“How much time have you got?” Delight asked, when I relayed the message.
“Two, maybe three minutes, tops.” Mack flashed her the feed showing the arach forces that had broken through into the corridor beyond Tek’s team. “They’re making for the ship’s heart.”
“In more ways than one,” Delight said, and looked at me. “On your feet, Cutter. You have to hold the bridge. You have to keep Mack alive… and tell the vespis not to shoot the silver light, or anyone coming out of it. Got it?”
“Yup,” I said, but she was already gone.
I opened my eyes, just as Tovy hit me in the chest with two stim shots. Well, that got me moving—just not very far, until he’d undone the restraints. As soon as I was free, I swung myself out of the observation chair, and stood back at a diagonal from the door. Tovy moved with me, handing me two Blazer 54s and an A-Level blaster, before reaching his forearms around me to strap on a long blade. As he did so, he huffed out a breath near my face. Bitter citrus wafted over me, and the rest of the barrier in my head lifted.
“Stay on the security system,” I ordered Tens, settling myself into a stance that would let me adjust my attack depending on what came through the door. Tovy settled himself opposite, covering what I could not. I was about to open my mouth to tell Mack to stay back, when he stepped down from his chair.
“Ship’s yours, Tens. Keep her safe.”
He didn’t say anything to me, just shot me a look, and moved right up alongside me, unslinging his own Blazer as he came.
“Delight can shove it,” he said. “The ship is my heart. They take that I might as well not be living.”
Well, there was no arguing with that—and Delight flicked back on the screen and in our heads.
“We are coming in five… four…”
“Don’t shoot the vespis queen,” I said, flashing her a picture of the queen, “and play nice with the guards.”
“Three…”
I followed that with a picture of the bodyguards, seeing as they looked so different to the other vespis. Delight wasn’t impressed.
“Two… I wasn’t born yesterday, Cutter. One,” and she winked out of sight, swallowed by silver light, and leaving behind an open comm line.
The technician that stepped in to fill it looked slightly overwhelmed.
“I… um, I’m the real-time liaison.”
“Sure you are,” I said, but there was no more time.
Those damned arach had gotten real handy with their cutting charges, and the door fizzed at the edges, before dropping inward. It would have been painful if I’d been standing right behind it. At the sound of it hitting the floor, Tens was out of his seat, and coming to fill the space between Tovy and Mack.
“I thought I told you to stay in the system,” Mack snarled, but Tens just shrugged and pulled his blaster tight to his shoulder.
He was firing even as he replied.
“Left it to the boy and the spider. The Marie will be fine.”
Mack was beyond answering that. He was firing, too. I let them take the targets that were right in front of them, but I’d had these eight-legged bastards come across the ceiling of a closed room. I looked upwards, taking out the first one to cross the threshold of the ceiling—and I wasn’t alone. Tovy was also focused on the space above their heads.
“Good shooting,” he said, and began walking his fire down the corridor.
I mirrored him in the other direction. When the ceilings were clear, we tracked our fire down the wall, taking out heads, and ripping chunks off arach torsos, until another one tried to make to the roof. At that point, we walked our fire back up the wall, and took out what we could.
The sound of a second cutting charge going off at the other end of the command center was not a good thing. Mack and I half-turned to face the new threat, and Tovy and Tens started moving to fill the space behind us. When they stood between us and the door, Mack and I pivoted all the way around.
We were all firing as the first arach came through the hole in the wall. The four of us moved to form a blockade between Askavor and the oncoming swarm, but there was no way we were going to be able to hold them for long.
“Come on, Delight…” I murmured, lifting my aim to take out two arach who were coming across the ceiling. “Come on!”
I took the next one, before it got all the way into the room, and had the vague idea of building a wall of arach bodies to fill the hole they’d created by. It didn’t last long. Even as I took out the arach coming through on the floor, two more came through on the ceiling and wall. We weren’t going to last another minute, let alone another five.
“Where the fuck are you, Delight?” I asked, not expecting an answer.
“Not coming,” Tens answered.
“Shut up and shoot.” Mack.
Spoilsport.
“I won’t wreck your day as much as these arseholes.”
This much was true, but he would wreck it.
“Let’s ruin theirs first.”
“As many as we can,” I agreed, and unhooked the second Blazer, tucking my elbows tight against my sides so I could fire both at once. This many opponents? this close together? Who needed to aim? I just held the Blazers tight and swept them in a steady arc from right to left and back again.
The only problem was that left the ceiling unattended.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I snapped, as four made it through the gap and started crawling towards us. If those fuckers made it over our heads, we were in a world of hurt. I raised one Blazer and waved it in the general direction of the roof,
