It gave me a laughing-dog smile, got off the chair, and dragged me to my feet by my hair.
“Here,” it said, thrusting me towards the two wolves standing just inside the door way. “Keep it out of mischief.”
The second it let go, I tried to avoid the wolf reaching for me. I also tried to reach the door, but this took me a step in Derevo’s direction, and he gave me a hard and fast clip upside the head. The force of it knocked me off-course and sent me to my knees—and I was grateful…
… because I didn’t know what the fuck Pritchard was playing at, hitting me like that, but Delight had just dropped the big psi, before he could return to the other side of the desk, and Cascade had slipped his leash and was behind the desk, out of sight.
Just what in the stars’ names was going on? And why the Hell had we thought we could ever pull this off?
“Cutter!”
Huh? Now, why did I feel like my reality had just taken a strong twist to the left, and why the fuck were my hands cuffed behind my back? Hadn’t one of them been supposed to undo the cuffs before things reached this point?
“Cutter!” and this time, I registered the gleam of silver in Delight’s hand.
She caught the moment I registered the keys, and then tossed them in my direction, before moving to intercept the wolf closest the door. Its partner was already moving in on Pritchard, and I figured we didn’t have much time.
“Get us locked down and then lock the rest of the system down. I’ve asked Wanderer to speed up its schedule.”
The what? And she had? Whatever.
I knew what I had to do, now, even if the what and how I’d managed to get into the office was a bit of a blur. I scrambled up and over the desk and joined Cas in hiding behind it.
“What’s the matter, boy? Mean computer won’t let you in to play?”
Which was a bit of an understatement. Until I’d arrived, Cas had been bouncing into, and then back out of the range of a half dozen defensive programs.
“Let me see what I can do about that, hey?” I crooned, jacking directly into the terminal and suppressing a whoop of glee when I saw the wolf hadn’t secured it between opening up the still-live contract for me, and coming across the desk to wipe the sheer rebellion off my face.
“Yeah, baby. Here we go, boy,” and I reached out and hooked into the system, opening the door real wide for Cascade to come prancing through. The Wolves had pretty good security, but they hadn’t configured it for anyone who was already in the system with pretty high clearances to begin with. I could feel the wolf’s log-in data cloaking Cascade and me with a layer of code that said we were something other than what we were.
“Cas! Find Rohan! Find him! Find Rohan! Find Mack! Seek! Seek!”
I got the impression of a large, black, and hairy tornado tearing into the files seeking the faintest trace of those we loved and knew. It tore a swathe through the data that I was pretty sure Delight wasn’t going to appreciate, and then he took off. I got set to follow him, and then found I couldn’t. The damn dog had burned a swathe a mile wide and attracted a bit of attention—that, and I was finding it hard to concentrate. You know, like someone had given me a solid clip upside the head and rattled my brains.
Funny that.
I settled for going through the files and trying to find something more concrete that Delight and the Odyssey team could use, and then I remembered what she said about getting the Wanderer to speed up its schedule. That meant I’d have help.
That meant I didn’t have to stay in the system trying to keep up with a dog I’d already lost, or going through files I didn’t need. That meant I could pull myself back into the real and help kick some doggy butt!
“Yeah… or you could just fry the comms so they don’t get a message out, blind the security cams to buy us a bit more time, and lock down the doors to their living quarters to keep the odds halfway even. You know, Cutter. Something useful like that!”
Well, she didn’t have to be quite so mean about it!
“Wanna bet?” and something sharp and cold drove deep into my thigh, sending rivers of ice and fire jolting through my system.
I opened my eyes with a screech, and was in time to see Delight turning away to deflect a strike to her torso. That left me to pull the auto-injector from my leg, which I did, throwing it as far away from me as I could. It crashed into the next wolf coming through the door, and I realized Delight and Pritchard could do with some help.
“Yuh think?” came as a distinct chorus, and I took a deep breath, as energy swirled through my system.
Oh, dear heavens, no. She hadn’t.
“Sorry, sweetie,” and she didn’t sound anywhere near as sorry as she should have.
Well, at least I knew I was going to be a bit off the wall for the next… I really hoped this wasn’t going to last as long as last time. That had been horrible!
Before the drugs took over, I remembered the padded lining inside my ship suit, and opened up the pockets.
Oh. Yeah. Baby!
Weighted gloves to protect my hands, and four stunners.
Stunners!
I couldn’t help feeling a little bit disappointed at that.
“Three,” Delight said, and Pritchard turned his head in my direction, as I pulled the gloves on.
“Two,” and they both took steps to the side that put them just a little further away from where I was rolling to my feet.
“One!” punctuated my next move, nicely.
I continued my upwards roll, but used the momentum of it to back a punch into the closest wolf’s kidney. It grunted, and turned away from Delight, but it didn’t go down. It’s mistake. My next blow caught it in the side of the head, and it dropped like a stone.
Delight dropped, too, and I pivoted and gloved the next of the wolves upside the head. To me, it was as if he and Pritchard had only just noticed I’d arrived and wasn’t feeling charitable. Pritchard hit the floor and rolled away from me, which left the third wolf as the most likely threat. Unfortunately, he’d had a little bit longer to realize I was there and hostile. Fortunately, he made the same mistake as pretty much every other big male from a chauvinistic society, and tried to take me on without weapons.
I loved these gloves, especially when someone dropped the image of what those bumps just below my fingertips meant. Oh, Hells, yeah! This time I didn’t need to connect so precisely; the right finger pressure as my fist connected was all it took to send a short electrical charge jolting right through him.
“Stun the rest.”
I looked around for Delight, figured I might as well drop her, too, if she was standing, saw her balled up on the floor, and caught the image she sent me of the Wolf command centre. I also caught the merry havoc Cascade was making of their comms systems on his way through. Apparently, he’d found an email about me that mentioned Rohan, the boss, and ‘the other boss’.
“Go get ’em,” I told him, and he was gone, but the programmers were working up a storm to try and shut him down…and I couldn’t have that.
I went hunting for the comms centre—and decided that Delight could maybe stay around a little bit longer since she was feeding the directions into my implant. Pritchard, though…
Why was Pritchard’s image sliding into Derevo’s?
“No time,” Delight said, and I ran the length of the corridor just as doors were opening and wolves starting to emerge from office spaces.
Ooh—that one looked like an armory! And Delight’s cry of denial was not enough to stop me from turning into it and finding something with a lot more kick than a stunner. Somewhere in the back of my head, someone groaned.
“Now, you’ve gone and done it, Dee. You need to remind her she’s on an orbital.”
“Yeah,” and I had the impression Delight was coming to tell me that in person.
Now, tell me why wouldn’t I want to shoot the A-Level auto-cannon on an orbital?
Images slammed into my implan
t, and I put the overpowered hand cannon back down… Oh. Breathing.
And maybe decompression.
Yeah. Okay.
I grabbed several stun grenades, instead, and threw one into the corridor before heading out through the door after it. Things were looking sticky for Cascade by the time I reached the communications centre. After I got through with that place… well, things were looking a bit sticky pretty much everywhere except inside the net where Cascade was chasing down the email destination.
I was half tempted to follow him, but Delight yelled, and I ducked in time to avoid the first burst from a Blazer. Well, seems someone didn’t get the memo about not using blasters on an orbital. I ducked and covered scrambling to move behind a couple of consoles. Took me a minute to figure out I probably shouldn’t stick my head up, so I just pitched the next stun grenade over the top, and then tucked in tight behind the minimal shelter of the console.
Well, hot damn, that might not have been my best ever idea…
Still, the yelp from the other side of the counter was short-lived and followed by silence. I wondered what else I needed to go find and take out before Odyssey arrived. It took Delight three goes before I could fully understand what she was suggesting.
“Hey, Trouble. Wanna go for a walk?”
Cascade ignored her, but given he was taking himself for his own walk, that was logical. Dog was on a mission to find out where Mack and the boys had been taken to. Come to think of it—
“Cutter!” Delight’s voice jolted me out of my train of thought.
“What?”
“You coming or not? We got us an asshole to detain. Remember?”
An asshole?
“Costoganzi!”
Oh. That asshole. Well, why hadn’t she said so in the first place?
I stuck my head up from behind the console, and saw her standing in the doorway to the comms centre, a look of faint distaste on her face. She made a show of looking around the room, before she spoke again.
“You are one helluva blunt instrument, girl. You ready for a romp outside?”
A romp? Always! Outside? As in…
“Don’t look at me that way, Cutter. This time you get to wear a suit.”
And I watched as Pritchard handed her one. She held it up, waving it in my direction.
“See?”
That was mine? Well, cool. Let’s go then.
I’m not sure what the time lapse was between me thinking anything and then making it happen. My guess was that it wasn’t long, because I was half into the suit before I’d realized I’d crossed the room—and all the way in, while Delight was still taking hers from Pritchard.
Man made a great delivery boy.
“If you weren’t going to hate the world when that stuff wears off, I might try and make you sorry you thought that.”
He would?
“Nope. Not this time, girl. You gonna let me check your straps and make sure you can still get to your guns and big bag of boom?”
I... Well, sure, since he’d asked so nicely.
He said nothing as he checked the suit was properly secured. He even kept out of my head. I was curious about that. What was wrong with him?
“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “Come on. Let me show you where the airlock is. Delight can check my stuff when she gets there, okay?”
Huh? Sure. Let’s go get this guy.
“Delight, you give her anything else, ever again, and I’m gonna kick your tail.”
I stared at him, wondering why he was so mad. They’d needed help clearing the wolf deck, hadn’t they?
Pritchard caught the thought, and laid a hand on my shoulder.
“Sure, kid. We needed the help,” he said, and then he laid his arm across my back and took me to where the airlock was.
I baulked in the doorway, suspicion returning in a flood.
He took his arm away.
“Don’t sweat it, kid. I’m going in first, see?”
Delight arrived, glared at me, and stepped into the small chamber right beside him.
“You coming, or not, sweetheart. ’Cos we ain’t got all day.”
They didn’t? Well, okay, then.
The airlock seemed to take forever to cycle. I shifted from one foot to the other, my eyes flicking from the one progress monitor to the next, my head bouncing into and through the programs running the doors to making sure they were running smoothly, and then back out again. I stopped just short of running around in circles, but it wasn’t by much. When the doors finally slid open, I was the first through them.
And Delight was right there with me—which was a good thing, because I went through way too fast and lost my grip on the first rung outside. She grabbed my boot before I went too far, and pulled me back to the hull.
“That way,” she said, pointing at something on the other side of the station. “We need to get to it before it can drop a shuttle. The ship’s locked into the station.”
Man, that was going to be a hard call.
“Is he on board, yet?”
I was already moving, but Delight’s reply reached me loud and clear through the suit’s comms.
“Not yet. We reckon you have five minutes before the Wanderer registers on the orbital’s scans, ten until Costoganzi makes it to his yacht. Maybe another ten before he tries to launch the shuttle and skip down to the surface. Reckon you can make it?”
I didn’t stop. It’s possible to run on an EVA but not wise. I was gonna to have to do something creative to beat Costoganzi on board. As soon as I thought it, I heard Pritchard groan, and Delight swear.
“Shit.”
That was kinda funny, but I was already hacking the orbital’s schematics and this time I didn’t lose my view of the world around me. Whatever Delight had put into that auto-injector, it was GOOOD. I found the nearest maintenance bay, and liberated myself a small EVA Vehicle. Using the implant to pilot the damn thing down underneath me, I pushed off the hull of the station, used the suit’s small jets to stabilize my drift, and snagged the vehicle as I drove it past where I was floating.
Two startled voices said some pretty uncomplimentary things regarding my genealogy, but I just opened the throttle and laughed as I pushed the tiny vehicle to its limits and made for the bay where Costoganzi had docked his yacht. Other voices came through the comms unit—angry and official, ordering me to return the vehicle to the maintenance team, and turn myself in.
Like that was gonna happen!
I ignored them, and they attempted to use the emergency override switch to cut the power and take over. Well, I could more than handle that.
“Uh, Cutter… We’ll meet you there. Just keep the shuttle in the dock, and don’t kill anyone, okay?”
What?
“You kill him, we’ll never find out what’s happening with Mack.”
I guessed what she should have said was that if I killed Costoganzi then Odyssey would lose its lead into what the arach were doing in this part of the universe, because that’s what I was reading in her head. She was just lucky I was feeling charitable—that, and I wanted the arach gone just as bad as they did. Maybe even worse.
I turned off the comms, hacked the orbital’s docking allocations and then used the maps Delight had sent my implant to locate Costoganzi’s yacht. Looked like her Hack Team were already in the station’s systems, because that yacht was locked down tight. Short of the pilot busting it loose and taking the station couplings with it, there was no way they were moving that thing out of there, anytime soon.
I took a moment to peek through the traffic control system and make sure there weren’t any big boats coming in, or leaving, but it looked like Odyssey had taken care of that, too. The only thing coming in was the Wanderer.
Cool beans!
I backed off the power on the EVAV, and then worked out I hadn’t given myself enough space to cut the momentum. I hacked in the reverse thrusters, and then flipped the little vehic
le up and away. Away from me and the station, and into the path of the incoming ship. Damn! That was going to leave a mark!
“Cutter!”
“When you get back, young lady, you are so grounded!”
Pritchard’s response made me laugh. Yeah? Him and whose army?
“You’d be surprised….”
He’d be lucky if I didn’t finish what I had to do here, and then go and kick his ass.
“Stuff should have worn off by then, right?” he asked, but, from the quiet tone of his voice, I don’t think I’d been meant to hear him.
What stuff?
I shoved the question aside as the consequences for kicking away from the EVAV took effect.
At least I didn’t break the yacht when I slammed into its hull, but, man! Talk about leaving a dent. That was never buffing out. At least my little flip maneuver had bled off enough speed for me not to break myself hitting the damn ship.
“You’d better hope you didn’t puncture the suit,” Delight remarked. “It’s not built for that kind of shit.”
Girl had a point.
I caught my breath, and decided using the yacht’s hull as a stopping point had been a bit more stupid than I’d thought. At least I’d stopped. I peeled myself off the shuttle bay doors, and began the long slow crawl over to the emergency hatch. I had to admit, I was actually starting to feel a bit tired.
“How long before this stuff wears off?” I asked, but neither Delight, nor Pritchard gave me a response.
Figuring they were busy and I was on my own, I contented myself with reaching the hatch, and then trying to work out a way to get inside. Took a bit. I hooked my arm through an emergency hold point, and tried to find a way into the yacht’s security system, but the bitch was locked down tight.
Fine.
I looked for a point I could jack straight into the system with, and discovered it was locked down tight, too. Hell’s Bells, man. What didn’t these people understand about an emergency hatch? How the fuck were people supposed to get inside to rescue them?
“It’s called a cutting torch, Cutter—and you don’t have one. Find another way in.”
Which made me wonder how much use her Hack Team was if it couldn’t deal with a simple thing like hacking the security system of some big-wig’s private yacht.
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