TEN

*Alamber?* "Hear he's following you with his kayt in his hand." *He's di'Taykan. And young. Are you jealous?*

"No." *Then why the hell…*

"Torin." With all the other things fighting to be said, asking her about Alamber had seemed the least weighted. In retrospect, Craig realized that might not have been the best idea he'd ever had. He'd never heard Torin sound so thrown. "I just… there's just…" Fuk it, start over. He glanced over his shoulder into the pod, but Nadayki was still bent over the seal, muttering Taykan profanity, hair in constant movement, concentrating so hard on cracking the code he'd be unlikely to notice H'san opera let alone a little mumbling. "I knew you'd come."

Craig actually heard her draw in a breath through the open link. Could see her straightening her shoulders and pulling her shit together because Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr didn't do mushy. *Are you okay?*

Loaded question. "Am now." *What…* Another breath and a clear decision to move away from the personal in the pause.*Do you think Nadayki will make the deadline?*

No surprise she remembered the kid's name. "Yeah." *Damn. Okay, it's 0653 station time. That gives us nine hours and forty-three minutes to get you to safety and blow the armory.*

"Six hours and forty-three minutes." *What?*

"Cho wants it open earlier." Not the time to go into the kid's ego cutting yet another hour off their time. When he heard Torin repeating the new information, he realized she hadn't come alone. If she'd brought Pedro into this mess… the man had kids for fuksake. "Torin, who's with you?" *Ressk, Werst, and Binti Mashona.*

She'd called in the Marines. Big surprise. All three of them had climbed out of that hellhole of a prison with her, and all three of them would follow her right back in if she asked them to. If he had reason to be jealous of anything… of anyone…

"You have a plan?" *We have a goal. Get you to safety and blow the armory with as little loss of life as possible.*

That was a little less detail than he'd hoped for. *Maybe…* Something had clearly just occurred to her.*Vrijheid was built to survive explosions-I've never seen so many decompression doors on a station. Plus there's emergency fracture lines built into the docking bay. If we blow the armory in the storage pod, between the pod and the design, the station might just blow into its component parts. I'm sure that's the only reason Big Bill allowed it on board. Wait…*

Where was he going to go? Nadayki had stopped swearing and started whining. Even without knowing the language, Craig would bet that every other sentence started with: It's not my fault. A better man might have felt sorry for the kid; as good as he was, it was obvious Nadayki was in over his head and afraid he wasn't going to finish in the eleven hours his ego had locked him into. *Ressk ran the numbers.* And Torin didn't sound too happy about them.*Even at minimum potential, if we blow inside, the odds are uncomfortably high that we lose the station. We have to get the armory outside and… what?* The question had clearly not been to him.*And far enough away that the debris will disperse beyond the point where multiple impacts will chop the station into pieces. Do you know how they moved it from the Heart into the pod?*

"No." *All right. If you find out, get back to me. We'll try and work it from this end.*

He thought for a moment, that was it. *Craig…*

She said his name like it held a hundred questions but finished up an answer short. "I know. You know…?" *Yes.* Even through the implant, he could hear how close that tiny bit of personal connection came to cracking her composure. Knew she'd let him hear it. It wasn't necessary; he'd seen how much she wanted him safe, but under the circumstances he'd take the little extra to hold on to.*We can't stay connected. When Ressk pulled our codes out, he noticed the log shows random signal sweeps. Big Bill doesn't seem to like the idea of anyone trying to beat the system. Long odds there'll be one in the next six hours, but let's not make it easy for him.* "Deal." Connection wasn't necessary. It was enough to know she was there, on the station. That she'd come for him. *Ping me when you've got something. I'll do the same.*

"Yeah, okay."

He smiled as the extended pause reminded him of sitting at the table in Pedro's kitchen, hearing Helena and her current crush muttering, You pop off. No, you pop off first. And wouldn't Torin appreciate being compared to a fourteen year old.

The smile faded when the implant pinged the connection closed. "All right." Torin took a deep breath and turned to face her team. Ressk and Mashona had their eyes locked on their slates. Werst had stretched out on the bunk, eyes closed. All three of them pretending they hadn't been trying to hear as much of her side of the conversation with Craig as possible. Torin appreciated the effort, but she'd needed Ressk during the conversation and could have gone into the Star's additional threeby or into the head if she'd required privacy. "Listen up, people; we figure out how to get the armory off the station. We work everything else from that."

Ressk waved his slate, although in the close confines of the Star's cabin the extra effort to get her attention wasn't necessary. "We can pull up the schematics and work them from here, Gunny, if you want to head down to the docks and check things out."

"Why would I do that? Where I refers to the person Big Bill just hired to teach his free merchants how not to blow holes in the bulkheads."

"This job you're not doing," Mashona began. Frowned. Began again. "This job we're not doing, right? He's hired all of us?"

"Technically," Torin told them, "he's hired me. I've hired you lot."

"How much are you not paying us?" Werst wondered, sitting up.

"Exactly what you're worth."

"I need next week off."

Torin sighed, sagging back until her shoulder blades hit the bulkhead. "Mashona, you were explaining why the person who's paying Werst more than he's worth would head down to the docks."

"You can't start doing the job you're not doing until the armory's open. Therefore, you'd like it to be open." Mashona shrugged. "Hatches are locked, you can't send one of us down, so it makes sense that you'd personally check on their progress. While that you is being impatient about the wait, the you that's here to take care of business can spend some time with Ryder."

"I don't…" Except she did. They were on the same damned station and that wasn't enough. She'd just spoken to him and that wasn't enough. If she'd been able to touch him, that would've helped convince her that he was… not all right, it was obvious he wasn't all right, but that he didn't blame her for what happened to him.

Most of her adult life had been spent at war, and now she was out, it seemed like that violence had followed her. Rationally, she knew what had happened to Craig had nothing to do with her, and guilt over it was self-indulgent bullshit she had no time for, particularly not given their new shortened schedule. Rationally, she knew that if Craig hadn't been with her when he was taken, there'd be no one coming to pull his ass out of the fire now.

Rational had nothing to do with the way she'd felt when she saw him.

Or heard his voice.

But rational was what would destroy the armory and get them all off of Vrijheid in one piece.

"While Ressk pulls the schematics up, tell me about Cho and his crew."

Werst and Mashona shared a look Torin didn't care to examine too closely, then Mashona said, "Captain because it's his ship. Mackenzie Cho is ex-Navy. Made lieutenant before they court-martialed him for abuse of power."

"There's about fifteen different versions of what he actually did," Werst put in. "Doubt that any of them are accurate, but they all agree that Marines died. He's got two Krai on crew. Most of the Krai here-on station and on the ships-are here for the same thing, eating sentient species, but that said, Huirre's apparently just a guy with no military training, used to fly cargo ships smuggling body parts, and Krisk never willingly leaves the engine room."