Page 24 of Solomon's Ransom

And so what if it did? What if he did nothing and let the merchantman discover the bomb? He tried to think through the implications. Merchantmen didn’t typically have much in the way of weaponry because it added too much unnecessary weight to the ship. Even if they were able to deduce the source of the bomb, they wouldn’t attack the Tozren ship. At most they would file a report with system security, and that could be a problem, but Denna would be out of the system before it could become too much of a problem.

As for the implications for Remma himself—it was perfectly plausible that he might fail to get the cloaking device working again. He was afraid, though, that Denna’s tolerance of Sol relied on Remma’s usefulness, and that if he proved to be less useful than expected, Denna might become less willing to keep Sol alive.

It wasn’t worth the risk of rebelling, even in such a small way. Remma would do his job, and maybe at the end of it he would get Sol home.

He activated the radio as he moved himself closer to the bomb. “Cloaking device is down. I’m going to see if I can fix it.”

Torru swore fluently. “ItoldDenna this was a bad idea?—”

“It’s only a bad idea if I can’t fix it. Give me a few minutes.” Remma toggled off the radio again. He preferred to work in silence.

The bomb was small enough for him to hold cradled against his suit with one arm. He carefully detached the cloaking device and opened up its access panel. It had switched itself off again somehow, to Remma’s extreme annoyance; there was no way that should have happened. He pushed the toggle back into the proper position and felt the cloaking device hum to life against his glove.

“Nowstaylike that,” he ordered it.

The light on top of the device blinked at him cheerfully, promising nothing.

Remma released the bomb and moved himself away, well out of the expected flight path of the merchantman. He kept his eyes on the blinking light. Something wasn’t right. The switch had been in the correct position when the bomb was launched; nothing should have been able to move it.

A dark suspicion bloomed in Remma’s mind. Denna hadn’t saidwherehe got the cloaking device from, and Remma, like a fool, hadn’t asked. Depending on the source?—

As he watched, the blinking light went out again.

Okay. The cloaking device had an AI.

That was a problem.

He chinned on his radio. “Where’s the merchantman?”

“Headed your way, four minutes from entering blast radius. Why?”

Remma switched the radio off again without replying. Okay. What was his plan?

He could see the merchantman, now that he knew it was on its way: a dark shape blotting out the stars, moving with deceptive slowness at the near-head-on angle Remma was viewing it from. Four minutes wasn’t long, but if the cloaking device was going to switch itself off again as he expected, he needed to wait as long as he could before he acted.

He got himself and the bomb into position and turned on the cloaking device again, keeping his thumb positioned on the switch so it couldn’t turn itself off. Then he waited. The merchantman bore down on him. His heartbeat thrummed in his ears. He could hear his breathing grower faster, and again forced himself to take deep breaths. If he panicked, he would make some stupid mistake and he’d die.

The merchantman drew close enough that he could see its name painted on the underside:Orange Gemini Fifteen.

Okay. Go time.

He took a deep breath—calm, calm. Then he let go of the bomb and fired his thrusters as high as they would go, jetting himself out of the way of the ship just barely in time to avoid getting turned into a fine mist of atoms. The ship passed above him, gliding overhead like an ocean leviathan cutting through calm waters.

The bomb went off silently. It made a bright burst that blinded Remma for a moment. He shook his head, a startled reaction to the sudden darkness before his eyes. Then his vision cleared, and he could see the ship still gliding on its same trajectory, but with all its lights out.

Shit. It hadworked.

Remma let out a long, unsteady breath. He hadn’t died. That was good.

He switched on the radio. “Torru? Can you hear me?”

There was no response. His radio was fried along with all the other circuitry in his suit. That was fine. Torru knew the plan. Remma would wait, and soon enough a shuttle would come out to get him.

Slow, steady breaths. Calm. Now that his oxygen recyclers were out of operation, the only air he had left was what was in the suit. If he breathed too quickly, he’d burn through what little there was.

From his vantage point, he watched as their own ship approached the floundering merchantman. Grapples shot out to clutch the freighter and draw it close in preparation for boarding. As long as the merchants didn’t resist, there would be no casualties, and they’d be on their way in a few hours with their ship intact. Denna was ruthless but not bloodthirsty, and that was one of the things that had kept Remma on his crew for this long.

He waited for the shuttle Torru had promised. It would come any minute, surely. Torru wouldn’t leave him stranded.