The Lost Ship of the Tucker Rebellion - Marie Sexton Page 0,10
through it than ship parts. This close to Saturn’s Roche limit, the gravitational pull sent unexpected castoffs from the rings through the area on a regular basis, and more than one salvage ship had been caught unawares, damaged or destroyed by space debris. “It’s too far from Titan X to be convenient, so people tend to leave it alone. You know that.”
“But still, a pod? An actual pod? Do you know what those sell for on Mars? The people who bring in pods are set for life.” She finally looked at him, her eyes haunted. “I could have saved Kioko with a pod.”
“Marit.” Denver extended a tentative hand, but she ignored it.
“Just be careful, all right? You can never trust a windfall. They always come with a hidden cost.” She turned toward the pilot controls. “We’ll be underway in half an hour.”
“Okay.”
Laramie’s voice was loud in Denver’s head, making tension flare painfully across his temples. He stopped for a drink of water in the mess, then headed back into the cargo bay.
Laramie already had on his coveralls and gloves, plasma cutter in one hand. Along the back wall, OPAL had projected a 3-D image of the object, with density depths marked to indicate how far down they should cut.
“I don’t suppose we have any idea where the hatch is?”
Laramie grinned at him. “Not a clue.”
“Well, nothing comes easy, I guess.” Marit was right about that, if nothing else.
Laramie nodded. “You take left, I’ll take right?” He didn’t wait for Denver to reply, just shoved down his face plate and levered the plasma cutter down against the tracer corpses. Tiny bits of metal began to pool at his feet.
Denver shrugged into his own gear and joined his brother. They worked silently for a while, not bothering to stop when Marit announced she was getting them underway.
“Technically you should be strapped in for this,” she said as the gentle impulse of the engine flared to life, turning the Jiminy back toward Titan X. “And not handling tools that could cut a hole in our cargo bay floor if you lose your balance and fall.”
“We’re fine here,” Denver replied, although he wasn’t sure about Laramie. His brother was going after the thick crust of fused tracers like he had something to prove, using more fuel to cut deeper and faster than usual. After an hour, Denver said, “Be careful you don’t overheat the pod with that thing. You could damage the contents.”
Laramie grunted dismissively. “I know how to use a damn plasma cutter.” He slowed down some, though, and after another few minutes he said, “I bet it would impress the hell out of Ginn, bringin’ in a pod.”
“Don’t start in on Ginn right now.”
“It would, though, wouldn’t it?”
“Anybody’d be impressed by a pod. Especially Ginn.” Ginn was a Station-born girl who had Laramie, and half the salvage crews in the region, wrapped around her wrist like bracelets. All she had to do was look their way and they started jangling, crawling over each other to impress her. Ginn was the only person Laramie ever gave up time for who wasn’t a member of the crew. He’d asked, and she’d declined with a brilliant laugh that was both mocking and encouraging all at once.
The fact that Marit hated her too made Denver a little less guilty over how he thought of her. Laramie knew; of course he knew. Denver couldn’t keep those thoughts to himself with Laramie practically living in his head. As long as they remained unspoken, though, it was like having permission to ignore them.
“We could maybe get a better ship. Bigger. Hire more crew. Take her in a whole new direction.”
“We could get you better medical care.” Denver set the plasma cutter aside and started prying up a piece of tracer junk with a crowbar.
“Yeah, then we could maybe get you a life too.”
“Shut… your damn…” The section broke away suddenly, almost sending Denver to the floor. “Mouth,” he sighed, rubbing absently at his lower back. His restless night wasn’t helping things.
“You need a break?”
“Not if you don’t.”
“I can uncover this sucker on my own. I’m a big boy.”
“That’s what she said,” OPAL announced.
Denver frowned. “What the hell does that even mean?”
“It means if you can’t follow twentieth-century innuendo, you need a break.” Laramie slugged him gently on the arm. “Go ahead. I won’t open anything without you here, I promise.”
Denver could taste the faint tinge of bitterness in Laramie’s words inside his head. He wanted