"Exactly." Big Bill beamed at her. "And I do not risk blowing myself up for anything less than one hundred percent of the profits. Second, I can't be associated with something that might not work. Bad for business. Option three begins the same way as option two, but you hook up to the old ore docks-there's an old explosives storage pod there that should protect the station should things go wrong. Once that lock is off, I get fifteen percent of the contents for the use of my secure space, and you can sell whatever you don't personally want after you and I discuss distribution."
"You and I?" Cho asked, his voice level even as he fought the urge to sneer. "You'll get your fifteen percent off the top, sure." He didn't want the Heart blown to shit any more than Big Bill wanted his station damaged. "But I have a Marine armory full of weapons. Why will I need your to help get rid of them?"
One of the Grr brothers growled.
Big Bill, however, seemed pleased to have been asked. "Weapons change everything. I know where they should go to both get you top price and have the most advantageous effect. But, more importantly, before it even comes to that, you're going to want my help because I can see that you capture a working salvage operator."
"How?"
"Captain Firrg has a small outstanding debt she'll be happy to clear."
Two ships would make it a lot easier, turning the nearly impossible to even odds. Cho nodded. "She follows my orders." Mackenzie Cho, Captain of the Heart of Stone, took orders from no one.
"Of course. I'll set up the meeting. Say, 1600 at the Golden Griose?"
Cho glanced over at Nat, who shrugged. "Schedule's clear, Cap."
"Good. We've got some lovely potential for change building here, Captain Cho." Big Bill's expression suggested he was moments away from rubbing his hands together. "Get me some actual and we'll talk again. Try to grab a Human," he threw back over his shoulder, heading for the air lock. "I've always felt we have the strongest, not to mention least ethical attachment to self-preservation."
Falling into step behind him, the Grr brothers laughed.
Cho took Huirre with him to the meeting at the Griose. Firrg's crew was completely Krai, and he had no idea how good her Federate was. Good enough to function, definitely, but he wanted no confusion on either side.
"I hear she's out here because of lost love," Huirre said as they made their way across the Hub to the Griose. "The one she wanted, wanted another, and it blackened her heart." He ducked a shoe thrown out of the pushing match over by the falafel cart, paused, and frowned. "Or that might've been on a vid I picked up at Cully's when I was in for those gloves."
"Keep up," Cho growled. "And I don't give a H'san's ass why she's out here," he added as Huirre fell back in beside him. "She follows my orders, no questions asked. And she doesn't fukking need to know what we're carrying, understood?"
"Aye, Captain. But if she asks?"
"I do the talking."
"Aye, aye Capt… gunin yer chrick!"
Edible was the highest compliment in the Krai language. As far as Cho could see, Captain Firrg didn't look significantly different from Huirre-a bit bigger maybe, about a meter high, greenish-gray mottled scalp, lightly bristled, three sets of paired nose ridges-currently expanded as though she were smelling something nasty as they made their way toward her.
"I don't like this," she growled before Cho could actually sit. "And when I say this, I mean Humans. Don't like them, never have. Only reason I'm in on this is because Big Bill says you're taking down a Human."
"And because you're into him for a new set of air scrubbers," Cho reminded her, sitting down. Anything could be bought on Vrijheid, including information. Firrg's Federate was better than he'd expected-fluent and without so much as an accent. He could have brought Nat instead of Huirre, who sat staring at the other captain with hunger. With the Krai, hunger covered a number of options.
"Serley son of a bitch wants his pound of flesh," Firrg snarled. Smart people didn't assume they could tell what another species was thinking but the hatred in her eyes was unmistakable. Cho wondered if Big Bill knew. Or cared if he did. "I have no choice," she continued, "the Dargonar is by your side…"
"And under my command."
"And under your serley command," she agreed through clenched teeth, shifting a little of that hatred toward him. "But that's it. Everything goes through me. I don't want your kind having any contact with my crew, and I don't want any part in what you and Big Bill are up to."
"Are you that certain without knowing what it is?"
"I'm that certain. One job together and I go back to not giving a shit about what you or this cark sucker gets up to." Holding up her slate, she nodded toward his. "I've got a set of temporary codes you can use to contact me."
She had a jagged scar across her forehead, Cho realized as the codes transferred, the angles too regular to be accidental. When she saw him staring, she drew her lips back off her teeth, and Huirre whimpered. Cho curled his own lip in response. He'd been hated before; it didn't bother him much. During his court-martial, the hatred coming off the families of the dead sailors had been so virulent the Navy'd had to remove them from the courtroom in order to get anything done. "Any suggestions where we can pick up a Human CSO fast and easy?"
Her nose ridges snapped shut. "Fuk you; I'm support during take-down. That's it. You can do your own serley research."
He wouldn't have trusted her information anyway. "I'll be taking the Heart of Stone out in about fifty-six hours. Be ready."
"If you can't give me an exact time now, I want a four-hour heads up," she told him flatly.
"Deal." In the interest of keeping his fingers, Cho didn't hold out his hand. He watched Huirre watch her leave the Groise. "You know why she hates Humans?"
Huirre snorted. "Why does anyone hate Humans? Pity she won't be part of the revolution. I'd love a chance to sink my teeth into that one. What a pair of amalork."
Only the Krai would get hot about jaw muscles. "She'd have you for breakfast."
"I'd die happy."
Cho rolled his eyes and waved a server over. Krai bar or not, if he left now, it would look like Firrg commanded his movement, and he wasn't having that. "Just as well she doesn't want in on the buy. I wouldn't trust the psychotic bitch not to turn on me the moment she was armed."
"That, Captain…" Huirre reached across the table and drained Firrg's abandoned glass. "… is because you're a very smart man." "You sure you're okay with this?"
Torin glanced up from her slate, more than happy to be pulled away from studying government regs defining legal salvage. "With working?"
"Yeah, because you used to lay about on your arse." Spinning the control chair around, Craig lifted his legs and dropped his heels on the scuff mark at the edge of the panel. "You've called CSOs carrion crows in the past."
"Never to you."
He shrugged. "You were tanked for quite a while after Crucible, and Sergeant Jiir has both a low tolerance for alcohol and a touching belief in the fairness of the universe."
"He'll draw to an inside straight?"
"Every damned time."
Torin thought about asking how many times but decided Jiir was an adult and a sergeant, and if the first time he'd played cards with Craig hadn't taught him to back away slowly, well, that wasn't her problem anymore. As for tales told under the influence…
She set her slate down on the small table. "I didn't like you-collectively you-making money off the dead. Which…" She held up her hand to cut off his protest. "… was pretty fukking hypocritical considering how I made my living. I know. But these were my dead, and…"
"And I wasn't in the club."
"Yeah." It sounded petty and arrogant put like that, but Torin had long since learned to own her shit. "Then there was you, personally…" She rolled her eyes as he flexed. "… and by the time I woke up in that tank, it was clear you and me, we weren't an every now and then kind of thing, so I did a little thinking. When they gave me back my slate in rehab, I did some research. Do you know how many families of military personnel Civilian Salvage Operators have given closure to?"