The Miner stood in the dark of the viewing bay, watching the big science ship emerge like an iceberg from the broken hangar, propelled by a hangar-full of air in which it moved slowly, almost regally. The main explosion had only weakened the rock and partly blasted the doors in. Air pressure and metal fatigue had taken time to do their thing, but the chop shop’s now-gaping doors had become a lazy geyser, pushing tools and blinking bots on streams of evaporating air as the badly-maintained emergency systems struggled to clamp down on the burst flows of atmosphere, water, and sewage. It all glittered prettily in the navigation lights.
Air-filled compartments on the ship ruptured under their own pressure, and the great weakened hulk twisted and tore itself like a stunted butterfly struggling from a chrysalis. It would never go back in a repair bay in that shape. Impossible to hide. Impossible to profit from.
The Miner had her sword out fast when the hatch opened behind her. McMasters stood silhouetted against the bright corridor lights. He looked exhausted, beaten. Unarmed, though, and unsurprised to see her.
“The security cameras here still work,” he said. He sounded beaten, too. “Some of the only ones that do, that Angelica hasn’t pressganged into her piddly little information empire. Low-light sensitive. People used to come up here after-hours to screw. My predecessor amassed quite a collection.”
He left the hatch open, spilling a beam of yellow light onto the floor. He walked in and took a post at the observation bar on the edge of the darkness, letting the light beam separate them. The Miner sheathed her sword and half-turned so that she could see him and the wreckage at the same time.
“I looked you up, you know,” he said, staring at the ship as it contorted under explosive pressure, throwing off detritus that glimmered like stars. “I got a good picture and looked you up in the government’s facial recognition system. Do you know what came back?”
She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t bite.
“Nothing. Nothing came back, not a thing. So, being a good citizen, I uploaded it with a complete description of your criminal activities. Do you know how this official government system responded?”
She already had the eyebrow raised, and didn’t see any reason to change that fact.
“It said to say ‘hi’,” McMasters said. He turned with his hand still on the bar. “Hi.”
“Howdy,” she said, and it didn’t improve his mood.
“Who the hell are you?”
She shook her head. “Just another asteroid miner, that’s all. Got a past like anyone else. Maybe I abused my connections a little bit. Maybe you ought to think about what connections I might still have.”
Silence again. She felt a tremor in the bar, and under her feet. Her pulse quickened for a moment, and she wondered if a piece of the wreck had hit the station. McMasters looked down at a handheld screen, its green cast on his face in the dark painting him as a drowned sailor. He snapped it off suddenly, and in the afterglow his face appeared red.
“Explosion on deck six, northeast quadrant. I suppose you know what’s there.”
“Feeney’s little drug lab?”
“Feeney’s little drug lab. You wouldn’t know anything about that either, I suppose, Just Another Asteroid Miner?”
“Not surprised, anyway.”
“What’s your name?”
She shook her head.
“Are you working for Shinagawa? Shine? Is that what this is?”
Again, she shook her head.
McMasters gripped the bar and turned full on her, nostrils flared. “What the hell do you want from me?”
“I want you to do your job.”
“Job? What job? They dumped me in this hole between two bickering morons and told me to deal with it. Make it be quiet. There’s no job here, there’s only survival. And I’m doing that just fine.”
“You’re being a leech. A goddamn crooked leech. I told you every gravy train stops. This is the end of the line,” she said, waving her hand at the drifting wreck. “Get ships in here. Arrest Feeney and Angelica. When Mary and Raj take over their sides, tell them to clear out. No more profit here, party’s over. Give the people here a chance to get back on their feet. You do that and I’ll back you to the hilt, but if you don’t, then I’ll make damn sure you regret it.”
McMasters looked suddenly, briefly, very old and very tired. It turned into a snarl.
“You say I’m a leech,” he growled, his voice coarse with emotion. “Well I won’t argue with you, Miss High and Mighty. Better a leech than a louse, I say. You don’t care about this station, you don’t care about these people, you don’t care about anything. You’re vermin. Unwanted, unwelcome, flitting from station to station until someone notices you long enough to crush you like a bug.”
She felt her fingers tighten around the bar despite herself. “You’re not very good at this threatening thing.”
“I like it here, louse. I’ve got a good thing going, and I’ve got a right to be here, and if I’m a leech then by God, I’ve got my teeth in good, and it’s not over until I say it’s over.”
The reflected light off the wreck played on his face, twisted in bitter fury, droplets of sweat glistening in the fairy light, angry to the point of panting. She pursed her lips. “I think it’s the mustache. I hear you ranting, but I keep expecting you to ask my drinks order.”
“Who’s paying you? Shine? Herrera?”
“Go shave it off and threaten me again, I think it’ll work better.”
He slammed his fist down on the bar and obviously regretted it, but at least had the self-control to not too-obviously rub his hurt hand. “You think you’re funny?”
“Just passing the time while I wait for you to be serious.”
He stormed out, leaving her with a few hissed words, “You’re about to see how serious I can be.”