CHAPTER THREE
Jody felt her mouth go dry. There had been two Marines still aboard when the combined force of Cobras and Qasaman Djinni captured the courier ship back on Caelian. One of the Marines, the one who’d barricaded himself inside the portside gunbay, had emerged during the voyage to Qasama, ostensibly to negotiate, in actuality to provide a diversion so his compatriot in the other gunbay could remotely fiddle with the Squire’s helm settings. The gambit had failed, on all levels, and the Marine had been taken off the ship by Shahni Moffren Omnathi and his men when they landed on Qasama.
The other Marine had given them no further trouble, remaining silent and invisible for the rest of the trip. Somehow, Jody had assumed that the Qasamans had managed to extract him during the time she’d been in Isis getting her Cobra enhancements, or at least sometime before she and her companions headed off-world again.
Clearly, she’d been wrong.
And that false assumption had now cost her everything. The parrot gun lasers built into the tunic’s epaulets were every bit as deadly and accurate as the Cobras’ own weaponry. With Kemp’s and Smitty’s legs all but trapped under the table, and their lasers pointed in the wrong direction, there was no way they could bring a counterattack to bear. Not in time.
But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try.
Beside her, Kemp made a small throat-clearing sound. Jody keyed up her new audio enhancers—
“Split and hit,” Kemp murmured softly. “On three.”
A chill rippled through Jody’s core. The split-and-hit was a technique to deal with a predator who’d managed to get within point-blank range. The Cobras who were the predator’s target would leap to the sides, both firing at the animal; if there was a third Cobra in the group, he would stay motionless and fire from the middle. The idea was that the movement would distract the predator long enough for one of the Cobras to score a killing shot.
But there was no possibility of any such distraction here. The Marine had undoubtedly already target-locked all four of them, and would be waiting for just such a maneuver. The first move by any of them would be death for all of them.
“What do you mean?” Rashida asked calmly.
The question was so unexpected—especially given that Rashida seldom started conversations—that for a second Jody’s fears and nervous anticipation sputtered to a frozen halt. From what she could see out of the corners of her eyes, Kemp and Smitty were similarly puzzled.
“It called CoNCH, not the CoNCH,” the Marine said calmly. He seemed as untouched by the three Cobras’ sudden tension as—
As untouched as Rashida, actually, now that Jody fully focused her attention on the Qasaman woman. Was she seeing something the rest of them weren’t?
“Yes, we know,” Rashida said. “We are somewhat more casual about these things than you are. If you don’t plan to kill us, you had better say so at once, before there is unpleasantness.”
And then, belatedly, Jody got it. The Marine had caught them completely unawares. If he’d wanted to kill them, he could have done it without any of them even knowing what had happened.
But he hadn’t. And not only hadn’t he opened fire, but he’d started a calm, civilized conversation. Or at least a grammar lesson.
Rashida had spotted that right away. Distantly, Jody wondered why she herself hadn’t.
“Let’s do this in order, shall we?” the Marine suggested, his eyes flicking to each of the others. “First, I want you to acknowledge that if I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead. Do you so acknowledge?”
“What are you, the ship’s lawyer?” Smitty growled.
“Do you so acknowledge?” the Marine repeated.
Jody looked at Smitty. Smitty’s eyes were on Kemp, and Jody sensed the Cobra beside her give a microscopic shrug. “Okay, fine,” Smitty said, looking back at the Marine. “You win. We’re dead. Now what?”
“Now,” the Marine said, “I want to make a deal.”
“Sorry,” Smitty said. “We don’t negotiate under duress.”
“I didn’t think you would,” the Marine said.
And to Jody’s surprise, he reached up to his throat, turned his back to them, and shucked off his tunic. Holding it out at arm’s length, he set it down onto the deck—it was rigid enough to mostly continue standing straight up—and turned back around. “There,” he said. “We all feel safer now?”
“Well, we do,” Smitty said. He had his hands up now, fingertip lasers pointed at the Marine, his thumbs on the ring-finger nails in full-power firing position. “How about you?”
“It’s all right, Smitty,” Rashida said quietly, reaching out her hand and resting it lightly on his arm. “He came to talk, not to fight. Let us hear what he has to say.”
“I’m not sure I want to listen,” Smitty bit out.
“Oh, I think we can spare him a minute or two,” Kemp said. His right arm was stretched out over Jody’s plate, the laser in that hand also targeting the Marine. “Let’s start with his name.”
“I’m Marine Gunnery Sergeant Fitzgerald Plaine,” the Marine said. His lip twitched. “I’d give you my service number, too, but I doubt you really care.”
“You want to quit stalling?” Smitty growled. “We’re busy here.”
“Really?” Plaine’s eyebrows rose a bit. “A minute ago all you were doing was being bored. No matter. The point is that I know who you are, and what you’re doing. And I’m here to offer my assistance.”
“Why?” Smitty demanded suspiciously.
“Because he’s hungry,” Jody said. With the immediate threat gone, she’d finally been able to focus enough attention on Plaine’s face to spot the telltale thinness of hunger.
“More thirsty than hungry,” Plaine told her. “But, yes, both. Also, though you probably can’t tell from there, I’m badly in need of a shower.”
“Fair enough,” Kemp said. “You can eat, and then Smitty and I will show you to your new quarters.”
“If you want to lock me up, I can’t stop you,” Plaine said. “But I think I can be of more use as part of the squad.”
“Part of the squad?” Smitty echoed. “Part of the squad? What part of our prisoner don’t you get?”
“The part about you needing my help,” Plaine said bluntly. “The part about flying an unfamiliar ship into enemy territory with no intel, no backup—” He looked Jody squarely in the eye. “And no plan.”
“Eavesdropping out there for a while, were you?” Kemp asked.
“For a lot longer than you think.” Plaine gestured in the direction of the starboard gunbay. “You and your allies figured out—well, eventually you figured it out—that the gunbays run secondary duty as emergency CoNCHs. It apparently never occurred to you that one of the obvious capabilities of such a center would be to obtain data and facilitate communication by remotely activating the ship’s intercom system.” He smiled faintly. “And I mean all of it.”
Jody felt a creepy sensation crawl up her back. Did he mean he’d listened to every conversation they’d had aboard ship?
Maybe Kemp was thinking the same thing. “All of it?” he asked, an edge of warning in his tone.
Plaine shrugged slightly. “Well, everything for the past day or two, anyway,” he amended. “Enough to get the gist of things.” He shifted his eyes back to Jody. “Your brother is missing. You think you know where he might be. I understand that kind of concern. Dominion Marines also stand by the rule of no man left behind.”
“You sound so enthusiastic,” Smitty growled.
“In principle, I’m very enthusiastic,” Plaine said. “In practice…frankly, Ms. Broom, my guess is that you’re out of luck. From what I read of your recent tiff with the Trofts—”
“Our tiff?” Smitty cut him off.
“Well, it was hardly a war, was it?” Plaine countered. “Four planets and a few weeks of fighting? Hardly even qualifies as a tiff.”
Smitty took a deep breath—
“Whatever,” Jody cut him off. “Fine; but there’s one thing your little spy ears didn’t tell you. Shahni Omnathi told us the Qasamans have thoroughly searched the forest and cities and all the areas the Trofts traveled. They’ve already located the bodies of most of the missing Qasaman soldiers and civilians. My brother wasn’t among them.”
“Interesting,” Plaine murmured thoughtfully. “You sure they didn’t just tell you that to spare your feelings?”
“No,” Jody said flatly. She looked at Rashida. “They wouldn’t, would they?”
“They would not,” Rashida confirmed. “The Shahni respects you too much to offer you such a small and ultimately futile lie.”
Jody felt a small frown crease her head. That was a strange way to phrase that.
“Assume you’re right,” Plaine said. “It still seems strange that they would bother taking him prisoner. It’s not like he could tell them anything useful.”
“Maybe they wished to check out his Cobra gear,” Rashida suggested.
Plaine shrugged. “Like I said: nothing useful.”
Smitty raised his left hand. “Show of hands,” he invited. “How many want to just drop this clown out an airlock?”
Plaine shook his head. “You don’t want to do that.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I do,” Smitty growled.
“No, you really don’t,” Plaine said. “For starters, if you do you’ll never get another decent meal aboard this ship.”
“So Dominion Marines also double as gourmet chefs?” Smitty asked. “Yeah, I totally believe that.”
“Actually, I haven’t cooked since I joined the Service,” Plaine said. “I just happen to know that you’re supposed to put freeze-dried meals in the microcooker before you peel off the shrink-wrapping.”
“Then how do you get the water in to rehydrate it?” Jody asked.
“You don’t,” Plaine said. “The appropriate liquids—all the liquids and juices, not just the straight aitch-two-oh—are drawn out into the wrapping during the process. They come back out of suspension during the reheating and cooking process and reinfuse the meal.”
“Really,” Kemp said. There was the sound of a chair sliding back. “Show us.”
“Now?” Plaine asked, frowning. “I thought we were negotiating.”
“We are,” Kemp said. “We’re negotiating your butt over to storage and whipping up some better food.”
Plaine shrugged. “Whatever you want.”
He strode forward, angling to his right to pass the table behind Smitty and Rashida. As he passed Smitty, the other Cobra quietly stood up and fell into step behind him. Jody winced as he went by; the man definitely needed a shower.
“Tunic,” Kemp murmured in Jody’s ear. “Take it, and fry it.”
She nodded and pushed her own chair back, heading the opposite direction from everyone else.
The tunic Plaine had left in the doorway was surprisingly heavy, though considering all the weapons, defenses, and power supplies tucked inside, the weight might actually be a little light. She slung it over her arm for easier carrying and glanced over her shoulder. Plaine was at the food storage cabinet, with his view in her direction blocked by Kemp. Making sure not to bang the tunic against the door jamb, she slipped out into the corridor.
It would be easy enough to neutralize the tunic, she knew. Unfastened and off its owner as it was, it was completely inactive. A few well-placed fingertip laser shots across the epaulets, or even a good arcthrower blast to each of them, and the tunic would be nothing more than a decorative piece of clothing. It was what Kemp had ordered her to do, and it certainly made the most tactical sense.
And yet…
She didn’t trust Plaine. Not a single solitary centimeter. He could talk all he wanted about not leaving anyone behind, but Jody was pretty sure a starving man would say whatever he had to in order to score himself a meal. He could easily just be biding his time, pretending to be passive, until he got the chance to make some kind of countermove against them. In fact, given the way the Cobras and Djinni had captured the Squire, a countermove was the most probable scenario.
And given how much better Plaine knew the ship than she or any of the others did, leaving any weapons where he could get his hands on them would be just begging for trouble. The rest of the tunics and spare weapons parts had been taken off the ship—Omnathi had made sure of that—and it only made sense to destroy this last weapon as well.
And yet…
Plaine was right about one thing: Jody and the others were way in over their heads. Even if all this was just an act, there could well come a point where his survival would be inexorably linked to theirs. If and when that happened, she assumed he would fight as hard as they did.
But only if he had something to fight with.
The whole interior of the Squire was riddled with small rooms and equipment access cubbies and crawlspaces. She found a pump room near CoNCH and stuffed the tunic inside. A few careful shots with her fingertip lasers to spot-weld the door closed, and Plaine wouldn’t be getting inside without collecting some tools and making a lot of noise.
As an afterthought, she spot-welded two other nearby storage room doors, as well. Any of the Cobras could blast off the welds in a few seconds if they needed to get in, but Plaine would now have to guess which one held his tunic. If his powers of observation and deduction got him even that far.
She returned to find Plaine seated at the far end of the table, digging hungrily into a newly reconstituted meal. Smitty had taken up position behind him, while Kemp faced him from across the table. Rashida was still sitting where she’d been earlier, a thoughtful expression on her face as she gazed at the Marine.
And for the first time since leaving Caelian Jody’s sense of smell was treated to the aroma of good food.
Kemp looked over at Jody as she walked in, his eyebrows raised in silent question. Jody gave a small nod and sat down across from Rashida.
If Plaine noticed her return, or if he even realized she’d been gone, he made no sign.
He finished his meal in silence and then nodded to the microcooker. “I presume you won’t mind if I have seconds?” he asked. “I’ve been on very short rations the past few days.”
“That was your own fault,” Smitty pointed out. “You could have come out at any time.”
“And been made a prisoner?”
“The Qasamans treat prisoners honorably,” Kemp said. “You’d have gotten used to their cuisine.”
“Perhaps,” Plaine said. “But since I haven’t had that opportunity—?”
Kemp rolled his eyes. “Yes, fine, you can have a second meal. But first we talk.”
“About what?”
“You said you wanted to deal,” Kemp said. “Let’s hear the offer.”
“The offer is for expertise,” Plaine said. “Knowledge and skills that you don’t have. You don’t know this ship, for starters, certainly not as well as I do. You also don’t know how its weapons function, or how to get the best speed out of it, or how to key in the pre-programmed battle maneuvers. I do.”
“I thought Marines were soldiers,” Smitty said. “Weapons grunts. What makes you think you can fly or fight this thing better than we can?”
“Because while I’ve been stuck in that gunbay I’ve been studying the manuals,” Plaine said. “All right, granted, I can’t straight-up fly it nearly as well as you can. I don’t know how you got our pilot to teach you, or how you learned so quickly”—he threw Rashida a thoughtful look—“but it made for interesting listening. But I do know the gunbays backward and forward. I also know a lot more about fighting groups of Trofts than you do.”
“And why would you want to help us?” Kemp asked. “As far as the Dominion is concerned, we’re traitors. Or at least renegades.”
“Three reasons,” Plaine said. “One: as I said earlier, I understand and appreciate the concept of no one left behind. If Ms. Broom’s brother is still alive, I’m ready to help get him out. Two: as also already stated, you stand a much better chance with my knowledge and combat skills added to yours. And three—” He hesitated. “If the worse-end scenario happens, there are systems and equipment aboard this ship that we’d rather not fall into Troft hands. I know which systems those are, and how to destroy them.”
Jody felt a hard knot form in her stomach. “You’re talking about a self-destruct?”
“Localized destruct,” Plaine corrected her. “Nothing that would turn the Squire into a flaming fireball or anything. That’s not how I want to go out, either.” He considered. “Unless we were ramming a Troft warship at the time. In that case, I’d say we go for it.”
“Great,” Kemp said. “Let’s keep that one tucked away in the do-not-open file, okay?”
“Sure,” Plaine said. “Part of a soldier’s job is to consider all the options.”
“Consider it considered,” Kemp said. “Go ahead and make your seconds. We’ll be at the other end of the table if you need us.”
“Take your time,” Plaine said, standing up and heading for the food cabinet. “I’m certainly not going anywhere.”
Kemp caught Smitty’s eye and gave a sideways nod. Smitty gave Plaine’s back a long, speculative look, and then the two Cobras headed back to where Rashida and Jody were sitting.
“Thoughts?” Kemp asked quietly when he and Smitty were standing behind the women. Both Cobras’ eyes, Jody noted, were still on Plaine.
“I don’t trust him,” Smitty said flatly.
“I think that’s pretty evident,” Kemp said, a little dryly. “Jody? Rashida?”
“He may be playing a game,” Rashida said. “However, I should point out that he didn’t need to reveal himself to us. He could have slipped out at night for food and water when we were all asleep or in CoNCH.”
“I suppose,” Kemp conceded. “No, actually, that’s a good point. I sure the hell didn’t know he was still in there. He could pretty much have had the run of the ship at night.”
“Wait a second,” Jody said, frowning as an odd thought struck her. “Why didn’t we know he was there?”
“Because we didn’t think to ask and no one thought to tell us,” Kemp said.
“Yes, but why?” Jody persisted. “Omnathi is usually right on top of things like this. It’s not like he didn’t know we were going to take the ship.”
“I suppose even Omnathi slips up sometimes,” Kemp said. “I’m guessing that between his negotiations with Captain Moreau and keeping an eye on the Dorian’s injured he probably told someone to get Plaine out of his hullmetal cocoon and assumed it had been done.”
“How it happened is not of immediate importance,” Rashida said. “We have the situation. We need to decide how to address it.”
“You’re right,” Smitty growled. “But I guarantee you that Omnathi’s going to hear about this when we get back.” He waved a hand. “I already hate the guy, so I’m not the one to make any decisions. What do the rest of you want to do?”
“Well, obviously, he doesn’t run around loose while we’re asleep,” Kemp said. “That means locking him up in the guest suite at night.”
Jody wrinkled her nose. She’d been a similarly unwilling guest aboard the Squire for the better part of two days back on Caelian, quartered in a cabin whose lock had been reversed to convert it into a prison cell. Kemp had nicknamed it the guest suite after they’d used it to isolate the other gunbay Marine during the trip to Qasama. “We’ll want to make sure the last occupant didn’t do anything to the stuff in there that Plaine might use against us,” she warned.
“Trust me,” Kemp said. “I plan to go over it again very thoroughly.”
“And when he’s not locked in his room?” Smitty asked. “What do we do with him then?”
“I think I’ve got an idea,” Kemp said. Even without looking Jody could sense in his voice that there was a wry smile on his face. “Come on. Let’s go welcome our newest club member.”
Jody and Rashida stood up, and together the four of them walked to the other end of the table. Plaine, already halfway through his second meal, looked up as they approached. “That was quick,” he said. “I hope that means it’s not the airlock.”
“No, it’s not the airlock,” Kemp assured him, once again stopping directly across the table from him. “It’s far worse. We’re going to make you work.”
Plaine’s eyebrows went up. “Let me guess. I’m on KP?”
“What’s KP?” Jody asked.
“Kitchen Patrol,” Plaine said. “It’s not exactly a new term.”
“Well, it’s one we haven’t needed to bother with,” Kemp said. “And no, you’re not going to do the cooking. You’re going to teach us how to run those gunbays.”
The politely raised eyebrows went down again. “I’m not sure I can do that.”
“I’m sure you can,” Kemp said. “I’m also sure that you will.”
“Oh?” The eyebrows went up again.
“Because you want to live through this just as much as we do,” Kemp told him. “That means using this ship to the best of its abilities. Among other things that means having people who know what they’re doing in both gunbays.”
Plaine’s lips compressed. But he gave a reluctant nod. “I suppose that makes sense,” he conceded. “All right.”
“And,” Kemp continued, “you get locked into your cabin at night. Nothing personal.”
Plaine smiled faintly. “Understood. If the situation was reversed, I’d do the same.”
And as Jody looked at that faint, slightly condescending, vaguely knowing smile, she felt like an idiot.
Because her new Cobra opticals included infrared sensors that were sensitive enough to detect the small variances in heat from someone’s facial blood flow. Variances that would indicate changing levels of nervousness or fear. Variances that might indicate whether the person was telling the truth, or lying through his teeth.
And she’d completely forgotten about them.
Silently cursing herself, she activated them. But as she’d already suspected, it was too late.
“Glad you understand,” Kemp said. “Go ahead and finish eating, and then we can start the tour.”
“We’ll be in CoNCH if you need us,” Smitty added.
Kemp gestured, and the four of them once again headed across the room. This time, they continued through the doorway and out into the corridor.
“Did you get anything?” Smitty asked quietly as they headed aft.
“Nothing definitive,” Kemp said. “Plenty of emotional twitches, but that could just be a member of the high and mighty Dominion of Man having to submit to a bunch of unwashed wilderness types. Nothing I could positively state was a lie.”
Jody caught Rashida’s eye. “Our Cobra opticals can detect the changing heat from a person’s blood flow,” she explained. “Sometimes that lets us figure out if a person is lying.”
Rashida nodded. “Yes, I had heard that. Perhaps we need to know him better.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Kemp agreed. “But we’ve got twelve more days before we reach wherever. Whatever Plaine’s cultural differences, we should have time to sort them out between now and then.”
“And once we’ve got a baseline,” Smitty said darkly, “maybe we can figure out what he’s hiding behind that arrogant little smile.” He gestured to Kemp. “You weren’t really planning on all of us waiting for him in CoNCH, were you?”
“Of course not,” Kemp assured him. “Off you go.”
“Off I go,” Smitty confirmed, coming to a halt. “I’ll see you there in a bit.”
“And if he wanders off somewhere else?” Jody asked.
“You might hear his last scream.” Smitty shrugged. “Or,” he added offhandedly, “you might not.”