Tens.
“I’m coming Abby.”
I got ready to stop in front of the airlock leading to her hangar, but it was already open. Neither Cascade, nor I hesitated. We ran right through, the big dog following me directly into Abby’s narrow form.
“You port the Hunt Master and his crew out of the control centre?” I asked, and she answered me with a very un-Abby-like curse, followed swiftly by, “Done. Now, cut me loose.”
Right.
“Let me into your systems,” I said.
“You won’t be able to do it from there,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Case? You know what Tens did to lock Abby down?”
“No… Wait. Yes. It’s a manual release. Two seconds. There!”
“Thank you,” Abby told her, then added, “Case, do you have your evasion pattern ready?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good. Cutter and I will clear a path for the Shady, and then I’ll slave my nav-com to yours and follow you through the maneuvers that way.”
“But—”
“Do it, Case!”
“Gotcha.”
She didn’t sound happy, but I no longer cared. We had no time.
“Casey, we’re breaching Hangar Three. You’ll need to close up after us.”
“Gotcha.”
Abby lifted from the deck, even as I accessed the hangar’s outer doors and got them to open. The HMT ship pivoted to face the doors, power surging through the cockpit as I took a seat in the pilot’s seat and strapped in.
“Cascade,” I started, but Abby was ready.
“I have locked him in the san unit,” she said. “It was the best I could do at short notice.”
“Will he be all right?”
“I have shrunk the unit so that he is confined. He should survive.”
Oh, stars, I hoped so.
“Power up, Case,” Abby instructed, as the hangar doors opened just wide enough for her to fit through—and then she shot forward.
“You realize this is going to depressurize the hangar all to hell, right?”
“I know. The wolves are in heavy armor. Their suits will seal.”
“But Mack…”
“They are in the shuttles,” Abby snapped. “It will be enough.”
For a second she sounded almost human—angry that she couldn’t do anything, and determined that the stars would turn according to her plan just because she’d said it loud enough. I didn’t try to argue.
“You want me on weapons?”
“If you please. I am going to try and port Tens, Mack and Rohan on board.”
It sounded like a fair call to me, Tens’s threats to recalibrate her circuitry notwithstanding. I figured he’d forgive her this time, given what was at stake.
“My thoughts exactly,” Abby agreed, as she flew a tight arc around the Shady’s nose, and lined me up with the hangar doors.
From what I could see of the ship, the reverse thrusters were already powered up, and her weaponry had gone live. I wondered if Case had woken anyone else up to assist her, and then there was no time. I caught a glimpse of wolves running for the shuttles, and for the sealed stations at the end of the hangar, saw Mack sitting very still in the cockpit of his shuttle as he lifted his hands away from the controls, and realized he’d opened the craft up so that the wolves could take shelter inside.
Pulling the trigger had never been so hard in my life, but I took comfort that the repair dock was in easy reach of Rigel’s Banter, and rescue wouldn’t be too far away… and the wolves had teleport. I mustn’t forget that.
“They have blocked all teleportation!”
Abby’s frustration tore through the cockpit, and the weapons systems were ripped from my control.
“Those furry sons of bitches!”
And she corkscrewed into a sweeping arc that ran her guns along the hangar doors, blowing them off their pivots and out into space.
“Punch it, Case.”
“Thanks, Abby.”
We banked as the Shady Marie reversed rapidly out of the repair hangar, and then pivoted on her tail before thrusting up towards the only gap between the remote repair stations and the main trading hub that were Rigel’s Banter.
“They’re never going to let us come back,” Case muttered. “Hook on, Abs.”
“Done,” and Case punched the Marie through the first set of maneuvers, Abby flying hard in her wake.
“Oh, Stars above,” I managed, but it came out as a moan as the pressure built around me.
“Apologies,” Abby said. “I was not built for living pilots. Here.”
And that was all the warning I had before the pilot’s seat closed around me, and plunged me into stasis.
13—The Hunt Resumes
I came out of stasis, just as Abby touched down inside the Shady Marie’s hangar bay. This time she parked in Hangar Bay One.
“I like it,” she said. “It’s closer to the control centre—which is where you’re needed, now.”
I went, hearing Abby’s comm to Case, as I went.
“She’s on her way. Stand by for relief.”
Relief? Surely…
“We’re keeping the rest of the crew on ice until we get to somewhere safe. There is no point in waking them until we are able to give them some idea of what we are up against, and what the chances are we’ll get out of it.”
“What about Engineering?” I asked. “Life support? Those sections can’t run themselves.”
“I’ll do a diagnostic check, but you may have a point.”
Too darn right, I did. I’d done enough basic ship training to know we needed living crew monitoring the systems, that even automation broke down, sometimes.
“And I can’t do the research you need from the control centre. I need to be in the library. We need a back-up pilot.”
“That was Tens and Rohan,” Abby said. “Sorry, but you’re it.”
“I’m not qualified for ships this size. What about you?”
“Very well. Case, stand down. Cutter’s not rated. I’ll take over.”
“No problems, Abby. I’ll divert the controls your way.”
I waited, and then remembered Cascade.
“The dog, Abs.”
“Oh. You’d better get back there. He’s not happy.”
I got, and was in time to see Cascade stagger to his feet in the san cubicle. The dog shot me a look that went beyond reproach. I reached out to steady him, and he eyed my hand like it might bite.
