“I didn’t think they had local capability,” I said, and he nodded.
“It didn’t occur to any of us, either.”
“The port happened just before you took the Rennet’s World ship.” Rohan’s words dropped into the momentary silence like a stone.
Delight’s head snapped around. “They what?”
The kid gave her an uncertain look, and then continued. “I couldn’t work out how they’d done it, so I went back over the logs.”
He gave Tens an apologetic glance. “I haven’t had time to let you know, but Cas and I traced the beam to the ship.”
Delight looked over at Pritchard and the man nodded. “We didn’t get through to the teleportation center until just before you blew the bridge door. I hadn’t thought they’d done anything.”
Tens shrugged. “My bad.”
It was as close to an apology as I’d ever heard him make, but at least we knew where the signal had come from...and that it wasn’t likely to happen, again.
“And the arach?”
“Their ship is hanging at the edge of the system,” Delight informed me. “We think if we can clear the arach off the world, it’ll go away.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
She shrugged. “We can’t catch it. We have ships closing, but if she jumps, we won’t be able to track her.”
“It’s a queen,” I told her, and she nodded.
“We know. We’re working on it.”
‘Working on it’ meant Odyssey was doing the best they could, probably pulling resources from other situations to try and track the ship once it left...
Because it was going to leave. With the death of the arach king, and the world too secure to plunder, they would leave. The only problem was how long it would take them to come back.
“Exactly,” Delight agreed, which brings me to your task.”
I sat a little straighter, glancing at Mack. We had a task?
“We have a task,” he confirmed, “but she wouldn’t tell us until you arrived.”
Huh, so I had been holding up the party.
Yup.
I resisted the urge to give him the finger, but he saw the thought cross my mind, anyway.
Delight, if she noticed the exchange, ignored it.
“Me, Case and Stepyan are going planetside to take care of the arach holed up in Barangail’s mansion...and any Rennet’s wolves that happen to get in the way.”
Judging from the sour look on Mack’s face, this was something he’d lost the argument on—and I wondered why Case and Stepyan had been singled out.
“Assassinating a planet’s governance isn’t something Odyssey condones,” Mack told me, glaring at Delight, “regardless of how badly it needs to be done.”
Delight’s face gave nothing away, and Pritchard’s was just as blank.
Case shrugged. “It’s penance. We do this for Odyssey; Mack gets to keep us.”
That was pretty much how Odyssey worked. The rules only applied if it suited them.
Delight’s lip curled with scorn, but I ignored her.
“And the cub?” I asked, instead.
Before Delight could answer, Mack sighed. “That’s our penance.”
“For what?” I demanded.
His lips twitched with amusement. “Apparently ancient tech is something that needs to be reported and shared.”
“Like hell, it does.”
Case snickered, and Delight raised her eyebrows. She pursed her lips, and pushed back her chair.
“Well, regardless of what you think,” she told me, “I need to be able to say you were here on our behalf.”
“You could say it without having us do your dirty work,” I pointed out.
She smiled. “Now, now, Cutter. You know that’s not how it works.”
I did...but that didn’t mean I liked it.
Delight didn’t care, she headed for the door, Pritchard at her back...as always. Anyone might think we were going to cause them trouble.
Tens pushed back his chair and followed, casting Rohan a look that told the kid to follow, which was when I realized he was coming, too.
“What did Rohan do?”
“Hacked a world’s comms system,” Tens threw back over his shoulder.
“But Odyssey does that all the time...” I protested.
Rohan patted me on the back as he passed. “Apparently it’s all right for them to do it.”
Mack just shook his head. “They have the relevant permissions,” he explained, then added. “We do not.”
Oh... I exchanged a look with Rohan and saw the same thought reflected in his eyes. Yeah, what...ever...
31—End Game
Mack and I hit Barangail’s mansion in the entry hall. Rohan had hacked down the teleport shields, again, and he, Cascade and Tens were somewhere in Barangail’s communications center.
Delight, Stepyan and Case had ended up somewhere deeper, where the arach were making a last-ditch defense. Who knew what the Rennet’s World wolves were doing, but as long as they didn’t get in the way of us getting the cub, I didn’t care.
Whatever, right? Even I knew our chances of that were next to none.
“Get your head in the game.” Mack’s voice rumbled through my head and sent shivers through my chest.
Still, it pulled me back to the present and my eyes registered the wolves before mind did. My hands were moving and I was firing even as I registered the Rennet’s World patches on the guards’ chests.
My guess is they were pretty pissed about losing their ride home, but I truly didn’t care. They were all going down...which was about when I registered that Mack hadn’t slapped me with a stim pack...which was unusual.
“Doc said you’d reached your limit for the week,” Mack told me.
I had a limit?
“When it comes to that last kind, you do.”
Oh. Well, that couldn’t be good. I just hoped I could do it under my own steam. No way known did I want to be caught short just when I needed a boost.
Mack chuckled. “Way you train?” he asked, shooting one guard between the eyes, and a second four times in the chest.
On the fourth shot, it’s shielding caved and Mack’s fifth and sixth shot took it in the face.
I kept in close beside him, taking down the wolves on our right, while he took down those on our left. We cleared the atrium in record time.
“Cub, Rohan,” Mack snarled, closing on the elevator. “Up or down?”
A sixth guard appeared from an alcove
