“Where do you want us to go next?”
“As you said, our interests coincide with the queen’s, and she has you tied up tighter than you know. Helping her solve the incursion is in our interests. Do that until we need you.”
“Done,” and Mack leant back in the seat and closed his eyes.
It was another old soldier trick. I puzzled over that as the shuttle dropped into open space, and then I settled myself beside him. Those old soldiers had a point. Sleep was never guaranteed. Come night, we might be called out on yet another task.
“Shut it, Cutter.”
Fine. Whatever.
I closed my eyes, and didn’t bother opening them, again, until we touched down. Delight, for a change, didn’t say a word. She led the way out of the shuttle, greeting the queen, and then moving on to the settlement’s representative.
“Where do you want these?” she asked, and did not seem happy with his answer.
“There is nothing in the colony that can take them, but we can store them over here, while your engineers tell us what is needed.”
Mack and I watched Delight deliver her news to the crew, and then accompany the medical staff to the shuttle.
“We need to set up at least one for Askavor,” she said. “We can always move it later. You will find us space.”
While I wanted to know how that conversation turned out, the queen had beckoned, and Mack tapped me on the shoulder as he moved to answer her summons.
“Come,” she said, as we came alongside. “While Odyssey tends to our needs, your skills are required elsewhere. Are you equipped?”
And I remembered that we had been diverted before I could collect my gear from the ship. I felt my face color with embarrassment.
“No, your Majesty. I am sorry.”
“T’Kit will take you to the armory.” She paused. “You and Mack both. We will reconvene at the drop-ship. Rohan will pilot.”
Tens had been listening through my implant.
“Tell her we’ll be ready,” he said.
I opened my mouth to relay his message, but the queen inclined her head.
“Thank you, Cutter. Tell him we will be there shortly.”
“Got it,” Tens said, before I could do as she asked, and I felt more like a chat room, than a relay station.
It didn’t help to hear them both chuckle at that.
“Come on, Cutter,” Mack said, “before we’re too slow to join the party.”
I kept a tight grip on my thoughts, and followed T’Kit as she took us across the compound.
Kitting up was easy. There were Blazers and there were blades. There were even a couple of Brahms 89s, but no Zakravas, and definitely no Glazers. I took what I could, and then picked up a short, heavy-bladed knife, as a second weapon. Mack watched me.
“You sure you have enough?”
I thought about what I had faced in the holding cell on the arach ship, and shivered.
“Nope, but I’ll make it count.”
T’Kit caught the surface memory of arach coming along the ceiling of the cell, of arach half-morphed between human and spider, the arach under the shuttle coming straight at me. She paused, as though caught between saying nothing, and trying to say something that would make me feel better.
“That is all the queen asks,” she said, taking extra magazines and chargers for her own pack.
“This place got first aid kits?” I asked, thinking how useful one of those would have been in encounters past.
“There.”
I picked up two. I might not be able to use stim packs or adrenaline, but I could sure as shit handle bandages and wound glue. I made a note to stock up on skin-seal patches the next time I was on the ship, and Mack quirked an eyebrow.
“Doc catches you raiding his medical supplies, and he’ll make you regret it.”
“I’ll ask,” I said. “Doc’s a reasonable man.”
The look on Mack’s face said that might not extend to handing out his medical supplies, but I didn’t pursue it. I was pretty sure Doc and I would come to some kind of understanding. Mack just picked up his own med kit, stuffed a few more charge packs into his pockets, and turned to T’Kit.
“We’re done,” he said.
The walk back to the drop-ship was done in double-quick time. In fact, if I hadn’t known any better, I’d have said T’Kit was in a hurry.
“We do not want company,” she said. “This is a weaver colony, and the queen wants to see if there are those who might be saved.”
She paused.
“We are not so sure your Agent Delight would be open to the idea.”
Mack snorted, and I couldn’t suppress a smile. Pretty sure Delight would be pissed if she knew.
“Damn right,” the agent said, “but they have a point. Good luck.”
T’Kit didn’t slow the pace, and we jogged across the landing field and onto the ship, envying her the use of her wings. The ramp closed and the ship lifted before we made our seats.
“What’s the hurry?” Mack wanted to know.
“They picked up shuttles on the scanners, just after the arach attack on the airfield,” the queen said. “I fear for the safety of the settlement—and for what the arach may have done prior to evacuation.”
“Are you sure it is an evacuation?”
“We are not sure. We suspect there will be infiltrators in the human settlements, even after the rest of the arach seem to have left. We will need assistance with that, too, but, first, we must save those we can in the weaver colonies.”
I wanted to know what made her so certain that there would be weavers who needed saving, but she did not explain. Instead, she uttered a single, demanding chitter, and the drop-ship picked up speed. This time, the ship flew, straight and fast, into the hills. The pilot appeared to know exactly where we needed to go, and I figured the vespis hadn’t wasted any time while their queen was in space.
While we’d been clearing the ship and the station, her ground
