“Cutter,” Pritchard said, and I glanced up at him.
It was like my name had been a pre-arranged signal—as, indeed, it had been.
“For shit’s sake!” I said, as the two closest me pounced.
I twisted out from under the grasp of the first, and went to slide by the second, but I’d let the others get within grab range, and didn’t have the room I needed for maneuvering. This time it wasn’t Scarpil who wrapped me in their arms…and there was no chance it could be Mack.
“We’re going to get Mack,” Pritchard said, as someone else coiled their arms around my legs.
He pulled the auto-injector from behind his back, as another set of hands bared one of my shoulders. I decided I knew what was coming and didn’t want to see it arrive. Closing my eyes, I tried to think of something else, couldn’t help remembering the look of Mack’s body in the isolation cell he’d been pacing.
“Geez, girl. That is one almighty distraction,” said Cossack. “If I didn’t know he was taken, I might take a shot myself.”
Taken? My eyes came open at that, and Cossack laughed, backing out of arm’s reach as Pritchard stepped away.
“Here,” Delight said, thrusting the first piece of my armor toward me.
Cossack gave me a lecherous wink, and picked up the next piece. He was a good-looking guy, just not Mack…and he wasn’t into girls.
“You keep your hands off him,” I said, and he waggled his eyebrows at me, while I pulled on the next piece of armor.
“Let me help you with that,” he said, and made sure the armor was tight in all the right places.
When he was done, he patted me on the back.
“Don’t worry, kiddo. I haven’t a hope in all the Stars of stealing that man.”
Which only made me wonder who Mack cared about so much that no one would bother making a play for him. Delight intervened before Cossack had a chance to answer.
“Check her weapons, Sack-Man.”
I scowled at her, being quite capable of checking my own weapons, myself. And what was the big secret about who Mack did or didn’t like, anyway?
“Not ours to tell, sweetie,” Delight said, and she avoided meeting my eyes.
It was the first time that woman had avoided looking at me direct in all the time I’d known her. Made me more curious than ever.
“Tell you what, kiddo, you get him and the rest of the boys out of there, alive, and we get the Dasojin ships back in one piece for Abs, and I’ll think about letting you in on that particular secret.”
She would?
But she didn’t answer that.
Didn’t confirm or deny, and I had to wonder why. She surely wasn’t lying to me, was she? I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time.
“Never you mind,” Pritchard said. “The man has to have some secrets…at least for now, okay? More important things to do, and all that.”
Him, too?
Cossack handed me a Blazer, an A-Level, and two Glazers, before stuffing a couple of grenades into the pouches on either side of my waist.
“Red for frag, yellow for stun. Don’t confuse the two.”
I rolled my eyes at him. I had done Basics, same as the rest of them.
“Sweetie,” he said, “Since when did Basics ever cover grenades?”
I thought about that for a minute, and realized I’d acquired the grenade training from another of one of my fellow recruit’s mystery ladies in return for a bit of ‘private time’ between them. Cossack snorted.
“You were one Hell of a piece of work!”
Were? What the fuck did he mean by ‘were’?
He patted me on the shoulder, but didn’t say a word, as he rechecked my load-out and straps, and turned in front of me.
“Check me,” he said, and I realized that, all around us, the team had paired up and was going through the last-minute patterns of equipment checks.
When I was done, he faced up, and patted me on the shoulder Pritchard had hit with the injector.
“That shit will kick in with the first good adrenaline surge. Try not to let it go off before we jump.”
Before we jumped?
Oh, fuck. LALO. Right. And just where were we going to get the drop-ship from?
“Herogat’s Demon has a crew scheduled for departure in ten minutes,” Delight said. “We need to haul ass.”
Well, that was one term for it.
We hauled butt right out of Wanderer’s shell, making a mass exit from an airlock in EVA suits that took less time to put on than I remembered. I wondered how the Hell we were going to reach the Demon without orbital security noticing, but the maintenance sled waiting outside the hatch answered that question.
Wanderer loomed over us, and the unconscious sled crew didn’t look like they’d had time to use the cutting equipment they’d brought, before she’d hit them with…well, whatever she’d hit them with. I made a note to knock politely if I ever needed to board an Odyssey ship through anything but the authorized entry.
Wanderer pinged my implant, amused.
“Let’s hope it never comes to that,” she said. “Other hulls aren’t as forgiving.”
Before I could contemplate what she might mean by that, I realized the guys on the sled weren’t dead.
“Put them in the airlock,” Delight ordered. “Without their helmets. I’d like them to think about what they’ve done.”
Several snorts greeted her announcement, mine among them.
Sure, she did. More like, she wanted them crapping themselves the entire time they were in there, and more than ready to talk when they got let out. She raised an eyebrow, as though catching the thought.
“Move your ass, Cutter. We haven’t got all day.”
Well, that told me.
I moved. The team moved, and we got the would-be break-and-enter-bounty-hunters locked down tight—sans their equipment—making it across to the Demon’s shuttle bay before its transport launched. Delight wasn’t playing games. She
