The Transporter's Favor

by C. M. Simpson

  Well, this couldn’t get any worse.

  Which, of course, was when Pritchard hit me upside the head hard enough to set my ears ringing as he tweaked my implant and dumped in a few extra files.

  What the…? Well, they’d come out of nowhere. One Sasha Prime and Derevo Slim. Bounty Hunters extraordinaire. And I’d thought I’d landed somewhere safe. Before I could react to either of them being in my private cabin, Sasha had given me her perkiest smile, and smacked me again, letting Derevo catch me as I stumbled sideways, my whole world slipping just a little bit more.

  He picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, and Sasha grabbed the dog, clipping on a leash, even though Cascade was being as cooperative as heck. I’d have to speak to Rohan about that. Couldn’t have the mutt going soppy over every stranger who handed him a pie.

  It was a quick trip through the cruise liner’s corridors as they headed for the shuttle bay. I thought about sliding off Derevo’s shoulder and making a break for it—maybe even making a fuss—and hit the deck just as fast and twice as hard.

  Derevo looked down at me.

  “Wolves didn’t say exactly how alive you had to be,” he said.

  I tried to work out which one of him was real, and if I could haul it down onto the deck with a leg sweep. His mouth twitched into a facsimile of a smile and he sank a boot into my side, sliding his toe under me so he lifted and threw me into a wall, rather than doing something nasty to my innards. I supposed I should be grateful for that, but I wasn’t.

  “Bastard!”

  And that goddamn dog! He just looked at me, looked up at Sasha and made a sound that asked if all that had been necessary. Well, hell no, Cas! Why don’t you take a piece out of both of them?

  Which earned me a really puzzled look, until Sasha snapped his leash tight, and dragged him further along the corridor. Derevo looked at me. Actually, three Derevo’s looked at me, and every single one of those sons of bitches tilted their heads on one side, in just the same way Pritchard did, when he was about to ask me if I’d…

  “Had enough?”

  Yeah, that.

  I sighed and slumped back against the wall, not even bothering to try a head butt, as he bent down to pick me up.

  “Stars, girl! You’ve put on weight!”

  As if he’d know.

  This time, I just hung over his shoulder and wished I didn’t hurt so much. Why was I doing this again?

  “Because you need Mack back, as much as the dog needs his boy.”

  Which was a weird ass thing for a bounty hunter to say. Particularly one I’d never met. I mean, how the fuck did he know?

  “Shut it, Cutter—or do I need to make you bleed?”

  Well, hell no, he didn’t. I’d bled enough.

  We travelled in silence, after that, Derevo clearly not a conversationalist, and me wondering just how much trouble I’d be in if I let myself throw up down his back.

  “Why don’t you try it?” came back through the implant, along with a sense of threat I didn’t want to explore.

  “Maybe later, asshole.”

  “How about you mind your language?”

  I couldn’t help it.

  “Or what?”

  The swift punch of a knife blade into my thigh dragged a sharp bark of pain out of me.

  “How about that?”

  Oh. Stars… I wondered how he was going to explain that to the Wolves.

  “We’ve got a tank on board,” he said. “If you’re really good, we might even put you in it.”

  Oh. Kaaay. I wondered if Sasha knew exactly how much of a psycho kitty she had in a partner, and followed that by trying to work out how the pair was so successful as hunters. I mean, Derevo had quite the temper. How did Sasha get any of her catches back to their patrons, with this goon in tow?

  “I am so glad you’re not going to remember this.”

  Derevo’s thought struck me as odd, but I had no time to contemplate it, as he twisted the knife. Sasha’s response came as soon as my scream died away.

  “By the seventh sun, Rev! Did you have to?”

  His shrug rolled under my gut, like a nonchalant wave. Pain followed in a not-so-nonchalant wave, slamming through my leg, and leaving me shaking. Cold and numbness were better, but not by much. I was in a world of hurt, and the conversation between Derevo and Sasha came from somewhere very far away.

  “She got sassy!”

  “Well, she’s not looking sassy, now. I swear, the tank repayments are coming out of your share!”

  “Hey!”

  There was a smirk in Sasha’s tone, as she answered Derevo’s protest.

  “This time, anyway. See? Dog is perfectly fine.”

  “Dog is perfectly behaved.”

  No fair. I hadn’t been doing anything!

  Pressure ran through the blade, parting the numbness with cold fire, and I choked back a sob, trying to stay perfectly still, trying not to breathe.

  “How about trying to apologize?” Derevo suggested, softly.

  I thought about telling him to shove it, but the knife shifted, and I was apologizing before I’d finished the thought.

  “See? You can do it.”

  I could? Wow… That was so cool…

  “You ass!” Sasha said. “Now, she does need the tank.”

  Sure… Put me in a tank. I was a fish.

  And they did. Quickly. Before the shock and adrenaline wore off. Can’t say I was very lucid, but it was an interesting ride. Nanites and pain killers had taken effect by the time a third guy walked through the cabin. He tapped on the plastiglass of the tank with his fingers as he passed.

  “Hang in there, Cutter.”

  Like. For real? As if he cared!

  That almost earned me a look, but the hesitation in his stride was soon overridden as he hit the cockpit.

  “Heya, sweetheart,” he said, and I watched as Sasha came into view, the open doorway framing the two of them.

  Hell, I guess, even psychopaths needed to be loved. I mean, why not make the happy duo a threesome? I wondered where Derevo fitted in. That earned me two sharp glances from the cockpit, and I realized the new guy might be just as much a psychopath as the rest of them. Damn, I’d had warmer looks from the arach, and that was when they’d been in spider form!

  That last thought earned me a brief, humorless smile.

  “Maybe you should let the Reaver have her,” he suggested. “I’m not sure the wolves would care.”

  Sasha stared at me like she was taking the thought seriously, and I wondered why I really hoped the wolves had been clear in their contract about not being offered the left overs of some psycho bunny’s meal. Derevo had… I felt files split open in my head, and nausea threaten to engulf me.

  Man had proclivities that I desperately wanted to avoid being a part of.

  Something tapped on the glass and I tried very hard not to look towards it. I was pretty sure what I’d find when I did, and I was nowhere near ready for it. The tapping came, again, and Sasha and her guy started smirking—and then they reached out, and pulled the cockpit door closed between us.

  Again, the tapping came, and I tried to swallow my fear, tried not to look—couldn’t resist the draw of curiosity, and gave up the fight. Derevo was there, just as I’d known he would be, his tongue working the glass as though it could reach through and taste flesh. Panic caused my heart rate to spike, and alarms to ring out on the other side of the tank. The door to the cockpit opened, and Sasha opened the cockpit door long enough to shout, as she disentangled herself from her boyfriend’s grasp.

  “Damnitall, Rev! I was trying to say goodbye!”

  The crazy hunter guy stopped licking the side of the tank, and looked over at her.

  “Sayin’ it and doin’ it are two different things, sweet cheeks,” and he accompanied the words with crudely suggestive gestures, strutting around the front of the tank, and rocking his hips.

  It was a sight I could
have done without.

  He rolled his eyes at me, and licked his lips.

  “Be glad the Wolves want you as you are minus the dents,” he murmured, and caressed the tank with his palms, “or you and me would be havin’ us a little private time.”

  I recoiled, and he laughed, then lost all appearance of humor.

  “Time we were leaving, or we won’t have the lag time we need.”

  Lag time?

  Wait. That made a strange kind of sense… and then it didn’t. It was like having two realities inside my head…and one of them I couldn’t remember.

  I had a brief glimpse of Sasha and her guy twining around each other, before breaking apart, and Derevo rolling his eyes in disgust and vanishing back into what served as crew quarters. Sasha’s guy drifted back past me, and out into the hangar, blowing her a kiss as he went. It was kinda sweet, and not something I would have associated with the bounty hunter.

  He tossed me a glance as he went past, smirking.

  “You’d be surprised,” he told me, and left.

  I didn’t notice Sasha coming to lean against the cockpit door, until the hatch had closed behind her beau, and then she strolled over and came to stand outside the plastiglass of the tank. It was a bit like being a crab or lobster in a restaurant, except I had no hope of not being selected, given I was the only one in the tank.

  Sasha smiled.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Customer’s already paid for home delivery.”

  Not what I needed to hear. I wondered if Mack could afford a counter-hire, or if this pair could even be bought. Sasha shook her head.

  “Not a hope in any of the seven suns. We live by our contracts. The wolves offer the best for your hide intact and relatively unharmed—and you need to sleep.” She glanced towards the crew quarters. “I’ll make sure the Reaver doesn’t pay you a visit while you’re out.”

  Out? She seemed pretty sure of herself.

  And with good reason, I discovered, as she pulled a remote from her pocket, and aimed it at the tank.

  “I’ll wake you when we dock,” she said.

  I glared at her, but it didn’t do me an iota of good. The shit they added to the tank was invisible and worked in seconds—well, of course it did, given I was immersed in it. It’s not like I had even the ghost of a chance of escaping it.

  Coming out of it took a lot longer, and I woke up to discover I was no longer in the tank, but stretched out on a narrow examination table beside it. I was clean, dry, and dressed in a simple, one-piece ship suit that felt like it had something stuffed into the lining.

  Wait. It had a lining? Why would Sasha and Derevo give me something with a lining? More importantly, why would they give me something with stuff actually hidden in the lining? What sort of lining was it anyway? What in all stars was going on?

  “Up!” Derevo’s voice snapped across my mind like a rifle shot, and I was off the table and standing before I’d really had time to think about it.

  He snickered like he thought it was somewhere near funny, and I realized he was standing a lot closer than I’d like.

  “Turn around,” he said, as he folded the table back into the wall.

  I stared at him, caught the look on his face, and turned. As much as I expected it, I still flinched when he snapped a set of cuffs over my wrists.

  “It’s the minimum the wolves expect,” he said, although why he was bothering to explain it to me, I didn’t know.

  I didn’t particularly care, either, given that he and Sasha were taking me in so they could collect the bounty from the Star Shadows—their illegal bounty, I might add.

  “Like we care, sweetheart,” Sasha said, coming out of the cockpit with Cascade.

  She had him on a leash, but I don’t think she really needed to have bothered. Stupid mutt was looking far too pleased to be walking beside her. I remembered how the wolves had treated him, and figured that at least he wouldn’t have anything to worry about. It wasn’t like they were going to eat him, or anything.

  Hell, no. He’d probably spend the rest of his life being spoilt rotten, or guarding some high-class wolf lair. And he’d probably live a lot longer than Mack, Tens, Rohan, or I had any right to hope for.

  “You might be surprised,” Derevo said, turning me back around and keeping a hand on my arm.

  He looked me up and down, his eyes lingering provocatively in all the wrong places.

  “Piece like you,” he continued, starting towards the door. “They might keep you around for a lot longer than you ever wanted to survive.”

  Well, that wasn’t promising. I wondered what it would take to kick free of the wolves, the hunters, and the station—and if Cascade would drop his newly formed attachment to Sasha and help me.

  Sasha shouldered past Derevo and me.

  “Bit pathetic when your best hope is a dog, isn’t it, sweetie?” she asked, and my heart sank because I couldn’t find a way to disagree.

  21—Infiltration and Destruction

  As much as I wanted the orbital to be civilized, that was never going to be the case. For one thing, they allowed the Star Shadows to have an outpost there—a full one, taking up the top tier of a docking arm, private security, and all. We rode the elevator to the top floor of the central hub, and then headed for the broad office frontage advertising Star Shadow Enterprises.

  That sinking feeling I had? Yeah. It was replaced by a cold, hard lump that made it difficult to breathe, and my heart started to beat a whole lot faster than it had on the way up. I caught sight of the large, glass-fronted office space, the airlock-style entry-way, and I baulked.

  Derevo must have been waiting for me to do something like that, because he tightened his grip on my bicep, and leant over to put his mouth close to my ear.

  “Wolves understand discipline, Cutter. Pretty sure you cause me trouble, now, they’ll see the consequences and settle the damages.”

  His tongue traced a line from the base of my neck to the base of my ear.

  “Care to see how far I can push the boundaries?”

  I didn’t—and I let him know just how much—but he laughed as he dodged my kick, and then dumped me on my back. He was sitting astride my chest, his hand over my throat and squeezing before I’d caught my breath.

  “Let her up, Rev,” Sasha’s voice intervened, drifting down as though it came from a great height. “Pretty sure we can get her the last three meters without having to kick the crap out of her.”

  It sounded like a plan to me… much as I didn’t want to go through those doors. Nope. No way, no how. I figured if I had to, then I’d like to do it conscious…and maybe even on my own two, right?

  Whether or not Derevo caught that thought, or not, he picked me up off the floor, and half-guided, half-hauled, me through to the foyer. There was a half dozen wolves waiting behind the counter, when we arrived, so I raised my head.

  As bad as this was, they weren’t going to have the satisfaction of seeing me afraid.

  Of course, Sasha had to pull that thought right out of my head.

  “They’ll scent it, anyway.”

  They might, but I couldn’t be afraid, forever, and I was about done being terrified in situations I couldn’t fix. I picked the most important looking wolf in the bunch, and I curled my lip.

  You and whose army? I thought.

  The snarl that rumbled out in reply was not a surprise. I smirked.

  Yeah. About what I thought.

  Derevo’s grip tightened, and I felt his body grow tense.

  “You got a death wish, kid?” he muttered, and I gave him a sideways glance and quirked an eyebrow.

  What the fuck did he think?

  “I think your attitude needs adjusting,” he murmured, and shook me.

  I tilted my head and glared at him, but couldn’t think of a reply, before one of the wolves cleared its throat.

  “We recognize the bounty,” it said, and Sasha led the way to the counter.
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  “Please, come straight through,” the wolf added, interrupting her before she could reach it, and it indicated the partition being opened beside its terminal. “Hregat will show you the way.”

  “Thank you, Commander.”

  Sasha did not hesitate as she followed after the wolf, and Derevo fell in step right behind her. Cascade trotted happily with the female bounty hunter, as though he was in good company, and I sighed. We ever got out of this, and I’d be telling Rohan he needed to recalibrate how the dog chose his companions.

  “I wouldn’t,” Derevo told me, as we turned into a small office.

  He maneuvered me in front of a seat in front of a large desk, pulling me until the back of my legs hit the chair and my knees folded.

  “Sit,” he said, shifting his hand to the top of my shoulder and applying pressure.

  I resisted the urge to tell him that I was already sitting, and turned my attention to the wolf behind the desk. Fixing it with a gaze direct enough to be insulting, I raised an eyebrow.

  And what the fuck are you going to do, now? I asked it, without saying a word.

  Gotta admit, the creature coming over the top of the desk was just not something I’d contemplated. Given what I knew about the wolves, I should have known what was coming, but Hell, it was wearing a suit, for fuck’s sake. It had a tie. It was even behind a fucking desk!

  He hit the chair with enough force to topple it backwards, and managed to grab my head before it hit the floor. I swear the damn thing was smiling as it crouched over me, its claws tangled in the hair at the back of my head.

  “I don’t know, human, what do you think I should do?”

  And I heard those words clear as clear could be, both inside and outside my head, felt my face grow cold with pallor as I stared up at him trying to think of what to say next.

  “What’s the matter, Jocelyn Cutter? Cat got your tongue?”

  And it knew my name… I swallowed, unable to think of a single thing to say. For some reason, this critter was the single most frightening member of his species that I’d yet encountered—and whether that was because it was so close, or so big, or seemed to fill every corner of my head, I couldn’t tell.