Tension eased inside me.
It was good to see she was okay with having Steppy as back-up. I’d just picked the man most likely to crack heads when it was needed. I’d seen the way the crew deferred to him in Stores, and figured I could do worse.
“Nice,” Abby said, in the privacy of my skull. “Put the two assassins in charge. There’s no way that could go wrong.”
I felt my eyes widen, and realized I hadn’t let the last breath out. Abby giggled.
“Don’t sweat it, Cutter. You’ve pretty much picked the only two Mack would have trusted the Marie to, with the amount of command crew he’s about to be down.”
I had?
Oh, Stars above.
I hadn’t realized just how close the wall our backs really were.
“Well, now you know,” Abby said.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them, again.
“Dismissed,” I said. “You guys have the hard part.”
I paused, watching as they froze and stared at me.
“Sure,” I said. “You have to keep the Shady Marie in tip-top shape, or Mack’s going to have the hides of every one of you. Me? I just have to go fetch him.”
And they laughed, like they had a lot on their minds, and were just being polite.
“Nice,” Abby said. “Way to put the fear of God into them.”
Which, in a way, was exactly what I’d intended.
I didn’t know how long I was going to be away, and I wanted the Marie to be there when I got Mack back.
“Come on,” Abby said. “You’ve got a call to make. I’ll stand by with Case on the chance there’s a contract involved.”
14—The Depredides Lead
Abby was right, even though I couldn’t immediately remember why I would have a call to make, and why Odyssey would even be involved. It all became clear enough when Case joined me on the way to the bridge.
“So,” she said, “are you going to see if there’s a contract for Delight’s retrieval?”
I hadn’t thought of that—only of checking the possibility Delight and Pritchard might need to be warned. It hadn’t occurred to me that there’d be work in it for us. It made sense, though. And Mack would love the irony.
Running my mind back over the meeting, reminded me why I should have thought of it. As far as I knew, Odyssey might not even know Delight and Pritchard were at risk—or be able to pinpoint why. They might have known about Delight’s part in rescuing me from Sharovan’s headquarters on Depredides—especially since Delight had tried to teleport me off the Shady Marie straight after—but they might not know where any particular threat on that agent came from.
Heaven’s knew, but that girl had pissed off an awful lot of folk—probably every time she turned around. Knowing the source of a threat had value.
The Depredides incident had occurred just before Mack had offered me a job—except he hadn’t been; he’d just been buying me time for Odyssey to cool its heels. I shivered, brushing the memory away. There wasn’t a lot I wanted to remember about my time in Odyssey’s employ—I’d spent most of it trying to get out from under them, and they hadn’t appreciated the effort.
“Well, too bad for them,” I said, and realized we’d reached the control room.
Case laid a hand on my arm as we stepped through the door.
“Are you all right for this?” she asked, and I looked at her.
“Do I have a choice?” I asked, but my voice was brittle with tension.
Her smile was brief and quick, and she turned and headed over to her usual seat.
“No. Get on with it.”
I got. Was standing behind Mack’s console when the call went through.
“Odyssey, this is the Shady Marie.”
“State your business, Shady Marie.”
“We believe two of your agents have been included on a capture contract.”
“Your reasons?”
“Captain Mackenzie Star, Tenser, myself and the entire crew of the Shady Marie are also included on the contract, and we have traced the source to Depredides. There is only one incident that could have drawn ire from someone on that planet.”
“Switching to a more secure node.”
“Acknowledged.”
And I sure as shit hoped the node we’d been on had been secure to start with.
“It was,” Abby confirmed, but the Odyssey spokesman was back.
“Do you have any other reason to believe the contract is in connection to that incident?”
That incident? I hadn’t thought I was important enough for the retrieval to be so easily remembered. Abby cut across me before I could respond.
“Because Dasojin is being targeted, also,” she said.
“We believe that is a separate matter.”
“Interesting that you have not shared your thoughts with me.”
“Abeona?”
“The same.”
“We have not been able to find you.”
“I had need to go dark.”
“With your pardon, Abeona, but we still cannot find you.”
“I am the target of a Star Shadow hunt, as is the Shady Marie and her crew. Tell me you cannot find the Marie.”
Case straightened up behind her console, and I schooled my face to blankness. Abby hadn’t told me she was choking the Marie’s ident broadcaster.
There was silence on the other end, and we waited. The answer, when it came, was reluctant.
“Shady Marie your squawker is strangled. We cannot find you.”
“Not even with the other gear you have on board?” Abby pressed, and I glanced over at Case.
Yeah, that was news to her, as well.
The Odyssey spokesman cleared his throat, but he did not deny Odyssey had other ways of tracking the Marie.
“No.”
“Then we might stay free a little longer.”
The Odyssey man cleared his throat, again.
“Can you tell me, Marie, if it was you who destroyed Repair Hangar Five at Rigel’s Banter?”
“We can neither confirm nor deny,” Abby broke in. “Your point?”
“The Star Shadows have a secondary contract in play, one to be enacted parallel
