“Not after what happened the last time, kid.” Any other di’Taykan standing that close would have grabbed his ass before heading back into the storage pod. It would have been instinctive, expected even given their positions. Watching Thing One toss the wrench aside while Thing Two bitched about wasting time in the ass end of the station, Craig wondered if maybe this time it wasn’t the di’Taykan but the situation. These two really had the kid freaked. His mouth went dry as he remembered Huirre crunching down on his toe. On the other hand, maybe the kid had reason to be freaked.
He should give the captain a heads-up.
His hand was actually on his slate before he realized what he was doing.
He wasn’t really crew. He didn’t owe Captain Cho shit.
“I have to admit, I was expecting something more complicated.” Big Bill folded his arms and stared at the plans for the smelter up on the big screen. “This is . . . basic. Except for the range, it looks more like a classroom than a place to train warriors.”
Warriors? Torin took a moment to temper her response. And then another moment, just to be on the safe side. “They won’t be learning how to charge in, guns blazing. Any idiot can do that and get themselves trapped between decompression hatches breathing vacuum.”
“HE suits . . .”
“Because multiple crews emerging from docking arms all suited up won’t look at all suspicious.”
“I don’t think I like your tone.”
Torin tried to look like she cared. “If you want to take over a station, you have to realize that the weapons in the hands are incidental to the weapons between the ears.”
He shook his head and blanked the screen. “We don’t want them too well armed, Gunnery Sergeant. They’ll point their weapons where they’re told.”
“You still don’t understand. When I’m done with them, they’ll be weapons—head and hand. You’ll be pointing them. What they want won’t matter.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “You can do that?” he said at last.
“I can.” She could. She wasn’t going to, but she could.
“And they just let you wander around loose?” He started with a snicker, then his response evolved into a full-out laugh.
Torin fought down another urge to punch him in the throat. And then considered the implication. The Grr brothers were down in the ore docks about as far away from Big Bill as they could get and still be on the station. If she killed him, what would they do? Would they know? Could she show up and send them away, passing on Big Bill’s orders because of a sudden glitch in his implant? No, the paranoid bastard would have put contingency plans in place if the Grr brothers couldn’t reach him. Given the Grr brothers, that plan would likely be violent, and Craig was in the ore dock.
She couldn’t risk making things more complicated than they already were.
“Gunnery Sergeant, I am very glad you found your way to my corner of known space.” Big Bill wiped his eyes with one hand and activated his desk with the other. “But now, if you don’t mind, I have work of my own to do. Why don’t you wander around and get to know the place a little better.”
“I’d like to go down to the ore dock and check the security.”
“Why?”
“We have a perfectly good armory. During training, it can be used to secure the weapons.”
“I think you forget, Gunnery Sergeant, these are not Marines. They’ll have bought their weapons from Captain Cho.”
Torin frowned as she worked through the variables. William Ponner was too smart to let his Free Merchants loose on his station, armed. He had to have come up with a way to control them because his fifteen percent of the armory’s contents wouldn’t be enough to . . .
“They’ll own their weapons,” she told him. “But you’ll own the ammunition.”
She thought he was going to deny it for a moment, then he bared his teeth in what wasn’t a smile. “You’re right. The ammunition won’t be remaining in the ore docks, but here, where I can personally keep an eye on it.”
“You think Cho will agree to that particular fifteen percent.”
“Mackenzie Cho, Gunnery Sergeant, is ambitious. Too ambitious for the Navy. He wants to make the decisions. He wants to command and I can give him what he wants. He’ll be at the forefront of big changes, or he’ll be a sad remnant of a system