Chapter 26

It was a long day of forced inactivity. They traded off every two hours and Kat, exhausted, slept when she could.

The temporary lumberjacks came back to the camp in the early afternoon, and put in a couple of hours trimming and shaping the logs they had cut. They added them to the already stacked wood under the tarp on the partially built structure, and then retired to their cabin. The officers only came out of the ship once all day, and were seen lugging a single small pack each, back to the ship.

At dusk, one of the officers left the ship again to roust the men out of the second cabin. They each carried a similar, small pack and they trooped to the ship. Working together, and obviously well practiced at this particular task, they removed the camouflage netting and secured it inside the crew's bunkhouse. Then, boarding the ship, they sealed the hatch.

Bob had only counted five crewmen and one officer boarding. With the other two officers already inside, that left at least two men in the camp. That might put a kink in their plans to snoop through the small base after the ship left. But it also opened up other possibilities.

He woke Kat up when he heard the ship begin startup procedures. Kat, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, bellied up next to him and accepted the binoculars from Bob as he filled her in on what he had seen. When Bob told her that there were still two men in camp, Kat turned to look at him, with a feral smile, baring her teeth.

They put their heads down and covered their ears as the engines started. They were not very loud, as ships' engines go, but as close as they were, it was enough to vibrate their teeth. The thrust of the engines was almost invisible and with no lights on the exterior, the ship was lost from sight almost immediately.

Before the sound had begun to fade, Bob and Kat were moving. They wanted to reach the camp quickly, while the sound would cover their rushed approach. By the time the sound had waned, and the normal night sounds started creeping back in, they were straddling the door on the crew bunkhouse. Kat signaled that she would go left, and let Bob take the right side. She mouthed a single word, "Alive" then gave a three-fingered count down. As her last finger dropped, Bob kicked the door right next to the latch, with his prosthetic leg.

The door almost exploded off the weak hinges and flew into the room, followed almost immediately by Kat hurling herself in and to the left. Her flechette pistols leading the way, she locked onto the one man in her line of sight. He had been laying on the bed, headphones covering his ears to block out the sound of the launch. A data pad in his hands had held his attention until he felt the impact of Bob's kick shake the building. He had just started to lower the data pad and turn his head when Kat sprang into the room, guns in hand.

She was at his side in an instant, one of the flechette pistols pressed up against his nose, the other nudging him in the groin. His eyes were wide and his mouth open, but he didn't move or speak. Kat didn't bother to speak to him either, the man would not have heard her through the headphones, but she did turn her head slightly and shout "Clear!" to let Bob know that her man was neutralized.

Kat backed off a step; her eyes still locked with the man on the bed, and motioned with one of her pistols for him to take off the headphones. Once the headphones were off, Kat directed him to stand, and to move over against the back wall. This movement would allow her to see what Bob had on his side and still keep an eye on her subject.

She needn't have worried. The other occupant had been caught by the flying door and knocked to the ground with the door on top of him. Bob had simply stood on the door with his gun in the man's face and waited to see if Kat needed help.

Once they had the prisoners secured, Kat set about searching the building. She pulled souvenirs that bore names of ships from several of the footlockers. Checking these against the records she had stored in her implant, these items were listed on the insurance records. They could be used to implicate the two in piracy of at least three of the missing ships. Kat also collected four data pads, two from the prisoners and two more from other foot lockers. She slid the last two into her pack but dropped the first two where Bob stood.

"I am going to check the other cabin." She told Bob, her back the prisoners. She winked at him and continued "You want to go ahead and shoot these two? They are probably flunkies and would just slow us down"

As she left the building, she could hear the two men babbling, talking over one another in a hurried attempt to convince Bob that they were worth more alive than dead. Kat laughed softly as she approached the building they had identified as Officers' housing. Her gun still in her hand, she stood to the side of the door before opening it, feeling it was better to be safe. When no shots rang out, and no noise was heard, she took a quick peek, then a longer look.

The room was much the same as the enlisted barrack, except it had only four bunks and, instead of a footlocker, each bunk had a standing cupboard for storage. Here she hit the veritable jackpot. She found a hand-written journal whose contents would get the owner hung in most jurisdictions, three data pads and a host of other evidence that could be traced to missing ships.

Collecting anything that might be of intelligence value and shoving it in her pack, she headed back to rejoin Bob.

From the outside, as she approached, she could see that Bob had let his man crawl out from under the door and had moved him over to sit next to his buddy against the wall. They were staring daggers at each other. Not wanting to spoil whatever game Bob had going, she put on her bad Peace Officer hat and stormed into the room.

"Why are these two still alive? I thought I said to shoot them, we have things to do and places to go." Kat scowled at Bob, never even looking at the two prisoners.

Bob took a diagonal step backwards so that he could see Kat and still keep an eye on the prisoners. "Well, Ma'am, we were just discussing that. It seems that there is some disagreement about which of these men can be of help to us. Each one insists that he holds vital information that would be lost if we shoot him. And, funny enough, each one also says that the other is a liar and a cheat. I was just trying to figure out which one I should shoot first."