I’d seen the numbers they’d used to take down a single mercenary ship—three squads of twelve, and a command crew. That seemed to be overkill to me. I didn’t want to see what they’d do if they thought they needed more firepower. Mack raised his eyebrows.
“They start with a battle cruiser and go from there,” he said. “Abs, how’d you go with those calculations?”
“Almost there. I can convert some of your bio-systems to producing what we need, and Tens has mapped a way of limiting the gas to just those decks. It’s a good thing your crew are locked down.”
“Except us.”
“The emergency lockers have rebreathers.”
“Point. You ready on the seat flip?”
“Two seconds,” Tens said, then looked at me. “This is going to take all three of us, or someone’s going to get out.”
“Gotcha.”
I sank into my implant, and worked my way to the part of the system where Tens was altering code. He handed me three strands.
“Navigation, Weapons, Life Support. Abs is going to take out comms. She’s the only one fast enough to stop them triggering a distress signal. I’ll take out Security, Piloting and Command. When you get done, I’ll need your help.”
Well, that explained why he’d given me the easiest consoles to lock down. I took a closer look at the console activity, took our current coordinates and route, and then worked up an alternate route to flip into the nav system the minute I put the wolf running it into stasis. Weapons, I prepped an emergency lock-down command, and got ready to send a power stop through the system to prevent any reversal of energy being directed back into the ship.
“Damn, girl. The things you think of.”
I didn’t tell him that that last idea was courtesy of Keevers, but he snorted.
“Part of the Odyssey dirty tricks department,” he said, like that explained everything.
Except that it kinda did.
I checked the stasis function on each of the chairs, made sure there was nothing blocking an external override of the conversion mechanism—and was not surprised to find it clear. Abs and Tens did good work; I’d just been taught not to take anything for granted, when it was something I was responsible for.
“Good idea,” Mack said.
“Almost done,” Tens told him, as if he’d been asked.
But even I could feel Mack’s impatience, knew he was watching the activity in his command center via the security feeds with me.
I checked over the chairs, again, took a peek at the console operators through the security feeds, and the activity being logged by the consoles. Everything looked normal.
“Comms is going live,” Abby said.
“Do it, now,” came from Tens, and we activated the chairs.
I had a vague impression of chaos, from the feeds, but I was too busy locking the chair down, and making sure it made it through the process of putting the wolves into stasis—while letting my alternatives loose in the weapons and nav systems. There was no way I wanted the ship frying itself, or making for ports unknown.
Once that was done, I locked the operating panels on the bridge, and dug in to help Tens.
The piloting system was a short step from Navigation, I took care of it, lock-stepping it with the nav program I’d set running, and then turning to security. Tens knew that was the system I was most familiar with, but I’d hoped he’d already be done with it. There was no telling what contingencies the wolves had in place, especially if the wolf operator had picked up our activity.
He’d had no such luck…or I’d been extra fast. I checked Tens was handling the command console, and then ran myself through the security interface to make sure it was completely ours. The code that had lain dormant until a check point had been reached, almost slid by me. If I hadn’t been looking for something like it, I’d have missed that sucker completely.
I sent a chaser after it, and looked to see if it had back-up, breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it didn’t.
“You done?” Mack was standing beside me.
“Why?”
“The big guy’s security detail just got back from the canteen.”
Well, damn.
I remembered the size of those two. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“I’ll catch up,” Tens promised, booting me back into my head. “Just as soon as I’m done here.”
Mack was already on his way to the door, and I hurried after him.
“Make sure you’re using non-lethal.”
Right—and just how was I supposed to calibrate that for a wolf?
“Quit your whining. Here,” and Mack sent me the necessary settings.
“None of your business,” he added, when I wondered how he knew.
Which only made me add it to the list of shit I was gonna dig up about Mack.
“That is not somewhere you want to go,” he snarled, but quietly, inside my head, where the sound wouldn’t carry and warn the guards returning to the command center.
He might as well not have bothered.
The wolves were ready when we arrived. They hadn’t panicked, but they were on high alert, even as they tried to work out how to bypass Tens and Abby’s lock-down on the pods and intercom.
“You!” one said, looking straight at me. “Weren’t you pack?”
“Until the pack leader cut me loose,” I said, and let him see just how much that had hurt. I tilted my chin at Mack. “This one says he will be my Hunt Master.”
I watched the guard’s eyes narrow, saw his partner already closing on Mack.
“When he is dead, you can transfer your allegiance back!”
“Not even if you begged.”
Even Mack was shocked by that one.
“Ouch! Girl, you got a death wish, again?”
I fired the Blazer, but the solids just bounced off the wolf’s heavy-duty armor.
Like…really? Even in the security of their own ship?
It was a good thing, I’d picked up a couple of spare Glazers, and noted the guards’ helmets were open. This sort of combat I had half a chance at. Once those things closed, not so much. That was more Mack’s territory than mine.
“Hey!”
“Quit your whining.”
Damn wolf must have thought I’d intended that comment for him…or maybe he was still smarting from the remark I’d made about begging. Either way, he charged forward, and I decided to try something suicidal.
I stood there, shooting even as I brought the Glazer up and sighted. Stun charges can make a mess of a suit’s electricals and leave the soldier underneath numb and out of power… at least, that’s what I hoped.
Because if these things had armor hardened against this kind of attack, I was toast.
I got three shots that ran from throat to head, before he hit me like an out-of-control shuttle. I’d have been able to dodge a fist, but he hadn’t been planning on hitting me, just pinning me… and then probably beating the living stars out of me. I’d seen the mess the last one had made of Rohan, didn’t need to imagine what that would be like.
The last head shot did it, and I managed to keep my grip on the Glazer’s hand-grip as I went over backwards, kept my head calm enough to press the stunner against the side of his skull, and fire once more before I hit the floor.
I’d part curled, but my head still connected with the deck, and I saw stars. Half a ton of wolf and armor landing on top of me didn’t help. I was just lucky Mack had chosen a much wiser course of action and had his opponent out cold in time to pull mine off me. He took one look at me and shook his head.
“I don’t know why I bring you to these things. You pass out, every time.”
I wanted to argue that I hadn’t passed out yet, and pushed up off my back. I got half way up before I stopped. Man might have a point. I watched as he dragged the wolf over to one of the emergency pods at the back of the control center, and dumped it there. He glanced across at me.
“What are my chances of getting him out of his armor before he wakes up?”
I shook my head, and then wished I hadn’t. Last I’d eaten was on Abby, and it was still threatening to come back up.
“Sheer imagination,” Abby declared. “Your stomach is totally empty.”
And I remembered throwing up when she’d woken me. “That notwithstanding.”
I was trying to come back with a smart retort, when movement caught my eye, and I’d rolled to my feet and raised the Glazer before registering Tens coming into the control room.
“Stand down!”
I stumbled back a few steps and fetched up against the seat tucked behind the security console, lowering the Glazer as I did. Tens had sidestepped, but he was quick to reach me as I slid back down to the floor. Mack might have had a point about passing out.
I closed my eyes, wishing I didn’t feel so bad.
Let Abby’s words follow me into the dark.
“I have a tank on board.”
11—Plans to Kick Free
Case was flying the Shady Marie when I woke up, again. This time, I didn’t disgrace myself by throwing up all over the nice clean decking. I also woke up in a med box on board the Shady and not in Abby’s regen tank.
Of course, it was Mack who opened the lid, when the box registered I was awake.
It was a profound relief to realize I was dressed.
Not in my armor; that would have been too much to ask, right?
“Hey,” echoed through my skull, as well as in my ears.
“Hey.”
I started to sit up, but he reached in and pushed me back down.
“Let Doc run a diagnostic first. You hit your head pretty hard.”
I’d hit my head before. Mack sighed, and rolled his eyes.
“We also retrieved your files.” He let that sink in for a moment, before continuing. “You’ll need to let your brain adjust.”
Well, since he put it that way…
“I could order you to rest.”
I scowled up at him, feeling the urge to get out of the box just to prove he wasn’t in charge.
“And I thought being your Hunt Master might mean something…” he said, starting to turn away.
Ouch! And the sudden rush of disappointment I felt came from me, and not anything he might have been feeling. Pack. And, if the Pack Leader was all, then the Hunt Master was the universe that surrounded it.
Mack paused, turned back, and quirked an eyebrow.
“Universe, huh?”
And I nodded. Dammit!
Mack thought that was funny, if the slight twist of his lips was anything to go by. Man almost seemed happy at the idea—and that was going to be a notion that was hard to quash.
“Don’t even try it, girl,” he said, menace curling along his voice, even though his mouth twitched upward, as he turned towards the door. “I’ll check in on you, later. Don’t give Doc a hard time.”
Like I’d ever dare…but I watched Mack go, with a sense of almost belonging that hadn’t been there before. Pack? Him? Confusion tumbled through my head like half a dozen puppies in a free-for-all, and Mack kept walking.
If I wasn’t mistaken, he was pretty happy with where things were at. What was more puzzling was the fact that there was a small—a very small—part of me that seemed to like it, too. I held my breath, hoping Mack hadn’t caught that, but he didn’t stop, and Doc’s face blocked my view.
“You playing rugby with werewolves, now, girl?”
I stared at him, and wondered if the clinic had been mopped clean before he’d come out of stasis.
Doc frowned.
“Implant okay?”
I closed my eyes, just to block the sight of him, and worked through the implant, noting the changes, the extra security I could trigger—and wasn’t I glad I wouldn’t be on the receiving end of that! The workmanship reminded me of Tens, but it had an extra twist.
“Abby?”
“Right here, sweetie.”
“I like what you’ve done to the place…”
“You better let Doc know. I think you’re scaring him.”
Right.
“Thanks, Abby.”
“All in a day’s work, Hun.”
I just bet it was. I took another look around, and knew it would take me a while to get used to the new set up, but I was good. I opened my eyes to tell Doc that, and saw Tens, Rohan peering over his shoulder.
“Rohan!” I said, and Tens rolled his eyes.
“Sure, look to the pup, first!”
I felt my skin cool, as I paled, and eased myself away from the tech specialist.
“What?” he asked, looking truly puzzled, just as Doc swung around and grabbed the front of his ship’s suit, dragging him over to the wall opposite the pod.
“You want to stay, you stand there, and don’t say anything, not anywhere.”
“It’s okay, boss,” Rohan said. “It’s just a term the wolves used for both of us.”
“But I’ve alwa—”
“Not one word!” Doc snapped, and crossed back to the box.
“You okay, girl?”
“I’m just fine,” I managed, feeling the tension ebb as Tens stayed over by the wall. “Can I get out of the box, now? Please?”
Doc checked the readouts on the side, took another look at me, and then nodded.
“We all call him ‘pup’, you know.”
I nodded. I did know, had even used the term myself, although it didn’t really fit the boy anymore. He’d grown.
“You okay?” Rohan asked, in the implant, where he thought Doc wouldn’t hear.
I responded in kind.
“Fine,” but I let both of them steady me, when the sides went down and I could slide out to stand on my own.
Pack, right?
“Man, they hit you good, girl.”
Doc sounded worried.
“Hit me with what?”
“Pack conditioning.”
“They were trying to keep me alive. Something about my attitude making that a hard thing to do.”
Doc looked briefly amused, and Rohan almost smiled.
“I can see that,” Doc said. “How many did you have in your head?”
“Twel… no, thirteen, including the pack leader.”
“And how close were they?”
I remembered contact from the time Rovan had made it clear I needed to yield, and that was when Doc showed just how far into my head he was.
“He got you to yield?”
“He bloody well what?”
Although why Tens sounded like he was going to explode, I didn’t know.
Rohan shook his head.
“I’m glad I wasn’t the only one,” he said, and I realized how quietly spoken he’d been since I’d woken up.
Tens was just looking from one to the other of us, like he didn’t know whose ass to kick first—and Rohan and I stood shoulder to shoulder and stared at him. Doc backed up a couple of steps, and watched us, and then he spoke.
“Cutter, do you remember what Rovan called Mack?”
“Hunt Master,” I said, not taking my eyes off Tens, but Doc wouldn’t let me focus.
“And what did he call Tens?”
And I straightened up, feeling like I’d just been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.
“Oh.”
Tens face was a mix of curiosity and apprehension as he looked back. I exchanged another look with Rohan, remembering what Rovan had said about him—pack, cub, and team mate. Tens’s jaw dropped.
“Well?” Doc pressed.
“The Hunt Master’s Second.”
And Doc nodded.
“I don’t suppose he told you what an Outrider was?”
I shook my head.
“They are the wolves that run on the edge of their packs, or scout ahead, the ones that work best alone. If Mack is a Hunt Master, then, in pack terms you are an Outrider. The
pup, here, is still finding his place.”
I stared at Doc, and some of the weirdness faded away. I looked back at Tens, and didn’t feel the same regret at defying him—or the urge to beg his forgiveness.
“Damn, Doc. You sure know how to spoil the makings of a party,” Tens said, doing his best to keep his tone light, even though his eyes were dark with concern.
“And I told you to be quiet,” Doc said, but his voice had lost its anger. He looked at me. “Rovan is their top recruiter of non-lupar specialists. If she hadn’t been one of the subjects of their contract you’d have had one hell of a liability on board.”
I felt like my face was on fire, and looked down at the floor. Doc ducked his head down so he could see my face.
“The fact you’re only feeling echoes just goes to show how strong a mind you’ve got, girl.”
I still felt like I’d been used. Doc caught the thought, and shook his head.
“Nope. The offer of pack is real; it doesn’t work if it’s not. They mean what they say.”
And I didn’t know whether that made things better, or worse.
“It’s a double-edged blade,” Doc said, and clapped me on the shoulder, “but your vitals read strong, and the values I’m getting off the implant, even with Tens’s interference are all good. You’re free to go.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“And you tell Mack, no mats for at least two days.”
“I’ll try.”
“He gives you any trouble, girl, you tell me, and I’ll make him understand, okay?”
Like anyone could make Mack understand anything once he’d made up his mind.
“You’d be surprised.”
I figured I would, and headed for the door.
“Thanks, Doc.”
Tens and Rohan fell in step beside me. It wasn’t comforting to realize they’d taken up station on either side, pretty much the same way Lomis and Keromil had done, once Rovan had put them in charge. I shook my head, trying to free it from the echo.
“It’s always there,” Tens said, and kept walking despite the hitch in my stride. “You get used to it, and it becomes a point of reference, but it won’t never go away.”
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