“Tens is going to be irritated if we let another pot of coffee go cold,” he said, stepping between us and laying an arm across my shoulders. “It’s not something we can replenish on the station.”
I caught the stubborn set to Pritchard’s jaw, and watched it soften as Delight laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Coffee first,” she said, firmly, and he subsided. I missed whatever passed between them next, as Mack started towards the caf, taking me with him.
“Still causing trouble?” he asked, but his tone was light, so I didn’t dignify it with an answer.
We were met by slow clapping as we entered the caf, and Tens was standing beside the doorway to Mack’s private dining room.
“It’s about time,” he said. “Case says you need to get your shit together, and let her know if you need any fancy flying done on the approach. By which she means you’ve got about ten minutes, or it won’t happen.”
I looked at Delight, and then at Pritchard.
“You’re more familiar with the station approaches,” I said. “Do we need Case to do any fancy flying?”
“Depends on the berth,” Delight said, and Tens highlighted where we’d been assigned to dock. “Sweet. In that case, we’re good. We’ll do a bit of a belly crawl, and then come up to the hatch.”
She turned to me, highlighting the hatch we’d need if we took the furthest lab on the list.
“Suit you, Cutter?”
I looked at the map, noted the hatch and store room she was suggesting, and looked for anything that might provide an alternative. In the end, it was pretty clear.
“It’ll do,” I said, “but what if it isn’t there?”
Delight cocked her head and smiled.
“I was hoping you’d have a suggestion for that,” she said, and I wondered what game she was playing.
“A diplomatic one,” she said, and I rolled my eyes.
Implant. Compromised. What-the-fuck-ever.
I ran a quick route through the ducts, and then patched into the security cams for the outer level.
“You know what?” I said. “I think that lab’s a red herring.”
I felt Mack sit up and start paying attention, so I stuck the footage from the three labs side by side. The lab on the inside of the corridor, was empty, save for two scientists, and a row of pods. The lab opposite it, had more pods, but a half dozen more scientists at three different tables running parallel on either side of the pods. The lower lab had a single pod, two scientists working opposite each other at screens set on the desks placed back-to-back beside it, and nothing like the equipment we’d seen in the other labs.
“For a lab working on a cure, that one’s seriously understaffed,” I said.
“And under-equipped,” Pritchard added.
“At least you’re dressed the part,” Mack said. “Those civvies will blend right in, if you decide to take the elevator up, and use the corridors.”
He had a point. Corridors and elevator would be quicker than returning for an EVA to the hatch we’d identified as the closest access point to the upper labs, and they’d be much, much quicker than using the ventilation shafts.
“Safer, too,” Delight concurred, and I wondered why she said that.
I found out when she took us on a run-through of her previous experience in the ducts.
“That has to be illegal!”
“Not on Costral.”
“But it’s a space station. Someone could get hurt!”
“I think that’s the general idea.”
“What happens to the maintenance workers?”
“They have remotes to turn it off.”
“And what if they don’t work?”
“They only lose one or two a year.”
I stared at the visual she’d provided, and could understand why. If I saw one of those things coming at me through the ducts, I just might forget how to use the remote, too—or maybe drop the damn thing out of sheer fright—and that was in addition to the movement sensors, heat sensors, laser points, and gas traps. In fact, I was real glad Delight was coming along to take point in the vents.
“I should be making you go first, as a training exercise,” she said, and looked towards Mack as he shifted his weight in his chair, “but Mack says I’m better equipped, and he’d like me to prove why he was bothering to keep me around.”
That last was delivered with a twist of the mouth that made it look like she’d eaten something sour, and I wondered what else Mack had said to gain the admission.
“You don’t want to know,” came softly into my head, and I couldn’t help but glance at him.
Tens was smirking, again, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t helping the situation any, and I tried real hard to keep that thought to myself. I was going to be relying on Delight to keep me alive, and I really didn’t want her any more pissed off with me than she already was.
“Good luck with that.” Tens, again, and I glared at him.
“We going yet?” I asked.
Mack leaned back in his seat, and sipped his coffee, but his eyes had that faraway look that said he was talking to Case. At least, that’s what I thought he was doing. I couldn’t hear a thing, and, for a moment, I envied him the privacy.
He must have caught the edge of my thoughts, because his eyes flickered in my direction, but he didn’t say a word to address it. Whatever he thought about the situation he’d put me in, he wasn’t sharing. Delight watched the exchange from beside me, but was equally quiet, and Pritchard? Pritchard just sat back sipping the tea, he’d ordered, and keeping an eye on us all.
You woulda thought he was the only responsible adult in the room.
And raised eyebrows at that thought, didn’t win him any brownie points, either. They meant he was still reading me through my implant, and I still didn’t appreciate it. Whatever.
I waited for Mack’s verdict.
“Case says we dock in ten.”
Delight slapped me on the shoulder, and stood up.
“Time to go, kiddo,” she said, and headed for the door.
She glanced back
