Earthrise (Her Instruments Book 1) (42 page)

They were in the cargo bay. The pad station’s status lights were on, including the blue one that signified the stable tunnel. The boxes were already arrayed beside it, each one crowded with carrion birds and crowned with a cold black shadow.

The blond leader awaited them near the pad. “First the spy,” he said. “Then the boxes. Then the rest of the riffraff.”

“You’re calling us riffraff?” Reese asked. “You must be kidding.”

“No kidding, Captain,” Blond said. “I note you’re finely dressed for someone I sent to a closet naked.” He glanced at the guards. “Our spy is prettily dressed as well.”

The guards shrugged. “He was going to die.”

“I highly doubt that,” Blond said.

“Why are we going across?” Kis’eh’t asked.

“I don’t ask questions, four-foot, and neither will you.” The leader grabbed Hirianthial’s wrists, pressing them against his back, and the Eldritch lost the sight of the cargo bay entirely.

You’re not seriously going to put that into the dangle, are you? Sascha, grinning.

Why not? Irine’s fingers, braiding the floss, hiding it from view. We need something stiff at the bottom so the bell will have something to move against. Besides, remember how we met him?

In a cell? Sascha laughing this time.

Irine grinned. You never know when he might need one. Her fingers tucked the final knot around the base of the lock pick, concealing its metal gleam.

I have a weapon,
Hirianthial thought, stunned. His mind flashed back to the hospital on Harat-Sharii and the hours he’d spent toiling on the Medimage platform; he saw the diagram he wanted, right down to the page number.

“A couple more steps,” Blond said. “You can make it.”

Hirianthial twined his fingers through his hair... and stumbled. His captor cursed as they fell and Hirianthial rolled onto his side, yanking at the base of the dangle where Irine’s clever fingers had left a loop.

“What are you doing?” Blond said.

Push me back
—and the man did, kicking him in the stomach. Hirianthial flopped onto the pin he held out in his clenched fingers... driving it through the winking lights on the Pad. If it really was as much like the Medimage platform as the manual had claimed... and it was. An innocuous click, too small for the magnitude of its meaning. The lights on the Pad died.

“What the—” Their leader grabbed his shoulder and jerked him forward, then exploded into red flame, seething. He turned to the guards that had escorted them into the closet and killed them, two bursts from his rifle.

“Next time when I say naked, I mean naked,” Blond said to the remaining pirates. “Not dressed and
NOT ARMED
.”

The brutal murder of humans should have scarred him, defenseless and open... but it had been so quick Hirianthial didn’t have time to feel them passing before another wave crested against his mind, alien and unexpected. He smiled and closed his eyes as the cavalry charged.

Dozens of people erupted into the cargo bay out of Pad nothingness, black and blue uniforms sprinting past, beams of light appearing out of nowhere. A voice barked orders: “Keep them alive!”

And then Jonah NotAgain of the UAV
StarCounter
and his very welcome crew immobilized every single pirate, disarmed them and pressed them flat onto the deck with their hands behind their backs and their legs cuffed. With quiet competence, the Fleet men and women stripped the fetters off her crew and Reese found herself catapulted from abject fear and hopelessness to a profound joy.

“I could hug you,” she said to the craggy-faced captain of the
StarCounter
. “In fact, I will.” And she did. The Tam-illee held his arms out from her, then chuckled.

“You called, Captain Eddings? I wish we could have arrived sooner.”

“You’re here now,” Reese said. “And am I glad. But there’s another ship—”

“We’ve already impounded both ships,” NotAgain said. “The first’s not much good anymore; we had to poke too many holes in it. The second didn’t put up much of a fight, so we figured most of them were here. Turns out that part’s true.”

“So all the pirates,” Reese started.

“Dead or in the brig,” NotAgain said. His gaze caught on the captives on the floor. “Or they will be soon.” He nodded to his people. “Take them back for questioning.”

“Captain,” Reese said. “We’ve got to talk. And our Eldritch needs a real Medplex, if you’ve got one. And the twins, they broke some of their bones.”

“Our medical staff’s at your disposal,” NotAgain said. “Shandy, see to the injured, please.”

The medic checked the twins over and said, “The woman’s fine, but we’ll have to take the man back.” She looked up at Irine. “You’re going to have some pretty ugly bruises, though.”

“Bruises I can handle,” Irine said.

NotAgain looked down at Reese. “Perhaps we can meet in two marks? That should give you time to assess the damage to your vessel.”

Reese wondered if that was a polite way of giving her the time to get dressed. The shorn tabard suddenly felt draftier. “Two marks sounds fine, Captain. We’ll have coffee.”

“And pie,” Kis’eh’t said weakly.

“You have pie?” NotAgain asked, amused.

“If you’ve got fruit, we do,” Kis’eh’t said. She ran her hands down her front legs, as if trying to keep them from trembling. “Anything for our saviors.”

NotAgain laughed. “You don’t have to trouble yourself.”

“It’s no trouble,” Kis’eh’t said.

“Let her,” Reese said. “If you don’t I’ll never hear the end of it.”

The Tam-illee shook his head. “All right,” he said with a smile. “We’ll send a bag over from stores. Pie and coffee in two marks... and we’ll take care of your wounded.”

“Thanks,” Reese said and stepped back. In silence, she and the crew watched NotAgain’s people rouse the prisoners, unfold their portable Pad, pick up the unconscious Eldritch, guide Sascha in front of them and vanish, all within minutes.

“They’re fast,” Kis’eh’t said, eyes wide.

“They’re good,” Irine said, then started laughing. “I can’t believe he used the pick!”

“What pick?” Reese asked, irritated.

“I put a pick in the dangle,” Irine said. “I didn’t think he’d have to use it so quickly! Now we’ll have to repair it.”

“With another pick?” Kis’eh’t asked, distracted.

“Of course!” Irine said. “At the rate he’s going, he’ll use more of them than I will!”

“If he survives,” Bryer said suddenly.

The conversation stopped.

“You don’t think—he’s just unconscious—”

“Surely a Fleet ship will be able to heal him,” Kis’eh’t said. “They have real doctors.”

The Pad’s blue channel indicator flashed, then began to glow. A few moments later a sack appeared on the station.

“They really don’t waste time, do they?” Irine said.

“And neither should we,” Reese said. “We’ll meet in the mess hall in two hours.”

In her own quarters, Reese shucked off the tabard and hopped into the water shower. She’d read countless stories where heroines recently handled by evil villains felt “soiled” and longed to wash themselves clean of the psychic dirt of their captivity, but Reese couldn’t identify any psychic dirt, only the real stuff. She felt grimy, but the shower put paid to that and dressing in her own clothing fixed the rest of her misgivings. The pirates were gone. Fleet was here. Sascha and Hirianthial had access to real doctors. Things were looking up. She spent some time hunting the ship for Allacazam and found him still in the clinic. A short nap with the Flitzbe and she was ready to present herself in the cargo bay to receive Captain NotAgain, who stepped through with Sascha behind him.

“Captain Eddings,” NotAgain said, and though his voice remained confident and friendly, he held himself tensely. “I think you’ll find your crewman in much better shape.”

Reese glanced past him at Sascha. “That true?”

“Very,” Sascha said. “Hirianthial’s sleeping, too. Really sleeping, not just unconscious.”

“I guess that’s a good sign.”

“My C-med tells me it’s as good a sign as we can expect,” NotAgain said.

Reese nodded. “If I can show you to the mess hall?”

“Thank you,” he said, and as he fell into step behind her she was certain that her visitor was preoccupied. He made no attempt at idle conversation and his eyes seemed focused on something inside himself, not on where they were going.

When the door to the mess hall opened, the aroma of cinnamon and apples flooded Reese on a wave of escaping air. She stopped in the door.

“I see our supplies went to good use,” NotAgain said at her heels.

“Don’t just stand there, Reese,” the Glaseah said. “Let Captain NotAgain in so I can get him a slice!” She stood in the kitchen, cleaning a couple of bowls and wearing an apron.

“What about me?” Reese asked, walking into the room.

“And me?” Sascha asked.

“There’s enough for everyone,” Kis’eh’t said.

The Tam-illee took a seat at the table and folded his hands on it. “Captain Eddings, will your crew be attending this meeting?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Reese said, startled. “Should I send them away?”

“It may be easiest,” NotAgain said.

His words weren’t met with the chorus of groans and wheedling that hers would have been had she said something similar. Instead, before Reese could turn to them and tell them to leave, Sascha took himself out and Kis’eh’t brought the pie in silence. She served them each a slice and a cup of coffee, removed her apron and left it hanging on a chair on her way out.

“They’re never that well-behaved,” Reese said, eyes wide. “How did you do that?”

NotAgain laughed. “By being someone they don’t deal with daily who’s also wearing a uniform. I suspect.”

“So much for learning that trick,” Reese said. She cupped her mug with her hands. “I imagine you’ve heard an earful about this already.”

“We convinced some of the pirates to talk to us,” NotAgain. “And your man Sascha filled us in on some of your half. I’d like to hear the full story from you, though.”

“All right,” Reese said and took a long breath. She started with the call from the Eldritch Queen that had sent her searching for Hirianthial and left nothing out from there, even the bits she didn’t understand clearly, like how Hirianthial had known the crystal people were sapient. NotAgain ate his pie and listened without interruption until she reached the end of her story; his questions sent her back-tracking across events, clarifying parts of it, bring forth details that seemed unimportant.

At last he set his fork down and pushed the plate aside. “You’ve been through a lot in the past few months, Captain.”

“I’m ready for things to calm down again,” Reese said. “I didn’t sign up to be pirate-bait.”

He laughed. “I imagine not. You’re not angry they keep coming after you?”

“Angry? Of course I’m angry!” Reese said. “They chased me around, wrecked my ship
twice
, if you count me having to sabotage myself to keep them from killing us, and they made me murder over a hundred aliens? Yes, I’m angry. I can’t wait for you to drag their sorry tails into a maximum security facility. Preferably a human-run one on a dirty airless asteroid.”

“And if I said in order to do that I’d need your help?” NotAgain said, and sipped from his mug.

“My help?” Reese stared at him. “You must be kidding me. You’re Fleet.”

“Yes,” NotAgain said. “And your information and the pirates we just impounded have given us what we need to disband one of the largest pirate-slaver rings in the Alliance Crown. We’ve been hoping for the key to the organized activity in Sector Andeka for two years. Now we have it. But we can’t reach it without your help.”

“Keep talking,” Reese said warily.

“Fleet’s jurisdiction is interplanetary piracy,” NotAgain said. “In order to claim criminals on planets, we need either permission from the planetary authorities or evidence of space piracy.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Reese said.

“We suspect the man who wants these crystals, the one you’ve signed a contract with, is the link between the pirates and the Andeka slavers,” NotAgain continued. “But it’s only a suspicion unless he does something obvious.”

“He signed a contract with me for dead people,” Reese pointed out.

“But you haven’t delivered,” NotAgain said. “Until he either says something ridiculous in our hearing or transfers the full amount to you in acceptance for the contraband with both of you knowing full well what you’re delivering, we don’t have enough evidence to demand extradition.”

“This is crazy!” Reese said. “The man is a drug dealer! Isn’t knowing that he wants to make drugs enough, that he paid for me to go get him raw materials?”

“He could say the materials were intended for something else,” NotAgain said. “He could claim he didn’t know what they were. We need to catch him full in the act to take him away.” He looked at her. “We would like you to complete your mission, Captain. Take him the crystals. Deliver them in person.”