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it’d just blow up,” Nat muttered.
    “Exactly.” Big Bill beamed at her. “And I do not risk blowing myself up for anything less than one hundred percent of the profits. Second, I can’t be associated with something that might not work. Bad for business. Option three begins the same way as option two, but you hook up to the old ore docks—there’s an old explosives storage pod there that should protect the station should things go wrong. Once that lock is off, I get fifteen percent of the contents for the use of my secure space, and you can sell whatever you don’t personally want after you and I discuss distribution.”
    “You and I?” Cho asked, his voice level even as he fought the urge to sneer. “You’ll get your fifteen percent off the top, sure.” He didn’t want the Heart blown to shit any more than Big Bill wanted his station damaged. “But I have a Marine armory full of weapons. Why will I need your to help get rid of them?”
    One of the Grr brothers growled.
    Big Bill, however, seemed pleased to have been asked. “Weapons change everything. I know where they should go to both get you top price and have the most advantageous effect. But, more importantly, before it even comes to that, you’re going to want my help because I can see that you capture a working salvage operator.”
    “How?”
    “Captain Firrg has a small outstanding debt she’ll be happy to clear.”
    Two ships would make it a lot easier, turning the nearly impossible to even odds. Cho nodded. “She follows my orders.” Mackenzie Cho, Captain of the Heart of Stone , took orders from no one.
    “Of course. I’ll set up the meeting. Say, 1600 at the Golden Griose ?”
    Cho glanced over at Nat, who shrugged. “Schedule’s clear, Cap.”
    “Good. We’ve got some lovely potential for change building here, Captain Cho.” Big Bill’s expression suggested he was moments away from rubbing his hands together. “Get me some actual and we’ll talk again. Try to grab a Human,” he threw back over his shoulder, heading for the air lock. “I’ve always felt we have the strongest, not to mention least ethical attachment to self-preservation.”
    Falling into step behind him, the Grr brothers laughed.

    Cho took Huirre with him to the meeting at the Griose . Firrg’s crew was completely Krai, and he had no idea how good her Federate was. Good enough to function, definitely, but he wanted no confusion on either side.
    “I hear she’s out here because of lost love,” Huirre said as they made their way across the Hub to the Griose . “The one she wanted, wanted another, and it blackened her heart.” He ducked a shoe thrown out of the pushing match over by the falafel cart, paused, and frowned. “Or that might’ve been on a vid I picked up at Cully’s when I was in for those gloves.”
    “Keep up,” Cho growled. “And I don’t give a H’san’s ass why she’s out here,” he added as Huirre fell back in beside him. “She follows my orders, no questions asked. And she doesn’t fukking need to know what we’re carrying, understood?”
    “Aye, Captain. But if she asks?”
    “I do the talking.”
    “Aye, aye Capt . . . gunin yer chrick !”
    Edible was the highest compliment in the Krai language. As far as Cho could see, Captain Firrg didn’t look significantly different from Huirre—a bit bigger maybe, about a meter high, greenish-gray mottled scalp, lightly bristled, three sets of paired nose ridges—currently expanded as though she were smelling something nasty as they made their way toward her.
    “I don’t like this,” she growled before Cho could actually sit. “And when I say this, I mean Humans. Don’t like them, never have. Only reason I’m in on this is because Big Bill says you’re taking down a Human.”
    “And because you’re into him for a new set of air scrubbers,” Cho reminded her, sitting down. Anything could be bought on Vrijheid, including information. Firrg’s Federate was better than