Zeke’s grin got bigger. “He actually likes it here. Apparently he has an aptitude for doing hard labor. Who would have guessed?” He gave a careless shrug, but the smile still stretched across his face. “Jac told me you’d promised to come back. He also told me he’d said you shouldn’t bother. I can see you’re as good at taking orders as always.”
“I outrank him. I’m a full corporal, and he’s beta class.” She started down the stairs again. “Besides, I couldn’t live with letting you two be the martyrs.”
“So you martyred yourselves as well? Shank already told me you’re on an unsanctioned mission with a stolen ship.”
Allie glanced over, and Shank shrugged. “It’s true.”
“Yeah, well we couldn’t let you two get all the good publicity.”
“Publicity?” Zeke took a step forward. “What are you talking about?”
“One of the kids...her grandfather is some politician who is raising a lot of stink about you being left behind.”
“Neela.” Zeke nodded. “Neela’s father is a bigwig, but she gave it up to marry Enrique and move here. I’m glad their little girl is safe. How about the other kids?”
Shank lowered his gaze to the floor, and Ben stood at the perimeter of the room looking intensely uncomfortable.
Allie finally decided she had to answer, or they were all going to stand around staring at each other. “Command had us leave the refugees at a camp. There were a lot of people being brought in.”
Zeke closed his eyes and cursed softly. At that point, none of them really knew what to say. Upstairs a door slammed, and boots stomped across the tile floor.
“Where are those idiots?” Jacqs demanded as he came down the stairs.
“Hey, nice to see you again too,” Shank said. He freed his arm and subtly moved in front of Allie. She rolled her eyes. It’d been a long time since Jacqs scared her, but she did have to admit he was much more muscled now than when theCandiruhad left. He looked good—amazingly good. And he also looked pissed off, so Allie let Shank take the first wave.
Jacqs stopped at the bottom of the stairs, glared at Shank for several long seconds, and then stepped up and hugged the man so tight that Shank made a small sound that might have been a squeak. “Fuck. I can’t believe you idiots ran through bat space to get here.” Jacqs let go and kind of shoved Shank to the side, and then Allie found herself facing the man.
“I promised we wouldn’t leave you behind.” Allie felt a tightness in her chest she couldn’t explain. She’d never been particularly close to Jacqs, but the look on his face—the expression of utter shock and some deep emotion she couldn’t hope to understand—struck some sympathetic chord in her heart. Suddenly she was struggling not to cry.
Before she could humiliate herself, Jacqs caught her up in a hug that made her bones creak. “Fuck. You idiots. You complete morons.” He might have been insulting her, but Allie could feel the tremor in his arms as he held her tight.
“I already called them every name in the book,” Zeke said. “Apparently they went rogue and stole a ship from some pirates to get here.”
Jacqs finally let Allie go and stared her in the face. “I told you I weren’t expecting you to come back. It’s a real stupid thing—crossing bat territory.”
Allie shrugged. “You’re crew. We weren’t leaving you behind.”
Jacqs turned away and took the few steps to Zeke’s side.
Zeke reached out and rested his hand on Jacqs’s massive forearm. “We appreciate the rescue, even if we’re a little scared about how this is going to work. Do you have a ship large enough for everyone?”
Allie looked at Shank, but he stared back without offering to field this one. They wanted to rescue all the miners. All of them. They could get away with taking a few people, and if they didn’t mind the bats putting out a hit on them, they might be able to take half the miners. “We don’t have the space for everyone. The ship is smaller than theCandiru.”
“Whoever gets left behind ain’t going to have an easy time of it,” Jacqs commented.
“We could make more than one trip,” Shank suggested.
Jacqs gave him a disgusted look. “You ain’t got no smarter in the past coupla months.”
Shank glared.
“Play nice,” Zeke ordered. “We just have to go back to the ship, assess our resources, and figure out what we’re doing. It’s going to be fine.”
Jacqs snorted.
In that moment, Allie realized how much she’d missed his pessimism. Yes, it grated on her nerves, and she really wanted to slap him upside the back of the head, but he was theirs.
“I have missed you,” she said, looking at both Zeke and Jacqs. Jacqs got a confused expression.
