“Only in VSC territory,” Linao said, and while there was a calm to her voice, Velda thought she detected something darker just beneath the surface. “We were on a completely unknown planet, with different, and less sophisticated tech, and we had runners onboard that would have meant we could have ferried everyone up to the second ship. But no . . . Captain Vanburren jumped straight to ‘protocol’ and blew my ship up. And all the ore on it. And only moments after I got out. As far as I’m concerned, he tried to assassinate me, and my father has defended him at every turn.”
“Yeah, put like that, it wasn’t necessary.” Brink shifted a little to get more comfortable. “I’d be a little upset about it.”
“A little upset.” Linao gave a low laugh. “I’ve been in a fucking rage ever since.”
That explained so much. The oversharing, the subtle undermining of her father’s goals. Everything.
Linao was a ticking bomb, just waiting for the best time to explode.
Linao leaned forward, and Velda realized she wasn’t finished. “It wasn’t just that Vanburren nearly killed me, it was that he knowingly stranded us on a hellhole planet. He had no idea whether we’d be able to negotiate a way off, or even if the Fjerna wouldn’t simply kill us where we stood. My guess is he knew it would be a hard, uncomfortable trip back with my crew and his having to share a ship, and he tried to make it so that couldn’t happen. The only thing my father did right for me was insisting that Vanburren get us off, and that was after a week of imprisonment.”
“Then you landed in jail again on Aponi,” Brink said. “I guess no one can say you don’t put yourself on the line for the cause.”
“And what is the cause?” Velda asked. This is what she had been trying to work out for a long time.
“A new breakaway planet, of course,” Linao said, sliding her a look. The yellow glow of the portable light Brink had set on the low table made her eyes gleam.
“That’s it? And you thought you could make Aponi that planet?” She couldn’t understand the logic. The VSC would not stand for it. They hadn’t stood for the rebel takeover of Faldine—they’d fought a war over it—and they had just taken Garmen and Lassa, the old breakaway planets, back.
“The Cores leadership thought with the Caruso patrolling the airspace, we could.” Brink shrugged. “I wasn’t sure it would work, but it beat being constantly on the run.”
“What are you, personally, on the run for?” Velda asked. Brink seemed reasonable enough, and she wondered what shethought she would be in trouble for if she surrendered to the VSC.
“I was part of the security forces on Lassa,” Brink said. “There were a lot of people killed there, and I’m honest enough with myself to admit I was responsible for some of those deaths.”
“And you?” Velda asked Linao. “You were on Garmen, right?”
“Some of the time,” Linao admitted. “Mostly, I was spying throughout the VSC. Those were the fun days, when we were still semi-respectable, and there was no real danger in admitting where I was from.”
“And then it all went sideways,” Velda said.
“It was always going to go sideways,” Linao said. “Because the worse things got, the more the VSC were inclined to interfere. And my father and his cohorts never understood that some social care would have gone a very long way. They wouldn’t even properly furnish the offices of their own workers, let alone pave the streets or build schools.”
“And then trying to steal tech off Cepi and all the rest didn’t help,” Brink agreed. “It just accelerated the downfall.” She sighed. “And while I know things were bad on Garmen, on Lassa, it was worse.”
“That’s hard to imagine,” Linao said, “but I had heard that.”
“Believe me, the main Cores player on Lassa was almost insane toward the end. I’m not sure what was going on, but I saw some footage of him that came off unhinged.” Brink hunched a little. “That’s when my boss and I got out, and hooked up with Sylvester.”
As if saying his name conjured him up, Sylvester was suddenly in the open doorway. “The whole engine room is down,” he said. “It’s probably the Caruso, because their tech built a lot of this ship. I think they may have built in a backdoor.”
Linao let out a quick laugh. “That makes sense.”
Sylvester sent her a dark look. “We need to get the bridge back. I’m going to pull Henry off opening the other doors on the ship and get him started on the bridge doors. I’m not losing my star hostage or my runner, so let’s go, Velda Shanïha. We’re going to persuade your bodyguard to surrender once Henry has reset the automatic opening protocol, or I’ll shoot you.”
“Shoot me, and there’s no incentive for him to give you anything,” she said.
“I can hurt you, though,” Sylvester said. “I can hurt you until he gives up.”
Well, that was no good.
No, the silver balls said.That is not going to happen.
Sylvester grabbed her by the upper arm and hauled her up.
“Hang on a moment,” Linao said. “I just need to grab something.”
She disappeared into the dark recesses of the room, and Velda heard her opening a drawer in the little built-in kitchen.
