Commander Amieta Invelen strode into the Captain's quarters without knocking - not a privilege enjoyed by anyone else on the crew. Strictly speaking, not one the XO should have either. Just one of the ways we've been sloppy, Amieta thought. And the Cluster hasn't fallen on our heads, has it?
Silver was at a work bench - real wood, of course - very carefully teasing apart the pages of a book that had clearly seen better days. Better centuries, even.
Probably another accounting ledger or a manual on second dynasty sewage treatment. Just so long as it's old. Amieta rolled her eyes and cleared her throat, and Silver looked up from the book with a barely perceptible start, and then a barely perceptible smile. "Ami."
Amieta closed the door behind her. One more habit we should never have gotten in to. Still, the carelessness they'd both slipped into worked in her favor now. "Silver, we should talk."
His gaze sharpened. "Is something - "
"No," she said quickly. "Nothing's wrong. It's - I'll make us some tea, okay?"
By the time the tea was ready, Silver had carefully stored away the guide to animal husbandry or whatever it was. Amieta poured for them both as he took a seat across the low table from her.
He took his tea, "We don't do this often enough, anymore."
"You're probably right." Ami shrugged, "A lot's changed. That's what I wanted to talk with you about."
Silver sipped his tea and waited. Politely. As usual. Used to infuriate me. Still does, sometimes. It's better, for this though. Better to be able to say what I need to say.
"Cia's ... she's not doing so well, right now. And how things are, between us ... she needs to be able to tell Dr Akell about what's happened. All of what's happened."
Silver frowned slightly, and Amieta hurried on before he could speak, "I know, I know what you're thinking. I think the security issue is pretty much gone, now. I don't think keeping things secret makes any of us any safer. It was you and me for a long time, and I know you just wanted to make sure I was safe. Make sure they couldn't use me against you. But there have been rumors, among the crew, for a long time. Anyone who wants to buy a few drinks for any of the crew on leave can find out that we've been a bit closer than employee and employer."
Silver set his cup down. "Ami ..."
Amieta interrupted him, "As for Cia, well. She's high profile all by herself, now. Not the wet behind the ears pilot she was when you first met her. If anything, more people knowing what's between you and her might make her safer. Knowing it's not just that you're good friends and that they'd be in for a pain shit-storm if they touched her. It might even keep you safer too. I mean, she's a director now." Amieta snorted, "She's probably scarier than you, to some people. Anyway, we can start slow. Just let Hiri - Dr Akell - know, to begin with. We're fucked anyway, if we can't trust her."
Silver finally managed to get a few words in, "If you're sure. Ami, you know it was always about safety. You, Cia, Camille ... It's-"
"-dangerous being close to a podder." Amieta finished for him, The more some things change, the more they stay the same, "I know. But Cia's a target whether you are in the picture or not. So is Camille, because she's Cia's sister. Also whether you're in the picture or not. And Silver, with the twins coming ... a lot of things are about to change."
He nodded, with the faintest trace of a smile. "Unexpectedly. Not unwelcome, of course. But ..."
"I know. How do you think I feel?" Amieta asked. "I feel responsible, you know. You two would still be polite acquaintances if not for the decisions I made. And Cia ... never asked for any of the complications, and she's kept our secrets whatever the cost. And Silver, you know what it cost."
"I know," Silver said quietly. "I was there, Ami."
"It's still costing her. What she can't talk about, to her doctor, hells, I'm half-convinced it's part of what's got her twisted around with Charlie." Amieta shrugged. "How can she get close to someone she's keeping a gigantic mindfuck of a secret from?" She sipped her tea, and watched him over the rim of her cup. "Unless you're thinking that's better. That she goes on keeping him at arm's length."
"That would be ... selfish." Silver said. He paused, and Amieta kept quiet, Let him work out the truth of it himself.
Their closeness was one of the things that made her such a good XO for him. Much easier to anticipate the Captain when you were that close. Easier to tell when he was going to get that you were right -That being most of the time- too. Eventually, he nodded, as she'd known he would. "You're right, Ami. I don't think we have to keep it quite so secret. Keeping everything quiet has served its purpose, but things change. Have changed."
Amieta finished her tea, "Thanks. I'll tell Dr Akell."
"And Cia?" Silver asked.
Amieta shook her head. "She needs to hear it from you, Silver. That it's your decision, not just me telling her what I want to be true. I know it's not ..." She glanced at the teapot and quirked an eyebrow. "Your cup of tea, that sort of conversation. But this really is something she needs to hear from you."
Silver nodded, "I'll just ... try to get used to the idea. It can be an adjustment. Letting go of things."
"Yeah, some things they don't make a skill pack for."
"Actually..."
Amieta rolled her eyes, though with a smile, and left.
Showing posts with label Amieta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amieta. Show all posts
Thursday
Job Interview
She was leaving a funeral when he saw her.
She saw him, too. A thrill of... something, when their eyes met. Something he thought he wouldn't feel again. Recognition, maybe, or the nameless sense of knowing that recognition was a pale shadow of.
She was thin. Not like a holostar, but wiry. Spare. Hard blue eyes in a face with its share of laugh-lines.
She cut through the crowd toward him, held out her hand, "I'm Amieta."
He shook her hand. His reply was automatic. Ingrained. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Captain Silver Night."
Vaguely friendly, but impersonal. His expression was a politely interested mask. He could feel the hard metal of a prosthetic under the gloves she was wearing.
I'm right, he thought. I'm wrong.
She's still holding my hand.
I'm right.
She spoke again, voice low with a faint smoker's rasp. "You want to get out of here? Maybe get a drink?"
He didn't drink. He couldn't let her leave. He released her hand and found himself saying, "I would like that, yes."
They found a place a couple of levels down, a low end place catering to dock-workers where shoddy maintenance had green streaks striping condensation-damp walls. They settled at a rickety table with their cheap synthetic whiskeys. Amieta spoke before the uncomfortable silence could gain too much momentum, "You're a podder."
Silver stopped himself from reaching back and touching the plug on the back of his neck. Even though it hadn't been a question, he answered, "Yes. A couple of years, now. For Ishukone, mostly."
She nodded, "I'm in independent security consulting. Up north."
Guristas, she meant. Silver took a drink. Realized he didn't really care if she was a Gurista. Didn't care, right then, that he didn't drink, that she was a Gurista, that this was the last place in the Cluster he'd ever chose to socialize, that he didn't have his security detail, that there was every chance they might be seen.
Nothing mattered but the woman sitting across from him.
"How did you get into that?"
She paused, threw back her drink, and told him. He knew after the first sentence he didn't want to know, knew at the same time that he had to know.
Because it was her.
Because it had always been her.
He couldn't remember later how long it took her to tell the story. Not long, compared to how long it had taken her to live through it. Long enough for a scattering of empty glasses to accumulate in front of both of them.
He tried to think of what to say. Something that wasn't polite and hollow. Something that didn't have pity, or sympathy, or any of the other things he already knew she wouldn't have much use for.
I'll kill them for you. All of them. I'm a podder, that's a promise I can keep.
"Ami - "
His chair flew out from under him and he looked up to see a handful of people in KK service crew uniforms. The one still holding Silver's chair smiled, showing yellowed teeth with a certain lack of sincerity, "You're sitting at our table. This is my chair."
Silver wobbled to his feet. Floor. Moving. Oh, whiskey, that's right. "I'm sure we can-"
Suddenly he was on the ground again, and his jaw hurt something fierce. The man had hit him. Silver scrambled to his feet, adrenaline clearing his head a bit as he tried to remember years-ago self-defense training. The KK crewmen were laughing.
"You can have my chair." Amieta stepped past him, swinging her chair in a tight arc that ended abruptly with the lead KK thug. He went down in a tangle with the wreckage, and Silver stared for a moment, then charged another of the crewmen. He thought that it seemed to be the thing to do, or perhaps the whiskey thought it seemed to be the thing to do.
Tackling him to the ground, Silver got an elbow in the stomach for his trouble. He tried to punch for the man's head, but slammed his wrist into the corner of the bar. He realized, as the man he'd tackled threw him off and into another group of patrons, that he might be a bit out of his depth. He struggled back to his feet and saw Amieta casually headbutt someone, and backhand someone else. She looks like she's having a good time, anyway.
He heard the scrape of chairs behind him, and thought perhaps he should explain it was an accident, knocking over their table. He turned just in time to get punched in the face. Again.
This time, as he sat on the floor trying to get his bearings, a strong hand hauled him up by the collar, and Amieta said in his ear, "Time to go, flyboy. Come on, out the back."
She grabbed his hand, and he tried to keep up as she fled out the back, stumbling after her while angry customers and the sound of approaching station security pursued them. He slipped and slid in something in the alley behind the dive, but she kept him from falling and dragged him around the corner before she let go so that they could both sprint as fast as possible away. They had a good head start, but the sounds of pursuit stayed close as they ducked through twists and turns in the bowels of the station.
Suddenly, he realized she was no longer in front of him, and turned in confusion. He'd lost sight of her for only a moment, and she'd disappeared. Security was close behind them, and -
The walls flew sideways, a firm grip on his arm yanking him into a maintenance corridor. He lost his balance, fell on something soft and hard as the door slid shut behind him, and blinked his vision clear to see Amieta looking up at him, finger to her lips, eyes dancing. Footsteps pounded past outside and Silver held his breath until they faded away into the distance.
"You can get up now," Amieta said.
Silver disentangled himself and propped himself against the wall. Amieta sat up and shuffled over next to him, shoulder touching his. He shook from the adrenaline. He was alone with an admitted pirate, and wanted by station security. He could see his knuckles were split, though he didn't remember getting any punches in. He could taste his own blood, over the flavor of the whiskey. His clothes were almost certainly ruined.
Amieta was laughing.
Silver realized he was too.
"You were pretty terrible back there, you know?" she said. "I thought pod-pilots were supposed to be all fearsome and dangerous."
"With a battleship, perhaps," Silver said.
She turned to look at him. "Did it hurt? Getting those things put in?"
"No."
"And now you can't ever die." There was something wistful in her lopsided smile.
"Pilots can die," Silver said. "Not easily. And those close to us ... podders are dangerous. To those close to us, most of all."
"So you call yourself 'Silver Night'," Amieta said. "Can I - " She raised one hand towards his neck, stopped.
The implants were capped, of course, but still, a direct neural connection to his brain. Not something you let strangers near.
She wasn't a stranger, not in any of the ways that mattered. Silver bent his head forward and felt her cool metal fingers trace the edges of the implant jacks, a touch as delicate as a surgeon's from hands that could rip apart a landcar. The forearm resting against his neck was as hard and unyielding as her fingers.
"Your arms," he asked. "Are they - ?"
Amieta drew back with a smile. "All the way up. Want to see?" Without waiting for an answer she shrugged out of her jacket and then yanked her shirt over her head in one economical movement. "Meets at the back here, they rebuilt the spine, can you see? It's pretty good work, I was pissed when it happened, though. Woke up in hospital with - what?"
Silver realized he was staring, couldn't stop. Amieta's body was a map of near-catastrophe, metal and scars, a hundred different ways she could have died if things had been a millimeter different, a hundred different ways she and he could never have found themselves in this maintenance corridor together tonight.
"What is it?" Amieta asked.
"I can't believe we're here. Here doing this." Silver said honestly. "That's all. I can't believe you're real."
She took him by the shoulders, "Damn right, I'm real."
Her gaze searched his. "Damn right," she said again, more softly. "And so are you. 'Silver Night'."
It was hours later when they emerged back into the light of the station. Silver straightened his coat and took a tactful step upwind of Amieta's cigarette.
They both began to speak at the same time, "Well that was-" "It was good to-"
They both stumbled to an awkward silence at the same time too. Amieta broke it first, "I should probably go. My cover here's pretty thin. If they review the video ..."
"Oh, of course."
"It was good to-." She shrugged, "It was good. I'll see you again. Sometime."
Her hand on his cheek was cool, even through the glove. The light brush of a kiss on his opposite cheek, "Bye."
He thought he was going to say 'Bye' too, as she turned and walked away. But she was leaving, and her body was a map of a hundred ways she might never make it to 'sometime' alive.
And it was her
It had always been her.
Silver opened his mouth to say goodbye, and it came out, "Come work for me."
Amieta turned back to him, "What?"
He pressed on, "Work for me. Be my XO - second in command."
"I've never..."
"I don't care. It doesn't matter. The pay's good, you have command experience, and..." He shrugged.
"And?" Amieta studied him.
"We'd be together." Silver realized he was begging, or close to it. "Not like - like this. It wouldn't be safe. But if we were careful, discreet ..."
Amieta hesitated, "I'm a criminal."
"I know that's not everything you are."
"What if I'm no good at it?"
Silver recognized a last, token protest, saw the smile pulling at the corner of her mouth, and exhaled in relief. "We'll put you in charge of chair breaking."
She hesitated, then nodded, "Okay. Okay, I'll do it."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah." She searched for another cigarette, "Guess I'm starting right away, before security wants me for questioning. We should go."
Silver smiled, "Of course. Welcome to the crew, Commander."
"Commander Invelen, I like that. Thank you, Captain Night."
She saw him, too. A thrill of... something, when their eyes met. Something he thought he wouldn't feel again. Recognition, maybe, or the nameless sense of knowing that recognition was a pale shadow of.
She was thin. Not like a holostar, but wiry. Spare. Hard blue eyes in a face with its share of laugh-lines.
She cut through the crowd toward him, held out her hand, "I'm Amieta."
He shook her hand. His reply was automatic. Ingrained. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Captain Silver Night."
Vaguely friendly, but impersonal. His expression was a politely interested mask. He could feel the hard metal of a prosthetic under the gloves she was wearing.
I'm right, he thought. I'm wrong.
She's still holding my hand.
I'm right.
She spoke again, voice low with a faint smoker's rasp. "You want to get out of here? Maybe get a drink?"
He didn't drink. He couldn't let her leave. He released her hand and found himself saying, "I would like that, yes."
They found a place a couple of levels down, a low end place catering to dock-workers where shoddy maintenance had green streaks striping condensation-damp walls. They settled at a rickety table with their cheap synthetic whiskeys. Amieta spoke before the uncomfortable silence could gain too much momentum, "You're a podder."
Silver stopped himself from reaching back and touching the plug on the back of his neck. Even though it hadn't been a question, he answered, "Yes. A couple of years, now. For Ishukone, mostly."
She nodded, "I'm in independent security consulting. Up north."
Guristas, she meant. Silver took a drink. Realized he didn't really care if she was a Gurista. Didn't care, right then, that he didn't drink, that she was a Gurista, that this was the last place in the Cluster he'd ever chose to socialize, that he didn't have his security detail, that there was every chance they might be seen.
Nothing mattered but the woman sitting across from him.
"How did you get into that?"
She paused, threw back her drink, and told him. He knew after the first sentence he didn't want to know, knew at the same time that he had to know.
Because it was her.
Because it had always been her.
He couldn't remember later how long it took her to tell the story. Not long, compared to how long it had taken her to live through it. Long enough for a scattering of empty glasses to accumulate in front of both of them.
He tried to think of what to say. Something that wasn't polite and hollow. Something that didn't have pity, or sympathy, or any of the other things he already knew she wouldn't have much use for.
I'll kill them for you. All of them. I'm a podder, that's a promise I can keep.
"Ami - "
His chair flew out from under him and he looked up to see a handful of people in KK service crew uniforms. The one still holding Silver's chair smiled, showing yellowed teeth with a certain lack of sincerity, "You're sitting at our table. This is my chair."
Silver wobbled to his feet. Floor. Moving. Oh, whiskey, that's right. "I'm sure we can-"
Suddenly he was on the ground again, and his jaw hurt something fierce. The man had hit him. Silver scrambled to his feet, adrenaline clearing his head a bit as he tried to remember years-ago self-defense training. The KK crewmen were laughing.
"You can have my chair." Amieta stepped past him, swinging her chair in a tight arc that ended abruptly with the lead KK thug. He went down in a tangle with the wreckage, and Silver stared for a moment, then charged another of the crewmen. He thought that it seemed to be the thing to do, or perhaps the whiskey thought it seemed to be the thing to do.
Tackling him to the ground, Silver got an elbow in the stomach for his trouble. He tried to punch for the man's head, but slammed his wrist into the corner of the bar. He realized, as the man he'd tackled threw him off and into another group of patrons, that he might be a bit out of his depth. He struggled back to his feet and saw Amieta casually headbutt someone, and backhand someone else. She looks like she's having a good time, anyway.
He heard the scrape of chairs behind him, and thought perhaps he should explain it was an accident, knocking over their table. He turned just in time to get punched in the face. Again.
This time, as he sat on the floor trying to get his bearings, a strong hand hauled him up by the collar, and Amieta said in his ear, "Time to go, flyboy. Come on, out the back."
She grabbed his hand, and he tried to keep up as she fled out the back, stumbling after her while angry customers and the sound of approaching station security pursued them. He slipped and slid in something in the alley behind the dive, but she kept him from falling and dragged him around the corner before she let go so that they could both sprint as fast as possible away. They had a good head start, but the sounds of pursuit stayed close as they ducked through twists and turns in the bowels of the station.
Suddenly, he realized she was no longer in front of him, and turned in confusion. He'd lost sight of her for only a moment, and she'd disappeared. Security was close behind them, and -
The walls flew sideways, a firm grip on his arm yanking him into a maintenance corridor. He lost his balance, fell on something soft and hard as the door slid shut behind him, and blinked his vision clear to see Amieta looking up at him, finger to her lips, eyes dancing. Footsteps pounded past outside and Silver held his breath until they faded away into the distance.
"You can get up now," Amieta said.
Silver disentangled himself and propped himself against the wall. Amieta sat up and shuffled over next to him, shoulder touching his. He shook from the adrenaline. He was alone with an admitted pirate, and wanted by station security. He could see his knuckles were split, though he didn't remember getting any punches in. He could taste his own blood, over the flavor of the whiskey. His clothes were almost certainly ruined.
Amieta was laughing.
Silver realized he was too.
"You were pretty terrible back there, you know?" she said. "I thought pod-pilots were supposed to be all fearsome and dangerous."
"With a battleship, perhaps," Silver said.
She turned to look at him. "Did it hurt? Getting those things put in?"
"No."
"And now you can't ever die." There was something wistful in her lopsided smile.
"Pilots can die," Silver said. "Not easily. And those close to us ... podders are dangerous. To those close to us, most of all."
"So you call yourself 'Silver Night'," Amieta said. "Can I - " She raised one hand towards his neck, stopped.
The implants were capped, of course, but still, a direct neural connection to his brain. Not something you let strangers near.
She wasn't a stranger, not in any of the ways that mattered. Silver bent his head forward and felt her cool metal fingers trace the edges of the implant jacks, a touch as delicate as a surgeon's from hands that could rip apart a landcar. The forearm resting against his neck was as hard and unyielding as her fingers.
"Your arms," he asked. "Are they - ?"
Amieta drew back with a smile. "All the way up. Want to see?" Without waiting for an answer she shrugged out of her jacket and then yanked her shirt over her head in one economical movement. "Meets at the back here, they rebuilt the spine, can you see? It's pretty good work, I was pissed when it happened, though. Woke up in hospital with - what?"
Silver realized he was staring, couldn't stop. Amieta's body was a map of near-catastrophe, metal and scars, a hundred different ways she could have died if things had been a millimeter different, a hundred different ways she and he could never have found themselves in this maintenance corridor together tonight.
"What is it?" Amieta asked.
"I can't believe we're here. Here doing this." Silver said honestly. "That's all. I can't believe you're real."
She took him by the shoulders, "Damn right, I'm real."
Her gaze searched his. "Damn right," she said again, more softly. "And so are you. 'Silver Night'."
It was hours later when they emerged back into the light of the station. Silver straightened his coat and took a tactful step upwind of Amieta's cigarette.
They both began to speak at the same time, "Well that was-" "It was good to-"
They both stumbled to an awkward silence at the same time too. Amieta broke it first, "I should probably go. My cover here's pretty thin. If they review the video ..."
"Oh, of course."
"It was good to-." She shrugged, "It was good. I'll see you again. Sometime."
Her hand on his cheek was cool, even through the glove. The light brush of a kiss on his opposite cheek, "Bye."
He thought he was going to say 'Bye' too, as she turned and walked away. But she was leaving, and her body was a map of a hundred ways she might never make it to 'sometime' alive.
And it was her
It had always been her.
Silver opened his mouth to say goodbye, and it came out, "Come work for me."
Amieta turned back to him, "What?"
He pressed on, "Work for me. Be my XO - second in command."
"I've never..."
"I don't care. It doesn't matter. The pay's good, you have command experience, and..." He shrugged.
"And?" Amieta studied him.
"We'd be together." Silver realized he was begging, or close to it. "Not like - like this. It wouldn't be safe. But if we were careful, discreet ..."
Amieta hesitated, "I'm a criminal."
"I know that's not everything you are."
"What if I'm no good at it?"
Silver recognized a last, token protest, saw the smile pulling at the corner of her mouth, and exhaled in relief. "We'll put you in charge of chair breaking."
She hesitated, then nodded, "Okay. Okay, I'll do it."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah." She searched for another cigarette, "Guess I'm starting right away, before security wants me for questioning. We should go."
Silver smiled, "Of course. Welcome to the crew, Commander."
"Commander Invelen, I like that. Thank you, Captain Night."
Sunday
Concussion
((Co-Authored with Ciarente))
The voice faded in and out, or maybe that was her.
Amieta tried to wipe the blood from her eyes but the servos in her arm just keened and squealed uselessly. Shit. She blinked, blinked again, and her vision cleared enough to show a shattered flight console, tilted at a strange angle. All the angles she could see looked wrong. Twisted. Jarred.
I'm in a shuttle. The shuttle's broken. I'm hurt.
I guess we crashed.
We?
She could still hear the voice that had woken her through her earpiece. Male. Ishukone accent. "Commander Invelen. Commander Invelen, sitrep, please."
Invelen. That's me, right? Commander - guess I'm in charge.
She turned her head painfully to look around the rest of the cockpit. Most of the pilot was slumped over the controls. Another body against the wall, eyes open and blank.
Guess I fucked up, too.
Or somebody did.
A wave of dizziness, then, black dots dancing before her eyes. The voice was still talking. "Commander Invelen. Commander Invelen. Amieta."
Then it went dark.
"Amieta," Val said.
She glanced over. Like her Val was... eight? Nine? It didn't matter, he was always so serious. "Tell Supervisor we all had the idea. It wasn't just Jan."
Jan
The stocky boy was standing just past Val, with that stubborn expression he got sometimes. Of course it had been his idea. Jan had found them a place, a new place to explore.... somewhere. Somewhere they weren't supposed to go, and the three of them had been caught.
Amieta opened her mouth to explain, of course they had all thought of it, it hadn't been Jan's idea. Val interrupted her though, "Amieta."
She winced and blinked, something in her eyes.
"Amieta, please respond," Val said. No, not Val. Val was the past. She groped for the name that went with the voice she could hear and found it. Captain Night. The shuttle. The crash.
"Captain." A dry whisper. She put more effort into it, "Captain Night. I'm here."
"Do you remember what happened?"
I think... the shuttle crashed?"
"Can you tell me what year it is?"
It took Amieta a moment to remember, "106. It's 106."
"Situation? Injuries?"
"I'm ..." Amieta tilted her head, fighting a wave of nausea, trying to see what was keeping her from sitting up, "Left arm and left leg are pinned. Some kind of structural support. The pilot and copilot are dead. My leg - I'm bleeding. A lot. I think I hit my head too. Feel sick."
Captain Night's voice was calm. "Can you reach the first aid kit?"
She tried, couldn't suppress a groan at the movement, her right arm moving in jerks and starts as it recovered function.
She tried again, felt the prosthetic respond, and got a fingertip on the strap. "Yes. Hold on."
The mini-AIMED that came with the kit was no substitute for the real deal, but the info it could give was bad enough.
"Commander?"
"Gonna need evac pretty soon, sir," she said, fumbling one-handed with the kit. "Trying to get a tourniquet on ... I'm not in real good shape, here."
"The storm that brought your shuttle down is peaking," Captain Night said. "We'll have a medivac team down there as soon as they can get through the front."
Amieta grunted acknowledgement, tightening the bandage as hard as she could. The blood seeping from her thigh slowed.
"The storm, I remember. I came up to the cockpit to ask... to ask about the storm. Our flight status." Came up to the cockpit from the passenger compartment where the rest of the team ...
Amieta held still, held her breath, listened. Silence. "Sir, the others, Sarakai ... "
She tried to turn enough to see through the cockpit door and lost his next words to a stab of pain. Spirits fuck my ancestors.
"Commander? Amieta?"
"Fine," she gasped. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
Are you sure?
She stood in front of his desk, shoulders square, hands clasped behind her back and eyes fixed on the wall above his head, absolutely regulation. "Yes, sir, I'm sure."
"Ms Voutelen's employment history is a little ... irregular," Captain Night said, browsing through the red-flag-riddled file in front of him before looking back up at her.
"So is mine, sir," Amieta pointed out.
"Not for the same reasons."
"No sir. But Sara is loyal, she's experienced, and she's damn good at what she does. Those are all things you need in a CTO, especially when your XO is still learning her job."
He studied her for a moment, as hard to read as always, and then held out the file. "Very well. I'll trust your judgment on this, Amieta."
"Yes sir, thank you sir," she said, not following his lead into informality. Hecould risk forming bad habits. For Amieta, there was more at stake. There's already scuttlebutt that I got this job for being the 'Captain's woman.' One careless word in public from her and the rumor-mill would explode.
She took the file. "Permission to call Ms Voutelen, sir?"
Captain Night nodded. "Of course. You're dismissed, Commander."
Amieta saluted, turned precisely on her heel, and left. In the privacy of her own office she made the call, getting Sarakai's recorded message. "Good news, Sara. Sara? Sara, you there?"
It hurt to raise her voice. "Sara? Sara, you there?" There was rain coming through the rent in the fuselage, cold droplets splashing off the open eyes of the co-pilot. "Sara!"
Silence.
"Sir, Sara, she's not answering. Sir?"
Silence over the comm line, too.
"Sir? Captain? Captain?"
Nothing. She was the only one left alive, the only one of all her people and there was no-one -
No. That wasn't here. That wasn't now. That was -
She slammed the door on the past and tried again. "Captain?"
This time Captain Night answered and Amieta closed her eyes against a wave of relief. "Captain, Sara, Colonel Voutelen - "
"Is uninjured," Captain Night said quickly. "The cockpit and the crew compartment separated on impact. Most of the fuselage is a few dozen meters above you."
"Is everyone - ?"
"Some serious injuries, but nothing immediately life threatening. The cockpit took most of the impact, broke off and ended up in a ravine."
"Thank the ancestors," Amieta whispered. "I thought - "
"The rest of the team are in no danger," Captain Night said, almost as if he knew what she'd been about to say.
Of course he knows.
She'd told him. She'd been drunk, spirits, he'd been drunk that first night, the one and only time she'd seen it.
The day of her brother's funeral, not that she could tell anyone at the service that it was her brother, standing there in long sleeves and silk gloves, behind the thin protection of forged papers. An old girlfriend, she told anyone who asked. Salt on the wound, not even being able to claim him, the brother she'd waited just too long to visit, and her now a stranger on the Ishukone Station she'd grown up on.
Maybe that was why she'd looked twice and then a third time at the tall man with pilot implants on his neck marking him out as just as much a stranger on the station as she. Up close, he had the bland, interchangeable good looks of a tubey, and he met her gaze with only a hint of surprise.
"I'm Amieta," she said, holding out her hand.
He shook it, and if he felt the steel beneath the silk there was no sign of it in his expression. "Pleased to meet you," he said courteously. "I'm Captain Silver Night."
I'm right, I'm wrong, Amieta thought, and then: He's still holding my hand.
I'm right.
"Do you want to get out of here?" she said. "Maybe get a drink?"
Captain Night released her hand, gaze still steady on her face. "I would like that, yes," he said.
And that'd been that.
Funny the things your life turns on.
That decision to go to a funeral ...
She looked down at the blood still seeping from her leg. Might just lead to mine.
If the Ancestors have a sense of humor, they must be having a good laugh at this one.
Not that she had any ancestors, in the way most people meant them.Tube-bred, guess maybe there's a petrie dish somewhere that might count.
And Jan, of course.
Jan ...
She could feel herself greying out again and fought against it. Focus. Don't let go. "Captain?"
"I'm here." There was a subtle difference on the comm line, a low hum behind his voice. Engines. Spirits, he's on the rescue shuttle.
Probably flying it. Damn unprofessional. What happens if the Captain crashes trying to retrieve the XO?
The thought turned her cold, or maybe it was the rain chilling her. At least it's water. So thirsty. Somewhere at the back of her mind was the vague awareness that she shouldn't be so thirsty. Bad sign. Of something.
She licked raindrops from her lips and fought another surge of dizziness. Fight. Focus. Here and now, Ami.
"Do you remember ... my brother? Jan?" she said, the first words to come to mind. Talk. Keep talking. Stay awake. She couldn't remember what she'd told Captain Night, or what was there in the public files for anyone to read, or which bits of the complicated truth were common knowledge and which not. She played it safe. "Did I tell you? About him? About Jan?"
"You did, yes," Captain Night said. "We are on approach. Help will be there very soon."
"I think ... it better be," Amieta said.
"A little longer, Amieta. That's all."
"Has the storm stopped?" She couldn't hear anything over the roaring in her ears, even Captain Night's voice was soft and faint.
She couldn't be sure, given how far away he sounded, if the tiny hesitation was real or just her imagination. "Enough for a competent pilot to land."
"'kay. 'cause I ... I might be seeing my ancestors soon, otherwise. Or Jan. He's not really an ancestor, I guess. A brother."
"I am sure he watches over you, nonetheless."
"You really believe all that stuff, don't you?" Amieta asked.
"I am quite certain," Captain Night said, "your brother sees and protects you."
Amieta blinked hard until she could focus her eyes enough to check the bandage on her leg. Still bleeding. She didn't need the AIMED in the shuttle's first aid kit to tell her she was losing too much blood. Hang on a little longer. It was so cold, though. A little longer. Val had promised the rescue team would be there soon. No, not Val. Captain Night. Val was a name from her past, not from the here and now. She couldn't afford to loose track of the here and now. Shock. It's shock. Stay focused, come on. Fight the shock. Stay here.
"Stay here, stay with me, Invelen, fight the shock, come on now ..."
What the - how did - why - ?
There'd been light and noise and then nothing, nothing until the medic's low, urgent voice. Amieta tried to ask What happened? but suddenly her mouth was full of blood and the medic was swearing and she was -
Floating in a comfortable haze of bright light, surrounded by machines that whirred quietly. Nothing hurt. That would have been worrying, if she'd been able to worry, but the fuzzy blur that enveloped her didn't let anxiety through.
Drugs. Hospital.
I got hurt? When the shuttle crashed I - no - there was an explosion - but the shuttle ...?
"Hey, Ami, don't know if you can hear me in there." A familiar voice. A familiar face: Jan. Jan, I thought I'd never see you again. "The doctors say you'll be out of here in no time."
Jan. You shouldn't be here. This isn't -
"Out of here in no time, Commander." The lights were blindingly bright, the figures behind them a blur of darkness.
"Jan?"
"I didn't know I'd be seeing you so soon," Jan said.
The light was so bright Amieta could hardly make out his face. They were lifting her up, now, up into the light, to where her brother waited and she had a moment's piercing regret to be going, until that faded out into the light as well and she was -
"She's coming around."
It hurt, again, a lot. Amieta opened her eyes and looked up at the medics bending over her.
"Welcome back, Commander," one of them said. "Gave us a scare, there."
Beyond them she could see the roof of a shuttle. She turned her head a little. Jan was ... right there?Beyond the medics she could see a couple of marines, equipped for rescue rather than combat, and beyond them, standing in the cockpit doorway, Captain Night, with his habitual, hard-to-read expression of polite, if slightly distant, interest. Amieta thought his gaze was a little sharper than usual, though, and when their eyes met she was almost certain the corner of his mouth twitched up in what might, in anyone else, have been a smile.
"You'll feel a sharp pinch, Commander" the medic said, and Amieta did, and was out.
When she woke again, the medics were carrying her from the rescue shuttle. Jan was gone. So was Captain Night - no, there he was, at the bottom of the ramp. As she was carried past him, Amieta reached out and grabbed his hand, "I saw Jan. He was there, with me. Down there. I saw him."
Smooth, uncalloused clone fingers closed around her battered metal ones. "I believe you."
"Captain, we need to be moving," one of the medics said.
His hand tightened briefly on hers, before he released it with a nod to the medics, and stepped back.
Amieta saw the looks that passed between the medics. Gossip incoming.
Fuck it, she thought.
Some days you're entitled not to give a damn what people think.
Monday
Things Unseen
Covops frigates didn't come with a lot of passenger space, and when those passengers were wearing combat armor, squeeze was an understatement.
Amieta had got Cia's crew to take out the seats usually used by whichever passengers with enough ISK to pay an agent to arrange their trip via a pod-pilot, and the marines from the Utopian Ideal stood shoulder to shoulder, backs against the wall, feet braced against the shifts in local gravity that threatened even an experienced crew-member with nausea as the Fortune's Figment skipped through gates and shot across systems. The hum of the cloak was a reassuring reminder that the Figment slipped through space unseen.
"System's clear," Cia's disembodied voice said over the intercom. "Stand by for warp. WDA for Vard Gate."
The voice was calm and even, with only the faintest trace of the slurs and lilt of Cia's accent, and sounded somehow older than Cia ever sounded in person. As an XO, Amieta approved of the computer filter that gave Captain Roth's crew the reassuring impression that their pilot knew exactly what she was doing, annoucements triggered automatically by commands to the ship, with their subliminal message the Captain's on top of things, the Captain remembers you, the Captain includes you..
As a sister, she wished she had a better sense of how Cia was doing, locked into her pod, multi-tasking between warp drive and cloak and nav-maps. She hates low-sec, always has. At a crew station, Amieta would have had access to the biometric readouts that would warn a senior officer of increasing fatigue and stress.
Down here, she had a computerized voice.
She activated her internal comm with a thought and made a private connection to Cia's comm.
Hey, how are you doing up there?
The voice that she 'heard' was as smooth and synthesized as the one that issued from the intercom. Fine, Ami. Getting a little bored.
Ami grimaced to herself. Cia, this is me. You need to dock up for a break?
A hesitation. Maybe in the next system. Five minutes.
"Stand by for jump," Cia said over the intercom. "Jumping in three, two, one."
Ami barely noticed the shimmering dislocation of jump these days. And can you cut the filter out of this channel? She paused, and found a lie that would work. I'd be less nervous if I could hear it was you flying this ship.
A ghost of a laugh, and Cia's real voice said Don't worry, Ami, I'm not going to risk anything happening to Silver's XO.
The laugh was good, the edge of strain behind it wasn't. Yeah, the paperwork would -
Cia cut her off. Contact on directional. Bestower, listed as GF42. That ship we traced out of Arzad was GF19, wasn't it?
Yeah. Adrenaline started Amieta's combat 'plants spooling up. "Heads up, people," she said aloud.
A clang and a bump signaled the launch of scanner probes. Amieta called up the files on the system and checked for planets and moons that might have population. Check the second and seventh planets, she told Cia. If they're the same corporation they might be looking for easy targets.
Looks like they're at seven, Cia said tightly. Someone is, anyway. Taking a look.
Waiting deaf and blind in the hold of a ship for whatever trickle of information would herald fast and bloody action was something marines got used to, or they didn't last. Amieta had nearly forgotten, after years as an XO, used to information at her fingertips.
"Looks like our targets," Cia said calmly on the intercom. "Holding cloaked at one hundred clicks."
Can you see what they're doing? Get a close up with the camera drones?
"Looks like they're launching shuttles. HAS, I think. Down to the planet." Cia paused, and then said on the private connection. I'll hang here until they're done and then with a bit of luck we can follow them to where-ever they're docking.
Amieta glanced at Col. Saernal Teirild, her CTO. "Stand by," she said quietly.
Saer nodded. Around her the other marines straightened; the sergeant, Jadat, running a critical eye over them as they checked weapons and double checked the light armor they wore during transport.
Close with them, Amieta told Cia Get their shields down, we'll get a boarding party over. There has to be someone on that ship who can tell us where they've shipped Hiri to.
In this ship? Cia sounded incredulous, and more than a little shrill. It's for scouting. I don't even have a gun mounted!
Amieta sorted through her memories of her employer's ships. Helios, two highs, five mids, five cubic meters drone bay... Not a heavy hitter, but against an industrial, probably not even piloted by a podder?
Cia, do you have a point fitted on this?
Yes.
Drone in the bay?
A warrior.
You'll do fine. You just have to get the shields down enough for us to board.
With one drone? Cia sounded increasingly panic-stricken.
Cia, you can do it. You want to find Hiri, don't you? She's depending on you.
Ami, I'll get the ship blown up and you'll -
Okay, okay, calm down, okay? I'm pulling Silver onto comms.
Seconds later she heard the voice of her employer, Captain Silver Night. Ami, Cia. What's the situation?
Amieta filled him in, ending with Cia can do this, right? A tech-two drone will have those shields down in no time.
You're still using the fitting we discussed when you bought the ship, Cia? Silver asked.
Yes, Cia said. No guns or anything.
You can assume they're armed, at least lightly, Silver said thoughtfully. The intel from the attack on Dr Akell's shuttle indicates that, and it's probably a standard corporation fitting. Cia, there's a small Unstable Power Fluctuator neut on contract to you at the Six Kin station at the third planet. Dock and have your probe launcher swapped out for it.
Amieta felt the ship move and shimmer into warp as Cia asked Should I mount a gun, as well?
No, the cloak will be more useful if reinforcements arrive.
Which won't happen, right? Amieta said with meaning.
Silver paused, so slightly that only someone who'd known him as long as his XO had would have noticed it. Very, very unlikely. Better safe than sorry, though.
The Figment docked with the clang and shudder of a pilot in a hurry. They're changing them over, Cia reported. Done. Undocking.
Amieta left comms to concentrate on the work at hand as they dropped out of warp and Silver began reminding Cia about transversals and minimum ranges. She checked her own armor and her sidearm. Should have brought a rifle.
She gestured to her CTO, "Saer, check me?"
The other woman checked Amieta's armor with the ease of long practice as a low, rhythmic buzz filled the hull - the neutralizer. Quick tugs here and there, a couple pulls and prods, and Saer gave her the thumbs up. Amieta nodded and returned the favor. By the time she was done, the rest of her people were already standing ready. She switched to the open tac channel, "Most of you have done this before. Target is a Bessie. We want prisoners, so if you see someone important looking, try not to off them. We'll hit the bridge. They have shuttles down, so whoever is in charge should be there coordinating. Jadat, take a squad, make sure no one compromises our exit. Everyone else will be with me."
A dulled thud ran through the ship as they made contact with the much larger industrial. They waited near the airlock, checked the soft-seal against a circle of golden-hued hull with an airlock hatch in the middle. Two marines brought forward the heavy breaching charge, attaching it. Cia had picked a good spot, a quick check of schematics showed. An airlock between the bridge and the crew section. Probably all that practice on rescues.
The breaching charge went off with a low-key roar, knifing through the thinner armor of the outer airlock door. Another, smaller charge demolished the inner door, and they were in. Jadat and the squad he'd picked set up just down the corridor, ready to bottle up off-duty crew and keep anyone from making it up from the cargo-hold to hit at their backs. Amieta led the rest of the marines through the corridors toward the bridge, the layout familiar. Silver owned a couple of Bessies.
The first resistance was a group of crew at an intersection. They had laser rifles but not much discipline. It was over in seconds, a concussion grenade incapacitating most of them, those unlucky enough to still be standing taken out with tight bursts of hypervelocity flechettes. Two marines were assigned to herd the survivors back to the Figment and they continued on to the bridge.
A tiny recon drone showed several officers inside, along with a handful of crew. All armed, mostly poorly, but one man in body armor - his helmet off. Amateurs. The breaching charge blew the bridge door in, and flash-bang grenades came behind it.
The slaver in armor was just bringing up his weapon, eyes still screwed shut, when a burst from Saer's rifle hit him in the bridge of the nose. Amieta shot a recovering crew-member twice in the chest and then jabbed her stun-stick into the back of an officer who was trying to stand.
By then, it was over. The slavers were all dead or disarmed and being herded to one side as they were hauled from the floor and cuffed. Saer was going around ending it quickly for the more seriously injured slavers. Amieta looked around for the Captain. Drone showed him in here, and there's only the one door.
"Commander."
Amieta turned to see Rorkulo, the medic, peering under that same door, "Hard to tell, but I think that was the Captain, sir."
She helped her lift the door a bit further, and the mess underneath was indeed wearing a Captain's uniform. "We get the first mate, at least?"
"Saw him with the others, sir." Rorkulo indicated an officer trying to make himself inconspicuous behind a couple of other crew, "Should we-"
Amieta was already shaking her head, "Time to get out of here, we'll take them all back to the Figment. Pack it up people! We want to be back on the Figment in five."
They herded the prisoners back to the airlock. Jadat's squad was holding steady, keeping the rest of the crew from cutting them off. Here and there, wild shots lanced into the walls and ceiling of the corridor - mostly nowhere near any of the marines. The sergeant glanced back as Amieta and the others arrived and started transferring prisoners, then reported over the comms, "Looks like they finally woke up, sir. Fucking clueless, but there're quite a few of them, sir."
The last of the prisoners aboard, the marines who'd taken the bridge covered Jadat's squad in turn. One of the marines fell, a lucky shot finding a weak spot in his armor low on the abdomen. Jadat grabbed him by the strap of his weapons harness and dragged him into theFigment, Amieta, Saer, and a last couple of others following.
The airlock clanged shut behind them. A spin of the wheel and the indicator shone green. The floor beneath Amieta's feet shifted slightly as the Figment kicked free and aligned into warp almost instantly.
Jadat and Rorkulo were kneeling by the fallen marine.
He looked up at Amieta and shook his head slightly. Dead.
Corporal Murlar Ahramian, age 24, picked up back when Silver was with ICT, and... Amieta's implants helpfully provided more before she remembered to ask them not to, married, with one kid, and a second on the way. Dead because a handful of slavers put their profits ahead of the law and were stupid enough to think that ship's crew could hold off trained marines.
Amieta felt the slight cold-prickle of her nano-tats creeping up her neck and across her cheeks at the thought.
She grabbed the nearest of the prisoners they'd taken, yanking him free of the grip of the marine who held him. "Where do you take the slaves, shithead?"
He was a dumb one, all right. "No slaves on our ship!"
Amieta tightened her grip on his neck, careful not to press too hard on the arteries taking blood to his brain and give him an easy escape into unconsciousness. "Your corp takes slaves. Where do they go next?"
"I don't know - what you're talking - about!" he gasped.
He braced himself as Amieta raised her other hand, no doubt expecting a blow. Relief showed in his eyes as she simply put her hand against the side of his face, palm against his cheekbone.
Showed briefly. Amieta flexed her thumb, only a little, a carefully calculated movement that was just enough to penetrate the sclera and pop his eyeball like an overripe grape.
A flickering indicator at the corner of her vision told her Cia was trying to connect to her internal comm. Amieta ignored it, letting go of the slaver just long enough to reverse her grip.
She pulled him forward a little and slammed him back against the wall. "You have another eye," she snarled, "two testicles, two hundred and six bones, a liver, a couple of kidneys and, technically at least, a heart. We'll work through them one by one until you talk, you piece of shit."
"Ami." The intercom filter made Cia's voice calm and even. "Ami, stop."
"Sir," Saer said beside Amieta, and when Amieta glanced at her the CTO made a small gesture, the slightest sketch of pointing towards her eye. Cameras watching, she meant.
"Ami," Cia said again.
Amieta cursed her sister's squeamishness. Doesn't she want to find Hiri?
A deep breath, a deliberate assertion of control over the combat 'plants and the adreniline flooding her system, and Amieta knew that was unfair to Cia. She wants to find Hiri as much as anyone.
She just has funny, dirt-sider ideas about things.
Wouldn't be Cia still, if she didn't.
Amieta let go of the slaver and pushed him back to the nearest marine, who seized him and held him securely. A thought accepted the incoming call from Cia's pod. Sorry, sis. This isn't the place for a proper interrogation. I guess I'm impatient to find Hiri.
I know, Cia said sympathetically.
Can you dock up, give us the chance to take these shitheads off your ship and talk to them a bit more calmly?
In warp now, Cia said.
You'll need to refit again, make sure the engineers check there's no damage. We'll handle these assholes while you make sure the ship's all right.
The slightest hesitation, and then: All right. Docking now.
As the marines dragged their three prisoners out of the hold and across the hangar floor, Amieta thought about that slight hesitation.
I pretend we're going to offer these fuckheads tea and biscuits, Amieta thought as they hauled the slavers into a cargo can, two marines taking up station on the outside of the door. And she pretends to believe me.
Otherwise, Amieta knew, Cia would feel she had to stop it, out of some sentimental attachment to the Yulai conventions or the Federation Constitution or one of those old books she liked to talk to Silver about.
Wouldn't be Cia, if she didn't.
Which is why it's a good thing she's got me to do the dirty work.
Amieta had got Cia's crew to take out the seats usually used by whichever passengers with enough ISK to pay an agent to arrange their trip via a pod-pilot, and the marines from the Utopian Ideal stood shoulder to shoulder, backs against the wall, feet braced against the shifts in local gravity that threatened even an experienced crew-member with nausea as the Fortune's Figment skipped through gates and shot across systems. The hum of the cloak was a reassuring reminder that the Figment slipped through space unseen.
"System's clear," Cia's disembodied voice said over the intercom. "Stand by for warp. WDA for Vard Gate."
The voice was calm and even, with only the faintest trace of the slurs and lilt of Cia's accent, and sounded somehow older than Cia ever sounded in person. As an XO, Amieta approved of the computer filter that gave Captain Roth's crew the reassuring impression that their pilot knew exactly what she was doing, annoucements triggered automatically by commands to the ship, with their subliminal message the Captain's on top of things, the Captain remembers you, the Captain includes you..
As a sister, she wished she had a better sense of how Cia was doing, locked into her pod, multi-tasking between warp drive and cloak and nav-maps. She hates low-sec, always has. At a crew station, Amieta would have had access to the biometric readouts that would warn a senior officer of increasing fatigue and stress.
Down here, she had a computerized voice.
She activated her internal comm with a thought and made a private connection to Cia's comm.
Hey, how are you doing up there?
The voice that she 'heard' was as smooth and synthesized as the one that issued from the intercom. Fine, Ami. Getting a little bored.
Ami grimaced to herself. Cia, this is me. You need to dock up for a break?
A hesitation. Maybe in the next system. Five minutes.
"Stand by for jump," Cia said over the intercom. "Jumping in three, two, one."
Ami barely noticed the shimmering dislocation of jump these days. And can you cut the filter out of this channel? She paused, and found a lie that would work. I'd be less nervous if I could hear it was you flying this ship.
A ghost of a laugh, and Cia's real voice said Don't worry, Ami, I'm not going to risk anything happening to Silver's XO.
The laugh was good, the edge of strain behind it wasn't. Yeah, the paperwork would -
Cia cut her off. Contact on directional. Bestower, listed as GF42. That ship we traced out of Arzad was GF19, wasn't it?
Yeah. Adrenaline started Amieta's combat 'plants spooling up. "Heads up, people," she said aloud.
A clang and a bump signaled the launch of scanner probes. Amieta called up the files on the system and checked for planets and moons that might have population. Check the second and seventh planets, she told Cia. If they're the same corporation they might be looking for easy targets.
Looks like they're at seven, Cia said tightly. Someone is, anyway. Taking a look.
Waiting deaf and blind in the hold of a ship for whatever trickle of information would herald fast and bloody action was something marines got used to, or they didn't last. Amieta had nearly forgotten, after years as an XO, used to information at her fingertips.
"Looks like our targets," Cia said calmly on the intercom. "Holding cloaked at one hundred clicks."
Can you see what they're doing? Get a close up with the camera drones?
"Looks like they're launching shuttles. HAS, I think. Down to the planet." Cia paused, and then said on the private connection. I'll hang here until they're done and then with a bit of luck we can follow them to where-ever they're docking.
Amieta glanced at Col. Saernal Teirild, her CTO. "Stand by," she said quietly.
Saer nodded. Around her the other marines straightened; the sergeant, Jadat, running a critical eye over them as they checked weapons and double checked the light armor they wore during transport.
Close with them, Amieta told Cia Get their shields down, we'll get a boarding party over. There has to be someone on that ship who can tell us where they've shipped Hiri to.
In this ship? Cia sounded incredulous, and more than a little shrill. It's for scouting. I don't even have a gun mounted!
Amieta sorted through her memories of her employer's ships. Helios, two highs, five mids, five cubic meters drone bay... Not a heavy hitter, but against an industrial, probably not even piloted by a podder?
Cia, do you have a point fitted on this?
Yes.
Drone in the bay?
A warrior.
You'll do fine. You just have to get the shields down enough for us to board.
With one drone? Cia sounded increasingly panic-stricken.
Cia, you can do it. You want to find Hiri, don't you? She's depending on you.
Ami, I'll get the ship blown up and you'll -
Okay, okay, calm down, okay? I'm pulling Silver onto comms.
Seconds later she heard the voice of her employer, Captain Silver Night. Ami, Cia. What's the situation?
Amieta filled him in, ending with Cia can do this, right? A tech-two drone will have those shields down in no time.
You're still using the fitting we discussed when you bought the ship, Cia? Silver asked.
Yes, Cia said. No guns or anything.
You can assume they're armed, at least lightly, Silver said thoughtfully. The intel from the attack on Dr Akell's shuttle indicates that, and it's probably a standard corporation fitting. Cia, there's a small Unstable Power Fluctuator neut on contract to you at the Six Kin station at the third planet. Dock and have your probe launcher swapped out for it.
Amieta felt the ship move and shimmer into warp as Cia asked Should I mount a gun, as well?
No, the cloak will be more useful if reinforcements arrive.
Which won't happen, right? Amieta said with meaning.
Silver paused, so slightly that only someone who'd known him as long as his XO had would have noticed it. Very, very unlikely. Better safe than sorry, though.
The Figment docked with the clang and shudder of a pilot in a hurry. They're changing them over, Cia reported. Done. Undocking.
Amieta left comms to concentrate on the work at hand as they dropped out of warp and Silver began reminding Cia about transversals and minimum ranges. She checked her own armor and her sidearm. Should have brought a rifle.
She gestured to her CTO, "Saer, check me?"
The other woman checked Amieta's armor with the ease of long practice as a low, rhythmic buzz filled the hull - the neutralizer. Quick tugs here and there, a couple pulls and prods, and Saer gave her the thumbs up. Amieta nodded and returned the favor. By the time she was done, the rest of her people were already standing ready. She switched to the open tac channel, "Most of you have done this before. Target is a Bessie. We want prisoners, so if you see someone important looking, try not to off them. We'll hit the bridge. They have shuttles down, so whoever is in charge should be there coordinating. Jadat, take a squad, make sure no one compromises our exit. Everyone else will be with me."
A dulled thud ran through the ship as they made contact with the much larger industrial. They waited near the airlock, checked the soft-seal against a circle of golden-hued hull with an airlock hatch in the middle. Two marines brought forward the heavy breaching charge, attaching it. Cia had picked a good spot, a quick check of schematics showed. An airlock between the bridge and the crew section. Probably all that practice on rescues.
The breaching charge went off with a low-key roar, knifing through the thinner armor of the outer airlock door. Another, smaller charge demolished the inner door, and they were in. Jadat and the squad he'd picked set up just down the corridor, ready to bottle up off-duty crew and keep anyone from making it up from the cargo-hold to hit at their backs. Amieta led the rest of the marines through the corridors toward the bridge, the layout familiar. Silver owned a couple of Bessies.
The first resistance was a group of crew at an intersection. They had laser rifles but not much discipline. It was over in seconds, a concussion grenade incapacitating most of them, those unlucky enough to still be standing taken out with tight bursts of hypervelocity flechettes. Two marines were assigned to herd the survivors back to the Figment and they continued on to the bridge.
A tiny recon drone showed several officers inside, along with a handful of crew. All armed, mostly poorly, but one man in body armor - his helmet off. Amateurs. The breaching charge blew the bridge door in, and flash-bang grenades came behind it.
The slaver in armor was just bringing up his weapon, eyes still screwed shut, when a burst from Saer's rifle hit him in the bridge of the nose. Amieta shot a recovering crew-member twice in the chest and then jabbed her stun-stick into the back of an officer who was trying to stand.
By then, it was over. The slavers were all dead or disarmed and being herded to one side as they were hauled from the floor and cuffed. Saer was going around ending it quickly for the more seriously injured slavers. Amieta looked around for the Captain. Drone showed him in here, and there's only the one door.
"Commander."
Amieta turned to see Rorkulo, the medic, peering under that same door, "Hard to tell, but I think that was the Captain, sir."
She helped her lift the door a bit further, and the mess underneath was indeed wearing a Captain's uniform. "We get the first mate, at least?"
"Saw him with the others, sir." Rorkulo indicated an officer trying to make himself inconspicuous behind a couple of other crew, "Should we-"
Amieta was already shaking her head, "Time to get out of here, we'll take them all back to the Figment. Pack it up people! We want to be back on the Figment in five."
They herded the prisoners back to the airlock. Jadat's squad was holding steady, keeping the rest of the crew from cutting them off. Here and there, wild shots lanced into the walls and ceiling of the corridor - mostly nowhere near any of the marines. The sergeant glanced back as Amieta and the others arrived and started transferring prisoners, then reported over the comms, "Looks like they finally woke up, sir. Fucking clueless, but there're quite a few of them, sir."
The last of the prisoners aboard, the marines who'd taken the bridge covered Jadat's squad in turn. One of the marines fell, a lucky shot finding a weak spot in his armor low on the abdomen. Jadat grabbed him by the strap of his weapons harness and dragged him into theFigment, Amieta, Saer, and a last couple of others following.
The airlock clanged shut behind them. A spin of the wheel and the indicator shone green. The floor beneath Amieta's feet shifted slightly as the Figment kicked free and aligned into warp almost instantly.
Jadat and Rorkulo were kneeling by the fallen marine.
He looked up at Amieta and shook his head slightly. Dead.
Corporal Murlar Ahramian, age 24, picked up back when Silver was with ICT, and... Amieta's implants helpfully provided more before she remembered to ask them not to, married, with one kid, and a second on the way. Dead because a handful of slavers put their profits ahead of the law and were stupid enough to think that ship's crew could hold off trained marines.
Amieta felt the slight cold-prickle of her nano-tats creeping up her neck and across her cheeks at the thought.
She grabbed the nearest of the prisoners they'd taken, yanking him free of the grip of the marine who held him. "Where do you take the slaves, shithead?"
He was a dumb one, all right. "No slaves on our ship!"
Amieta tightened her grip on his neck, careful not to press too hard on the arteries taking blood to his brain and give him an easy escape into unconsciousness. "Your corp takes slaves. Where do they go next?"
"I don't know - what you're talking - about!" he gasped.
He braced himself as Amieta raised her other hand, no doubt expecting a blow. Relief showed in his eyes as she simply put her hand against the side of his face, palm against his cheekbone.
Showed briefly. Amieta flexed her thumb, only a little, a carefully calculated movement that was just enough to penetrate the sclera and pop his eyeball like an overripe grape.
A flickering indicator at the corner of her vision told her Cia was trying to connect to her internal comm. Amieta ignored it, letting go of the slaver just long enough to reverse her grip.
She pulled him forward a little and slammed him back against the wall. "You have another eye," she snarled, "two testicles, two hundred and six bones, a liver, a couple of kidneys and, technically at least, a heart. We'll work through them one by one until you talk, you piece of shit."
"Ami." The intercom filter made Cia's voice calm and even. "Ami, stop."
"Sir," Saer said beside Amieta, and when Amieta glanced at her the CTO made a small gesture, the slightest sketch of pointing towards her eye. Cameras watching, she meant.
"Ami," Cia said again.
Amieta cursed her sister's squeamishness. Doesn't she want to find Hiri?
A deep breath, a deliberate assertion of control over the combat 'plants and the adreniline flooding her system, and Amieta knew that was unfair to Cia. She wants to find Hiri as much as anyone.
She just has funny, dirt-sider ideas about things.
Wouldn't be Cia still, if she didn't.
Amieta let go of the slaver and pushed him back to the nearest marine, who seized him and held him securely. A thought accepted the incoming call from Cia's pod. Sorry, sis. This isn't the place for a proper interrogation. I guess I'm impatient to find Hiri.
I know, Cia said sympathetically.
Can you dock up, give us the chance to take these shitheads off your ship and talk to them a bit more calmly?
In warp now, Cia said.
You'll need to refit again, make sure the engineers check there's no damage. We'll handle these assholes while you make sure the ship's all right.
The slightest hesitation, and then: All right. Docking now.
As the marines dragged their three prisoners out of the hold and across the hangar floor, Amieta thought about that slight hesitation.
I pretend we're going to offer these fuckheads tea and biscuits, Amieta thought as they hauled the slavers into a cargo can, two marines taking up station on the outside of the door. And she pretends to believe me.
Otherwise, Amieta knew, Cia would feel she had to stop it, out of some sentimental attachment to the Yulai conventions or the Federation Constitution or one of those old books she liked to talk to Silver about.
Wouldn't be Cia, if she didn't.
Which is why it's a good thing she's got me to do the dirty work.
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