“You look fine,” he said, “but there’ll be no mats for a week, whether it’s to settle a dispute, or for training—and you should stay off the range for that long as well. Daggers is fine, but nothing else, until I’m sure that implant has settled. Got it?”
Well, there really was only one answer for that. I did not want Doc mad at me—ever.
“Got it.”
Mack, however, had other plans.
“You have to familiarize!” he snapped, and then repeated the phrase when I insisted he go see Doc.
“Don’t make me take you to the mats,” he warned, and I grinned.
“You’re not allowed to; doctor’s orders.”
“We’ll see about that!” he’d said, and stalked toward Medical.
I followed at a relatively safe distance.
Mack did his usual act of storming into the Doc’s terrain uninvited, and Doc did his usual of reminding Mack where he ended up if things went wrong on a mission.
“Yeah. In some asshole’s custody,” Mack retorted, and Doc reached out and smacked him upside the head.
“And my care!” Doc snapped. “Or do you want to take that to the mats?”
I’d never seen Mack back down so fast in all the time I’d known him.
“The mats, Doc? Aren’t you getting too old for that kind of shit?”
“You want to find out?”
Mack raised his hands in surrender, and backed up a step.
“Not particularly, Doc,” he said. “I just want to find out if there’s any wriggle room in the training restrictions.”
Which wasn’t exactly how he’d phrased it, when he’d spoken to me. Doc’s response was almost instantaneous.
“No mats for a month.”
Funny. I remembered him saying ‘at least a week’. Apparently, Mack had been listening in.
“I thought you said not for a week.”
“I went back over her scans. Frankly, if the mission was something you could put off, I’d be telling you to do that, too. As it is, you are going to have to make sure she doesn’t get thrown around.”
Mack stared at him in disbelief, and I didn’t blame him. I’m pretty sure I was staring at him, too. Doc glared at us both.
“How...” we began, together, and Doc held up his hand.
“You have to tell me you’ll do your best to not let it happen, or I’ll put you both in stasis until she’s fully fit.”
“You’re—” Mack started, but Doc cut him off.
“No, I’m not!”
“We’ll do our best,” I said, answering for both of us, and they both stopped staring at each other to stare at me, which I wasn’t sure was that much better.
“What?”
Doc rolled his eyes, and turned back to Mack.
“I suppose you’re going to push it on the firing practice, now?”
Mack ducked his head.
“She does need to familiarize.”
“Damnitall. I’m right here!”
They both ignored me, and kept staring at each other. Finally, Doc closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Fine. Ten minutes at a stretch. Once in the morning. I’ll do a scan straight after and then an hour after that, and then two hours later.”
I rolled my eyes and huffed a sigh. Great! More tests, and I meant that in the most unhappy of ways. I was oddly relieved when Doc added, “But she practices on her own, with only one weapon firing at any one time.”
At least there wouldn’t be an audience if things went wrong, but Mack was still trying to push the training schedule.
“If those tests come out okay, can we try for fifteen minutes in the afternoon?”
“You give it an eight-hour break between shoots, wait for my okay, and then try for a fifteen-minute stretch, followed by the same testing regime. If everything looks okay, we’ll move to two thirty-minute sessions the following day, and slowly crank it up thereafter.”
“Done,” Mack said, and Doc grimaced, turning away from Mack to whatever he’d been studying on his terminal.
Of course, Mack had to try, one more time.
“And you’re sure—”
“Get out.”
“But—”
Doc turned his head, and glared.
“Don’t. Make. Me. Come. Over there.”
Mack did a smart about face and left the clinic. I gave the Doc a happy grin, and started to follow him. Doc’s next words wiped the smile from my face.
“You overdo it, Cutter, and I will make you regret it.”
“Gotit!” I said, and fled.
Mack was smirking, when I got out into the corridor.
“Come on,” he said. “Tonight, you’re learning how to take ’em apart and put ’em back together. Tomorrow morning, we’ll put you on the range.”
I’m not going to go through just how many times we took those damn side arms apart, or how many times I dropped something, or even how close I came to throwing something at Mack—you know, like a punch, or a stock, or a cartridge, or maybe just the whole damn gun. I just won’t. But Doc’s expression stayed fixed in my head, and I did not want to find out exactly how he was going to make me regret overdoing it.
For his part, Mack seemed to be keeping the Doc’s words in mind, too. He kept everything he said related to the process of dismantling and reassembling the weapons I’d just acquired. There was not one single snark about the amount of time I spent fondling the Zakrava, before I followed his instructions. Nor did he complain when I made extra sure I could get it apart and back together again—even though he’d wanted to start on the Blazer 54.
We went from simple instructions to me racing the clock. Mack set me a time to get the weapon apart and back together again. If I made it, he paid a bounty into my account. I knew how much I owed Odyssey, and I pushed it, until I could make his times, and then go one better.
“Again,” I said, putting my least favorite toy, the Blazer, down on the table in front of me. I’d made the time, and then half the time, and I’d made it to those times
