They were? And I’d been sold? What the everloving… I caught the look on Pritchard’s face as he turned around. Fine. Whatever.
“Good girl,” he said, and returned to his chair, picking up his magazine as he settled into it. He reached out and hit a button on the monitoring panel beside him. “Now, go to sleep?”
“Pritch…”
Damn.
I was outside the tank the next time I woke. I looked for Mack, not understanding why he wasn’t there, and then registering I wasn’t aboard the Shady Marie. What the f… Movement caught my eye, and Cascade stood up from where he’d been lying beside the bed.
“Hey.”
I tried to shove his head away, as he washed my face, and he sat down, ears pricked, tongue lolling like he was laughing fit to bust.
“Yeah. Real funny, boy. Wanta remind me where the Hell I am?”
Because I couldn’t remember, not straight away, anyway.
It came back in dribs and drabs, as I rolled myself upright and sat on the edge of the bed, dropping my hand down to scratch the big boof’s ears. He wriggled closer and rested his chin on my lap.
“Don’t worry, fella. We’ll get him back,” and he whined, pressing closer, thoughts of Rohan crowding my head. I sighed. “Seriously? You, too?”
He whimpered, and I rubbed his neck.
“We’ll find him.”
I eased myself off the bed, settling my feet to the floor.
“Abs?”
She didn’t answer, and I felt worry form a cold knot in my gut.
“Abs?”
Panic pitched my voice up, but it didn’t make Abby answer. Double damn. I looked around the room. Time I found something to wear. The Odyssey-issued ship suit was fine, but it wasn’t what I wanted to be dressed in the next time I faced Delight, Pritchard, Beckett… or anyone else.
I found a locked closet and drawers and made short work of the mechanism keeping me out. Gotta love computer systems. More ship suits. The rest of the room yielded nothing more. I headed for the door. I had gear on board Abby, and she had to be parked somewhere on board.
The door was locked.
And it was locked well.
I closed my eyes and leant my forehead on it, not even looking up when Cascade came over and sat next to me, leaning his head on my thigh. I rested my hand on his head, and wondered when he’d gotten so big. I must have stayed still too long, because he bumped his head against my hand, and then nudged the door.
“Good point, pup, but maybe we’ll check the feeds, first.”
He sighed, and flopped down onto the floor.
“I won’t be that long.”
Actually, I didn’t want to be very long at all. I’d remembered I was on an Odyssey cruiser, and knew they probably weren’t going to like their security lines being tickled, but it was either that or sit like a child waiting until Delight or Pritchard came to tell me I could come out—and that wasn’t gonna happen. I had shit to do. They could either help me get it done, or they could get the fuck out of my way, and let me do it.
And the first order of the day was to find Abs and to make sure she was okay. After that… Well, that would depend on what happened in between, but Mack, Tens and Rohan were in a world of hurt, and I didn’t intend to leave them there. At least I knew the wolves weren’t eating them. If it had been arach…
I shivered, and shook the thought out of my head.
I had to get out of here, and get my crew back.
A small thought suggested Mack might have something to say about me claiming his crew as my own, and I decided Mack could suck it, if he didn’t like it, but those folk were just as much my responsibility as they were his. I’d made a promise. The security feeds were surprisingly easy to get into. Too easy, for an Odyssey ship, and I wondered what Delight had lined up for me in there. Couldn’t see anything, so I rolled through the coding, until I found the monitoring system.
Cool. Man, this thing was huge! And it was decked out like a cruise liner. How in all the Stars did they keep the passengers from wandering into the wrong sections? Oh. Well, that would work—which was when I realized the system had answered my query by showing me the answer…and I hadn’t tweaked a thing.
Crap.
I took a good, long look at the code around me—and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Took a careful look at myself, and saw nothing wrong there. Gave myself a mental pat down to see if there was something hidden, and found myself clear. That couldn’t be right.
What else did I want to know?
Well, Computer, I’d like to make sure the corridor outside my room is clear, and then I want to know where you’re keeping Abby, if she’s okay, and why I can’t talk to her, and then…
“And then?”
And I realized I really wasn’t talking to myself, and maybe I should get back to my own head, while I figured out what that meant. I backed out of the monitoring system, looking all around for the presence that had spoken, for something that would give me a clue as to why I wasn’t alone in here. Couldn’t. See. A. Thing.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to see your ship?”
And I found myself at a location above Abby’s still form. She looked okay.
“Why can’t I speak with her?”
“Because your implant is not allowed to broadcast.”
It wasn’t? And how come I hadn’t worked that out for myself.
“You have not done a basic check of functions since waking. That should be standard operational procedure.”
It
