Project Charon 2 by Patty Jansen (brene brown rising strong .TXT) 📗

she lost control over it, the crowd would trample Jens, Thor and Rasa.

“Wait.”

With a great athletic jump, Rex vaulted over the trolley. He put his back against the wall and simply pushed people away from the trolley. He was formidable. No one got past him. Tina helped shelter Rasa and Jens, and she and Thor made sure the trolley didn’t move.

Then the main bulk of the crowd was gone, and the devastation became clear. The wall of the hall that gave access to the ship’s entrance tube, was blackened, and part of the wall panel had melted, exposing the electronics within.

The normally spotless floor was covered in smudges of blood and a couple of discarded items of clothing. There was even a young man slumped against the wall, blood running from a gash in his forehead into his eye. A couple of people from a pirate Freeranger family stood around him, attempting to get him up.

A woman, presumably the boy’s mother, was yelling at the pirate guards. They spoke a strong Sinolese dialect that Tina didn’t understand, but her words cut into her heart. These were real Freerangers, people who were happy simply to scavenge deep space for items they could sell including structures and items abandoned by settlers. They had made their living like this for generations. Artan was an intruder to them. He might have infiltrated pirate society, but their behaviour made it clear that they had no love for him or his warty-faced friends.

Ahead, at the entry to the access tube, stood a handful of warty men. Their skin was grey, the jawbones lined by tentacles that were slowly moving. Their hands also had long tentacles with which they held onto their weapons. One of the men had extended those tentacles and used them to scour the ground like skinny worms. Each of these tentacles probed the ground before returning to a dark spot on the pirate’s arm. Were they tasting the ground for scents left by the people who had been present at the fight?

Two men who looked like they came from a merchant ship approached Tina and her group from behind. They walked past, ignored the pirate with the tentacles and marched up to the door.

The guards let them past.

Tina seized the opportunity and followed them. “We’re just merchants,” she said to the pirate. He gave her a blank look with a beady eye. Tina wasn’t even sure he understood her. But he let them walk past unhindered. Tina’s heart was thudding. That could easily have ended differently.

Tina checked that everyone was all right, which they were. Rasa had a bruise from where the trolley had been pushed into her leg and Jens had acquired some scratches on his left arm from being pushed by the crowd. Rex inspected the legs and arms of his harness.

“You sook. It’s made to be scratch-resistant,” Tina said. “Help us get out of here.”

The four of them hurried through the passages and reached the ship not much later.

Finn came to the door, his face concerned.

“I’m glad you’re back. You took so long. There was a lot of noise in the station.”

“Well, that’s where we’ve come from.” She told him about the brutal fight in the ship and how the pirates from the shipworlds didn’t seem to like the warted pirates.

“We won’t be going back for supplies any more. We need to concentrate on the next stage now. Once everything is completed, you should leave as soon as possible.”

“Are you still sure about this?” Finn asked. “You don’t have to stay. It seems like there will be trouble.”

“I don’t have to? Do you have a daughter? No?”

He raised his hands. “All right, I get it.”

“No, you don’t get it. Don’t tell me what I should do. She’s been captured by pirates. We might not have the best mother-daughter relationship in all the settled worlds, but don’t tell me that I don’t have to do something for her if I can. I’m not going to die knowing that I could have done something to save her. Everyone else can go with the ship, but I’m staying here and sticking to the plan.”

Chapter Eighteen

It was time to go.

Tina and Rex collected their bags. Tucked away in Tina’s bag, wrapped in her jacket, was the Fireseed she had confiscated at Kelso Station. She had debated leaving the weapon on board, but Finn said it definitely wasn’t any use to him.

Tina kept an eye on Rex. He kept looking at Rasa, but neither of them gave any indication that they would find the separation difficult. She did detect a small twitch in Rasa’s face, but that could be because she had an itchy nose.

It was difficult to figure out what was going on between those two.

Tina checked whether the radio Thor had made worked, got the thumbs-up from Finn, and left the craft with Thor, Jens and Rex.

It felt strange to leave her most important possession behind with someone else.

Rasa closed the door of the craft, and Finn set in motion the process to disconnect from the station. The ship showed full readiness. The station’s airlock door slid shut. A line of lights blinked red on the control panel. The display underneath said, “Careful. Do not attempt to open this door.”

A screen next to the access tube displayed a feed from an outside camera, showing a piece of the station and part of the ship.

Tina wanted to watch until the two decoupled, but they had better get going, because people might get suspicious. After all she was not supposed to be at the station once the ship left.

All around, people were leaving, and at the end of the passage, some people were coming in their direction with barriers. The docks were being closed, as Thor had said.

They walked quickly with Jens and Thor through the passages.

A number of other people were also going in their direction. They were mostly dockworkers, people in overalls with tools or trolleys.

They went through the hall