He blinked a few times before staring at her. “You must be Regyri.”
Natalya clicked the light off. “And you’re ... ?”
He stuck out a hand. “Tom Madigan. Engineer off the Dusty Sky.”
Natalya shook the offered hand, noting the calluses as well as the cuts and scrapes. “Are you hurt?”
He reached up to his jaw and rubbed his palm across the stubble. “Bruising. A few contusions. Bashed rib but I don’t think it’s broken. Just feels that way after sleeping on the deck.”
“Wanna tell me what happened?” she asked.
“Wanna cut me loose?” he asked in return, looking pointedly at the fabric around his ankle.
“Is that a sheet?”
“Mostly,” he said. “Kevlar. Tied and glued on both ends. You’re going to need to cut it off.”
“What, the foot?” Natalya asked with a grin as she grabbed her utility knife from its pocket on her thigh.
“If you must but I was thinking more like the—”
The blade flashed in the dimness and the fabric parted, freeing him from the stanchion but leaving a wad of sheet around his ankle.
“Sheet,” he said.
“Who are they?” Natalya asked, nodding toward the bow of the ship. “What do they want?”
“Well, until you jumped out, they were my friends and co-workers.” Madigan ran a hand over the back of his neck and leaned his head back over it. “Now? I don’t know. They didn’t take it well when I suggested they might be a bit off the mark by grabbing Ms. Usoko and that guy.”
“Rob Bean? The engineer?” Natalya asked.
“Yup. That’s the one. They’ve got her shackled to a bunk in one of the berthing areas forward. Waiting for you to get back with the ship.”
“How many of them?”
“Well, there were a lot more than there are now. Apparently not everybody wanted to go along with the plan. Some of the barges only came in with a couple of crewmen.” Madigan shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. When crap starting flying, Karros beat the shit out of me and I wound up here.”
“How long you been here?”
“The other boats came in fast a couple of days after you left. How long were you gone?”
“Little more than a week.”
“Call it five or six days,” Madigan said. “I kinda lost track of meals and head breaks. Frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t just toss me out the lock like the others.”
Natalya felt the cold finger of anger scrape down her spine. “Any idea why they didn’t?”
Madigan shrugged. “Plass is the hard-ass. He had his skipper and one of the miners in the freezer before anybody knew. Mitch Davis off the Rock Hound caught him at it and pounded his ass into the deck before anybody knew what was happening.”
“Who’s in charge?”
Madigan made a face. “I swear on my dead grandmother’s grave I had no idea.”
“Who?” Natalya asked again.
“Kevin Reverri. My skipper.”
His words clicked into Natalya’s head. “No idea about what?”
He waved his hand. “All this. The Mindanao. The nuke. All of it.”
Natalya’s stomach twisted. “This was an inside job?”
Madigan shrugged. “Apparently. We started in as soon as the Mindanao jumped into the sector. The bunkers were only half full but the skipper gave the word and we started chugging back. A half dozen of the other ships started back at about the same time, apparently. I never paid much attention to what everybody else was doing, but scuttlebutt, you know?”
Natalya nodded.
“When the station blew, Reverri and the first mate, Blanco, started acting real funny. Helm kept asking for more speed. Like we were going to find anything here when we got here. Everybody on the ship was talking about it. Seemed pretty clear something bad went wrong.”
Natalya nodded. “It did. We’ll sort it out but first I need to get Zoya and Bean.”
Madigan craned his neck to look out the door. “It’s just you?”
“Yeah. I don’t have a lot of options by way of backup. Kim Ahokas is keeping them busy on the radio while I try to get Zoya out of this. I was worried that Bean was still at the yard.”
“He is,” Madigan said. “I heard Fleiss talking to one of the other engineers.”
“They come in here often?”
Madigan shook his head. “Nope. Once a day to check on environmental. Make sure the fusactor’s still running.”
“They’d know pretty quick if it quit,” Natalya said.
Madigan grinned. “Yeah. True. Is that your plan?”
Natalya straightened up and shook her head. “I’m just going to throw the breaker.”
Lines of shadow crossed Madigan’s forehead when he frowned. “Won’t they just turn it back on?”
Natalya nodded. “That’s my plan.”
Madigan sat back on his haunches and his head tilted slowly before his white-toothed grin glowed in the faint light. “Need a hand?”
Natalya clicked on her light and rummaged in the storage bins for a moment before pulling out a roll of heavy tape and tossing it to Madigan. “I’ll snag ’em. You bag ’em.”
Madigan’s eyes opened wide. “Just you? There’s a dozen of them out there.”
“Only a dozen?” Natalya smiled at him.
Chapter 41
Smelter Seventeen:
2368, March 1
Natalya pulled the main power breaker and the ship seemed to shudder slightly as everything died. Even the quiet hush of the environmental systems fell silent. The grav plates maintained their charge but every console, every lighting panel, everything and anything that required power went off line. After half a tick, the red emergency lighting came on and she pulled that breaker, too. She closed the access door, stepped back away from the main breaker box, and slipped into the shadows at the base of the ladder, waiting.
The engineering watchstander thumped a few times before he found his way out of Engineering Main. Natalya grinned when he turned on a torch and started down the ladder, his light finding the breaker panel. He grunted something unintelligible and stumbled on the last step, catching himself on the hand rail before he fell all the way to the deck.
Natalya didn’t wait for him to regain his balance. She reached out, grabbed his arm, and using his momentum to swing him around, slammed him face first into the bulkhead with a meaty thwack. His torch rolled across the deck coming to rest against the foot of the starboard Burleson drive, the light forming a triangle on the deck.
Madigan came out of hiding and grabbed him by one foot. His teeth gleamed in the reflected light from the torch as he dragged the unconscious crewman back into the spares locker. Natalya faded back into the shadows and listened to the scritching sound of tape being pulled from the roll. After a few moments, Madigan darted out, grabbed the torch and used it to light his way back into the locker, pulling the door closed and clicking off the light.
Natalya heard the footsteps and grumbling long before the pair of crewmen appeared at the top of the ladder. They didn’t appear to be in any hurry.
One of them shouted. “Larson? What’s the hold up? You asleep again?”
Not too surprisingly, Larson didn’t answer.
They stuck their heads into Engineering Main, flashing a light around.
“Where the hell is he now?” A second voice. Higher pitched.
“He’s probably passed out somewhere. Bastard never did like standing watches.” They started down the ladder. “The box is down here, I think. Plass said it’s probably just a blown breaker.”
“I’m surprised the ship even survived,” the high-pitched voice said. “A nuke right in the nose?”
“Goddamn idiots blew themselves up before we could even get back from the belts.”
“To be fair, it’s always worked before. We got a nice haul on the last job.”
They reached the bottom of the ladder and Natalya let them get halfway across the deck bef
ore stepping up behind them. Her roundhouse kick to the head took the shorter one down with a grunt and she used the follow-through to grab the tall one by the back of his shipsuit and spin him into the end of the Burleson drive. His face took the brunt of it but he bounced off and swiped one large paw roughly in Natalya’s direction. She ducked under the swing, grabbed the arm, stepped in to his chest, and threw him over her hip to slam onto the decking. His head bounced once and he lay still before their torches stopped spinning on the deck.
“Damn, lady. I’m glad you’re on our side.” Madigan shook his head, muckled on to the tall guy, and started dragging.
Natalya grabbed the short one by the collar and started sliding him across the skid-coated deck, her breath coming in short pants as the adrenaline worked through her system.
“You all right?” Madigan asked. He wrapped the first guy’s legs together starting at the ankles and just kept rolling the tape up his body.
“So far,” Natalya said. “Nobody’s gotten close to me yet.” A faint sound echoed down from the direction of the spine. “The next one’s going to be harder.”
“You think so?”
“I hope I’m wrong, but how stupid do you think they are?”
Madigan grunted. “Grab their lights. I’ll finish taping them up.”
Natalya scooped the two portable lighting units off the deck and shut one off, keeping the other on until she found her way back to her hiding spot. The sounds from the spine got louder and she strained to make out what she was hearing.
A scuff on the deck above cued her that the next candidate used a little more caution than the last ones. She couldn’t tell if it was one or two. She pressed her back against the cold metal and waited.
Nothing happened for what felt like a very long time. She took the time to calm her breathing and relax her legs.
Finally she heard a low whisper. “I’m not goin’ down there. You nuts?” The voice was husky, ragged, almost breathless.
“Go on your own or I’ll kick your sorry ass down the ladder.” The second voice sounded almost gravelly. Not nearly as quiet as the first.
“I can’t see anything. How’m I supposed to find a breaker box in the dark on a strange ship?” said the first voice, shaking just a little bit.
“One thing at a time, ya wuss. Just get down there.”
Natalya waited, listening for the man’s quiet footsteps, his breath coming in quiet pants. She crouched, hearing his shuffling movement starting across the deck at the foot of the ladder.
“Come on, Karros. Nobody here.” His voice was still no louder than a hoarse whisper but it carried well enough. “Shine a light, will ya?”
Natalya couldn’t see him clearly, a vague shape only a little darker than the background. The fusactor’s displays gave the barest of glimmers in the blackness. A scuffing from above kept her crouched behind the ladder. She waited until the scuffing seemed to be coming from right in front of her, the movement of the man’s feet shifting the air. Reaching out between the steps, she grabbed, catching his ankles just above his boot tops. She leaned her weight into it and pulled his feet out from under him, tipping him face down onto the deck with a grunt and an ominous snap that sounded very loud in the silent ship. In the dark, something rolled across the deck.
“Karros?” The faint whisper came out of the dark.
Natalya hoped Karros was really out but the whiff of urine made her think he might not be waking up again.
“Karros? Stop screwing around.” He wasn’t whispering quite so softly.
“Come on, Karros. Knock it off.”
Natalya heard the shuffling and slid out from behind the ladder just as the man tripped on his unconscious crewmate.
“What the hell, Karros?” His voice shook harder and rose half an octave.
She reached out of the darkness, found the man’s arm, and pulled. He fell forward and his downward-speeding jaw crunched on her rising knee. He fell beside his pal.
“Madigan,” Natalya said and clicked on her light to check her handiwork.
He grabbed the closer guy and dragged him away while Natalya knelt beside Karros. She knew without checking that he was dead. Fear flashed through her, a hot wave with ice-cold edges. A panic response so strong she nearly ran away. She tamped it down, trying to quell the fear, to still the rapid beating of her heart by focusing on her breath.
Madigan came up from behind her, his light picking out the body on the deck. “Damn.” He held his light on Natalya. “You all right?”
“He’s dead,” Natalya said. The screaming inside her head made it difficult to concentrate.
“Yeah. Are you all right?” Madigan asked again.
“He’s dead.”
Madigan reached over and took her shoulder in one meaty hand. “He’s dead. Self-defense. He’d have killed you if he had the chance.”
Natalya closed her eyes, trying not to see the blood, smell the piss. “I killed him.”
“He killed a couple hundred of my friends,” Madigan said. “When he teamed up with the scum that blew up the station. His buddies will kill Zoya and the kid if we don’t do something.” He shook her shoulder. “We gotta get him out of the way before the next group shows up.”
A bright spotlight illuminated them from above. Natalya’s head came up with a snap but the light blinded her and she couldn’t see who held it—or how many might be standing behind it.
“I think it’s a little late for that, Tom.” The voice sounded certain, calm, and slightly amused.
Madigan pointed his light up the ladder, raking across the man’s knees before tracking upward to show his face and the small group of people behind him. “Reverri.”
“I thought you might be behind this,” Reverri said. “Who’s your little friend?”
“Where’s Zoya and Bean?” Natalya asked.
“Ah, you must be the redoubtable Ms. Regyri.” His head dipped forward slightly in an ironic bow. “So nice to make your acquaintance.”
“Where are they?” she asked again.
“Well, Mr. Bean is actually over at the yard while Ms. Usoko is enjoying her stay in engineering berthing. Come along. I’ll take you to her. You both have a lot to talk about, I’m sure.”
Natalya looked at Madigan and down at the body at her feet. “What about Karros?”
“One less problem,” Reverri said. “I should probably thank you for that. Did you kill the others, too?”
Natalya shook her head. “They’re just a little tied up at the moment.”
Madigan held up the roll of tape.
“Clever,” Reverri said. He pointed to the breaker panel with a wave of his light. “Now, suppose you reset the breakers and we’ll get on with the business at hand, shall we?”
Natalya turned toward the panel, crossing the deck slowly. Her brain felt like it had been rattled around in a box for the last half stan before being dumped into molasses. She needed a plan. Something she could use to free Zoya. Time.
She pulled the access door open and realized it shielded most of her body when it blocked the light from above. She snapped several breakers, not paying much attention to which ones they were.
“We’re waiting, Ms. Regyri. It would be a shame—”
Natalya dove into the shadows along the aft bulkhead, rolling across the deck and behind the fusactor.
A single glass pin from a needler shattered on the deck behind her.
She heard feet pounding down the ladder and a grunt. Beams of light flashed everywhere, acting almost as strobes, illuminating pieces of the engine room, throwing fractured shadows against the bulkheads and overheads. She gathered her legs under her and got ready to spring for the hatch down to environmental when Reverri stepped around the end of the bulky machine and pinned her with his light. The burnished metal of a needler gleamed darkly in his other hand.
“Fun’s fun, Ms. Regyri, but I think you’ve had enough for one day,” he said.
Another light clicked behind her, catching her in a
second beam.
She glanced back and saw Madigan holding the other light, angling it high so it shone in Reverri’s face.
“Put that light down, you jerk,” Reverri said, his needler hand going up to protect his face.
Natalya sprang, her legs swept Reverri off his feet while she grabbed for the needler as he fell. His body slammed to the decking with a satisfying thump but the needler fired once before Natalya wrestled it from his grip.
He swung the torch at her face but she blocked it, punching him in the face twice before he could recover. His body went slack under her and she almost relaxed. In a sudden move, he tried to roll out from under her, but she knelt on his forearm, grinding her knee into his muscle and pinning it to the deck. She reversed the needler and stuck the barrel into his ear.
“Hold still,” she said, her voice a panting grunt.
He froze, his eyes wide and his nostrils flaring as he sucked wind.
Madigan stepped around the pair and kicked Reverri’s torch out of the way, its beam spinning around the compartment. “You got him?” he asked.
Natalya nodded without looking up. “For the moment. Where are the others?”
“Still at the top of the ladder.”
Reverri growled. “Gutless pukes.”
“Actually I think they’re finally coming to their senses,” Madigan said.
“You can kill me but they’ll tear you apart,” Reverri said.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Natalya said, glancing up to see that Madigan had spoken the truth. “They don’t look like they’re going to do much.”
Reverri’s face flushed.
“How about it, folks?” Natalya said, raising her voice. “You want a piece of me?”
Madigan pointed his light at them.
A half dozen people, a couple of women and the rest men, looked at each other as if seeking guidance until one started to shake her head. The rest followed suit.
One of the women stepped forward, glancing at Karros’s body at the foot of the ladder. “I didn’t sign up for this.”
“Then what are you doing here, Ann?” Madigan asked.
Ann shook her head. “I didn’t know any more than you did when we got here.”