16

“Everything is secure,” Milani reported as Deception decelerated into the freighter corral. “Depot ship isn’t much use to anybody at the moment, though. They locked her systems down hard.

“We’ve got…housekeeping control, nothing more,” the mercenary continued. “Airlocks and life support. Couple of my smarter electronic warfare grunts that Bueller trained are trying to crack the computer core, but it’s not looking promising.”

They shook their head.

“I’m moving the prisoners over from the other freighters and locking them down here. Your orders with the rescues?”

“Make sure the Colossus ships didn’t leave any surprises in the systems,” Kira ordered. “Otherwise, we wave them on. So long as they aren’t prisoners of the CNW, they’re not our headache.

“What’s the breakdown?”

“Three ships from Samuels, one from the Bodega System,” Milani told her.

Their tone suggested that Kira shouldn’t know where the Bodega System was…which was good, because Kira didn’t.

“EG says the Bodega System is…almost ten degrees around the Rim,” Kira murmured as she checked the entry on the system. “I don’t know anything about them.”

“Me either,” her ground commander confirmed. “Which I figure is why the Colossus detained them. Wanderer is a long way from home, so it would be about half ‘That’s suspicious’ and half ‘No one’s coming for you.’”

“Well, someone came for them,” Kira replied. “Anything else?”

Milani paused, the dragon flickering across their faceplate on the video feed, then the armored suit seemed to sink in on itself slightly.

“We lost a commando taking the depot ship,” they admitted. “One of those damn stupid things. Idiot mook got into the armory, got her hands on an armor-piercing grenade launcher. Came around the corner, found herself face-to-face with Crush.

“Put an AP grenade into his armor at point-blank range. Neither of them lived.”

Crush was a name Kira knew. He’d been part of her original welcoming party when she’d first come aboard Conviction, a combat trooper visibly addicted to combat drugs. Somehow, he’d managed to ride a functional addiction for long enough to die from something else.

“Pígaine me theó,” Kira half-whispered. Go with God. She didn’t know if Crush had been religious, and she certainly wasn’t, but Apollo had traditions.

“One of those damn stupid things,” Milani repeated. “No one had a chance to stop it, no one saw the idiot coming, and the idiot didn’t even survive herself. Just…fucking bad luck.”

“Keep reminding yourself of that, Milani,” Kira ordered. Crush had been part of Milani’s squad, one of the dozen or so mercs her ground-force commander had commanded the longest. That loss had to hurt as much as the Three-Oh-Third pilots she’d lost since reaching Redward.

“I will,” they promised. “Like I said, things are secure. We’ll load everybody onto the depot ship for now. Then, I guess we’re waiting for Samuels to send someone for them?”

“We may move them to one of the other freighters for transport, but that’s for Macey to negotiate,” Kira told them. “Well done, Milani.”

The dragon saluted for the mercenary, then the video channel closed and Kira leaned back in her chair on the flag deck.

One fatal casualty to take down a quarter of a blockade and eighty kilocubics of enemy starships was an exchange rate most commanders would sell their soul for. But in some ways, Crush’s loss hurt worse for being the only one.

And for being so random. As Milani had said, it was “one of those damn stupid things.”

“Admiral?” Smolak pinged her headware. “We have an incoming transmission from Wanderer. They want to speak to you.”

“I can do that,” Kira agreed.

“Check your headware trans software,” the coms officer told her. “Doesn’t seem like the gentleman speaks English. Just French.”

“Send me a pack,” Kira replied. “I don’t think I have that one.”

Her headware contained datapacks for over two hundred languages, but she’d never needed French before. An icon popped up on her vision and rotated for a few moments as the pack downloaded from Deception’s computers.

“Should be good to go; linking him through,” Smolak said.

A new hologram appeared in front of Kira’s desk. The image was of a tall and heavily fleshed man in a long and high-collared black coat. His salt-and-pepper beard was thick and long graying curls framed his face as he smiled widely at her.

“Admiral, thank you for speaking with me,” he greeted her. His words blurred in her hearing for a moment before the translator software caught up.

“I had some time,” Kira allowed. “How may I assist you, Captain…”

“Reverend, Admiral,” he corrected gently. “I am Reverend Pierre Benowitz. My wife is the Captain of Wanderer, but she took injuries when those thugs boarded our ship, and they limited our access to things like the ship’s medical facilities.

“Her younger sister, our doctor, is seeing to her injuries now, but she isn’t available to speak to you herself,” Benowitz continued. “I must pass on my family’s gratitude for your timely rescue. Having no concept of what exactly Colossus believed we were doing, we did not know if there was any chance they would release us.”

“The other detained ships were all from Samuels,” Kira noted. “I’m not sure just why the CNW seized your ship, Reverend. Any ideas?”

“None, I must admit,” he told her. “Though governments are known for being paranoid and we are a long way from home. Which leaves me even more grateful for your rescue. If there is any way that I or the rest of my family aboard Wanderer can assist you, please let us know. We will be heading on to Samuels with the other ships, I suspect, once you release us.”

“We have no reason to hold anyone,” Kira said. “Though…”

Some instinct told her that there was more to the family-owned freighter several hundred light-years from home than Benowitz was saying. His calm reaction to both his ship being seized by a local military—and, apparently, his wife being injured by said military—was out of line with his presentation.

“The depot ship—Indigo Iris—that Colossus was using to maintain their fighters has her systems locked down,” she told him. “You were in position to have some records on her operations. Any assistance you could give my people in accessing her files and systems would be greatly appreciated.”

“I’m sure we have some scan data or something that may be of use to you,” Benowitz said cheerfully. “And my sons and I have toyed around with various tools over the years that might be helpful.

“If you can connect us with your people aboard her, we will attempt to assist.”

“Thank you, Reverend.”

“Consider it the least aid I can offer for your assistance,” he told her. “You have done my family a great service. Any service we can provide in return, we are delight to offer.”

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