She laced that order with as much force as she could manage, and saw the girl look past her crewmate.

  “H…Here,” Tens managed, thrusting the codework into Cutter’s hands. “Weave it tight and hold it long enough for—”

  “…the shuttle to set down. I got it,” and before either of them could refine her understanding Cutter was gone, evaporating into mist and sliding into the body-wide strand Tens had been weaving.

  As soon as the girl was gone, he looked at Delight.

  “I…” He stopped, swaying on his feet, the strands wound around him in a tangle that made her wonder how he’d stopped the damage spreading.

  “I’ve got you,” she replied, moving closer looking for a piece of code she could anchor away from him.

  As she reached for the one she’d selected a hand extended from the weave and slapped her fingers away.

  “You’ve got nothing!” Cutter’s disembodied voice told her. “Give me a tick, then grab hold of his collar and pull.”

  Delight hesitated, but the teleport-tractor’s weave was solidifying, anchoring the bubble-wrapped shuttle in an impenetrable cocoon. She only hoped Cutter lasted long enough to release it. The amount of power running through the code, she wasn’t sure if the girl could.

  “In three…two…” Cutter began, and Delight stopped hesitating.

  If there was one thing she’d learned, it was that the girl was one hundred per cent focused when on a mission. She had no doubts and allowed no distractions. Stimmed like she was, she was the closest thing to a Human-Mind-Transfer without being one, that Delight had ever seen.

  The girl appeared beside her, a construct of code framing her form as she unwound the first tendril from Tens’s body. Delight noticed the construct formed a frame around her, and that the frame was anchored in the Sugarside’s teleportation controls.

  “Tell me you didn’t make it a permanent fixture…” she began, as the girl dropped the tendril over the frame and secured it in place.

  Cutter shrugged. “Can’t…”

  She lifted a second tendril, and Tens slid inside the strands he’d wound around himself. Delight lashed out, grabbing his collar as she tried to avoid touching the remainder of the weave.

  “Annnnd….ONE!” Cutter snapped, securing the second tendril, even as she lifted two more.

  The fact she was working with a second pair of hands, coupled to the sight of the distinctive thorns of arach coding interweaving Tens’s work gave Delight a moment of unease.

  “What have you done?” Delight breathed, giving herself wings and binding her hands to the cloth and metal of the protective coding shrouding the Shady Marie’s communications expert.

  “What it took to save him, the shuttle, and the Sugarsides,” the girl snarled, slipping two more threads over the frame, then sliding out from the center and activating the program she’d set up in its center. “Tell Kendrik they should have control from the console.”

  Delight shifted her grip from Tens’s collar to under his arms as the last of his blend fell away from his body, to be drawn into Cutter’s construct. One piece caught, and the shift stopped. Delight and Cutter exchanged looks of alarm, following the strand back to Tens’s hand.

  “Let. It. Go!” Cutter roared, the countermand, riding her order, a physical thing of force and numbers that wrapped around Tens’s hand, seeped into the chambered glove of his defensive armor and altering the code enough for her to take control and release the anchor from his hand and pull her control construct tight.

  “Get him out,” the girl ordered, her voice fading. “Make—”

  Delight reached out, latching onto her fading consciousness.

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  “Pritchard!” she shouted, as the man stepped into the space they’d been workin in.

  “I’ve got her,” he assured Delight, taking Cutter’s digital presence in his arms. “Now, go.”

  Delight only hoped he was right. She might not like the girl, but Mack did…and while that shouldn’t matter, it did.

  “Besides, the little rat has her uses,” she murmured, touching down in Cutter’s implant.

  She wasn’t surprised when Mack wound an arm around her waist and carefully took Tens from her arms.

  “You need a way into your implant?” he asked, and Delight shook her head.

  “No, I can make it on my own.”

  “Can not,” Pritchard countered, shifting her from Mack’s support to himself as he let Cutter slide to the floor, “But I’ll get you there. Kendrik's got two tanks on stand-by.”

  “But I don’t need a tank,” Delight protested, surprised to hear herself speak the words out loud—and by Jeremy’s soft growl of disagreement.

  “Don’t make me come over there, Agent.”

  Well, crap, she thought. I’m supposed to give the debrief.

  Pritchard chuckled softly. “I’ll wake you,” he reassured her. “Right now, Sugarsides needs to leave the system, and Command wants an explanation. Teams from the Limelight and Sandoval are heading the on-world investigations.”

  They’re going to love that, Delight thought. She’d meant to say it out loud, but apparently even she had her limits. I don’t see what I did that was so strenuous…

  Kendrik’s mocking laughter reached her as she faded. “You don’t? Do you know how long you and the girl were in the system?”

  Delight didn’t. It was one of the first things she looked up when she woke.

  “Of all the fucking idiotic suicidal…” she began, only to be interrupted.

  “I agree, and if you ever scare me like that, again…” Jeremy began.

  “Get out of my room!”

  “It’s our room, remember?”

  Delight stilled. Oh…yeah. Well, there was that. Embarrassed by the lapse, she changed the subject.

  “How’re Mack and his crew?”

  Jeremy chuckled. “They’re gone.”

  “Since when?” Delight demanded.

  “Since they finished what we hired them for,” he replied, caution edging his tones.

  “And did she survive?” Delight wanted to know, and there was only one person she could mean.

  “She did.” Jeremy’s face darkened, with remembered worry. “But she needs to go light on the stim packs.”

  “Why so?”

  “I’ll send you the read-outs,” Jeremy told her, instead of answering her directly. “You’ll need to see for yourself.”

  Delight took the file he passed her, flicking through it in double-quick time, and finishing with a soft whistle. “So, no more stims for Cutter,” she concluded, concern for the woman clouding her face. “Gotcha.”

  She cocked her head as Jeremy moved toward the door. “Does Mack know?”

  “He does, now,” Jeremy answered. “He and Doc had just started working it out, when she jumped ship the last time.”

  Delight let out a soft breath. “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t catch up with her before he got there,” she said.

  Jeremy stilled, his hand on the access panel. “About that…”

  Delight gave him a feral grin. “You know how much I love you, right?” she asked.

  His reply was a wary, “Yeees.”

  Delight tapped his suited chest. “Don’t push it.”

  He captured her finger, smiling as he looked down at her. “You know I’m here when you’re ready to talk about it, right?”

  “I do…” Delight registered the suit and the smell of expensive cologne. “What’s the occasion?”

  “We have a christening to attend,” he answered, “and then I thought I’d take you to dinner.”

  “A christening?” Delight’s head spun. “Anyone we know?”

  Jeremy rolled his eyes. “The flyer and the banshee?” he prodded, reminding her of what they’d just rescued.

  Her head swam, and she indicated the lightly armored uniform she’d chosen.

  “This isn’t suitable! When were you going to tell me?”

  Jeremy pressed his lips together and pulled his hand away from the access panel.

  Delight’s eyes widened. “You weren’t? What kind of a fiancé are you?”

  “One caught between the love of his life and an impatient captain?” he ventured, and Delight chuckled.

  “I promise I won’t be long.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he grumbled, settling against the wall. “Just…”

  He caught the tension in her look.

  “Just don’t choose something too scary, okay?”

  Delight didn’t hesitate as she pulled out an elegant semi-formal consisting of an armored tunic, flowing skirt, and styled combat boots. It wasn’t until she’d pulled on the dress gauntlets and was selecting which battle blade would go with the blaster settled on her right hip that he sighed.

  “It’s a christening,” he told her through gritted teeth. “On board the Sugarsides. What do you think is going to go wrong?”

  “It’s an adoption,” she corrected, “and I want the representatives from Multi-Faceted and Gleam to have no illusion as to what sort of a godmother those two have on their side.”

  “Godmother?” Jeremy asked, his voice cracking with alarm. “Since when?”

  “Since she also made you godfather, around…” Delight checked the time signature on her acceptance of Penny’s request.

  “Two minutes ago.”

  “Penny?” Jeremy asked, and Delight nodded.

  He shook his head.

  “I swear I’ll be glad when she’s off on another mission. Having the two of you on board the same ship…”

  “Cheer up,” Delight told him, adjusting her belt and dress weapons harness. “It could be worse.”

  “It could?”

  She strode over to the door keying the exit code as he pushed off the wall.

  “Of course. Cutter could agree to come back.”

  “That would never happen,” was out before Jeremy could censor it, and Delight chuckled, linking her arm through his.

  “You never know, sweetheart. Next time, I might beat Mack to the retrieval…”