Table of Contents
Mack ‘n’ Me: The Wolves of Alpha 9
Dedication
Contents
1—Rumors of Wrecks
2—Three Rounds with Tens
3—Pre-Ops
4—A Lady is...
5—...As a Lady Does
6—Unmasked
7—Of Lords and Kings
8—The Suggestibility of Stims
9—A Suspicious Meal
10—The Missing Bracelet Mission
11—A Guarantee for Good Behavior
12—Into the Deeps
13—The Place is Crawling
14—Varian, Arc and Hammer
15—Ant Honey
16— Of Wolves and Honey
17— A History of Wolves
18— Upsetting Doc
19—Back in Training
20—It’s All About the Mission
21—Operational Extras
22—Kids and Cubs
23—Coming Home
24—Volunteers
25—Return to Alpha 9
26—Battle Plans
27—Battle Joined
28—Plans Awry
29—Free For All
30—Penance
31—End Game
Author’s Notes
Other Work by C.M. Simpson
About C.M. Simpson
Mack ‘n’ Me: The Wolves of Alpha 9
Mack ‘n’ Me ‘n’ Odyssey #5
C.M. Simpson
A relic from a near-forgotten war, an escaped concubine, and planetary annexation. When Mack’s hunt for a crashed war ship goes terribly wrong, Cutter and the crew find themselves embroiled in the politics of rebellion, inter-species warfare and inter-clan domination. Throw in clan rivalries and a cub in need of rescue, and a simple wreck retrieval becomes a matter of life, death and Odyssey. The only question is just how much trouble they can get into before they need help getting back out...and if someone will be there to aid them.
NOTE: The main character swears like a sailor, and the support cast aren’t much better. If swears bother you, then this story may not be to your taste.
1st Edition
Copyright © March 17, 2021 C.M. Simpson
Cover Art & Design © September 24, 2020, Moonchild Lilja at Fantasy Book Design
All rights reserved.
License Notes
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to an authorized retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedication
This is for all those who believed in me enough that, eventually, I had the courage to believe in myself.
Thank you.
Contents
Acknowledgements
1—Rumors of Wrecks
2—Three Rounds with Tens
3—Pre-Ops
4—A Lady is...
5—...as a Lady Does.
6—Unmasked
7—Of Lords and Kings
8—The Suggestibility of Stims
9—A Suspicious Meal
10—The Missing Bracelet Mission
11—A Guarantee for Good Behavior
12—Into the Deeps
13—The Place is Crawling
14—Varian, Arc, and Hammer
15—Ant Honey
16—Honey and Wolves
17—A History of Wolves
18—Upsetting Doc
19—Back in Training
20—It’s All About the Mission
21—Operational Extras
22—Kids and Cubs
23—Coming Home
24—Volunteers
25—Return to Alpha 9
26—Battle Plans
27—Battle Joined
28—Plans Awry
29—Free for All
30—Penance
31—End Game
Author’s Notes
Other Work by C.M. Simpson
About C.M. Simpson
1—Rumors of Wrecks
“You want to go where?” Tens was not impressed. “With all due respect, Captain, are you out of your tiny little mind?”
I watched as Mack rolled an eye in Tens’s direction, and was glad it was Tens who’d asked, and not me. I wouldn’t have been anywhere near as polite.
And I wouldn’t have gotten away with it.
But if Tens was leading...
“Don’t go there, Cutter.”
Well, damn. The man was still reading me like a book.
He smirked.
“Like that’s ever going to change.”
He looked back over at Tens.
“We’ve hit a quiet patch, and I’m curious.”
The way he said it, you’da thought that explained everything.
Given it was Mack, it kinda did.
The man needed distracting.
“Yeah,” Tens said, picking up on that thought, and I remembered that Mack wasn’t the only one who could get inside my head. “And we all know why.”
“Shut it, Tens!” was something I said in duet, Mack and I completely in agreement for a change.
He stared back at us, shifting his gaze between us.
“Fine!” he said, “I don’t suppose I need to remind you what happened the last time you two were there.”
And Mack and I looked at each other. Last time we’d been on Alpha 9 it had been because Odyssey asked...or, rather, insisted we go there, and I mean at gunpoint, and with Mack’s ship and crew as hostages. We’d been going to say no, and that wasn’t an answer they’d take.
Either way, we’d ended up going to Alpha Nine, retrieving a missing data packet, and leaping off a balcony some ten thousand feet above the Carafakt. Tens had picked us up in a teleport beam before we’d gone more than a thousand, but it had still been one Hell of a ride.
And it wasn’t one that I wanted to repeat. I looked over at Mack, and my heart sank. He really was serious.
“Damn straight, I am, Cutter.”
Well, that told me.
He sighed.
“It would make a break from our usual line of work, give the crew some downtime, and maybe net us a bounty on the Odyssey tech front.”
That last point was interesting, given that we’d netted enough bounties in the last ten years that we probably didn’t have to take another Odyssey contract ever, ever again. I looked at him, and saw the tension lurking in his shoulders. For some reason, our agreement meant something. I watched his eyes widen, and he shot me a quick slideways glance.
It didn’t help that Tens had caught that thought, as well. I caught a second look from him, and he shrugged.
“Sure, boss. It’s your boat.”
From the way he said it, he might as well have been saying it was Mack’s funeral.
And that thought earned me rolled eyes from the pair of them.
What? They thought I’d go easy on either of them just because I knew they were in my head? Since when had that ever been a factor? I’d given up trying to keep my thoughts out of my implant and private, ever since I’d learned that it just wasn’t something I could do with this model—and I didn’t want to trade up. I was kinda comfortable knowing they were in my head. It wasn’t like either of them could dictate how I felt—and the Stars knew they’d both tried to do that often enough.
“Hey!”
I didn’t know why they even bothered protesting. They were both as guilty as sin.
“If the shoe fits,” I muttered, and then changed the subject. “So, boss, these wrecks. You wanta tell us about them?”
And Mack relaxed.
“I picked it up on the net,” he said, and he was looking as cagey as hell, like there was some secret about
