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Turns out, Mack really did have me—and not in any carnal sense of the word. I woke up, in my bunk, alone, with a clearer head than I’d started out with the day before. I opened my eyes, and stared at the ceiling, and then shifted over onto my side.
“You talk in your sleep,” Mack said, “and you’re as argumentative when you’re asleep as you are when you’re awake.”
“I am?”
It was news to me, although not as important as the realization that followed.
“You watched me when I was asleep?”
He shrugged, but his face colored just the tiniest bit.
“I was worried.”
I sat up, pushing back the covers and pleased to find I was still wearing the body stocking, even if someone had removed my combat armor and boots. That wasn’t the most concerning thing, though.
“Did you get any sleep, yourself?”
His eyes cut away from me, and I waited for the inevitable lie. To my surprise, it didn’t come.
“Doc sent me to bed, threatened to put me under for a solid twelve if I didn’t get there myself.”
“And did you go?”
“Hells yes, I went. You saw how mad that man was. No one crosses Doc when he gets like that.”
No-one?
I could think of at least three on the crew who might, four if I counted Rohan, but I didn’t think he’d be quite that dumb... Oh, wait. He was just a kid.
“Thanks a lot, Cutter, and I love you, too.”
I wondered what Mack would make of that.
“He knows it’s not that kind of love,” the kid quipped back, and I had to remind myself the boy wasn’t the twelve-year-old I’d rescued off Bendigo’s ship; he was coming up to his eighteenth.
And who’da thought the little shit would live that long?
“Hey!”
“When you two have quite finished!”
Mack was very much not entertained, so I got my ass out of bed and headed for the san.
“You’ve got five minutes,” Mack said, “or you’ll be skipping breakfast.”
I waited for Doc to contradict him, but that worthy stayed silent, and I wondered if he, too, had finally gone to bed.
“Don’t bet on it,” Mack said. “He’s probably just biding his time.”
And weren’t those just the right words to haunt me, as I got clean, changed, and headed out to where Mack was still waiting.
“You gonna change?” I asked, taking in the fatigues he was wearing.
“These are clean on this morning,” he retorted. “You’re not the only one with multiple sets of the same thing.”
I wasn’t, huh, but Mack wasn’t standing around waiting for me to make another smart-ass crack.
“Food,” he said, “and then a couple of runs through the practice range.”
“You got a map?” I asked, since we usually saved configuring the range until after we had a vague idea of what we were going into.
“Not yet, but Tens did some research on the kind of complex, we can expect to find on Rennet’s World, and he wants the boy to get some practice in. Something about information being valuable, and how a bit of cross-training didn’t do anyone any harm.”
That was news to me. Until that moment, I’d thought Tens was happy to have an apprentice.
“He is, but he didn’t do all his training on board a ship,” Mack said, “and he thinks working with you will give the boy some of the side skills he picked up along the way when he was doing other things.”
Other things, huh? Looked like there was a bit more to Tens that I needed to uncover.
“No, you don’t, girl. You just need to leave Tens be, and make sure the boy learns what he needs to know in order to survive in your world, too.”
Given the boy already knew a darn sight more than I had known when I’d entered the world of Odyssey and Delight, I thought he already had a pretty good start.
“And it’s our job to make sure that start continues,” Mack said, and there was a finality in his tone that told me Captain Mack was firmly in charge. “You bet your ass, he is. Now get dressed.”
I got dressed—and made sure I did it in record time. There was something about this job that was bothering Mack, and he wasn’t sharing what. I figured I’d broach that with him while we ate. There was something about the job that was bothering me, too.
“We’re doing the job,” Mack said, as we sat down to breakfast, and that was the last he’d allow on the subject until we’d eaten.
Again, Doc had provided a minimum. This time, though, I was hungry, and had no trouble eating over it.
“You throw up on Stepyan’s training range, and he’s going to have you in there with a toothbrush and nail file for a month.”
“How’s he gonna know?”
“Man’s got his own direct feed from the range cams.”
“I could fix that.”
“Let’s not go there.”
Fine. I guess if I’d thought Tens was touchy about having his system hacked—and by his system, he meant the entirety of the Shady Marie—I shoulda know Stepyan was ten times as sensitive about anyone playing with his security. You know, him being an assassin and all.
I picked up my kaff, and changed the subject.
“This isn’t a deal we should keep.”
From the look on Mack’s face, that wasn’t anything he’d expected to come out of my mouth.
“I gave my word. To a wolf. We’re keeping it.”
“I don’t think—”
But that was as far as I got. Mack was in my head, and dumping files into my implant like he was the front-end-loader of information. Worse than that, he’d set them to open on landing, and I was sucked inside my head as I tried to keep up with the data flow. It was like drowning, but not. I struggled to sort the input and absorb it, horrified and angered by what I found.
I didn’t even notice when the files stopped coming, or register the fact that Mack kinda stood to one side in my head and watched me work, until I had my head around what it was we were going into—and precisely why. It wasn’t about the contract, anymore. It wasn’t even because he’d given his word.
Man was pissed and—by the time I’d finished sorting through the files—so was I.
“We’re doing the job,” I agreed when I surfaced back into the real, and then the smell hit me. “What, in all the Stars, is that?”
Because it smelled great. It smelled more than great; it smelled delicious, and I was starved. Mack picked up his knife and buttered a slice of bread, and I looked down at the space in front of me. Breakfast was long gone, its remains cleared away, I don’t know how long ago. Lunch sat in its place.
“How long was I in there?”
“Four hours.”
That was a lot of data.
“You were supposed to absorb it while you slept.”
Given what I’d just read, I wouldn’t have slept real well.
“I think I preferred wading through that while I was awake.”
“Eat your stew. You’re late for training.”
At least he wasn’t arguing the point. I ate the stew, and we hit the mats.
“I thought we were heading out to the range.”
“We missed the boat with the reading you had to catch up on. I’ll book you in for double, tomorrow.”
Fantastic.
We hit the mats in triple quick time, and I hit the mats a hundred times more. Damn. Mack might have a point when he said I was out of practice.
“Yuh think?”
And over I went, again. This time, I tried hooking my legs around his and bringing him down that way, but I was exhausted, and he weighed a ton. For most of the week, we continued working in perfect concert, in full agreement that the operation that had let the Rennet’s World wolves take the cub had to be shut down, and I spent the first three nights comatose as my body repaired the damage I’d done in less time than it was meant to. On the fourth night, I started doing my own digging. After hours. Without Mack’s supervision. On the fifth night, I hit a snag.
“We might need to bring Odyssey in,” I said, and Mack scowled.
“What have you got?”
“The Rennet’s Wolves aren’t just tied into the government of Rennet’s World; they are the government... and the building we’re planning on hitting isn’t some private enterprise; it’s a government asset.”
He was silent for a moment. Both the points I made usually meant he’d be calling Delight and Odyssey for advice, but calling in Odyssey meant he’d have to tell them about the contract, and he’d have to break his word to the wolf captain back on Alpha 9. Personally, I was pretty sure we’d stepped into some intra-wolf politics, and that the stuff was going to stick.
And stink. Let’s not forget that. It was sure as all the Stars above going to stink.
“Mack?” I asked, when the silence extended far longer than I’d realized.
“You’re going in alone,” he said. “Boy can cut his teeth on something else.”
“You want me to go ahead?”
“No choice, girl. This business is built on us keepin’ our word—and Stepyan and Case need us back on time to pick them up.”
I wondered exactly how Stepyan and Case and their nominated targets were involved in this, and decided that knowing didn’t change what needed to be done. I could only think of one flaw to the plan.
“Did Tens get that message off to Delight?”
Delight was our contact point. When she wasn’t available, because she was off doing some kind of sneaky beaky black op, our messages went through to her Operations department, and sometimes the help or advice we got was somewhat unexpected. Given what Mack was asking me to do, unexpected would be bad. Mack, of course, had an answer for everything.
“Yeup, but it doesn’t matter. They’ll be looking in the Alpha Nine system, not over at Rennet’s. By the time they connect the dots, we should be done and heading back.”
“You know Delight is going to kick your ass three ways to stardust when she finds out.”
“If she finds out.”
“It’s Delight, Mack. Of course she’s gonna find out.”
“Just make sure you can get the job done, Cutter.”
He might have cut out then, but he was back inside my head, shortly after.
“How much access does Delight have to your head?”
“Access?” I thought about it, remembering the times when she’d appeared inside my implant without so much as knocking. “I don’t know. I think Tens can lock her out, but not always, and not with any guarantee. She has a pretty good hack team, and they’ve been inside my head often enough.”
Again, he was quiet, so I tinkered around with the building and the plans, trying to isolate how I was going to work out where the wolf captain’s pup was, and how fast I could get in to retrieve it.
“Did he say how big the kid was, or how much he weighs?” was the next question that came to mind.
Mack flicked me a copy of the contract, and, while I wished I could say it came as a surprise, the fact those details weren’t included didn’t.
“You find him; we’ll port you out of there,” Mack said, as though that settled things.
I only wished it did.
“I was hoping to pack him a vest.”
“What if he’s in dog form?”
“What did we use for Cascade when he was a puppy?”
“Girl, that thing has never been a puppy.”
I waited. With a sigh, Mack gave in.
“Fine. We stuffed him in a locker.”
“You what?”
“You heard.”
I had; I just hadn’t wanted to believe it.
“Cope.”
Screw you, Mack.
“Not today,” which gave me a vague sinking feeling I had no time for, as he continued, “Now, what have you come up with?”
I gave him what I had, and then added, “I’ll need to refine it.”
“You’ve got until this time, tomorrow.”
“You gonna waive tomorrow’s training?”
“You wish.”
Fantastic. I wondered what Delight’s range was, and whether she’d bother to drop by via the Shady’s comms before paying my head a visit. Mack was silent, but I could feel him thinking about the implications and wondered what he’d make of them.
“She has to find us first,” he said, and I wished he wouldn’t be so sure she wouldn’t.
“Girl, your attitude is making me downright cranky.”
Exactly how cranky I didn’t discover until two days later.
