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The crew was out of stasis when we arrived, and the ship was alive with activity as provisions were brought aboard, refueling undertaken, and last-minute tests and checks completed. To be honest, whatever was in the ivanox had started to take effect by the time Sandoval’s ship had docked beside Mack’s.
“I’ll have my team escort you back,” Sandoval told Mack, when the captain stood, and swayed on his feet. “You’re still recovering from your injuries.”
Well, that was kind of him, but I caught the look on Treivani’s face, and wondered what kind of message they were sending by having us escorted back to our ship by an armed combat team.
“The kind that says you are under my protection,” Sandoval’s voice whispered in my head, and I wondered why it sounded like a threat.
Whatever it was, Mack, Tens, and I needed the escort, because not a single one of us could walk a straight line by the time we hit the concourse, and the distance between our ships stretched impossibly far in our addled brains. The security team’s closest members, each took a firm grip on our arms to keep us upright and moving, and got us into the ship before we were even close to falling down.
“Damn!” Doc said, when the team led us into the medical center. “You three are soaked.”
And we’d all looked down at ourselves to see where we’d gotten wet. Doc shook his head. He didn’t bother explaining, just grabbed Mack by the arm, and signaled for the security team to bring us through to a small med bay.
“What have they had?” he asked, and swore when the team leader told him.
“Do you know what to do?” the man asked, and Doc nodded.
“I know what to do,” he said. “Thank you for getting them here safely.”
The man cast a grim eye over the three of us, and then signaled his team out of the doc’s domain. Doc watched him go, his lips compressed into a tight line that said he wasn’t happy. He saved the real swears for when the security monitors showed that Sandoval’s team had cleared the ship, and were on their way back to the cruiser.
“Of all the stupid sons of well-furrowed, in-heat, man-eating bitches I’ve ever had the misfortune to keep on their feet,” he said, “you needle-dicked, mind-fucked, ass-ridden, puke-bucketed, shit piles are the stupidest there have ever been.”
“Hey,” Mack mumbled, and I agreed with the sentiment; there was no need for Doc to be so mean.
I didn’t see why he was so upset, not even when Tens walked up to the nearest bed and collapsed over it.
“Well, fuck me,” Doc said, and started bellowing. “Halloran I need your useless ass in here. We got ourselves a high-level drunk tank that needs detoxifying A.S.A. P.”
Detoxifying, huh? I decided I didn’t care for that, and turned myself about and headed for the door. No one was going to detoxify me... whatever that meant. I was just fine.
I ran into Halloran as he came into the room, and Doc caught me on the rebound, which would have been fine, if the jolt hadn’t made my stomach decide that ivanox was something better out than in.
“What in all the fucking stars is ivanox?” Halloran wanted to know as I turned the clean, light blue of his nursing scrubs into a multi-colored canvas of red, green and yellow blotches, with chunky bits in between.
“Local fortified,” Doc told him. “Get cleaned up, and send me a team.”
“You got an antidote?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
Doc was steering me to the nearest empty bunk as he was speaking, and I didn’t have the strength to resist. The fact I found Halloran’s scrubs fascinating in their new color scheme didn’t bother me a bit, but Doc laid me down, and I didn’t have the strength or coordination to get myself upright again.
For some reason, the ship was pitching like a rollercoaster, and I didn’t know how I was staying on the bed, let alone how Doc was keeping his feet. The side spins were particularly spectacular.
I lay very, very still, not daring to move. Doc just stood and looked at me.
“Bad storm, huh?” he asked, and I gripped the sides of the bed tight, and grunted an affirmative. Nodding seemed like a really bad idea, right now.
“Don’t worry,” he told me. “We’ll strap you in, and you’ll be fine.”
Okay, I thought. I wanted to say that out loud, but my voice had run away. I was still trying to work out how, when there came an almighty crash from behind him, and he spun away from me.
“Goddamnit, Mack! You were in the bed for a reason!”
It was an interesting ride from there on out, and the Shady Marie had detached from the station and was returning to Costral, by the time I made it back onto my feet. Mack was gone, having thrown off the effects far quicker than any of us, and I figured he had the body mass to cope. Tens had fared about as well as I had, being the most lightly built of us all.
I remembered downing the glass of ivanox at Sandoval’s insistence, the calculation I could see in Treivani’s eyes, the wariness in Mack’s, and the doubt that had drifted through the implant from Tens. That was funny given it was his fault we’d been expected to drink it.
He’d been the one to point out that ivanox was one of the Skymander traditions for closing a deal. So, of course, it was only natural that Skymander had expected us to partake. Goodwill being what it was, and all that.
And it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but now? Now I was pretty sure Tens had been set up—and had been used to set the rest of us up, right thing or not. Damn! Now, I knew why it was best to have experienced the local brew before trying it in a diplomatic situation. At least Skymander had known what to expect, and put contingencies in place.
And we’d been fortunate that his interests aligned with our own, or we might not have made it back to the ship. I wondered if we’d signed anything else before we’d left... or after we’d arrived aboard. I figured we were pretty safe after getting here, given that Doc had taken over, and would have kept us from doing anything particularly stupid.
And speaking of which... Movement outside the door caught my eye, and I tried to prop myself up, only to find a band of pressure across my chest and others over my hips and knees. What the...?
“Storm finished, Cutter?” Doc asked, coming into view, and I stared at him.
What storm?
He read the puzzlement on my face, and his body lost some of its tension.
“Well, well. Welcome back, Cutter. How do you feel?”
Now that he mentioned it. He caught the shift in expression as my stomach rebelled, and had released the bands, and put a bowl in front of my face, before I started dry heaving the nothingness in my stomach. Halloran appeared behind him, and handed him a drink bottle.
I eyed it uncertainly, given what the last bottle had contained, but Doc was glaring, again, so I accepted it and took a cautious sip when he passed it to me. Sweet, green-tasting liquid passed over my tongue and sank into my stomach, easing the cramping, until I didn’t feel in imminent danger of losing what I hadn’t had for lunch. I kept sipping, wary of taking more than a tiny amount, each time I lifted the flask.
Doc watched me, until we heard Tens groan.
“Stay there,” he said, stepping past me, and moving out of sight.
I heard Tens mutter something, and then start retching, but I didn’t shift an inch. I didn’t even turn my head to look. On top of the roiling nausea in my gut, my head felt like it wanted to break apart, and I didn’t want to move, in case it decided to do just that.
“Easy,” Doc said. “You need to lie down for a bit longer.”
From beyond me, Tens muttered a protest, and Halloran came through the door carrying a syringe. I yelped and recoiled, but stayed on the bed, tucking myself against the wall as he passed. I heard a flurry of movement, and then Tens sighed. Doc echoed him, and then he and Halloran came back into view.
I eyed them warily, but there wasn’t a syringe in sight, so I slowly uncoiled.
“Mack?” I managed, still not quite able to string a sentence together.
“He’s better than he has any right to be,” Doc growled. “You need more rest.”
I nodded, eyeing him carefully, while trying to keep a weather eye on Halloran. Doc managed a mirthless smile.
“No needles,” he said. “You just need to lie down, and close your eyes, and you’ll be fine.”
Whatever had been in that drink bottle had settled my stomach, so I nodded, and stretched out. Halloran moved out of sight, only to return with a light-weight blanket that he and Doc draped over me, as I closed my eyes. The sharp sting of a syringe going into my shoulder caught me by surprise, but the weight of a broad set of hands rested on my chest and side, and I couldn’t find the energy to move.
“Lying bast...” I managed, as sleep took me under like a wave, and I wondered what Doc would have made of that kind of undertow being on board a perfectly dry starship.
I didn’t get to ask him, though, because it was Mack who was standing over me when I woke up, and I recoiled so fast he almost didn’t grab me before I fell off the other side of the bed.
“Where the Hell do you think you’re going?” he asked, taking a firm hold of my shoulder, which was about when I realized who was standing in front of me.
“Mack,” I said.
At least this time, I didn’t throw up—although the results would have been entertaining.
“What’s up?”
“Briefing,” he said, and I rolled my eyes.
Of course, there was a briefing. What else would there be?
“When?”
He wrinkled his nose.
“After you’ve showered and changed,” he said, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
I slipped off the edge of the bed, and he stood back to give me room. I didn’t blame him. If he could smell what I could, he had every right to keep his distance.
“I’ll catch up,” he said. “I have to check on Tens.”
Tens. Right. I turned to see how Tens was doing. I half expected to see him still flat out and comatose, but he was slowly pushing himself upright, and rubbing his eyes.
“How are you?” I asked, and he gave me the finger.
I just laughed and headed for the door, happy to let Mack deal with him.
As I went, I linked into the ship’s system, and checked in on Delight and Pritchard. They were still locked in their rooms, and I had to wonder why. Pritchard seemed to be taking it well; he was running through training kata in the center of his room. He paused, when I looked in, glancing towards the camera, before continuing—and I wondered how he’d sensed me.
Delight was also running through training kata, and she flipped the camera the bird as I came by. Anyone would have thought she resented being locked down. I snickered, and left her to it. Maybe next time she wouldn’t have a hissy fit and shoot the guy with the only ship in-system willing to pull her ass out of a jam.
“I had it under control,” she said, and then left my head, again.
Right. Implant. Party Line. No nicking off when Mack and Odyssey needed me around. Fuck that for a joke. As soon as this mission was done, I was off, and they could both forget about me returning.
Delight was back in an instant, and she wasn’t playing nice. The footage from when Bendigo had shoved me into an airlock to get me to comply to a room change, rolled through my head, accompanied by the sensory input that locked away the safety of the ship around me, and had the air rushing past me to the depths of space.
I was on the floor with my hands over my ears, when Mack wrapped himself around me, and Tens kicked her out of my head. It still took him a while to turn the memory off, or for me to register Mack’s presence.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “Not out an airlock, and not off on your own. Not until we fix this.”
I didn’t argue, and I didn’t raise my head. I just leant into his warmth, glad he was hiding my tears from anyone else using the corridor, and still feeling the echo of terror running through me. I was grateful for that... and then I heard him sniff, and felt his lips close to my ear.
“And you really need a shower,” he said, “because you reek.”
I wanted to tell him that he didn’t smell so good himself, but I realized I would be lying, because... and I cut that thought off with a firmness born of desperation. Tens snickered, but Mack just unwrapped himself from around me, and stood up. I had just started to straighten, when his hand tapped me on the shoulder, knocking me off balance, before grabbing my arm to haul me to my feet and steady me.
Honestly! He could have just asked.
“And you’d have said no,” he told me, and I had to agree. I really would have said no—and then I’d have gotten to my feet under my own steam, and done my best to get myself to my quarters, before the almost overwhelming sense of fear caught up with me.
“I’m going to murder Delight,” Mack said, but Tens intervened.
“Not yet,” he said, “but I think she’s earned an indefinite Time Out.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Tens directed our attention to our implants, and the security feed showing Delight’s room.
“I thought you were making a suggestion,” Mack said, as the feed highlighted a colorless gas rolling down around her from the vents.
Tens shrugged. He sounded completely unrepentant as he replied.
“Nope. Just hoping for forgiveness. She’s going into stasis as soon as it takes effect.”
“What do you mean?’ Mack wanted to know, and I was just as confused as he was. We could both see Delight lying motionless on the floor of her room.
Tens didn’t say anything, just showed us her vitals, including the brain activity that revealed Delight was very much awake. Well, dayum, I thought. The door to her quarters opened, and three, suited figures entered.
Delight bounced to her feet, and the figures ducked, letting a fourth figure fire over their heads and into Delight’s torso. I held my breath as Delight folded mid-leap, and hit the deck much harder than any conscious person should.
“Approach with caution.” Even over the security feeds, Doc’s voice was unmistakable, but I could see from the scan that Delight’s brain was heading for oblivion. No doubt Doc could see it, too; he just wasn’t taking any chances. Delight wasn’t an Odyssey legend for nothing.
This time, though, she was proving to be only human. I watched as Doc and his team lugged her down to the medical center and dumped her in a quarantine pod. When he’d arranged her carefully inside and sealed the pod, tight, Doc turned and looked up at the camera.
“You want her in stasis, or conscious enough to realize how much trouble she’s in.”
I tensed, but Mack was already aware.
“Put her into stasis,” he said. “I’m not playing around here. I don’t want her thinking up any creative bastardry and trying to implement it through the pod’s interface. I need her to not be a complication until the next part of the mission is over.”
