“She is mine,” he said, glaring at both of them, and turning a defiant gaze on their leader.
The leader, for his part, looked amused.
“For now,” he said. “For as long as she’s useful, I’ll let you keep her.”
Useful for what, I didn’t want to ask. Mack had said he needed me, the arach leader was going to let me live. What more could a girl ask for, while recovering from being almost bled dry?
I kept my hand in Mack’s. His grip was firm, and I wondered how the rest of the crew were doing, but the arach had no time for that.
“There is no time for rest,” he said.
I wanted to argue, but didn’t. Mack’s grip was suddenly tight. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he wanted me to be quiet. Usually, this was all the signal I needed to say something outrageous. Hell, it was almost mandatory. No wonder Mack was holding his breath.
He was lucky I was so tired. I didn’t argue with the arach. I just leant into Mack’s side, instead. It seemed to satisfy the spider.
“Good. Your gear and instructions are at the drop site.”
Drop site?
Mack’s grip tightened, but it didn’t help either of us. Whoever the spiders had on their teleports, they were good. Well, apart from the fact they dropped me in the middle of a security team, and apart from the fact there was no gear in sight. Yeah, apart from all that.
I don’t know how I wasn’t shot the minute I materialized. Or torn apart by what came after. Because the operator must have tried to reverse the teleport straight away. I felt molecules tug apart, and then snap back together, and then I was okay.
Apart from all the guns pointed at me. Yeah. Apart from all the guns leveled point-blank in my direction, I was just dandy.
“Who are you?”
“Why are you here?”
“What do you want?”
“Who sent you?”
“Was that your gear we found?”
They’d found my gear?
They asked the questions so fast I didn’t have time to answer. I’d open my mouth, and the next question would come sailing in. From another direction. I’d turn my head, and guns would be raised. Finally, they got it, and one man stepped forward.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Not one word,” rang through the comm net, and I gasped.
I did not like the arach being in my head. There was no telling what he would do. I felt my face grow cold, as I went pale with fear. The man in front of me looked over his shoulder. He saw nothing, so he scanned the surrounds. Again, nothing.
When he turned back to me, he didn’t look very impressed.
I felt the arach in my head. It wasn’t very impressed, either.
“What did you do?” it asked, and I scowled.
“I’m not the one with the teleport!” I snapped back. “You tell me what went wrong!”
Took me a minute to realize I’d spoken out loud. The leader of the security team was staring at me, mouth open.
“Who are you talking to?” he asked, and the arach was gone.
“You’re on your own, until I say otherwise.”
“Fantastic,” I muttered, and realized the guy in front of me was staring.
“I’m on my own,” I said, not bothering to hide just how not pleased I felt about that.
“You are?”
“Am now.”
“So you were sent.”
I arched an eyebrow at him.
“Now might be a good time to take that rest the doc was recommending,” Mack’s voice suggested, inside my head.
I hadn’t intended to obey it, but he tweaked something in the implant, and I was out before I hit the pavement.
“…lost a lot of blood,” had a familiar ring to it, when I woke up again.
“Two bite marks. No wonder she stinks of spider,” did not.
To my surprise, I was still at the drop point, only horizontal. And on a stretcher. With my hands cuffed together, and then cuffed to the stretcher half-way down. Fantastic.
And I was tired. I don’t know about a lot of blood, but I sure felt tired. Maybe Mack had a point. I tried to reach him through the implant, and all I got was static—vicious, curling static, that raked the inside of my skull. I whimpered, and the medic crouched nearest looked down.
“When did you get bitten?”
“I… what?”
“Bitten. When did you get bitten?”
I frowned, decided to ignore the question.
“My implant doesn’t work.”
He frowned at the unexpected answer, and then glanced up at the nearest security type.
“You fry an implant?” he asked, and the security type shook his head.
“Temporarily disabled it,” he said, and the medic turned his attention back to me.
“The bite,” he said.
“Not sure,” and then I smiled, figuring with the implant out I could at least tell some of the truth. “They boarded our ship, and I doused one in tea. It took blood in return.”
I tried to make it sound light-hearted, but my voice caught, when I mentioned the blood, and I felt my skin go cold. From the look on his face, it wasn’t helpful, so I tried again.
“I got topped up in med-bay, and then sent back to my quarters, and then ported down here.”
Now, I had their attention.
“You got ported.”
I nodded, trying to keep my eyes wide and innocent, which is a lot harder than it looks when all you want to do is sleep. I remembered Mack repeating the doctor’s orders for rest, and stopped fighting to stay awake.
4—The Custody Game
Next time, I woke, I was in a med-box. Oh. Oh, good… I thought, and then I realized I probably wasn’t getting out on my own. I tried the implant, but it wasn’t in the mood for working, so I guessed I was still on my own. I wondered just how far south the arach deal with Mack had flown.
And then I wondered if they still considered me ‘useful’. That
