“Can’t a girl keep any secrets,” Abby sniffed, pulling up her top to restrict the view to a more matronly amount of skin.
“Folks, I got a ship here,” Captain Drago said, “that’s just drifting in space. From the way the air circulation has kicked into higher gear, I suspect a lot of the crew doesn’t yet have their space legs, and more of our fine lunch is being wasted. Could we have a decision here?”
“What’s the closest jump point?” Kris asked.
“Alpha,” the captain answered. “The one with the thin trail that seems to mean that our bogey just managed to get out of here ahead of us. It wouldn’t have if I hadn’t slowed the Wasp down. I’m not sure that means anything.”
“Anyone who read any kind of file on you, Princess,” Commander Fervenspiel said, “would know that Captain Drago was hired to add a bit of caution to your inclination to go headlong into your next challenge.”
“Damn, so you guys have a file on me, too,” Captain Drago said. “That will teach a shy, retiring soul like me to get too close to one of those damn Longknifes.”
The Greenfeld commander struggled to swallow a bad case of the guffaws and succeeded.
Kris shrugged. “Let’s say there’s an equal chance that the ship headed for either jump. You say Alpha is closest.”
“Yes,” said the captain.
“So we could head over to Alpha, and if it was the wrong one, we’d have a quicker trip to Beta.”
“Yes, Your Highness, but you should realize, this jump and the two others really form an equidistant triangle. There’s really not that much to choose from.”
“So I’ll choose, and let the consequences be on my head. Go for Alpha.” Heavens knew, Kris had made enough decisions and suffered through the consequences. It really didn’t seem to matter whether she made the right decision or the wrong one, the consequences were just as often lousy as they were good.
“Would you mind turning down the lights?” Kris asked her crew. “If I’m going to suffer the consequences of whatever I just decided, I’d rather do it after a nap. Wake-up call was way too early this morning.”
“We’ll all be back here thirty minutes before we get to Jump Point Alpha,” Jack assured her.
“You do that.”
Kris was none too sure she could actually sleep. She kept seeing Cara in the hands of people who seriously didn’t deserve to have their hands on a little kid. Still, there was little Kris could do about that just now, and she didn’t want to have everyone fussing over her while they all waited out whatever would happen next.
To Kris’s surprise, she did fall asleep.
Cara didn’t know whether to be glad or scared when the elevator door in the central spindle swung open, and a bare-foot sailor pushed two buckets out along with a small crate. He looked around the room, then put on an ugly smile and headed for Cara and the young sailor cuffed with her.
“You two won’t cause me any trouble,” he said smiling through missing or yellowed teeth. He stank like no one Cara had ever met, even in Five Corners.
Anyone smelling that bad, the gangs would have thrown in the open sewer.
The sailor pointed something at Cara’s cuff and it clinked open. Then he did the same to the one on the young woman.
“You two,” the sailor ordered. “There’s water in those buckets. See that everyone gets a cup. One cup. No more. No less. Don’t you get too close to any of these big guys, you see. If they get their hands on you, don’t expect me to risk my neck saving yours.”
He turned to take in the rest of the room. “You got two buckets of water. You spill them, you go thirsty. Be nice to these girls. I plan to,” he said with an ugly chuckle.
“Hand around the water. Then see that everyone gets one ration bar. One and only one, you hear.”
Cara nodded. So did the woman.
“You be nice to me,” the sailor said, leering at the woman, “and I could arrange a nice meal for you.”
“If I get my hands on you,” began the sailor who had been holding the girl.
“But you can’t, and you won’t, so shut up,” the sailor spat.
“What do we do about the bathroom?” Cara asked.
“You got a bucket, don’t you?”
“But it’s got water in it,” Cara said.
“Now it does. Give everybody a drink, and it won’t.”
“But here, with everyone looking,” Cara said, incredulously.
“I don’t see a problem, little girl. Where you’re going, you’ll do a lot of stuff out with everyone looking . . . and you’ll be glad to do it. If you ain’t, you’ll be real sad,” he said, and turned back to the elevator.
Cara waited until the elevator had closed on him. Then she turned to the free woman. “You start with your boyfriend,” she said. “I’ll go the other way.”
Cara hated the pirate. Hated him and everything he said. Still, she was careful with the water. She stood well out of reach, making both the men and woman stretch out the chains on their cuffs before she put the full water cup in reach.
Some of the people said kind words to her, showed they understood her fear and caution. A few of the men and even two women cussed her out and threw the empty cup at her when she refused to refill it for them.
Cara said only kind words for all, but in her mind she was remembering some of the lessons she’d learned in Five Corners, lessons that had surprised even Uncle Bruce. She was also remembering the moves that he’d shown her. Moves that built on and refined the ones she’d learned on the streets.
She could use them if she had to.
She knew how to kill if she had no other choice.
Still, she hoped Uncle Bruce and Captain Jack and the rest of his Marines would come before anything really bad happened. She’d seen the shadows in Auntie Kris’s eyes when people talked of some of the things she’d done.
People died at the princess’s orders.
Cara was pretty sure she could kill if she had to. That didn’t mean she wanted to.
“Hurry up, Aunt Abby. Hurry up.”
30
Kris woke well before Jack came to wake her. She’d read a story about what happened before Grampa Trouble and Gramma Ruth were married. They’d been captured by slavers.
Twice.
Gramma Ruth said she never claimed her husband was smart. She did say she’d trust him with her life. Apparently, among those scumbags, Grampa Trouble had earned Gramma’s respect.
Anyway, Kris had read the story when she was a kid. It had sounded exciting and romantic. Later, in college, she’d come across a mature-rated media version of the same experience. She’d watched half of it before she turned it off. Maybe her great-grandparents had gone through something like that. Still, watching people you shared flesh and blood with suffer through brutal captivity . . .
It wasn’t something Kris Longknife wanted to watch.
It also wasn’t something she wanted a twelve-year-old girl to live through.
Better to stay awake and not dream.
“Stand by for zero gravity,” the M1C announced to all hands.
“We going to send through a jump buoy first?” Kris asked the bridge watch.
“Yes,” Captain Drago answered. “But one that squawks very weakly that a ship will be coming through in a minute. Any ship nearby will get our message. No need to blast it all over the system.”
It had only happened once, that two ships had tried to share the same jump point at the same time. Once had been enough. Within the realm of human space, a network of buoys marked each jump. Before any ship jumped, a buoy went through to announce it was coming. As a scout ship, the Wasp carried a load of buoys to expand that network.
A small object launched out from the Wasp. Without slowing down, it boosted straight for the small bit of twisted and twisting space that was the jump point. Without halting, it went right through.