“You’re not the only one I fitted a monitor to. Mack was knocked about by your little excursion to Costral, too.”
My excursion? So, it was my fault? I was about to point out exactly whose fault it was, when Mack stepped in.
“That was my little excursion, Doc.” Mack’s eyes flicked to the metal hand. “And the proximity bracelet was mine, too. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I wanted her coming back.”
Given I had been planning on ditching him on Costral, there really was nothing I could say to that, so I didn’t say anything. I just eased myself off the scan table, and looked to Doc.
“Is there anything else, Doc?”
“Yeah,” Doc said. “You’re to report to Mack, when I’m done.”
I looked over at where Mack stood.
“So, boss...” I started, but Tens interrupted before I could go any further.
“They’ve found us,” and then he added in aside not meant for us, “Stand down, Case. You’ve done what you can.”
Mack cut across him.
“Clear the bridge. Case, get some rest. You did well to buy us this much time. Tens, stay right there. Cutter and I will be up shortly.”
I glanced back at Doc, but he was looking to Mack.
“Any injuries?” and I understood he wasn’t asking if Mack was hurt, but if there was anyone else on the crew who needed him.
“In the infirmary,” Mack told him. “They’ll need you there.”
And Doc was gone, brushing right past Mack and me like we were no longer important. When we were the only ones in the scan bay, Mack turned to me.
“You coming, Cutter?” he asked, and then he offered me his arm, much the same way Doc had done.
I hesitated, not sure whether to take it or not, but it seemed churlish to refuse, so I slid my good, right hand through his elbow, and walked with him into the corridor.
“What kind of trouble do we have?” Mack asked, and, when Tens replied, it was for our ears alone.
“Skymander brought a battle ship.”
“The hell he did.”
“I’m not sure how he traced us, but he followed us through the first three hard burns, before we lost his fleet, and then we did another two before Engineering told us we’d lose the ship if we tried a sixth.” Tens sighed, and then added, “I thought we were out from under, boss, but...”
“You were,” Mack said. “He’s just got more contacts than we realized. What else is out there?”
“A squadron of light fighters.”
“So, no running then.”
“We couldn’t if we tried. Engineering would have our balls.”
“Not if we blew the ship up,” but even Mack sounded tired.
I caught the movement of his hand as he raised it to cover his eyes, and then drew his fingers together to pinch the bridge of his nose.
“Are they hailing?”
Oh, by the stars, I hoped so.
“Not yet,” Tens said, “but I’ve got Engineering to cut power to the drive. If we’re lucky they’ll see that as a sign we’re willing to talk.”
“Let’s hope they’re in the mood.”
“We’ve been in range of their missiles for the last standard hour,” Tens told him. “They could have had us if they wanted.”
That might have been the case, but just because they hadn’t fired, didn’t mean they wouldn’t. I kept that thought firmly to myself, and, if Mack and Tens saw it, they chose not to comment.
Mack and I headed for the command deck, and hoped.
Tens was waiting when we got there.
18—Skymander Calls
“What happened to Delight?” I asked as we waited for the comms to go live.
I’d been almost to the door, before I remembered Delight had gone down to Blaedergil’s complex with us. She’d diverted from her planned alternative at the spaceport, when she’d realized Skymander wasn’t going to land there. Mack glanced at me, as though he hadn’t thought of Delight since we’d gotten off Magnus 19. It looked like a complication he hadn’t been expecting.
“I’ll have Tens look into it,” he said, as the command center door slid open.
Tens’ reply of “On it,” came through in both the implant and our ears.
Once the door had slid shut behind Mack and me, Tens indicated the view screen.
“There she is,” he said, and he did not mean Delight.
Our ship was hanging, dead, in space. Not drifting, per se, but doing the star-bound version of exactly that. I stared where Tens pointed, and saw the slowly clarifying silhouette of something big moving towards us. Whatever it was, it was partially outlined by the gleam of its drives, but still near-impossible to get a good look at.
Tens used the scans to outline it, so we could observe its slowly approaching bulk. I didn’t find it helpful when he highlighted the weapons arrays, or the swarm of smaller vehicles surrounding it.
“We are so screwed.”
Mack’s lips twitched, and he moved to the command console, and settled in behind it.
“You know anything useful here?”
I remembered my time with Keevers.
“Security?”
Mack shook his head, but indicated a console, anyway.
“Weapons. See what you can do with that, but don’t shoot them by accident.”
Tens snorted, but his attention was focused on the console and screen in front of him. I figured he was looking for Delight, so I ignored him and set about familiarizing myself with the console before me. I was sorely tempted to play with the weapons array, and see what happened, but even I knew that might be a bad idea. There was no telling how the incoming battleship would react.
I ran through the functions, and felt Tens presence in my head.
“Here,” he said, and sent me the knowledge I required.
I’d heard of teaching programs, which just wired the signals into a brain while the person slept. I hadn’t known an implant could be used to do more than pass files. When I’d allowed Tens’ program to unwrap, I found I knew what I’d wanted to know, and took my hands away from the controls.
Best not to play with that.
I had a moment of vertigo, as everything settled into place, and closed my eyes
