The Transporter's Favor

by C. M. Simpson

  “We’ve hit a glitch with the station,” he said, and Delight turned towards him.

  “What sort of a glitch?”

  “They’re demanding we tell them the real reason Odyssey wants to pay a visit to their neck of the woods—and that’s a direct quote, by the way.”

  “And?”

  “And they won’t let anyone go planetside.”

  Delight’s eyes narrowed.

  “They say why?”

  “They said Odyssey’s law enforcement role in other parts of the galaxy mean that it would be unsafe for Odyssey crew and customers to take leave on the planet.”

  I watched Delight’s lips give an ironic twist.

  “Understandable,” she said. “What about the orbital?”

  “No more than twenty crew per shift, and they need to travel in uniform and in trios. That’s the station’s request.”

  Delight snorted.

  “It makes our people easier to trace and keep track of. I’ll give them points for smarts, even if it makes our lives difficult.”

  “That’s not all,” Pritchard said, and Cascade lifted his head from the man’s lap.

  Delight stilled, and I watched her attention sharpen.

  “What else?”

  “They’ve restricted crew movements to the deck we’re docked at, and only on the concourse directly outside our docking bay. We have to order on-line and have our resupplies delivered.”

  I watched as Delight’s face flushed.

  “So much for a quiet holiday invasion,” she said, and shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to go to Plan B.”

  “C might be better,” the Wanderer interrupted, her voice coming clearly through our implants, and not the comms unit in the room.

  “C?”

  “C. I do not believe it is safe for me to remain docked at this station for very much longer. I am afraid there may be movement that would compromise me, and place my crew in danger.”

  “Such as?”

  “You and Pritchard are the subjects of a contractual warrant; I feel the wolves are going to try and make good on that contract.”

  “Wanderer, are you saying they know Pritchard and I are on board?”

  “They did not know,” Wanderer replied, sounding almost insulted, “and they are still not sure, but there is a battle cruiser docked two decks down on the other side of the station, and I am afraid it has been subtly probing my defenses. It is only a matter of time, before they confirm the data.”

  “Data?”

  “They have traced my route, and identified that I was on orbital Selimen 9. Your Hack Team has intercepted the passage of two messages that make our status, here…tenuous.”

  “Clarify.”

  “The messages reached their intended recipients. The first message informs Ashina Ship Catering that its offices on Selimen 9 have been attacked by an unknown group of assailants. There is no evidence that Odyssey was involved, although the message does note the coincidence of my arrival and departure as these bracket the incident. The second message is more problematic making a note that the oligarch, Costoganzi, has been taken into custody by Odyssey, and that I was the only Odyssey ship in-system at the time. They have yet to verify that the route they have on file is the route I actually took, but they have technicians working on that, and I will only be able to delay them for so long.”

  “Tell me about Plan C.”

  “Teleportation will be detected by the two battle-cruisers in-system. It would be better for you to take a drop-ship to the planet and LALO to the location required for retrieval. I can teleport you out, when you have your targets secured.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about Mack and Tens and Rohan being referred to as targets, but now wasn’t the time to protest—a fact confirmed by the way no-one commented on the thought, even though they must have noticed it. Cascade whined and pushed against Pritchard’s leg.

  I don’t know if the dog was picking images of the plan out of people’s implants, or if he could just sense the tension in the room, but he had a point. LALO—Low Altitude, Low Opening, right? How the Hell was a dog supposed to operate a chute?

  “Scarpil will carry him. He’ll be fine.”

  Delight had an answer for everything. This time, at least, I was glad of it.

  “Shut it, Cutter.” She returned her attention to Wanderer. “We can’t use one of your shuttles, and Abby needs to stay out of sight.”

  “Agreed.” Wanderer hesitated, and I almost felt the ship when she decided not to ask for details. “I suggest you find a solution that does not involve me. Your usual frequency is secure.”

  “Understood, Wanderer. Do you require intervention?”

  “I require overwatch, if you can spare your teams.”

  I noted the plural on teams, and watched Delight’s eyebrows rise.

  “The teams are yours, Wanderer. I have passed the order.”

  “Thank you, Agent. Please be swift. I cannot take down two cruisers on my own, and I do not know how many more are within jump range.”

  “We are leaving. Please inform the captain to have teleport teams on stand-by for emergency extraction. The necessary DNA profiles have been uploaded.”

  Even for Cascade? I wondered, and Delight nodded.

  “Yes, Cutter. Even for the dog. Rohan needs him.”

  Rohan did, did he? And, while I didn’t understand why Delight would care, I appreciated the sentiment.

  “Time to move,” Delight said, and the door to the briefing room opened. “We’ll brief en-route. Abs, how is that data hunt coming?”

  “Easier since Bennett joined me. He is an asset you need to keep.”

  “Point taken. We’ll need that data when we return with the boys.”

  “I’ll have it standing by.”

  The rest of the team had filed in, while she’d been speaking, and I realized she’d summoned them as soon as Wanderer had told her of the urgency. They were already kitted for the mission, and had brought three duffels of kit for Pritchard, Delight and I. Scarpil stepped over to Cascade.

  “You’re riding with me,” he said.

  The dog turned his head toward me, and I nodded.

  “Good man,” I said, keeping it simple, because I hadn’t worked out just how much the pup understood.

  Cascade seemed unconvinced. He turned his head, looking from Scarpil to Pritchard and back to me. It looked, for all the world, like he was asking why he couldn’t go riding with one of us.

  “We’re too small,” I told him. “Scarpil will keep you safe, help you find Rohan.”

  This earned me another long look, and then the dog sighed, and padded over to Scarpil.

  “Wuff.”

  “Come on, boy. I have to put you in a bag so I can carry you outside.”

  Outside?

  I felt my skin go cold as I registered what that might mean, and Delight shot me a tight, mirthless smile.

  “You and Pritchard need to talk,” she said, and indicated the two bags of kit that had been dumped at Pritchard’s feet.

  He’d already pulled on a suit of light-to-medium combat armor, and was doing it up, but he shot a glance in my direction when Delight spoke.

  “Hurry up, kid,” he said. “I’m not going to bite.”

  Funny, I remembered the last time he’d said that.

  25—Fetching Mack

  My wariness was justified. I’d taken the first step I needed to close the distance between us, when two of the team crossed over to drop a bag in front of Delight. I thought it odd that the task needed two of them, and glanced in their direction, noticing the rest of the team closing up around us.

  “Cutter,” Pritchard said, and I glanced up at him.

  It was like my name had been a pre-arranged signal—as, indeed, it had been.

  “For shit’s sake!” I said, as the two closest me pounced.

  I twisted out from under the grasp of the first, and went to sli
de by the second, but I’d let the others get within grab range, and didn’t have the room I needed for maneuvering. This time it wasn’t Scarpil who wrapped me in their arms…and there was no chance it could be Mack.

  “We’re going to get Mack,” Pritchard said, as someone else coiled their arms around my legs.

  He pulled the auto-injector from behind his back, as another set of hands bared one of my shoulders. I decided I knew what was coming and didn’t want to see it arrive. Closing my eyes, I tried to think of something else, couldn’t help remembering the look of Mack’s body in the isolation cell he’d been pacing.

  “Geez, girl. That is one almighty distraction,” said Cossack. “If I didn’t know he was taken, I might take a shot myself.”

  Taken? My eyes came open at that, and Cossack laughed, backing out of arm’s reach as Pritchard stepped away.

  “Here,” Delight said, thrusting the first piece of my armor toward me.

  Cossack gave me a lecherous wink, and picked up the next piece. He was a good-looking guy, just not Mack…and he wasn’t into girls.

  “You keep your hands off him,” I said, and he waggled his eyebrows at me, while I pulled on the next piece of armor.

  “Let me help you with that,” he said, and made sure the armor was tight in all the right places.

  When he was done, he patted me on the back.

  “Don’t worry, kiddo. I haven’t a hope in all the Stars of stealing that man.”

  Which only made me wonder who Mack cared about so much that no one would bother making a play for him. Delight intervened before Cossack had a chance to answer.

  “Check her weapons, Sack-Man.”

  I scowled at her, being quite capable of checking my own weapons, myself. And what was the big secret about who Mack did or didn’t like, anyway?

  “Not ours to tell, sweetie,” Delight said, and she avoided meeting my eyes.

  It was the first time that woman had avoided looking at me direct in all the time I’d known her. Made me more curious than ever.

  “Tell you what, kiddo, you get him and the rest of the boys out of there, alive, and we get the Dasojin ships back in one piece for Abs, and I’ll think about letting you in on that particular secret.”

  She would?

  But she didn’t answer that.

  Didn’t confirm or deny, and I had to wonder why. She surely wasn’t lying to me, was she? I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time.

  “Never you mind,” Pritchard said. “The man has to have some secrets…at least for now, okay? More important things to do, and all that.”

  Him, too?

  Cossack handed me a Blazer, an A-Level, and two Glazers, before stuffing a couple of grenades into the pouches on either side of my waist.

  “Red for frag, yellow for stun. Don’t confuse the two.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. I had done Basics, same as the rest of them.

  “Sweetie,” he said, “Since when did Basics ever cover grenades?”

  I thought about that for a minute, and realized I’d acquired the grenade training from another of one of my fellow recruit’s mystery ladies in return for a bit of ‘private time’ between them. Cossack snorted.

  “You were one Hell of a piece of work!”

  Were? What the fuck did he mean by ‘were’?

  He patted me on the shoulder, but didn’t say a word, as he rechecked my load-out and straps, and turned in front of me.

  “Check me,” he said, and I realized that, all around us, the team had paired up and was going through the last-minute patterns of equipment checks.

  When I was done, he faced up, and patted me on the shoulder Pritchard had hit with the injector.

  “That shit will kick in with the first good adrenaline surge. Try not to let it go off before we jump.”

  Before we jumped?

  Oh, fuck. LALO. Right. And just where were we going to get the drop-ship from?

  “Herogat’s Demon has a crew scheduled for departure in ten minutes,” Delight said. “We need to haul ass.”

  Well, that was one term for it.

  We hauled butt right out of Wanderer’s shell, making a mass exit from an airlock in EVA suits that took less time to put on than I remembered. I wondered how the Hell we were going to reach the Demon without orbital security noticing, but the maintenance sled waiting outside the hatch answered that question.

  Wanderer loomed over us, and the unconscious sled crew didn’t look like they’d had time to use the cutting equipment they’d brought, before she’d hit them with…well, whatever she’d hit them with. I made a note to knock politely if I ever needed to board an Odyssey ship through anything but the authorized entry.

  Wanderer pinged my implant, amused.

  “Let’s hope it never comes to that,” she said. “Other hulls aren’t as forgiving.”

  Before I could contemplate what she might mean by that, I realized the guys on the sled weren’t dead.

  “Put them in the airlock,” Delight ordered. “Without their helmets. I’d like them to think about what they’ve done.”

  Several snorts greeted her announcement, mine among them.

  Sure, she did. More like, she wanted them crapping themselves the entire time they were in there, and more than ready to talk when they got let out. She raised an eyebrow, as though catching the thought.

  “Move your ass, Cutter. We haven’t got all day.”

  Well, that told me.

  I moved. The team moved, and we got the would-be break-and-enter-bounty-hunters locked down tight—sans their equipment—making it across to the Demon’s shuttle bay before its transport launched. Delight wasn’t playing games. She tickled the ship with a sly burst of wireless contact, smirking at the amateurs that hadn’t protected their systems against that particular trick, and we were in with time to spare.

  Delight also blinded the security cams, locked the shuttle to the deck, popped the hatches and let the team do the rest. We figured putting the passengers and pilot into the hangar bay amounted to murder…and would give us away before we were ready, so we bound ’em tight, blocked their implants and ran through the pre-flights like we were meant to be there.

  The task of unlocking the shuttle and putting the docking bay back to rights went to Pritchard, while Delight took the stick and sent the shuttle planetward in accordance to its original flight plan.

  “Stand-by for incoming burst,” Wanderer interrupted.

  “Standing by.” Delight sounded deathly calm.

  A brief silence followed, and I assumed Wanderer was passing on the burst. Across from me, Pritchard tilted his head back and closed his eyes. Given he was in the middle of a mission, I didn’t think he was sleeping. I figured he’d be in on the incoming data, command crew and all that.

  He cracked an eyelid, and looked at me, but he didn’t say a word. The eyelid flickered closed again, opening when Delight spoke.

  “Heads up, kids. The wolves have moved up the schedule for their auction. We’ll be hitting the holding facility, but the cub is already up for bidding. Wanderer is standing off from the station, but there’s plenty of incoming traffic to play havoc with the lanes. We need to be in and out, and in double quick time.”

  We felt the shuttle bank sharply one way, and then level out.

  “And the airspace is gonna be crowded. Prepare to drop.”

  According to the counter in my head we were dropping ahead of time, but the shuttle had accelerated, so I figured Delight was compensating for the rapidly closing window we had before the boys were split three ways to Sunday and the Stars knew where.

  When I next heard Delight’s voice, it was pitched for my ears only, the frequency as tight as she could make it.

  “They’re making it wolf-only,” she said. “We need to retrieve them before they become cargo on a ship that’s jumped out of here. Wolf territory starts right next door.”

  Well, fuck.

  I sent out a
tendril of contact, trying to find Cascade, and the big boof bounced into my head. Ahead of me, and closer to the door, I heard Scarpil grunt, as the dog squirmed.

  “Be still, Cas,” I said. “You, me. We’re gonna go fetch Rohan.”

  Scarpil gave a soft ‘oof’ of pain and swiveled in his seat, glaring at me.

  “Still!” I ordered, making a look of apology at the big merc. “Still!”

  I’m not sure I pulled that off as well as I wanted to, because he scowled at me, but at least he turned around again. The shuttle slowed, and the entry hatch slid open.

  “Time to go,” Delight said, and I stood with the rest of them, aware of Pritchard falling into step beside me as we moved towards the door.

  “You okay with this?” he asked, and I nodded, even though I knew the look on my face said otherwise.

  I’d jumped before—and I don’t mean just the time Mack had dared me out of a shuttle without a clue as to what I was doing. I didn’t mean the next couple of jumps after that, either. Nope, once that little debacle had been over, Mack had made sure I knew how to jump from high to low with every level of opening in between.

  There had been days when I’d really hated Mack.

  I could jump, now, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

  “Good to know,” Pritchard said, and I realized he’d followed my brief trip through that first jump and the training that followed.

  Well, at least I didn’t have to explain it.

  “Time to go,” he said, pulling me out of my head, and I realized we’d made it to the door.

  Fan-fucking-tastic.

  I didn’t give him a chance to help me on my way, just turned and leapt into nothing, doing the short count it took for the shuttle to clear the sky I needed for the chute. It didn’t take me long to catch up with the rest, and I joined them in pulling the light-weight fabric in and stowing it in a pack. This time round, we weren’t leaving anything behind.

  I turned my head to watch the shuttle drop the last of us, and assumed Delight had abandoned it, too, wondering how far it would fly before it crashed.

  “It won’t crash,” Pritchard said. “Delight’s put it on a pre-flight, and convinced the Demon’s pilot it would be better for them to land and come off it bitching about a technical glitch so he and the guys can take their leave and be back on board before anyone realizes they had anyone else on board. No one wants to fall foul of what passes for the law down here.”