Mack glanced at me
“He’s only fed once, so far.”
It was better than Tens had fared—and Mack caught the thought, turned to look at me, and then back to Tovy. When he spoke, it was with barely suppressed fury.
“I’m going to kill every motherfucking one of them. Give me the goddamn shots.”
Tovy raised his head, as though looking at me, but I just shrugged. If I was the bu… wasp, I’d give the man what he wanted.
“They are coming,” Tek warned.
“Shots,” Mack demanded, glaring at the vespis medic, even as he stretched a hand out to me. “Guns and blade.”
Tovy didn’t bother asking him to sit down. He just hit him with the shots, and let him fall. I moved to catch him, but Askavor was faster, shouldering me aside, and using his long fore-limbs to catch Mack before he hit the floor. He didn’t hold him, though, just lowered him down, and moved swiftly away. I waited until Mack had recovered enough to pull himself together, before passing over two Blazers and one of the long blades. Mack had them slung and strapped on, in record time.
“Where?” he asked, but he was looking at Tek, and not me.
It was Askavor who answered his question. He updated the ship’s schematics in my head, marking a trail to the dot that showed Tens’ location. Mack took it out of my head, and started to run, but Tek and the others were already moving. They didn’t bother running, and I learnt that flight was so much faster.
They were out of sight in seconds, with Mack sprinting after. I ran after him, and Askavor came scurrying behind me. I didn’t have to ask why he put me between him and Mack. The sharp tic-tac sound of his feet as they struck the corridor was enough to set me on edge. Tovy did not explain, when he flew past me to fly alongside Mack, but I knew the sound of his wings would drown Askavor’s footsteps even further.
When Rohan decided to join us, he tapped my implant, first.
“Tell the spider not to eat me,” he said, and put himself on the map—right beside Cascade, in whatever room lay behind the next door along.
“Ask—”
“The boy and dog can come out,” he said. “I will not hurt either.”
Well, damn. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said the spider was offended.
“Wouldn’t you be?”
Yeah. Humans weren’t diplomatic.
“At least he has an excuse.”
Damnit! I had other things to focus on. I kept running, even though I flinched to the side when Rohan opened the door alongside me. It was a good thing the kid had warned me he was coming, or I might have started shooting. It was an even better thing that Mack was up front. The sound of solids smashing into bulkheads ahead of us drove all thought out of my head.
Mack bolted towards the sound, and I raced after him. I didn’t even bother to try and stop Rohan and Cascade from coming with us. Tovy unslung a second Blazer, and flew ahead. He was firing as soon as he turned the last corner, not slowing down, or calling out our arrival.
The solids stopped hitting the wall ahead of us, anyway, and I started to appreciate just how useful this psi thing might be. Of course, he hadn’t called out. Firstly, no vocal cords. Secondly, psi. I hit the corner with Rohan and the dog, only to have Askavor grab my attention.
“The door.”
I skidded to a halt, letting the boy and his pet run ahead.
Door. Right. That was the other reason I was here.
“Tens. Get your people back. I’m going to unlock the door.”
“We’re not alone.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Hostages?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I didn’t need Mack roaring my name to know he’d heard. I set my back against a wall, glad that Askavor was keeping watch.
“I can watch your body, and your mind, but you must hurry.”
I closed my eyes, and sank into the implant, sliding through the link Askavor opened without hesitation. My crew needed me to open the door. Mack… Hells, Mack!
This time, I was ready for the arach code that reached out from the door controls. Damn arach learned fast. I was not so ready to have Askavor coat me with a layer of coded armor, and then start laying into the tendrils lashing out at me.
“Hey!”
“The door!”
Trusting to the weaver’s armor, and his protection, I hunted down the door code. This time, when I got it to open, I jammed the door wide. There was no way I wanted my commands overridden once I was back in the fight and in no position to fix it.
“Fix it,” Askavor said. “We will hold here, until the queen arrives.”
“So, she’s on her way, then?”
“Almost,” was not comforting, but I got to fixing the code I’d just broken. It didn’t take long, and I wondered how long my jamming trick would have lasted, once the arach discovered it.
“Long enough,” Askavor replied. “Their best programmers are on the mother ship.”
There was a mother ship? Oh, goody—meant in all the ways that said it sucked.
Job done, I dropped out of the ship and back into my own head, just as Mack vanished through the door leading to the cabin where Tens and the others were being held. With the corridor clear, the vespis followed after. I heard three, maybe four, shots, and then the clash of metal striking hardened bone.
“Medic!” Mack shouted, and Tovy flitted to the door, taking the few seconds he needed to see what was happening inside.
He didn’t hesitate for long, but disappeared swiftly into the room.
I saw no sign of Rohan and the dog.
“They’re here,” Tovy assured me.
“The timer,” Askavor reminded me.
I moved, doing the same peek-a-boo, Tovy had, before moving in. Tens had to have been further gone than I thought. There were six—each occupied by a wasp, with no way of me getting near.
