I shrugged.

  “Have to get into the orbital’s systems, and hack Bluebird’s security feed to be a hundred per cent,” I said, “But, yeah. Pretty much.”

  Tens nodded.

  “Let’s do that, then.”

  If I’d been on the outside, I might have stared at him—partly because I’d never expected him to approve, but mostly because I definitely hadn’t expected him to help.

  “Only way to keep you out of trouble,” he said, as though that explained everything—which it did, I suppose—especially when you included Delight and Odyssey as part of your definition of trouble.

  There was still no way in all the stars I was going to let him know just how much I appreciated him coming. None. Nada. Zip. And Zilch. So, I tried for nonchalant.

  “Fine. I guess you can tag along.”

  He laughed, and gave me a mental punch in the shoulder.

  “Ow!”

  “Quit your bitchin’” And wasn’t that just the time for Mack to take a peek and see what we were up to. “I can hold the fort while you’re gone.”

  It was both blessing and permission, and Tens didn’t wait for more.

  “Come on, Trouble,” he said, taking a hold of my mental hand and bouncing us both through the cruiser’s systems like he had any more business being there, than I’d had when I’d done the same thing.

  “I can get us back to our heads, even if they notice us,” he told me, and I’m pretty sure he hadn’t meant to rub in the fact that getting back to my own head was something I hadn’t been able to manage the last time I was out.

  Maybe…

  Once through the cruiser, we discovered that getting into the orbital’s systems was a lot more difficult—but not impossible, as Tens soon proved. I learned a few new things, and filed them away for later, wondering if he’d share the programs with me, or if I’d have to design my own.

  “Not a hope in all the stars,” he said, which pretty much answered that.

  I was tempted to leave him on his own, but it was my mission, and Odyssey weren’t the only ones who were selective about the data they fed their operatives.

  “Nice…” Tens said, but he was sorting through files, and too busy to do much more than grumble—which reminded me that I should be the one looking through files, seeing as it was me who knew what I needed.

  Tens didn’t stop with his sorting.

  “Race you,” he challenged, not shifting over to give me any room.

  “Yuh think?”

  And it was on. I ducked around him, making my own space in the server, and digging in until I came up with what I wanted.

  “Hey!” he shouted, as I found the connection I needed, and slid along it, until I reached a security protocol blocking the way into the next set of systems.

  “Catch me if you can.”

  I modified a couple of the tricks I’d seen him use to get into the orbital’s system, and then tickled my way through into Bluebird’s private company server. Tens came screaming in after me, like all the hounds of Hell were on his tail.

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  “Of all the irresponsible, stupid, foolhardy…” I waited as the tirade slowed, and he looked around. “Hmmm, not bad, kid, but you missed one.”

  I had?

  Before I could ask which one, Tens had smacked me in the centre of the forehead, dumped the programmable equivalent of solvent over my head, and wiped away the remnants of a trojan I hadn’t even felt wriggle its way into my construct.

  “Thanks,” I said, trying not to sound as grateful as I felt.

  He must have picked it up, though, because he gave me a Tens-kinda grin that said he saw right through the surliness to what I was feeling underneath. I’ll give him this, though, he didn’t rub it in.

  “Whatcha got?”

  I showed him, and he met that with a slow whistle

  “Well, that changes things,” he said, and, to my surprise, he said it right out loud, way back in the briefing room, and then followed it with, “Bluebirds aren’t after this world—and the kids aren’t on the orbital.”

  Kids…plural…as in more than one… What the Hell had I missed?

  Before I could go looking, though, Tens had run a fast duplication of all the Bluebirds’ files in reach, and then yanked both our asses out of their systems. I settled back into my own skull with a gasp, feeling Mack’s arm tighten over my shoulder, while Tens refilled my kaffee.

  “Tell ’em what you found, kid.”

  Kid… I wished they’d stop calling me that.

  Tens nudged me.

  Fine! I’d tell them what I’d found.

  “Courier left the orbital as we jumped in,” and before Delight could do more than draw the breath to recommend I tell them something they didn’t know, I added, “It had all the kids from the orbital, a full squad of sleeping heavies, a half squad of sleeping lights, a half squad of lights keeping guard, and it had teleport capability to boot. Wanna guess where it was going?”

  I stopped and stared at Pritchard and Delight.

  Delight rolled her eyes, and mimicked the question with a twist of her own.

  “No. Wanna tell us where it was going?”

  Which just goes to show that any supposed grown-up can be as childish as Hell.

  “Just get on with it,” Mack muttered, poking me in the ribs with his spare hand.

  “Derekson’s Orbit,” I told them, and was relieved when Tens threw the appropriate files onto the screen at the end of the room. “They’ve had agents on the world for months. They know its guard routines, its defense structures, and its comms capability. When they dock, squawking a distress signal about a recently-attacked ship, and picking up the kids’ pods first, before being forced to make a break for it, no-one’s going to bother checking the disaster summary, because Derekson’s is so far out the summary is out of date by the time they receive it. The orbital doesn’t have the capability to pick up teleport signatures, and the marines will be stimmed, dumped, woken, and making mischief, before anyone’s the wiser.”

  I leant back in my chair, picked up my kaffee, and cocked my head.

  “So,” I added. “What have you got planned for that?”

  It was disappointing just how quickly Delight erased the look of stunned disbelief from her face, and disturbing when she bared her teeth in what really wasn’t a smile.

  “You in?” she asked, and that question wasn’t addressed to anyone in the room.

  Tens swore, but his elegant line of cussery was cut short as silver light engulfed us, and the cruiser’s teleport team yanked us off the Shady Marie.

  We landed in their teleport centre, where Tens finished his swearing, and went from elegant to crude within nanoseconds of having a blaster muzzle slammed into his gut. Can’t say the experience was any better than it looked, either, and I was disarmed, cuffed and hauled to my feet before I could get my breath back.

  The rage coming off Mack was palpable, but he kept his shit together, and grinned at the man with the blaster, not showing any sign the impact had affected him.

  “Don’t you believe it, girl,” he said, lifting his arms away from his side, and not moving while they took away his weapons.

  I heard the pain suppressed in his mental tones, and wondered how he could sound so calm.

  “Because I’ll be asking for compensation for this,” he said, his face darkening.

  He didn’t resist as they bound his arms, and I wondered exactly how much trouble Delight and Pritchard thought we’d give them, anyway.

  “You never know, sweetie,” Delight told me, sliding into my implant, while Pritchard swept-kicked Tens off his feet. “From what I’ve seen you’re all pretty unreasonable to deal with.”

  I winced as Tens hit the floor, and Delight followed my gaze.

  “It gets annoying when he keeps interfering.”

  Given Pritchard had just sunk his boot in, Tens didn’t have much to say to that. I figured Odyssey would be paying compensation for that, as well, and Delight sneered.

  “It’s worth it.”

  Mack’s face said he might make her rethink that statement, but his mouth never uttered a word. Delight turned to the armed detail that had been waiting when we’d been ported in.

  “Put them in Pods Three through Five. We’ve a ways to travel.”

  They had? Wait. We had? And pods?

  As in stasis pods? Which meant…