“What made you look here?” Ky asked. Inyatta startled, then looked along the wall at her, wide-eyed.
“Admiral? Uh—Master Sergeant said—” Inyatta’s focus shifted to the firearm pointed at her. “You aren’t—please—”
“Just answer my questions,” Ky said. “Where is the master sergeant?”
“Uh—behind me—and he’s—” Inyatta staggered forward, obviously pushed hard by someone behind her. Marek lunged through the door, swung around and fired at Ky but missed, his first shots ricocheting off the reinforced walls while her first shot took him square in the chest and the second in the head as he slumped. His pistol fell, skittering on the floor still firing until the magazine emptied. One of the ricochets thumped into her back; she felt a flare of heat from her armor. Even as shouts and screams broke out in the passage, it was over.
She was alive, with no more than a bruise; Marek lay in a pool of blood, spattered blood and brain from the head shot beyond; Inyatta was down on the floor a few feet from Marek, also bleeding. The now-familiar surge of triumph faded this time into regret. She had liked Marek. She had wished—even after being sure of his treachery—that she would find some way to spare him that would also save the rest.
Ky glanced aside and did not see Jen. “Jen! Are you all right?” No answer. “Corporal Inyatta?”
“I’m hit,” Inyatta said. “I don’t know—”
Corporal Riyahn burst into the room, wild-eyed and screaming. “You murderer! You killed him!” He scarcely looked at Ky as he stooped over Marek’s body, reaching for Marek’s firearm.
Someone from outside yelled “Stop! No! Don’t!”
“Stand back, or I’ll shoot,” Ky said. Riyahn looked at her; his eyes widened as he took in her weapon pointed at him. His hand pulled back from Marek’s pistol as if he’d had an electric shock.
“No—don’t shoot me!”
Ky walked forward, next to the wall, keeping her weapon trained on him. “Hands on your head. Now!” He stood up, raised his hands. “Walk to the opposite wall. Stay there until I tell you differently. If you do not, I will shoot.” He moved jerkily, slipped on the blood, recovered, kept moving toward the wall.
The voices outside had quieted to soft murmurs Ky could not quite distinguish. They sounded scared, which they would be. All that blood. The smell of blood and death. Familiar to her, by now, but most of them, she knew, had never seen combat.
“Staff Sergeant!” Surely one of the staff sergeants would be with that group, but which? Kurin, she hoped. Kurin knew her best. Silence outside now, a long moment.
“Staff Sergeant Gossin, Admiral, now senior NCO.” Gossin’s voice expressed distrust and resistance.
Gossin had been in the lifeboat with Marek. What stories had he spun for her? “We have at least one injured person, Staff. Find Tech Lundin and send her in.”
“Here, sir. I’m coming in—” Lundin, sounding more composed than Ky expected. But as a medic, perhaps she’d seen accident victims, even murder victims, before.
“Wait! She’s still armed; it’s not safe.” Gossin’s voice.
“Staff, stand down. I’m not going to shoot a medtech. Corporal Inyatta needs her.”
“She’s not going to shoot me,” Lundin said, still calm. “Let go of me.”
“She better not,” Gossin said. “Admiral, I wish to express my disapproval of your illegal behavior.”
Lundin came in and went immediately to Inyatta. She had brought her kit with her.
“We can discuss that later, Staff. Right now, I need two people to take Corporal Riyahn into custody and keep him there until we can sort this out. He attempted to grab Marek’s firearm when he first came in. It’s evidence.”
“Evidence?”
“Yes. No one should touch it, or mine, until they’ve been recorded for any future court.”
“You’re… you would submit to a court?”
“Of course,” Ky said, as if she had never in her life evaded a court procedure. “Now—I suggest Sergeant Cosper, if he’s handy, and anyone else you choose.”
Gossin gave the orders, and Cosper and Barash came in. Ky lowered her weapon; Cosper and Barash took Riyahn out. Ky heard Gossin say, “Take him to the senior NCO quarters; you’ll find restraints in the watch office.”
Ky laid her pistol on the nearer worktable and walked to the door where she could be seen, and see the others. It was possible Marek had armed someone else; she doubted it, but it was a risk she had to take. The greater risk was spooking already-frightened people into attacking her. A ring of frightened faces stared at her, Gossin slightly to the fore. Gossin looked first for the gun that wasn’t there, then at Ky’s face.
“You all have questions,” Ky said, her voice steady. “But right now we have things to do. Staff, I’d like you to come in and witness the scene. Have you ever been part of an investigation before?”
“No, Admiral.” Gossin’s tone was less hostile.
“You will need a recorder, as well. There were some in that room up the passage—”
“I’ll get one,” Betange said, and set off without further orders.
“Where’s your weapon?” Gossin said. “Do you have a second one—?”
“My pistol’s on one of the worktables; no one should touch it until it’s been examined.” Ky looked past Gossin at the others. “Anyone else have experience with an investigation?”
A soft chorus of nos and head shakes. Betange returned with a recorder. “I know this model, sir.”
“Then he’s your recorder, Staff. Come on in and let’s get started.”
Ky could feel Gossin’s reluctance, but Gossin followed her into the armory and looked around, her face stiff. “Who shot first?” she asked.
“Master Sergeant Marek. Staff, I’m going to move to where I was standing when Marek came in, so you can get an idea what happened. Were you with the group when he came in?” Ky walked back and turned around to face Gossin and Betange.
“No…”
“Sir! There are holes in your jacket!” Betange pointed.
“Probably from ricochets. I was facing this way and felt something hit me in the back.”
“But—you’re wounded.”
“No, I’m wearing personal armor,” Ky said. “I always do. And you, Betange, need to record the position of every person and item in the room, as well as what the staff sergeant and I say. It’s very important.” He nodded and pointed the vid attachment at Marek’s body, then his weapon, then at Inyatta and Lundin kneeling beside her, and finally at Ky. He had paled, but his hands were steady on the vid.
Gossin looked around again, this time with a more thoughtful expression. “I heard the first shots as I was maybe ten meters down the passage, coming this way,” she said. “There were six or seven people nearer; I couldn’t see exactly what he did. And he had just come in the door when he fired?”
“He had Inyatta look in first, probably because she’d show which part of the room I was in. Then he pushed her in, came through the door, and pivoted. I was not sure he had a firearm until I saw it; I made sure he was a lethal threat before I fired.”
“And he missed you?”
“Yes. Probably his arm was still moving when he pulled the trigger. He had it locked on full auto; he dropped it after I shot him and it went on firing from the floor, recoil moving it. That’s why it’s as far from him as it is.”
“Why did you shoot Inyatta?”
“I didn’t.” Ky kept her voice level, informational. “I fired two shots at Marek; both hit, chest and head. Inyatta was hit by a round from Marek’s dropped weapon.”