She decided another shower would help—after the days of rationed showers, she enjoyed the opportunity for a long one—and stood under the warm spray for several minutes. She felt better, but also even more sleepy. She meant to sit on her bunk only a moment, but suddenly her beeper was sounding, and she opened her eyes … She had slept for an hour.
Not a good sign if the crew had needed an hour to decide what to do. She braced herself to hear that they were all leaving.
“Coming,” she said. Even that brief nap had helped; her eyes no longer burned. She finished dressing and returned to the rec area. To her surprise, only Quincy was there. The old woman looked up at her.
“Went to sleep, did you?”
“Sorry …”
“You needed it; you were dead on your feet. We would have let you sleep longer, but we heard from Furman’s messenger.”
“Ah. And?”
“I have to tell you I’m not happy about going against your father’s wishes … I don’t want to lose my retirement because he blames me for your decisions.” So her father had told Furman to bring her home?
“I’m the captain; they’re my decisions. My father knows me; he should know that I’m stubborn enough to ignore any advice you give me.”
“Yes. I am taking that into consideration. But are you willing to tell him that and save my reputation as a reliable baby-sitter?”
“Of course,” Ky said.
“It’s been a difficult voyage, Captain. For a moment here, I’d like to talk to you in my role as designated grandma, not as crew.”
“All right.” What was coming now, a lecture about filial duty?
Quincy drew a visible breath and started in. “When your father asked us to crew for you, he told us you were studious, hardworking, smart, and honest. All that sounded good. Then he told us you had a habit of picking up strays and were headstrong as a mule. One of the things he wanted us to do was protect you from the kind of person who’d gotten you in trouble at the Academy. He didn’t say much about that, so I don’t know if it was a love affair or something else. Watch out for the lame puppies, he said. She’ll do something stupid just to help someone.”
Ky felt her ears going hot. There it was again, that same assumption … that same wrong assumption.
“And we failed,” Quincy said. Her eyes glistened. “Gary and I—we were supposed to protect you, and we almost let you get killed by that young idiot. We hadn’t kept you from bringing him aboard, and we hadn’t kept an eye on him, and when you were carried past, the medics all looking so grim … I felt as if my own granddaughter were dying and I’d killed her. Gary felt just as bad.”
“It wasn’t your fault, either of you,” Ky said quickly, reaching for Quincy’s hand, but Quincy pulled it out of reach.
“Let me finish, please. So then you didn’t die, and you took that contract with the mercenaries … doubt you had much choice … and you came back just as cool as snow and perfectly professional. I don’t know when I’ve been as proud. You were trying to prevent the trouble you foresaw—and I hadn’t spotted it, except with that fancy-pants from the Rose—and I realized it was some of my engineering modifications, for the passengers, which gave Paison access to the systems, made his takeover possible. When they grabbed Gary, I was terrified; I could not imagine how we’d get out of it alive, any of us. I know he didn’t want to be the reason you didn’t act, if you could find any way to act. I’d have felt the same if they’d grabbed me. I wish they had … I’m older. But anyway—you knew what to do, and did it, and saved us. I was … useless. Not because I’m old, but because I’ve spent my life on safe ships traveling safe routes; I haven’t been in a fight since I was a child.” Quincy paused, shook her head, and then went on. “So if you were my granddaughter in truth, I’d be so proud of you—and a little scared of you—and yes, I would trust you because you’ve been right so far. What I don’t know is … can you trust me? Would you rather I went back, and let Beeah take over as Engineering First? He’s qualified, as far as the engineering goes, and I don’t think you need a baby-sitter anymore.”
Ky leaned forward. “Quincy … please. Don’t blame yourself. It was not your fault. You’ve been a wonderful resource, and of course I trust you. But if you want to go back, I’ll understand …”
Quincy blinked back her tears and managed a shaky grin. “I thought I did … I really thought I did. I’ve never served with anyone who’s … who’s killed someone. At least that I knew about. It was … awful. Your face, when you came back to the bridge. But you know, Ky—and I’m calling you Ky in the person of that grandmother—I’ve decided I’d rather stick with you and find out what you’re going to do next. For one thing, I’d miss my shipmates, all of whom want to stay with you except Li, who says she’d rather go somewhere with Furman, if he’ll take her.”
Ky’s throat closed; she swallowed the lump of emotion, and nodded. “Thank you … thank you, Grandma Quincy.”
“And another thing … you’ve been through a lot—we all have, but you more, because of the injury. You haven’t been able to take it easy, as I’m sure you were advised to do by the medical people. Right?”
“Yes …”
“So I’m telling you, as the resident grandma, to start taking it easier. Yes, we have repairs to make, a cargo to load, a contract to fulfill. But I want to see you taking regular sleep shifts of adequate length, eating the proper foods, exercising, and letting your now-enlarged crew do its work. Clear?”
“Yes, Grandma,” Ky said.
“And expect emotional fallout … You’ve been holding yourself together, which we all needed. What you need now is a chance to let go. Don’t fight it too hard or too long.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ky said again.
“End of Grandma’s lecture,” Quincy said. She took a deep breath. “Good heavens, I can’t believe I’ve just been so dramatic. Now, Captain, Beeah has a list of suppliers and prices. I can review them for you, and let you rest, or you can review them, whichever. Keeping in mind the advice I just gave you …”
“Quincy, I’d like you to review suppliers, prices, and our needs, and make it all come in under budget. Somehow. We’ll also need to resupply the galley—” At the look on Quincy’s face, Ky laughed. “All right, all right, Grandma already knows what to do with an egg. I’m going to go send that message to Captain Furman’s messenger, then take your advice and get more sleep. In fact, I may sleep until first shift tomorrow.”
“Yes, Captain,” Quincy said.
Sending the message took only moments; Ky didn’t wait for a reply, but went back to her cabin, stripped off her clothes, and fell into the bed without even updating her log. She woke slowly, rising gradually through layers of thought and memory and finally opened her eyes to see that she had, in fact, slept through the rest of second and all of third shift. She stretched, feeling a little stiff but really rested for the first time in … well, since she’d come back to the ship the day the ansibles were attacked.
She rolled out of her bunk, showered, dressed, and came out into the corridor where the smell of cooking food drew her to the galley. Garlan was cooking breakfast.
“Captain—you’re up.”
“Finally,” Ky said. “You must have wondered if I’d sleep forever.”
“You look better. What do you want for breakfast?”
“Whatever that is—make some more of it. It smells like exactly what I want.”
“Sure. Eggs and sausage, easy enough.”
Ky ate a full plate of eggs, sausage, potatoes, a slice of fresh melon—she wondered what that had done to the budget—and considered her schedule. She still had to get that machinery back to the station and aboard, locate the parts, have them installed, find out how to get the right ship chip installed in the beacon, get Li transferred to the Katrine Lamont, see if ISC had any bandwidth for commercial messages yet so that she could let Belinta know their tractors were, in fact, coming … oh, and the mail from home. With the clarity of a full night’s sleep, she remembered that she was not supposed to put in an implant without a neuro evaluation, with the recommendation that it not be done for six months, so she didn’t have to decide right away whether or not to put in the implant her father had sent.
When she came onto the bridge, Lee nodded to her. “Quincy’s put a stack of things on your deskcomp; you’ll need to sign off on the orders. Looks good, Captain; she found a supplier for everything we need. There’s not a current opening in any of the good refitting yards, but she says we can install the sealed unit ourselves. Insystem drive’s fuel price is up, but not impossibly high. She says everyone’s being cooperative, so we should hurry up and get out before they change their attitude.”
“Good,” Ky said. She opened her desk. Sealed unit for FTL, yes. New liner to replace the old cavitation-damaged one. Replacement for communications transmitter. Upgrade for scan—upgrade for scan? She hadn’t asked for that … but she would like it if they could afford it. Beacon repair. Replacement ship chip … unavailable.
The explanation made sense, though it was a pain. Under UCC regulations, no two ships could have the same identifier chip. Glennys Jones’ original chip couldn’t be turned in for a new chip, because it was somewhere in space, probably still in Paison’s pocket. Never mind that no one was going to find that chip … it had not been turned in, so a chip identifying the ship as Glennys Jones could not be issued, even with a replacement registration number. The Universal Commercial Code had very strict requirements; Slotter Key and Sabine Prime were both signatories to the agreements. The ship would have to be reregistered—most easily as out of Sabine Prime, with some difficulty out of Slotter Key, if the Slotter Key embassy would cooperate.
All Vatta ships carried Slotter Key registry. Ky put in a call to the Slotter Key embassy, but it was nighttime there, and it would be hours before the consul saw it. And what would she do if he refused her request? What if Captain Furman got to him first?
And what should she name the ship instead? Certainly not Mist Harbor. Finding a unique ship name wasn’t easy; the first eight or ten she tried in the database came up with the notation “unavailable: in service.” Was it even worth registering a ship that was going to be scrapped anyway?
But it was not going to be scrapped anyway. And finally she thought of a name that no one would have used yet, a name she wanted to honor. She called Quincy on the intercom.
“What?” Her chief engineer was clearly busy and not in the mood to chat.
“We need a new ship name. What about the Gary Tobai?”
A long silence. Then Quincy said, “That would do. Yeah. He’d like that.”
Ky entered it in the database, and as she expected found no match. She put a reserve tag on it with a three-day permit—surely she’d hear in three days, and she could renew the hold if she had to.
Two hours into day shift for the Slotter Key embassy—and well into second shift for Ky—she heard from the consul. “I hear you lost one of those people we sent you,” he said.
“He disobeyed orders and did something stupid,” Ky said.
“Why am I not surprised—the young blond one, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you need to fill out some forms for us. The embassy has to report all injuries and deaths of Slotter Key citizens for the D & A report. I’ll have those sent up to you. What about funeral arrangements?”
“He didn’t have anything on file with us, but one of the others told me he was a Modulan, so I thought we’d combine his service with the one for one of the other crew.”
“Sounds good. I’ll notify the family that services were held … what date?”
Ky looked at the calendar and answered in terms of the local calendar.
“You’ll be in attendance?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I’ll tell them services were held with the captain in attendance. Remains?”
“I have no idea. I was unconscious and in surgery at the time the remains were disposed of.”
“Good enough. The rest of the forms are coming up shortly. Now, what else?”
“I have to reregister the ship,” Ky said. “Vatta ships all carry Slotter Key registry. Can we do that?”
“We could,” he said, “if your senior captain in system, Captain Furman, hadn’t told me that your ship was up for scrap and Vatta would not sanction an offworld licensing fee.”
“And how much would that be?” Ky asked.
“You’re not going to like the answer,” he said.
“Which is …?”
“It’s not worth it, really. Two hundred fifty thousand credits for a ship of that mass. You can get a perfectly viable Sabine registration for one hundred thousand—it’d be fifty thousand if you were a Sabine citizen. We charge that much for out-of-system registration just to discourage people …”
Ky found her jaw on the floor and yanked it back up with an effort. “Two hundred fifty thousand for a ship chip and a piece of paper?”
“And the honor of the Slotter Key government. Yes. I said it wasn’t worth it.”
“It’s ridiculous. It’s outrageous.”
“Yes, it is. But it’s what I have on my list, so it’s what I have to do. So let me know what you want …”
Ky had no idea what reputation Sabine Prime ships had in the universe; she’d already discovered that Slotter Key might be a liability. Still, Slotter Key was her planet and her government and she felt uneasy about changing the registration to something else.
The money problem still existed. She had the money for the sealed unit, for the fuel, for resupply of the galley, but she didn’t have a spare 100,000 credits, let alone 250,000, for the new license. Another thought occurred, almost as unsettling. She called up the Sabine registration database.
Sure enough, to register the ship under the Sabine flag, it would have to undergo a full inspection and pass as sound. She called up those criteria for the ship’s size. As she’d expected the ship would not pass Sabine’s very stringent safety inspection, even with all repairs in place. She’d need to install a new communications system, new scans, a more powerful beacon … and the combined cost of these quickly surged past the cost of a Slotter Key registration. Slotter Key, on the other hand, required no inspection for offworld registrants.
Ky scrubbed at her head with both hands. Back to square one, again. Money. It was always about the money.
Back in her cabin, she noticed the stack of mail she’d laid aside the day before. She left Hal’s for last, hoping the hammering of her heart would slow before she got to it. Please, she thought, please let it be good. Aunt Grace wanted to know if she’d eaten the fruitcakes yet, and advised her to cut small, even slices if serving them to friends. Ky thought of the last fruitcake, now in the galley storage, and shook her head. It would be a long, long time before she cut into that one. She could still taste her share of the first two. Cousin Stella sent a brief note of condolence and the advice to “stick it out; everything passes.” MacRobert’s note advised her of a source for “equivalent model kits and replacement parts, of higher quality than that found in most toy stores.” Her eyebrows went up at that. She still wasn’t sure what Mac intended when he gave her a ship model with communications parts in it. Bond Tailoring had sent notice of a sale, now long past; she wondered why it had been forwarded until she saw her mother’s notation alongside one of the illustrated dresses: “It suits and they still have your measurements.”
And now for Hal. The envelope enclosed some kind of box; she could see its outline. Had he sent a present? Her spirits rose; he had understood, he was still her friend, and maybe … She ripped open the envelope and tipped out a little brown-leather-covered box she recognized. Her heart stuttered. It couldn’t be … She opened it, half-hopeful and half-afraid. A heavy gold ring, the Academy class ring, its crest battered and scarred, almost unrecognizable. Someone had attacked it with a chisel. She plucked it from its slot and looked at the inscription. Kylara Evangeline Vatta, with a line gouged through it.
Her vision blurred. He’d sent it back. He’d sent it back defaced.
She clamped her jaw shut on the scream that wanted to come out; her stomach churned; she felt cold and sick and empty all at once. Memory threw up a vivid image of the day they’d exchanged their class rings, the day the rings had been handed out. It wasn’t like engagement rings; it had nothing to do with marriage—though, buried deep, she’d had a hope that marriage might come to them someday. It was about trust and honor, not money or sex, a ritual begun, their seniors had told them, before Slotter Key even had a Space Academy, transferred in by those who founded it. Few cadets exchanged class rings, but she and Hal had been so sure of each other, so sure of their abilities, so sure of their friendship …
He had stood there, hazel eyes looking into hers. “It would be an honor, Cadet Vatta, to exchange this token with you—” He had asked; she had wanted to but waited, not willing to pressure him.
“And it would be an honor for me,” she had said. Formally they had linked arms, and formally passed the boxes hand to hand, and she had considered herself the custodian of his honor as he was of hers. For all that the Academy did not list numerical rank, there were ways of knowing who was at the top, and they both knew they stood number one and number two, and had—sometimes alternating those positions—since their first year. She had taken it seriously, as she took everything seriously …
And he had sent her ring back defaced, scarred, even her name scratched across. She did not need the letter to tell her what he now thought of her.
Her hands were shaking. She dropped the ring onto her bunk and unfolded the letter that had come with the box. However bad it was, she had to read it. She had to know why, how he had come to hate her so much. She had understood he might have to cut all ties, never contact her again—she had not imagined that he would turn on her like this.
“Ms. Vatta,” the letter began. Hot tears stung her eyes; she blinked them away, trying not to remember the sound of his voice calling her “Ky” and “Kylara” and once—just once—“Kylara-beshi.” The letter was … even worse than she could have imagined from seeing the ring. She had almost ruined his career, he said. Because he had trusted her, because he had believed her lies—“I never lied to you!” Ky burst out loud. “How could you—!” The cabin’s hard surfaces threw the sound back at her. She clamped her lips again and kept her eyes on the letter, reading every word, every word that stabbed her with unfair, untrue accusations. Disloyalty. Dishonesty. Deliberate attempts to sabotage not only his career, but the honor of the service. She had seen him angry before; she knew just how his face would harden, how the muscles along his jaw would swell, the veins throb … It was all too easy to see him writing this letter, nostrils flaring, breath coming fast. Hal’s outrage built, from the first cold, formal sentences following the salutation, through a series of increasingly angry dissections of every mistake she had made in the Academy, to a furious conclusion that accused her of seducing Mandy Rocher, an innocent youngster who would never have gotten in trouble if it had not been for her influence.
She let the letter fall from her hand when she had read that last sentence instructing her not to attempt a reply; she felt strangely detached, a vast cold gulf inside her that had once been a warm friendship she’d believed would last forever. How could it disappear so completely, how could he change that much that fast? Had it ever been real, then? Probably not. Nothing real could change that fast, surely. He had liked her when they were the best of their year, because liking her enhanced him. But what she had felt—that warm attraction, that love—he had not felt.
Every error of judgment she’d made about people rose up in memory … Time after time she had believed that someone needed help, or was friendly, and time after time … She fell from shock into a depthless black hole of misery.
She was a fool, and so were those who had misidentified her problem. It wasn’t the lost puppies, the seemingly helpless whom she’d tried to help, who caused her the most trouble. No, it was those who seemed sound and solid, the ones she had trusted because anyone would, the ones she’d considered allies, not victims. She hadn’t had rescue fantasies about Hal, or Paison. Anyone might have believed they were what they appeared. Yet Paison’s apparent goodwill and common sense had been as false as Hal’s apparent admiration and affection.
People had died because of her naïve stupid faith in someone not worth it. Slowly, anger seeped in to replace the shock and horror of Hal’s attack. Anger at those who had failed her, lied to her, fooled her. Anger at herself for believing them.
She had told herself not to make that mistake again when she’d quit crying about missing her own birthday party. And—whatever her family said, however they had misunderstood her motives on other occasions—she had learned. When she looked at her own motives, case by case, she had barged in to help others only about as often as anyone decent did. Mostly she’d been asked to help because—with the family’s certainty that “helping others” was her favorite role, she was the one they turned to.
That had to stop. If nothing else came out of Hal’s betrayal, she must somehow convince people—her family, others, herself—that she was who she was, and not who they thought she was.
When she finally fell asleep, hours later, something new and hard had replaced both the cold emptiness and the hot anger.
The next morning, the day of Gary Tobai’s funeral, Ky awoke calm, surprising even herself.
The entire crew attended the funeral service; to Ky’s surprise, the consul also showed up, just as Ky pressed the button that signaled the start of their service.
“My duty,” he said. “You’re looking a bit peaked, Captain. Have you heard anything official from Vatta yet?”
“The ansibles aren’t repaired yet, are they?”
“Not yet, but we expect them up in a few days. Of course, I keep saying that, echoing ISC … just another few days now. But I’ll speak with you after the service.”
The service itself was properly Modulan, restrained and cozy at the same time. The recorded voice that read from the Book of Changes and paused for their responses had exactly the right blend of sincerity and calm. Ky eyed her crew; nobody burst into tears, nobody looked angry or otherwise upset. The graceful harmonies of Modulan funeral music concluded the service, and then they had ten minutes to socialize before they had to leave the chapel. Ky didn’t know what she felt. Her mind shied away from considering her feelings about Hal, and avoiding those feelings kept her safely remote from the ones about Gary or Skeldon. She concentrated on seeing that everyone else was taken care of. The consul had nothing more to say, really, and left before their time was up. When the warning light blinked, she ushered them all out, where they stood in the corridor as the mourners for the next funeral arrived.
“I know what we should do,” Beeah said. “We should go eat something onstation.”
“Where?” asked Lee.
“There’s this place—Tiny’s. Not expensive, close by. Unless the captain wants us back on the ship right away?” He looked at Ky. She had no more desire than the rest of them to go back aboard right now.
“No—you’re right—let’s go eat or something.” She hadn’t been on the station except in transit to and from the ship and the shuttle lounge, but Beeah would know where to go. “Lead the way,” she said.
Tiny’s Place was packed with spacers, civilian and mercenary. Ky flinched from the noise level, but it dropped noticeably when her crew came in. She wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign. Two tables in the left back corner were empty and she headed for them. When the crew had settled in, Ky looked at the order display. Prices were listed in Sabine centas and universal credits—no longer one hundred centas to the credit; the Sabine currency was shaky, she realized. She’d been paid in credits; they could afford to eat just about anything they wanted.
“Get what you want,” she said. “It’s on me.” They nodded. Ky pressed the display to indicate all charges on one check, and added the table number of the other table as well. She looked at the menu, mostly shellfish or fish and vegetables in various combinations. Sabine’s brackish swamps produced tons of bayhopper and jitterlegs, genetically modified crayfish, the cheapest protein source on the planet. Ky chose a bayhopper goulash and hoped for the best. Her crew followed suit; nobody ventured to order the outrageously expensive cattlope grill.
It still felt odd to be here, in a place like Tiny’s—so obviously a spaceport dive. How many times in her life had she been in a dive? Only the once, tagging along with older cousins and scared she’d be reported to her parents. She looked around, and saw no other captains; she was glad she had folded her captain’s cape into its carrying pouch. There were men and women in shipsuits, casual station clothes, and—in the far corner—uniforms. Mackensee uniforms. She looked away. She wasn’t going to think about the Colonel’s offer, not now.
Their orders had been delivered, and she was just tasting her bayhopper goulash—quite good—when someone bumped hard into her chair. “You! What you doin’ in our place?”
Ky swallowed the lump of bayhopper and twisted her neck to look at the person behind her. “What—?” she started to ask when he grabbed her arm.
“Yer in our place—them’s our tables—dint they tell yer?” A group of large, rough-looking individuals now stood around her end of the table. Behind them, Ky saw the furtive movement of others slipping away, toward the door.
“No one mentioned,” Ky said. “But there are other empty tables.”
“Don’t want other tables. This’s ours, and that’n, too.”
The anger she’d been suppressing edged up her throat and into her voice. “Too bad,” she heard herself say. “We’re here for a funeral dinner, and that’s what we’re going to have. Sit someplace else.”
“You stupid bitch!” The man behind her yanked her chair back with her in it, and grabbed the front of her uniform, lifting her upright. She could smell the liquor on his breath; this wasn’t the first bar he’d visited that shift. “You think because you’re a damned officer you can come in and give orders to people who aren’t even your own crew—” His huge fist was drawn back, ready to pulp her face.
The anger surged through her, banishing any fear. Before he finished the speech she had slammed one hand into his throat, ducked away from the possible blow, and in the same movement put a knee where it could do the most good. He gasped, lost his grip, and she hit the floor, balanced and ready to spring back into action. She had wanted to hit someone for so long—a second man tried to grab her from behind; she rolled with the pull, cracking his shin with a heel and breaking another’s nose on the way past, just on spec.
“Ky, be care—” Quincy’s voice, now chopped off as the men tried to keep her crew from helping her. Ky reached over someone’s shoulder for a bowl of hot bayhopper goulash and flung it in the face of the man who had just pulled a knife, parrying his suddenly blind stab with the dish itself. She heard and felt her crew scrambling to get out of their chairs, heard the gasps and grunts and curses as the fight spread. As she’d discovered in contact games, she could be aware of the whole tangle of motion and for once she didn’t have to stick to any rules … She punched, rolled, kicked, spun, each time enjoying the solid thwack as her strike hit home. Some of her crew—Beeah not surprisingly, and Lee, and Quincy—turned out to be good at this, too. The others dove beneath the table.
The man who’d first grabbed her was back in play now, swinging one of the chairs—steel and plastic, not a storycube prop. Ky grabbed one for herself, and they clashed the legs, glaring at each other. If only she had a spear or something—no that was fictional. Then he pulled out something that looked like a cleaver on steroids. Where had he hidden that from station security? It whined through the air, and a leg of her chair hung from a ragged edge. Whatever it was would cut steel … He grinned.
“You’ll pay for that,” he said.
“I doubt it,” Ky said. She had no idea what to do to counter his attack, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
At that moment, six bodies in military uniform entered the fray as a unit, just in Ky’s peripheral vision on the right.
“Advance,” said a dry voice that Ky almost recognized.
The man lunged at her again, his weapon slashing at another of the chair legs. Ky squatted quickly, trying to come up inside its arc, but his weight overthrew her; she was flat on the floor, the legs of his chair caging her head for an instant, until he lost his balance and fell sideways, weapon arm outstretched.
Ky rolled toward him and got a hand on his wrist, but he was taller and heavier. She tried to tuck and kick him in the gut, but the chair got in the way. He leered at her, and started to roll up … when a booted foot landed hard on his hand.
“Let go,” said the voice.
“Go—” the man said, an anatomically impossible suggestion.
The tip of a very sharp blade came into view, beside the boot, resting on the skin of his hand. “You can let go, or I can cut your hand off your blade finger by finger,” the voice said. “Your choice.”
His hand loosened; someone reached down and removed the weapon, but the blade menacing his fingers never quivered.
“Captain Vatta,” the voice said. Ky looked up. She knew that face. Master Sergeant Pitt.
“Need a hand up?” Pitt asked.
“No, thanks,” Ky said. She scrambled up, put the damaged chair back where it had come from, and looked around for her crew. The fight was over. Six men lay or sat on the floor, some unconscious and some merely stunned; some of her crew were up, breathing hard, and two were still under the table.
“Sorry to interrupt your meal,” Pitt said, “but the dinner conversation seemed to be turning general.” Her eyes twinkled. Ky could not help grinning back.
“It wasn’t our plan,” she said. “We’d just had a funeral …”
“I heard,” Pitt said. “I’d have come if I could. We missed it by fifteen minutes. He was a good man.”
“He was indeed,” Ky said. Suddenly her bruises hurt, her head ached, and she wanted very much to sit down and go to sleep. Not much was left of their meal; the table looked as if someone had wallowed on it and maybe someone had.
Pitt looked down at the man who had attacked Ky. “You’re off Marie, aren’t you?” she said. He spat in the direction of her boot but didn’t answer. “Not a good choice,” Pitt said. “Marie crew are supposed to be aboard, waiting for interrogation … I think we’ll do a little interrogation on my ship.” She looked at one of the other soldiers. “Jem—call the ship and get them to send a squad.”
More quickly than Ky would have imagined, a squad showed up to shackle the attackers and take them away. Pitt shook her head at the departing brawlers. “Not very good at it, that bunch. Nasty for someone with no training, but you, at least, knew what you were doing. Come on, let’s finish that funeral dinner. Charge the damage to Marie—I’ll back you on the damage report.”
Ky wasn’t sure she could eat anything but the bayhopper goulash was just as good the second time around, and the raw whiskey Pitt encouraged her to sip took the ache out of her body.
“You know, Captain, you’re really wasted on a merchanter,” Pitt said quietly. Ky wasn’t sure how she’d ended up sitting next to Pitt, between her and another mercenary. “I know, the Colonel said you have some kind of promise thing you have to do first, but … you belong with people like us, really, not with people like them—” Her gaze settled on the ones who had dived under the table.
“Not their fault,” Ky said. “They haven’t had the training.” Her blood warmed to the praise, though, and she felt again both the glee and the guilt as the fight replayed in her mind. Pitt, she realized, would not condemn her for what she’d felt when she killed Paison and his mate.
“True but … here’s something I don’t say often, and won’t say again. There’s some born to it, Captain, and you’re one of ’em. I don’t know what happened to get you out of that training, but you’re someone I’d be glad to serve with. And I can’t say more than that.”
“Thanks,” Ky said. She was aware of a floating disconnect between her brain and body, and hoped she wasn’t drunk. Very drunk.
“Cup of black coffee and a good big dessert will cure what ails you,” Pitt said. “We’ll just sit here and talk about nothing much, how’s that?” And for the next hour, Pitt told stories of the Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation, every one of which made Ky homesick for a community she hadn’t had yet. Ky could tell when the alcohol had mostly left her system; she blinked and the lights didn’t flicker. She thanked Pitt and led her crew back to the ship.
And she stared at the battered circle that had been her class ring and felt nothing but vague anger.