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Da’shay looked at him, her black eyes wide and looking so
innocent, even if Tom had good cause to believe she wasn’t even a little naïve.
“Makes more sense to save Tom than a captain or a general,” Da’shay said, but
then her gaze started slipping away, the moment of clarity somehow fogging.

Ramsay snorted. “Hell, Tom, I’ve never been much for
understanding women, but I’m pretty sure that’s her saying she loves you. And
Da’shay, I already figured you’d gut shoot me yourself if it meant saving Tom.”

Tom looked from one of them to the other, not even
understanding them one little bit.

“Shhh…find the white,” Da’shay said, pointing down toward
the docks. Tom might have settled back down on his stomach to study the world
through the scope of his rifle, but his brain kept turning over the fact that
Da’shay hadn’t denied it when Ramsay said she loved him. A long time past, Tom
decided he didn’t know what love really meant. Maybe he still didn’t. He knew
what it meant that Da’shay was flat out picking him over anyone else in the
world to protect, though. Tom had given that sort of loyalty to a half-dozen
captains, including Ramsay. This was about the only time anyone had ever
claimed to feel the same toward him.

“White all clouded with brown. Like brown,” Da’shay said,
her voice sounding dazed. Tom didn’t really have an answer for that, so they
all waited in the quiet.

“Sir?” a quiet voice broke through the silence. Tom looked
over his shoulder and Eli stood there with a bag in hand and a wild look in his
eye.

Becca slid around behind him, her eyes going straight to the
dock. “All the heavenly saints. Are those Da’shay’s aliens?”

“Seems like we can call them
cati
, now,” Ramsay said.

“Sir, why did we abandon ship?” Eli was right to the point.
Tom wondered how a rule-following, clean cut boy from the inner planets saw the
rest of them. Tom turned back to studying the dock about the same time Eli
announced, “We should send a blast to Command.”

“You may have that chance, yet.” Ramsay sounded tired.
“Da’shay is going to try taking the large ship.”

“Sir?” Eli’s voice rose a good octave. “We’re attacking
aliens? But—”

“Stand down, sergeant,” Ramsay cut him off. “You and I know
that we’re looking at war, no two ways about that. But if Command comes flying
in expecting human tech and these guys have given the slavers a technical
advantage, we could be looking at millions dead. Hell, they might have some way
to knock us off the quantum string and leave troop ships floating in normal
space without enough food for the two or three years it would take to fly all
the way out here. So I don’t care much what your classes say. If there’s even a
chance of stealing some tech and getting it to the engineers back home, we’re
taking it.” Ramsay had a fire in his voice Tom hadn’t heard before, but it was
pretty clear he expected his crew to obey. Eli dropped his gaze to the floor
and Ramsay seemed to settle some before he continued. “If Da’shay knows what
she’s doing, we may have a ride off the planet. If, and let’s be honest, this
is more likely, she gets herself and Tom and me all killed, you’re going to
make some decisions.”

“Captain, if you’re fighting, I’m fighting,” Becca said
firmly. “Tom has enough weapons there for an army and I’m not a bad shot. I’m
not as good as Tom, but I always got respectable firearms reviews back when I
had captains who actually filled those things out.”

“No,” Ramsay said sharply. Tom held his breath, but none of
the
cati
even blinked at the sound. Ramsay’s next words were softer.
“Becca, you’re the only one of us that has a significant amount of classified
data rattling around in the brain. If we’re headed for war, then you’d be a
real help to the slavers if they could torture technical specifications out of
you. Your orders are clear. You’re to watch, and if we go getting dead, you
evacuate. Disappear into the population. Get a job fixing sand cars. I don’t
care, but you keep clear of the
Kratos
and anyone who might have known
us. Got it?”

“Yes sir.” Becca was sounding mulish about it and Tom
wondered if she would really follow that order or wait for a chance to throw
herself into the fight. Fact was, he just didn’t know.

“Sir, I should go send off a blast,” Eli said. He managed to
sound calm even though doing that would sure as hell alert the slavers. He’d be
trapped in the
Kratos
with his cover blown.

“If we win, we can tell Command from that fancy ship down
there.” Ramsay paused. “Hopefully. If we don’t win, you get back to the
Kratos
and you send that blast if you think you have to. This stuff here on the wall,
it seems to block them from reading our thoughts or feelings or whatever the
hell it is that Da’shay is always picking up on.”

“Colors,” she offered helpfully.

“Command will want a sample of that. Get it back to the
Kratos
and do as much of an analysis as you can before you send the blast. Got it?”

“Yes sir.”

“And Eli? If you can find a way to get a message out that
doesn’t include blasting through Nodar’s security net and getting yourself
arrested, you do it. The first rule of war is to survive. You can’t do your
side any good in a prison cell or dead.” Ramsay sat on the ground and pulled a
gun close before starting to load it. “God knows I never did much for Earth
during the
casslit
wars.”

“But if we helped—” Becca started arguing.

“Ain’t like two more gun hands will make a difference here,”
Tom cut her off. “If Da’shay’s right that we can punch through, we need to be
ready to move and move fast because I ain’t even going to guess how long we can
hold all them off before they try to retake the ship.”

“You think you can?” She was chewing on her lip.

“Da’shay says we can, so yep,” Tom agreed. “We’re going to
start with panicking the ones that are running around, so you might want to
take cover in the tunnel and be ready to either come running after us or go
running for the city proper.” Tom thought they’d win, but he wasn’t a fool.
Things happened in battle and the best side sometimes lost.

“This is incredibly stupid,” Ramsay complained as he pulled
out a length of cable firmly anchored deep into the rock. “What order are we
going down?”

Da’shay’s hand finally stopped stroking Tom. “Tom shoots.
Running and panic.”

“Yep, got that,” Tom agreed. He lined his weapon up with the
officer she had ordered him to kill before starting in on the panic.

“Captain to the ground.
Genta
-girl following. All the
cati
confused. Go for the ship, Tom firing until we have position next
to the ship.” Da’shay pointed at the largest of the ships.

“That will put Tom trying to repel with very little cover,”
Eli said. “I could—”

“Nope,” Tom interrupted. “I don’t need you accidentally
shooting me.”

Eli sucked in a fast breath. “I would never—”

“And I ain’t known you long enough to feel any better with
you at my back,” Tom said firmly. He pulled the weapons closer to make it clear
he didn’t plan to leave any behind. Looking over at Becca, he sighed and put a
small handgun and a knife to the side. “For you, not him,” he said firmly.

Eli’s mouth fell open. “I’ve had you at my back on every
mission we’ve gone on.”

“And you ain’t never been at mine. It’s Da’shay’s plan and I
reckon I’m going to follow that.” Tom gave Eli a grin, but the man was staring
at Tom as if he’d grown another head.

“He just ain’t the trusting sort. It’s not you,” Becca
whispered. She might have said more, except Ramsay slipped over the side of the
ledge and starting sliding down the cable.

It was time for the show. Tom put his first bullet in the
officer’s head—right where a
genta
’s soft spot was, and he fell
silently, his arms thrown wide. Hell, he fell so quiet that no one even seemed
to notice. Moving quickly, he lined up on a small pile of cylinders that had
been stacked up away from other cargo and took a shot. Just like he’d
suspected, they were flammables. The one canister exploded, the force driving
the metal container flying across the dock. Workers paused, a dozen of them
started a sort of loping run toward emergency equipment and two finally headed
for the fallen officer without even a trace of concern. The rest turned back
toward their work as if nothing happened. Fuck that. Da’shay gave him a smile
and then slipped over the edge of the ledge, so Tom figured he had a limited
time to panic these bastards.

Tom targeted a wire strung between two ships. He hit the
connector on the smaller ship. The bullet did nothing but make a couple of
cati
stop and look around as metal pinged against metal. Actually, several were
looking toward the rappel line now. With a curse, Tom hit the tension wire
again and this time it broke. The wire went whipping around, the cable slapping
the second ship and ground. A couple of workers near it leapt back, but Tom had
already moved on. His next shot took out one of the hanging lights and it fell
in seemingly slow motion, the sparks arcing out around it like a halo. Then he
shot another of the flammable canisters. The workers had pulled out a huge
pressurized tank of extinguisher and attached hoses, but now Tom could see the
helpless milling start.

One of the
cati
started heading toward the crates
Ramsay was running behind and Tom targeted just in front of its feet. The
bullet hit the stone and ricocheted with a loud crack that made the
cati
stop. Tom put another bullet in the same spot and then skipped one in front of
the
cati
so close that the creature had to feel the heat of it as it
passed.

The thing finally gave up and panicked like a rational
person. It ran for one of the many pile of crates, and Tom targeted the support
wires that helped hold the stack steady. Those were human made crates and that
meant they were rough and not very well balanced. Traders didn’t get paid for
good crates and they used the cheapest things they could get away with. Tom had
shot through the third wire when the
cati
reached the crates and reached
out to pull himself to safety. His pull made the whole stack start to wobble.
The creature realized its danger and turned to run before the stack could fall
on him.

Taking out another light and a third canister of whatever
the flammable stuff was in the canister, Tom covered while Ramsay and Da’shay
moved into position near the large ship. They were firing now and Tom could see
cati
go down, their chests red with blood.
Genta
would have
gotten back up, but these things just lay where they fell and their buddies
raced right over them. Actually, a good number were racing around in a panic
even without anything exploding in their general vicinity.

Tom slung several guns over his shoulder and reached out to
grab the drop hold on the rappel line. Ignoring the wide, worried look Becca
gave him, Tom slid to the ground and started following Da’shay’s path behind
the stack of crates. One of the
cati
was on the ground. It looked
weirdly human when it was dead. Unattractive human, but more human than any of
the other alien types. The clothing was plain gray that seemed to make their
skin look ashy. Then again, that might have just been because the thing was
dead. Tom didn’t take time to wonder.

Ramsay was firing at
cati
and Tom stopped at the edge
of the crates. There was a big gap between the ship and the last bit of cover
and Tom didn’t like how the
cati
were starting to take cover themselves.
Several were still running around like children’s toys with a wind up string
that hadn’t yet run out and Ramsay was picking those off easy, but fifteen or
twenty were forming a decent looking formation behind the wing of one of the
other ships. They’d lowered some sort of flap so that Ramsay’s shots pinged off
the cover when he tried to target them.

Da’shay worked at a control panel, so she wouldn’t be much
help, but Tom couldn’t get a good angle and he sure couldn’t take out all
twenty before they started firing. He could see one of the
cati
calmly
handing out weapons to the others. He could take that one out easy, but it left
upward of nineteen armed enemy.

Well shit. Tom looked around for better cover, but there
wasn’t much. Da’shay had told him to create panic rather than killing them, but
she’d also said to kill the armed ones. Tom slung his sniper rifle over his shoulder
and brought the lobber up to his shoulder. If this didn’t work, they were going
to riddle his cover with weapon fire and Tom had no idea if the crates would
protect him. At least he had some protection, though. Ramsay was jammed into
the space where the ship’s wing and body met, meaning he had very little cover,
and Da’shay had none.

Tom targeted the pressurized extinguisher tank. Those things
were reinforced metal, but the lobber’s shell cut right through. Pressurized
chemicals sprayed out over a good quarter of the dock, expanding and turning to
a white, slimy foam as the tank sailed across the room, the hoses whipping
wildly so it looked like a monster from a horror vid. The
cati
seemed to
all freeze and Tom switched to the sniper gun as fast as he could, hitting the
one who seemed to be the leader right in the nose. The
cati
went down
without a sound. Now the armed
cati
started to mill aimlessly, their
weapons seemingly forgotten as they wandered away from their cover.

“Stop trying to kill ‘em. Confuse ‘em,” Tom yelled at
Ramsay. The captain stopped and stared at Tom, but Tom raised his sniper rifle
and started taking shots at the wires holding up a mobile construction catwalk
high overhead.

“No way in hell I can hit one of those wires,” Ramsay yelled
back.