Prophets

Nickolai complied, bringing his two digitigrade feet together. She started taping below the ankle, and stopped a little below the knee. Nickolai now stood, immobile.

Kugara grabbed his shoulder, spun him so he faced the door, and pushed. His back hit the wall next to his cot.

With his back to the wall, Kugara pulled one last strip of the sealant tape across his neck, attaching him to the wall.

Wahid shook his head. “You think you got him tied up enough?”

“If he wanted to, he could have disemboweled you five times while we came up here. One thing I learned in the DPS, if you arrest a morey, you restrain them. They were engineered to tear you apart hand-to-hand.”

DPS?

Nickolai stared at her, wondering. The DPS was Dakota Planetary Security, the secret police, and the main enforcers of the planetary government. Kugara wasn’t a typical refugee from Dakota, of which there were plenty on Bakunin. She was what the refugees were running from.

He suddenly wished he had asked her more about her past.

“Well you certainly have restrained him. Though you might want to strap his legs to the wall, too, unless you want his neck to snap if something goes funny with the jump.”

She turned around and ran several strips of tape across his torso, waist, and legs. “There,” she said. “Happy?”

Wahid shrugged. “Hell, I’d shoot the furball right now if it wasn’t for the fact our boss will want to talk to him after we tach into civilization.”

Kugara subvocalized so Wahid wouldn’t hear, but Nickolai could make out her saying, “If we tach into civilization.”

“Speaking of which, we got thirty minutes if Mosasa didn’t push back the jump.” He looked Nickolai up and down. “You’re okay sitting on this particular package until after the jump?”

“Yeah, the bridge is short-staffed as it is. Get back up there.”

Wahid shut the door and Kugara leaned against the wall opposite Nickolai. “This is going to be long half hour,” she said.

Nickolai was inclined to agree.

Parvi sat at the pilot’s station fifteen minutes before jump and ran though all the scenarios she could think of. Having power reserves so low made her uncomfortably aware of the differences between a fighter pilot and a tach- ship pilot. If something went wrong with the Eclipse, there was no bailing out. They didn’t have the resources to compensate for any navigational errors.

Worse, they were taching completely blind, with half the sensors gone from the drive systems. Those were the last line of defense for the engines if they had the bad luck to tach into the wake from another ship. They allowed the engines to modulate and keep things from overheating or blowing up like the tach-comm.

Of course, that was unlikely to happen. While another tach-ship could cause a disturbance that could affect their engines, such wakes were short-lived and propagated only a few AU. They would have to tach right on top of another ship in astronomical terms for it to be a worry, sensors or no sensors.

Much worse was the more likely prospect of more sabotage.

We’ve gone over the ship with every diagnostic we have; everything’s in working order . . .

At eleven minutes to go, Wahid came in, holstering a gamma laser and sat himself at the nav station. He started going through the checks without a word to anyone else.

Tsoravitch sat at the comm station, not that the Eclipse had much communication left. She had slipped into the seat when Mosasa had ordered Kugara and Wahid to restrain the tiger. For all the distaste Parvi had for Nickolai, she still had yet to wrap her head around that one. How the hell did Mosasa’s pissant little adventure rate two spies?

Were there people back home who knew what they’d find here?