“What’s that?” I asked, focusing on a particularly solid chunk, and Mack swore.
“You done, yet, Doc?”
“Not yet,” Doc replied, and I became aware of the pinch at my elbow.
“Looks like a survival pod,” Mack said, pulling me back into the scan.
“It’s too big for a human,” I noted.
“Delight?” Mack called, reaching out to the Odyssey agent.
She was either learning some tact, or she was busy. Either way, it was a refreshing change to find her not riding my mind, along with the boss… which was a thought I regretted having, as soon as it emerged. To my surprise, Mack said nothing, even if I thought I saw some smart-ass remark rise to the surface, and then get dragged back out of sight before I could work out what it was. Something about potential…
“Do you really want to know?” the vespis queen asked, and I realized that Mack, Delight and Tens weren’t the only ones who could dip into my thoughts.
Damnit! Why did my implant have to be their bloody conference center?
“It is because you are central to so many,” the queen said, and this time, I was sure I caught a flash of alarm from Mack’s direction.
Again, I didn’t quite catch the why of it, and, again, the queen asked, “Do you really want to know?”
And I shook my head.
“Not right, now,” I told her, and Mack’s body relaxed.
Well, if that wasn’t just downright strange. I’d almost changed my mind about not knowing, when the doc spoke.
“Done,” and he applied pressure at the point where he’d drawn blood, and taped it down.
As soon as he’d stopped speaking, and before Mack could release me, the vespis queen spoke, again.
“Show me.”
“Yes,” Delight added, sounding slight put out. “Show us.”
Mack shrugged, and took them along the scan feed to where the debris had floated. To our surprise, the solid chunk wasn’t there. We pivoted the scan. Everything else we’d seen was there, but the largest mass was not. We broadened the scan, only to have the control suddenly wrenched from us.
“Like this,” Tens said, and the viewpoint widened to take in the debris field.
Now that we looked at it, we could see a number of largish pieces—and they were all drifting. The scan shifted through several spectrums, and warmth brightened part of the underside and rear of each.
“Sons of bitches,” Mack said. “Those are escape pods.”
And Delight smashed a connection through to the bridge of the Odyssey cruiser.
“Sugarsides! Scan the debris field for survivors, and retrieve them.”
“Aye, aye, Ma’am!”
“And don’t open the pods,” the vespis queen added. “Isolate them, and lock them down until I arrive.”
“Who is this?”
“Sugarsides, this is Queen Tekravzary—”
“Who?”
“Ruler of K’Kavor. The invaders will be tried and sentenced on my world, according to my laws, as it is according to your law.”
Delight was stunned to momentary silence. The captain of the Sugarsides broke it.
“Agent Delight? Ma’am?”
“Do as she asks,” Delight said, although I got the impression she wasn’t happy. “She is right; it is our law.”
There was a pause. When the captain spoke, again, there was uncertainty in his voice.
“Some of these pods show humanoid on the scans.”
And I got the sense that Delight was counting to a ten. When she spoke, her voice was calm—with the tightness of outraged fury hardening its edges.
“The arach are shapeshifters,” she said, and ripped the memory of Mack melting into arach form right out of my head.
I felt Mack’s arms tighten around me, felt his whole body go rigid with tension.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “so very, very sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said, and flashed him a memory of the mess that had been left by the time Tens and Delight had finished firing.
Mack was outraged.
“You used live rounds in the outer circuit?”
“We dialed them down.”
Delight didn’t sound the least bit repentant, and Mack was still tense.
“They rescued me,” I said, not meaning to remind Mack that it had been partly his fault I’d been in danger in the first place.
“Yeah, thanks, Cutter,” and he let me go.
I think that was because he really didn’t have an excuse to keep holding onto me, and not because of what I’d been thinking. It was just a shame I couldn’t be sure—and then I realized I’d had an audience for that thought, and I felt my face grow warm with embarrassment.
I glanced over at Mack, but he was already turning his attention to the queen.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “may I have your permission to dock at the K’Kavoran orbital?”
“It would be our pleasure, Captain Star.”
“Tens! Make it so!”
He moved towards the door, and then realized I hadn’t followed him.
“Stay with me, Cutter.”
When he got to the door, he stopped and, again, looked to the queen.
“Your Majesty, I believe your bodyguards are waiting to escort you to the bridge. I would be honored if you would be my guest there, until we dock.”
And I realized that the queen must have come down to the med bay, at some point while we’d been observing the debris. Delight, too, for that matter, which would explain why she was standing beside the door, and grinning like a Cheshire cat. She stepped back to let the queen pass.
At this point, I realized a second thing—the queen was in human form—and an unreasoning fear thrummed through me. What if she was in human form because she was not the queen? What if another arach infiltrator had come across on the shuttles? What if…
I stopped, suddenly aware of an agitated thrumming of wings, of angry buzzing and chitters coming from the corridor… of the suddenly very threatening presence of six angry minds inside my own. Mack and Tens had pivoted towards me, even as I backed away from the door.
“For fuck’s sake, Cutter! Will you calm the fuck down?” Mack exclaimed.
He wasn’t the only one moving in my direction. Tens was, too, and Doc. Delight might have thought about it, but
