"All right, children, start loading 'em up!" The triumph in Bisman's voice came through the plasteel bubble helmet. Mirina felt smug, too. Even if they only sold half and kept the rest for running repairs and trade with the Thelerie, those engine parts should bring in enough to keep her fleet in space for another six months, at least.
"Hold it! Drop your weapons!" A commanding voice boomed out of the walls. The raiders looked around. His arms held up from the elbows, Mirina's video-carrier turned slowly to face a squad of guards in dark blue uniforms. At their head was a tall, thin woman with silver hair. Her tunic was trimmed with more silver, including rows of medal flashes. From the confident manner with which she held her long-barreled slugthrower, Mirina guessed that some of the medals were for marksmanship. Some of Bisman's crew began to comply, bending over to set their guns on the ground. The raiders were outnumbered at least two to one. Mirina bit her lip. She dreaded what would surely follow.
"Slowly…" the woman said, in a calm voice. "Slowly. Good. Now, hands above your heads."
"Now!" Bisman shouted. As one, the raiders dropped flat on the floor. The screen went blank. "Fire!" Mirina could tell by the sounds, they were spraying the defenders with energy bolts. Shouts, then screams erupted, followed by the noise of scuffling. Individual cries rose above the noise.
"What's happening?" Zonzalo asked. He had joined his sister to hang over the viewscreen. Mirina felt her blood drain away toward her feet. She swayed a little.
"It's all going wrong," she said, and turned to Glashton. "Shake 'em up. Give Bisman and the others a chance to get out."
The pilot nodded sharply, the muscles in his jaw twitching. He clawed at a series of controls, activating their secret weapon, the Slime Ball. The ship shuddered under their feet as it lit thrusters and pulled against the grapples. Always steering outward, so the return motion wouldn't yank the asteroid into their hull, Glashton zigzagged from one thruster to another.
The effect as seen on the screen was frightening. The raider wearing the camera was now lying on his back. The ceiling shook, and the giant plates seemed to rub against one another. Mirina wondered if they would crack apart and fall.
The crates of parts were vibrating, too, with every thrust of the ship. Inside their padding, the components were undoubtedly safe from impact damage even if they fell over, but if one landed on a human, there was nothing left to do but hold the funeral.
While those in the ship had suffered a temporary loss of visuals, Bisman and his crew had regained their weapons. Between surges, the raiders managed to round up most of the defenders. A few blue-shirts lay, heads a-loll, on the floor; unconscious, Mirina hoped. Bisman and two of the others, kneeling, held the rest at gunpoint while the raiders mounted heavy-loaders and lifted stacks of the valuable crates. The stationmaster made one attempt to protest. Bisman nodded to one of his gunners, who ratcheted her weapon to a higher setting, and with one sweep slagged the metal floor in front of the silver-haired woman. The others gasped as the woman nearly stumbled forward into the red-hot mass. She stopped protesting, her hands in the air, but her eyes flashed hatred at Bisman. The loaders trundled out of the storeroom.
Zonzalo ran to his station to open the cargo bay to receive the coming crates. He cackled to himself over each load as it passed the cameras.
"Thruster modules," he said over his shoulder to the others. "Energy reburner pods! My God, do you know what those are worth? One new fuel tank, two, three-too bad there aren't a few more."
"They'll all put oxygen in the tanks," Mirina said distantly. She was watching Bisman, worrying whether he would make some violent gesture at the end to keep the defenders from following. Glashton spoke over the helmet communication link, letting the raiders know that the violent jerking was over. The ship still swayed lightly from side to side from inertia, but everyone could stand up again.
"Mi- Mirina, do not those boxes belong to the humans of the station-asteroid?"
"They did," Mirina said tersely. "Now they are ours. We need them more. Your people need them to keep your space program running. Those humans would have refused to give them to us. This was the only way." But she had the picture in her mind of the uniformed men and women on the floor. Something about the ragdoll quality of the way they lay shouted at her that they were not unconscious, but dead. Bisman had overdone it again. Instead of a simple snatch and grab, they had more murders on their souls, not to mention their growing rap sheets in the Central Worlds computer bank.
Glashton, responding to a triumphant cry from Zonzalo that the last of the heavy-loaders was on board and the raiding crew with it, sealed airlocks and blasted away. He gave an OK to Mirina, who yanked off her headset and squeezed herself with difficulty between the pilots' couches against the thrust of the engines. Her flesh flattened against her bones, and she shut her eyes.
God, who'd ever have thought I'd come to this? she mused, wriggling her body down farther to avoid somersaulting out into the corridor. Fairhaired child of the corps, ace pilot, partner of… Damn it, stop thinking of him! She turned her concentration to the star tank, drilling the hologram with her gaze. The star, around which the asteroid circled, shrank swiftly until it was another undistinguished dot of light on the scope. Just like all the other stars around which orbited facilities, planets, and ships they'd robbed for goods to keep them going.
"Shall I not go out there some day on a gathering mission?" Sunset asked Mirina, once they were clear of the heliopause.
"No," she said shortly, pulling her attention away from the star tank. "Never. You must be kept safe in the ship."
"But…"
"But nothing," Mirina interrupted him. She leveled a finger at his weird, striped eyes. "You don't understand your place in the schematic. You're the backup we count on in case of emergency. If we lose every system but drives and life support, you can get us home again, even if our navicomp is a slagged ruin. You're the last line of defense we have. I'm not letting you go out there and risk your neck, not when thirty other lives are depending on you."
"Oh." The young Thelerie pulled himself up, looking important and nervous and proud all at the same time. Mirina bit her tongue at having to tell him a lie, since sooner or later he'd meet up with others of his race who had joined the raiding parties after they'd apprenticed on the navigation board. But he was too young now. He'd be a liability to himself and the raiding crew.
"My center is sure," he told her.
"Good," Mirina sighed. "Keep it that way."
Bisman handed his way into the control room. His armored suit, now dusty, bore the black streak of a laser shot that impacted over the sternum and skidded upward toward his left ear. He grinned triumphantly.
"A megacredit run, at least," he crowed.
"Is everyone back on board?" Mirina asked.
"Yeah. Simborne and Mdeng bought it. They're cooling in the cargo bay with the containers."
"How many injured?"
"Not too many," Bisman said, offhandedly. "Fewer than the blue-shirts, that's for sure."
"How many?" Mirina asked, and she knew he knew she wasn't asking for the list of wounded. Bisman pursed his lips and shrugged. "How many?"
"Five? Six or seven at the most."
"What?" she gasped. "What were you doing? Why did there have to be casualties?"
Sunset glanced up, then hurriedly ducked his head behind his wing to avoid the leader's glare. He was shocked at how angry she was.
"But you wanted those parts," Bisman complained. "They wouldn't give them up. What were we supposed to do?"
"That electroshock weapon of yours has more than one setting, doesn't it?" Mirina asked nastily, stepping up to the big male. Bisman retreated a pace out of surprise.