“You’ve got to leave me out of whatever you’re doing,” Candace said. “They’ll kill me!”
“Sir?” said Hogg as he looked down at the Kostroman in disgust equal to Daniel’s own. “It sounds to me like the problem is he’s more afraid of what the Alliance is going to do to him than he is of us. Let me have him for a couple minutes and he won’t think that anymore.”
Adele turned her head toward the three men without expression.
“No need for anybody else to watch,” Hogg added in slight embarrassment. “I’ll take him down to the forward magazine.”
Candace hid his face in his hands. He was shaking. It suddenly struck Daniel that the Kostroman’s fear wasn’t really for his physical well-being but rather because he was being asked to make a decision. Candace was more afraid to act than he was to die.
Daniel stood. He smiled at Hogg and Adele. “No,” he said. “Benno here’s a friend of mine and I don’t want anybody to hurt him.”
He paused to let Candace relax slightly, then continued, “The Alliance officers he was squiring about the ship aren’t friends of mine, though. Remember how we killed those first two commandoes to get the others to talk, Lt. Mundy? Go next door and do the same thing to Commander Strachan and his staff, one at a time.”
He paused. “Until Benno decides to help us.”
Adele rose from the commo officer’s console, still without expression. “Take your submachine gun,” Daniel said, nodding toward the weapon she’d left hanging from the back of her seat.
“Yes,” Adele said. “That’s the better choice for this purpose.”
Candace stared at the three Cinnabars in horrified amazement. Daniel wasn’t sure that the Kostroman was really taking in what was going on.
“Look, sir,” said Hogg. He looked at least as concerned as Candace did. Hogg had been unconscious when Daniel and Adele put on their charade with the commandoes, so he thought this was real. “This is, you know, more up my alley. I’ll take care of it.”
“No,” said Adele, “I will. I haven’t killed anyone for a few days.”
She looked critically at the Alliance submachine gun, then threw the lever on the back of the receiver to charge it. The mechanical clack within the weapon sounded like a dry chuckle.
She looked at Candace and said, “You’d best hope you don’t fall into the hands of the Alliance after I’ve killed the six officers in your charge. The head of the operation is a man named Markos, from the Fifth Bureau. He’s not a gentleman. The very best you can hope for is that you’ll be quickly executed.”
She smiled. Even Daniel felt his stomach clench to see the expression. Adele walked out of the bridge, holding the submachine gun in her right hand with the muzzle safely raised.
“Candace, I’m sorry as I can be,” said Daniel, shaking his head, “but I need you to talk your people out of the power room. I’ve got nothing against you or them—I’ll let you all go free before we lift ship. But if any of those Alliance officers die, God himself couldn’t save you if you get into Markos’s hands.”
He wondered if Markos was a real person whose name Adele had gotten from signals intelligence or if she’d simply invented the name. When she was doing her sinister act, she was scarier than Hogg with a drawn knife—and Hogg wasn’t acting.
“Leary—” Candace pleaded.
“Get out of the way,” Adele’s voice ordered from the wardroom. Her words clear and utterly calm. The bridge and wardroom hatches were both open. The noise of ratings inspecting and readying the vessel for space wasn’t loud enough to dull Adele’s perfect enunciation.
There was a mixed gabble of protest in Alliance accents. The examination team was a commander and two lieutenant commanders, with three midshipmen as aides. Daniel wondered if any of them had been present when Admiral Lasowski was murdered.
The submachine gun fired a short burst. Pellets disintegrated and spalled bits off the decking. A spark danced into the corridor to hiss on the lip of the bridge hatch. Alliance voices rose in screams.