The Transporter's Favor

by C. M. Simpson

  Neat, I thought, and Pritchard grinned.

  “This time, we lucked out and landed on our feet.”

  As he said it, Cascade bounced into my chest and knocked me off mine.

  “What the fuck, dog!”

  Cascade licked my face, laughing down at me before going elsewhere to relieve himself on a bush. I glanced over and caught Scarpil watching him, a look of undisguised relief on his face.

  “Glad he didn’t do that while I was carrying him,” he said, and I laughed.

  “Yeah, laugh it up, short stuff,” Delight said, strolling out of the undergrowth.

  She looked around at the team, then slapped us all with the latest schematics of the wolves’ base.

  “Change of plan,” she said, “and you can all thank Abs for these.”

  She highlighted three areas on the plans.

  “Auction room is here,” she said. “Rohan is currently on stage, but the buyer’s rep will take him down to the hangars for delivery. Wanderer is trying to identify which ship that is, in case we need to disable it before it can leave, but she doesn’t believe it’s jumped into the system yet. Given the short notice, the wolves are holding a lot to the auction remotely, with buyers either doing a quick pick-up, or paying extra for delivery.”

  I curled my fingers in Cascade’s neck fur, feeling him tense under my grip.

  “Soon, boy,” I whispered, and he whined, earning a glance from Delight.

  “Cas is coming with me,” she said, and named four others to travel with them. “Come here, boy.”

  I let go of his neck, and he glanced up at me in half reproach.

  “I have to get…” I glanced over at Delight, not wanting to pre-empt her decision.

  “Mack,” she said. “Your team gets the easy part. Mack’s the highlight of the auction, so he’s going last. Boy was just an appetizer.”

  Was?

  She caught my look.

  “Hammer just fell.”

  Turning away, she divided the team, sending four with Pritchard after Tens, and four others with me, Scarpil amongst them. It was hard to watch Cascade bounding in Delight’s wake, harder when I realized he had no leash holding him back, but was running free. It meant the two of them were in each other’s heads, and I didn’t like the idea of Cascade being that close.

  “Suck it up, princess,” Delight snapped, and then she was gone, her mind switching to just how much ground they had to cover and how fast if they were to reach Rohan before the shuttle took him into orbit.

  Fuck.

  I needed to check where I was in relation to Mack’s cell, and I needed to be moving that way before Tens was sold off and the wolves took Mack to the dais.

  “I can do the checking.” The voice in my head was new, but it wasn’t alone, and I realized Delight had tuned me in with the rest of the team without telling me. Great… Fucking fantastic.

  That thought drew a few raised eyebrows, but I ignored them. They couldn’t be any worse than the wolf pack, right? More raised eyebrows, but I didn’t have time.

  “Please do,” I said, glad I wouldn’t be holding them up, by having to stop and do reconnaissance in my head.

  Delight had clearly thought of everything. Lucky me.

  We hit the outer walls of the compound with no difficulty at all, and I had a momentary doubt that we’d be able to get in past the guards—right up until my ‘scout’ took out the external cameras with a looping feed that told them all approaches were clear. After that, the rest of us went over the wall and into the exercise yard in the centre of the holding cells.

  That should have been a lot harder than it was, but the wolves had obviously stretched their resources holding a last-minute auction, and my systems-hacking team-mate was going through their security cams and alarms like a knife through butter.

  “Huh,” he said. “Never been called that before—and hurry, because what I’ve done ain’t pretty.”

  It made me want to stop and look, but I took him at his word. We hit the entry to the cell block where Mack was being held, Scarpil first through the door, our hacker had unlocked and opened—and me, hot on his heels.

  “Time to get hyped,” he said, and I realized the stims hadn’t kicked in.

  “What the…”

  “Something new,” he said. “Not the best time to test it.”

  He wasn’t kidding. I shrugged and bared my teeth in a smile that wasn’t.

  “You got Mack’s gear?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’ll introduce you—” but that was as far as I got before the feeds showed us the door at the other end of the corridor opening. “Fuck.”

  I began to run.

  “Change of plan. You get Mack. I’ll take care of those assholes.”

  Pretty sure he made a grab for me as I slipped past him. A soft chorus of ‘fucks’ followed in my wake, but bootsteps followed, too. That was good. I pulled the first stun grenade from its pouch and activated it, sliding to a stop as I hit the corner. I took enough time for a quick peek, and saw a small squad of wolves had stopped outside Mack’s cell, but hadn’t opened the door, yet.

  “Hey, assholes!” I yelled, and pitched the grenade.

  A startled yip, and thunderstorm of growls was cut short by the grenade going off, but I didn’t wait. Anyone still standing was going back down. The team followed, and I headed down the corridor at a run, pulling a stun baton off my belt.

  I’d have preferred a blade, but Delight had vetoed the suggestion.

  “We don’t have to kill everything we meet,” she’d said, and I’d felt my jaw drop.

  It was so out of kilter with the image I had of her that I hadn’t quite known what to do.

  “Stun batons,” she’d said. “We don’t want to make them any more of an enemy than they need to be.”

  Riiiight.

  The four I’d rolled the grenade into, stayed down, and they didn’t look so good. I registered just how much they were out of it as I hurdled the nearest unmoving form. Didn’t register the open door to Mack’s cell, until I’d passed it. Didn’t stop when I did, either.

  Grenade must have been more powerful than I thought…or the door weaker. Yeah. It could always have been that.

  “Cutter!”

  I grinned. Mack sounded like he was just fine. I heard the sound of his bare feet against the cell’s floor, but didn’t stop—I could hear more wolves coming.

  “You know someone’s going to have to drag her ass back, don’t you?” he said, and I could only hope he was talking to Scarpil.

  It sounded like the rest of the team were already on my tail, whether to drag it back the way we’d come, or because they needed to help clear us a way out of here, I didn’t know. I didn’t care, either; the wolves had sent reinforcements.

  I didn’t bother drawing the Blazer, Glazer or any more grenades. After all, where was the fun in any of that? I could take these furry bastards on with one hand tied behind my back. Not that I wanted to. I mean, if I had one hand tied behind my back, then how would I be able to use two sticks?

  And why would I use just one, when Delight had given me two to play with?

  I didn’t register when the sticks I was using ran out of charge. Bone kept cracking, and the wolves kept falling. The team took it in turns to keep me company, until we got outside the complex and were racing down the road towards the hill country just beyond the wolves’ estate. After that, it was Mack who was running beside me, his presence seeping into my head, but leaving me alone.

  The man knew what was good for him, after all.

  26—Reparation is Required

  Wanderer didn’t port us off-world. She sent the shuttles, instead. It was safer, she told us, later, given the teleport interference systems that had been installed on the planet. Delight made a note of it, and added it to her report on Aktrovaran.

  “You’ll be getting a copy,” she assured Mack and Abby. “After all, you’re the reasons
we’ve got any data at all.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Mack said, and there was only a tinge of sarcasm in his reply.

  As he spoke, his gaze wandered to where Cascade was pressed tight against Rohan’s legs, the dog’s big head firmly under the boy’s hand, and then to where Tens stood, almost vibrating with rage, and then to me—wary because he could see the stims hadn’t worn off yet.

  “I thought I told you never to juice her, again?” he growled at Delight, and I rolled my eyes.

  Honestly! The man had no idea.

  He scowled at me, a delightfully pissed-off Mack scowl.

  “I have every idea, girl,” he said, “and someone owes me three rou—”

  I pushed off the wall and stalked over to the door.

  “You and whose army?” I asked, and palmed the door open, before stepping through and heading for the gym.

  Delight and Pritchard were smirking as I left, but I didn’t give their amusement a second thought. I heard Mack coming after me, but that was only to be expected. Challenging Mack was just one of the things I’d missed

  He caught me as my knees gave out, wrapping an arm around my waist and lifting me from the floor.

  “Me with one arm tied behind my back,” he said, breath tickling my ear, and I swear he was smiling.

  I might have cussed him out…or Delight and Pritchard and whoever had tailor-made their concoction, but I figured their timing had its advantages.

  I woke to the sound of Mack shouting.

  “Are you telling me you can’t reverse it?”

  “No,” Delight told him, and I could tell she was doing her best to keep her own temper in check. “I’m telling you that if this particular concoction doesn’t work she’ll need to sleep it off like she was meant to…and that she isn’t going to thank you for speeding the process in about an hour.”

  “An hour?” Mack asked. “Is that going to be enough time?”

  Delight was uncharacteristically sober when she answered.

  “Let’s hope so. If we didn’t need her on deck for this, I’d be telling you to let her rest.”

  Why would she have to tell him that? I thought, opening my eyes so I could see her.

  To my surprise, I was still in Mack’s arms, tucked close against his chest as he stood, facing off with Delight. Tens, Rohan, Cascade were looking on. I didn’t want to lift my head, let alone demand to be allowed to stand on my own two feet. Looked like I had to, though.

  It had been a while since Mack had been in my head, so I was a little surprised when he set me carefully on my feet. I was also relieved when he kept me tucked tight against his side. Delight tilted her head to one side, watching us, and then she smiled.

  “Awww,” she said. “She missed you.”

  I arched an eyebrow at her, feeling the dregs of post-enhancement lethargy slide away. Still didn’t feel like I could smear the deck with her. That couldn’t be right.

  “What’s up?” I asked, and she waved at the screen.

  “Wolves are calling,” she said.

  Before she could go on, however, the conference room door opened, and Scarpil and Cossack dragged Costoganzi through the door. Delight greeted the oligarch with a twist of her lip.

  “You need to tell the wolves you rescind the contract on my friends and allies,” she said, and the businessman regarded her with a blank stare.

  “Do you understand me?” Delight asked, and the man made a show of running his gaze over who she’d assembled in the room: Rohan, Tens, Cascade, Mack, Me, Pritchard, and herself—everyone he’d asked for except Abs and the rest of the Shady’s crew.

  The smirk that curved his lips gave me a dull sense of foreboding, and I knew this meeting wasn’t going to go the way any of us wanted. The worst part of it was, I don’t think Costoganzi realized he was no longer in control.

  “You ready?” Delight asked, looking around the room, and the rest of us nodded.

  Costoganzi’s grin grew wider.

  Delight flicked her gaze over him, and then brought the screen at the front of the room to life. The wolf on the other end of the line had turned his head to speak with an underling. When that worthy touched his shoulder and indicated the link was live, he turned back to face us. Seeing us, surprised him, and he wasn’t fast enough to hide it.

  Delight smiled.

  “Hunt Leader,” she began, and the wolf’s attention shifted from Costoganzi to the woman standing slightly to the front of the room.

  I read the frown on his face as confusion.

  Clearly, he’d been expecting the businessman to be in charge.

  Delight caught the look, and signaled to Scarpil and Cossack. If the Hunt Leader had been in any doubt who was in charge, the sight of Costoganzi being forced to his knees should have made it obvious. From the scowl on the man’s face, this had not been in his plan of how the meeting would go. He raised his head, but Cossack kneed him in the ribs, and shushed him.

  Delight waited until the man subsided, and turned to the wolf. Its pricked ears and focused stare told me she had its complete and undivided attention. That was both good…and bad.

  “As you can see,” she said, “Mr. Costoganzi, once the head of Selimen Enterprises and all its subsidiaries, is now in Odyssey custody. This is his last chance to formally rescind the contract between you.”

  She didn’t elaborate on what Costoganzi’s alternatives were, but turned to the businessman.

  “Nicholas Costoganzi,” she said, “you had something you wanted to say?”

  I watched as Costoganzi took a breath, and struggled to get to his feet, and winced as Scarpil kicked his legs out from under him, again. The Hunt Leader waited, his eyes flicking between the businessman and Delight—and occasionally flickering over the rest of us. He said nothing, and Costoganzi, seeing his opportunity, began to speak.

  “Free me, and I’ll double your fee,” he said, “and the payment for each of—"

  Delight drew her Glazer and shot him in the head. I barely had time to notice it had been set to stun, before she nodded to Scarpil and Cossack, and then turned back to the screen. For all intents and purposes, she’d killed him and didn’t care. I wondered where he was going to be held.

  “The instruction to strip Mr. Costoganzi of his business empire has already been passed by the Coalition. With your permission?”

  The wolf glanced up at one corner of his screen, and then nodded. After a few short seconds, his gaze shifted and his eyes tracked as though he was reading. When he came to the end of whatever had his attention, he looked back at Delight.

  “There is still the matter of your attack, and the theft of our property, and damages.”

  A chime rang through the conversation, and Delight glanced up at the screen. An older woman in the uniform of an Odyssey captain stared out at them.

  “Tell me why I should not charge you with prisoner cruelty.”

  Well, well, no mincing words with these guys! If I hadn’t known any better, I would have said she didn’t like Delight. Neither woman glanced my way, but Mack’s arm tightened around me, the tiny movement drawing the wolf’s attention.

  I glared back at him, arching an eyebrow, and curling my lip, smirking as his snarl answered my show of defiance.

  “Enough!” Mack rumbled, softly, and barely audible.

  I sighed.

  Fine. Whatever, then.

  Delight’s voice brought me back to the conversation with the captain.

  “It was the only way to preserve your ship, Captain.”

  “The ship is not without her own defenses.”

  “With all due respect, Ma’am, if you will refer to your scanners, you will note the presence of five lupar battle cruisers in-system, one of which has just performed an emergency undock on Aktrovaran Station, one coming up on your aft orbit, and the three that have just jumped through Gate Veremo. We cannot make safe vector and outrun them.”

  As soon as she had finished speaki
ng, the Hunt Leader spoke.

  “I see you understand your situation well, Agent Delight. I take it you are authorized to make a counter-offer for the cancellation of the contract?”

  The Wanderer’s captain registered silent surprise, but she nodded to Delight before signing herself out of the conversation.

  “Handle it, but let me know if my ship is needed.”

  Needed for what? I wondered. Evasive maneuvers? To enact a peaceful surrender? To make a gritty last stand and get shot to atoms? Exactly what the fuck did she think we’d need the ship for? I mean…

  Mack poked me.

  Hard.

  And my attention snapped back to the situation at hand.

  Delight cleared her throat, and, after throwing me an amused glance, turned back to the screen.

  “With respect, Hunt Leader, are you able to verify that the contract for the crew of the Shady Marie, and for Dasojin, Pritchard and myself came from Mr. Nicholas Costoganzi, late of Selimen Enterprises?”

  “I can. The contract was signed between us, two of your Terran-based years ago.”

  The length of time drew a sharp breath from me, and the wolf twitched its ears in response, but its gaze did not shift from Delight. I saw her mouth tighten, and she looked away, as though referencing something before raising her head, once more.

  “Can you also confirm that his inability to pay nullifies the contract?”

  “The inability of Mr. Nicholas Costoganzi, late of Selimen Enterprises, to pay the agreed-on contractual amount nullifies the aforementioned contract,” the Hunt Leader replied. “However, due to recent actions, and actions against the Star Shadow clan, compensation is in order for relations between the Star Shadow clan and Odyssey and its allies to return to normal.”

  It all sounded like a pointless power-fluff to me, but I didn’t say it. The wolf’s next words drew my full attention—and explained why I had to be awake. He surveyed us, running he eyes over each of those the contract had named.