“Come on, man,” Holden said. “At this point, we can keep you from doing just about anything. Sooner or later, you’ll need a snack.”
To her surprise, Houston’s voice answered. “Naw. Found your mechanic’s beer fridge down here. Had a big bag of sesame sticks in it. Jalapeño-flavored. Bit spicy for me, but still tasty.”
“Better not be drinking my fucking beer,” Amos said in that same nonchalant voice.
“Anyway,” Holden cut in, “we still have a situation. You’re not going to be able to take the ship, and I’d really like to start using it again. How do we come to some sort of agreement?”
Bobbie heard the first hiss of the atmosphere system outside her suit. The pressurization was almost done. She held the pistol in her right hand and gripped the door with her left. The second it showed green, she’d be in the room with that asshole.
The asshole said, “I don’t know that we do. You’re right. I can’t get past that diagnostic lockdown. That was smart work, by the way. But I figure I can probably get the reactor back online from in here, and then I figure I can collapse the bottle if I just find the right wires to pull. You figure the same way?”
“Well,” Holden started, but the light on the inner hatch clicked green and Bobbie yanked it open.
The main console for the reactor would be to her left as she entered the compartment. It was likely that Houston was using that workstation, so that was her first target. If she pushed off hard, she’d come out of the small hatch like a missile, do a quick flip to land feetfirst on the opposite bulkhead. From there she’d have open sight lines to the entire engineering deck. Nowhere for Houston to hide.
Bobbie gripped the edge of the hatch and pulled with all her strength to launch herself into the room. She had to—
Something crashed into the side of her helmet and sent her into a flat spin through the air. She tried to get her hands up to keep from crashing facefirst into the bulkhead, and only half succeeded. Her left arm crumpled under her, and she felt something tear with a wet heat in her shoulder. She bounced off the wall and saw Houston standing on the bulkhead above the access hatch, mag-booted in place, and holding a heavy fire extinguisher with a dent in the bottom.
Miraculously, the gun was still in her hand. Blackness creeping in at the edge of her vision, Bobbie tried to line up a shot. Houston launched himself off the wall with one strong kick and brought the extinguisher down on her hand in a baseball-bat-style swing. She felt two of her fingers break, and the gun and extinguisher flew off in opposite directions across the room.
The deck seemed to swim up to meet her. She caught a glimpse of Houston spinning off toward the ceiling. She managed to turn on the mags in her glove and pull herself down long enough to get her boots locked onto the deck plating. If this was going hand-to-hand, she’d want leverage, and that meant planting her feet. She turned the boots’ mags almost up to full, and watched Houston catch himself on the ceiling.
She spread her arms wide, though from the tearing sensation in her left shoulder, she didn’t think that one was going to be much use. And the broken fingers in her right hand made grappling or throwing a punch problematic.
“You’re lucky you’re wearing that suit,” Houston said, gulping to catch his breath. “I put a dent in that helmet woulda knocked your brains out without it.”
“And you,” Bobbie said, “are very lucky it’s
“Well. We gonna talk or are we gonna dance?”
“They’re playing my—” Bobbie started, then Houston launched himself off the ceiling straight at her. She was expecting it. Getting someone else to talk while you threw a punch was an old trick. The moment he left the bulkhead above her, she was already shifting her body to the left and rotating through her hips. As Houston sailed past, she brought her right elbow into his chin.
Houston’s teeth slammed shut with a crunch that meant he’d cracked a few, then his whole body cartwheeled past her and into the wall with a thud. She kicked her mags off and pushed over to him, wrapping her right arm around his neck for a choke hold. It was unnecessary. His eyes were rolled up in his head, and he was breathing blood bubbles out of his ruined mouth. One and done. Just like the old days.
“I put our guest to bed,” Bobbie said over the radio, then hauled Houston over to the wall panel and removed the locks on the hatch. “Amos, take that bomb off the door before I open it, ’K?”
Bobbie sat in the galley, her left arm in a sling, and her right hand in a cast that the ship had spun for her out of carbon fiber. Holden sat across from her, a steaming cup of coffee on the table held down by the gentle 0.3 g Alex was flying them at.
“So,” Holden said, then paused to blow across the top of his coffee. “Turns out that guy had a few more skills than I clocked him for. Thanks for saving my ship.”
