Frost Station Alpha 1-6: The Complete Series (7 page)

During the search, he found a compact knife that he had missed earlier, one in a sheath strapped to her inner thigh, underneath her trousers. It took some artistry to remove the blade without removing her trousers—a subtle flap in the material was what allowed her to access it. He supposed he
could
have removed her trousers, but that seemed an unnecessary indignity. Besides, he got to slide his fingers across smooth flesh in order to unbuckle the sheath.

Pavlenko’s jaw clenched so tightly, she was in danger of breaking teeth, so he couldn’t pretend that she enjoyed the search. He pulled the sheath out and dumped it on the table alongside several other piles of weapons and personal items that suggested the civilians had already been searched.

Zar chuckled at the knives. He was watching Pavlenko with curiosity and appraisal that Makkon didn’t like, but he doubted the kid would treat her with anything but respect. He wasn’t much older than she, and he had an earnestness-to-please about him that Makkon couldn’t translate into someone who would maul women. Rebek was more likely to be trouble. He was eyeing her chest instead of her knives.

As Makkon finished his search, his comm beeped.

“What?” he answered, stepping back from Pavlenko. “Tie her,” he mouthed to Zar.

“Yes, sir.”

“You find that woman, Makkon?” came Brax’s voice over the comm.

“Just dropped her off with the others.”

“Took long enough. Get your ass up here to the top gun turret. We’ve got a soldier who’s locked himself in here with enough explosives to blow up half of the station.”

Several of the scientists straightened in alarm and murmured tensely to each other. Yes, this level qualified as being on the “top half of the station.” Pavlenko didn’t react overtly, though she was probably pleased with the act of defiance rather than worried it would get her killed. Makkon sighed, wondering if his thoughts of winning her over were in vain.

“I’m on my way.”

Before leaving, he pulled Zar aside. “I told the woman we’d keep her alive if she cooperated,” he said quietly.

“Oh? Is she?” Zar quirked his eyebrows toward the now-tied Pavlenko, then glanced at Makkon’s injured leg. “Cooperating?”

“Not yet, but she will,” Makkon said with more conviction than he had. “She locked up the comm before running, so we at least need her to get into the system and send our demands. Don’t let anyone harass her. You know I don’t care to go back on my word.”

Zar paled. “Yes, sir. I’ll watch her.”

“Good. Stay alert.”

Makkon strode out, wondering how he was supposed to keep some suicidal veteran from blowing up the station.

Chapter 5

Captain Porter wasn’t there. Tamryn had counted all of the scientists as soon as she’d had a chance and knew two of them were missing, as well, but she didn’t know if they had escaped... or been killed. She distinctly remembered that blood she had walked through down on the animal lab floor. She also didn’t know if Porter had escaped or been killed.

If she had died... Damn, what a senseless act it would have been to shoot someone with such a brilliant mind. Someone who was also the closest thing Tamryn had to a friend on the station. Since it would have been unseemly to spend recreational time with the enlisted men, she had gravitated toward the one other female officer. Even if Porter was usually distracted by her work, she had been friendly and willing to chat after hours. Had she been there to chat now, she might have shared some knowledge of the intruders. She had seemed to know something about them, about the tattoos at least. Tamryn needed information if she was to come up with any kind of plan.

Her gaze skimmed across Corporal Powell, who was now missing one arm. He was staring back at her, his eyes full of pain but also holding a smidgen of hope. Did he think she could somehow get him out of this? She didn’t see how. Maybe he knew about her family and thought she could wave her hand and have Daddy send out a private fleet. Unfortunately, she had the same problem as everyone else here, a days-long delay between the time a message could be sent and any ships could reach them out here. Also, she worried that her captor’s buddy might have figured out a way to keep her report from going out.

“You there, pirate,” she said to the young man who’d been helping Dragon Tattoo. Makkon, she’d heard the others call him. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to think of him by name or not. She certainly did not want to encourage any feelings of familiarity toward him, not when he had killed Wu and countless others.

“Pirate?” The young man walked closer and looked down at her. He had a broad face that had been friendly when he was gazing up at Makkon, almost adoring. The tattoo—some huge, shaggy animal—and his muscles, as brawny as every other invader’s, had made him seem older, but when she looked at him more closely, she decided he was probably her age.

“Whatever you are,” Tamryn said.

“I’m Zar.”

“Fantastic. Look, Zar. There are people in here who are injured. You’ve got us tied up, and your leader said something about hostages, so I’m guess you don’t want us to die. Got a first-aid kit in here? Mind if I try to patch them up?” She glanced at Powell and the unconscious Cox beside him. Some of the scientists had injuries too.

Zar scratched his jaw and looked at Powell and Cox. “I don’t think anyone cares if the soldiers die.”

Tamryn ground her teeth. “
I
care.”

She barely knew the men, but she found the words to be true. She doubted the sentiment would sway the pirate, but she had gone to school to be an officer. Even if she had chosen the technical track instead of the command track, never thinking of herself as someone who would easily order people around, she was supposed to be able to lead men, to take care of them. She might be the only officer left alive on the station. It was her job to keep the few people she had left alive.

Zar must not have had an opinion either way, because he shrugged, said something to one of his colleagues, and walked out of the room. To retrieve medical supplies, Tamryn hoped.

Had her wrists not been tied behind her back, she might have contemplated escape again, since there were only two pirates left in the lounge, but they were older, in their thirties or forties, and looked every bit as fierce as Makkon. One was watching her closely, a scarred man with a beard that nearly hid whatever his tattoo was supposed to be. Something with scales and fangs. He had also watched her when Makkon had been searching her, his gaze dipping to her breasts and then her thighs when Makkon had been pulling out her knives. She did not want to give him a reason to come over. As much as she wanted to escape, it was something that might be easier to achieve once the pirates had settled in, and they were waiting to hear back from Fleet. Some of them would have to sleep sometime.

Pretending she wasn’t aware of the staring brute, Tamryn shifted her attention to the large portholes that dominated the exterior side of the lounge. As she’d noted when she first entered, the side of a ship was visible outside. It had looked like a mining craft, rather than a warship, with a cone-shaped nose capable of drilling. If her ankles hadn’t been bound, she would have gotten up and walked over for a better view. It must have clamped onto the hull near engineering, cut an entrance, and extended a tube to come over. They might have had space suits, too, and simply floated over, though given their scruffy attire, it was hard to imagine them with expensive suits.

“Here you go, lady.” Zar had returned, and he held a portable medical kit out to her. He must have gone to sickbay.

It was more than she expected, but she couldn’t bring herself to thank him. She did not want to start thinking of her captors as human beings, as people to be respected. Still, she gave him a curt nod when he set it on the deck next to her. If she wanted him to free her hands and feet, she should at least hold back her belligerence.

“Untie me?” She tilted her chin toward the silver case, pointing out that it would be hard to use without her hands.

Zar hesitated. The guard with the roaming gaze frowned.

“Your word that you won’t try anything except taking care of them while you’re untied?” Zar asked.

Now Tamryn was the one to hesitate. Even though she doubted she would get a chance to “try anything” in the next half hour, she did not want to be bound by her word—or be forced to break it—if an opportunity arose. She was actually surprised that the pirate would ask the question or think anything of her word.

“Just retie her hands in front of her, Zar,” the third pirate said. “I doubt it matters if she’s free or not, but we’re not accepting promises from our enemies.”

“Might matter,” Zar said, hoisting Tamryn to her feet and turning her so he could untie the knots. “Someone shot the hunt leader.”

Hunt leader? Makkon? What kind of rank was that? It didn’t sound like something a pirate would use, but then, hadn’t she already decided these guys were smarter and more organized—and more deadly—than pirates, at least than what she had imagined was typical for pirates? Maybe they were mercenaries, after all. Or someone’s private army. Someone with a poor fashion sense.

The second pirate snorted. “I’ll eat my left nut if she’s the one who shot Makkon.”

Tamryn let herself experience a tight smile, but said nothing.

After finishing with her wrists, Zar redid the bonds around her ankles. He did not remove them, but he tied them less closely, so she could hobble across the room to join her men. With the medical kit clutched in her hands, she awkwardly knelt between them.

“Ma’am,” Powell said with a nod. “Better look to Cox first. He’s been out since one of them bounced his head off the deck.” He glared at Zar and the others.

He was pale, too, and looked to have lost a lot of blood, but Tamryn followed his suggestion and leaned toward Cox first. The red-headed sergeant didn’t stir when she touched his face. It was cool and clammy. She opened the medical kit, relieved to find a repair device inside. She’d taken the mandatory first-aid training at the academy, but that didn’t involve much more than giving shots, stopping bleeding, and wrapping bandages. She fastened the device to his forehead. It could do a lot on its own and should be able to reduce the inflammation and inject a few nanobots to fix internal damage. If it couldn’t repair the problem, a readout would at least give her some advice on what else needed to be done.

While the device beeped and hummed, she cut open his sleeve so she could apply Knit Gel to a deep gash dripping blood onto the floor. She gave both of the men painkillers with the injector in the kit, taking note that there were sedatives loaded into the device too. Four charges. She thumbed the selector to the sedatives and set the injector between her knees, glad she hadn’t given her word about anything. One of the pirates paced behind her, so she didn’t attempt to slip the device in her pocket, but she planned to before she finished with the men.

“You know any more than I do about them, Powell?” she murmured, hoping her voice wouldn’t carry.

“Probably not, ma’am.” Powell looked chagrined to admit it. He watched Zar, who was walking a slow circuit around the room, checking on all of the prisoners, while the other two stood guard near the door. “I don’t think they’re pirates, though,” he added when Zar had reached the other side of the room.

“No? Why not?”

“Haven’t heard them say a thing about the artifacts. That’s what all the other pirates were trying to get their hands on. If these people know about them, they haven’t let on, not that I’ve heard.” He fell silent as Zar’s route took him back past.

Tamryn finished with Cox, then made her way over to examine the stump that was all that remained of Powell’s arm. If he survived this, he’d never be a field soldier again. If he could afford it, he could probably get a bionic arm or, depending on the nerve damage, possibly have a new one grown in a lab and then attached. Those were expensive procedures, though, and the Fleet didn’t usually pay for anything more than basic rehab on wounded veterans. Maybe if they both made it out, she could see that he was taken care of. She didn’t have much money in her own right, as neither her father nor her grandfather had ever been believers in spoiling their children, but she was still her father’s youngest and only girl, so she got her way more often than her brothers ever had. And this wasn’t quite the same as begging for a pony.

“You heard anything about Porter?” Tamryn murmured.

“No, ma’am. She wasn’t brought in with the others. Hope that means she’s eluding them, but...” He looked down, avoiding her eyes.

“I know. They’re not easy to avoid.”

“I don’t think they’re entirely human,” Powell whispered. “I don’t mean to make excuses, but... they pulverized us, ma’am.” He winced, either at the memory of the battle or because she was applying an antibacterial gel to his cauterized stump. “They’re way too fast and strong to be straight-up human. Can’t be androids. An android wouldn’t leer at your chest.”

She snorted, but it was a good point. These people seemed perfectly human in the way they interacted with each other and their prisoners.

“Genetically engineered?” Tamryn mused.

“Thought that was outlawed.”

“Not exactly. But it fell out of favor a few centuries ago, when the fundamentalists decided babies born in labs were intrinsically changed and were no longer human and didn’t have souls—or rights.” The history books did not say it, but Tamryn suspected those zealots had been more worried about being replaced or enslaved by “superior” humans and had wanted to make sure that could never happen. “In GalCon space, it’s tough to find a clinic that will do more than gene clean for diseases, but maybe somewhere out on the rim, you could find someone to make a nice little army of super soldiers, assuming you have enough money.”

“If their leaders had so much money, why didn’t they give their soldiers better clothes?”

Tamryn squeezed Powell’s good shoulder, relieved he was keeping his spirits up. “I—”

A soft beep came from the table full of weapons and gears. And tablets.

Tamryn winced, afraid that was
her
tablet. And that Captain Porter was trying to contact her again. She couldn’t think of anyone else who wasn’t in this room who might try to contact her.