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

I’ll either exit via the concourse, or head back to the suit, and EVA my way back out the maintenance hatch and into the ship.”

I finished buttoning the cream-colored blouse that fitted in best with the fashions worn by the pharma’s employees, and dragged my combat suit closer.

“You can’t wear that; you’ll never fit in!” Mack said, as I slid my feet into the legs, carefully tucking the hem of my office slacks down near the ankles—last thing I wanted was for the fabric to bunch, because those were a set of wrinkles I wouldn’t be able to hide.

“I’m going into a set of potentially hostile air ducts; I’m not doing it naked, and I’m not doing it without wearing something over my civvies. Those things need to be clean if I’m to blend in when I hit the lab.”

I kept dressing as I was talking, shrugging my way into the combat suit’s top half, and making sure I kept the sleeves of the blouse I had under it, flat.

“How are you even going to know which lab you need?”

“I’m going to hack the delivery manifests.” I finished getting dressed as I spoke, and started doing exactly that.

“They won’t be on the main station server,” Mack said, and I walked back to the closet to find my boots.

Like I needed to be told that.

I needed a pair that sat at the midpoint between the combat boots I had, and nice every-day or evening wear. Fortunately, the replicator was up to producing something that looked the part. Unfortunately, what it produced was nowhere near being the part.

“Nice,” I muttered, sounding anything but pleased, but I put them on anyway, and decided not to complain too loudly. At least they’d fit in the suit, no problems.

I discovered that most of the Corovan pharma’s computer system was air-gapped, but that the desk at reception was not. It couldn’t let me into the research systems, but it could let me see what packages had arrived, and when, and what labs they’d been sent off to. It also let me see what classification each package had been given.

There were three that fit the criteria for the parcel I was looking for. Two were right across the hall from each other, but the third was two levels down and right out on the end of the arm.

“That’s the one,” Mack said, highlighting it in my implant.

“I’m gonna need a different maintenance hatch.”

“Are we going to discuss this in the caf, or do I need to bring a couple of spare chairs and the coffee down there?” Tens pinged our implants, and he didn’t sound too impressed—and now I remembered him saying he’d meet me.

“Almost done,” I said, as I looked over at Mack, and headed for the storage drawers under the wardrobe. He wasn’t too impressed as I started pulling stuff out of the compartment I’d built in the back.

“Weapons belong in the armory,” he said, but I ignored him, and pulled out the tools I’d slowly been collecting.

The look on his face as I tucked them in their allotted spaces around the combat armor would have been entertaining, if it didn’t mean he now knew what I spent my pay on, and where I stored it. He smiled as I thought it, and I frowned.

“What?”

“I’m in your implant, remember? I already knew about this stuff. What has always puzzled me is why you never take it with you when you run.”

Man had a point there, but I shrugged. Truth was, I couldn’t say why... unless I really thought about it, I guess, and I sooo wasn’t going there.

“Why not?” Mack pressed, and I slammed the last tool into its pocket, fastened it down tight, and stood up.

“Because it’s none of your goddamned business!” I snarled, and made for the door.

It opened as I reached it, and Pritchard had his hand curled in the throat line of my collar and was lifting me up, and stepping into the room even as I registered he was there.

23—Delight on Deck

“What the—” Mack started, as Pritchard grabbed me, but Pritchard continued with the lift, releasing me in a throw that propelled me into Mack’s chest. Mack went down, and Pritchard had drawn a small needler from inside his ship’s suit, and darted us before we could untangle ourselves.

“You need Delight on deck,” he said.

I knew what Mack wanted to say, even though he was in no fit state to say it. Hell, it was exactly the same thing I wanted to say: No. Fucking. Way.

“You need her,” Pritchard told us. “First, because Odyssey will have all your hides if she’s still locked up down when they get here—and, believe me, they are coming—and, secondly, because she’s been on this station before, and you,” he said, addressing me directly, “need her with you, if you’re going to survive going through the ducts.”

He paused, and we both stared at him.

“Actually, you’re going to need her if you’re going to get into the ducts, or through the maintenance hatches, or did you think she’d visited in an official capacity?”

Now that he mentioned it...

I ran the station’s security files, trying to match Delight’s face to the records they had for visitors. Pritchard tilted his head, and shot another glance towards me.

“Two years, two standard months, three days, four hours and thirty-seven minutes ago, to be precise.”

I followed his time frame, and couldn’t find a record for anyone matching Delight’s description entering the station... not via the usual routes, anyway. What I did find was a small glitch in the security footage where Delight’s face came up as a partial match for a maintenance worker that ducked into a corridor and completely vanished—from the scans, and from the station records.

I wondered how long the stuff in Pritchard’s dart would take to wear off, and felt Mack shift beneath me. Well, of course Mack would recover before I did. Of course, he would.

“He has more body mass than you do,” Pritchard said, and I finally