An Officer’s Duty (57 page)

Aware that the small reoxygenation pack on the back of her suit wouldn’t last forever, Ia cycled herself after them. Two more armed crewmembers awaited her. They didn’t wear pressure suits, but they did bring the known count of Humans and Tlassian up to five and two respectively, albeit with one of the saurians left back in the cargo bay.

It was still a standoff, however. They had plenty of guns, but she had a military grenade, and they were all in close quarters. Lifting her free hand to the controls on her neck-ring, Ia unsealed her suit and flicked back the front faceplate, allowing her to breathe the air of their vessel. It also allowed her to speak.

“Thank you for not shooting recklessly,” she stated dryly, if politely. “It seems, given our current standoff, a little bit of negotiation is in order.”

“Alllll
we
have to do issss retreat and fire uponnn you from a dissstancsse,” the pistol-wielding Tlassian in the corridor with her hissed.

“Neh-yah-veh,”
she agreed, using the V’Dan equivalent of
more or less
. “But I’ll be blunt and admit I’m worth considerably more to you alive and unharmed.”

“Shakk sh’keth,”
one of the Humans scoffed. His skin was too dark a shade of brown to tell if he was Terran or V’Dan. From the faint hint of an accent, Ia guessed it was the latter. “Th’ military doesn’t ransom anybody!”

“I’m not talking about the Terran Space Force,” Ia informed him. “I’m talking about the Salik. It seems they have a very large bounty on my head. Naturally, the offer’s only good if you trade me to them while I’m still very much alive, intact, and unharmed.”

They stared at her. The male who had cursed blinked. “You…
want
to be sold to the Salik?”

She poked her free thumb over her shoulder at the airlock door behind her. “I noticed some of the crates you were hauling were stamped with codes for hyperrelay components. Since the rest of the Alliance can get their hands on such parts fairly cheaply, that means you’re smuggling them close to the Interdicted Zone for a purpose—in other words, for the Salik, or at least
for those who trade with them. Since you have Salik contacts, this means you’re capable of looking up my ident through those contacts and discovering that they now have a bounty on my intact, unharmed, fully alive body, traded kilo for kilo in solid platinum. That’s enough precious metal to buy a second ship…or outfit this one with far better engines and guns than the
sh’keth
you’re currently running.”

“Rrrunninng, until
you
sssshhot it up,” the Tlassian hissed, lifting his gun a little higher in threat.

“Yes, well, I wasn’t in charge of
that
decision,” Ia drawled. “If I had been, your FTL capability would certainly not still be intact, and you’d be running and screaming from the advance of my full boarding party. As it is, my second-in-command is going to face a Board of Inquiry for losing both her CO and this ship.”

“
You’re
the CO? Commanding Officers don’t lead boarding parties!” a new Human scoffed, this one a female. She wedged her way forward between two of the suited Humans, confronting Ia with her hands on her hips. Petite and Asiatic, hair cropped short and only modestly pretty for a Human, she could have been any of a hundred thousand women Ia had seen in her travels through the known galaxy. She carried herself with an air of absolute authority, however, and the rest of the crew backed off a little, deferring to her.

“I lead from the front, meioa,” Ia stated. She bowed slightly, grenade still visible in her hand. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lieutenant First Grade Ia, ident #96-03-0004-0096-0072-0002, and I am assigned to the command of the TUPSF
Audie-Murphy
, one of the Delta-VXs flown out of Battle Platform
Mad Jack
. I am personally responsible for the tracking, capture, and destruction of twenty-three Salik vessels…including single-handedly shooting down one of their rare capital ships.

“They
want
me, First Officer Veng, like you would not believe,” Ia added, watching the woman jump slightly in surprise at hearing her name. “They’re willing to
pay
to get their slimy little tentacles on me. Specifically alive, intact, and unharmed. And
you
are going to deliver me to them for a very substantial fee. Now, you can spend it however you want; I don’t care. So long as you hand me over to the Salik, alive,
intact, and unharmed, I honestly do not care about you, your ship, or your crew. You can go about your business as soon as I’m done with you.”

Veng eyed Ia up and down. “You’re
shakking
crazy. No Human
wants
to get eaten by th’ damned frogtopussies!”

“I didn’t say they’d get to eat me,” Ia countered, shrugging slightly. “Just that I need to be handed over to them. This is an opportunity I cannot pass up, given my standing orders. You
will
sell me to the Salik. All I ask is that you don’t actually
tell
them that I want to be sold…because if you did, they’d kidnap you and your crew out of paranoia, and then
you’d
be on the lunch menu, too.” She shrugged eloquently. “In good conscience, I could not allow that. So for the time being, while you look up the bounty on my head, you can lock me up in the unused crew quarters on Deck 5, portside, cross-corridor Charlie.”

“How did you…?” Veng asked her, blinking.

“How did I know about the unused crew cabin?” Ia asked her. “
My
contacts heard about your ex-crewmate Connors leaving the ship, and from there, tracked down information on where he had been staying,” she lied calmly. “Your lightspeed broadband comm panel’s scrambler code has been cracked. You might want to get that changed out as soon as you can.”

“But why do you need to be sold to the
Salik
, of all species?” the first officer repeated, shaking her head. “I’ll admit we’ll sell them a lot of things, since they pay through their nostril-flaps for it…but a living sentient?”

Ia smirked ever so slightly. “That’s need-to-know information, meioa, and
you
do not need to know. In fact, you don’t
want
to know. Trust me.”

Several whispers behind her, sibilant with the hisses of the Tlassian language, told her the crew was discussing her insanity. The translation of their exchange was more or less wondering if Ia was secretly a Salik agent. Ia knew there were such agents in the military, though not as many among the Terrans as the Salik could’ve wished.

Veng touched the headset hooked over her ear. She lifted her chin at the taller woman. “Fine. It’s your funeral banquet. But you strip to the skin. I want to make sure you’re not here to sabotage our ship. It’s funny, but I don’t really
trust
TUPSF officers.”

“Only if you give me something to wear in exchange. P-suits aren’t comfortable in the long term.
Ah-ah
,” Ia reminded both her and the others as they shifted toward her. She gave a little wave with the hand still holding the grenade. “No touching. This is nonnegotiable. You touch me, I break things. And I’ll keep this grenade up until I’m sold, to keep you honest. Oh, and I’d like something to eat when I get to my ‘guest quarters.’ A ration packet will do; it doesn’t have to be anything fancy. With luck, I won’t be here long enough to be a burden on your resources.”

“You can’t hold on to that grenade forever, meioa,” the V’Dan crewmember warned her.

Ia looked over her shoulder at him. “I survived all seven days of Hell Week in the Marines, Basic Training, meioa.
All
seven days. I can do anything I need to do. My advice? Don’t get in my way, and I won’t hurt you. Now, as I said, I suggest I be ‘locked away’ for your own safety while your captain and first officer investigate the bounty on my intact, alive body. But don’t delay. Their offer has a narrow window of opportunity.”

“Fine. You heard the meioa,” Veng ordered her crewmates. “No touching, until we know if it’s true. That also means
you
, Svass. Give her room to pass, the lot of you. If you force her into a fight when she’s trying to be polite, I’ll point and laugh at whatever she does to you. As for
you
, prisoner, move
that
way. If it’s
not
true, Svass is only the first one who’ll have a shot at your pretty little backside.”

The members of the crew parted, and Ia politely passed through untouched. She skirted carefully around the Tlassian as she did so, keeping well out of his reach.

Not all of the Alliance races were bipedal, and not all of the Alliance races shared the same physiological traits. Some things did translate, somewhat. Solaricans and Tlassians and Humans reproduced via similar methods, and enjoyed similar pleasures while doing so. Gatsugi physiology was too different to be compatible, and K’katta, Choya, and Salik didn’t breed unless they were in heat. As for the Dlmvla, they breathed the wrong atmosphere, and the Chinsoiy lived in an environment radioactively toxic to the other races. Both situations made such speculations impossible. But among the first three races, certain activities
were
possible, if one were perverted enough.

It didn’t take long to get to the right deck and cross-corridor. The cabin was as small as precognitively advertised. The amount of floor space was the same as the area covered by the double bunk beds, and the bathroom was little more than a closet with a toilet and sink. Ia didn’t care, though. She turned to thank the first officer, only to find Veng pointing a gun at her.

“Strip. You’re clearly carrying something around your right ankle, and I want to know what it is,” Veng ordered, nodding at the bulge beneath the silvery grey material.

“Bring a set of clothes, and I’ll show you,” Ia countered.

“No game. I’m not leaving you alone to pull some sort of James Bond device on me and my crew,” the other woman countered.

“It’s a bracelet. Well, technically an anklet,” Ia corrected, once more lying through her teeth. “I cannot remove it, because I put it on when I was a kid and couldn’t get it off again. Besides, all you have to do is call on your headset and ask someone to bring you a pair of coveralls. You don’t have to leave this cabin. Now, we can play this game all day, Meioa Veng…but I really am what I seem to be.”

“And that would be?” Veng asked, one brow lifted skeptically.

“A soldier with a crazy idea, and the abilities to carry it through. All I need is for you to cooperate…and in exchange, I’ll give you five sets of navigation coordinates to go hide your ship for the next six weeks, because you’re going to
need
to hide for at least that long,” Ia told her. Veng frowned, so she explained. “The moment you took off with me on board, you tagged this vessel across the entire Space Force as kidnappers. Every port will be looking for you, for the bounty on your heads.

“
However
, it should only take me two and a half weeks to do what needs be done, then I’ll be back, and within another two and a half, I’ll be able to clear your names with the Command Staff,” Ia told her. “Give another week or so for word to spread that the bounty’s no longer valid, and you’ll be free to go back to business as usual.
If
you really want to. I make no guarantees against capture or destruction if you do, however.”

Veng snorted. “
You
have contacts in the Command Staff? Yeah, right. More like you’ll leave us deadheading into the dark, meioa. Particularly since you
won’t
be coming back.”

“Then if nothing else, do not delay in checking out my ident with the Salik,” Ia said. “I weigh just over one hundred four kilos. That’s a
lot
of refined platinum. You could easily buy off an Independent Colonyworld to give you and the rest of the crew asylum. Maybe even turn privateer, and be semirespectable.”

Veng gave her a wary look. She seemed to be considering Ia’s offer. Finally, she touched her headset, activating it. “What’s that ident number, again?”

Ia gave it to her. She waited patiently as Veng gave the orders for a spare set of ship coveralls to be brought down, too, then stripped out of the pressure suit—carefully, still holding the grenade in one hand at a time—until she bared the crysium on her ankle. Translucent peach pink, it was just clear enough to show it was just a thick ankle cuff. “Satisfied it’s not some bizarre device?”

“No, but it’ll do.” Tossing the coveralls on the lower bed, Veng picked up the p-suit and started to back out of the cabin. She paused one last time. “
Why
do you need to be sold to the Salik? That’s what I don’t get. Since you don’t have any gear or weapons with you, I can only think you’re working for them. But if you were, why the ruse of being sold?”

Ia, stepping into the coveralls, looked up at the other woman. “I see you wear a cross,” she observed. “I trust that you’re familiar with the story of David and Goliath?”

Veng snorted. “Of course I am.”

Ia shrugged into the sleeves and started fastening the front. “Well, I am
very
good with a sling, meioa. I suggest you don’t get in the way of my cast.”

“You are
beyond
crazy, meioa. Maybe the Salik
do
deserve to eat you.” Stepping outside, Veng locked the door.

Touching the panel with her hand, Ia sank her mind into the locking circuitry. It wasn’t the familiar military model, so it took her a few minutes to figure out and change the code. The moment she was secure, she retreated into the closet to use the facilities. The 6 percent probability that that one perverted Tlassian would want to get in there was now successfully cut off, leaving her relatively safe for the time being.

Ugh.
Too many hours stuck in a pressure suit, even if I didn’t drink a lot before I went in. And I’d better dig into the
emergency rations in the locker above the toilet so I can have something to eat and drink, since the probability is high that these pirates won’t be inclined to feed me. Not that the Salik
won’t
feed me. They’ll be taking pains to keep me alive once they get their suckers on me. But it’ll be almost two weeks of being stuck in a cell at FTL speeds with the Salik version of food before we’ll reach Sallha.