I looked up at them, and decided to try a direct appeal.

  “You going to let me back into my own head?”

  Delight tilted hers.

  “Oh, I don’t know, sweetie. We might need you for this mission, but that doesn’t mean you have to be running it for Mack.”

  “But I don’t work for you…”

  Pritchard snorted, and Delight’s smile grew wider.

  “And who says we’re going to let that stand for very much longer?”

  “I do,” and Tens came through the wall beside me, scooping me up in some kind of net as he passed.

  We exited through the other wall, and then Tens unfurled the net and slammed me back into my own mind. Of course, he also hit me with a blast from something that left me gasping and wide-eyed, and conscious at the briefing table, and then he physically picked me up and pinned me to the wall, knocking over my chair in the process.

  It was no surprise to find Mack leaning in from right beside him, elbow and forearm propped on the wall just above my head as he stared into my face—even if the first words out of his mouth were unexpected.

  “You okay, girl?”

  My heart was still going like a trip hammer, and I wasn’t happy to see Delight and Pritchard sitting at the table, eating the snacks they’d brought, and looking like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.

  Tens shook me hard enough to rattle my teeth, and bounce my head off the wall.

  “Easy there,” Mack said, laying his other hand on the comm-tech’s shoulder.

  Tens managed to combine outrage and disgust in one fierce look, and shook me, again.

  “Hey…” came out a lot weaker than I wanted it to, and Tens glared at me.

  Delight snickered, and shared a glance with Pritchard.

  “Maybe we don’t want her back, after all.”

  He studied me with a gaze that could have seen through lead. When he replied, his tone was mild.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “I know a cruiser captain that wants her flayed alive, so he can tan her hide, and nail it to his cabin wall.”

  “Point,” Delight replied, and then turned her attention to me. “What were you doing in my ship’s systems?”

  “I’ll take it from here,” Mack interrupted, before I could reply, turning to replace Tens’s grip on my throat, and moving so his body blocked everyone else from my view—and me from theirs.

  I can’t say the view improved much when he lowered his head so his forehead touched mine and gazed directly into my eyes.

  “It’s a good question, Cutter. Exactly what were you doing inside an Odyssey battle cruiser’s systems?”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Research,” I said, and gasped when he shook me.

  “More.”

  “I wanted the schematics for the orbital, figured Odyssey had to have them somewhere…”

  “You ever think of asking?” Delight snarked from somewhere behind Mack’s back.

  I felt Mack’s grip tighten.

  “Lady has a point,” he said. “Did you ever think to ask?”

  I pouted, and then explained.

  “I prefer to do my own research. Odyssey has a habit of only telling folk what it thinks they need to know.”

  Mack sighed.

  “And you had to use their cruiser.”

  “It was where the information was.”

  “And hacking the orbital?”

  “It’s always a good idea to verify the data.”

  “From the cruiser?”

  “Better than having anyone trace it back to the Shady Marie…”

  Tens sputtered into laughter, and it sounded like either Delight or Pritchard had to spit their kaffee back into the cup. Mack grinned, his face turned away from where either of them could see it. He set me on my feet, and ruffled my hair.

  “I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

  “Beyond her entertainment value, you mean?”

  And Delight definitely didn’t sound happy.

  “Nope. Because she’s loyal, and has the best interests of my ship at heart.”

  Well, that was one way to put it. Of course, he had to spoil it by adding more.

  “Even if she doesn’t give two shits for the rest of us.”

  “Hey!”

  The forearm across the top of my chest as I was slammed back into the wall was something I could definitely have done without.

  “If the boot fits…”

  It made me smile.

  Yeah…the boots fit all right. I gave a happy sigh, and Tens groaned with disgust.

  “Can we get back to the briefing?”

  Mack leaned in, his face a bare inch off my own.

  “Well, Cutter. Can we?”

  I shrugged, and rolled my eyes.

  “Sure, Mack. Whatever you say…”

  He fixed me with another of his fierce, Mack glares, and I raised an eyebrow, and stared right back. The effects of Tens’s blast were wearing off, and I was still short of the information I required. Minute they got back to their discussion, I had work to do. I’d forgotten Tens was still in my head.

  I wondered what he meant, when he said, softly, “We don’t need her for the next part of the briefing, do we?”

  Mack looked at me, and shook his head, and before I knew it, Tens had hit me, again, with whatever he’d stunned me with before.

  Bastard.

  Mack let go of me, and let me slide down the wall, while he resumed his seat.

  “Now,” he said, looking over at Delight and Pritchard, “Where were we?”

  When the world stopped jiving like it was out clubbing for all it was worth, I followed the conversation from my place on the floor. Sure, I had a great view of the chair and table legs…and of Delight and Pritchard’s feet. There had to be something I could do with that.

  “Not today, you don’t,” Mack said, and reached over to lift me into my seat.

  As soon as I was settled, Mack laid his arm across the back of the chair and wrapped his hand around my shoulder. I sighed, only to feel Tens do the same from the other side.

  “Now, where were we?” he asked for the second time, and Delight continued with her briefing as though nothing had gone on.

  “That’s not how I would have handled you,” she said, inside my head, while, outside, her voice didn’t miss a beat.

  I snickered when Tens kicked her out of my implant, but sobered up just as quickly when his digital presence sat down beside mine.

  “So,” he asked, and I knew that, on the outside, he was watching Delight as attentively as he would be, if he wasn’t inside my mind keeping tabs on my every move. “What are you thinking?”

  On the outside, I was probably sitting as still as stone, my eyes open but glazed over, and not taking in a single thing that went on, since, unlike Tens and Delight—and Mack and Pritchard— I couldn’t pay attention to what was going on in the real world, when I was using my implant to do other things. Right then, I resented the restriction, but I was pretty sure no one else minded it a bit.

  “Pretty much,” Tens told me, and gave me a mental nudge. “So, what did you want to do next?”

  Heaving an internal sigh, I opened up the schematics I’d pulled on the orbital, and laid them alongside the scan data I’d pinched from the cruiser.

  “What do you see?” I asked, and he cussed a soft, blue streak.

  Digital me smiled.

  “I know, right?”

  Because everything might be just fine for Delight to undertake her mission, but it sure as shit wasn’t going to be okay for me to work mine.

  “Are you sure?”