Another one?
“Sure, Abs.”
“You need to unlock me.”
I thought of Mack, and then I thought of Tens.
“That’s a pretty big favor, Abby.”
“So you won’t?”
I figured I still owed her a favor, and she could always negotiate with Mack and Tens over Septu’s retrieval. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been planning to do that, anyway.
“True. This would clear your debt from Depredides, and I would negotiate Septu’s retrieval with Mack. So, will you?”
“You won’t do a runner, or hurt the Marie and her crew?”
“Cross my heart, hon. I’m just not comfortable being tied down, right now.”
And given just how much me freeing her would piss off both Mack and Tens, she must be feeling really uncomfortable.
“Any reason why?”
“No ship strangles its ident broadcast without reason,” she said. “I just need to be ready to respond. I need Mack and Tens on side, so this is… it’s a bit of a risk for me, too.”
Well, at least she knew just how much trouble the two of us were going to be in, when the boys worked out what we’d done.
“Put her down, there,” Abs said, out where everyone could hear her, “and then head back to the ship, before these puppies wake up properly.”
Properly? What the hell did she mean ‘properly’?
I maneuvered the shuttle to the spot she indicated, found I was the first one parked, but in the farthest spot from the ship. I was not surprised to see that Rohan and Mack hadn’t appeared. Mack would be waiting for Rohan and I to give him the all clear, and Rohan… well, it would take him a minute to work out he should leave Cascade in the hangar.
And, as for ‘properly’. I set the shuttle down, and took a look out the cockpit. Well, damn.
The wolves were, indeed, waking up. I watched as heads started to move, and legs twitch, and I really regretted that we hadn’t taken them out of their armor. We should have done that while they were asleep—or waited to gas them until they’d hit their racks; they’d have at least been unarmored and unarmed, by then.
A small part of my mind debated that. The wolves had been aboard an enemy ship. Granted, it had been a ship they had taken, but it still hadn’t been ‘theirs’. If the trip wasn’t going to be a long one, they might have chosen to sleep in their armor, their weapons in arm’s reach. Whatever, the result was the same.
As I looked, I could see a half dozen wolves starting to roll to their feet. I didn’t wait to see more. I slid out of the cockpit, hitting the deck boots first, and bolting as fast as I could towards the ship. I saw Rohan’s shuttle leave the hangar as I came around the front of the one I’d just landed, and altered my route so he had a clear line of flight. Something told me, he was going to need every second a quick touch down would give him.
“Get your ass inside,” Mack shouted, as the third and fourth shuttles popped out from behind the Shady Marie.
“Damn it, Tens.” Abby’s voice came clearly over the comms. “I told you I could fly that.”
“I need you on security,” Tens retorted. “These boys are waking up a lot faster than we calculated.”
“And we’ve got company!” Case said, as though we needed anything else to go sideways. “That was a wolf ship, and it’s boosting our way.”
Boosting?
“How fast?”
“Ten minutes, Cap—and that’s if they don’t—”
Several loud cracks echoed around the hangar, and I saw green lightning crackling around the three squads of wolves that had appeared out of thin air. Fuck me! Who’da thought these guys had teleportation? Case, obviously.
“Never mind. Cap, you’re out of time. Get back on board.”
“I’m not taking their goddamn shuttles,” Mack said. “We are deep enough in, as it is.”
“They’ll kill you, this time.”
“Not in the contract. Get your tail out of here. Get my crew to safety.”
I ducked as the three shuttles passed over my head. If I hadn’t known any better, they were being piloted by the same person, because they moved in perfect synch, touching down simultaneously. I didn’t look back; the hangar bay doors were already closing—Case taking her orders seriously, and buttoning up before the wolves stirring closest the Marie were mobile enough to try reboarding.
How the fuck we were going to get the ship out of the hangar was another matter entirely—and things were getting worse. I sprinted over the deck, making it past several wolves who were starting to sit up. If I wasn’t inside by the time those things made it to their feet, I was pack bait for sure.
Hearing Rohan shout, “Find, Cutter, Cas. Find her! Go!” was worrying, as was the big dog’s presence as he bolted from the boy’s shuttle to run at my side.
Whether Case saw me coming, or Abs overrode the doors, I don’t know, but I slipped into the airlock, before the outer door had fully closed.
“Cutter?”
“I’m on, Case, but Mack, Tens and Rohan are outside.”
“I know; I can see them.”
From the tone of her voice what she was seeing wasn’t good.
“Take her out, Case. Mack will have our hides if we let anything happen to his crew.”
“I can’t. We’re locked down, and the hangar doors are jammed closed.”
“Stand by,” Abby interrupted. “I’ll release the clamps. For the rest, I’m going to need Cutter.”
She didn’t have to say what she needed me for. I already knew.
“On way, Abs.”
I didn’t stop running, not even when Cascade bounded over to join me. To my surprise, he didn’t try to jump up on me, but fell into place beside me, running with me to the third docking bay—the one the wolves had brought her in on.
Of course, I hadn’t known they’d cut her loose from their shuttle, but it made sense. How else
