“Old?” Doc asked, coming through the door. “That little lady ain’t never getting old.”
“She isn’t even going to make middle age,” Tens agreed, then indicated the wound on my neck. “I haven’t had time to dress it, yet.”
“That’s fine, son. You get back to looking out for Mack. I’ll take care of our accident-prone friend, here.”
I was accident prone?
Doc pulled a chair up beside the bed.
“Yeah. You are.”
Fine. Whatever.
Doc pulled out a hypoderm and I felt my heart speed up, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to escape him. I couldn’t even protest. He looked down at me, and smiled grimly.
“Arach venom,” he said. “I’ll have to remember that next time I want to give you some shots.”
I’d have glared if I could have, but the venom had affected those muscles, as well. I wondered why it hadn’t affected my heart, or ability to breathe, but wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Doc told me, anyway.
“Adaptation,” he said. “We’re not sure if it was deliberate, or just a trick of nature, but they only feed off living prey, and most critters need a heartbeat and air in order to do that. Their venom leaves those alone, takes out pretty much everything else.”
Well, that explained that, and I thought about how terrible it was to watch yourself being eaten, without being able to fight the monster off.
“They also say the arach like the taste of terror, and that it flavors the blood, when they feed.”
That was a horrible idea, and I wondered what creation myth had demons creating life, because I doubted there was a deity anywhere who’d have made anything so diabolical.
“You’d be surprised,” Doc muttered, but he didn’t elaborate, and I could feel his fingers moving over the bite wound. “You were lucky they were in a hurry.”
Man, I thought, as sleep dragged at my mind, if that was luck, then I didn’t want to know what unlucky was!
Doc muttered a reply, but I didn’t catch it as fatigue rolled me under.
I woke in the infirmary, like I had so many times before, but this time it was different—Mack wasn’t waiting for me, when I woke up. That worried me, far beyond the fact it was out of the norm. It meant I either hadn’t been under for that long, or the mission had run over time... and I didn’t think it was the former.
I could feel the familiar buzz of nanites on the skin at my neck and wrist, and noticed the clear, plastic patch over the bite mark on my inner arm. Reaching up, I could feel a similar patch over the wound in my neck. The fact I could see new skin at my wrist meant the little bugs had nearly finished their work. The fact I’d woken up before they were done was disturbing.
“Doc?” My voice sounded raspy, but at least I had it back.
I sat up, and swung my legs over the side of the bed, glad to notice I was in a standard-issue hospital gown.
Time, I thought, I went and found myself some combat armor, gear and guns.
It bothered me that Doc still hadn’t made an appearance, but it didn’t stop me. If something had gone wrong with the ship, I’d find out soon enough. Which reminded me...
I stopped, half-way through the door, and used my implant to hook into the ship’s systems. If Mack and Delight hadn’t returned, then Tens would probably be too busy at the teleport station to notice...
“Don’t bet on it, Cutter.” Tens voice came through the implant loud and clear. “Ship isn’t compromised, but I don’t think I can say the same for our mutual friends. Get your gear, and get your arse back here.”
I figured ‘here’ meant the teleport station, and sighed. Now, I definitely wasn’t waiting for Doc. Having him mad at me was on just about the same level as having Tens mad at me—and I didn’t enjoy being in either situation. I made it to my quarters, and checked my closet.
The light combat suit and some underwear was better than the little-more-than-nothing gown I had on, so I pulled them on. It looked like I’d have to get down to the armory to have a chance at getting any form of armor, so that could be my next stop... Right after I got my tools... oh.
I sighed, realizing my tools would still be in the combat armor I’d been wearing when I’d made it back on board. The only question was: where had that been put, when it had been taken off me? After a moment’s thought, I figured that, since it had needed charging, it would probably have been returned to the armory.
I could kill two birds with one stone.
Decision made, I grabbed my spare boots and got them on, ignoring the minor twinges of pain I felt where I’d been bitten by the arach and Costral’s river monster. The armory was a quick jog along the corridor and down a couple of decks.
I got a few strange looks, but people moved out of my way, and I made it there in double-quick time. Tens must have called ahead, because I was met by Steppy when I arrived. He said nothing, just pointed at where the armor waited on a stand by the door.
“Is it charged?”
He rolled his eyes.
“Charged, cleaned, and repaired.” That last was said with enough venom, to be a reprimand, and I felt myself blushing in response.
“Fine.” It would do me no good to show remorse. I had shit to get done, and no time to deal. “Weapons?”
He shot me a glare that should have stopped me in my tracks, but I ignored it, sealing the armor shut, but leaving the hood hanging open. I’d seal that just before I ported. Give the Chief his due, though, he didn’t waste time in a pissing competition, he just stomped his way to a locked cupboard set in the wall, palmed it
