.” Ben connected with the ship and lifted
Solar Wind
on her antigravs while the drive cycled. “Ready?”

*Ready. Four minutes twenty,*
Cara told him.

Solar Wind
shot skyward just as a Trust fighter screamed toward them. It snagged in their wake and, too low to make a recovery at that speed, plunged into the ruins of the settlement.

Solar Wind
yawed. Ben fought to hold her steady.

*Incoming.*
Cara pinpointed a second fighter ahead of them and flashed the exact location.

“Pulse-cannon, clear the way,” Ben ordered, straightening out their flight path.

The ship reverberated as the pulse-cannon discharged, but the shot went wide. The fighter was still heading straight for them and a second fighter was on their screen now.

“Gwala,” Ben said, sharply.

“Got the range now.” Gwala fired again. The ship shuddered and the first fighter disappeared. Gwala reconfigured and took out the second fighter as well.

“Nice shooting,” Ben said.

“It's my ass on the line as well.” Gwala stepped back. “Sorry about the first one. Got the feel of it, now.”

“Two minutes forty to ground missile release,” Cara said. More blips appeared on her screen. “Trust cruiser dead ahead. Low orbit. Fifteen fighters, ten of them Trust, five belonging to Crossways. The Trust's got the upper hand.”