Keeko Ituri wasn’t the only person screaming into her com as those rows of serrated teeth fastened around her helmet and began to twist.

Chapter 23

  23  

So this was it. Turalon’s shuttle was inbound carrying Board Inspector General Suto Soukup. The moment of reckoning was finally coming. Approaching from somewhere out of that partly cloudy early morning sky.

Kalico Aguila gave a nod to Wejee as she approached the great gate. For the moment, it was open to allow passage of a hauler. Pamlico Jones and his crew had shifted some of the containers, and the PA shuttle had been towed off to the south a bit, leaving room for Turalon’s bird to set down. Kalico glanced around at the crowd, nodding to people, exchanging greetings. It wasn’t just every day that a Corporate IG set foot on Donovan. She’d have an audience.

Step Allenovich—wearing a Dushku-fabric shirt, knee-high boots, a quetzal hat clamped on his head and a cape thrown over his shoulder—sported a nasty and swollen black eye. He gave Kalico a crooked grin that exposed yet another broken tooth. With a finger, he touched the brim of his hat, saying, “Hey, there, Supervisor. Looks like a whole new load of soft meat’s on the way. Heard they’re sending you an Inspector General.”

“So it would seem.” She gestured at the sky. “Guess I’ll know what it means anytime now. He’s supposed to be about ten minutes out.”

Step glanced around, indicating some of the others crowding the gate, Tyrell Lawson, Terry Mishka, and Toby Montoya among them. “This inspector, Supervisor, if he gives you any trouble, you let me know. There’s a bunch of us here, and, well, we’re not letting any pus-sucking Corporate maggot mess with you. Don’t you think that if it comes down to scratch and spit, your people won’t back you. You need us? We’ll send that white-assed Corporate inspector packing.”

“And holding his balls to boot,” Lawson growled as he gave her a squinty-eyed look.

When the light was just right, Kalico thought she could see a bruise on Lawson’s cheek. What the hell had they all gotten into last night?

“You’ve had our back,” Montoya added as he clenched a fist. “We’ve got yours.”

Her heart warmed at the thought that a bunch of Port Authority hard cases were going to protect her from IG Soukup.