Yu had realized that about ten minutes ago and set the panel to respond only to his vocal and touch commands, hoping he wasn’t too late.
Damn that woman. She was smarter than he had thought.
And Nafti hadn’t contacted him, which Yu had thought he would. The moment Nafti had gotten a diagnosis from the medical personas, he should have told Yu. He would have told Yu.
Which led Yu to believe that Nafti hadn’t gotten into the lab yet.
Then the door to the bridge opened. Finally. He checked the controls and saw that the lab was still offline.
“Took you long enough to get here,” Yu said. “What’s she doing down there?”
Something felt wrong. He couldn’t quite say what it was—a faint scent, a sound—but whatever it was, it made him turn.
Just in time to avoid being jabbed with a hypo.
The woman was in front of him, her hair falling across her face, her skin covered with reddish blisters, her eyes wild. She dropped the hypo and grabbed something from her belt.
He reached for her.
She slashed at him, and he yelped. Pain burned through his palm.
She was holding a laser scalpel.
He cursed and backed away. A laser scalpel was a close-up weapon. His hand was useless. His fingers ached, and two of them wouldn’t bend.
She’d severed something.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked as he continued to back away. She came forward, the scalpel extended as if it were a knife.
“Saving myself,” she said.
“Where’s Nafti?”
“In the medical bay,” she said. The tone of her voice was odd.
Yu’s heart started to pound even harder. Nafti had confronted her, and he wasn’t here. Had she attacked him too?
She lunged at Yu, and he moved to the right, grabbing her shirt with his left hand. More hypos fell onto the floor. She whirled, slashing with that vicious laser. It nicked his side—he felt the burn, knew it wasn’t as deep as the cut to his right hand.
He had to do something, and quick.
He yanked her toward him with the shirt, let go, and for a brief moment, thought she’d regain her balance. She didn’t. He grabbed her by the hair and forced her head back.
He shoved his foot into her knees, forcing her down. She slashed, getting a thigh this time, and the wound brought tears to his eyes.
He felt a moment of surprise—she might actually win this fight—and then he smashed her face into the side of the console.
She went limp, but he didn’t trust it, so he smashed her face again. Then once more just because she had pissed him off.
Stupid woman.
He let go of her hair and she toppled.
She didn’t move.
He hadn’t expected that. He stood above her for a moment, catching his breath, feeling the ache from his various wounds.
She had no training as a fighter. It would have shown up in her records.
But then she’d had no computer training either, that he’d known of, and look at what she had done in the medical lab.
The medical lab. Where she had gotten her weapons.
Then somehow she had snuck up here without letting the computer know where she was and nearly taken over the bridge.
Nearly taken over his ship.
He was shaking. She could have killed him.
He collected the laser scalpel and its friends—she had hidden two more—as well as the hypos. He found cydoleen pills in her pocket and recognized them as extreme antitoxins. He put those back. The medical personas had probably given them to her to help with the contamination.
Then he searched the rest of her, finding two more scalpels—one against her ankle and another between her breasts.
He set all the makeshift weapons aside, dragged her to a chair on the far side of the bridge, and threw her in it. She listed to one side. She was covered in blood—and it looked like he had broken her nose.
“Computer, lock her into zero-g position in Chair Six.”
The chair closed around her, so that she couldn’t float. Zero-g position also kept her a prisoner, unable to move, unable to set herself free without the proper commands.
Still, he made sure. This woman was smarter than he had given her credit for.
“Release her on my command only.”
The computer cheeped its affirmative.
Her head lolled forward, hair covering her face.
Yu studied her for an extra minute, stunned she had gotten so close.
Then he examined his wounds.
His thigh was cut open. She’d barely missed the artery. He would need some medical attention to close the wound properly, but that one wasn’t life threatening.
Neither was the wound on his side. He’d lost a chunk of skin, but nothing else. He didn’t know enough about his own internal anatomy to know if she’d gotten close to anything important.
But his hand was an issue. He could see the bones and the connective tissue, some of it severed. The pain was exquisite.
Repairing that might take more than three cheap medical programs and some bandages. He’d probably have to stop at some space dock and have a real expert repair his hand.
Or replace it.
He shuddered, then he kicked Chair Six. The woman’s head lolled to the other side. Blood dripped from her nose. Yu’d done some damage of his own.
He was pleased about that. He’d leave her untreated. She could feel the pain for a while.
Behind him, the computer cooed. That was a different kind of alert, to let him know that whatever he’d been working on had succeeded.
In this case, he’d been trying to get into the medical lab. The computer had finally broken through whatever she had set up.
He turned to the nearest console and saw images of the medical bay.
Nafti was crumpled on the diagnostic table, clearly dead. None of the medical avatars had appeared around him. So much for state of the art. Somehow Nafti had been murdered in the very place that should have saved his life.
Dammit. Yu had liked Nafti, no matter how much of a worrier the man had been. The big dumb lug wouldn’t complain any more. He’d been so worried about dying from a disease that he probably hadn’t realized he was in more danger from the woman.
Nafti had underestimated her.
They both had.
And Nafti had paid for it with his life.
Yu limped to the medical lab. He thought about having the bots bring the medical supplies to him, but he wasn’t sure it was a good idea. The medical lab had been offline, and he wasn’t sure if Shindo had tampered with
