This wasn’t what she was. If she let rage make her into a weapon, however justified the rage, where would it stop? And, once over the line, how much easier the second time? And the time after that?
How many times could she cross the line and still be able to cross back?
How many times had Doc?
Craig had been freed, but the armory was still in enemy hands.
She had a mission to complete and people to get out alive.
When she let the rage go, her knees nearly buckled.
“Turn off the gravity.” Another mouthful of blood spat away from the implant. “Open the doors.”
*Gunny, you’re not suited up. Neither of you.*
Craig had reached her side. Torin sagged against him, breathing shallowly. “Give us three minutes . . .”
“Five,” Craig corrected. And she remembered that Ressk had patched both implants into the ship’s signal.
“Five,” she agreed. “If we can’t get suited up in five minutes, we deserve to blow out with the armory.”
Cho reached the air lock.
Torin’s good hand closed into a fist around a handful of Craig’s overalls. On their way to the lockers, she paused, reached down, and closed Doc’s eyes.
In her experience, the dead did not look at peace. They looked dead.
TWELVE
“OUT OF MY WAY!”Cho pushed past Huirre and slammed both fists down against the air lock’s inner hatch. Once. Twice. “Get this thing open! Now!”
“I’m trying, Captain!” He could hear the whine of excuses in Dysun’s voice. He should never have brought her and her thytrins on board. “But with it slaved to the outer hatch . . .”
“I don’t fukking care! Get. It. Open!” He couldn’t hear anything from the ore docks. Not fighting. Not her boots against the deck coming closer.
“You okay, Captain?”
He turned on Huirre, pleased to see his nose ridges snap shut as he backed up. “Where the fuk were you?” he snarled.
“She killed Doc! I wasn’t fukking facing her unarmed. I was going to bring you the tasik Doc dropped, but it wasn’t working. I tried to get it working.” Huirre glanced over his shoulder and pounded on the hatch, but Cho wasn’t falling for that we’re in this shit together crap.
“Liar! Coward!”
“You ran!” Huirre’s lips drew back off his teeth. He glanced back toward the outer hatch. “Is she coming after you? The gunnery sergeant?”
“Shut up!” She wanted him dead. She was hurt, but that wouldn’t matter. People like her, people like Doc, they just kept coming. “Dysun! Every second I’m in here, you lose ten percent of your share!”
The inner hatch opened.
Yeah, that lit a fire under her ass. “Close everything and get to your board. You, too!” Cho turned far enough to see Huirre slinking out of the air lock. “And later, when this is over . . .” He layered enough menace into the pause to keep Huirre’s nose ridges closed, then he pivoted on one foot and ran for the control room. “Move, damn it!”
Behind him, he heard Dysun ask about Doc.
“Dead,” Huirre told her.
Dead. Big Bill thought he was winning, but he was wrong. There was an oldEarth saying, the bigger they were, the harder they fell and every species Humans had run into since hauling their asses into space had a variation on it. These sorts of sayings became universal for a reason, and Cho was going to fukking prove it.
Big Bill was going down!
“Marines, we are leaving.” Arm pressed against the broken rib, Torin struggled to match Craig’s stride. He was making good time using the heel of his left foot, but pain of impact was easier to ignore than a potentially punctured lung.
Not a competition, Torin reminded herself silently. It didn’t matter if Craig ended up carrying her the rest of the way to the lockers as long as they both got there while breathing remained an option. “Werst, take the Star out; rendezvous by the ore docks!”
*She’s locked down, Gunny!*
Of course she was. “Ressk, you said if you took her out of Vrijheid’s operating system, the station would kick her clear?”
*Yeah, but when we detach from the station, proximity protocols will have the docking computer try and take control whether it has a record of us or not.*
And that would give Big Bill control of the Star. “Can you lock it out?”
*Not without closing down communications.*
“What does . . . never mind.” Torin raised a hand Ressk couldn’t see. Explanations she wouldn’t understand were explanations she didn’t need to hear. “All right, shut down the comm. Then the gravity. Open