The Transporter's Favor

by C. M. Simpson

  Great, but I was curious. There hadn’t been much time for horror stories when I was growing up—or fairy tales—and all the monsters I’d encountered until Skymander had been human. Beyond that, the arach had been the next shapeshifters I’d encountered… and I never wished to encounter them, again.

  “Those shuttles clear, Abby?”

  Mack’s voice cut through my mind, and I realized we’d reached the first hangar bay in record time.

  “Stay with me, Cutter.”

  “Have we found Cascade, yet?”

  “He is in the first shuttle on the right,” Abby answered before Mack had time to ask. “He has been well-cared for.”

  “Where’s Rohan?” I asked.

  The rattle of footsteps on the deck behind us, answered my question.

  “Here.” He looked at Mack. “Boss says you need me?”

  Mack pointed to the shuttle, Abby had told us Cascade was in.

  “I need you to move that thing out into the hangar and park it without breaking anything. Think you can handle it?”

  “Sure thing, Boss,” and Rohan double-timed it to the shuttle door.

  Mack pointed to the other shuttle.

  “You take that one, Cutter. Lead the way out. He might need a minute.”

  That was an understatement. Rohan loved his dog.

  I trotted over to the second shuttle, and settled myself in the cockpit. Mack turned back into the Marie, and I figured he was heading into the next shuttle bay. That was fine by me. We had four of these things to shift, and the incoming ship made me uneasy.

  “Abs, you got a space for me to park this thing?”

  “I have one,” she replied, and then she narrowed her communications so that only I could hear her—no mean feat, given just how many heads ended up checking through my implant. “And then I need another favor.”

  Another one?

  “Sure, Abs.”

  “You need to unlock me.”

  I thought of Mack, and then I thought of Tens.

  “That’s a pretty big favor, Abby.”

  “So you won’t?”

  I figured I still owed her a favor, and she could always negotiate with Mack and Tens over Septu’s retrieval. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been planning to do that, anyway.

  “True. This would clear your debt from Depredides, and I would negotiate Septu’s retrieval with Mack. So, will you?”

  “You won’t do a runner, or hurt the Marie and her crew?”

  “Cross my heart, hon. I’m just not comfortable being tied down, right now.”

  And given just how much me freeing her would piss off both Mack and Tens, she must be feeling really uncomfortable.

  “Any reason why?”

  “No ship strangles its ident broadcast without reason,” she said. “I just need to be ready to respond. I need Mack and Tens on side, so this is… it’s a bit of a risk for me, too.”

  Well, at least she knew just how much trouble the two of us were going to be in, when the boys worked out what we’d done.

  “Put her down, there,” Abs said, out where everyone could hear her, “and then head back to the ship, before these puppies wake up properly.”

  Properly? What the hell did she mean ‘properly’?

  I maneuvered the shuttle to the spot she indicated, found I was the first one parked, but in the farthest spot from the ship. I was not surprised to see that Rohan and Mack hadn’t appeared. Mack would be waiting for Rohan and I to give him the all clear, and Rohan… well, it would take him a minute to work out he should leave Cascade in the hangar.

  And, as for ‘properly’. I set the shuttle down, and took a look out the cockpit. Well, damn.

  The wolves were, indeed, waking up. I watched as heads started to move, and legs twitch, and I really regretted that we hadn’t taken them out of their armor. We should have done that while they were asleep—or waited to gas them until they’d hit their racks; they’d have at least been unarmored and unarmed, by then.

  A small part of my mind debated that. The wolves had been aboard an enemy ship. Granted, it had been a ship they had taken, but it still hadn’t been ‘theirs’. If the trip wasn’t going to be a long one, they might have chosen to sleep in their armor, their weapons in arm’s reach. Whatever, the result was the same.

  As I looked, I could see a half dozen wolves starting to roll to their feet. I didn’t wait to see more. I slid out of the cockpit, hitting the deck boots first, and bolting as fast as I could towards the ship. I saw Rohan’s shuttle leave the hangar as I came around the front of the one I’d just landed, and altered my route so he had a clear line of flight. Something told me, he was going to need every second a quick touch down would give him.

  “Get your ass inside,” Mack shouted, as the third and fourth shuttles popped out from behind the Shady Marie.

  “Damn it, Tens.” Abby’s voice came clearly over the comms. “I told you I could fly that.”

  “I need you on security,” Tens retorted. “These boys are waking up a lot faster than we calculated.”

  “And we’ve got company!” Case said, as though we needed anything else to go sideways. “That was a wolf ship, and it’s boosting our way.”

  Boosting?

  “How fast?”

  “Ten minutes, Cap—and that’s if they don’t—”

  Several loud cracks echoed around the hangar, and I saw green lightning crackling around the three squads of wolves that had appeared out of thin air. Fuck me! Who’da thought these guys had teleportation? Case, obviously.

  “Never mind. Cap, you’re out of time. Get back on board.”

  “I’m not taking their goddamn shuttles,” Mack said. “We are deep enough in, as it is.”

  “They’ll kill you, this time.”

  “Not in the contract. Get your tail out of here. Get my crew to safety.”

  I ducked as the three shuttles passed over my head. If I hadn’t known any better, they were being piloted by the same person, because they moved in perfect synch, touching down simultaneously. I didn’t look back; the hangar bay doors were already closing—Case taking her orders seriously, and buttoning up before the wolves stirring closest the Marie were mobile enough to try reboarding.

  How the fuck we were going to get the ship out of the hangar was another matter entirely—and things were getting worse. I sprinted over the deck, making it past several wolves who were starting to sit up. If I wasn’t inside by the time those things made it to their feet, I was pack bait for sure.

  Hearing Rohan shout, “Find, Cutter, Cas. Find her! Go!” was worrying, as was the big dog’s presence as he bolted from the boy’s shuttle to run at my side.

  Whether Case saw me coming, or Abs overrode the doors, I don’t know, but I slipped into the airlock, before the outer door had fully closed.

  “Cutter?”

  “I’m on, Case, but Mack, Tens and Rohan are outside.”

  “I know; I can see them.”

  From the tone of her voice what she was seeing wasn’t good.

  “Take her out, Case. Mack will have our hides if we let anything happen to his crew.”

  “I can’t. We’re locked down, and the hangar doors are jammed closed.”

  “Stand by,” Abby interrupted. “I’ll release the clamps. For the rest, I’m going to need Cutter.”

  She didn’t have to say what she needed me for. I already knew.

  “On way, Abs.”

  I didn’t stop running, not even when Cascade bounded over to join me. To my surprise, he didn’t try to jump up on me, but fell into place beside me, running with me to the third docking bay—the one the wolves had brought her in on.

  Of course, I hadn’t known they’d cut her loose from their shuttle, but it made sense. How else would Tens have been able to pilot that thing out of here, if the wolves hadn’t separated the two beforehand?

  Tens.

  “I’m coming Abby.”

 
; I got ready to stop in front of the airlock leading to her hangar, but it was already open. Neither Cascade, nor I hesitated. We ran right through, the big dog following me directly into Abby’s narrow form.

  “You port the Hunt Master and his crew out of the control centre?” I asked, and she answered me with a very un-Abby-like curse, followed swiftly by, “Done. Now, cut me loose.”

  Right.

  “Let me into your systems,” I said.

  “You won’t be able to do it from there,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “Case? You know what Tens did to lock Abby down?”

  “No… Wait. Yes. It’s a manual release. Two seconds. There!”

  “Thank you,” Abby told her, then added, “Case, do you have your evasion pattern ready?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Good. Cutter and I will clear a path for the Shady, and then I’ll slave my nav-com to yours and follow you through the maneuvers that way.”

  “But—”

  “Do it, Case!”

  “Gotcha.”

  She didn’t sound happy, but I no longer cared. We had no time.

  “Casey, we’re breaching Hangar Three. You’ll need to close up after us.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Abby lifted from the deck, even as I accessed the hangar’s outer doors and got them to open. The HMT ship pivoted to face the doors, power surging through the cockpit as I took a seat in the pilot’s seat and strapped in.

  “Cascade,” I started, but Abby was ready.

  “I have locked him in the san unit,” she said. “It was the best I could do at short notice.”

  “Will he be all right?”

  “I have shrunk the unit so that he is confined. He should survive.”

  Oh, stars, I hoped so.

  “Power up, Case,” Abby instructed, as the hangar doors opened just wide enough for her to fit through—and then she shot forward.

  “You realize this is going to depressurize the hangar all to hell, right?”

  “I know. The wolves are in heavy armor. Their suits will seal.”

  “But Mack…”

  “They are in the shuttles,” Abby snapped. “It will be enough.”

  For a second she sounded almost human—angry that she couldn’t do anything, and determined that the stars would turn according to her plan just because she’d said it loud enough. I didn’t try to argue.

  “You want me on weapons?”

  “If you please. I am going to try and port Tens, Mack and Rohan on board.”

  It sounded like a fair call to me, Tens’s threats to recalibrate her circuitry notwithstanding. I figured he’d forgive her this time, given what was at stake.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Abby agreed, as she flew a tight arc around the Shady’s nose, and lined me up with the hangar doors.

  From what I could see of the ship, the reverse thrusters were already powered up, and her weaponry had gone live. I wondered if Case had woken anyone else up to assist her, and then there was no time. I caught a glimpse of wolves running for the shuttles, and for the sealed stations at the end of the hangar, saw Mack sitting very still in the cockpit of his shuttle as he lifted his hands away from the controls, and realized he’d opened the craft up so that the wolves could take shelter inside.

  Pulling the trigger had never been so hard in my life, but I took comfort that the repair dock was in easy reach of Rigel’s Banter, and rescue wouldn’t be too far away… and the wolves had teleport. I mustn’t forget that.

  “They have blocked all teleportation!”

  Abby’s frustration tore through the cockpit, and the weapons systems were ripped from my control.

  “Those furry sons of bitches!”

  And she corkscrewed into a sweeping arc that ran her guns along the hangar doors, blowing them off their pivots and out into space.

  “Punch it, Case.”

  “Thanks, Abby.”

  We banked as the Shady Marie reversed rapidly out of the repair hangar, and then pivoted on her tail before thrusting up towards the only gap between the remote repair stations and the main trading hub that were Rigel’s Banter.

  “They’re never going to let us come back,” Case muttered. “Hook on, Abs.”

  “Done,” and Case punched the Marie through the first set of maneuvers, Abby flying hard in her wake.

  “Oh, Stars above,” I managed, but it came out as a moan as the pressure built around me.

  “Apologies,” Abby said. “I was not built for living pilots. Here.”

  And that was all the warning I had before the pilot’s seat closed around me, and plunged me into stasis.

  13—The Hunt Resumes

  I came out of stasis, just as Abby touched down inside the Shady Marie’s hangar bay. This time she parked in Hangar Bay One.

  “I like it,” she said. “It’s closer to the control centre—which is where you’re needed, now.”

  I went, hearing Abby’s comm to Case, as I went.

  “She’s on her way. Stand by for relief.”

  Relief? Surely…

  “We’re keeping the rest of the crew on ice until we get to somewhere safe. There is no point in waking them until we are able to give them some idea of what we are up against, and what the chances are we’ll get out of it.”

  “What about Engineering?” I asked. “Life support? Those sections can’t run themselves.”

  “I’ll do a diagnostic check, but you may have a point.”

  Too darn right, I did. I’d done enough basic ship training to know we needed living crew monitoring the systems, that even automation broke down, sometimes.

  “And I can’t do the research you need from the control centre. I need to be in the library. We need a back-up pilot.”

  “That was Tens and Rohan,” Abby said. “Sorry, but you’re it.”

  “I’m not qualified for ships this size. What about you?”

  “Very well. Case, stand down. Cutter’s not rated. I’ll take over.”

  “No problems, Abby. I’ll divert the controls your way.”

  I waited, and then remembered Cascade.

  “The dog, Abs.”

  “Oh. You’d better get back there. He’s not happy.”

  I got, and was in time to see Cascade stagger to his feet in the san cubicle. The dog shot me a look that went beyond reproach. I reached out to steady him, and he eyed my hand like it might bite. Letting my hand drop down to my side, I headed for the door.

  “You hungry, boy?”

  He shuffled after me, stiff from being curled up for so long. I walked a couple of steps, and then stopped to wait for him.

  “Come on, Cas. I’m pretty sure we’ll find something in the caf.”

  As he came alongside, I rested my hand on his head, and scratched him behind the ears. This time, he leant against me.

  “Sook,” I said, and he straightened up and shook his head. “Let’s get dinner.”

  This time, when I moved off, he walked more easily, and then he broke away, and headed for a corner in the hangar. I guessed everyone had to go sometime. I waited until he came back over, before going through the hangar airlock and into the ship proper. By the time we reached the caf, Abby had woken up more of the crew. Everyone was fumbling their way around the pantry and the cooking gear, and I sighed.

  “Abby, you got any kitchen staff cycling out of stasis?”

  She tutted.

  “You humans and your need for food.”

  “Abs, please.”

  “Fine, but you’ll have to fend for yourselves for this meal. I want everyone at their stations inside the next twenty.”

  She said that last bit over the intercoms, and the folk around me sighed. I sighed, too, and then I slid behind the counter and across to the stoves. I knew how to cook. Hadn’t done it in a while, and I’d never done it for this many, but I figured…

  “Anyone else know how to flip a pancake without burning
it?”

  I got two more volunteers who could operate a mixer and premade batter, two others who knew enough to cook a pancake, and three more who understood the kaff maker enough to get it going. Between us, we had hot food cooked and people moving out the door in fifteen. Mind you, we had barely sat down to eat, ourselves, when Abby spoke again.

  “And why aren’t you at your stations?”

  I glared in the direction of the intercom and waved my crew of volunteers to sit themselves back down.

  “Because we got everyone else fed and out the door early,” I told her. “We need another fifteen so we can eat and clear up. Okay by you?”

  And my tone made it very clear that it had better be.

  “Fine. We’ll do a briefing at shift change, so everyone awake knows what’s going on.”

  “Did you wake a med team?” I asked. “We need one on stand-by, and Doc is gonna want to spruce up his med centre.”

  “I’ll do that, now. Shall I send them to you for feeding?”

  I exchanged looks with my team of seven.

  “I need two of you to stay back and look after Doc and his people. Can any of you be spared?”

  It took a little time on their implants, but we negotiated an extra half hour with their crew bosses, and Doc and his folk got fed, as did the incoming kitchen crew. I stayed and helped with the clean-up while the kitchen crew finished waking, and then I headed for the Shady’s research centre.

  Someone, somewhere, had to have advertised that contract—and I needed to find out where and who.

  Abby worked her way through the Shady’s systems, checking them over, and making sure they didn’t need maintenance scheduled. The verdict was soon, but not yet. We’d have time to get the Shady Marie to shelter, and a repair shop.

  “How much time, Abby? And how much will it cost?”

  “I’ll talk to Engineering and Bio, and look into it.”

  She went, and I headed into the recreation centre, and then stopped.

  “Abby?” I said, coming back out. “You won’t be able to reach me in here. It’s isolated and buffered.”

  “I’ll send someone,” and she went back to whatever she’d been doing when I’d interrupted.