Mack 'n' Me: The Wolves of Alpha 9

by C. M. Simpson

  Mack and the wolf turned, just as the ants swept around us, the vespis flying top cover for the attack. Seeing them close on the arach, I wondered where they’d come from. Tens had teleported the mercenaries out.

  “They have their own agenda and they’re not done yet”, Mack informed me, and I froze.

  “The rebels?”

  “Yup”. I felt his arms ease from around me. “Try to stop them before they reach the rebel command center. I need the king alive.”

  “Alive, but...”

  “You heard me, Cutter...”

  “Ugh. FINE...”

  I bolted forward, heard him hesitate, and then follow., and knew he was right on my heels.

  I wondered what was happening with the fleet, and heard Mack’s voice echo over the comms

  “Tens...”

  Silence followed.

  “Tens. Come in Tens... Come in the Shady. Goddammit! Someone talk to me!”

  More silence followed, and then Rohan replied, “Bridge was taken. Tens was taken.”

  The boy hesitated, his next words coming as I ducked under the gleaming belly of one of the ants.

  Funny, I didn’t remember them being this big.

  “Coming through!” I yelled.

  I would say I was hoping it would be enough to stop them from skewering me as I emerged from under their jaws, but I don’t think I’d thought it through that far. I just wanted them to know I was there and get the hell out of the way. The chance of getting eaten didn’t cross my mind.

  “How?” Mack snapped, talking to Rohan.

  “Teleport,” the boy whispered, “—and they’re breaking through.”

  There was a ragged edge to his tone, and I remembered the state he’d been in after the last time he’d been captured by wolves.

  “How long?” I demanded, dodging the reflexive swipe from the ant’s jaws.

  I slapped them with the flat of my free hand, no longer thinking about what happened next. I was going to kill arach...or I was going to kill whatever else stood in my way. I needed the king and I needed to get to him fast.

  Tens needed me to end this, Rohan, too. The boy was in danger.

  “I need you to end this fast,” Mack told me, and I almost missed his next words. “And I need you to stay alive.”

  “Stay alive? Well that was going to complicate things... Besides, what made him think I wouldn’t?”

  Clear of the ants and faced with three meters of open ground between me and the arach surrounding Barangail, I raised my blaster and started firing.

  Shoot the arach. Leave the king alive. I got it...or, at least, I thought I did.

  Tens had loaded me for bear, and the solids tore holes in the arach warrior standing in the front rank. He blew apart and pieces of him showered the king and his companions. They all looked toward me.

  The king started shouting and pointing in my direction, but the arach were already moving to close up the gap left by their fallen comrade. They were also shifting.

  Heedless of the impact it would have on the king’s support to see them in their true form, the spider warriors dropped their humanoid forms, their bodies rippling and expanding to take up six times the space as they advanced.

  I watched the king’s mouth move, heard the shouted commands flow past me, over me...through me. What he said was no longer important. Only the eight-legged nightmares slamming into the ants on either side of me were important. Only the warrior filling my vision with a flurry of legs had any meaning.

  I brought my blaster to bear, but the solids hammered into a field of gray and dropped harmlessly to the ground.

  Like that, was it?

  I let the blasters fall and pulled the twin blades I carried over my shoulders. It was more of a match for the sharp-edged ridges along the creature’s legs than the blaster was, anyhow. While the solids were deadly at a close range, the blaster did nothing to deflect a well-placed bite or slash...

  ...and I couldn’t ram it down a spider’s throat.

  “Cutter!” Mack’s voice rolled across the battlefield.

  Now, what did he want? I wondered, my arms moving to block the first foreleg strike.

  “Activate the blade!” Stepyan’s order followed, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  What was it with all the men in my life? Didn’t they realize I knew how to fight? Activate the... Oh...

  I thumbed the control stud and watched as the blade hummed to life.

  Vibro... and las! Now, how in all the stars had Stepyan managed to combine the two of them into a single weapon.

  “Bring me the king’s head and I might tell you,” Stepyan replied.

  My cheerful “okay!” coincided with Mack’s shout of denial.

  “Oops,” Stepyan commented, not sounding the slightest bit sorry.

  I kicked off my back foot, dropped to my knees and slid under the arach’s cephalothorax, dropping one of my blades and using two hands to hold the other over my head and drive it up as I reached my opponent’s abdomen.

  “Not so well-armored here, are you?” I demanded, and spat ichor as the blade split the softer carapace of its tail end.

  The arach screamed.

  I lifted a knee and drove my foot into the ground, propelling myself to my feet and ripping the blade free. There was one more arach standing between me and Barangail. It was still in human form, and its eyes widened as it took in my gore-covered form.

  I met its horrified gaze and shifted the angle of the blade, charging forward with the intention of driving the sword in through his chest plate and out through his spine. I don’t know if this one was psi, or not, but he didn’t stick around.

  No sooner had the sword tip touched the hardened armor covering his breast, than he was gone, the silver ripple of an emergency teleport tearing him out from under my attack.

  “No!” My shriek of frustration joined Mack’s roar of denial as my momentum carried me forward and I skewered the king through the side.

  As he fell, I remembered Stepyan’s request, sweeping my blade out of the falling king’s armor and reversing it in an arc that severed the ill-fated arach’s head. His death triggered a scattering of silver light as the remaining arach left the field, and I wondered what it meant.

  If the king called the shots and gave the orders, what were the others going to do now he was gone? Did they have to impress the queen to avoid being slaughtered because they’d failed a would-be suitor? How did that work, anyway?

  “For fuck’s sake, Cutter!” Mack roared across the battlefield at me, clearly unimpressed.

  I wasn’t impressed either. There was nothing left to kill and energy was burning through my limbs like an out-of-control fire. I wanted... No, I needed...

  “I got you, Cutter. There’s plenty to kill up here.” Rohan’s voice was unexpected, as was the sudden dissolution of the battlefield.

  I spun, stumbling as the rough ground vanished, replaced by smooth decking. Rohan spoke again.

  “Go get ‘em.”

  “Get who?” Was a question that answered itself as I grounded myself and took note of my surroundings.

  The little turd had teleported me back on board the Shady Marie and set me in the corridor leading to the command center. There were wolves everywhere, a whole squad outside the teleport center, and another heading away from me toward the elevator that would take them to places like the crew quarters and medical center.

  Well, I couldn’t let that happen. I remembered what I’d seen in their complex on Rennet’s World, and charged. Mack was probably going to skin Rohan when we got the ship back, but he’d probably thank him, too.

  “Don’t bet on it.” Mack sounded even more pissed than when I’d killed the arach king.

  “Please, hurry,” Rohan begged. “I couldn’t reach him.”

  Something in the kid’s tone said there was a lot he wasn’t telling us. Like how he was operating the teleport system when Tens had been in control only minutes before.

  “He locked
me in.” I caught guilt and mortification in the boy’s tone and began to understand what Tens might have done to keep his protégé free.

  “You’re in the teleportation section?”

  “I was... You were all I had time to grab. Mack was too far.”

  “He was? But he’d been right on my heels when I’d gone under the ants.”

  “You’re a good bit shorter than I am, girl.”

  Oh, well that made sense.

  “Ants weren’t nearly as accommodating when I tried to pass.”

  As if that was my fault.

  “It kinda was,” Mack informed me. “No critter likes a small whirlwind running under their vulnerable bits demanding passage before gutting the first opponent it meets in front of them. Gave them food for thought. I had to ask for permission to pass.”

  “And I took you before he was clear of the battle.”

  “Damned arach took a bit to put down.”

  “Sorry, Mack,” Rohan apologized. “You got teleport capability, or do I need to try and jack the ’port system?”

  “Just give me the coordinates. Damned wolf here thinks it’s funny we consider ourselves the only ones teleport capable.”

  Given he’d needed us to get him to the battlefield, I found that somewhat perplexing. Rohan’s next words explained it.

  “He does have allies in the system...and I don’t mean the Rennet’s World wolves.”

  I remembered. There’d been several ships jump in, allies to the wolf captain. They’d taken the mercenaries. I paused. I hadn’t known wolf ships had teleport capabilities?

  “These do,” Mack informed me, and I couldn’t help thinking that that was all kindsa wrong.

  A sharp yap echoed down the corridor and I had no more time for conversation. I suppose it had been going to happen eventually. I hadn’t been able to stand still, shifting from one foot to the other with increasing rapidity as I’d listened to Mack and Rohan, the noise carrying down the corridor.

  “Gotta go,” I told them.

  “What?” Mack asked, just as Rohan said “Uh oh.”

  I was already moving, hitting the floor and rolling as solids whistled through the space I’d been standing. More rounds followed me, blowing chunks out of the ducking as I rolled to one side. They followed me as my back hit the wall, and I raised my hands, keeping hold of the blade with my thumb and one finger.

  No way was I going to let it drop with my face just below it.

  The rounds chewed up the deck, but they stopped just short of my armor.

  “You wreck another set of armor and you’re gonna be fighting naked for a good long while until I can replace it,” Mack warned.

  “Screw you, Mack,” I muttered as a set of boots cautiously approached and a large brown-furred lupar stooped to take the blade from my hands.

  The wolf cocked his head, a snarl rippling along his lips. I resisted the stim-fueled urge to snarl right back. Hell, I even managed to drop my eyes...if only to hide the fact I was going to rip this cur’s throat out with my bare hands if I could manage it.

  He lifted the blades away, and straightened, backing up a step and making damned sure I could see the blaster in his hand.

  “Up,” he ordered. “Slowly....”

  “Slowly, Cutter,” Mack urged. “I’m coming.”

  “Just don’t come through, here,” I told him, moving slowly into a crouch and preparing to stand.

  “Too late,” Mack chuckled, and I recognized his laughter for what it was—fury.

  29—Free For All

  The wolf towering over me didn’t stand a chance.

  Mack materialized right beside him and then shot him at point blank range, before shifting the muzzle of his blaster up to take out the stunned patrol that had been moving in from the opposite direction. He didn’t stop firing, and I scooped up the fallen wolf’s weapon and joined him, targeting the ones on the same side of the corridor as I was and walking my fire inward.

  We ended a dozen of them before the sound of running boots alerted us to more coming at us from the other end.

  “Well, fuck me, but that was inconvenient!”

  “Just take them out,” Mack ordered. “We have to reach the crew quarters.”

  We did?

  “Cutter!” Mack shouted, as I did exactly what he’d suggested.

  I darted back and grabbed two of the blasters dropped by my opponents. I slung one, and tucked the other in tight against my left side, while wielding the sword with my right.

  This was gonna be fun.

  “Well, shit on a short stick,” Mack cursed, and his blaster roared at the same time as mine did.

  I’m not sure where his rounds went, but mine cleared the corridor of another six wolves, before I made a rapid one-eighty and raced past Mack to the emergency slide.

  Rohan must have managed to stay out of sight and out of mind—as well as in the machine, because the panel slid aside before I could shoot it out of the way.

  “You keep bein’ useful like that, boy, and I might just forget what you just did,” Mack told him.

  “It’d be nice,” Rohan suggested, and then his voice turned panicky. “Please hurry. I can’t...”

  He didn’t need to finish that thought. I could see what was happening to Tens, and it wasn’t pretty.

  Man was laughing fit to bust, though...and I figured that was a good alternative to screaming, which was pretty much the only alternative.

  “Open it,” a black-furred lupar growled, using a paw against Tens’ chest to pin him to the wall.

  Tens managed another gasping chuckle and shook his head. I noticed he was looking at the floor, too, but whether that was so he didn’t give us away, or because he no longer had the strength to lift his chin, I don’t know.

  Either way, I fired three quick shots into the lupar’s side, and then another two into the heads of the two wolves who’d been standing behind him trying to rewire the door to the cubs’ compartment.

  Tens dropped to the floor, his laughter turning to coughing as he spat blood onto the floor.

  “Rohan, we need in! Cutter, protect the cubs!”

  At Mack’s words, the doors cracked just wide enough for me to get through, and I bounced through. It looked like the stims were doing their usual job of making me as susceptible as hell to suggestions.

  Right then, I didn’t care. I needed to find the captain’s cub—and I needed to do it before the Rennet’s World wolves guessed which compartment they needed to teleport into.

  There were already some on the other side of the door, and I took them down without thinking. I saw armored furry—and shot same.

  Let me tell you, the smell of singed fur wasn’t something I wanted to repeat any time soon. Somewhere in the back of my comms, I heard Mack asking Rohan to get him back up—and Rohan telling him Case and Stepyan were coming over with the wolves.

  Our wolves. The ones who’d hired us.

  “The ones you’re not allowed to shoot,” Mack told me succinctly, and then saw the four in front of me.

  Part of my brain knew what he meant, but the part most affected by the stims had just been told there were wolves it wasn’t allowed to shoot, so I lowered my blaster.

  “Damnitall, Cutter. Shoot those four! Shoot them! Shoot them!”

  I sure as shit wished he would make up his mind...but my head unlocked and my hands obeyed and I took them out while they were still turning to look at me.

  Rohan whistled. “Dayum. Whatever Doc put in that stuff, it’s made her fast!”

  “How fast?” Doc was back on line. His voice sounded ragged, but he was still breathing, and I felt a part of myself, unknot.

  “She just outdrew and put down four lupar before they could turn.” Rohan sounded breathless.

  “Damn,” Doc replied. “She’s running out of juice.”

  I was? I did a mental check and discovered the doc might be right. Well, fuck.

  “Keep going, Cutter,” Mack told me. “Keep those cubs safe, the humans, t
oo. Got me?”

  “Got you!” I responded, heading through the final door separating me from the cubs and kids.

  I found them standing in a circle. The cubs forming a ring around the humans...or the humans that would let them, anyway.

  Several small humans had their hands wrapped around the grips of weapons too big for them, and they weren’t backing down.

  I’d arrived too late, but someone had thought to give the kids teleport protection. The only way the Rennet’s World wolves were going to take them out of here was if they could remove the inhibiting bracelets from their wrists.

  ...And the only way that was going to happen was if they could get near them, first.

  “It won’t take them long to work it out.” Tens’ voice was an unwelcome rattle in my head. “Take out the Rennet’s World wolves. Keep the children safe. Don’t let them be taken.”

  Taken. I got it. Only way I could guarantee hitting a Rennet’s World squaddie and not touching the kids was if I used the sword or shot them in the head.

  The two things couldn’t be mutually exclusive, right?

  “Cutter...” Mack was starting to sound tired.

  I wondered if he needed some milk and cookies, or maybe a sleeping buddy. Ooh, a sleeping buddy... I bet we could—

  “CUTTER!” came in five shades of mortified from four different directions, but before I could respond to it, they all said one thing: “Get the Rennet’s World wolves.”

  The stim pack might have been wearing off, but that suggestibility thing always seemed like the last thing to go. I was putting the sword through someone’s kidney and a solid through the top of someone else’s head before I’d realized I’d moved.

  I swear... When this was over, me and someone were going to have serious words...on the mat...with my fist...and their head...and my foot...and their knee...

  As I thought it, my body went through the motions—except it was more my sword and someone’s snout...and my blaster and someone’s throat...and a kick off the floor using a wolf as a step up because one of the little brats in the circle had worked out how to pull the trigger.