Chapter 34 #2
“Get to it, then.” Sylvester stepped out of the room, taking the light with him. “Brink and Linao, watch her while I do a full ship check. Yarmouth, get back to the med bay.”
He strode out, leaving everyone looking after him. None of the expressions were friendly.
As he turned into the passage, they were plunged back into darkness, and Brink moved around, banging into a few things, and finally activated another portable light.
Everyone’s faces spoke volumes when they were finally illuminated again.
“He’s a charmer,” Velda said into the silence.
Linao gave a sudden chuckle. “Oh, yes. That’s Sylvester.”
Yarmouth cleared his throat. “Do you need anything before I go?”
Velda was sure he was talking to her, but Linao assumed the question was addressed to her and answered.
“No, I’m feeling fine, thanks, Yarmouth. Better get on or you know he’ll have a tantrum.”
Yarmouth left reluctantly.
“Do you think Yarmouth’s afraid of the dark?” Brink asked when he was gone.
“Probably afraid of the Caruso,” Linao said. “And he’s not wrong there.”
“No.” Brink sighed and then sat on the arm of the chair beside Velda’s. “Things have gone wrong for us since the coup on Aponi failed.”
“Since Fjern,” Linao corrected. “When we blew up one of our own warships.”
“I thought that warship was never going to fly again anyway,” Brink said.
“That’s probably true,” Linao said, “but it told the crew, and me, everything we needed to know about how quick my father would be to cut us off, if there was even a hint that someone could gain an advantage over him. In the Fjern case, it wouldn’t have even been an advantage that would have affected him.
Certainly not in the short term.” She lowered herself into a chair as well.
“Sure, the Fjerna would have been able to gain some information about our tech if the warship had remained intact, but it would have taken them years to translate that into an edge, if they ever did.”
“The protocol is clear, though,” Brink said. “If you’re unable to escape, the ship you’re on will be destroyed. That’s what they did at Cepi and after the Parn incident.”
“Only in VSC territory,” Linao said, and while there was a calm to her voice, Velda thought she detected something darker just beneath the surface.
“We were on a completely unknown planet, with different, and less sophisticated tech, and we had runners onboard that would have meant we could have ferried everyone up to the second ship. But no . . . Captain Vanburren jumped straight to ‘protocol’ and blew my ship up. And all the ore on it. And only moments after I got out. As far as I’m concerned, he tried to assassinate me, and my father has defended him at every turn. ”
“Yeah, put like that, it wasn’t necessary.” Brink shifted a little to get more comfortable. “I’d be a little upset about it.”
“A little upset.” Linao gave a low laugh. “I’ve been in a fucking rage ever since.”
That explained so much. The oversharing, the subtle undermining of her father’s goals. Everything.
Linao was a ticking bomb, just waiting for the best time to explode.
Linao leaned forward, and Velda realized she wasn’t finished.
“It wasn’t just that Vanburren nearly killed me, it was that he knowingly stranded us on a hellhole planet.
He had no idea whether we’d be able to negotiate a way off, or even if the Fjerna wouldn’t simply kill us where we stood.
My guess is he knew it would be a hard, uncomfortable trip back with my crew and his having to share a ship, and he tried to make it so that couldn’t happen.
The only thing my father did right for me was insisting that Vanburren get us off, and that was after a week of imprisonment. ”
“Then you landed in jail again on Aponi,” Brink said. “I guess no one can say you don’t put yourself on the line for the cause.”
“And what is the cause?” Velda asked. This is what she had been trying to work out for a long time.
“A new breakaway planet, of course,” Linao said, sliding her a look. The yellow glow of the portable light Brink had set on the low table made her eyes gleam.
“That’s it? And you thought you could make Aponi that planet?” She couldn’t understand the logic. The VSC would not stand for it. They hadn’t stood for the rebel takeover of Faldine—they’d fought a war over it—and they had just taken Garmen and Lassa, the old breakaway planets, back.
“The Cores leadership thought with the Caruso patrolling the airspace, we could.” Brink shrugged. “I wasn’t sure it would work, but it beat being constantly on the run.”
“What are you, personally, on the run for?” Velda asked. Brink seemed reasonable enough, and she wondered what she thought she would be in trouble for if she surrendered to the VSC.
“I was part of the security forces on Lassa,” Brink said. “There were a lot of people killed there, and I’m honest enough with myself to admit I was responsible for some of those deaths.”
“And you?” Velda asked Linao. “You were on Garmen, right?”
“Some of the time,” Linao admitted. “Mostly, I was spying throughout the VSC. Those were the fun days, when we were still semi-respectable, and there was no real danger in admitting where I was from.”
“And then it all went sideways,” Velda said.
“It was always going to go sideways,” Linao said.
“Because the worse things got, the more the VSC were inclined to interfere. And my father and his cohorts never understood that some social care would have gone a very long way. They wouldn’t even properly furnish the offices of their own workers, let alone pave the streets or build schools. ”
“And then trying to steal tech off Cepi and all the rest didn’t help,” Brink agreed. “It just accelerated the downfall.” She sighed. “And while I know things were bad on Garmen, on Lassa, it was worse.”
“That’s hard to imagine,” Linao said, “but I had heard that.”
“Believe me, the main Cores player on Lassa was almost insane toward the end. I’m not sure what was going on, but I saw some footage of him that came off unhinged.” Brink hunched a little. “That’s when my boss and I got out, and hooked up with Sylvester.”
As if saying his name conjured him up, Sylvester was suddenly in the open doorway. “The whole engine room is down,” he said. “It’s probably the Caruso, because their tech built a lot of this ship. I think they may have built in a backdoor.”
Linao let out a quick laugh. “That makes sense.”
Sylvester sent her a dark look. “We need to get the bridge back. I’m going to pull Henry off opening the other doors on the ship and get him started on the bridge doors.
I’m not losing my star hostage or my runner, so let’s go, Velda Shan?ha.
We’re going to persuade your bodyguard to surrender once Henry has reset the automatic opening protocol, or I’ll shoot you. ”
“Shoot me, and there’s no incentive for him to give you anything,” she said.
“I can hurt you, though,” Sylvester said. “I can hurt you until he gives up.”
Well, that was no good.
No, the silver balls said. That is not going to happen.
Sylvester grabbed her by the upper arm and hauled her up.
“Hang on a moment,” Linao said. “I just need to grab something.”
She disappeared into the dark recesses of the room, and Velda heard her opening a drawer in the little built-in kitchen.
“You’ll have to catch up.” There was an impatient snap in Sylvester’s voice. “I don’t have time to wait for you.”
He began to drag Velda to the door, and then suddenly, Linao was there, one hand on Sylvester’s shoulder.
Sylvester flinched, then staggered back, fetching up against the wall.
He looked down at his side and Velda saw the sudden bloom of blood.
“When do you ever wait for me?” Linao asked him. “When do you ever give a single shit?” She stabbed him again.
“Linao—” Brink hesitated, unsure what to do.
Velda almost laughed out of sheer astonishment. Talk about things going sideways. This was headed for upside down.
“Shoot her,” Sylvester ground out, bending a little.
“I can’t,” Brink said slowly. “You took my laz.”
As if suddenly realizing he had it, Sylvester fumbled with it, but before he could lift it, Linao stabbed him a third time and wrenched it out of his hand.
“I’ve been out there, stabbing, shooting, and murdering for you. I’m way ahead when it comes to killing,” she said, and Velda thought she sounded almost cheerful.
“What was your suggestion, Velda? That we give you the runner, you get Ethan off the bridge, and you head off?” Brink stood, hands a little away from her sides, talking as if Sylvester wasn’t slowly sliding down the wall, leaving a trail of smeared blood behind him.
“Yes, that’s my suggestion.” How much of this was the silver balls, how much was the final tipping point of years of resentment, Velda wondered.
Unsure, the silver balls said. But the result is the same.
The result was seriously crazy.
“I’ll take Sylvester to Yarmouth,” Brink said, and her tone was a little too bright. “Will you take Velda to the runner, Linao?”
Linao stepped back. “Sure. I can do that.”