Song of Scarabaeus (31 page)

Edie found the relevant tier and with the last vestiges of the worm, accessed it and scrambled the internal sensors.

Cat called on the commlink. “Found Yasuo. He didn't fall for one word of Rackham's story and he put up a good
fight. Got himself shot a couple of times in the backside. I'm taking him to the infirmary.”

“Okay. Then get back to the engine room. We'll be on deck three.” Finn started heading out. “Let's track down some cutting torches in Zeke's cave of wonders.”

Edie pulled free of the connection, hesitating at the last moment. “Wait!” She drew in her breath as a new presence filtered through the datastream. The jangling chime of an infojack. Riding the worm. “There's someone here. In the datastream.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. Someone's patched in remotely.”

“
Someone?
If they're jacked in, they must be in-system.”

Finn switched to the external scan and put it on the holoviz, homing in on the jump node. A vessel had just come through, decelerating hard on the other side as it prepared to swing around.

“It's that CIP vessel,” Finn said. “The
Laoch
.”

Edie felt a cold sweat gathering on her skin. “Natesa…”

“Find out what the infojack's doing.”

Edie followed the infojack for a few minutes as he burrowed into the tiers of the
Hoi
's system, tramping awkwardly through the melody like an amateur musician trying to keep up with a symphony orchestra.

“He's just poking around right now. He can't actually
do
anything unless he finds the worm.”

Finn pulled up the ship's specs just as Cat walked in. She stared at the holo.

“What the hell?”

“It's CIP and they have an infojack in the
Hoi
's datastream,” Edie said.

“Achaiah's on that ship?”

Edie shrugged. “I don't know who.”

“He's not due for days. Maybe they caught him skulking on the other side of the jump node.”

“Maybe it's not him. He doesn't seem very skilled.” It didn't matter who the infojack was. What mattered was that Natesa had tracked her down at last.

Finn was more concerned with examining the specs. “The
Laoch
is Wolf-class. Impressive weapons range. At least
four milits on board. Fast acceleration but slow to maneuver. It'll take them twenty minutes or so to decelerate and come about. We should still make the jump before they come in firing range.”

Cat wasn't happy. “I don't trust Rackham to handle the node horizon at full tilt. Even if we make it through in one piece, we can't regulate our exit. He could take us anywhere.”

“Let's worry about that when we no longer have sixteen plasma cannons aimed at us. Edie, can you stop the infojack from turning the worm against us?”

Edie had continued to monitor the infojack. “This is really strange. He had his chance to use the worm, but now it's too weak to be of any use. He's not interfering.” She frowned. She had no desire to fight an infojack on a dryteck battlefield, but it surprised her that he wasn't even trying. In case he knew some tricks she didn't, she jammed a tangle of code into the peripheral tiers of the
Hoi
's systems, giving her own signal immunity. The worm's haunting, dying notes jangled as it hit the barrier. It plucked at the edges of the tangle, while the infojack did nothing to unravel the mess.

“It must be Achaiah,” Cat said. “Under duress he might have told them a few things about the
Hoi
and its mission, but he'd never willingly aid the Crib.”

Finn gave a derisive grunt. “Being
under duress
tends to weaken a man's will.”

“I made things hard for him,” Edie said, “but I don't think he's a danger. I think he's stalling them. How's Yasuo?”

“Knocked out on pain meds,” Cat said. “He'll live.”

“Is Rackham in communication with that ship?” Finn asked.

Edie tapped into the comm system. “There's some traffic, yes. I can't access it, though.”

“That's bad,” Cat said.

“He'd turn us in? Even himself?”

Cat twisted her lips. “Rackham would make a deal with the devil to save his own hide.”

They watched the nav readout showing the
Hoi
icon heading for the jump node. With the worm dead, they were at Rackham's mercy now.

Then, with an unremarkable
bleep
, the icon changed course.

“Oh…no, no, no…” Cat muttered, her finger tracing the
Hoi
's route on an adjacent holoviz. “We're turning to meet the
Laoch
.” She dropped into a seat, pushing hair off her forehead, and ran through the nav systems. “They're still coming about. On this vector we'll meet up with them in…twenty-four minutes.”

“No time to break into the armory, then,” Edie said.

Cat looked at Finn's rifle. “Will that shoot out the bridge hatch?”

“One bullet? Not a chance,” he said. “That's one hatch you can't force.”

“Explosives? Zeke has some locked up somewhere. Or we could see if Rackham had more.”

Finn shook his head. “The amount it would take to dislodge the hatch would blow a hole through the hull.”

Cat looked helpless. “What the hell do we do?”

Finn thought it over for a full ten seconds. “We have to plan for the
Laoch
docking. Cat, if you can handle Rackham, I'll deal with the milits. You need to lure him off the bridge and kill him.”

“I'd be happy to kill him.” This latest betrayal had changed her mind, it seemed. “But how do I lure him out?”

Edie knew Rackham's weakness only too well. “I know how.”

 

“Rackham, you've got thirty seconds to open up, or one of your pretty things is going to get intimate with a crowbar.”

Cat sounded like she meant it. Edie knew the navpilot would rather take the crowbar to Rackham himself, but until he showed his face that wasn't going to happen.

Edie stood in the dining room, crowbar clenched in her
fists, considering her first target. Outside but in Edie's line of sight, Cat hid herself to the side of the bridge ramp, waiting in ambush, spur extended. At the far end of the deck, where Edie could neither see nor hear him, Finn worked on the main airlock hatch, welding its seams to slow down a boarding party if she and Cat didn't get onto the bridge in time to stop the
Laoch
docking.

Cat hit her commlink again. “Rackham, I know you can hear me. You're almost out of time. I'm deciding what to smash first. That damned songbird you kept asking me to play? How about that framed splotch of paint on the wall that you call a masterpiece? You know I always hated that ugly thing.”

When she got no response, she gave Edie a quick nod. Edie turned a slow circle in the dining room, making her selection. It had to be something that would make a lot of noise, so Rackham would hear it across Cat's open link. She flipped open the crystal chest containing the songbird, raised the crowbar and brought it down hard on the elegant instrument.

The songbird broke open with an ear-jangling crash, revealing a nest of strings and pegs and cogs. Edie raised the crowbar for another strike and staggered, almost losing her balance. That single hit had drained her energy more than she'd anticipated. Her legs trembled under her own weight and she had to fight to stay upright. At least long enough to bring down the crowbar again, with all her remaining strength. She fell to her knees as the crowbar hit with a satisfying crunch.

“Hear that, Rackham?” Cat taunted. “One priceless artifact down, ninety-nine to go.”

Edie dragged herself to her feet and decided to try something smaller. Neuroshock had not only drained her, it also made her muscles shiver and she was losing fine motor control. Still, she couldn't face using that crowbar again for a while. She went to the wine cabinet and jabbed the crowbar handle against the glass doors to break them.

“I'm going for the wine now,” Cat informed Rackham. The idea was to make him believe she was in the dining room doing the dirty work, so he'd not be expecting her attack if and when he did come out. “This is going to hurt me as much as it hurts you,” she added. “You know I always enjoyed a good drop of red.”

Edie reached carefully past the shards of glass and pulled out a bottle of wine. Her first attempt to break it on the dining table failed. The bottle bounced in her hand. She tried again, this time against the edge of the table, and the bottle shattered. She reached for another and broke it the same way, then another.

Above the sound of exploding bottles, she almost missed hearing Rackham's voice on Cat's commlink. She stopped to listen.

“You're making a helluva nuisance of yourself, Lancer.” He sounded outraged. “Do you know how much those things are worth? This is who you really are, then—nothing but a vandal.”

Cat was unmoved. “A vandal and a nuisance, that's me. Come on out,
sir
. It's the only way to stop me.”

Edie continued smashing bottles, barely aware of what she was going. Her arms ached and her vision spun. Perhaps it would've been a better idea to have Cat do this…but Edie was the last person capable of taking out Rackham. Cat might not be the galaxy's greatest shot, but she had the required bloodlust.

Rackham screamed over the link but he wasn't coming out. Edie leaned against the table leg to rest. She needed to sleep. She needed neuroxin. Her breath felt shallow in her chest, and her hands shook. She hoped Finn could hold off the milits long enough, because Rackham was being more stubborn than they'd anticipated. A terrifying sense of guilt overwhelmed her. If the Crib caught them, her life was safe. Cat's life of crime, culminating in kidnapping a Crib cypherteck, would send her to prison for the rest of her days. But Finn—even if they couldn't find an excuse to summarily
execute him, they'd haul him away and let the leash do their dirty work.

She had to keep going. She went to one of the display cases and yanked on the doors until it started to tip, then slid out of the way. It crashed to the deck, its delicate contents destroyed.

“There goes your Bascian vase and that pornographic little statue from the Best Times brothel,” Cat said. “You should thank me—one less thing to have to explain to your wife.”

Rackham's furious response was incoherent.

“Edie, are you okay?”

It took her a moment to realize that Finn was on her commlink.

“More or less,” she said. “I'll manage.”

“Just remember to stay out of the way if he comes out.”

If?
He
had
to come out. It was the only way to escape.

“Where's the
Laoch
?” Edie asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

“It's right on us. Maybe three minutes until it docks. The welding will hold them a few minutes longer.”

“Then what?”

Finn didn't reply. Did he even have a plan beyond that?

The engine sounds were different, she realized. Rackham was maneuvering the ship to dock.

Edie looked around, her head spinning, searching for something else she could easily break. Her gaze fell on another display case, and she was drawn to it by something familiar inside. It took a moment for her brain to catch up with her eyes.

The talphi cocoon. She had to preserve that. She opened the case and took out the cocoon, cupping it in her hands. Her lifesaver. She just needed a way to extract the neuroxin. She crushed the cocoon flat so it fitted in her jacket pocket.

“Edie!” Cat hissed from outside the room. “Keep going. I think he's—”

The bridge hatch snapped open. Edie moved quickly to
the bulkhead just inside the door and peeked out. Caught off guard, Cat took a second too long to respond and Rackham took two steps down the ramp. Then she swung into action, opening fire from her position below him, protected by the ramp railings. Rackham kept coming, and Edie saw why. He was wearing body armor and a helmet similar to those worn by milits on the battlefield, although the design was unfamiliar to her. It was in poor condition, cracked and stained, but it did the job.

Cat realized the futility of her spur and was forced to move. Rackham's first shots missed, and she had time to reach through the railings and punch his knee. He tumbled over and rolled a few meters down the ramp.

Cat opened fire again. There had to be a vulnerable spot somewhere in that armor. But Rackham had already rolled off the other side of the ramp, putting a barricade between them.

“Edie, stay back!” Finn yelled over the commlink.

Edie froze, her heart thudding. She watched Cat work her way slowly along the side of the ramp, crouching low. Then the navpilot sprang up, firing as she vaulted the railing and dived over the other side. Edie could hear the scuffle and Cat's screams as she vented her rage on the man who'd murdered Zeke.

But moments later it was Rackham who extricated himself, staggering backward with his spur raised. His helmet had fallen off, but other than that he appeared unharmed.

“It's been fun, Lancer,” he said, aiming to shoot.

Without thinking, Edie ran out of the dining room. “Rackham, don't!”

Rackham swung his aim on Edie.

Edie gulped, pulled up sharply, and kept talking. “Listen to me. Is this what you really want? Milits on your ship? We have to leave
now
!”

From the corner of her eye she saw movement in the aft corridor. Finn had crept forward, keeping himself hidden from Rackham's view. Like Edie, he must hope that Rack
ham wouldn't shoot her—would he? He needed her alive so he could take credit for returning her to the Crib.

“What I
want
is an end to all this,” Rackham said, coming around the ramp to face Edie. “Was that you, smashing my precious things? My only regret is that I must restrain myself from punishing you for it.”

Behind Rackham, Cat was pulling herself over the railings. She made a dash up the ramp for the bridge hatch. Rackham swung around and fired, and Cat stumbled over the lip of the hatch. And didn't get up. She'd been shot, Edie was sure of it.

Before she had time to process that, the ship shuddered and a loud clank reverberated through the hull. The
Laoch
had docked. They were too late.

Rackham marched up the ramp, his expression smug, and turned at the top, spur raised, guarding the entrance.

“I know that lag is hiding back there,” he said. “Why don't you come out and face me?”

Edie had to divert his attention before he went after Finn. Maybe, just maybe, Finn could hold off the milits at the airlock. In any case, she was not going to let Rackham kill every last one of his crew.

“Why did you do it?” she asked.

“Why did I work for Stichting? Because they made me a war hero.” Rackham projected his voice as though addressing an audience. “After fifteen miserable years in Fleet, flying goddamn supply ships, Stichting Corp found me and hooked me up with a war record my family could be proud of. And they gave me the creds to buy all those pretty things.” He sounded wistful. “I should never have trusted them. Told me I could retire after ten years, but they kept extending my contract. One more mission, one more…and I had no choice but to obey, because they held my life in their hands.”