Free Independent Flight (Aquarius Ascendant) by K.L. Tremaine

the cloud of debris I’d guess there were somewhere in the neighborhood of three standard shipping containers and probably eight stevedores before the hold blew and the skipper of this thing sealed it off. I think we’ll leave that intact for the Judge Advocate General’s office to look at, no need to open it.” She swallowed a foul lump in her throat anyway.
    Kellie walked over to the hatchway to hold number three. “Give me a couple minutes, Skipper, and I’ll have this door. You’ll want to back me up so whoever’s in there doesn’t get any bright ideas.”
    About a minute and a half later, her suit ’s onboard combinatorics engine had found the access code for the cargo hold.
    “ Hold your breath, people,” she said, “here we go.”

    Chapter 7
     
    For someone who was still officially only trying to rescue people potentially trapped in a crippled spaceship, thought Chief Kellie Alyse, she was getting a decidedly less than friendly reception from the crew of the merchant starship Arrant Knave was decidedly less than friendly. It confirmed that they were smugglers, and newbies to the trade at that. Professional smugglers always played nice when caught, whether angling to get the drop on you or cooperating in the hope of a plea bargain.
    “ I can’t help you if you don’t help me,” she muttered, low enough that her audio pickups wouldn’t faithfully relay it to the world outside and the roustabouts and crew members eyeing her suit.
    Suspicious, angry faces looked askance at her from every angle. “I’m Chief Petty Officer Alyse of the Interstellar Navy. Can someone tell me who’s in charge?”
    “ Why do you wanna know?” came the voice of a burly woman with short, spiky blonde hair. She was standing next to an equally burly man, each of them wielding pipe wrenches.
    One or two people in the hold looked back at her, but the majority seemed to be ignoring her, or even outright surly. A couple more roustabouts held prybars, looking as though they wanted an excuse to use them. If they did, it would be a mistake with drastic consequences–the Cache power suit wasn’t totally invulnerable, but she wasn’t going to lose a hand-to-hand fight against improvised melee weapons while wearing armor that could literally crush a tank. And even if they disabled the armor, Kellie was much stronger than she looked.
    “Grey, I think you had better get your ass in here.”
    Veronica carefully walked through the hatch, looking carefully around the room. She carefully kept the barrels of her forearm guns pointed toward the floor, but the rage seemed to build, especially among the men in the room.
    “ Why should we listen to you, anyway? What are we going to get if we follow your instructions, anyway?”
    Another shouted, “Cooperation doesn’t make your jail cell any more comfortable, squid-shit.” There were other men coming behind him, and things were getting more out of control.
    There was the crash of a gunshot and a strangled cry of surprise coming from behind Kellie. Veronica reached up with her glove to check the sudden carbon score on her faceplate, and a roustabout frantically worked the hammer on an old-style revolver, re-aiming. His second shot went wide as the petty chief’s power armor lunged forward with fluid grace and neatly slapped his gun aside, the trigger guard snapping his finger like a matchstick.
    “ The next person who fires a gun will lose the arm holding the weapon, not just the weapon itself.” growled Kellie.
    That got their attention, thought Veronica, resisting the urge to massage her suddenly-aching temples. The bullet hadn’t penetrated, but the momentum had still carried through her helmet. Her head was aching, and she felt like she wanted to be sick–even the transferred shock of a frangible round hitting her helmet was enough to make her head ring. The remainder of the roustabouts were cowed, at least for the moment, by the sudden violence. Probably as much by the