Heart of the Nebula (34 page)

“
Mistress,” said Nina, “you
seem to be concerned about something. Can I possibly be of
assistance?”

Not now,
Sara thought to herself, swallowing as she closed
her eyes. A terrible sinking feeling in her gut made her wonder if
she should have volunteered herself—but no, she was needed with the
others. Or was she? Just who on the ship was expendable, and who
wasn’t? If she made it out alive, it would be hard to lift the
guilt.

They passed through a large freight airlock
into what appeared to be the station’s main cargo hold. Giant
cranes hung like claws from the ceiling, as if ready to reach down
and snatch them. A few shipping containers lay here and there, but
the loading area was largely empty.

The quietness of the vast,
cavernous place made Sara shiver, and not from the cold.
They could massacre us here,
she thought to herself. With nowhere to hide, the pirates
could gun them all down, then load the bodies onto the mag-rail and
fling them out the—

“
This way,” said the
Nabattan officer, leading them to the other side of the freight
yard. With almost three dozen armed soldiers surrounding them, Sara
and the others complied without a word.

James McCoy stepped out from a doorway
against the nearby wall, making Sara’s heart leap. Lars and
Sterling were with him as well, and they all seemed relatively
unharmed, if a bit shaken. Half a dozen soldiers escorted them to
the main group, and Sara was not surprised to note that
Soner—doubtless the ringleader—was with them.

“
Sara!” James said, rushing
over to her as soon as the guards allowed it. “Stars of Earth,
you’re all right!”

“
James,” she cried, all but
melting in his arms. “Thank God you’re alive.”

“
Well, what a touching
reunion,” said Soner. He folded his arms casually as the soldiers
rounded the last of the colonists into the unloading
area.

James’s smile quickly turned down in
frustrated rage. “Have they hurt anyone?” he asked her, his voice
barely louder than a whisper.

“
No,” Sara whispered back.
“We’re all alive. They haven’t—”

“
And the girls? Did they
take them?”

From the urgent, forceful way he stared at
her, Sara didn’t know what to say. She nodded, and he bit his lip
and clenched shut his eyes in response, as if he’d heard that a
close relative had been murdered.

“
I’m a man of my word,”
said Soner, his voice loud enough to carry. “You’ll be happy to
know that the girls all came voluntarily—in fact, some of them
seemed quite eager to stay behind. We’ll take good care of
them.”

“
You bastard!” James spat.
“I ought to—”

“
James, no,” said Sara,
taking him by the arm. His cheeks burned red with rage, but he held
his peace.

“
That’s right,” said Soner.
“Listen to the lady, Commander. She’s a smart one.”

“
Mistress, are you angry?”
Nina’s voice chimed in her ear. Sara turned away from Soner, making
sure the jewel was out of his view.

“
If you’re a man of your
word,” James asked, “where is our ship?”

“
Right through that
airlock,” said Soner, pointing to the far side of the room. “We
even loaded it with your supplies—after appropriating a reasonable
fee.”

James cursed under her
breath, and Sara gave him a sharp look.
Don’t provoke them,
she thought
silently.
That’s the last thing we need
right now.

“
In any case,” Soner
continued, “I thought it only fitting to give you a chance to say
goodbye to those who will be staying. I understand you’ve got a
long journey ahead of you, after all.”

He snapped his fingers, and a squad of
Nabattan guards brought the twenty women—now slaves—into a group
just a few yards beyond the line of soldiers holding the colonists
in. Some cried, others shook with fear, and a few of them stared at
the ground as if ashamed. As their loved ones shrieked and cried,
Sara glanced over at James to gauge his reaction. His fists were
clenched so tight that the blood had almost completely drained from
his knuckles, but the expression on his face was unreadable.

Kyla is up there,
Sara realized. The former stowaway stood with her
head high, but looked off into the distance as if avoiding eye
contact. Sara glanced back at James, and realized with some
surprise that he was staring at her.

“
That’s enough,” said
Soner, snapping his fingers again. The guards led the prisoners out
a separate door. Some of the colonists fell to their knees,
weeping, while others stood unmoving, tears streaking their pale
faces. Sara bit her lip and held in her emotions as best she
could—she didn’t want to give Soner the satisfaction of breaking
down in front of him.

“
Mistress, you seem to be
enraged. If you are, please—”

“
Now,” said Soner, “unless
any more of you wish to stay, my men will show you off to your
ship. Good luck, and when you’re all on the verge of starvation,
remember that thanks to us, at least a few of you managed to
survive.”

The soldiers herded them through the
airlock, into the faded, time-worn corridors of the aging colony
ship. The moment she was through, Sara reached up to her ear and
shut off Nina, tugging off the jewel. She sighed with relief and
leaned against the wall, letting the stress of the last few moments
leak out of her.

James, however, was already busy giving
orders.

“
Sterling, check the ship’s
systems and make sure she can fly. I want to be able to leave on a
moment’s notice. Jeppson, McClellan, assemble all the men from the
Corps and get the rest of the colonists to safety. Look around for
tools, hammers, sharp objects—anything that can be used as a
weapon.”

“
What are you doing?” Sara
asked. Behind them, the colonists continued to stream in, bodies
pressed against each other in the narrow space.

“
We’re going back after the
girls,” said James. “I’m not going to leave without
them.”

Sara frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good
idea? Those soldiers are heavily armed, and we have—what? Some
wrenches and hammers?”

“
We’ll have the element of
surprise. If we strike quickly, we can take the squad by the
airlock and arm ourselves with their weapons. If we keep to the
walls, we can use the empty cargo containers for cover until we get
to the airlock. We can do this.”

Stars of Earth—he’s serious about this.

“
James,” she pleaded,
“please think this through carefully. Those girls willingly gave up
their lives so that we could live. If we go back there, how many of
us are going to die? Is it really worth it?”

James gave her a look that
made her blood turn cold. “No one gets left behind,” he said.
“
No one.
”

The taste of vomit rose in Sara’s mouth. She
glanced around at the young men who had started to gather, and
shuddered at the thought that some of them—perhaps all of them—were
about to be killed.

“
Are you sure you want to
put all our lives on the line? If we go now, we cut our losses at
twenty. If we try to get them back, we could lose
everyone.”

“
This isn’t about numbers,”
he told her, loudly enough that everyone around him could hear.
“This is about unity. The first rule of my ship is that no
one—absolutely
no one
—gets left behind. If we let a few petty pirates shatter us
before we even set out, how can we hope to come together when we’re
out there, all by ourselves?”

The young men listened intently, several of
them nodding in approval. The light in their eyes was
murderous.

“
No one is expendable,”
James continued. “
No one.
I won’t order any of you to join me, but by all
the holy stars of Earth, I’m not going to leave until I damn well
fight my hardest to get those girls free. And if I die in the
process, so be it. Who’s with me?”

A resounding shout reverberated through the
narrow space. Sara’s heart beat harder in her chest, and she
clenched her fingers around the jewel in her hands. The jewel—

“
James,” she said quickly,
“I’m going with you.”

“
What?” he said, frowning
at her. “No, Sara, you should stay behind. If anything happens
to—”

“
Do you think I’m going to
stand idly by and let yourself get killed? Here.” She held up her
ear jewel so he could see. “This is my personal AI. The Nabattans
missed it when they frisked me. If we can get into their computer
network, I can upload it to the station’s servers and remove its
logic inhibitors, turning it into—”

“—
a super-intelligence,”
James finished, his eyes widening.

“
If you’re going to free
those girls, you’re going to need all the help you can get. I know
it’s technically a war crime, but if that’s what it takes to save
us, then so be it.”
Besides, after what
those bastards did to us, I couldn’t care less what becomes to
them.

James drew a sharp breath. “All right, but
stay behind the rest of us. I don’t want a stray shot taking you
out.”

“
Don’t worry,” she said,
slipping the jewel back into her ear. “I want to watch when Soner
gets what’s coming to him.”

Chapter 17

“
This way,” said James,
leading his men to the airlock. If they could take out the guards
quietly, perhaps they could run across the freight yard before the
rest of the Nabattan pirates knew what was happening. That was the
most dangerous part: getting across the freight yard. And even if
they made it out, coming back would no doubt be even
harder.

“
Hold,” he whispered,
motioning for the others to stop. The airlock door was closed, and
the video screen on the access panel showed five guards, smoking
and laughing with each other. They didn’t seem to be too concerned,
but the moment the door opened, things were going to happen real
fast. Perhaps if they—

“
Here,” said Sara, walking
nonchalantly up to the door. “Let me create a
diversion.”

James frowned. “A diversion?”

“
Just trust me. Stay far
enough behind that they can’t see you, then strike them when their
backs are turned.”

He nodded. It wasn’t like he had any better
ideas.

She waited until he had stepped behind the
corner again, then palmed the access panel to the main airlock. He
cringed as the door hissed open, while on the other side, the
guards snapped quickly to attention.

“
Hi,” she said, waving
innocently as she stepped through. He noticed a playful bounce in
her step, and a flirtatious tone to her voice. The soldiers soon
lowered their guard and relaxed.

“
Hey there, babe,” said one
of them. “What are you doing out here?”

“
Oh, nothing much,” said
Sara, flicking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Everyone’s so busy
on the ship, getting things ready, and—well, I just wanted to have
some fun first, you know?”

The first soldier grinned, and the others
laughed. With all eyes on her, Sara circled them until their backs
were to the open airlock.

Now’s our chance,
James thought to himself. He motioned for the five
men closest to him to follow as he slipped around the corner,
raising his hammer. He hesitated only a second before running out
the door.

Adrenaline surged through his body as he
brought his hammer down with full force on the nearest Nabattan
soldier. He felt more than heard the impact, the hammer’s blunt end
cracking the skull and making a sickening dent. The man grunted and
collapsed, dark blood gushing through his hair. One of the soldiers
cried out, but by then it was too late.

It was over in an instant. The five men lay
crumpled over on the ground, dead or dying. A couple of James’s men
struck their twitching bodies for good measure, but most of them
stood around as if in shock. James took a deep breath and tried to
force his body to stop shaking.

“
What now?” said Sara.
“Come on, we’ve got to keep moving.”

James blinked and shook his head to clear
his vision. “You two,” he said to the men closest to him. “Drag the
bodies into the airlock—we’ll dispose of them later. The rest of
you, divide the guns among yourselves and come with me.”

The men nodded and quickly busied themselves
with their tasks. James bent down and picked up the gun of the dead
man at his feet: an old Gaian assault rifle that had gone out of
production a couple of standard decades ago, loaded with a full
magazine. After glancing quickly around the cavernous room, he ran
towards the airlock just below the freight yard’s control room,
keeping close to the wall. Sara followed closely behind, along with
his men.

“
What’s the plan?” she
asked.

“
There’s a computer
terminal in that control tower. Since they haven’t spotted us yet,
it means that it’s empty. Once we’re in, we can use the computer to
locate the prisoners.”

“
And release the AI. Good
idea.”

James nodded, though he was less sure of the
plan than she was. Deploying a self-learning artificial
intelligence was one of the most notorious war crimes of the old
regime under the New Gaian Empire. The last weaponized
super-intelligence had poisoned almost half a dozen planetary domes
across three planets in the New Pleiades. Only a coordinated EMP
assault had defeated it.