Arach C.M. Simpson (polar express read aloud .txt) 📖

of the two wasps, weaver, boy and dog, sitting and standing not very far away. One of the wasps was a bodyguard looking somewhat disgusted—and somewhat familiar, too. What was she doing here, and not standing near the queen?

“To learn control,” she said, and I heard Tens crack up, somewhere, out of sight.

“The queen thinks if she can work with you for a day without killing you, then she will have all the control she needs.”

Oh, for pity’s sake! Seriously? But the guard confirmed it.

“Yes.”

And Tens lost it again. Hell! Even Mack cracked a smile—a whole one, and not the ghostly thing he’d managed before. I decided now was a really good time to change the subject.

“And what are you doing here, Rohan?”

Him and the dog, I noted.

“It’s supposed to keep me out of trouble. The queen thinks if I stick with you, I might learn not to slap every bu… wasp I see.”

Ah, that made sense—and it was clear that Rohan had had the same correction regarding the ‘B’ word, that I’d had. I wondered who had offered to sting him, this time.

“Me.”

Tovy. Well, that was typical. I mean, if you sting one, you might as well sting ’em all, right?

“Exactly.”

Honestly. Didn’t any of these b…wasps have a sense of humor—and Rohan snickering beside his patch of wall was definitely not a help.

“Yeah, laugh it up, kid, but you’re stuck with me, until you calm the fuck down.”

“And there’s the Cutter we all know and love,” Mack said, sounding thoroughly disgusted with me.

Yeah, well. Like he could talk.

“Speaking of which,” Tens interrupted. “You can keep your grubby little paws out of my system, now. I’ve got it.”

Sure, he had.

“I mean it, Cutter.”

“Nice to see you back on line.”

“You can thank Rohan for that. He unlocked the crew implants. Thought the crew could help us secure the ship.”

“But the vespis won’t let them have any weapons… or let them out of the feeding room,” Rohan added.

“They are too weak,” Tovy cut in, “and their judgement is impaired.”

Recalling what they had gone through, I just bet it was. You give them weapons, they’d probably shoot anything that came through the door—humans and vespis included.

“Exactly.”

Well, at least the bodyguard agreed with someone.

In the meantime, I had a ship to secure.

“Head out of my system,” Tens warned, when I linked into the ship, and started running my way through the security feeds.

For a minute, I thought about telling him where to shove it, and then I had a better idea—one that let me be in more than one place at once.

“Tens, can you check the ship is clean of any current arach presence?”

“Done.”

And I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“Mack,” I said, “Can you liaise with Tek and the head of the bodyguards to pinpoint the most likely entry points, any arach boarders might take?”

“Done,” and, if I wasn’t imagining it, the man might actually be happy with my idea.

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

And I couldn’t help smiling. I had just managed to impress Mack—and that wasn’t an easy thing to do. Especially with my track record. Now, what else was there I needed to do to make sure the ship was secure?

Oh, right. Big-ass arach cruiser coming in might need to be scanned.

“Askavor?”

“You tweaked the web?”

His answer threw me for a moment, and then I realized it must be a weaver colloquialism. I figured it might mean the same as ‘you rang?’ or ‘you called’. Either way, I got it.

“Can you operate the ship’s scanning array?”

“Yes.”

“I need everything you can get about that ship.”

“You’re letting a spider into my scanning array?” Tens was horrified.

“Weaver!” I snapped, “And, yes, I’m letting him into Mack’s scanning array. You’re busy, and I need the data before you’ll be done.”

“Well, what about Rohan?”

“I have plans for him, too,” I said, and felt Rohan start paying attention.

Tens grumbled, and went back to what I’d set him to doing. He also put a copy of the ship’s schematics on the forward view-screen, and there was a general shuffling and rustling of wings as the other vespis in the room moved to get a better look.

Just as I was at a loss to work out what to do, next, Tens pinged my implant—which was unusually civilized of him. Before I could get to wondering what he wanted, he told me.

“Odyssey on the line,” and I heard him telling the Odyssey contact to go ahead.

“About time,” snapped a familiar voice, and my heart sank.

Seriously? Delight? Of all the Odyssey agents we could possibly have drawn, how in all the stars had we managed to draw her, again? Was she following us, or something?

“Or something, and it’s nice to see you, too,” Delight said, and I felt her forge a link to my implant that bypassed the need to use the ship’s comms system.

Looked like we were back to the old days.

“We never left ’em,” Delight told me, and I sighed.

“What do you want?”

“My what a giant arach queen ship you have heading in-system,” Delight snarked. “We were thinking of coming to join the party, but you look like you have everything well in hand.”

Honestly, the girl had a worse attitude than I did—and to think she used to be my boss.

“You caught a lucky break,” Delight interrupted. “I’d have been your judge, jury and executioner if I could have had my way.”

I knew that, didn’t much appreciate being reminded of it.

“You coming or not?”

It was the best I could manage. What I really wanted to say was a lot less polite.

“We’re coming. They’ll try to board you, again, but I see you’re addressing that problem… And what is that?” she asked, pulling a picture of the queen’s bodyguard out of the memory recordings in my implant.

She didn’t wait for a response, though, just kept pulling images of the vespis from my head. I knew she was creating a file, and wondered if she’d bothered working out the name of the planet we were orbiting.

“The planet?”