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"Hurry up," she ordered as we walked up to her and stopped. "The others are aboard."
"Aren't you going to ask about Rin?" I asked, not moving.
"Well since he's not here you obviously didn't find him. Will you move?" She looked
about a hairsbreadth from really losing it.
"We did find him," Rish said, his voice hoarse with grief and anger. "He's dead. He's
fucking dead, Captain!"
Her jaw dropped and she went white. Rish didn't say anything else, just pushed past
her and strode into the airlock. The clatter of his boots echoed down the walkway.
I waited for Maiga to unfreeze. When she did, she turned to me and spoke quietly,
barely above a whisper. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
I walked past her too and after a moment, she followed me down the walkway. Even
her footsteps sounded subdued, her stride shorter than usual. For a moment I felt ashamed.
Disgusted that I'd just used Rin's murder to score more points off Maiga.
Sometimes I think that if I could meet myself I'd beat the shit out of me.
Chapter 17
I stepped through the open airlock into the smuggler's ship. Our gear lay scattered
around the floor. Jia and Vimal sat side by side on one of the smuggle boxes. She sobbed, her
face in her hands, while he stroked her back, looking pale and sick.
The others stood around stunned. As I boarded Ilyan spun around away from Rish.
"Jadeth! What the hell happened?"
"Had to be..." I started, but stopped when Maiga shoved me further inside and started
closing the inner airlock door.
"Wait!" Ilyan called, staring wild eyed at her, his face flushed. "What are you doing?
We can't just leave! We have to find out who did this!"
"We have to go!" Maiga insisted. She flicked the intercom switch. "We're all aboard."
At once I felt the vibration through the deck plates increase and heard thumps against the hull
as the ship released docking clamps and disengaged from the station.
"Wait!" Ilyan insisted again.
"No!" Maiga shouted back at him. "Military Intelligence knows you're here. They
killed Rin!"
"She's right, Ilyan," I said. "They must have picked him up and made him confirm
you're here."
Rish scowled and surged towards me. Diliph grabbed his arm, held him back.
"Are you saying he betrayed us?" Rish demanded.
"They could have had him for hours. More than enough time to..." I stopped, not
wanting to say it, not wanting to make Jia cry any harder. Surely I didn't have to spell it out.
Rish calmed down, though still glared at me. He turned away as Diliph released his hold.
Tanashi wrapped her arms, around him and stretched up on her tiptoes to talk quietly to him.
"Lucky you intercepted that message," I said, glancing at Maiga.
"Lucky?" She glared at me. "Do you know how long it took to hack into the network
and then the encoded transmissions? It was not lucky!"
"Oh, excuse me," I sneered. "I forgot that protecting your ego is the priority right
now."
And this time she did lose it. She slammed into me and shoved me back against the
airlock door. Her fist rammed into my guts, taking my breath and making me double up. She
didn't get a chance to land a second one. Ilyan, looking utterly horrified, and Tesla the same,
grabbed her arms and dragged her off me. The rest of them stared in shock as our XO tried to
get free to beat the crap out of me.
"I've had enough of your shit, Jadeth!" she yelled as she struggled in their grip. "I've
fucking had enough of you!"
"Please, Maiga," Ilyan pleaded. "Calm down, please."
I straightened up, rubbing my gut. Not a bad punch for a marine, a girl marine at that.
She jerked her left arm away from Tesla with a sudden movement and I tensed, ready to
defend myself, but she didn't come after me. Ilyan let her other arm go and she stalked to one
of the seats against the wall where she dropped her head into her hands, gripping her hair
nearly tight enough to pull it out.
"Are you all right?" Ilyan asked me quietly, as I stood rubbing my healed up side. I
nodded, not quite able to speak yet, breath still short. Tanashi appeared at my side and ran her
med scanner over me.
"He's fine," she said a moment later.
Ilyan looked at me with pained eyes and nodded, then went to sit beside Maiga. The
horrible tension in the room started to ebb away, replaced by an even more horrible gloom.
Looking helpless, the others drifted to the seats. I found a seat well away from Maiga and
settled down, closed my eyes. The journey would take nearly a day. I needed to rest and to
sort my head out.
Rin's dead. I let the reality of it sink in. It felt like I'd only just got him straightened
out from Rish. Well I've been through that before plenty of times. A guy or gal joined my
unit and sometimes died before I'd learnt their name at all.
So I felt sorry for Rin, but had to think priorities. What had he told Military
Intelligence before they finished him? Our heading had to be a given. Our identities. Or
enough information for High Command to confirm them.
My conversation with Ilyan about how we measured his success came into my
thoughts. How he said we'd measure it in the number of assassins they sent after us. So we
could see Rin's murder as a clear measure of Ilyan's success. I didn't feel like drinking a toast
to celebrate.
****
A few hours later I woke up to some hushed talking. Ilyan, Tesla and Maiga, sat on
the smuggle boxes, all huddled together, heads down over a snapper.
"What's the problem now?" I asked Diliph who sat beside me.
"Money," Diliph explained. "We're short on cash apparently and getting hold of any
on Kitsnujitar is going to be very difficult."
"Everything on Kitsnujitar is going to be very difficult." I stood up and walked over to
the three of them.
"We need cash, right?"
"Yes," Ilyan said as the three of them looked up at me. "We're short on ready cash.
We meant to pick some up on Olojimi, but..." He shook his head. "We're running short on
money in the bank too."
"Your money."
"Tesla and Maiga have used their money too," Ilyan said, sounding defensive.
"I've got a tidy sum saved," I said. A smart soldier saved up as much of his pay as he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]