The Transporter's Favor

by C. M. Simpson

  I walked a few more steps, chewing that thought over, and then it occurred to me that he, and Mack and Doc were awfully familiar with wolfish niceties for folk who were human on the skin.

  “How...” but Tens held up his hand.

  “Not now, okay? Not until we get this lot offloaded and a long way behind some hastily burned coordinates.”

  “I didn’t know Abs knew how to do that kind of flying.”

  “Nah. We got Case out of stasis. She’s calibrating something extra special to get us out of wolf space. Nice job on the navigating, by the way. We’d have been in a lot worse shape, if you hadn’t put us on a different course.”

  “Thanks.”

  We took a turn that took us back to my quarters, and Tens and Rohan stopped outside the door. Rohan…and I remembered.

  “Where’s Cascade?”

  The boy shot a glance at Tens, and then looked back at me.

  “We’ll get him back when we dump the wolves.”

  Dump the wolves? And how in all of the arach-infested stars were we going to do that?

  “We’re going to head out to Rigel’s Banter and request emergency repairs—and then we’re going to leave the wolves and their shuttles in the hangars, and fly the Marie right out of there.”

  I turned, and there was Mack, standing in my doorway, holding a suit of light armor that was way too small for him, and another extra-protective under-suit.

  “I thought you couldn’t get to those, because they were down in the armory,” Tens said, and Mack smirked.

  “They were down in the armory, and I decided a rebreather would do the job, if I masked up okay.”

  “Abby’s going to have your hide if you’ve let any of her precious gas escape.”

  “Abby helped me do it,” Mack told him, and then added, “and I got you a couple of things while I was there. They’re in your cabin.”

  I caught Tens sudden excitement, and then he clamped down on the link between us, and vanished out of my head.

  “Come on, boy. You’re sharing my cabin until we get yours fumigated.”

  Fumigated?

  “Rohan was bunking down in the armory,” Mack explained watching as the pair of them walked away, their movements so similar it was like watching a Master and Apprentice stalk down the hall.

  “He seems to be recovering well,” I said, following Mack’s gaze.

  He handed me the gear.

  “I left this year’s boots by your bed,” he said, and I felt a sudden spark of joy.

  He hadn’t forgotten!

  “Don’t tell Tens.”

  But not even the thought of what Tens would make of it could dampen my happiness. I took my gear, and leant up to lay a quick kiss on Mack’s cheek.

  “You going to see if they fit?” I asked, my thoughts bordering somewhere else, but Mack shook his head.

  “No time, girl,” he said, taking several hasty steps back. “We’ve got a repair to organize and an unwanted cargo to dump—and then Case tells me we’re gonna want to be in pods for what she’s got lined up to wreck our trail. I need you in the command center in ten.”

  Damn, well, then we really didn’t have time.

  I hit the control panel beside my door and waited for it to slide open. Mack didn’t wait; he just turned and hurried away, as fast as he could go without running. Anyone would have thought he was trying to get away from me just as fast as he could.

  The door opened, and I stepped through, trying to ignore the fact that Abby was laughing fit to burst inside my head.

  “You have got it so bad!” she giggled, and I scowled, even though I couldn’t see her.

  And then I saw the boots, and I forgot Abby.

  These things were the absolute bomb!

  “You’ve got three minutes,” Abby said, when I’d been sitting on the edge of the bed, holding the boots in my hands for way too long.

  “Three!”

  Shit! I hoped these things were good to run in.

  12—Dumping Cargo

  “Happy birthday, Cutter,” Mack said, when I came walking through the control center door.

  “Yeah, happy birthday,” Tens and Case echoed, and then they spotted the boots.

  “Holy shit!”

  And Tens had glared at Mack.

  “Just kitting her out, huh?” he demanded, “Because I saw how many pairs of boots—”

  “These are different,” I cut in, not caring what he might think. “I really needed a pair like this.”

  “Me, too,” Case said, and I couldn’t tell if she was being serious, or just yanking Mack’s chain.

  Mack ignored her, either way. He shot me a smile that said he was glad I liked them, and then got right down to business.

  “Cutter, you’re on nav and weapons, when we leave. We’re keeping pretty much everyone in stasis until we hit clear space, and then we’ll do a full muster and see how everyone is. After that, we start hunting down whoever put that contract out on us.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Could be any one of a coupla hundred,” Tens said. “Mack’s pissed off a lot of people.”

  Case smothered a snort, and made a point of keeping a very close eye on her boards. I decided to just get down to business.

  “What about Abby?” I asked, and Mack smirked.

  “Abby’s flying with us for a bit,” he said, and I got the distinct impression that Abby was flying with us by sheer dint of the fact she was somehow locked down in the Shady Marie’s shuttle hangar.

  “And she’s liking it,” he added, a slight hint of defiance to his tone.

  “Something about him not appreciating me borrowing you and—and I quote—making him chase me half way across the galaxy to where a bunch of wolves could get on board and make his life a misery,” Abby added, but she didn’t sound a bit worried by the fact she couldn’t leave, or the fact Mack might be just the tiniest bit unhappy with her.

  I liked Abby.

  “Like her all you like, kiddo, but she screws with my teleport system one more time, and she’ll need a whole new set of circuitry.”

  Wow. And I thought Mack was pissed. Tens, now….

  “Man has his reasons,” Abby cut in. “I may have to beg, before he’ll forgive me.”

  The way she said it sounded downright dirty, and Tens face flushed ten degrees of red. Mack groaned.

  “We don’t have time for this! Bellyful of wolves, remember?”

  “You.” He pointed at me. “Plot me a course.”

  Right. I was on Nav. That meant it fell to me to get us to Rigel’s Banter. I checked the fuel reserves, and pinged Case to see how much she needed me to leave for the maneuvers she was planning to use to get us out from under wolfish eyes when we were done. The number didn’t give me much room, but I worked with it.

  “Rigel’s Banter,” I said, and laid in the course for Case.

  “Nice,” she said, and I felt the Marie power up around me.

  Mack said nothing, and Tens’s hands worked a fast tattoo across his console.

  “What?”

  “You do know how close that is to Star Eater territory, don’t you?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t even know who the damn Star Eater’s were.

  “Is it a problem?”

  “Only if you’re a Star Shadow.”

  I stared at Mack, a hard lump forming in my throat.

  “We’re not supposed to kill them.”

  He smiled back. It wasn’t a particularly nice smile.

  “We won’t be killing them.”

  I glared at him.

  “We’re not supposed to get them killed, either.”

  “We won’t. We’ll just keep ourselves real quiet about what’s going into that hangar. Tens, see if you can get us a slot, as soon as we’re in hailing range. Case, how fast can you get us there?”

  “It’s four days’ flight time,” Case said, “unless I skip through Vameran’s Arc, an
d pull an extra jump through Kodestes. Doing that, I can cut it to a day, a day and a half tops.”

  I ran the names, altered the path as she suggested, wondered why the hell she needed a navigator, anyway—and why I hadn’t come up with the alternative, myself. It wasn’t hard to work it out, when the data came back.

  “You have got to be shitting me.”

  Mack had been staring off into space. The look he cast in my direction was sheer mischief. I hadn’t seen that look, before. It suited him.

  Tens snorted, and I blushed.

  What-thehell-ever.

  I looked back to Mack, and watched as the mischief was replaced by a faraway look that said he was running the numbers and the odds. For several heartbeats, silence reigned throughout the control centre. Finally, he refocused on Case, and nodded.

  “Do it.”

  Case looked at me.

  “This is where you earn your keep, Cutter. How fast can you replot a course?”

  I looked at her, eyes wide, and then looked down at the information crowding the console in front of me.

  “Fast enough,” I said, “but I’ll need to concentrate.”

  “We’ll slave our boards. I’ll take the alternatives as fast as you put them in. You see a safe path, don’t hesitate. Give it to me direct.”

  She turned back to Mack.

  “Captain, you and Tens should be in your pods.”

  Mack shook his head, Tens mirroring the movement.

  “Nope, I’ll monitor our cargo, and Tens will make sure your systems stay clean.”

  Abby cleared her throat, and we all froze.

  “How about I do the navigation, and Cutter keeps the shielding where we need it?”

  I waited, pretty sure Abs had a good reason for ousting me out of the job.

  “I’m faster,” she said. “HMT, remember?”

  Human Mind Transfer from brain to circuitry—and she piloted and navigated herself around the universe. She was right. She was faster, and more experienced than I could ever be. Mack saw it, too, but I registered when he dipped into my head and saw I’d be okay about it.

  “Done. Abs talk to Case. Cutter—you got the shields?”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  “When you’re ready, Case.”

  I cleared my boards of everything except what I could dig up about the Vameran’s Arc-Kodestes flight path, and found every horror story and recommendation made against it. Not helpful. I dug deeper, until I came across the survey reports that put Vameran’s Arc squarely in the middle of no-go territory, and at the edge of the Star Shadow’s realm. Kodestes was one system in, but it gave us a clean jump to Rigel’s Banter. If we took the jump from Vameran’s direct, we probably wouldn’t make it out of the asteroid belt.

  Of course, jumping into Kodestes had a small chance of drawing wolf attention—and that was if the wolves hadn’t been looking for us already. I wondered how long I’d been in the tank, where the wolves had been planning on taking the Shady Marie, and how long they’d been planning on taking to get there. If they’d been expected, someone might have already have logged them as missing.

  It made sense of why Mack would take the risk.

  “Now,” Case said, and the Marie shuddered under a rapid increase of power. “Warp in five…”

  I glanced at the board, adjusted the shields, and hoped that Abby had it handled.

  “You bet your life, I do,” she said, and then added, “Oh, wait; you are.”

  Not funny, Abs.

  She didn’t reply, and I got the impression that even HMTs had their limits. I wondered exactly how close Abby was to hers. When she didn’t answer that, I was pretty sure it was a lot closer than any of us would have liked. Made me glad it was her and not me.

  We popped out of warp like a cork out of a bottle and Case began a not-so-elegant dance through the debris littering Vameran’s Arc. At that point, I found I didn’t have any time to wonder, or worry, or fear. Some of the rocks floating through our space were almighty large. I shuffled shields like a pro, and then decided it would be even better if some of the bigger pieces didn’t hit us at all—at least, not at the size they were.

  Abs wasn’t the only one who could multi-task.

  I blew the first serious threat away, just as the shields shrieked a warning. After that, I set about keeping our space as clear as I could.

  “That’s gonna draw attention,” Mack muttered, but he didn’t tell me to stop.

  “Quit your bitchin’!” was all I had time for as I spun the guns to take the next big rock out of our sky.

  “Warp in Three, Two…”

  I’d never been so glad to feel the hard twist of sliding between systems, or the wrench of forces that bent me along with the ship.

  “And, again.”

  Well, damn. She did that too often, and I was going to stop being glad… maybe even go to downright ungrateful.

  “Quit your bitchin’….” Mack managed, and Tens snorted.

  Yeah, laugh it up smart boy.

  “Tens, we get pinged?”

  “Not a bit, boss. Everything stayed as quiet as the grave.”

  I wished he hadn’t said that. The grave was almost where we’d ended up, and the sense of urgency it gave this repair trip sent a tram-load of butterflies rampaging through my gut. Big ones. Wearing combat number nines, and not a one of them in step.

  “Rigel’s Banter, this is Shady Marie. Rigel’s Banter this is the Shady Marie, come in, over.”

  “Shady Marie, this is Rigel’s Banter. State your business.”

  “We’re at a scheduled maintenance point, Rigel’s. Like to book a repair hangar and carry it out ourselves.”

  “You’re in luck Shady. We have Remote Hangar Five just vacating. I’ll send you the specs.”

  I listened to the back and forth between the Rigel’s Banter controller and Tens, and kept an eye on the shields and weapons. I’d powered down once we’d warp-stepped across into the Kodestes system, not wanting to draw the attention of the wolves as I passed through. Given Rigel’s was on the edge of the frontier of two warring clans, it had seemed prudent not to power them up, again.

  As Tens accepted the repair dock assignment, and shifted the coordinates to Case, I locked the weapons down, tight, and cut the energy feed. Rigel’s acknowledged the move with thanks, and bade us welcome and goodbye.

  “We’ll send inspectors to log your maintenance in two days,” they said. “If you need longer, we’ll renegotiate the fee.”

  “Understood, and Out.” Tens looked over at Case. “All yours.”

  I half expected him to lean back in his chair, and take a breather, but he turned to his boards, working across them in what looked a pre-planned series of checks.

  “We need to get these boys out of here and fast. I can recalibrate the teleport for the ones on the armory deck. We can print that many temporary bracelets.”

  “We can’t carry them out?”

  “Not in time, boss. Some will be starting to wake by the time Case gets us docked and locked—and Abs says…”

  “Abs says you’ve run out of the components to make another batch of gas, and another batch of gas might just kill them, anyway,” Abs cut in. Her voice took on a coaxing tone. “I can help with the porting. I’ve got wolf DNA on file.”

  Tens flushed.

  “I don’t want to be that precise.”

  “I’ve isolated the markers….” Abby wheedled, and Tens sighed.

  “Fine, but I get to keep the data.”

  “What’s it worth to you?”

  Tens scowled, not happy with the fact Abby was carrying on the conversation over an open line.

  “The question is, Abs, what it might be worth to you.”

  “Ooh, Tens, are you sure you want me to tell you with everyone else listening in.”

  Mack slapped a hand over his eyes, and Case sighed.

  “Guys, you’re making it hard to pilot, ove
r here.”

  I tried to focus on the scans. If I read them correctly, another ship had just jumped from the gate closest our original route. It made me uneasy, because I couldn’t get any details off it at the current range, and the idea that anything felt the need to shield its ident broadcast was…

  “A good reason to be wary,” Mack finished. “Case, get us into the hangar, and strangle our beacon. And, yes, Abby, we can do with your help, porting the wolves dockside, as well as parking their shuttles outside the Marie.”

  Abby gave a very human sigh.

  “You’re no fun, Captain.”

  “And we want the data you use to teleport the wolves out of here. We might need it some other time.”

  “Mack…”

  “Abs, I’m not the one with my shell locked in the hangar of a pissed-off space merc’s cruiser.”

  There was the briefest blip of time, before Abby answered, again.

  “The data’s buffered in your database. You can check I haven’t rigged it to disappear.”

  Mack turned his head to watch as Tens did exactly that—and then checked a little more. Case took us into the assigned repair hangar while he was busy, and the Shady vibrated as the docking clamps took hold.

  “You want us on station air, Cap?”

  “Is it any good?”

  “Readings are fine,” I responded, “and we need a top up in Life Support.”

  “Hook us in, Case.”

  While Case finalized the docking procedures, and pressurized the docking space, I watched the read-outs, and ran a systems and supply check. Mack’s voice broke in before I could finish.

  “Cutter, Case will finish up there. I need you with me.”

  He did?

  I glanced over at Case and she raised a hand in acknowledgement, her eyes not leaving her boards. I locked my console, and headed out after Mack, Tens coming up behind us.

  “I’ll be in the teleport centre,” he said. “Rohan’s certified on shuttles—and he’ll want his dog back.”

  “I’ll clear the shuttles of any wolf left aboard,” Abby said, “and then Tens and I will clear the Marie.”

  “You know if any of them needed medical?”

  “They’ve all had time to heal.”

  They had?

  “You can do the research when we’re clear of here, Cutter. And you’d better. We’ll be dealing with wolves until we shift this contract—and maybe then some. They heal.”