Yeah. That made sense. Of course, Odyssey had a navy. Now, why hadn’t I thought of that when I was thinking luxury cruise liners?
“We don’t advertise our military arm,” the commander said. “And now you’ve been told, we might just have to kill you.”
I froze, and she started smirking. Considering I’d been threatened with being thrown out an airlock, and hadn’t been told the threat had been rescinded, I didn’t think she was funny. That thought wiped the smile from her face.
“Sorry, kid. I didn’t know.”
She hadn’t known? How could she not have known?
“Since I haven’t had to deal with you, and no-one’s passed me your files, yet.”
Now, that sounded like an order if ever I’d heard one. I followed her look and saw that Delight’s eyes were open. She met the commander’s gaze, and closed her eyes—not for long, though.
“Done,” she said, when she opened them, again, and the commander stood still, her grip tightening on my arm.
“Hard to believe everyone thinks you’re that much trouble.”
Behind her, Delight started coughing, but it sounded like a poor attempt at laughing to me.
“You haven’t known her long enough.”
I flipped her a mental finger, and the commander’s grip tightened.
“Keep it clean,” she said, and then tugged on my arm. “Let’s get you to the head, before there’s a queue.”
Now, that sounded like a good idea to me. I looked for Mack, as we passed between the long rows of beds that had been set up on the concourse. It worried me when I didn’t see him. Had they taken him back to the ship? And, if so, why not me?
“He’s around,” the commander said, keeping me moving when I would have come to a panicked stop. “No one got returned to a ship, while they were sick. Don’t sweat it.”
At least she was talking to me from the outside of my head, even if she was answering the questions almost as fast as I thought them. We headed into the public san facility that opened up off the concourse, and I understood why they might have set up the infirmary where they had.
“Pretty much,” the commander said. “Lots of space, plenty of access to the facilities we knew we’d need, and it allowed a higher ratio of patients to care, which we needed given the clan personnel had also been hit by the virus.”
“So you took over the station?”
The commander shrugged.
“Pretty much.”
“Didn’t they protest?”
“We showed them the charges they had pending.”
The commander guided me to a cubicle, and opened the door.
“I take it you can manage this by yourself?”
“Yeah. Thanks,” and I closed the door between us.
It didn’t help that I knew she was waiting outside the door, but I didn’t argue. I needed the san time. I could look for Mack after.
In the end, I didn’t need to. Mack was lounging against the wall as we came out of the facility. It looked like he’d managed to ditch whatever escort he was supposed to have just so he could wait for me.
“Nope,” he said. “I just convinced them I wouldn’t move, until the commander arrived, and then I’d go wherever she told me.”
I made a mental note to look for an Odyssey staffer sporting a black eye, and the commander snickered.
“Hey!” but Mack didn’t sound at all offended. He fell into step beside us, and then sat on the bed on the other side of mine.
The realization that he hadn’t been very far away made some of the uneasiness I’d been feeling go away. I let myself be maneuvered back into bed, but didn’t want to lie down. I noticed that Mack didn’t lie down, either. I looked across at him, aware that the commander had taken a seat between Delight and I. Why we warranted such attention, I didn’t know, and I didn’t really care. I figured not much was going to go wrong with Mack around... well, that’s what I was hoping.
“Funny, Cutter,” but Mack didn’t sound very amused.
I rolled my eyes. That man was never amused. If he’d had a sense of humor, ever, it looked like it had been removed a long time ago.
“Yeah, and your sooo funny yourself,” Mack said, and I tried to ignore the sounds of amusement coming from the direction of Delight and her commander.
It was time to change the subject.
“So, what’s next?” I asked, and, just like that, I had my captain back.
“Your captain?” Mack wanted to know, but I ignored that, too.
To my surprise, it was the commander who answered.
“We still have to retrieve Melari.”
Mack stared at her, and she continued.
“She wasn’t at the lodge. She’d been there, but she’d been moved, and, judging from what we found there, she’d been moved in one hell of a hurry. We’re working on a location, now, but whatever we do, it’s going to have to be fast, and subtle.” She paused, frowning. “You can do subtle, can’t you?”
“She’s got you there, boss,” Tens said, and we looked over to see him crossing the room.
“They cleared the ship, while you were sleeping, and we just finished decontamination.”
“The crew?” Mack asked.
“All good, and that includes the kid and his dog. Damn critter didn’t leave him the whole time he was down.”
I guessed they meant Rohan, and regretted not having found the time to see him since being dragged back on board. The dog was a legacy of the last time I’d run a mission with Mack, except it had been Rohan’s idea to go into the Ghoul’s complex and find it. We’d needed it... and then we hadn’t, but it had needed us, and Rohan had adopted it. Tens had not been impressed.
“Still not impressed, kiddo,” he said, coming to stand at the foot of my bed, “but it keeps the boy steady, so we let it stay.”
That last was said with a glance over at Mack, but Mack said nothing, and I didn’t pursue it.
“Melari,” Mack said, bringing us back to the topic at hand. “Tens, liaise with
