throwing them across the ore dock. In spite of their previous interactions, they hadn’t expected her to react so quickly, but with one in each hand, she couldn’t get a lot of distance. They hit, rolled . . .
*Get your souls back, boys.*
. . . and charged.
*Gunny! I’ve got control!*
“Cut the gravity!” As the gravity cut out, she folded into a crouch, then snapped her legs down, pushing straight up from the deck as the Grr brothers’ momentum kept them moving toward where she’d been. Big Bill’s last order had made this personal, so she had no worries they’d go after Craig while she was still alive. “Ressk! Secure the Heart’s air lock!” She didn’t need any more players in the game, and the last thing she wanted right now was to have her speculation about the possibility of the Heart having weapons on board to prove prophetic.
Both Krai recovered quickly. Torin waited until they’d committed to a trajectory, then pushed off one of the overhead railings and shot past them.
Except there were two of them. Using his brother as a launch pad, the other one headed right for her . . .
The gravity came back on.
Torin heard Ressk swear just before impact. Big Bill had regained control.
“Ryder! What the fuk is going on out there?”
Craig watched Torin get her hands under her and push herself up onto her knees. Breath knocked out of her then, not hurt. He wanted to go to her, but she wouldn’t thank him for getting into the middle of the fight. He yanked his borrowed slate off his belt. As long as Nadayki was in the pod, Cho had a potential weapon on the dock. Not a great one, but even useless shits could turn the tide. “It’s the Grr brothers, Captain!”
“I know it’s the fukking Grr brothers! Nadayki told me.” Yeah, big surprise; the little shit squealed at the drop of a hat. “What the hell are they doing!”
“Fighting! With the gunnery sergeant.”
“She knows you!”
Fuk Nadayki’s fukking ears! Had Torin admitted . . . He ran over everything he could remember of Torin’s conversation with Big Bill. No, she hadn’t. “The Grr brothers are causing trouble. They don’t like that she’s in tight with Big Bill.”
“Then why is she supposed to kill you?”
“Not me, them!”
“Nadayki said . .”
“He misheard! I was standing right beside her.” Craig aimed for Cho’s ego, not exactly a difficult target to hit even for a civilian. “You were right! Big Bill’s up to something!”
“I fukking knew it!”
“Captain, I can’t get the air lock open.” Nose ridges flared, Huirre ran through the sequence again. “Outer doors are under station control!”
“That son of a bitch!” Big Bill was going after the weapons. Cho had known it all along. Known from the start that anyone who stole an entire station from the government wouldn’t settle for fifteen percent. Turned out they did want the same thing. “Dysun!” Cho slapped a hand down on the intercom by the hatch. “Dysun, haul ass out of your rack and get this hatch open.”
“What? Captain, I don’t . . .”
“You will! You want to see your share for those weapons, you’ll get your ass to your board now! Get the tasiks,” Cho snarled at Huirre, pivoted on one heel, and headed for the control room. “I want Doc out there with you the moment the door is open. If Big Bill wants a fight, he’s got one!”
“Ressk!”
*Working on it, Gunny!*
The Grr brothers had been farther from the deck when the gravity kicked in, but they were Krai and Krai bones bounced. Torin rolled up onto her feet, aimed a kick at the closer brother, missed his head, hit his shoulder, and twisted out of the way at the last second. She couldn’t let them grapple. Once they got a hand or foothold, teeth would be next. Pain and physical damage aside, no one reacted well to being eaten alive. She had to use her greater reach and hope like hell she could use one of them to disable the other. Again.
Her odds went up if Ressk regained control. As a species, the Krai might be naturals in zero G but in specific, she’d had a lot more training.
When the gravity kicked out, Craig anchored himself on the edge of the storage pod. He could hear Nadayki flailing and cursing inside the pod, and he realized the kid would have no trouble knifing either him or Torin in the back should Cho command it. Nadayki had