“Don’t do it, Ky,” Gary said. “Don’t let them get the ship—” The mate’s arm tightened; she could see Gary struggling for breath.
“Oh, my soul,” Paison said, “what thriller do you think you’re playing in, old man?” He rolled his eyes.
Ky pulled the trigger at that instant of inattention; the saw-edged bolt buried itself in his throat. Paison jerked in reaction, then slumped; a burst of glee hot as lightning shot through her head. She saw the mate’s arm move, a red spurt from Gary’s neck. She yanked the cocking lever as the next bolt came up, frantic to get a shot off, to save Gary. The mate lunged; her shot missed his face; her next bounced off his chest as he dropped Gary and rushed her, knife extended. Ky twisted, recocked and shot again, at an awkward angle… he was only an arm’s reach away. The broadpoint sliced his throat from side to side, and bloody air whooshed out, spraying her. He slumped into the bulkhead, twitching. Ky pulled the cocking lever again. Only two bolts left…
“Don’t move!” Ky yelled at the rest of the mutineers, and indeed they seemed frozen, eyes wide and mouths open in shock. Paison was dead or dying; she didn’t care about that, but Gary… his blood ran over the deck; the smell turned her stomach.
“You murderer!” Kristoffson found his voice. “Come on, all of you—get her!” He stepped forward, fists clenched. Ky pulled the trigger as she heard a twang of another string from behind her; her bolt and Mehar’s both caught Kristoffson, one in the neck and one in the chest. He coughed blood and collapsed, gargling. Again that jolt of glee.
“Put your hands on your heads,” Ky said. To her own surprise, her voice didn’t tremble; it sounded flat and menacing to her own ears. Slowly the others moved to obey. “Sit down where you are, and don’t move.” They sat. They looked frightened; she could sense that the urge to rush her had vanished.
“Aren’t you going to do something for them?” someone asked from near the back.
“They’re dead,” Ky said. She was sure Paison was, less sure of the others, but without advanced trauma care they would certainly die. “You are alive, and you will stay that way if you do exactly what you’re told. Mehar—”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Cover them.” Mehar had her own bow; Ky reloaded and handed the bow back; someone took it from her hand. She moved forward, hoping against hope that Gary Tobai had survived. He lay mostly on his back, on top of Paison, his neck twisted and blood flowing from under it.
Under her hand, his pulse wavered; he was breathing, but barely. She had no idea what to do. “Gary… can you hear me?”
His eyelids fluttered, his gray lips twitched: no more.
“Is he alive?” asked one of the mutineers. “I was a medic—”
“You!” Ky glared at him. “You’re the reason he’s dying.”
“But maybe we can save him—”
“As if I’d trust you.” But who else did she have? Nobody who really knew trauma care at this level. She didn’t even know a safe way to move him to the medbox. She glared at the man again, savagely pleased that he paled a little. “All right. You come here—no one else move.”
“Sandoval, Empress Rose, chief steward,” the man said, scrambling forward on hands and knees. “All stewards have basic first-response skills; chief stewards are all certified in advanced precare. Let me—” His hand reached out, checked Gary’s pulse, his fingers next to Ky’s. He shook his head. “I don’t think—” He turned Gary’s head slightly, exposing a gaping wound. Even as they watched, the flow of blood slackened; under Ky’s fingers, the pulse stilled. A last feeble movement of air warmed Ky’s hand.
“He’s gone,” Ky said. The steward nodded.
“I’m sorry. Without a trauma team, even a medbox can’t help.”
A vast, empty space opened in Ky’s head; she had never seen someone she knew die before; she had no way to identify what she felt, only that it was completely different from what she felt about Paison and his mate.
And she had no time. “Get back with the others,” she said to the steward. She would deal with her feelings later. Now she had a ship to save. She pushed herself to her feet.
With Paison, his mate, and Kristoffson dead, the others seemed meeker. Ky didn’t trust that; she wasn’t in the mood to trust anyone about anything. But she didn’t have dozens of separate cells to isolate them in, or the means to create such, or the crew to take care of the prisoners’ basic needs. What threat would prevent another attempt to take over her ship?
Decompression would. The fact that it would certainly kill the innocent as well as the guilty didn’t bother her at the moment.
“Here’s the situation,” Ky began, rocking from heel to toe in front of the assembled passengers. “None of us asked for this; it was forced on all of us. We should have been allies. You chose instead to consider me and my crew as your enemies; those of you who didn’t back this mutiny at least did nothing to stop it. In the process you killed a dear friend of mine. A man who had worked hard to convert the cargo holds into something more comfortable for you.” She paused, and they said nothing. Wise of them.
“I don’t trust you anymore,” Ky said. “Under the law, we’re in deep- space and you know what that means. I’m the captain and you tried to mutiny. I could kill you all and though your employers might grumble, they know they wouldn’t have a case in court.”
“They said it’d be easy.” That was a stocky man in the front row. One of the Empress Rose crew again.
“Oh, really?” That was all Ky could think of to say.
“Yes.” The man glanced back over his shoulder then looked again at her. “Said we outnumbered the crew, and the only hope of survival was to take over from you, ’cause you were too young and inexperienced and just sitting out here with the drive off nobody’d ever find us again. We’d end up starving and you were too stupid to know it and too scared of the mercs to do anything even if you did know.”
“And you believed that,” Ky said.
“Well… yes. There’s more of us. You’d be scared, he said.”
Ky bit down on her temper. “And what do you think now?”
“Didn’t work, did it? You just killed ’em in cold blood.”
“Not cold blood,” Ky said. “Paison and the rest of you were attacking me, my crew, my ship. But yes, I killed them, and I will kill anyone who tries the same thing again. Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” he said, and heads nodded.
“Good,” Ky said. “Keep believing it, because the first time you act like you don’t, I’ll space the lot of you. I intend to keep my crew, my ship, and myself alive and if that takes killing all of you, I won’t hesitate.”
Some looked scared; some looked glum; none looked defiant.
“Now—keeping your hands on your heads, back on your feet, and walk, do not run, back to the cargo compartments. When you get there, you will sit down in rows facing the bulkheads.” They had to be able to search those compartments, undo whatever taps the mutineers had put into the ship’s own system. She turned to her crew. “Beeah, you, Mehar, Hospedin, and Ted take them there. I’m going to get someone to clean up this mess—” She pointed at the bodies.
She stood there as the crowd shuffled away, as Mehar, Beeah, and the others stepped carefully past and herded the mutineers back to their space. Her knees sagged; she couldn’t even lean on the bulkheads, spattered as they were with blood still wet, and the smell… She staggered back up the passage and made it as far as the galley before she threw up. Killer. She felt shamed and sick and horribly excited all at once.
“Ky?” That was Quincy. “What’s happened—I can’t find Gary—”
“Gary’s—” Ky bent over the sink again, trying to rid herself of the guilt.