War Criminals by Gavin Smith (ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📕

chunk out of the medgel encasing her right hand. Miska very quickly undid the rest of the restraints as the maintenance droid trundled back from wherever it had come from and she was free.

Her gauss pistol and the knife her dad had given her were waiting just outside the door to the cargo bay. She strapped on the knife’s sheath and SIG’s smartgrip drop holster. She drew the pistol, holding it somewhat awkwardly in her left hand as she made her way as quickly and as quietly as she could towards the closest airlock. She heard voices, and boots on the metal deck coming towards her. She cursed mentally and moved into the first room she saw.

Miska found herself in a tiny cramped bunkroom filled with various spare parts and tools. She was face to face with a short, slight, frizzy-haired woman wearing grimy overalls and a peaked cap.

‘Sorry,’ Miska told her and hit her in the throat, not quite hard enough to kill her, but hard enough to leave her short of air and unable to speak for a little while. Miska listened as the footsteps passed the tiny berth. She hoped they weren’t going to check on her. When she was sure they were gone she left the room. The woman was writhing on her bunk clutching at her throat.

Pistol outstretched, Miska – very aware of the time – moved quickly through the Sneaky Bastard’s cramped corridors. She had just one more corridor to go. She was pleased that she hadn’t heard them sound battle stations, which meant they hadn’t detected the Little Jimmy.

She rounded the corner. She supposed it was inevitable that the big Native American gun tramp and the dwarf had chosen this particular corridor for a discreet rendezvous. Miska was only slightly amused to see that their rendezvous involved a stepladder. They both stared at her. She stared back.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she told them, ‘this is going to seem really harsh.’

They were going for their weapons. Miska already had hers ready. Even though it was her off-hand the smartlink superimposed crosshairs in her IVD, showing her where the bullets were going to hit. The first three-round burst tore into the side of the dwarf’s knee with sufficient force to take his legs out from underneath him. His head bounced off the top of the stepladder on the way down.

The big Native American had actually drawn a PDW that he seemed intent on using as an oversized pistol. Miska went down on one knee. Her first three-round burst disintegrated the gun tramp’s left kneecap, the second his right.

‘Toss the gun!’ Miska told him, ‘Or the next burst goes into your balls! And you might want to think about how pissed I am with you right now!’

He was roaring. He aimed the gun at her and Miska had to throw herself around the corner as he squeezed off a long, undisciplined burst.

‘Really!’ she demanded. She cursed Che. It was really difficult trying not to kill people.

Further up the corridor she heard voices. A head popped around a junction. She wasn’t sure but she thought it might have been Joshua.

‘Duck!’ she shouted and fired a long burst in his general direction. The face disappeared back into cover.

Miska peeked round the corridor to the airlock. The Native American fired off another long burst.

‘Jesus!’ Miska ducked back behind the corner. Kneecapping a stationary person was one thing. Hitting a moving arm with your off-hand, even with a smartlink, was what her dad called viz-bullshit.

She heard the satisfying clang of the Little Jimmy docking with the Sneaky Bitch and then cries of surprise from forward.

Right, enough mucking around. She came round the corner low and fired off the rest of the magazine. The recoil on the gauss pistol, even on full automatic, was negligible. She used the smartlink to aim as much as possible but was hoping that filling the air with rounds would solve the problem. A round caught the PDW’s ceramic magazine, shattering it; another caught him in the arm and he dropped the weapon. She was now taking fire from forward as she rolled into the airlock corridor and up onto her feet, quickly changing the gauss pistol’s magazine. The Native American was thrashing around on the floor and roaring in pain and anger.

Miska started running and then threw herself into the air, hitting the deck on the other side of the two prone gun tramps and rolling to her feet.

‘Oh god!’ she howled. Her accumulated injuries and muscular pain from the extensive tasering had not left her in the best state for gymnastics.

In some pain, she spun around to cover the corridor behind her. The Native American was reaching for another weapon with his uninjured left hand.

‘For fuck’s sake!’ Miska muttered and shot him in his left arm. It was much easier at near point-blank range. The airlock hissed open behind her. Her yellow worm had worked. She backed into it. The airlock hissed shut. Gosia, Joshua, the other gun tramp and two other crew in Crimson Sisterhood colours ran into the corridor. Gosia and the two crew leapt the Native American and the dwarf. The external airlocks on the Sneaky Bitch and the Little Jimmy opened behind Miska. Gosia looked angry, she was screaming at Miska, hammering on the airlock. Miska smiled, waved cheerily and mouthed the words ‘Star Kitten’ to her and then headed into the Little Jimmy.

Miska targeted the Sneaky Bitch’s weapon systems with the Little Jimmy’s lasers on the way out but there was only so much that Gosia could do as the Teten flooded space with radar and lidar, missile-locked the corsair and almost managed to do the same to the Little Jimmy before Miska set sail and accelerated.

Oddly, Miska was in a much better mood. Her kidnapping had proven a distraction. Provided perspective on her problems back on Waterloo Station. That didn’t, however, mean that New Sun could get away with talking trash about her and her Bastards.