Dealers' Choice - Susan Hayes Page 0,46

could.

“Do it,” Archer said.

“Yes sir. Can someone point me to the nearest datahub or console?”

Dash moved to join him. “This way. I’ll give you the passcodes, too.”

Eric grinned. “Thanks, but I won’t need them.”

The two stepped outside and Ward swung his attention back to the others.

“You’ll need a ship,” Tianna was saying. “Take mine. It’s faster than anything else out here, including some of the IAF’s fleet. Tink can pilot, but if you run into trouble, you’ll have to handle combat yourself. She’s not programmed for weapons or battle tactics.”

Archer raised a silver brow almost to his hairline. “I should hope not.”

“This room is now base of operations for the rescue,” Kit announced, stepping in before the head of the IAF and the owner of Astek station got into a row over the laws governing AI. “Which means all the usual crap we say every time we go through this. Watch your six, don’t talk about this outside these walls, protect each other, and if you think of something, speak up. We’re figuring this out on the fly.”

Ward smirked a little. They might have been created by different corporations, but Kit and Luke’s leadership style was similar to his and Vic’s. No wonder their batch-brothers had fallen into the Armas family’s orbit.

Zura stood on a chair and waved her pale blue arms. “Let’s start with something simple. Who’s hungry?”

There was a general murmur of assent, and before long, one of the tables was loaded down with snacks, sandwiches, self-cooling pitchers of water and heated pots of fresh Ja’kreesh for anyone who wanted to stay awake for the next twenty or thirty hours. Ward poured himself a mug, murmured an apology to his medi-bots, and took a drink.

He and Vic took over one corner, using their internal comms to relay everything they knew to the other cyborgs, who conveyed the information to the others. Word spread, and they were approached by different groups with various offers of help, advice, or a few words of support. Finally, they were doing something. It didn’t feel like enough. He doubted anything would until they had Xori back, safe and sound, but it was a start.

He seethed with worry and anger, mostly at himself. He’d fraxxed up again. He needed to apologize, to tell Xori he was sorry he’d thought the worst of her. If she didn’t forgive him, he’d understand, but he needed to say it, anyway.

He stood with Vic as friends and family came and went. It felt strange, because it was the first time he’d hadn’t deliberately set himself apart from everyone. He had to admit it was nice, and a voice in the back of his head kept asking why he hadn’t done this sooner. He knew the answer, though. He didn’t deserve nice. At least, he didn’t think he did.

He heard Xori laughing softly at him from the depths of his mind. “Of course you do. The only one who doesn’t see it is you.” It wasn’t something she’d ever said to him exactly that way, but it didn’t matter. It felt like her. It was the closest he could get to the real thing until they got her back.

Impatience surged through him. They needed to find her so he could hold her again. Kiss her. Tell her he… No. There was nothing to say to her but an apology. That’s it.

Erik and Chance headed their way, accompanied by the blonde he’d noticed earlier.

Chance smiled at them, her amber eyes identical to his. Not so long ago, he’d thought she was a threat to his family, accused her of being a spy and worse. He’d been ready to kill her, and she was his kin. Batch-cousin, she’d explained. But she was more than that. She was his batch-sister. She’d forgiven him for what had happened. He hadn’t forgiven himself.

“Hey,” Chance said, her voice soft and a little sad.

“Hey, sis.” He mustered a smile. She was worried about Xori, too. He’d been so caught up in his own fears he’d forgotten that he and Vic weren’t the only ones affected. “You holding up okay?”

“More or less. I’d like to do something for you. Once we have all the data, I’d like to parse it and try to calculate outcomes. I don’t know what information it might give you, but I want to try.”

“You don’t need to do that.” He’d seen what happened when Chance used her unique abilities on large amounts of data. She could do small calculations on the fly,