her or suggest that of course the Sraibur would return for them. He must have realized in his own mind that his crew of pirates didn’t have the kind of honor that required them to save a shipmate who’d chosen to go after a prisoner they’d abandoned. EJ shook her head to clear it of those distracting thoughts. That was neither here nor there. The bigger problem was surviving the next few moments. At least the little sanctuary they’d found in the walls was quiet enough she could think.
EJ frowned at the comms puck that Violet gave her, trying to remember how the lawyer activated it. EJ hit a few buttons in the loading bay, but the thing didn’t look any different. “Well, half this ship is filled with hardened criminals who were promised a chance to start over on a shitty planet. They’d obviously be interested in knowing they’re going to be sold into slavery for Einstein only knows what. I imagine they’d react... poorly to that news.”
And she smiled, since she’d seen how prison riots went. It never worked out well for anyone, really, though usually the guards took the brunt of it. When no one had anything to lose... She really hoped she could find a safe place to hunker down or at least an escape pod to flee in. Even if she was the one who released them and warned them of the impending danger, that didn’t mean she’d be immune from the chaos.
“You want to release the prisoners and let them fight the guards.”
From his tone, he didn’t immediately dismiss the idea. EJ shrugged and twisted a dial on the puck, holding her breath as it lit up and something inside it chimed and churned. If it was the same as one of the Information Ministry devices, maybe it would… “I’m going to release the prisoners and give them the opportunity to earn their freedom or at least die on their feet. I can’t control what anyone does—not the prisoners, not the guards, not the Slasu who might have already boarded this ship.”
And she gave him a hard look to remind him of their current reality. It wasn’t just an abstract exercise, after all, if he wanted to argue about the morality of releasing hardened criminals into a gen ship or setting poor farmers and ill-prepared guards in their path. EJ shook her head and pushed down her own little wiggle of doubt. “Besides, the guards are armed. No doubt the Slasu will be, too. It’s not like the criminals will have a significant advantage. They’ll have the numbers and the motivation, sure, and the willingness to die to save themselves.”
It would be enough to buy them time. Not that it would really matter if they couldn’t find some place to go to avoid the inevitable descent into chaos and violence. At least the settlers were likely to remain huddled in their tiny quarters. She’d initially tried to drum up support among the small Earther contingent of farmers, though that had fallen flat once they realized she had been forced onto the gen ship instead of paying to be there. Judgmental assholes, every last one of them.
Nokx shifted his weight as the med pack worked and hummed, and made a face as he tried to find a more comfortable position. “What are you doing? What is that thing?”
“Some kind of comms unit that Violet gave me,” she said under her breath. It lit up and whirred, but it didn’t seem to do anything else. Was there a button? A voice command? She shook it and turned it upside down, frowning. She probably should have asked more questions, not that there had been much time before Faros interrupted. “I’m trying to alert them...”
“We can use my comms,” he said. His tone remained neutral as he held up his wrist.
“Will they actually respond?” she asked. EJ meant it to sound caustic and cynical, but instead she just sounded tired.
Nokx’s head tilted as he studied her, and there was a warmth in his eyes that made her stomach somersault. It was like he’d heard her exhaustion and understood, like he was ready to take over whenever she needed him to. Her vision blurred and she had to turn away. She couldn’t rely on him. That much he’d already proven. When she’d really, really needed his support... he did what his captain told him and left her to sink or swim on her own. And so they would both