Sean was relaxing in a hammock in his cramped quarters when the door opened, and Siobhan entered.
“Where the hell were you?”
She scowled at him before sitting on the regular bunk beneath him to remove her boots.
He said, “You met some of the crew, I take it?”
“You’d think they’d never seen a woman before. I almost punched out the tenth guy to proposition me after my shift.”
“I hope you restrained yourself.”
She sneered at him and replied, testily, “Yes, I did.”
“Good, ‘cause I think we’re going to need your popularity to help us complete our mission.”
“Why? Is Kramchynski a horny dog like the rest of them?”
“Apparently he likes to keep the most desirable female recruits to himself.”
“Well, fuck. Just once I’d like a job where the mark prefers boys.”
“Well, I for one hope that never happens. Besides, you’re good at it.”
“You mean I’m good at being a whore?”
“Well, you are being paid, aren’t you?”
The next thing Sean knew, she’d grabbed the hammock and pulled. Before he could react, he tumbled heavily to the deck at her feet.
“Okay,” he said as he painfully sat up. “I deserved that. I confused whore with slut.”
He barely dodged her kick at his head. In a flash, she fell on him and started pummelling him with her fists. Curled into a defensive ball, he covered his head with his arms and endured the beating. When the intensity of her blows increased, he considered actively defending himself until she abruptly stopped. Standing, she glared down for a few seconds, then gave him a final, vicious kick before returning to sit on her bunk.
Sean tentatively uncurled and looked up at her. “Feel better?”
Breathing heavily, she said, “Yes.”
He rose slowly to his feet. “There is planning to do.”
“I realize that,” she said with resignation, “but I’m not required to like it.”
“Any more than I, by the way, but it’s the easiest avenue to reach Kramchynski.”
“Your idea of blowing up the ship is starting to become more appealing.”
He ignored her comment. “We’ll need to plan for our escape.”
Siobhan nodded. “A transport and three shuttles are in the hangar. There is no security around them, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Did you decide on a method?”
She frowned. “I haven’t even met him yet. Something subtle to delay the discovery of the cause for as long as possible. Probably the batrachotoxin we brought.”
“Hmm, heart failure? Maybe, depending on what kind of shape he’s in. Any backup options?”
“It doesn’t need to pass an autopsy, Sean; only fool the medic for a few hours, which shouldn’t be difficult from what I saw today.”
“Where’d Kipsic assign you?”
“Nowhere. He just toured me around the ship.”
Sean’s brow knotted. “That’s strange.”
“It’s weird and makes me suspect they might be on to us.”
He shook his head. “They couldn’t be.”
“Why not? Kramchynski bloody well knows he’s pissed off the Collective. He’d be foolish not to consider himself a target, and based on what I’ve seen of this operation, he’s not a fool.”
Sean considered the situation for several seconds. “We should move cautiously. You can’t appear too eager to attract his attention.”
“Which kind of defeats the goal of seducing him.”
“Not necessarily; he might already be in his sights. Bremman showed a particular interest in you; it almost seemed like he tested me to see how attached you are to your virtue and whether I’m prepared to defend it. I told him I’m not, by the way.”
“Thank you, brother dear.”
“And Kipsic paraded you around, apparently to gauge the response of the male population, with some successful results based on what you said.”
“Why do I suddenly need to take a shower?”
“I think Kramchynski is using his crew to vet you for him.”
“That’s sick, Sean.”
“It might also present a problem. How vigorously did you reject anyone’s advances?”
She frowned. “This isn’t my first job. I pretended to be polite and flirted back, exactly like my character is supposed to. I only said I wanted to punch the last one.”
He no longer paid attention to her. “I wish I knew how much time we have.”
“You were at the helm. Where did we set course to after we broke orbit?”
“The middle of nowhere—we’re vectored to the inner system, but to no obvious destination. I even tried some detailed comparison with the asteroid catalogue when Bremman wasn’t looking, but our trajectory doesn’t intercept anything. In fact, by the time we reach the belt we’ll be ten degrees above the ecliptic.”
“There must be a planned correction.”
“Nothing’s in the flight plan. Besides, our run burned up most of the reserves; it would make sense to vector direct and drift under inertia. A mid-course burn would drop fuel levels dangerously for a couple of the ships. Anyway, I thought of that, and there is nothing reachable, even with a late correction.”
“An unknown trojan asteroid?”
Sean shrugged. “Maybe, but even if so, the more important question is, why? We’re hauling a billion credits worth of water. I’d think they’d want to unload and collect payment for it as soon as possible.”
“The mission notes didn’t mention any regular customers.”
He shook his head. “That’s part of the Collective’s problem, isn’t it? If they knew who he sells to, they could undercut him and put him out of business or attack his fleet on approach to a rendezvous.”
Siobhan frowned. “Why kill him?”
“Sorry?”
“Why do they want him eliminated? Surely someone will simply step in and resume the operation. These guys have operated for almost two standards. Even with the unpredictable nature of the plumes, they probably netted in excess of twenty billion credits. I really doubt that murdering Kramchynski will stop anything. It makes more sense for the Collective to want the fleet destroyed.”
“Or perhaps there is a person groomed and waiting to succeed him.”
She shook her head. “If someone is already on the inside, why did they send us? No, something else is up.”
Sean rubbed his temples. “All of this speculation is above our pay grade. We’ve a simple job to do; let’s not complicate it by second-guessing our employer.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re content to follow orders?”
“It pays the bills, sister dear. Besides, don’t forget why we’re doing this in the first place. You volunteered us for this contract, so we’re sort of committed. You said so yourself that we need to keep our noses clean and our value unquestioned. You admonished me for suggesting we go off script. Why the change?”
She scowled. “The closer we examine this, the weirder it gets. I’m worried we’ve been set up again.”
“Again?”
“I don’t believe anyone expected us to return from Rhea. When I consider that mission, I become very suspicious about this one, given all the things that don’t add up.”
Sean studied her carefully. It wasn’t like her to balk at an assignment. If she was concerned that things didn’t seem right, he’d learned to pay attention.
“What do you propose?”
There was an uncharacteristic uncertainty on her face. “Let’s gather more information and see if we can figure out what we’ve stepped into.”
“Okay, but when we learn our destination and ETA, there may not be much time for us to decide what we’re doing.”
“You find out where we’re going, and I’ll work on getting close to Kramchynski. He should have some answers.”
“You know we’re treading a very narrow path, right?”
She gave him a wan smile. “I think we’ve been on it for a lot longer than we realize. If one of the Five is really our parents’ murderer, we’ve probably been under the microscope since we signed on. We can trust nobody but each other.”
He grinned. “Aw, Shoe, are you getting sentimental on me?”
Siobhan smiled but ignored the bait. She rose to go and use the toilet.
As the door closed behind her, Sean realized how concerned she really was.
And that worried him more than anything else in the universe could.
They were in deep shit.
