“Or else your mechs will get us? We turned every mech we found to scrap metal. Remedy is made up of human fighters. Real fighters. We don’t send toys to do the work of warriors.” Fouda laughs. “Don’t worry. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to die. A reasonably merciful end, and more than you deserve.”
More screams, and weeping. Delphine sways on her feet as though she is about to faint. Noemi banks her fear down deep. If only the passengers had taken the water supply or the engine room, something worth bargaining with.
She still has a card to play—the worst one ever, but it’s all she’s got.
Noemi says, “Ten minutes should be plenty of time for our blasters to punch a hole in the hull. Since you’ll have shut off the airflow to this area, you won’t be able to adjust the ship’s internal pressure in time. You’ll lose hull integrity and destroy the entire ship. I forget—when people are exposed to outer space, do they implode or explode? One or the other. Either way, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
His smile fades. “You’d kill yourselves, too.”
With a shrug, Noemi says, “Once you’ve cut off our air, we’re dead already. Might as well take you with us.”
The pause that follows stretches out for several seconds. Actually Noemi has no idea whether they could punch a hole in the hull; blasters might not be that strong, even if set to overload. As long as Fouda isn’t sure either, though, she’s able to negotiate.
At last he says, “We’ll address the issue of your survival after our arrival on the world you call Haven.”
Haven. A small thrill goes through Noemi at the sound of it. Whatever else is going on here, another home for humanity’s been found, and that has to be good news.
“If you only planned to kill us, you would’ve done so without contacting us,” says Gillian, who’s come to her father’s side. “You want something, obviously something you thought we’d be motivated to give you for our own sakes. I’m guessing those are our landing coordinates. Correct?”
Fouda looks impressed. Noemi probably does, too. She’d known Shearer and her father were intelligent, but that’s the kind of leap Abel himself might’ve made….
“Yes,” Fouda says. “We wanted the coordinates.”
Gillian nods, keying them in. “No point in having you land us far away from the supplies. We’re going to need those.”
“We’ll see.” With that, the Remedy captain shuts down the link.
A second of silence follows, broken by Delphine saying, “Noemi, are you a security expert? You seem very useful.”
Gillian answers for her. “Let’s say that Miss Vidal’s a last-minute addition to the party.”
“Why didn’t we have a security expert?” demands Vinh, who can’t be blamed for feeling angry but seems determined to aim that anger in all the wrong directions. “Humans in charge of protecting us instead of just those damned mechs?”
“The mechs can do the job,” Mansfield says. His face is pale, his voice tremulous. “But Remedy brought more ships than we thought they had.”
“And you shouldn’t trust our new friend too much,” Gillian says, turning to face Noemi. The gas-flame blue of her eyes seems as if it could burn through Noemi’s skin. “She’s a soldier of Genesis. The enemy.”
A flush heats Noemi’s cheeks. From the huddled passengers, she hears someone whisper, “Since when do Genesis soldiers show up on our side of the Gate?”
“Tends to happen when we get kidnapped,” Noemi says. Gillian’s hand moves to her bracelet, and Noemi feels a cold flash of fear, but she lifts her chin and keeps her voice even. “You need someone military right now. I may not be the person you would’ve chosen—but I’m all you’ve got.”
After a long moment, Gillian exhales. “Fine. Make yourself useful.”
How is she supposed to do that? Noemi thinks fast. “Well, first we need to take control of more of the ship than this.” She gestures around at the mech tanks, hoping at least one other person in this room realizes how absurd this is as a home base. “What’s both useful to us and close to this location?”
Gillian thoughtfully taps one long fingernail against the screen. “Passenger luggage hadn’t all been distributed to cabins yet. So there should be clothing and such in the cargo bay seventy meters farther along this corridor. Next to that would be more of the supplies for our celebrations—champagne, chocolate, petits fours, so on and so forth.”
Seriously? Noemi wants to shout. You’re counting party supplies as one of our big advantages? But she bites back her tantrum. At this point, even champagne and petits fours count as food reserves. “Okay. We secure this corridor.”
“How do we do that?” Delphine says, her eyes wide.
“We get out there with blasters and blow away anyone or anything between us and what we want.” Noemi checks the charge on hers. Nearly total.
“You mean shooting people. We have to actually shoot people who will be shooting at us.” Vinh’s fury hasn’t abated; it’s still ricocheting in every direction. He sounds more upset that he has to do real work with real risk than he is at the thought of taking human life.
“The Remedy members won’t be shy about killing us,” Gillian says to Vinh. “I suggest you adopt their attitude.”
“We know what we have to do.” Noemi gestures toward the door. “Are you guys going to do it or not?”
The passengers continue staring glassily at Gillian, who finally gives them a short nod. “Go. Hold the ship.” She turns her head toward the tank in front of her, filled with its pink milky liquid. “I have work to do.”
“Okay, everyone,” Noemi says to the passengers, readying her blaster. “Let’s go.”
At first Noemi doesn’t see so much as a single Remedy fighter; maybe not all
