Blaedergil's Host by C.M. Simpson (reading well .TXT) 📕

“You don’t know how you’re supposed to be dressed, or what equipment you’ll need,” he protested, but I kept going, barely stopping to let the door open wide enough to let me through.

“And whose fault is that?” I snapped back.

I was tempted to give him the finger, except that would have meant letting go of the sheet, which would have meant flashing a whole lot more skin to the passing crew than I was comfortable with. Hell! I wasn’t even comfortable in the sheet. I don’t know how long it had taken Mack and Tens to come find me, but I didn’t stink any more. I just needed some clothes.

Tens was snickering, as he followed me out, but, as far as I could tell, Mack hadn’t moved an inch.

“What do you want?” I snapped, when Tens came alongside, and he raised his hands as though in surrender.

“Briefing notes,” he said, and sent the relevant file to my implant. “I’ll catch you in the caf.”

I muttered something more closely resembling a ‘fuck you’ than a ‘thank you’, but I still think I would have punched him, if he’d touched me. I didn’t need any condescension, right now... and compassion would only result in me in tears. I just needed to go through the briefing notes, while I dressed, and then get my shit together before we had to go.

It didn’t take long. Tens had located where Andreus Corovan was holding Melari, and then tracked where the anti-virus had been sent. I was going into the labs of the Corovan pharmaceutical company, while Mack took a team down and pulled Melari out of the isolated mountain retreat in which Andreus had secluded her.

I was wondering how the young lord Corovan had managed to get any staff to work there, and then decided that he’d had to test the serum on someone, and added another mental black mark to his name. Not that he’d care, but it mattered to me. I had a better idea of exactly what he was—and right now, I wouldn’t want him stuck to the underside of my boot.

So, Mack to the mountain, Tens riding teleport duty on the ship, and me doing what I’d excelled in at training—retrieving stuff someone didn’t want me to retrieve. Good. Gotit... and then I saw where the pharma company was located, and sat down, hard, on the floor.

“No. Fucking. Way.”

Which, of course, is when Mack decided to walk through my door.

“Yes, fucking way,” he said, and stopped, as I scrambled to my feet. “You up to it, or not?”

I pulled the schematics up in my head, rotated the space station, and found the entrance I was looking for. Mack’s expression became doubtful.

“They’ll never expect it,” I told him. “Won’t see it coming in a month of Sundays.”

Mack continued to regard me with a dubious stare.

“What?” I asked, and then turned away from him, so I could find some clothes. Mission like this? I was gonna need...

I reached out along the comms signal to access the station’s systems. Figured it wouldn’t like being tickled, so added some code to randomize the route any tracking software might find, and looked for a suitable patsy. Oh, oh my... a wolf ship. And those boys were just famous for their sweet and gentle natures.

I snickered.

Sweet and gentle, right? NOT!

I wondered what look Mack’s face was wearing, now, and decided I didn’t want to know. Once I was sure my interference couldn’t be traced back to the Shady Marie, I wormed my way into the station security system, and piggy-backed onto the feed from their security cameras.

The concourse was full of your usual ship-types, with some security mixed right along in, but that wasn’t the section I was going to try to blend in with. It took a couple of goes, but I eventually found the station section where the pharma company was housed.

There was a concourse there, as well, and a small series of docking bays, most of which were private berths, reserved for company ships.

“You been given a slip, yet?” I asked, over my shoulder.

I still didn’t turn around; didn’t need to. I knew Mack hadn’t left, because I could still feel his presence behind me; it was like a small thundercloud brewing up a major storm... not that Mack was small, but, hey, you get the picture.

He didn’t answer right away, and I guessed he was communicating with Case, given the pilot was the first one who’d be likely to know. While I waited, I compared what I had in the wardrobe with what I saw on the monitors, pulling the appropriate pieces out and setting them aside.

The next problem I had was trying to work out how to fit them under the EVA suit without getting them rumpled enough to be noticed.

“You want to what?”

Well, so much for Mack keeping out of my head, I thought. At least the man had had enough sense not to nudge me while I’d been programming the routing diversion for the station’s countermeasures.

“Curious. Not stupid,” Mack told me. “Now, are you going to fill me in?”

“There’s a maintenance hatch beside one of the thrusters used for attitude adjustment,” I said, referring to my entry point into the station. “I’m going to EVA my way into that, and then disappear into the storage room just beyond it, and stash the EVA suit.”

I had dropped the sheet, and pulled on the civilian clothes I would wear around the station. It wasn’t easy, but I’d dressed in front of Mack before, so why should this time be any different? After all, it wasn’t like he was interested. I moved away from that thought, tracking through the job ahead.

“After that, I’m going to take that ventilation shaft,” and I highlighted the air ducts leading out of the storage closet and linking to the ventilation in the pharma company, “over to the lab where they’re keeping the serum. Once I’ve got that,