“Kady Grant,” supplies Grant Jr. “Child prodigy and occasional criminal.”
“And she’s not a kid, Ben,” Grant Sr. says quietly. You get the impression right off the bat he’s had it up to here with this guy at Heimdall staff meetings. “She’s my daughter.”
“She is also,” Syra Boll adds, “my current systems chief.”
“Is she even old enough to drive?” Garver scoffs.
“I ran down six BeiTech goons in a truck once, if that counts?”
Boll motions to her crew by the door. “This is First Lieutenant Winifred McCall, my head of security. Beside her is Second Lieutenant Ezra Mason of the United Terran Authority, my acting air wing leader.”
Mason smirks. “Such as it is.”
“And how old are you, son?” Garver asks.
Mason’s easy smile vaporizes at that.
“I’m not your son, sir.”
“Mr. Garver,” Boll says crisp. “Kady is here because she’s the most qualified computer tech aboard. Lieutenant Mason is an experienced Cyclone pilot with half a dozen confirmed enemy kills. Ms. Donnelly has joined us because Chief Grant has rather forcefully insisted that her tactical expertise may be of assistance.”
Garver snorts. “This is my boss’s kid, and so far her ‘tactical expertise’ has been responsible for— Look, Hanna, I’m very sorry for your loss, but—”
Chief Grant speaks over him, eyes closed, his face pale with pain. “Ben, Hanna Donnelly just successfully defended Heimdall from a group…of highly trained BeiTech operatives while you were locked up in the entertainment center. So shut up, and let’s…g-get on with this before they show up to slice and…dice me.”
“I still don’t accept that,” Garver snaps. “You call it a defense, but there’s a smoking hole where the station used to be, and we’re on the wrong side of it!”
“And alive to ***** about it.” Grant winces, smothering a cough. “Which is more than you can say…for our invaders. Maybe you’d have preferred to wait on Heimdall for the drone fleet…to arrive?”
Finally, Donnelly speaks. “If my tactical advice is any use now, I’d say we could better spend this time working out what the **** we’re going to do next.”
“Agreed,” Mason mutters.
“Hypatia suffered heavy damage during the attack at Kerenza IV,” Boll says. “Her engines are crippled. It took us six and a half months just to limp this far on damaged secondary drives, and without the wormhole, we can’t get much farther. Our fuel reserves are also dangerously low, and our onboard supply situation is dire.”
“Maybe Hypatia has carried us as far as she’s going to?” Mason says quietly.
Boll nods. “I love that ship. But you may be right, Lieutenant.”
Garver raises his hands in protest. “Hold up, what exactly are you saying?”
Boll’s tone turns dangerously polite. “What do you think I’m saying, Mr. Garver?”
“Chief Garver.”
“She’s saying,” McCall interjects, “that she’s a captain. She outranks you, Chief. So if Hypatia’s engines are damaged and the Mao’s aren’t…”
Garver forges on past the warning signs with the kind of cockiness that explains his zero hit rate on various online dating sites. (What? It was reasonable background research, chum.) “Look, you don’t get to just barge in here and take over. This mining colony on Kerenza IV was illegal. Ninety percent of the people on Heimdall—including me—didn’t even know it existed.”
“The information was given out…on a need-to-know basis,” Grant Sr. wheezes. “You didn’t need to know, Ben.”
“But you did, Isaac. That makes you a criminal.” His eyes scan the Hypatia crew members. “All of you. Criminals. And just because we work for the same company doesn’t make this our fight.”
Hanna Donnelly speaks up from against the wall. “The BeiTech strike team that just invaded our home and tried to murder us might disagree, Chief Garver.”
“Hanna, your father is more responsible than anyone. If he were here—”
“Mr. Garver,” Boll interrupts as Hanna’s mouth falls open. “You’re missing a fairly fundamental point. With the jump station gone, we cannot return to the Core. Hypatia can’t sustain her population for much longer. Ergo, as of this moment, under WUC wartime protocols, I’m commandeering the Mao.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Do you even know what kind of ship you’re aboard?” Boll glances at the datapad in Kady’s lap, obviously remembering its warning. “Did you notice the engines are state of the art? That the hull is military-grade? It might look like an average workhorse, but do you really think a team of top-tier BeiTech wetworkers would be punting around the galaxy in a rusty ****bucket? Have you taken inventory?”
“We haven’t had time,” Garver protests. “We were just trying to get the wounded sorted, get our heads around the situation.”
Boll glances at the SecTeam goons Garver has with him, turns to her own head of security. “Lieutenant McCall, take Lieutenant Mason and these nice gentlemen with you and conduct a sweep of the Mao. I want a report on her capabilities and inventory by zero eight hundred hours. Specifically, whether we have the fuel necessary for a return trip.”
“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” McCall replies.
She turns on her heel and glances at Garver’s men, eyebrow raised expectantly.
Grant Sr. speaks up from his sickbed, hand to his wounded belly. “Not sure you gentlemen want to disobey…a direct order from a WUC captain in…time of war.”
“Dad, try not to talk,” Kady urges.
Despite his injuries, Grant Sr. stares the Heimdall men down. He’s worked with them for years, after all. Their loyalty to Garver aside, Grant knows what moves them. The four goons look to their chief, who’s busy stewing helplessly. Outranked and outnumbered. Taking their only real option, the SecTeam members nod to Boll and head out the door. Mason winks at Kady, salutes Boll and marches out after McCall.
Garver finally finds his voice. Spit on his lips.
“Return trip? Return where?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Donnelly sighs.