Chloe lifted her head and stared at him, trying to decide whether she was more horrified or intrigued. A brief inventory squelched the interest. “I only have two holes,” she said dryly. “And one is exit only!”
“You did not count your mouth,” Thor pointed out.
She stared at him, trying to summon an image that included the four of them and finally gave up when she couldn’t figure out the logistics. “I don’t think I’m ready for that, guys! I’m still getting used to the regular stuff. Maybe later? I’m not at all sure about the … uh … backdoor thing, though. I mean, I could see where you might like it, I suppose, but I don’t think I would. Sounds … uncomfortable.”
“But you are not completely against it?” Sebastian asked hopefully.
“I tell you what … if you guys won’t bug me about it anymore for a while, I’ll think about it.”
* * * *
Despite an earnest desire to take their disagreement to the next level, Jared tamped it when he heard ground control issue permission for them to land. As he’d been ordered, he waited until Reuel’s ship had landed before he settled the lander that he was piloting. The Salvager’s shuttle was the last to set down. The gangplank had already been lowered and Reuel had started down it when Jared lowered theirs. Checking to make certain Damon, Kane, and Corin had the electronic devices they were to distribute among the ships likely to give them trouble, he strolled casually to the hatch and stood at the top of the gangplank as if he was merely awaiting orders from Reuel. Behind him, Kane opened the secondary hatch and he, Damon, and Corin dropped through it and scattered, hopefully shielded from detection by the gangplank and Jared. Since there was no immediate evidence that they’d been noticed, Jared descended the gangplank as soon as the last had closed the hatch behind him.
Reuel met the senior space port authority on duty on the tarmac and presented him with the requisitions orders they had compiled and then forged into ‘official’ paperwork.
“Well shit!” the man said when he’d studied the list. “This is the second gods damned time we’ve been hit up for supplies from the fucking government in as many months!”
“You do not have what we need?” Reuel demanded sharply.
The man sent him a disgusted look. “We’ve got it—most of it anyway. We just got a gods damned supply ship in a week ago.” He expelled an explosive breath. “Well, I’ll get somebody on it. The government’s credits is as good as anybody else’s, I reckon, except for the fucking discount they demand. When you want it?”
“We are here now,” Reuel said pointedly.
“Hey! No fucking problem. It is the middle of the fucking night, but what the fuck! You got anybody to load it? Because I don’t have enough men on the nightshift to handle this.”
Reuel nodded. “I brought a detachment of cyborgs.”
The man looked startled. “No shit? I thought they’d all been recalled.”
“These were naturally cleared before they were returned to duty. If you have any that you have taken, we are instructed to pick them up and return them to the manufacturer.”
The man blew out a breath. “Man you can have them! I will be glad to get those scary mother fuckers out of here!”
“So … you do have some held here?”
“About a dozen, I guess. Let’s go back to my office and do the paperwork. You can transfer the credits and we’re in business.”
Nodding, Reuel signaled the man stationed at the top of the gangplank of his ship and walked into the space terminal with the officer of the port authority.
Jared relaxed fractionally when that part of the plan, at least, seemed to go off without a hitch. Now, if they could just manage to get everything loaded and get off the ground without anyone noticing the transfer of funds from the government account, they would be home free!
He did not particularly like that part of the plan. Although he was in complete agreement that the government owed them for time served in the forces even if they disregarded compensation for being abandoned on that fucking planet, it seemed too risky to him to thumb their noses at the government.
On the other hand, it was not as if they had any monetary resources of their own, and Chloe had spent all of hers bribing the last port authority. They did not have a lot of options and it was certainly better to try Reuel’s ruse rather than to come in with guns blazing and try to load their supplies and shoot their way out again. At least this way they had some possibility of getting what they needed without being filled full of holes.
Damon, Kane, and finally Corin returned after a time. Jared scanned the windows of the building overlooking the tarmac and finally signaled that it was safe for them to show themselves. A half a dozen men had wandered casually down the gangplank of Reuel’s craft and ranged themselves around the ship.
There was nothing at all casual about it, of course, but he thought they made a good impression of men simply walking around and stretching their legs. He and the others with him crouched, or took positions leaning against the ship in an attempt to appear bored with waiting.
The truth was, the longer they waited the more tense they became, however. He’d begun to suspect they had been discovered and Reuel taken when Reuel appeared again, walking briskly toward his ship. Behind him, armed men marched a group of cyborgs, heavily manacled and chained, toward Reuel’s ship.
As they neared, Jared straightened and searched the faces of the cyborgs being led out. He did not recognize any of them, however, and disappointment flickered through him. He had been certain that the other men who had formed his squad had not made it, but there had been other salvagers scanning the planet for anything that might be salvageable. He had thought there was at least a chance that some of the others had made it.
He supposed there still was. They could be anywhere, though. It had been absurd even to look.
The cyborgs had reached the gangplank and Reuel’s men had emerged to take custody of them when a convoy of mover drones rounded a building in the distance and approached them. Jared tensed immediately, waiting until the drones had pulled to a stop and opened before he relaxed.
“Let us get to it,” he said grimly, striding briskly toward the cargo drones to look for the weapons he and his men were to transport. It would have been far more efficient to form a line as the cyborgs unloading the food supplies had besides giving him the possibility of knocking the fuck out of Damon, but he thought it best not to make too much of a display of their strength. It tended to unnerve humans and, in any case, he could not recall whether he and his crew were supposed to be cyborgs or not. They unloaded their cases by pairs and carried them to the lander.
