The Eurasian stopped abruptly. 'Auson!' he cried. 'I thought you were dead!' He towed his captors toward Miles's group; Miles gave the anxious guard a nod of permission.
Auson cleared his throat. 'Hello, Tung.'
'How did they take your ship without—' the prisoner began, and stopped, as he assimilated Thorne's armor, Auson's—in light of his immobilized arms, decorative—sidearm, their lack of guards. His expression of amazement changed to hot disgust. He struggled for words. 'I might have known,' he choked at last. 'I might have known. Oser was right to keep you two clowns as far away from the real combat as possible. Only the comedy team of Auson and Thorne could have captured themselves.'
Auson's lips curled back in a snarl. Thorne flashed a thin, razor-edged smile. 'Hold your tongue, Tung,' it called, and added in an aside to Miles, 'If you knew how many years I've been waiting to say that—'
Tung's face flushed a dark bronze-purple, and he shouted back, 'Sit on it, Thorne! You're equipped for it —'
They both lunged forward simultaneously. Tung's guards clubbed him to his knees; Auson and Miles grabbed Thorne's arms. Miles was lifted off his feet, but between them they managed to check the Betan hermaphrodite.
Miles intervened. 'May I point out, Captain Tung, that the—ah—comedy team has just captured you?'
'If half my commandos hadn't been trapped by that sprung bulkhead—' Tung began hotly.
Auson straightened, and smirked. Thorne stopped flexing on its feet. United at last, thought Miles, by the common enemy … Miles breathed a small. 'Ha!', as he spotted his opportunity to finally put the disbelieving and suspicious Auson in the palm of his hand.
'Who the hell is that little mutant?' Tung muttered to his guard.
Miles stepped forward. 'In fact, you have done so well, Trainee Thorne, that I have no hesitation in confirming you in your brevet command. Congratulations, Captain Thorne.'
Thorne swelled. Auson wilted, all the old shame and rage crowding in his eyes. Miles turned to him.
'You have also served, Trainee Auson,' Miles said, thinking, overlooking that understandable small mutiny in the tactics room . .. 'Even while on the sick list. And for those who also serve, there is also a reward.' He gestured grandly out the plexiport where a free-fall crew with cutting torches was just beginning to untangle the Triumph from its entrapment. 'There is your new command. Sorry about the dents.' He dropped his voice. 'And perhaps next time you will not be so full of assumptions?'
Auson turned about, waves of bewilderment, astonishment, and delight breaking in his face. Bothari pursed his lips in appreciation of Miles's feudal ploy. Auson in command of his own ship must eventually wake to the fact that it was his own ship; Auson subordinate to Thorne must always be a potential focus for disaffection. But Auson in command of a ship held from Miles's hands became, ipso facto, Miles's man. Never mind that Tung's ship in either of their hands was technically grand theft of the most grandiose …
Tung took just slightly longer than Auson to understand the drift of the conversation. He began to swear; Miles did not recognize the language, but it was unmistakably invective. Miles had never seen a man actually foam at the lips before.
'See that this prisoner gets a tranquillizer,' Miles ordered kindly as Tung was dragged away. An aggressive commander, Miles thought covetously. Thirty years experience—I wonder if I can do anything with him … ?
Miles looked around and added, 'See the medtech and get those things taken off your arms, Captain Auson.'
'Yes, sir!' Auson substituted a sharp nod for a curtailed attempt at a salute, and marched off, head held high. Thorne followed, to oversee further intelligence gathering from prisoners and the freed Felicians.
An engineering tech in want of supervision descended upon them instantly, to carry off Jesek. She grinned proudly at Miles. 'Would you say we've earned our combat bonus today, sir?'
Combat bonus? Miles wondered blankly. He gazed around the station. Thinly spread but energetic activities of consolidation met his eye wherever he turned. 'I should think so, Trainee Mynova.'
'Sir,' she paused shyly. 'Some of us were wondering—just what is our pay schedule going to be? Bi-weekly or monthly?'
Pay schedule. Of course. His charade must continue—how long? He glanced out at the RG 132. Bent. Bent, and full of undelivered cargo, unpaid for. He'd have to keep going somehow, until they at least made contact with Felician forces. 'Monthly,' he said firmly.
'Oh,' she said, sounding faintly disappointed. 'I'll pass the word along, sir.'
'What if we're still here in a month, my lord?' asked Bothari as she left with Jesek. 'It could get ugly— mercenaries expect to be paid.'
Miles rubbed his hands through his hair, and quavered with desperate assertiveness, 'I'll figure something out!'
'Can we get anything to eat around here?' asked Mayhew plaintively. He looked drained.
Thorne popped back up at Miles's elbow. 'About the counterattack, sir—'
Miles spun on his heel. 'Where?' he demanded, looking around wildly.
Thorne looked slightly taken aback. 'Oh, not yet, sir.'
Miles slumped, relieved. 'Please don't do that to me, Captain Thorne. Counterattack?'
'I'm thinking, sir, there's bound to be one. On account of the escaped courier, if nothing else. Shouldn't we start planning for it?'
'Oh, absolutely. Planning. Yes. You, ah—have an idea to present, do you?' Miles prodded hopefully.
'Several, sir.' Thorne began to detail them, with verve; Miles realized he was absorbing about one sentence in three.
'Very good, Captain,' Miles interrupted. 'We'll, uh, have a senior officer's meeting after—after inspection, and you can present them to everybody.'
Thorne nodded contentedly, and dashed off, saying something about setting up a telecom listening post.
Miles's head spun. The jumbled geometries of the refinery, its ups and downs chosen, apparently, at random, did nothing to decrease his sense of disorientation. And it was all his, every rusty bolt, dubious weld, and stopped-up toilet in it …
Elena was observing him anxiously. 'What's the matter, Miles? You don't look happy. We won!'
A true Vor, Miles told himself severely, does not bury his face in his leigewoman's breasts and cry—even if he is at a convenient height for it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Miles's first tour of his new domain was rapid and exhausting. The Triumph was about the only encouraging part of it. Bothari lingered to go over the arrangements for keeping the horde of new prisoners secure with the overworked patrol assigned to that detail. Never had Miles seen a man wish more passionately to be twins; he half-expected Bothari to go into mitosis on the spot. The Sergeant grudgingly left Elena to be Miles's substitute bodyguard. Once out of sight, Miles instead put Elena to work as a real executive officer, taking notes. He did not trust even his own quick memory with the mass of new detail.
A combined sickbay had been set up in the refinery's infirmary, as the largest facility. The air was dry and cold and stale, like all recycled air, sweet with scented antiseptics overlaying a faint tang compounded of sweat, excrement, burnt meat, and fear. All medical personnel were drafted from the new prisoners, to treat their own wounded, requiring yet a couple more of Miles's thinlyspread troops as guards. They in turn were sucked in by the needs of the moment as assistant corpsmen. Miles watched Tung's efficient surgeon and staff at work, and let this pass, limiting himself to a quiet reminder to the guards of their primary duty. So long as Tung's medicos stayed busy it was probably safe.
Miles was unnerved by the catatonic Colonel Benar, and the two other Felician military officers who lay listlessly, barely responding to their rescue. Such little wounds, he thought, observing the slight chafing at wrists and ankles, and tiny discolorations under their skins marking hypospray injection points. By such little wounds we kill men … The murdered pilot officer's ghost, perched on his shoulder like a pet crow, stirred and ruffled itself in
