“Standard emergency procedure,” I heard through the implant. “You can thank me later.”
I contemplated thanking her, but she had already left, and I guessed there was a lot to do back on-planet.
“Not your problem,” Mack said.
He might have said more, but the medical team was already moving in. They took me out of his arms, and loaded me onto a gurney, before rolling me onto my front. Have to say, you’da thought trained medical professionals might not use that many swears when the patient could still hear them.
“Stay there,” I heard one say, but I guessed they were talking to Mack, because the gurney was already moving away. “I’ll send someone to show you to quarters.”
Shortly after, I heard footsteps coming after the gurney as it passed through another set of doors.
“Hells Bells,” the same voice said, when it stopped. “Scrub up, people. We got us some work to do.”
Nice, I thought, but didn’t get much further. A hand slid lifted my head enough to slide a mask over my mouth and nose, and a forearm settled across my shoulder blades.
“Time you slept. You’ll feel a lot better when you wake up.”
I would? I wanted to argue about the sleep bit, but I was afraid he was right. It really was time to sleep, and there was nothing I could do to stop it happening. I let fatigue roll me under, and wondered if the medic was lying, if I really would feel better when I woke up. Maybe I wouldn’t wake up at all…
Turns out he’d spoken the absolute truth. When I woke up, the pain was gone, although I could feel the lingering itch of nanites across my skin, and was floating in the sodden grasp of another regen tank. Mack stood on the other side of the tank wall, staring at me, and then all the way through. Wherever he was, it wasn’t here. Worry creased his face, until he saw my eyes were open, and then a brief smile lit his expression.
“You’re back!” he said, sounding happier than I would have thought possible. Color rose to his cheeks, and he glanced around to see who else might have heard him. Seeing we were alone cleared his throat. “Good. We’ve got work to do.”
Well, of course we did.
“We’ll take it out of your fee,” Delight said, and I realized she’d come in, as silent as a ghost. Sneaky bitch.
“You’ll do no such thing,” Mack said, reaching out and laying a large, broad hand on her shoulder. “Injuries incurred in the interests of the operation are the employer’s responsibility.”
Delight narrowed her eyes, and Mack raised his eyebrows.
“Or are you going to say that letting the arach onto the dropship was in Odyssey’s best interest for this world?”
“We hadn’t contracted you, then,” Delight said, but Mack shook his head.
“You contracted us the minute you had us help you secure that station and involved us in negotiations for establishing Iron Hands.”
“And I thought that was Queen Tekravzary,” Delight countered.
Mack smiled.
“Other contracts that are not counter to your interests are not relevant, provided we are available when you call.”
“If you don’t mind,” said the voice I’d heard before I’d been drugged under, “the only thing of current interest is this patient returning to operations, and you are both underfoot.”
Mack and Delight moved to continue their dickering, eventually leaving the medical team to extract me from the tank and do a post-operative check while they adjourned to a small conference room not far away.
“Thierry will take you,” the doc said, when I was checked, dried and dressed.
He handed me a folded sheet of paper.
“You’re cleared for operations.”
Thierry was tall, built like a bean-pole, and dark-eyed with a shock of sandy-hair that didn’t look like it had ever lost a battle with a comb. She didn’t say a word for the entire short trip to where Mack and Delight were putting the finishing touches on yet another contract.
Delight dismissed her with a nod, and then turned to me.
“How d’you feel, Cutter?”
“Better,” I said, and it was true.
I no longer felt light-headed, or like a walking mass of pain. I looked to Mack, feeling energy riffle through me.
“Where to next, boss?”
He glanced over at Delight.
“Shuttle bay?”
“Shuttle bay,” she agreed, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of not having my atoms ripped to shreds and slammed back together, again—well, at least not for the rest of the day.
“How’s Askavor?” I asked, and Delight smiled.
“The reason we’re taking the shuttle down,” she said, “is because they don’t have a regen tank on K’Kavor, let alone one big enough to tank up a weaver or a vespis. This war goes as nasty as we think it will, and we’re going to need tanks—and the teams trained to use them.”
“And this warrants a shuttle, because…”
“It’s a very big shuttle,” Delight said, and wouldn’t be drawn.
It was, indeed, a “very big shuttle”—and I hadn’t known what sort of operations Delight was on, couldn’t think of any that needed heavy lift capability. Whatever it was, it required regen tanks to be distributed to frontier worlds that needed them. It also needed the technicians to operate them, and the engineers to install them… and that meant they had the engineers to reconfigure them, too. Apparently, not all the worlds they were visiting were human.
“Why do you want to know?” Delight demanded.
I shrugged. “Just curious,” I told her.
“Cutter…” Mack warned, and I sighed.
“Fine.”
Delight just gazed at me a little longer, so I gazed back.
“Oh, give it a break!” Mack said. “We have too much shit to do for you two to get into a pissing contest.”
Delight snapped her head towards him, pursing her lips, before turning away.
“We’re ready,” she said, and the hatch closed behind us.
Those aboard glanced towards us, but looked, just as quickly away. That suited me just fine. I
