Swiveling her chair to face him directly, T’Prynn said in a cool and measured tone, “Security.”

23

Shocks of impact traveled through Quinn’s gloved fists and up his arms into his shoulders with every punch he landed on the heavy bag. The leather-covered piece of boxing equipment was suspended loosely by a six-strand chain secured in the overhead and anchored by a single chain to the cargo bay’s deck.

Feels good just to hit something,he thought as he bobbed and danced around the bag, throwing jabs and crosses as he went.

He’d always thought the hardest part of boxing—aside from not losing his marbles after getting hit—was the footwork. All that back and forth, the sidling dodges, the stutter steps. It was vital for balance and tempo, for power and follow-through, but it just didn’t come naturally to Quinn.

A fast combination: two jabs, two body blows, a knee aimed at where a groin should be, a hard right cross.

Backing off a step, he felt off-balance. Keep the hands up,he reminded himself. Keep ’em tight, one in front of the other.

Stepping in, he launched a roundhouse kick. It hit the bag just below his shoulder height. Gotta work on my flexibility. He threw a few body blows and rounded out the combination with a jab as he bobbed and sidestepped left.

Hit after hit, the bag’s ball-and-socket joints creaked as the chains twisted and turned.

Sweat dripped from Quinn’s forehead and his arms. His T-shirt was soaked with perspiration, and an hour of this wild exertion had left the cargo bay of the Rocinantesmelling like the inside of an old shoe. His feet ached, and his back hurt. It would have been easy to call it quits.

His rage simmered as he thought of what the Klingons had been doing to the Denn since they’d arrived on Golmira two days earlier, and he pictured one of the lobster-headed barbarians standing in the heavy bag’s place.

A right cross to the head, a left jab to the body, a knee in the ribs, an elbow thrown in for good measure.

The exertion felt good. But not good enough.

Quinn continued his weaving dance around the heavy bag as he heard Bridy descend the ladder from the main deck. He threw a few more solid punches into the bag, then let himself slump against it as she walked over to him. “If you’re lookin’ to spar, you’re about an hour late. I’m wiped.”

“We just got new orders from Vanguard,” Bridy said.

Between labored breaths he gasped, “And … ?”

“They want us to lay low and sabotage the Klingons’ equipment until they can send some in some backup.”

“When’s that gonna be?” He started untying the laces of his right glove with his teeth.

She folded her arms. “In about three months.”

He shouted, “Three months? Are they kiddin’ me?” His right glove came loose, and he shook it off. “The Klingons might wipe out this whole planet in three months!”

“Look, we knew it was risky when we came out here,” Bridy said as she watched him untie his other glove. “Even the Sagittariushasn’t gone this deep into the Taurus Reach before.”

Yanking off the second glove, Quinn snapped, “Are you sure that’s all our orders said? Lay low and break stuff?” Bridy rolled her eyes and looked away, but her lips folded in, showing the dimple in her chin, which told Quinn he’d struck a nerve. “There wassomething else, wasn’t there?”

After an angry huff, she said, “Admiral Nogura also wants us to incite the Denn to launch a guerilla warfare campaign.”

Quinn tossed aside the glove in his hand and pointed at Bridy as he exclaimed, “Now that’swhat I’m talking about!”

“Hang on,” Bridy Mac said, holding out a palm in Quinn’s direction. “My tactical training is starship-based. I’m not qualified to teach these people how to fight Klingons.”

He grabbed his towel off the top of a cargo container and started wiping the sweat from his face. “Who said you’d be the one training ’em?”

“You think you’re qualified? What do you know about waging a ground war against Klingon troops?”

“More than you think,” Quinn said. He toweled the top of his buzz-cut head dry and draped the towel around his neck. He started walking aft. “Follow me. I want to tell you a story.”

Bridy Mac fell in behind Quinn, who found himself dredging up memories he thought he’d put to rest decades earlier. “Once upon a time, I was just a kid like anybody else. Even went to college, if you can believe that.”

“Not really,” Bridy said, “but go on.”

He led her toward the tool locker. “Six months after I got my degree, I married my college sweetheart. Our families said we were too young. We didn’t care. Got married on New Year’s Eve.” He stopped in front of the locker, put his hand on the latch, and let out a grim chortle. “That was thirty years ago.”

She watched him open the gray locker door, revealing a host of heavy tools. He tucked a sonic screwdriver in his pants pocket, grabbed a crowbar, and slammed the locker door. He turned and faced Bridy. “Less than five months after we got married, my wife … my first wife, Denise, passed away. Xenopolycythemia. By the time we knew she was sick, it was too late to do anything. They diagnosed her in March. She died in May.” His eyes misted with tears, and his throat constricted. Talking about it made it hurt as if it had only just happened, and his grief deepened his native Tennessee drawl. “I remember every detail of that day. The color of the sky. The number of vehicles in the hospital parking lot. The sound of her last breath at two-fourteen PM. Everything.”

Crowbar in hand, he walked toward the bow of the ship, and Bridy followed him. “I was lost. My whole life was turned to shit. One day I woke up and knew I couldn’t draw one more breath on Earth. I didn’t want to look at anything familiar ever again.” He stopped beside a cargo container and put the crowbar on top of it. “I’d heard about a mercenary company that was recruiting for jobs outside Federation space. It was good money, and it sounded like a good way to escape. Soon as Denise was in the ground, I signed up and shipped out.”

He put his shoulder to the container and with a furious growl pushed it across the deck. For a moment it seemed like Bridy was going to try to help him, but she recoiled before her hands reached the container. It didn’t matter. Quinn didn’t need the help. He liked moving something he shouldn’t, overcoming its resistance. The effort was its own reward.

After the huge heavy box had been pushed against the port bulkhead, he kneeled beside the exposed deck plate and took out the sonic screwdriver. As he began removing bolts, he looked up at Bridy. “You ever dealt with mercenaries?” She shook her head. He shrugged. “Count your blessings. At first I thought it was the greatest thing in the galaxy. It was all rah-rah macho brotherhood. I was learnin’ small-unit tactics, how to blow stuff up, fly small starships, the works. For a young man who just wanted to forget his old life, it was an adventure.”

Quinn pulled out the last of the bolts from the deck plate, stood, and stepped over to the moved crate. “Fightin’ Klingons out in the middle of nowhere felt heroic, even if we were doin’ it for a mining company instead of the Federation.” He set the bolts on top of the crate and grabbed the crowbar. “But it wasn’t always so black and white.”

He walked back to the deck plate and pushed the crowbar into the groove along its edge. Straining with the effort of prying it free, he continued. “Sometimes civilians got caught in the cross fire. Other times they were the targets—innocent colonists who made the mistake of pitching tents on a planet that somebody with more money wanted badly enough to kill for.”