Torin laid her palm against the sensor pad. "You and me and Big Bill."
His eyes darkened and his hair stilled. "That's not…"
"We were heading in anyway, might as well make it a party."
"Heading in? No one goes in to see Big Bill without an invitation."
"Got one."
He shook his head and laughed. "Oh, trin, you forget I'd know if you…"
The lock disengaged with an audible clang, probably for effect. The hatch swung open.
"Let's go." Torin stepped past him, over the lip. When only Alamber remained in the first section, she paused, and turned toward him. "Well?"
"Strange, but it seems I just don't want to share you. So…" He spread both hands. "… I'll pass."
Torin had spent enough time with new second lieutenants to know when a confident smile was a fake. To recognize when bravado twisted the curve and softened the edges. And fuk, the kid was young. What the hell was he doing here? "I won't mention this to Big Bill."
"You don't share either. All right." This smile was the real thing. The fingernails on the hand he waved had been painted black. "When you realize I'm the best thing that could happen to you, you can find me in Communications. No surveillance on the surveillance; sets up a feedback loop. You can do what you want with me, trin. Go crazy wild."
As the hatches slammed shut, Torin sighed and said, "Don't push it, kid."
"At least he only wants to get into your pants," Mashona pointed out as they moved toward the only open hatch in the corridor. "Whole lot simpler than Darlys wanting to deify you."
Torin snorted. It was a nice change.
The open hatch led into a large outer room dominated by a wall of vid screens all playing a news feed, and the Grr brothers sitting together on a heavy, black leather sofa.
As she stepped over the threshold, one of them looked up, eyes swollen nearly shut over visibly bruised nose ridges. His lip curled as Werst, Ressk, and Mashona followed her into the room. "Boss wants your people to wait here." He nodded toward an inner door. "You go on in."
"They're watching you, Gunny," Ressk said quietly.
"Yeah. I noticed." All of the screens were playing one of Presit's reports. Torin shifted so the camera she wore could catch it. It never hurt to stroke Presit's ego. "Don't let them provoke you into a fight." This mostly to Werst. "You take the first swing, and it doesn't matter if I ate their souls on toast. It's on."
"How do you know so much about a freak cult most Krai have never heard of?" Werst demanded, curling his toes under and cracking the joints.
"I used to be a gunnery sergeant." Torin squared her shoulders and headed toward the inner door. "And I still know everything." The walk back to the storage pod became extended torture. Every time the heel of his left foot hit the deck, the impact sent a jolt of pain up his leg. By the time Craig got to the air lock, the muscles of his back had knotted. By the time he got to the pod, every other muscle on his body had knotted; his back had moved on to spasms.
Nadayki had gone to his knees in front of the seal, his eyes now at the same level as the tiny screen. He shuffled around when Craig lifted his injured foot over the hatch lip, the muscles of his other leg trembling with the effort.
The slow sweep of Nadayki's hair stopped. When it started moving again, it flipped around his ears in short choppy arcs. "I'm not sorry. It was your own fault. You shouldn't have been fukking around."
Somehow Craig managed to get enough air into his lungs to snort. "Yeah. So I've heard." Sweat dribbled down his sides. His skin was cold and clammy under the overalls. "And I heard you say… you don't need my help… anymore. So I'm just going to park my ass over here… and put my foot up like the doctor ordered." Everything from his left hip down throbbed and burned. He didn't so much sit as collapse to the deck. It still stank a bit of chunder, but that was a minor inconvenience compared to being horizontal.
When he finally turned his head toward the armory, Nadayki was staring at him, eyes dark.
"What?"
Nadayki's eyes lightened. "Nothing. This coding is complete crap. Don't get comfortable because I'll be through any minute now."
"Great."
"Asshole!"
"You had your chance, kid."
"That's not what I… Fine. Whatever." Eyes narrowed to lime-green slits, he jerked back around to face the lock.
Craig made himself as comfortable as he could and, if he hadn't thought it would hurt like fuk, he'd have smiled. Were he a betting man, and he was, he'd bet the kid wasn't getting through that last layer any time soon. Having refused the chair, Torin stared across the desk at Big Bill-directly at him, not at a point just over his shoulder, he was no officer of hers-and wondered if she'd heard him correctly. "You want me, us, to train… pirates?"
He raised a hand. His palm was pink and, as far as Torin could see, completely free of calluses. "I prefer the term free merchants."
"Fine. You want us to train free merchants to fight? As a unit?"
"Yes. We'll start by training the crews who frequent this station, but once word gets out, I expect our numbers will grow." Head cocked, he studied her face. Fortunately, Torin had long since learned to keep her opinions of even more asinine plans to herself. After a moment, he sighed, and shuffled a pile of paper around without actually moving it anywhere. Torin had never seen paper piled on a desk before. How did he access his screens? "Things are going to hell in a hand-cart, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr," he said at last. "You should know, you pushed the cart off the cliff. You and your discovery of the gray plastic aliens. I've been watching you, you know, and during the short time you've been in this room, you've managed to touch most of the visible plastic."
Torin curled her fingers in toward her palms.
"You're looking for them." Big Bill picked up a plastic stylus, spun it at eye level, then put it back down. "You know they're still around. You know they're still fukking with us. And you ask why I want you to train these people? I should think it would be obvious. We're going to take what's rightfully ours. What the gray plastic aliens have taken from us when they involved us in this war."
Had she been here for any reason other than to get to Craig, she'd have asked him what the hell he thought had been taken from him. She could almost hear Presit demanding an answer from Big Bill's image on the monitor. As it was, she didn't give a flying fuk. All she wanted to do was move this conversation as quickly as possible toward Big Bill giving her an all points access pass. "Why me? You have muscle."
"Muscle. Exactly. Ignoring for the moment that their present job keeps them surprisingly busy, the Grr brothers have a reputation with the people who use this station that would ensure compliance but little actual learning. Your reputation, on the other hand…" He leaned toward her. "You brought the Silsviss into the Confederation. You fought the enemy to a standstill in the depths of the Big Yellow ship. You escaped from an inescapable prison. You're someone people listen to, aren't you? You can turn the free merchants into a force that a government who lies to us over and over and over will have to take notice of."
It was almost funny-in a bitterly painful way-that the salvage operators and the free merchants wanted the same thing. To have the free merchants noticed by the government. Sure, the salvage operators wanted them noticed by a battle cruiser, and who the fuk knew what kind of notice Big Bill had in mind, but still the similarities were hysterical. Interestingly, Torin could feel hysteria beckoning. "What will this force be armed with?" she asked, her reaction safely locked behind the gunnery sergeant. "Harsh language?"
Big Bill's chair creaked a protest as he leaned back and steepled his fingers. "I just happen to know where I can gain access to a Marine Corps armory. Still sealed. Contents intact."
Torin heard a nearly audible click as the last piece fell into place. Jan and Sirin had scooped an armory up out of their debris field, and everything else made perfect sense.