It seemed a strange order for the commander in charge of an operation to be giving, and then he added a single sentence that explained it all.
“Their commander is Pritchard.”
Oh. Oh, fuck. Pritchard was as protective as hell of his Delight.
Even as I thought it, we broke cover of the trees, and the arach ship was before us. It wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t a small ship, either, and I wondered how such a thing would find the energy to make orbit.
“No-one’s worked it out,” Mack told me. “We need to try and take the ship intact.”
Well, that should be simple enough.
“You’d be surprised.”
Considering the very little I knew about the arach, no. No, I probably would not.
We came out of cover at a run. There was no time for stealth, and none of us thought they hadn’t seen us coming. The only mystery was why they were still on the ground. It begged the question as to what the arach knew that we did not.
“Let’s go find out,” said the voice of my soldier, and I felt my spirits lift.
Yes. Let’s.
We made it half-way across the ground before the first turret opened fire.
They had ground cannon?
Damn.
“On it.” Tens.
Even as he spoke, I watched silver shimmer under the belly of the ship, and knew Odyssey’s team had arrived. They were under the cannons’ arc, and wasted no time in taking the fire ports out. Honestly, I’d never seen a mine used quite that way, before, but this was Odyssey... and it was Pritchard. Neither could be considered conventional—and Pritchard had been around Delight for far too long.
“Not long enough,” and what the fuck was he doing in my head.
“Looking for Delight.”
I had just enough time to wonder how he was going to do that using my head, when he uncovered Delight’s link to me.
“Get your ass over here.”
“I...” but Mack grabbed me on one side, and the soldier grabbed me on the other, and we ran for the silver figure heading up the ramp.
Why silver? I mean... didn’t that make them easy to hit?
“You’d be surprised.”
Not now, I wouldn’t.
With the cannons taken out, the Skymander troops closed up around us, and we took the boarding ramp—and why had that been down?—at a run. The fighting started as soon as we hit the door.
“Find Delight,” Pritchard ordered. “Mack and Tenravin will keep you from falling.”
They would? And since when did Pritchard know about my little problem with not being able to keep tabs on the outside as well as the inside? Also, it was nice to know the soldier had a name.
“Shut up and work.”
Fine. Bossy as hell didn’t even come close.
I didn’t wait for a response to that, but dove into the link Pritchard had revealed, working my way back along it, until I had located Delight.
“Tens?”
“Got it,” he said. “You can come out, now.”
“Yes, and hurry.”
Well, that sounded like trouble, if ever I heard it.
I traced the link back to my own head, and came back to a battle raging all around me. Mack and Tenravin were standing back to back, with me sandwiched in between. Around them, Pritchard, Odyssey and Skymander’s men were keeping the arach at bay. Of forward progress, there was none.
“I’m here,” I said, and the fight changed.
With a shout, the circle broke, with the troops advancing and killing as they went.
“Skymander, this way,” pulled my soldier away with his comrades, as they fought their way forward, towards the ship’s control center.
“Odyssey, with me,” dragged our silver allies aft.
Mack and I went with them. Delight was as much one of ours as any Odyssey operative could be, and we owed her. If I hadn’t known any better, I might have thought Mack considered her one of the crew.
“Shut it, Cutter.”
We followed Tens’ path to where Delight was being held. The fighting was bloody and close, and the arach came from every corridor and doorway. Odyssey troops diverted right and left, coming back within minutes, the silver of their suits coated in green and yellow ichor. Some came back smeared in black.
Delight was being held in a cell crammed with other operatives.
“We’re incubating,” she whispered when Pritchard reached her. “You need... to hurry.”
Pritchard said nothing, but every Odyssey agent in the cell vanished in a swirl of silver, leaving Mack and I entirely alone.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Here they come,” Mack said, as shadows filled the doorway.
We changed energy clips, and started firing.
“Tens?”
“Sorry, Mack. We’re out of range. Three arach ships came through the point, and we’ve been ordered to pursue. Skymander extends his thanks, and has added the cost of borrowing the ship to your invoice.”
That was quite some tab Skymander was building up.
Mack said nothing, but I knew he wasn’t pleased. It’s just we didn’t have time for cussing. There were too many arach. We were holding them at the door, but that wasn’t going to last. Sooner or later one of them was going to get the bright idea of...
Yup, that would do it.
Mack and I split apart so we could get a clear shot at the arach using one of his dead friends as a shield. He couldn’t turn his cover to face both of us, so we dropped him with a few feet to spare. Unfortunately, the idea caught on, and they came through too fast for us to clear one, before the next came through, and they gave each other cover as they came. I started wishing for a second blade.
Mack and I left it too late to come back together so we could fight back to back. We ended up in two separate corners, each fighting our own battle. I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to hear the sound of gunfire in my life, but that didn’t mean we could relax. Now, it was a matter of surviving until the shooters could reach us.
“Get down!” came through our implants none-too-soon, and Mack and I dropped to the floor as one.
It was a good thing there were so many arach
