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

The commander opened her mouth, and I thought she was going to argue, but then she nodded.

“Go do what you can,” she said. “Let me know if you find her before we do. You do that, and the mission’s yours.”

Tens nodded to her, and then cast a look at Mack. I wasn’t privy to whatever passed between them, but watched as Tens nodded a second time, and then turned to thread his way between the beds between him and the concourse entry. He was moving awfully smoothly for someone who’d been infected.

“He had Doc,” Mack said, “and they got the cure out to the crew before it reached a lot of the station.”

Including wherever he’d been, I thought, and caught Mack’s almost imperceptible nod. We both looked up when the Odyssey doctor arrived to check us over.

“You need to rest,” he said, “or I’m not going to release you for whatever little jaunt she’s putting you up to,” and he included the commander, in a glare that would have done Doc proud.

The two of them must have attended the same medical school. Either that, or doctors were issued with a standard ‘glare of disapproval’ on graduation. He saw to Mack, first, and then turned to me.

“Right,” he said, and went over me with a clinical thoroughness that made me breathe a sigh of relief, when he was done. “Lie down, and get some sleep. If you continue to improve at this rate, I’ll let you go back to your ship.”

“What about my mission?” the commander asked, and the look he gave her was beyond disapproving.

“We’ll see,” he said, and his tone said the subject was closed for discussion.

He took a step away from us, and then appeared to notice Delight.

“Ah,” he said, then added, “I take it she’ll be needed, too?”

“If she can.”

The doctor sighed, and moved to examine Delight’s recovery, but not before looking over at me and frowning.

“Either you lie down and sleep on your own, or I give you an assist.”

He didn’t tell me I had until he’d finished his examination of Delight, but, then, he didn’t need to; I’d figured that bit out all by myself.

29—Things that Bite

Mack, Delight, and I hit atmo twelve hours later. Tens had found out where Andreus had taken Melari, and put the call through to the commander—and she’d gotten the doctor’s clearance, not long after. We were woken, fed, kitted out, briefed, and ready to drop within two hours of Tens locating her. The Odyssey team tasked with the search were both impressed, and not very happy, but Tens offered to share how he’d gone about it, and we left them with a promise they could borrow him after we’d returned.

There was no way anyone else was sitting overwatch on us as we dropped. We had confidence in Tens. The others? Not so much.

Mack stepped away from the controls, leaving the shuttle’s final approach in Case’s capable hands. The rest of us unstrapped, and grabbed our gear. We were pretty sure Andreus would be watching the shuttle approach, expecting it to land.

We were going to give him exactly what he expected... and then we weren’t.

Son of a bitch wanted to play with a Skymander virus? Fucker was gonna get to do exactly that... and we were pretty sure he hadn’t been immunized, yet, because Odyssey had quietly infiltrated the on-planet facility that was making the stuff, and hijacked the first shipment out. Their team would be joining us shortly, and neither the facility, nor any of the Corovans had half a clue what was happening.

There was more than one way to make the clans come to the table—and, so far, communications with them hadn’t been satisfactory, and that included the Hazernas. It made a person wonder exactly what the Corovans had to hold over their more prominent cousins. That, however, was not our concern, right now.

I checked the Glazer, the Blazer, and the finely crafted Zakrava, making sure I had sufficient energy packs, solids, and darts for each, and then went over the programs I’d loaded into my implant.

“Ready?” Mack asked, and we all gave him the thumbs up.

We were more than ready. Give us a virus, would he? Well, that Corovan sonuvabitch was going to pay.

I reached up and pulled the mask down over my face, making the light combat armor I was wearing a sealed unit.

“Take us in,” Mack said, and we didn’t need to be told to brace.

This part of the mission was in Case’s hands, and she’d been very thorough in her briefing of what to expect. The shuttle dropped like a stone, plummeting to below tree level, and following a sinuous route down a narrow gully walled by rocks and cliffs. It would take us under the Corovan radar, long enough for the three of us to drop into a deep pool located at the end of the gully.

The pool also gave Case enough space to spin the shuttle on its axis and take it back the way it had come, so that it could come back into view just above the tree-line not far from where it had disappeared. Anyone tracking the radar would either think their equipment had suffered a momentary glitch, or that we’d followed the gully, discovered it was a dead end, and come back out.

Case wasn’t stopping longer than it took the shuttle to turn, and we were jumping while it did that. Oh, and we were jumping together. Into the water. We’d still be dropping when the shuttle started its return journey. Fortunately, it ended up being a lot simpler than it sounded, and Case executed her part flawlessly.

The air heated above us, as the shuttle vanished up the gully, and then the water closed over our heads. The pool had one other feature that Mack had thought might be useful: scans had shown a tunnel leading off from one end, and deep scans had revealed that it connected with a pool