It crossed my mind that the wolves couldn’t breathe vacuum, either—and that Abs might have something up her sleeve so that she didn’t break the ‘no kill’ rule she’d chosen to enforce. At least, I hoped she did.
The wolves were starting to fan out from the door, and I didn’t like the way they were setting to come at me from two sides. I took out the ones on the outermost wings, scanning for somewhere that might give me an out. Given I’d had Abs lock down the other entrances into the hangar, going deeper into the station wasn’t an option.
If Hermes was transferred quickly enough, I wouldn’t have time—and I didn’t want to create another way into the space he was currently occupying, in case he couldn’t get out.
“Hermes will be fine,” Abby reassured me. “He’s just making sure everything works, before he decides what to do next.”
I turned my head, so I could see the Dasojin shell, and noticed a trio of wolves sneaking along one wall towards him. Couldn’t have that, now, could we?
“Hey you fur-licking, pussies!” I shouted.
“Yeah! You! You motherless sons of bitches!” I added, when they looked over at me. “What’s the matter? Scared of a little femskin like me?”
Abby whistled.
“Where you find these terms, is beyond me,” she said, and I didn’t want to admit that I’d made that last one up all by myself.
“What’s the matter, bitches? Got no man parts in your britches?” and I cupped my crotch, like I had more balls than the rest of them put together. “Looks like I’ve got plenty to spare. Why don’t you come get some?”
Well, that seemed to do it.
Their lips curled back into snarls, their displeasure rumbling across the hangar towards me.
Maybe I’d over done that….
“Yuh think?”
And wasn’t Mack just the last person I’d wanted to have that image of me in his head. Damn.
The growls from the trio over by Hermes’s shell weren’t the only ones coming at me, either. I’d taken my eyes off the line of wolves curling its way around the other side. Crap.
I backed up, trying to get a whole lot closer to the shuttle, and saw the body of a technician I’d downed earlier. With any luck, he’d have something more than screwdrivers at his waistline, because I think the last weapon I’d taken was running low.
To test that theory, I fired at the closest wolves, noting the bolts fizzle out before they reached their targets as the charge died. The leader gave a gleeful yip and trotted closer. He stopped when I pulled the technician’s Glazer from its holster. With any luck, this one would have a full charge. If I was careful, I might even be able to account for all of them…
With any luck.
Never say that on a battlefield. I was cussing ten seconds later, when a snap shot took the damn thing out of my hands, leaving it a smoking wreck on the hangar floor. I’d kept backing up, as I was priming it, and now I stopped, my butt hard up against the shuttle’s side, my calf brushing a toolbox left closed beside landing gear.
Oh. Good. It was about time my fortunes changed.
…or not.
The shuttle’s hatch was closed, and locked. Normally this wasn’t a problem for me, except the damn shuttle was dead. As in completely powered down. As in totally off-line, not a system showing in the green, yellow, amber or red, or any shade before, after or in between. I glanced up to see the wolves coming in.
They were moving slow, as though they were stalking a particularly deadly or unpredictable prey… or maybe because they’d decided to capture me alive and sell me to a buyer they thought they’d already found. I watched one lift his muzzle from a small scan pad in his hand, look at me, and then look back down at the scan pad, again.
Yup. That would be it. Of all the scum-sucking, steaming shit piles in the universe, I had to end up on this one.
“Pups would have value, too,” muttered another wolf, glancing over at the pad, and the first wolf raised its head, and then looked back at me, adding, “with the right sire.”
Pups? Oh. Hell to the Hells, no!
I looked around for something I could use as a weapon. Nothing in reach, and nothing in a place that the wolves wouldn’t catch me before I could get to it. I kept my eyes on the warriors, and kicked open the toolbox with the toe of my boot. Guess this one had been used to deal with the landing gear, huh? Loved the size of those wrenches.
The wolves thought that was funny as hell, and formed a tight semi-circle around me. At least they seemed to have forgotten Hermes and Scarpil sitting quietly on the other side of the hangar. Judging from the lights going on in the cockpit, the Dasojin ship was about ready to make a break for it.
I noted the guns along the edges of his wings, and wondered if they were loaded, figured it was a fifty-fifty chance that the wolves hadn’t processed him that far. Well, that was going to suck.
Last I’d heard, decompression was a right bitch.
And then Hermes turned, so he was facing me, and I guessed he was out of ammo, after all.
“Abs…” I began, getting ready to tell her to open the hangar bay doors.
“Not gonna happen, Hon. You got incoming. Focus on the wolves, and try not to get dented in the next few.”
Well, now, there was a challenge, if ever I’d heard one.
Of course, not getting dented meant I couldn’t take the fight to the wolves before the stim pack wore off, and I could feel myself fading at the edges—which would have been fine, if we’d been a little bit faster. Damn fine. But it was damned inconvenient, now, when I needed the buzz to stick around a
