The stunned look on the briefing officer’s face said she hadn’t made the connection…which was a comfort, because Delight felt the same way, but Cutter wasn’t finished.

  “Which means they’re not mining in those areas,” the girl went on. “They’re doing something else there.”

  “But we don’t have any data links to…” The briefing officer paused, glancing sharply at Delight. “There’s no data where those passages go…and the scans don’t penetrate to the usual depth. We have that level only.”

  Cutter returned to her seat and sat back under Mack’s arm. Her face took on a blank expression that said she was up to something Delight—and Odyssey—might not like very much. After a moment, she spoke.

  “What you’re trying to say is that the mines are safe from sliders as long as they’re far enough back from the canyon walls, but that the closer they get to the canyon and the crystals the more likely it is the sliders will come through.

  She tapped her forefinger against her lips.

  Taking it away, she added, “And even you would know you can’t cover the walls you’re wanting to mine, so either they’ve developed a new method of accessing the minerals there, and it really is a mine, or—”

  Delight cut her off. “Or it’s not a mine.”

  “And those are stairwells,” Tens pointed out, as three squares lit up the screen. “So, there are levels below this, that the scans aren’t showing.”

  “Which is why Penny would have chosen it,” Cutter added, from her seat.

  Delight and the briefing officer frowned at them both. The shift in the briefing slide proved at least Tens had hacked the system. A second layer of images appeared, and then the screen rearranged itself to show the two layers side by side. Once it was arranged, Cutter opened her eyes.

  “I don’t think they like you very much,” Cutter informed her, and another three squares lit. “The stairwells go deeper, but if there’s another layer below this one, it’s operating on a closed system.”

  “Also,” Tens cut in, “Penny says you need to hurry. It’s hard to keep a hungry child quiet and she’s almost out of formula. Once the kid starts complaining they’ll have an hour, an hour and a half, tops.”

  “Banshee?” Delight asked, and Tens gave her a long, quiet look.

  “If you ask Pen, she’s a whole lot more than that, and you want the flyer, if you can convince her to stay.”

  “But we have to get to them, first,” Cutter put in, wriggling out from under Mack’s arm so she could stand up and head for the door. “Unless you’re teleporting us to the shuttle, I’ll meet you there.”

  Delight arched an eyebrow, hiding a smirk as Mack lunged for the woman and Cutter sidestepped his hand, and then skipped past Tens’s grab. She didn’t quite stifle her snort, when Jeremy grabbed the girl by the wrist.

  “Why don’t you see if you can hack me up a floor plan, a canyon entry and exit point, and a location for our Penny, while you wait for the rest of us?” he suggested, giving Mack and Tens a pointed look.

  Delight caught the looks the pair cast her, and nodded her approval.

  Jeremy handed Cutter over to Mack, and stood. “Ten minutes. The boys and I need to suit up.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Ten minutes was fast for heavy armor, which made Delight realize just how fast this mission had come up. The Marines were usually already suited when they got to the briefing. She turned to the briefing officer.

  “When did Penny call in?”

  “Just before we sent Mack to intercept you.”

  Annoyance twisted Delight’s gut, but she forced her face to blandness.

  “And has she been in touch, since?”

  The officer shook her head. “No. We’re monitoring, but the only voices we have on that bandwidth belong to the companies.”

  “As in, more than one?” Mack’s voice was sharp.

  “As in more than one,” the briefing officer agreed.

  This was where Cutter usually broke in with something inappropriate, but the girl was silent. Glancing in her direction, Delight saw Tens had propped her in a chair and settled in beside her.

  “They’re taking a walk through the planetary systems,” Mack filled in, “As per the sergeant’s request.”

  “Should we join them?” Delight wanted to know, and Mack gave her an expansive grin.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “Are we using Cutter as a conduit?” Delight queried, making the step into the young woman’s implant as she stood.

  “Of course,” Mack told her, approaching Tens and scooping Cutter into his arms.

  Delight didn’t envy the girl as she led Tens and Mack toward the hangars. To not be able to sink into the system, while remaining aware of her surroundings… She shuddered. What a nightmare.

  It was a nightmare that became slowly more real as they made their way through the Sugarsides’ busy halls. Togaresh’s planetary network was several networks with gated entries spread throughout. Authorization request after authorization request saw more of her attention drawn into the net, than she usually gave.

  By the time they reached the hangar, she and Mack had caught up with Tens and Cutter inside the mining complex’s security system.

  “It’s tighter than you get in most colonies,” Cutter observed, and Delight had to agree.

  The security system was a lot tighter than most of the colonial systems she’d ever had the pleasure of hacking and jacking. In fact, it rivalled some of Odyssey’s security, and she was sure she detected a once-familiar hand. She glanced at Mack.

  “Crow?”

  He nodded, darkness sliding behind his eyes, as Tens slowly pivoted, scanning their surroundings with extra care.

  “Well, we both know how that boy liked his subtleties…”

  That was enough to bring Cutter’s head up.

  “How subtle?”

  “Very subtle,” Tens assured her. “Switch.”

  For a moment, Delight thought Cutter would argue, but the girl just nodded and stepped away from the gateway she’d been trying to crack. They all knew Tens was the best cracker among them.

  “Except he knows what you look for,” Delight intervened, “And you know his usual style.”

  Tens hesitated, and Delight pressed her advantage.

  “You, and me, and Mack, that’s who he’ll be programming against. Someone like Cutter might see something we’d miss, because Crow…”

  “Likes his subtleties?” Cutter asked, carefully examining the walls, floor and ceiling. “Such as putting the real gateway in the ceiling?”

  They all looked up, and Tens carefully lifted his hands away from the opening mechanism he’d just exposed. Delight gave them a look of satisfaction.

  “I knew you’d come in handy,” she told Cutter, ignoring the girl’s scowl of displeasure. “Here, let me take a look at things.”

  Cutter moved reluctantly to give her room, and Delight took a closer look at the coding.

  “It’s not Crow,” she said, a few moments later.

  “But it’s someone who’s worked with him,” Tens pointed out. “Coding’s too familiar.”

  “But there’s a twist,” Delight agreed.

  “Stop jabbering and get us through the door,” Mack ordered, and took a few steps down the corridor, signaling Cutter should do the same.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she complied, mirroring his vigilance as Delight and Tens worked to open their way into the next section. When they were done, they pulled the other two through with them.

  “I’m not sure I like this,” Mack rumbled when the gate closed behind them, erasing all their hard work.

  “Well, who could have known it was a one-way system?” Delight mused. “Anyone would think they had a problem with employees trying to contact people the companies would rather they didn’t.”

  “You think this is a joint effort?” Tens sounded more like he was testing a theory than asking for confirmation.

  “I do,” Delight responded, “But I think we’ll find differences when it comes to areas each company wants to keep to itself, and then we’ll find out which one of them hired Crow’s people to do their system’s security.”

  “You think they’re gone?” Mack asked, and Delight’s brow knitted in thought.