Angeleyes - eARC by Michael Z. Williamson

Author:Michael Z. Williamson [Williamson, Michael Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781476781860
Amazon: 1476781869
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2016-11-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

I guess I fell asleep. I woke up, checked the terminal, and it was an hour later.

The rescue bands still had talk about the Montrose but much less. There was a military gunboat shadowing them, and some sort of intel boat, and the Space Guard.

We were holding low thrust with intermittent emgee.

Shannon announced, “Rotate for food and hygiene. Keep it brief, buddy nearby. Angie, Teresa, go.”

I grabbed a clean brief and coverall, and went to the head, Teresa following. She waved me in first, and I spent three segs getting really clean. It felt a lot better, and some of the ick washed away with the actual dirt. The drain bubbled brown with dust and crud. We’d done a job on ourselves.

I got out in the shipsuit, she moved right past me and in, naked. She didn’t have the gym-rip Mira had, or the men, but she was still in really good shape. If I was more into women, and she wore skintight over that in a club, I’d have thought about taking her home. I had with women, once or twice, if I was really tense. And once I was just really turned on. I thought about it, if we’d had privacy and she’d offered. I wanted human flesh, not synthskin toys, especially as all I wanted was human warmth.

I went forward and made up sandwich wraps in instant seal packs with heaters, and bulbs of soup. That would keep things safe from spills or burns even if we had to maneuver.

I delivered a tub of them to the C-deck.

Jack said, “And they’ve remoted into Montrose and have control Looks like they had a remora punch into the power section and backdoor it. They should be safe now.”

I didn’t feel good even then. I figured those poor crew were going to get interrogated until someone figured out they were victims. It wasn’t us doing it, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

Juan said, “So, they’ll know where we are now, as in, which vessel. That’s further than I thought we’d make it.”

And I wondered what was next. If this was further than he thought, what had he planned?

“Well, we’re queued to jump,” Mira said. “In less than twenty minutes, it will get harder for them.”

Just because UN BuSec could deduce which ship we were on didn’t mean it happened at once. We made the jump back to NovRos, with almost empty racks, and then had the problem of what to do. Docking would mean we’d have to abandon ship and disperse. Not docking would draw attention shortly. I also wasn’t clear on where we could go once positively IDed.

We hung back and boosted slowly, but that was only delaying the inevitable.

“What do we do when?” I asked Mira.

“That’s why I’m saving reaction mass now.”

“Ah. Got it.”

We were going to run. The question was where.

And it was right then that NovRos Jump Control pinged us.

“NCA Pieper, please assume following vector.” There was the beep of received nav code.

Juan said, “They have us.

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