Price of Ransom by Kate Elliott Read Free Book Online

bad when Jenny came over com to say that she would retreat without firing because the boarding party had somehow managed to get Aliasing and Gregori as hostages. Her normally imperturbable voice held a definite tremor.
    Hawk wondered for a moment if Lily was going to order Jenny to fire anyway, but the captain only made the cryptic reply: “Lock coordinates to Engineering.”
    Securing all patients, he then went into the lab and locked away his supplies of the Hierakas Formula. And because he always, at any place he spent more than an hour’s time in, identified a bolt hole, he hid himself there and waited. Touched briefly each of the weapons he had stored there. All were operational.
    He scented Jenny’s mercenaries first. They smelled scared and confused as they retreated higher and higher up. Jenny he did not detect.
    Then the first wave of Jehane’s troops, herding those few of the crew who had been left unarmed: Blue and the tech from Engineering, and UnaDia Wei from the Main Computer banks. Soon enough they passed through Medical and collected Flower.
    It was easy enough to wait them out and then follow after they’d left, thus giving Lily the backup she’d need. Except that they held a wild card that he did not expect. Eight came in, Lia with them.
    “Then he must be here still,” she was saying to a stocky man whom Hawk quickly identified as Kuan-yin’s crony from the Boukephalos . “If he wasn’t in the captain’s cabin. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Gregori once said he had a hiding place here.”
    “Spread out and give yourselves cover,” ordered Vanov to his soldiers. “We’ll just wait him out.”
    Hawk did not bother to dwell over how Gregori had come to discover the bolt hole. The boy knew the ship very well. He did calculate the amount of damage he could do, but Vanov’s soldiers were well trained enough to cover each other as well as the room, and Vanov left with Aliasing before he could make a choice.
    So he stowed the weapons farther back and surrendered himself. As they marched him up to gold deck, and the bridge, he wondered what Gwyn would have done in the same situation. But Gwyn had been the best, and whatever Hawk’s skills as a saboteur and terrorist, which were not inconsiderable, his real expertise had always lain in healing.
    It was no relief to discover, on reaching gold deck, that they could have used Gwyn. Whether through the shock of Lia’s betrayal, or the use of hostages, or because of his sheer ruthless efficiency, Comrade Vanov had taken control of the bridge. As Hawk was herded in, he was disposing of the prisoners.
    “All the tattoos in one detention block. Just seal them in for now. But leave the ones in Engineering and in Computer until we get replacement crew. The two Engineering techs, the computer tech—we’ll need them later.”
    Hawk smelled blood, but he had to look around to find Jenny prostrate on the floor by the nav console. She had blood on her face, and one of her arms was lying at a bad angle. She stirred, but did not moan; she was still conscious. On the opposite side of the bridge, Aliasing stared in horror. Gregori, held by a rough-looking trooper, looked paralyzed by his mother’s injury.
    The bridge cleared somewhat as the people named by Vanov and their guards left, revealing Lily standing isolated by the captain’s console, a soldier on either side of her. She looked unhurt. Her expression, when she saw Hawk, did not change: it was emotionless now.
    “I am a doctor,” said Hawk easily into the silence left by the departure of the others. “May I see to the wounded woman?”
    “No,” said Vanov. “I don’t waste medical help on people whom I have orders to kill.”
    Lia gasped, audibly, and went white. She staggered slightly, catching herself on the back of the chair Yehoshua was sitting in. A soldier moved to grab her arm.
    “But you said”—she began, her voice as much breath as vibration—“No one was to be hurt. He promised