“I’ll cover your girl,” she told him, slipping into the system to where Cutter’s presence was spread through the shuttle’s controls and she was so deeply blended with the craft that she wasn’t riding it so much as being it.

  Not good, Delight thought, noticing the way the girl’s links faded in and out as she countered the cross-winds and up and down drafts. For a moment, she contemplated the possibility she’d asked the girl to go one step too far. Mack is going to kill me.

  “Not if we can disengage her and take over.” Kendrik’s presence was an almost welcome distraction. “You’d only have to hold a couple of minutes before the Sugarsides could latch on and pull the shuttle clear.”

  “What’s she doing flying that low?” Delight asked in alarm, because at that altitude, the ship would be cruising close to being pulled into the atmosphere, which would be causing the captain conniptions regardless of the view it was giving the paying passengers.

  “She’s not,” Kendrik replied smugly. “I’ve got Tens blending the tractor beam with the ship’s teleport capability to extend its range.”

  Delight mentally gaped at her. “But that’s…”

  “Not something we have time to discuss,” the team lead snapped. “I’ll disengage her, and you and Merin slide in to take over. Once we’ve secured the shuttle, we’ll get you to let go so the pilot can have his ship back.”

  The pilot… Delight could just imagine how he felt about it.

  “You don’t need to imagine it,” Tens told her. “I’ve got his uncensored thoughts on recording.”

  “On my mark,” Kendrik told her, ignoring the conversation, and Delight slid into Cutter’s head and along the linkages she’d made with the ship, mirroring the girl’s grip, but not replacing it, until the Odyssey hack team had carefully disengaged the code securing control.

  As soon as she was in place, Delight discovered why Cutter had faded so fast. The crystal canyons really were as treacherous as they’d been reported, and the effects extended well above their glittering expanse. The forces battering the shuttle as it rose out of the Canyon and made for the skies over normal ground were stronger than she’d expected, and even with Merin lending her strength to the controls, the strain soon took its toll.

  “Stubborn little shit,” Delight grumbled, admiring the girl’s tenacity, and making a note not to underestimate her, again.

  “That’s one way to put it,” Kendrik told her. “On my mark, I want you to release the controls at the same time, and get back into your own heads. You got me?”

  “I got you,” Delight replied, hearing Merin echo her reply.

  “Three. Two. One…mark!”

  Delight released her grip on the controls, experiencing a moment’s disorientation as she returned to her own skull. Opening her eyes, she saw Lankash had shifted the girl off his lap and secured her in the seat next to him.

  “She was getting heavy,” he told her, sneaking a glance at Mack.

  The big man looked like he was sleeping, but Delight wasn’t fooled. She caught the slight quirk of his lips at the corporal’s excuse. It made her wonder what Jeremy was going to do about Mack making one of his men uncomfortable.

  “I’m not,” her fiancé told her, over the privacy of their own links. “If that had been you, I’d have been getting restless, too.”

  Delight clamped down on a retort decided to leave that comment well enough alone.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  A soft murmur caught her attention, and the pod nestled against the flyer’s chest rocked. The woman lifted it away from herself, holding it arm’s length.

  “My sister wakes,” she said, speaking to Penny, “And she will be hungry.”

  Sister? Delight froze.

  In spite of the pilot’s warning, Penny stripped her harness and ran for the end of the shuttle.

  “Penny!” Delight called, getting out of her seat to follow.

  The agent didn’t stop.

  “Replicator!” she shouted over her shoulder. “I need…”

  The analysis of what the child needed flitted through Delight’s skull.

  “I’m not sure…” she began.

  “You’d better hope it does,” Penny retorted, “Or get some ear protection, because…”

  A shrieking wail pierced the cockpit and Penny stumbled as she ran. Regaining her footing, the agent clamped her hands over her ears and kept moving. Ahead of her, the Marine nearest the replicator was already bringing the machine to life.

  Behind them, the flyer unlooped the harness holding the pod, and hit the catches to open it before Mack or Tens could stop her.

  “Don’t…” the Marie’s captain began, but the flyer ignored him.

  She looked into the pod, crooning softly, her face alight with emotion.

  The stars help us, she’s grown attached, Delight thought, still grateful as the child’s next build up slowed. She looked at Penny, but her fellow-agent had reached the replicator and connected to it.

  “Hurry,” the flyer whispered, risking a break in the melody.

  It was a break too far and the child started to cry. This time, the song didn’t soothe her, and her wails threatened to reach another crescendo. Delight scrabbled to open the pouch containing the hearing protection, at the same time tweaking her implant in the hopes it would help protect her until the protection was in place.

  “You can’t separate them,” Penny’s warning was adamant. “Not if you want to keep them.”

  She cast a meaningful glance in Cutter’s direction, and Delight frowned. While it was common knowledge Cutter hadn’t been given a choice about joining Odyssey—and that had led to her refusing to join them—it was something most knew better than to reference.

  The replicator dinged, signaling it had finished preparing Penny’s concoction, and the child shrieked, again. The shuttle bucked and metal groaned, and, around them the Marines snapped their suits closed.

  In her head, Delight heard Kendrik swear.

  “Grab the shuttle!”

  Delight didn’t argue, but dove back into the controls. “What’s happening?”

  “Tens…”

  Who was sitting right beside the flyer…Delight realized. Oh, fuck.

  “You got the porter?”

  “He’s still holding it; don’t ask me how.”

  “Penny…” Delight began, about to order the woman to do something to protect the man from another cry. Blending the teleport system with the tractor beam… Of all the idiotic, stupid, goat-busting, sun-splitting…

  “Mack’s got it,” Penny shot back, as the Marie’s captain fitted the hearing protection to Tens’s ears.

  The man fumbled the fitting, looking like he’d just come off second best in a fight with Jeremy or one of his Marines, which given he’d been sitting next to Tens wasn’t a surprise.

  Delight acknowledged Penny’s response with a nod, then plunged into Cutter’s implant and grabbed the girl.

  “Godsbedamned,” she cursed, when she got no response.

  “Delight—” Mack began, but he was too late.

  She’d slammed the stim pack into Cutter’s thigh before he could say more. The girl woke with an oath that made Delight smile. She grabbed hold of Cutter’s mental presence and shook it.

  “I need you on board the Sugarsides fixing what’s about to break with the teleport-tractor system your ass-raddled, head-snotted, crewmate jury-rigged to get us the hell off Togaresh!” she snapped, knowing exactly how suggestible Cutter was with this particular pack. “And I bet you can’t get this beast on board and settled in one piece in its shuttle bay before it breaks, you pass out, or he comes back on-line.”

  That last… Delight gave Tens a worried look. Sonic blast like that at that proximity… She didn’t like his chances, or any chance of him not needing a regen tank to fix what the child had just broken, which reminded her.

  She risked a glance at the kid, almost panicking when she saw the pod set to one side and the flyer holding the child and carefully feeding it from the bottle Penny had programmed into the replicator with the formula.

  “DELIGHT!” Kendrik’s shout of protest, pulled her back to her head.

  “You know she’s the best person for the job,” she reminded the team lead.

  “You could have at least warned me,” Kendrik grumbled.

  “I’ll ride overwatch on her,” Delight promised. “Keep her on task.”

  “No,” Kendrik countermanded. “I can do that. I need you to protect Tens, disengage him from the system, if you can. We can’t have the girl distracted.”

  Delight dove back into the system, following the path Cutter had torn through the coding to reach the structure Tens had been creating when the child’s cry had shattered his concentration and left him reeling. She arrived only just in time.

  “Cutter…” Tens croaked, as the girl approached.

  “Leave him intact!” Delight cried. “Fix the rest!”