Arach by C.M. Simpson (books to read for 12 year olds TXT) 📕

doors as soon as the last vespis had made it out of the docking bays. I’m not sure what the boy did, but I was pretty sure it was going to take more than knowing the pass codes to get the damn things open.

Askavor flowed through the system, heading for the door controls. Logical. If the arach were able to hook into those, they could try another hack.

I watched the arach shuttles back off, and then felt an explosion tear through the ship. I swear the Marie groaned under the force of it.

“Sons of bitches,” Mack breathed, but he stayed in his seat, his eyes on his board. On the external feeds, bits of his ship floated away from the hull. Well, fuck.

I watched as the shuttles landed in the hangars, and the arach rigged a pressurized tunnel to the nearest door. I might have watched to see what the arach were going to try next, and maybe joined Askavor in his defense of the door codes, if Mack hadn’t spoken.

“Now, Tovy.”

And pain seared through the injury in my shoulder, pulling me out of my head, and well out of the ship’s systems. Opening my eyes, I turned my head to see what had happened, and saw Tovy calmly depressing the plunger on a syringe of swirling silver liquid.

Nanites… direct to the wound.

My head swam, the world shuddering as Tovy slowly withdrew the needle, spreading the nanites through the wound as he did so.

“You didn’t think to anesthetic might be a good idea?” I asked, my voice creaky with pain.

He didn’t answer, but I saw his wings rustle.

“You don’t have any anesthetic?”

Again, his wing rustled, and I glared at Mack.

“You raided the medical center and didn’t get any—”

“Give it a rest, Cutter! I raided the emergency locker on the bridge and you’re lucky I found the fucking nans!”

I was about to tell him exactly what I thought of that, when Tovy took a second syringe out of one of the saddlebags, and moved down to my thigh.

“Oh, no! No you don’t!” I began, trying to get up out of the chair and out of his reach—and found myself just as tightly tied down.

I guess nans weren’t the only things Mack had found in the emergency locker.

“Mack!”

“It’s easy, Cutter. Just don’t look.”

He what? But before I could respond to that, Tovy inserted the needle through the bandages covering my thigh.

“Goddamnit, Tovy!”

“Ignore her, Doc. She just doesn’t like needles.”

“That’s a pity,” Tovy said, “because I cannot apply the stims any other way.”

Mack shifted so he could put his hands on either side of the area Tovy was working on, holding my leg still. Tovy kept injecting the nans, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it… which was a good thing.

I yanked against the restraints Mack and Tovy had applied while Tens had distracted me in the security system. Talk about your fucking conspiracy. Tovy looked up from where he had been slowly injecting the nans into the second wound—and his hands froze, as he leaned towards my face.

“Be still, Cutter,” he ordered, his mind-voice gentle but firm.

Be still? When I got myself out of these restraints, the arach were going to be the least of his and Mack’s problems…or they were…

I blinked, watching the air around Tovy’s mandibles turn slightly pink.

“What’s that?”

“Be still,” the vespis medic urged, and a vague sweetness filled the air around me.

It was…nice…and maybe I didn’t want to punch him anymore….or Mack. Not really.

“Tovy?”

“Yes?”

“What did you do?”

“Are you calmer?”

“Uh huh…”

“Do you hurt as much?”

“Uh uh…”

“Are you sleepy?”

“Mmmm…not really…”

“Good. Now, hold still.”

Now, that should have worried me. For a minute, I couldn’t remember why, and then he straightened, and the needle shifted in my thigh.

Oh. Yeah… I should be cross about that… really, really cross.

“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

“A little, and then it will start to feel better, okay?”

“Okaaay.”

“Wow,” Tens said. “I have got to get me some of that!”

“Later,” Tovy said. “If you still really want me to breathe on you.”

“You pheromoned me?” I asked.

“You were in pain.”

“But…”

“Are you in pain, now?” and he depressed the plunger.

I…That hurt!

“Yes…”

“But you’re not trying to get away.”

“Nooo…”

“So it’s helping. I’ll explain more, later.”

Well, that was downright evasive.

“It’s what the bodyguards use when they don’t wish to kill their opponents.”

Oh, well, that explained why I didn’t want to hit anyone anymore.

“Tell me it wears off.” Mack.

“Five minutes,” Tovy said

Another explosion rippled through the ship.

“Good.”

I was about to protest, when Tens cut across us to explain.

“They used a cutting charge on the shuttle bay bulkhead.”

I wanted to dip back into the feeds to see how the vespis on the other side of the bulkhead had fared, but I couldn’t. The pheromones formed a barrier between my head and the ship’s systems—a slippery layer that trapped me in my head, while Tovy worked. I was about to protest, when the comms went live, and Delight appeared on the forward screen.

“We’re almost in range. Let your people know we’re coming.”

She didn’t stop to chat, but cut the call before any of us could respond.

“They’re in,” Askavor said, but I didn’t think he meant Delight’s people. I sank in to inspect the feeds, felt the pheromone barrier stretch and split.

In the hangars, the shuttles had sealed their end of the entry tubes, and were reversing slowly back into space. Well, at least our tactics had wrecked any chance they had at a record of three trips before the queen’s ship arrived. I wondered what the penalty was for failing to hit the target.

“That depends on how the battle goes,” Askavor informed me—and, again, I wanted to know how he knew so much. “Another time.”

Or never—I could hear it starlight-clear in his voice. I studied the feeds. The queen’s people were making a fighting retreat down the corridors, the two teams falling back to each other, before trying to make it back to the bridge. Somehow, I didn’t think they were going to get here—not without Delight’s help.

“Shift your ass, Odyssey,” I muttered.

“Call