Read Online Angeleyes - eARC by Michael Z. Williamson - Free Book Online

it through.”
    He nodded. There wasn’t anything to say, really.
    The kid hung on as I climbed back up, and let me carry her back. I reached the cabin, opened the hatch, and looked around.
    They hadn’t trashed the place, but they weren’t very organized.
    “Okay, we’re queued for jump to Caledonia,” I said. “It’s going to be a couple more divs, and the actual time marked on the console there can change rapidly. They’re probably going to shove us through as fast as the gate resets.”
    They looked at me as I said, “That means you need to be ready any time in about a div, so starting now. There should be mesh over your bunk. I’m serious about one adult and one child per bunk, or two small teens. You lie back, pull the mesh down. You,” I pointed at the woman from earlier. “I’ll demonstrate. Lie back.”
    She hesitated but complied, and I showed where the harness attached.
    “It’s just in case of a displacement shock, but you don’t want to be slammed into anything.”
    I unfastened her and helped her up, to show I wasn’t holding a grudge, even though I was.
    “If we’re here long enough to shower, you get two segs. Rinse, water off, soap, rinse.”
    Claire asked, “I thought water wasn’t a problem aboard ship?”
    “It is at double capacity inboard and double capacity in the pods. But we should be through in a few days max.” I hoped.
    They seemed a bit bothered.
    “This is a rescue run,” I said. “We weren’t counting passengers, just filling space.”
    I ran through the rest of the predeparture brief, adapted for stationers and with not enough resources, then excused myself to go to the male bay.
    I actually got fewer arguments from them.
    Naturally, when I opened the hatch, I had the attention of every man and boy over the age of ten Earth years in about five seconds.
    But I was able to abbreviate the speech.
    “Angie Kaneshiro. I work cargo, services and medic. The regular crew is flying this tub, I’m in charge of passengers. One person per bunk if you can. Small guys and kids double up if you need to.” I pointed to a guy about fifteen for my demo. “You, lie down and I’ll demonstrate the safety mesh . . .”
    I covered signals, showed them the commo and reporting gear, explained protocols. Luckily, there were five men who’d done a tour either commercial or on a warship, and said they’d keep everyone else in line.
    I took count and had them ping ID by phone, including onboard NoK. I had to put together a manifest. I’d have to do that for the females, too.
    Then I dragged myself back to my bunk again.
    I was getting a serious workout doing all these meters by hand, combined with the running earlier.
    “Okay, Juletta, we’re going to cuddle up on the bunk, and wrap under the net like I showed them. Then we have to wait for the ship to jump to the next station, okay?”
    “But . . . I need Mom and Dad,” she said again. She looked a combination of fatigued, abandoned and scared.
    She had been amazingly well-behaved. I like kids a bit, but I don’t do anything with them.
    “Sweetie, everyone had to leave the station because of an air leak. We’re all going to Caledonia, just a few divs away, okay? Then we should be able to find them. Or else we’ll come back here and look here, okay?”
    She shrugged.
    I asked, “Do you live on the station?”
    “No. We live in Tani.”
    They were groundsiders. I had no idea why they were at Ceileidh, unless they were already skipping out.
    “Okay, well, they should be at the station we’re going to, and if not, we can go back eventually, okay? It won’t be safety, it will probably be soldiers who take us.”
    “Is there a war?” she asked.
    “I don’t know, Sweetie. There’s been some fighting.”
    She said, “I thought you didn’t like the soldiers.”
    “Those aren’t our soldiers.”
    “Are they bad?”
    That was tough.
    “No, most of them aren’t bad, but they’ve been told to take over the station, and we