rather not be dressed head to tow in black if they can see me. White's a better colour for negotiations.'
'Hello? Who is this?' asked a husky female voice.
Ayan smiled and cleared her throat before replying; 'This is Commander Ayan, I'm with the repair team from the Triton that restored power earlier.'
'Oh my God, thank you. I've been looking for a way off the station since the trouble started. You don't know how good it is to hear from you. You have to get me out of here!'
'I'm afraid we're trapped, that's why I had to hot wire this terminal.'
'So you have no control? This is just a hack?'
'I'm afraid so. Who are you?'
'I'm Larissa Ferris, the last surviving medic on the station.'
'Get away from the comm system Larissa,' warned another woman.
'It's the repair team! They found a way to-'
'You've said enough. Confine her to her quarters Bradley.'
There was a long pause, during which Victor pulled his side arm free of his belt and checked the energy clip. It was fully charged.
Ayan noticed and shook her head, indicating quietly with a wave that he should put it away.
'Now, who are you?' asked the woman on the other end.
'I'm Ayan, leader of the team that restored power to your section of the station. It seems we're locked inside.'
'Yes, I'm holding you until your ship turns over all the raiders you've taken captive. They'll be held accountable.'
'It was a slave crew acting under the direction of a few senior crew members.'
'That doesn't make a lick of a difference. They could have mutinied.'
'They had controller implants embedded in their breastbones, I'm afraid they didn't have a choice. The Captain of the Triton, my home vessel, killed two of the senior officers, but there's one left. They called her the Doctor Thurge and I'm sure Captain Valance would trade her for us.'
'I'm afraid that wouldn't be enough. The company wouldn't accept that one person could be held accountable for disrupting our operations.'
'I'm led to wonder how handing us over would help if you didn't get the slave crew?'
'You mean the raider crew. According to the company, the Triton crew are wanted too, so either way I win.'
'We must be able to find a middle ground. We have supplies, we can offer more help if you'd allow us more access and the freedom to come and go. In trade we could use a safe harbour for a few days.'
'That would be tempting if there weren't a small fleet of rescue ships and a military escort already on their way. You're not going anywhere until they get here either. Not unless your Captain hands over those raiders.'
Ayan's fair complexion started to betray her, even in the dim light Victor could see she was starting to turn red. She fought through it, taking a deep, slow breath before speaking. 'I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.'
'Forewoman Amanda Dimitri.'
'All right, I understand being in command of a station this size must be a massive undertaking, but I didn't see any kind of company markings on my way through or on the hull outside. You're independent, right?'
There was a pause preceding the answer. 'We have investors.'
'I imagine those investors, or the men they hire to represent them, don't really care about you or your staff. They're here to get things running smoothly again. Whatever promises they've made, you've got to realize they won't matter once they see the state the facility is in.'
Victor's eyes went wide. The woman Ayan was speaking to seemed immovable, frustrating, and he would have already given up. Instead Ayan took a completely different approach and he couldn't help be impressed at how calm she sounded as she did so.
'They wouldn't replace me, I'm essential staff.'
'There are always other experts. Investors have a tendency of getting their way, especially when things start falling apart. There's a lot we can do for you if you let me communicate with Triton.'
'For reasons I can't get into there's no way I can allow you to directly contact your ship.'
'How can I demonstrate to you that we are here to help? The Triton and crew have taken care of your raider problem at a great cost. We lost several crew members during the fight. That must gain us a little goodwill, a little trust.'
'How do I know that you didn't follow the raiders here? That defeating them and taking this slave crew and their ships for yourselves wasn't the plan from the beginning?'
'We're not pirates, and if we were the last target we'd take on is a small raider fleet.'
'Your ship doesn't fly a flag, there are no sponsors listed, how could you be anything but pirates? Maybe this station is just a bonus prize you stumbled into and now that you've become trapped here you don't have any other choice but to speak to us?'
Ayan rolled her eyes. 'If you won't allow me to speak to my ship directly, let's speak to them together. Simply open a channel with them and we can all sort this out.'
'Actually, they're sending a message right now, you just hold that thought,' said the woman on the other end.
Ayan closed her eyes and shook her head.
Several moments passed before Amanda clicked her end of the intercom back on. 'They're bringing the raiders in now. We'll be opening the prison processing doors and walking them straight into the holding facilities. The machines killed all our workers when they contracted a virus, now we can replenish our workforce and start repairs as our rescue fleet arrives.'
'Oh shit,' Victor muttered under his breath. 'How the hell did I miss that?'
Ayan shook her head quickly. 'Listen, you seem fairly bright, so you must know that-'
'This could be some kind of reverse trap? Of course I do! You've seen this place though, how well it keeps its people inside.'
Ayan nodded mournfully and adjusted a wire inside the console. 'You're going to want to put your headgear on.' she said.
'What?' Amanda asked, confused.
'Not you,' Ayan replied.
Victor realized she was speaking to him, brought his headgear up and sealed it.
She did the same and pressed a tiny daub of adhesive putty down over the lead end of a wire and the circuit board. A high pitched whine screamed over the intercom, their vacsuits protected them from the harsh sound. 'If this intercom is their primary means of communication inside the station, they'll have to find a way to cut this room off from the system entirely before they can use it again.'
'What did you do?' Victor asked, noticing that their suits were using a laserlink to communicate.
'I created a feedback loop on the circuit board. I can't believe I didn't see this coming when we first arrived. I should have suspected something was going on when there was no one here to meet or direct us,' Ayan scolded herself. 'We have to get back and regroup. I hope I'm wrong but I don't think Jake and the others will realize it's a prison until it's too late.'
Chapter 16
The Jade Whisper drifted slowly towards the station docking clamps. The engine fire bathed the stretch of station in front of Jake and the two squads of soldiers as they watched the hull of the complex draw nearer. Jake viewed the remote feed from the main docking gangway through his link with the ship as it started locking with the station. The debarkation compartment was empty, in fact the only place that held crew was the port side airlock.
