“I’d wondered where that went when they were searching me,” Viktor murmured.
“I thought I might need it to break you out of jail.”
“Thoughtful.”
“I try to be.” She smiled over her shoulder, hoping for a smile from him.
His eyes were half shut as he regarded her thoughtfully. “Are you
sure
you haven’t committed any other crimes to cause your arrest warrant to escalate?”
“Positive.”
The Lock Master finished working with a soft click. Ankari waited for a pair of robots to roll past, pushing hover pallets loaded with crates. They were heading toward the docks, so she slipped out and hustled to catch up with them. She strode along directly behind them—the crates blocked her view, but they would hide her and Viktor’s faces from people ahead of them. He joined her, matching his pace to hers.
“What are you planning to do if we find the mafia ship?” he asked.
“Chat with them.”
He slanted her a dark expression. “
Chat?
”
“More specifically, because I sense you want specifics, I intend to make them a business proposition so they’ll invite me aboard their ship and I can look around, maybe get some pictures of evidence. Tortured prisoners dangling from shackles—whatever’s common in the holds of a mafia ship.”
Viktor grunted. It wasn’t an encouraging grunt. He was paying attention to the route ahead of them, watching around the edge of one of the crates to see what was coming, so maybe he was simply too preoccupied to comment.
Or maybe he thought she was an idiot. Ankari sighed. Maybe she was.
Viktor’s comm-patch beeped. “Mandrake here,” he murmured.
Two men in mechanic’s coveralls were walking past, toolboxes in their hands. Ankari glimpsed the gray of a security officer uniform heading in their direction. She eased closer to Viktor—and to the robots ahead of them.
“It’s Sequoia, sir. The
Fat Tiger
is a freighter recently reported stolen while it was loading cargo on Perun. The hijackers used the chaos of nearby Nimbus as a distraction. Some of the freighter’s crew was murdered, but the thieves didn’t catch everyone. A few got away, and they’re the ones who reported the incident.”
“Mafia?” Ankari asked, leaning close to Viktor. She hadn’t expected the mafia to
be
in one of the freighters, only that they might be docked nearby and that the thugs had tramped through some spilled talc on their way to harass the Midway 5 inhabitants.
“Pirates is what the report says,” Sequoia said, “but those doing the killing and stealing probably didn’t announce their organization. Could be mafia.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Ankari said, keeping her voice low. The security officer walked by without glancing in their direction, but the voices of more people came from the bay ahead.
“You’re welcome. Captain? Anything else while I’m sitting here on the bridge, pretending I know how to do Thomlin’s job?”
“No,” Viktor said.
“You’re sure? Because—” Sequoia lowered his voice, “—Commander Thatcher has been drilling the pilots on math theorems, giving impossible flight tests with those goggles of his, and making us watch footage of the landings and takeoffs on Nimbus. He’s quizzing us to come up with things we could have done better.”
“Those sound like worthwhile endeavors.”
“But fourteen hours a day? While we’re in dock and would be on leave, if not for the quarantine? Last night, Lieutenant Calendula started ripping parts out of the control panel in her shuttle, so she would have an excuse to stay down there for repairs today. She claimed that someone spilled coffee, and that the entire shuttle would need a complete systems overhaul before she could return to Thatcher’s classes.”
“I see. I’ll let you know if—”
Laser fire squealed from ahead. Ankari scooted closer to the robots, placing her hand on one’s solid shoulder as she yanked out her pistol and peered past the crates. Viktor was doing the same thing on the other side.
“Sir?” Sequoia asked.
“Later,” Viktor whispered.
A crimson beam streaked across the chamber ahead, a long narrow room that ran along the side of the station. As she and Viktor drew closer, Ankari glimpsed rows of windows alternating with ramps that led up to tubes secured to the ships’ airlocks. Shouts came from the right of the corridor, but she could not see the source yet. She
could
see a pair of androids ducking behind their ramps as more laser fire spat down the bay, their identical faces expressionless. They did not run toward the commotion—they were probably programmed to guard the entrances to specific ships—but they withdrew weapons of their own.
The robots with the crates halted abruptly, and Ankari almost smashed into the one in front of her.
“Unsafe situation detected,” it said in a tinny voice. “Return cargo to point of origin.”
The robots turned slowly, rotating their hover pallets back the way they had come. Viktor shoved one of the heavy crates off, and it landed with a thud, right at the end of the corridor. He ducked down behind it, waving Ankari to his side. If the robots noticed the loss, they did not stop to do anything about it.
Once Ankari knelt behind the three-foot-high crate, she could see more of the chaos in the long bay. Nothing was happening to the left, but to the right, more laser beams streaked outward from a knot of men crouched at the base of the ramp leading up to the ship docked at the far end. More men waited in the mouth of the tube behind them. Most of them were armed with heavy laser rifles, but even as Ankari was trying to count heads, one jumped into view with a grenade launcher pressed to his shoulder. He aimed it at the androids guarding the next ramp over. The two androids at the bottom of
their
ramp had already been flattened, their metallic eyes unmoving as smoke wafted from their inert bodies. All of the other androids in the bay—there were eight docked ships, all guarded—started firing toward the troublemakers.
Ankari stayed low, but nobody was aiming at the corridor, at least not yet. From her spot, she couldn’t see if this was the only entrance to the bay, or if there was another one down by the escaping men. If it
was
the only exit, she and Viktor would have to make a choice soon—assuming the androids did not win the day. Did they try to stop the men breaking onto the station, or did they step aside? And why were those men trying to get
on
to the station, anyway? The two mafia people she had overheard had been worried about escaping before the Fleet arrived, something that was already happening, according to the Mandrake Company people.
The answer to her question came by way of two big men in armor racing down the ramp and toward a control panel on the wall. Their comrades covered them with a barrage of fire. Ankari recognized one of the men from the video—he had been a part of threatening the store owners. Now, he and his comrade were poking, prodding, and smacking the control panel. It was one of eight lining the inside wall of the bay, and she assumed they were responsible for airlocks and docking clamps. Ankari was too far away to see the details of its display, but judging by the irritated red flashes coming from it, the panel did not care for the men’s savage input.
Viktor had his pistol out and was also assessing the situation, as well as glancing back over their shoulders. Yes, more security men should come racing down that corridor at any second. Ankari hoped they would not stop to worry about her and Viktor with this mess going on.
“I can’t tell if that’s the talc freighter from here, but I think those are the mafia thugs,” Ankari said over the squeal of weapons. “I recognize that big fellow slamming the butt of his rifle against that control panel.”
“He looks bright.”
“Not every warrior has your smarts.”
Viktor grunted. “If the mafia came in on the stolen ship, they might have come in using a dead captain’s credentials.”
A boom rattled the walls and the floor. The crate jumped two inches, and Ankari jerked away, nearly tumbling into Viktor. Clouds of dark gray smoke filled the bay. Shrapnel—or were those pieces of one of the ramps?—flew in every direction, clanging against the walls. A triangular metal shard slammed into the top of the crate, and Ankari ducked, wondering why she hadn’t done that sooner.
“Fools,” Viktor said—Ankari barely heard his voice over the ringing in her ears. “They’re
right
next to the exterior hull of the station. They could kill everyone in the bay—and us too.”
The rapid bangs of the machine gun rose over the last pings of wreckage clattering to the floor. Ankari risked looking out again. The two men at the control panel had left it. Given up? Six other men were racing from their ramp toward a corner of the bay. There had to be another exit down there, but potted plants along the wall blocked Ankari’s view of that corner.
At least the men were not charging toward her and Viktor. But should she do anything? Try to stop them?
The androids fell without making noise, so it startled Ankari when a human cry came from the end of the bay. At first, she thought one of the armed men had been hit, but a stray energy bolt had slammed into someone hunkering behind a bench near the wall. At least a dozen other people were trying to hide, as well, but the bay did not offer much more than those slender benches and the infrequent potted plants for cover. One of those plants had already been struck, the pot shattered, with dirt and dead leaves flung everywhere. Seeing that made Ankari think of the man-eating plants she and Viktor had dodged back on Paradise. Unfortunately, none of these appeared to have such qualities, so she could not entice any mafia men over to be munched.
Besides, the combatants were heading for that corner. Another six crouched on the ramp, firing at the remaining resistance from behind their force field and waving for more of their comrades to escape the ship.
“What are they doing?” Ankari asked. She could understand trying to hack into the control panel and free the ship. But if they hadn’t been successful at that, what were they up to now? Why take all these men and charge into the station?
“This isn’t our fight,” Viktor said, even though he did not move from his spot. “Security will be here any second. We should find a closet or stairwell to duck into until they pass and things settle down.”
Someone else cried out—another civilian caught in the crossfire.
Despite his words, Viktor growled and leaned around the corner to fire at one of the men racing toward that rear exit. Even though dozens of meters stood between them, his shot blasted into his target with accuracy, striking the man in the shoulder and hurling him to the floor. It wasn’t a killing shot, but he probably hadn’t meant it to be. Those on the ramp might have a force field, but the mafia thugs racing through the smoke toward the rear exit were vulnerable. Viktor fired twice more, blasting armed men in the knees before the combatants realized where the laser bolts had come from. The men providing cover fire from the ramp shifted their aim. Viktor ducked back, pushing Ankari back, as well, before shots streaked past the mouth of their corridor.
“Not our fight, you say?” Ankari asked.
“Those idiots are a threat to the integrity of the station, and they’re shooting innocent civilians.” Viktor leaned out and fired twice more.
An alarm started up from within the bay, and the lighting switched from simulated daylight to a flashing crimson. Had that big brute with the grenade launcher caused structural damage, after all? Or had someone back in the station figured out what was going on and finally sounded the alarm? Either way, Viktor was right. It was time for them to get out of there.
She backed up, but only made it a step before movement down the corridor caught her eye.
“It’s too late to leave,” she said, though Viktor had just fired off two more shots and didn’t appear that interested in leaving, anyway. “We have company coming. A
lot
of company.”
No less than twenty armored and armed men were running in their direction in two squads, with a pair of androids leading the way, laser rifles clutched across their chests.
“Step aside?” Ankari asked, wondering if they could avoid being trampled if they pressed themselves against the wall.
With the alarm wailing and guns still firing in the bay, she didn’t want to go in there, especially if there might be a breach in the hull, one that could expand into a hole that could cause them to be sucked out into space. She glanced up, hoping there was a safety door at the end of their corridor that could be lowered for containment.
Viktor pushed the crate around the corner, so that it stuck out into the bay, leaving a couple of feet of space between it and the wall. He pulled Ankari down behind it, his pistol in hand as he kept shooting at the armed thugs progressing toward what she could now see was a hatch in the wall. Two had fallen to the deck, clutching at injuries, but most of the men were making it to the exit, even if they needed help from their comrades. That hatch appeared to be more of a service duct than a corridor, but Ankari knew full well the benefits of avoiding public spaces here.
Viktor blasted one more man in the shoulder before he could duck through the hatchway, but then the first of the station personnel burst into the bay, and he paused.
“Criminals detected,” one of the androids announced, its metallic gaze shifting down toward Ankari and Viktor. “Secondary objective. Primary objective, enforce quarantine.”
With those words, the androids sped into the bay, charging straight toward the men on the ramp. Laser fire and bullets bounced off their armor.
“Glad we’re secondary,” Ankari said over the noise of the firefight.
More security personnel, humans this time, charged out of the corridor. One flung down a one-foot-wide cube that bounced lightly across the deck a couple of times, then expanded in an instant, creating a six-foot-wide and four-foot-tall barricade. Most of the men dropped behind it, using what had become a solid barrier for protection as they fired over and around it.
“We should escape now.” Ankari jerked her thumb back toward the corridor. “Let Security handle it.” She wasn’t convinced that their crate would withstand much abuse, especially since the brute on the ramp with the grenade launcher had reloaded.