that was only because he’d had plans to take care of it himself. “How many total?”
“Seven. Eight, including Harnett.”
A sudden impact jerked Torin out of the memory. She blinked and stared at the blood smear marking the place where she’d slammed her right fist into the bulkhead.
The pain hit right after the visuals.
“Gunny?”
Raising her left hand, palm out, she drew in two deep breaths and let them out slowly. Clear and bright, the pain sliced through all the shit in her head and left only three things behind. Craig. The armory. The certain knowledge that this couldn’t happen right now. The shit couldn’t win. She had to hold things together for just a little while longer. One more deep breath, then she let her left arm fall back by her side and nodded.
She’d barely finished the motion before Ressk, holding her right wrist in a gentle grip, pushed her back into the pilot’s chair. Mashona knelt beside her and opened the first aid kit.
“That was stupid.”
“Werst!”
Looking over their heads, she locked eyes with Werst. “No, he’s right. Seeing Craig threw me, but I’m thinking clearly now.”
“So you punched the wall to clear your head? Bullshit.”
“And yet, my head is clear.” Her tone told him to drop it. Trouble was, Werst hadn’t listened back when she had actual rank to enforce the order. And now . . .
He folded his arms, his tone matter-of-fact. “If you’re losing it, Gunny, we need to know.”
“Fuk you.”
“He’s right, Gunny.” Mashona’s hand rested warm on her thigh. “You don’t have to prove anything to us. We’re here.”
Yes, they were.
Ressk flashed Werst a look that made Torin suspect Mashona might be right about something going on between them then, nose ridges flaring, asked, “What would you say, Gunny, if one of us pulled a dumbass move like punching a bulkhead?”
Good question. The pain blocker he’d shot into her hand dulled the edges of the clear and bright but not so much the shit could creep back in. It was all still there—Cho, Big Bill, Craig’s injury, a station not entirely full of thieves and murderers—but she owned it now, not the other way around.
“I’d tell you to not let it get so bad again.”
“Yeah,” Mashona snorted. “But you’d be more emphatic.”
She’d have been as emphatic as required for them to hear her. “True.”
“First . . .” This was the easy part. “. . . we need to be able to communicate with Craig. Not only to get him out, but because he’s with the armory.” She sucked air in through her teeth as Ressk’s thumb pushed at cracked bone.
Ressk’s grip tightened. “No point in bonding the knuckle when it’s halfway down your fukking hand,” he reminded her. “Stop twitching. If Big Bill’s blocked his codes, then I can block yours and Ryder’s. I just need to get into the sysop. Once in . . . Gunny!”
“I’m not twitching.”
He snorted noncommittally and maneuvered the bone into place. The pain flared bright and clear for an instant, then settled back to a constant reminder of why punching bulkheads was definitely dumbass.
“Once in,” he began again, “I can lock our slates out, too.”
Mashona handed him a tube of sealant and sat back on her heels. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just lock out the Star? Since we use her as our SP?”
“If I lock out the Star, the docking clamps release because the station thinks we no longer exist.”
“So you’ll be locking out the codes.” With the split skin over Torin’s knuckle sealed shut, Mashona dropped the empty tube back into the kit. “Good thing you’re an evil genius.”
“Doesn’t take a genius to lock out codes,” Ressk snorted, frowned down at the repair, then set the hand gently on Torin’s knee with a look that said it was the best he could do. “But it’ll take time to get into the system unnoticed.”
“We now have less than thirteen hours for the entire mission.” Torin reminded him.
“Then I need to get to one of the station’s boards. Easy in from there.”
“I have an all-access pass to the station—apparently the free merchants need to see I have Big Bill’s trust,” she explained as she handed Ressk her slate. “But whatever I do, wherever I go, Big Bill will be watching. That’s a given.”
“Then we need him to look away.” Ressk dropped back into the second chair and worked both thumbs across the screen. “Or we need him to believe he’s seeing