‘Now, I’m going to suggest that you divert course and come dock with me, Mesdam attorney. Bring your Int client too. Otherwise your carrion bird is going to take a long dive down the gravity well.’
‘I’m not entering any manner of negotiations until we’ve spoken to our crew on the Vulture,’ Kris said. ‘If you think the ship is leverage enough, think again.’
There was a pause, then Uskaro broadcast on an open channel, ‘Vulture, you may speak.’
They received a frenzied babble of scritching and scraping through the comms, together with a great dump of text and images. That certainly looked like Kittering’s handiwork. Olli sorted through it quickly, decoding a long complaint to find the hidden details Kit had secreted within the message. It was an old Hanni game.
‘Two guys with him. Hauled him over and locked weapons on him before he could do anything. He’s not exactly a pilot, poor bastard. Still alive, though.’
‘So what do we do?’ Kris asked. ‘I don’t see Solace fighting her way over to the Raptorid and ending the lot of them. Idris?’
She looked back to see the Intermediary sitting with his back to the hull, looking ill. ‘Anyone we can hail?’ he croaked.
‘No friends hereabouts,’ Olli said.
‘We could fight. I’m full on ammunition now,’ Solace said quietly. ‘We suit up in case we’re hit. I shoot their hull full of holes, take out some key systems.’
‘That’s how you’d do it in the Parthenon, is it?’ Kris asked her frankly.
‘In the Parthenon I’d have at least three others with the same kit and training as me. And then, yes, we’d go in and do exactly that, with full confidence. Right now, with just me, maybe not ideal. But the man wants to enslave Idris and he’s hardly going to let the rest of us go, given the trouble we’ve caused him. You have other ideas?’
‘Yes,’ Kris insisted. ‘There’s always other options . . . Let’s give talking a chance. The Boyarin likes to talk. And if they take Idris intact and we leave this alive too, we can spring him some time. We work out a rendezvous, Idris can take whatever damn ship they put him on there, and we’ll have pirates waiting. We know some pirates.’ She faced up to Solace’s raised eyebrow. ‘Well, we do. Alive is better, is all I’m saying. Give me a chance to talk to them.’
‘We talk, we’ve lost our best chance of fighting it out,’ Solace said, but in a tone that said she was knuckling under.
‘Raptorid, we are coming in,’ Olli reported in venomous tones.
‘Of course you are,’ Uskaro said, vastly pleased with himself. ‘I will hand you over to one of my people, while I take care of the bigger picture.’
‘Small people for small matters. Right.’ The specialist’s face looked like thunder.
‘Idris?’ Kris asked. He looked at her without much expression.
‘Pick a system,’ Solace encouraged him. ‘I’ll have a team there on standby for as long as it takes. The moment they give you free access to a ship’s controls . . .’
‘And then I’m yours, rather than theirs,’ he murmured.
Solace looked away. Kris searched for anger, frustration, even guilt on her face. She found none of it. Instead there was an unexpected misery.
‘By that point . . . I don’t think I could ask my people to go to those lengths, including attacking a Colonial ship, to then come away with nothing. But isn’t the Parthenon better? Better us than the Magdans, surely?’
‘We’ll go get him,’ Olli said bluntly. ‘Us . . . we might use pirates, crooks, whatever. But we wouldn’t be starting a fucking war.’
‘Solace, old comrade-in-arms,’ Trine put in, ‘I am less than enthused by these developments.’
‘As for you—！’ Olli started, but then Kris barked out, ‘Hold! Who’s this?’ She’d been keeping an eye on the pilot’s board – and the Joan had some eager early warning systems.
‘What now?’ Olli turned her attention to the piloting feed and caught up. ‘Someone else is out there. Some other ship.’
‘Friends, I don’t suppose?’ Trine asked hopefully.
‘You don’t suppose correct. We’ve got no fucking friends round here,’ Olli told them. ‘They’re hailing the Raptorid – oh, bless your skittering little feet, Kit. He’s still hacked into their deck, even though they’re looking over his shoulder. He’s sending us the traffic. Listen up.’