Cherryh, CJ – Merchanters Luck

“Haul down,” Allison shouted at him. “Lord, haul down before they blow us. What

do you think you’re doing?”

His mind was blank, raw panic. Instinct said away; common sense and calculations

said it was not going to work. And excluding that—

“Stevens!”

“Cut it” Curran shouted at him. “Stevens, you’ll kill us all; we can’t win it.”

He looked at the Dubliners, a difficult turning of his neck. “Suit up. Hear?

I’ll cut back. Allison, Deirdre, Neill, get below, suit up and hurry about it.

Curran, I want you. The two of us— Get that Dublin patch off. Move, hang you

all.”

He cut the power back—buying them time and losing some. The Dubliners moved, all

of them, nothing questioning, not with a warship accelerating in pursuit. They

scattered and ran, crazily against the remaining acceleration. The lift worked,

behind him: only Curran stayed, zealously ripping at the patch.

“What’s the score?” Curran asked. “Set up an ambush for them aboard?”

“No. We’re the only crew, you and I. You signed on at Pell, got thrown off

Dublin.” He reached to the board, put cabins two, four, and five on powersave.

“Get up there and strip down their cabins; shove everything into yours. Move it,

man.”

Curran’s face was blanched. He nodded then, scrambled for the corridor,

staggering among the consoles.

The gap was narrowing. No hail, even yet; no need of any. The ship chasing them

knew; and they knew; and that was all that was needed. It all went in silence.

The other posts were shut down, all functions to the main board now.

“We’re suiting,” Allison’s voice came to him over com out of breath. “I’m

suited. Now what?”

“Got all kinds of service shafts down there. Pick one. Snug in and stay

there—whatever happens. If they loot us and leave us, fine. If they take us off

the ship—you stay put.”

“No way. No way, that.”

“You hear me. You get into a hole and wait it out. I know what I’m talking about

and I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m not hiding in any—”

“Shut up, Reilly. Two of us is the maximum risk on this and I picked my risk…

two of us of Curran’s type and mine—looks like smugglers. You want to get

Deirdre and Neill killed, you just come ahead up here. You got the hard part

down there, I know, but for God’s sake do it and don’t louse it up. Please,

Reilly, think it through. That ship’s a Mazianni carrier. They have maybe three

thousand troops on that thing. Do what I tell you and make the others do it. We

got a chance. They don’t hang around after a hit. Maybe you can do something;

maybe there’re people left at Venture. Maybe other ships coming in here—If

nothing else, they may leave.—And Reilly—you listening to me?”

“I’m hearing you.”

“Comp access code’s in my cabin. Top drawer.”

“Hang you, Stevens.”

“Sandor. It’s Sandor Kreja.”

Silence from the other side. He could hear her breathing, soft panting as with

some kind of exertion.

“You’ll be taking water with you,” he said. “You don’t use that suit oxygen

unless you have to. You might have to last a day or so in there. Now shut that

com down and keep that flock of yours quiet, hear?”

“Got you.”

He cut the acceleration entirely. The stress cut out; and with equal suddenness

his contact with Allison went out. He felt cold, worked his hands to bring the

circulation back to them.

He had it planned now, all of it, calm and reasoned. He looked up as Curran came

back, out of breath and disheveled. “Just talked to Allison,” Sandor said.

“They’re going into the service shafts and staying put. I gave her the comp

code. You keep your mouth shut and swallow that temper; we’re going to get

boarded and we’ve got no choices. You’re my number two, you don’t know anything,

we’ve got a military cargo and we’ve run together since Viking. We’re running

contraband gold and we’d run anything else that paid.”

Curran nodded, no arrogance at all, but a plain sober look that well enough

reckoned what they were doing… So here’s the good in the man, Sandor said to

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