"I sent Lime-boy out to do interior patches… Krisk had never bothered to learn the di'Taykan's names. "… but at least one is going to need exterior work. Easy fix. No idea about the rest until I see on real time."
"Could be worse," Huirre muttered, still working his board.
"I'm fried." Still holding one hand against her chest, Dysun danced the fingers of the other over a blank screen. "Scanners are out. Internal communications are using the captain's station as their primary. It'll only take a moment to reroute external comms."
"One-handed?"
She glanced down at her hand, seemed to see the reddened curl of her fingers for the first time, and whimpered, her hair flattening tight against her skull.
"Get down to Doc. Have him fix it, then get your ass back here." Pain had shut her eyes down so far there was almost no black among the orange. Given the lack of light, he wondered how she could even see.
"The comm…"
"You think I'm fukking useless, is that it?" As her eyes darkened slightly, he dove into the guts of the operating system. Theoretically, the entire ship could be flown from the captain's board, but the defaults had to be overwritten first. Thank the Navy for making sure every idiot who joined could slap together a patch. When he looked up, she was still staring at him. "Go!"
"Captain?"
He looked up from his board to find Huirre watching him. It was too dark to see the Krai's expression. Hell, it was almost too dark, given the lack of hair, to be positive he was starring at Huirre's face. "What?"
"If we want lights back, I'd better help Krisk."
"How stable is our orbit?"
"Doesn't need watching if that's what you're asking."
Given Huirre's careful tone, Cho figured he must smell like he was fukking furious. Good call, given that he was. "Go. Tell Krisk I said you were to concentrate on the lights. If he gives you any shit, I'll deal with him."
"Aye, Captain."
They needed the scanners and weapons back on-line. Dysun would need the lights to repair her board. "Oh, and Huiire." He heard the helmsman pause by the hatch. "You saved our asses. Good work."
"I was mostly concerned with saving my own ass, Captain."
"I don't give a flying fuk what your motivation was."
He could hear Huirre grin. "Aye, Captain."
The ship's original OS had been sliced and diced when safeties had been removed and new programming added, so it took him longer than he liked to get the external comm patched through. The system was barely up and running when it grabbed an incoming repeat from the Dargonar.
Cho considered ignoring it. Didn't.
"So you're not dead," Firrg sounded disappointed. "Your salvage operator is."
Somehow, Cho managed to hold his temper. No point in starting something he couldn't finish with Dysun's board out. "We'll find another. They're like cockroaches."
"You'll find another, not me. Not my problem if you're incompetent. I did what I said I'd do, and that clears me with Big Bill. You say otherwise, I'll hunt you down and eat your liver."
It sounded more like a statement of fact than a threat.
"Good news is the armory took no damage." Nat snorted. "Of course, that's a little obvious since we're not a smoking hole in space. Marines are hard on their toys, so the Corps builds those fukkers to last." She swept her thumb over her slate and scowled down at the data. "Fact is, Cap, the cargo hold came through aces. The galley, not so much. The Susumi energy changed all of the protein strings. Won't kill us right away, but cumulative effects would be unpleasant. Doc says we should space anything with the new markers. Not even let Huirre and Krisk eat it."
"And that'll leave us with what?" Cho demanded.
She shook her head. "Not a lot. We can stay out maybe a tenday with supplements, but we're going to be hungry after a couple of days, very hungry by the end of the tenday, and sharing a ship with very hungry Krai, specially given why those two are out here-well, frankly, Cap, that doesn't appeal."
Krisk had been a Navy engineer. Accelerated promotion to petty officer and moving up fast. Then, during a battle, he'd eaten his lieutenant. Eating her had meant Krisk could stay at his post and make the repairs that saved the ship. It might have been ignored-heat of the battle, circumstances needs must-except that there had been other organics Krisk could have eaten instead. Not to mention that the review board hadn't been entirely convinced it had been the enemy that killed her.
Cho glared down at his screen. Krisk had advised against bringing the Susumi engines on-line until he checked them out.
"Shielding could've held. They might be fine. 'Course, we're toasted if they're not. Take me some time to make sure."
"How much time?"
"If you trust Lemon-and-Lime-boy to do the external patching, I can run basic tests in three. Results'll tell me how much longer."
"You've got two." Cho indicated that Almon should suit up and join Nadayki outside.
"Well, that's fukking great. My jernil always said there'd be no one to eat me after I'm gone."
Two days minimum before they could get the Susumi drive back on-line. Five and a half days folded into Susumi space to get back to Vrijheid Station. Seven and a half days with food for two. Even if the Humans and di'Taykan went on short rations to keep the Krai fed, that was dangerous bordering on covering each other in steak sauce.
"Keep rations as short as you can," he told Nat finally. "Use the supplements. How are we for water?"
"We've got water up the wazoo, Cap."
"If a wazoo is what I think it is…" Almon grinned, pausing half into his HE suit, "… there's this place where you can…"
Cho glared Almon to silence and bent over his slate, searching for a closer station where they could resupply without attracting the attention of the sector's Wardens. Torin checked the balance on her slate one more time as they walked away from the quartermaster's office. "You're certain people make a living doing this job?"
"Some of us do." Craig bumped against her, his shoulder warm and solid. "MidSector stations pay more, but they need less and they charge more for docking and respiration. OutSector stations need the materials, so they'll take everything you have, but they haven't the lolly. It's a balancing act." His gesture took in the minimal distractions offered in the station's commercial pier where there was one bar and an undersupplied store. "And how could you refuse these hardworking people the pleasure of our company?"
Torin shook her head. "Let me guess. Bored people are more willing to play cards with you even though the last time you were through, you cleaned them out."
He grinned. "I may have won a couple of hands.
"Unfortunately, Lurell, at least for you, full house, tens over threes, beats three nebulas." Craig scoped in the pot as Lurell ruffled her feathers and made quiet hooting noises.
Lurell's pale blue crest hadn't entirely grown in making her just barely adult by Rakva standards. Old enough to be in the bar, therefore, old enough to play. Although Torin knew better than to extrapolate an emotional state from the facial expressions of a nonmammalian species, she felt safe assuming that, like most kids her age, Lurell believed her luck would change if she just kept playing long enough. Technically true, given that continued play would teach her luck had less to do with winning than learning when to fold. From the way her feathers kept ruffling up along the back of her neck, Torin suspected she'd already lost more than she should have-in spite of the credit chits still in front of her.
Lifting her head, Torin frowned past Lurell's shoulder and across the bar toward the windows-Craig liked the potential for a quick escape an outside seat represented, Torin preferred a wall at her back. "Lurell, you know a big male Rakva with a dark blue crest?"
Lurell jumped and only just managed to keep from looking over her shoulder. "This one has a brother with a dark blue crest," she admitted, with studied nonchalance. "Why does one ask?"
Torin shrugged. "He just went by outside on the concourse. He didn't look happy."