Trading in Danger (26 page)

“Yeah, I know. Do your best—and I know you already are.” Ky signed off, yawning. She’d had little enough sleep herself, in the past several days, and now she would get less. She should take a nap now, because whatever the other captains thought they would do, they probably wouldn’t do it yet… she hoped.

That nap turned into several hours of deep sleep, from which she awoke to a faint vibration… the insystem drive. She surged out of her bed, yanking on her uniform, even as the alarm sounded in her cabin.

“Captain!”

“I’m awake—coming—” In the passage, Li and Garlan, both looking scared, stared at her. “Get Hospedin,” Ky snapped. “Drive’s on. I want it off.”

On the bridge, Riel and Sheryl were busy at their boards. “Drive just came on, Captain,” Riel said over his shoulder. “Full boost. I can’t get it off.”

“And I can’t get anywhere with the nav board,” Sheryl said.

“I told Li to get Hospedin,” Ky said. “He’s a drives man; maybe he can get it off.”

“What do you think—”

“They got control somehow,” Ky said. “Got into the ship’s systems—probably one of the places Gary and Quincy were worried about.” And if they had control of the drives and navigation controls, they also could unlock the cargo holds… they could be anywhere on the ship. She flicked on the monitors that should show the holds. One was blank, not even flickering; the other showed a hold mostly empty, with a clot of bodies crowding the hatch to the maintenance passage.

“Mehar,” Ky said into the intercom. “To the bridge on the double. Bring the stuff. Off-duty crew, to the bridge.” How had she been stupid enough not to keep one of the pistol bows in her cabin? Was it the injury or something else, that she kept missing things?

“Here, Captain…” Mehar, breathless, held out the bow Ky had practiced with and kept the other. Ky looked; Mehar had already loaded the magazine with the broadpoints.

“They’re in the maintenance passage,” Ky said. “I can’t see anything in the monitor for number two. But they’ve got the hatch open from number one. I’m sure they’re headed for the bridge… Ah, Quincy. There’s not much chance—” Any, actually, but it was worth trying. “—that we can reach the mercenaries now, but send a message—let someone know we’ve got a problem. Everyone else, defend the bridge. They can’t come at you all at once.”

She had to go. She had to get down the passage before they got to the branch, where they could split up and come at her from more than one direction. “Garlan, Beeah—come with Mehar and me.” Down past the galley, locking the galley hatch after Garlan and Beeah had acquired cutlery, closing and locking the rec area’s secondary hatch.

She heard them before she saw them, thanks to the curvature of the passage. Shuffling feet, muttering voices. Her heart pounded; she could feel the surge of excitement through her body as she had before hand-to-hand competitions at the Academy.

And there they were. Five meters away, maybe four… she expected Kristoffson, and he was there… behind Paison and Paison’s mate, who had a prisoner… a hostage.

Gary Tobai, his arms twisted behind him, the mate’s arm around Gary’s neck with a small but wicked knife laid to it.

Surprise stopped her so fast that Garlan bumped into her from behind.
Paison?
He grinned at her surprise, clearly delighted.

“It’s time to let more experienced officers take over,” he said in the same pleasant baritone, reasonable and smooth as chocolate custard.

“You…” Ky heard herself say. She clamped her jaw once more.

He shook his head. “You’re too young, my dear. Too easy… Jake and I knew exactly how to handle you. He can’t do fatherly…” Kristoffson grumbled something, and Paison shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. We have control of the drives, of the navigation settings, your communications…”

She was aware of everything… the shine of their eyeballs, the sound of their breathing, the slight increased warmth from so many bodies jammed so close into the passage, the smell of their excitement. Paison, Paison’s mate, Kristoffson… not the other captains… no, there was Opunts, toward the back, looking just as expressionless as ever. Her gaze came back to those in front, and for the first time she met Gary Tobai’s eyes… gray, slightly faded… his expression strained. His mouth moved…

“Let him go,” Ky said.

“Hand us your captain’s wands,” Paison said. “Then we’ll see. You’re just bluffing—you don’t have the experience to handle this.”

Paison’s mate had Gary for a shield. Paison’s mate had a knife to Gary’s throat, Gary’s own little black folding knife.

Back at the Academy, they’d all seen the famous list of standard things not to do in a crisis, taken from entertainment vids in which the plot depended on both hero and villain doing something stupid. Going out alone in the dark on a sudden hunch… walking into the dark alley instead of waiting for backup… dropping his weapon because his sidekick/sweetheart/child/parent was held by the bad guys who threatened the death of the hostage.

It had seemed so obvious then, when “sucks to be you” meant the screen death of an actor, the death of a character in a book. So obvious that the sidekick who said “Go on!” or “Run!” or “Never mind me!” was also a hero, and the Hero with the capital H should acknowledge that and blow the bad guys away even if his friend/lover/child/parent died. Not waste the sacrifice.

It was a lot less obvious when the face staring into hers was one she’d known for years, and very well since the start of this voyage. The man who was supposed to be taking care of her, the man she respected and… yes… loved. She had the pistol bow, yes, but… she wasn’t a storycube hero, she wasn’t even a soldier. She was just…

“Don’t do it, Ky,” Gary said. “Don’t let them get the ship—” The mate’s arm tightened; she could see Gary struggling for breath.

“Oh, my soul,” Paison said, “what thriller do you think you’re playing in, old man?” He rolled his eyes.

Ky pulled the trigger at that instant of inattention; the saw-edged bolt buried itself in his throat. Paison jerked in reaction, then slumped; a burst of glee hot as lightning shot through her head. She saw the mate’s arm move, a red spurt from Gary’s neck. She yanked the cocking lever as the next bolt came up, frantic to get a shot off, to save Gary. The mate lunged; her shot missed his face; her next bounced off his chest as he dropped Gary and rushed her, knife extended. Ky twisted, recocked and shot again, at an awkward angle… he was only an arm’s reach away. The broadpoint sliced his throat from side to side, and bloody air whooshed out, spraying her. He slumped into the bulkhead, twitching. Ky pulled the cocking lever again. Only two bolts left…

“Don’t move!” Ky yelled at the rest of the mutineers, and indeed they seemed frozen, eyes wide and mouths open in shock. Paison was dead or dying; she didn’t care about that, but Gary… his blood ran over the deck; the smell turned her stomach.

“You murderer!” Kristoffson found his voice. “Come on, all of you—get her!” He stepped forward, fists clenched. Ky pulled the trigger as she heard a twang of another string from behind her; her bolt and Mehar’s both caught Kristoffson, one in the neck and one in the chest. He coughed blood and collapsed, gargling. Again that jolt of glee.

“Put your hands on your heads,” Ky said. To her own surprise, her voice didn’t tremble; it sounded flat and menacing to her own ears. Slowly the others moved to obey. “Sit down where you are, and don’t move.” They sat. They looked frightened; she could sense that the urge to rush her had vanished.

“Aren’t you going to do something for them?” someone asked from near the back.

“They’re dead,” Ky said. She was sure Paison was, less sure of the others, but without advanced trauma care they would certainly die. “You are alive, and you will stay that way if you do exactly what you’re told. Mehar—”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Cover them.” Mehar had her own bow; Ky reloaded and handed the bow back; someone took it from her hand. She moved forward, hoping against hope that Gary Tobai had survived. He lay mostly on his back, on top of Paison, his neck twisted and blood flowing from under it.

Under her hand, his pulse wavered; he was breathing, but barely. She had no idea what to do. “Gary… can you hear me?”

His eyelids fluttered, his gray lips twitched: no more.

“Is he alive?” asked one of the mutineers. “I was a medic—”

“You!” Ky glared at him. “You’re the reason he’s dying.”

“But maybe we can save him—”

“As if I’d trust you.” But who else did she have? Nobody who really knew trauma care at this level. She didn’t even know a safe way to move him to the medbox. She glared at the man again, savagely pleased that he paled a little. “All right. You come here—no one else move.”

“Sandoval,
Empress Rose,
chief steward,” the man said, scrambling forward on hands and knees. “All stewards have basic first-response skills; chief stewards are all certified in advanced precare. Let me—” His hand reached out, checked Gary’s pulse, his fingers next to Ky’s. He shook his head. “I don’t think—” He turned Gary’s head slightly, exposing a gaping wound. Even as they watched, the flow of blood slackened; under Ky’s fingers, the pulse stilled. A last feeble movement of air warmed Ky’s hand.

“He’s gone,” Ky said. The steward nodded.

“I’m sorry. Without a trauma team, even a medbox can’t help.”

A vast, empty space opened in Ky’s head; she had never seen someone she knew die before; she had no way to identify what she felt, only that it was completely different from what she felt about Paison and his mate.

And she had no time. “Get back with the others,” she said to the steward. She would deal with her feelings later. Now she had a ship to save. She pushed herself to her feet.

With Paison, his mate, and Kristoffson dead, the others seemed meeker. Ky didn’t trust that; she wasn’t in the mood to trust anyone about anything. But she didn’t have dozens of separate cells to isolate them in, or the means to create such, or the crew to take care of the prisoners’ basic needs. What threat would prevent another attempt to take over her ship?

Decompression would. The fact that it would certainly kill the innocent as well as the guilty didn’t bother her at the moment.

“Here’s the situation,” Ky began, rocking from heel to toe in front of the assembled passengers. “None of us asked for this; it was forced on all of us. We should have been allies. You chose instead to consider me and my crew as your enemies; those of you who didn’t back this mutiny at least did nothing to stop it. In the process you killed a dear friend of mine. A man who had worked hard to convert the cargo holds into something more comfortable for you.” She paused, and they said nothing. Wise of them.

“I don’t trust you anymore,” Ky said. “Under the law, we’re in deep- space and you know what that means. I’m the captain and you tried to mutiny. I could kill you all and though your employers might grumble, they know they wouldn’t have a case in court.”

“They said it’d be easy.” That was a stocky man in the front row. One of the
Empress Rose
crew again.

“Oh, really?” That was all Ky could think of to say.

“Yes.” The man glanced back over his shoulder then looked again at her. “Said we outnumbered the crew, and the only hope of survival was to take over from you, ’cause you were too young and inexperienced and just sitting out here with the drive off nobody’d ever find us again. We’d end up starving and you were too stupid to know it and too scared of the mercs to do anything even if you did know.”

“And you believed that,” Ky said.

“Well… yes. There’s more of us. You’d be scared, he said.”

Ky bit down on her temper. “And what do you think now?”

“Didn’t work, did it? You just killed ’em in cold blood.”

“Not cold blood,” Ky said. “Paison and the rest of you were attacking me, my crew, my ship. But yes, I killed them, and I will kill anyone who tries the same thing again. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” he said, and heads nodded.

“Good,” Ky said. “Keep believing it, because the first time you act like you don’t, I’ll space the lot of you. I intend to keep my crew, my ship, and myself alive and if that takes killing all of you, I won’t hesitate.”

Some looked scared; some looked glum; none looked defiant.

“Now—keeping your hands on your heads, back on your feet, and walk, do not run, back to the cargo compartments. When you get there, you will sit down in rows facing the bulkheads.” They had to be able to search those compartments, undo whatever taps the mutineers had put into the ship’s own system. She turned to her crew. “Beeah, you, Mehar, Hospedin, and Ted take them there. I’m going to get someone to clean up this mess—” She pointed at the bodies.

She stood there as the crowd shuffled away, as Mehar, Beeah, and the others stepped carefully past and herded the mutineers back to their space. Her knees sagged; she couldn’t even lean on the bulkheads, spattered as they were with blood still wet, and the smell… She staggered back up the passage and made it as far as the galley before she threw up.
Killer
. She felt shamed and sick and horribly excited all at once.

“Ky?” That was Quincy. “What’s happened—I can’t find Gary—”

“Gary’s—” Ky bent over the sink again, trying to rid herself of the guilt.

“Is he hurt?”

“He’s dead, Quincy.” Ky gulped a mouthful of water, washed her mouth out. “They had him—” Her vision blurred, and she braced herself against the counter. “Sorry… we have organic debris… need to get it cleaned up. Don’t send Alene.” Bad enough for the rest of them, but Alene worked with Gary—had worked with Gary—every day.

“I’ll… get to work,” Quincy said.

Ky washed her face and looked down at her uniform. Blood, some still glistening. She could feel it drying on her face. She would have to change. She had work to do… she had a ship to run. She had no time to spend on sorting out feelings.

As if from a distance, she heard MacRobert’s voice, back when she was a cadet. “Just do it.”

All right. She straightened, shook her head, pushed her hair back. Just do it. No excuses, no apologies… she went back out to the passage where the stench met her before she came in sight of the mess. Two of the crew, Lee and Seth, were standing with buckets and mops, looking sick. The bodies hadn’t been moved.