"Good," Jaya said simply. "Because I have a feeling we'll need all the help we can get."
Chapter 20
Ordinarily, mutiny was not an option that Asha Bates would consider, but since the people in command on Maganos weren't using their heads, she had no choice. They might not mind being responsible for the deaths of two students, two guests, and an orphaned supply ship crew member, but she refused to sit back and do nothing.
Not that she said anything to anyone about the situation or her plans. Asha had kept her background quiet during her stay on the moonbase, but unlike the others she had not been a slave all of her childhood. When she was six years old, she and her mother had been captured by slavers following the fall of their home city. On the way out of their system, the transport ship carrying them had been hijacked by renegades, former Federation space corps troops turned free enterprise traders-pirates, to be honest. Her mother, who had worked as an entertainer in various bars and clubs, and who could be very convincing to a certain type of man, made sure that the first mate of the pirate ship took a shine to her. As a result, she and Asha joined the crew, and Asha was brought up in the trade. The members of her new family were very successful in their endeavors, and Asha spent several years learning anything anyone would teach her, from spaceship piloting to circumventing security systems to seduction and the art of the con.
Her stepfather's commander was a prudent and wily character. He kept enough military discipline in effect among his crew to ensure that everyone stayed in line and believed in the doctrine of honor among thieves, so that by the time Asha was in her teens, the crew had accumulated enough wealth that they were all able to retire without having ever been arrested. Asha didn't much care for her stepfather, a man named Yan Gron, but he taught her many useful skills. When she expressed a desire to go to the Federation Academy, wanting to do something more with her life than fall back into the legacy of piracy, he saw to it that she was supplied with doctored files that qualified her to attend. Later, she had become an instructor at the academy, but hated all the suffocating regulations. Maganos Moonbase was much more to her taste, allowing her the freedom to accomplish the training that she thought the students needed for the harsh regimen of living and working in space. And if that training bypassed a few dozen of the Federation's rules, then so be it.
But even here, she found herself thinking less of the Federation quarantine and the head mistress's edict than of one of her stepfather's favorite sayings, "It's easier to ask pardon than to ask permission."
She had her own shuttle under a tarp in the maintenance hangar. It didn't need any repairs but was stowed away for the time being. Two hours after Calla had reluctantly informed the kids on the Mana that they were on their own until quarantine had lifted, Asha had her shuttle fueled and ready to launch. Having finished her preflight checklist, she was about to board when she realized she was not alone amid the previously deserted docking bays.
"Going somewhere, Captain?"
She turned to see Marl Fidd leaning against the doorway, his head at a tilt, eyes narrowed, watching her.
"Not really. Just getting her ready since there's no one out here. Shouldn't you be in class?"
"Yeah. But this is my practical navigation period. You're the instructor, remember?"
Asha shook her head in disgust. Damn, she had forgotten about it in her rush to get out to the supply ship. "With everything that's happened recently, it completely slipped my mind, Marl. Give my apologies to the other students and tell them I'll be there in a few minutes."
"I don't think so, Captain," Marl said, with a mocking note in his voice.
"What was that?" she asked, with a hint of warning in her own.
"I don't think you're going to class. I think you're heading out to that ship. You believe them, don't you? That the alien and the android can purify our supplies and make them safe, then return without bringing the plague with them."
She turned and met his gaze, then slowly lifted an inquiring eyebrow, challenging him.
"Because," Marl continued, managing not to gulp under her hard-eyed stare. "Because I do. I've seen it. The alien kid-Khorii- she healed my arm right up. She said it was the poultice she used, but Singh tried it later on some little kid who hurt his knee, and it didn't do a damn thing. I've heard the stories about her old lady, too-that she can also do that healing thing. Besides, I saw that transmission-yeah, I know the kids weren't supposed to, but I hacked in-wouldn't want to miss something important just because somebody decided not to consult me for my 'own good.' None of those kids is sick, are they? I think as long as we stick with Khorii, we're fine. I also think we don't have enough supplies to get us through more than a week, even with pretty strict rationing which, you know, isn't much fun. So what I think, Captain, is that you think the same thing, and you're going to go up there and bring the ship down. Aren't you?"
Asha didn't know this kid very well at all, but she knew his type even before he opened his mouth. Marl was very much like the crewmen she had grown up around. She had no qualms about lying straight to his face, and she was sure he would have no qualms about doing the same if telling the truth had proved at all inconvenient, which, in this case, it hadn't. Even as she tried to persuade him that she had no intention of doing what he had just said, she had to respect him putting it all together so fast.
"Why, no, Marl. That would be disobeying orders, and I would never do something like that. I'm a teacher, after all."
"Yeah. So when do we leave?" He held up his hand, "And don't bother telling me again that you're not. You can't kid a kidder, Cap."
"That's Captain Bates to you. And you're not just a kidder, Marl, you're well on your way to becoming a junior criminal. You assaulted Khorii's cat, fought with Elviiz, and lied about what happened. If I were going up there, you certainly wouldn't be welcome."
"Hey, gimme a break. Haven't you heard? I'm an impressionable youth traumatized by being orphaned and left all on my lonesome. A guy can change, you know. Besides, the fight with the droid was pretty one-sided. I may not make top grades, Cap-Captain Bates, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid. I just want to be on the winning side, that's all. And I figure that's where you're going. You keep feeding me this line of exhaust fumes, and I'll just have to go get my speculation validated by other authority figures, if you know what I mean?"
She sighed, but actually, this was the first real indication Marl had shown that he was not, in fact, anything other than sullen and stupid. And if he was with her, then she could keep an eye on him rather that worrying about what he might be doing unsupervised around the moonbase. Besides, even if he tried to cause trouble up there, she had no doubt that Elviiz and Hap Hellstrom could restrain him if she herself could not.
Asha pinned him with her most forbidding stare. "Okay, then, get on board. And no funny business; I'll be keeping my eye on you the entire time. Let's cut the chatter, shall we, before we have the entire student body joining us for a field trip."
Hap's voice boomed through the intercom and echoed through the cargo hold. "Looks like we've got company, Khorii. How is the decontamination coming?"
"Fine, Hap. I believe we're clean now. Who's coming? A Federation inspection team?"
"No, it looks like a ship from the school. They've kept radio silence so far, but I happened to look at the screen and see them," Hap said. "I've opened a channel and hailed them, but so far no- oh, wait, now they're responding."
"Correction," Elviiz said. "They are not merely responding, they are docking."
"Who is it?" Khorii and Jaya asked together, Jaya sounding territorial. She was the de facto captain of the ship, after all. Even if she was a child, the set of her small jaw told Khorii that Jaya thought someone should have asked her permission to board.