Lovely. Craig shifted, trying to ease the burn in his left leg. "Why would you crew under someone who'd allow that?"
"Are you kidding?" Fingers paused on his slate, Nadayki grinned down at him. "That's hardcore. No one fuks with the captain."
What kind of upbringing did the kid have, Craig wondered, that he was impressed by casual cruelty? Looked like the Taykan were just as capable of fukking up their kids as every other species in known space. "Seems to me," he said, grabbing his thigh and shifting his leg, "that it's more like no one fuks with Doc."
Nadayki shook his head, hair flipping in counterpoint. "Yeah, but Doc signed on with Captain Cho, so…"
Craig missed the rest. He could see Nadayki's mouth moving, so the kid was still talking, but all he could hear was the ping of his implant coming on-line.
Torin.
Had to be Torin.
She was close. She'd found him.
He couldn't answer, not with Nadayki staring right at him, eyes dark, as he laid out all the reasons he admired a thief and murderer. His hands were shaking, so he dug his fingers into the leg of his overalls and hung on. Hung on so tightly to the bunched fabric that his knuckles were white.
He couldn't answer, but he could listen.
His throat was dry. He swallowed. Waited.
Except Torin never spoke.
Just the ping.
One small noise
One small noise that could have been caused by the damage the tasik had done. A random firing of neurons that just happened to sound like an implant coming on-line. A familiar noise created by hope and applied current.
"… and when I get this thing open-because I fukking will…" Nadayki half turned and slapped the side the of the weapons locker. "… the captain will lead us as we take back what's rightfully ours!"
"What's rightfully yours?" Craig repeated when the pause seemed to indicate he was expected to respond. "What's been taken from you?"
"The universe! I am meant for more than this crap," Nadayki continued, arms and hair spread. "I'm smarter than all of those tregradiates who said my attitude wasn't right for their academy, and the captain'll help me prove it. They're going to pay!"
"Yeah, okay." Craig smoothed down the two handfuls of crumpled overall. "How old are you, kid?"
"Stop calling me kid! And I'm old enough to know who has the power and that's more than you can say."
"You have a…"
A hatch clanged in the distance. Too far away to be at the ship, so it had to be the point where the ore docks joined the station.
Nadayki's ear points swiveled toward the sound, his hair following the movement. "Sounds like two pairs of boots."
"Probably people in them, too," Craig grunted, shifting around so his back was against the wall and a corner of the armory stood as bulwark between him and the storage pod's open hatch.
"Captain's on board, so it's got to be Big Bill. He's the only one allowed down here."
"Big Bill? You're bullshitting me, right?"
"What? No. It's what they call him." He fumbled with his slate. "I need to tell the cap… Ablin gon savit! Lost the last fukking screen. Good thing I can… Captain? Big Bill's on the dock."
Craig couldn't quite catch the captain's answer. It was just another layer of sound.
"Yeah, but… I know, but… Yes. Okay, I will." Forefingers and thumbs tapping on the screen, Nadayki kept his eyes locked on his slate as he said, "Captain's on his way."
"Joy." Craig let his head fall back against the bulkhead. He could hear a man's voice, a deep burr of monologue growing louder and ending in a question eliciting a monosyllabic answer from his companion.
He knew that grunt.
He knew the tone and the timbre.
He knew the feel of the lips and the taste of the mouth.
Torin.
Torin.
Torin.
It hurt to breathe.
Torin had never seen the docking bay of an ore processing facility, but she assumed they were all much the same. Large enough for loading and unloading ore carriers and probably a lot more interesting when they hadn't been left unused for years. These ore docks weren't that large, the ore wasn't stored but passed through to the smelters while supplies went the other way onto the ships, but it was empty enough that their footsteps all but echoed.
She'd just spotted the air lock where the Heart was docked-visible lights were green-when Big Bill pointed toward an open hatch.
"I've had the armory moved into that pod. Originally designed for storing explosives until they were needed dirtside, it's the best place to both control access and minimize damage to the station. If it blows, any force the pod can't contain will be blown out along fault lines here and here." His gesture followed shadows that moved out to the outer hull. "Depressurizing this part of the station and possibly damaging any ship at the lock, but it's an allowable risk given the payoff, don't you agree?"
Torin made a noncommittal noise. The hatch on the pod needed to be closed in order for it to contain anything, but since she'd be perfectly happy watching this station broken up into its component parts and everyone on it sucking vacuum, it seemed hypocritical to point out the problem.
When she picked up the pace, he said, "Must be strange going unarmed after all that time in the Corps. Bet you can't wait to get your hands on a weapon."
He thought he knew her, and she could use that. Was using that to hide the truth. If I didn't need you to get to Craig, I'd kill you with my bare hands wouldn't get her far. When they reached the open hatch, Big Bill waved her on ahead.
Torin stepped over the lip into the pod and froze.
It was one thing to be told that Cho, and by extension Big Bill, had a sealed armory. It was another thing entirely to stand in front of it. A sealed armory meant people she wouldn't trust as far as she could spit a H'san were in possession of enough firepower to do significant damage. The kind of death and destruction she'd spent her adult life trying to prevent, the only difference being the Primacy's forces had been made up of soldiers, just like her, not amoral assholes
Torin ignored the green-haired di'Taykan and stepped closer. She couldn't walk away from this. She had to…
Craig.
He was sitting on the floor, wearing a pair of ugly navy blue overalls, his eyes bloodshot and darkly shadowed, his lips chapped, his face bruised, his hair looking like it hadn't been brushed in days.
Alive.
His lips were pressed together, and he was breathing fast and shallow.
Torin had seen enough pain over the years to recognize it now.
He was in pain.
But alive.
He didn't seem surprised to see her.
There wasn't enough air in the pod.
Torin locked her leg muscles and braced one hand against the armory to keep from throwing herself into Craig's arms. Both Big Bill and the di'Taykan were behind her by the hatch. There were footsteps approaching.
There were a thousand things she wanted to say in the seconds she had. Craig would know that whatever it looked like, she was there to get him out. He'd know she couldn't just leave the armory. He had to be told the implants were tapped before he tried to contact her. He'd know they were live, he must've heard the ping.
So out of all the thousand things she wanted to say, she mouthed, Implant tapped.
He swallowed, she watched his Adam's apple rise and fall. He nodded; a small, careful movement.
And that was all the time they had.
"Captain Cho, excellent timing." Big Bill was smiling his Krai smile, Torin could hear it in his voice. "I hope there's been some progress made."
Captain Cho.
Captain of the Heart of Stone.
The captain who'd given the order to take Craig.
Torin began to turn. Paused. Craig wore a standard soft-soled boot on his right foot, but his left was bare of everything but a bandage folded over…