“…frolicked.”
Fitz sputtered.
“What, you don’t think
this old lady can frolic?”
“I wasn’t thinking
about you. Von Drager seems to be…ah, wound a bit tight.”
“He’s not always like
that. We first met during a conference on Beckswold, and discovered we shared a
mutual interest in the Lazzinair Puzzle. Logan, you may have noticed, is easy
on the eyes, and I wondered why he hooked up with an old broad like me, but the
mercenaries’ third rule is ‘Never turn down a good lay when it’s offered.’ So I
didn’t.” Memory brought a smile to the doctor’s freckled features.
“We would talk
afterward. I’d ask what he’d say to August Lazzinair if we could magically
bring him back from the dead.” Ski picked up a tablet and punched in data a
little too savagely. “He was probably laughing his ass off at me the whole time.”
“I don’t think that’s
the case. He seemed truly concerned about whether you survived the attack at
Ishtok Base.”
“Back on Rainbow,” Ski
said, “when you told me he was working for the Empire, I thought maybe he
hooked up with me only to get information. I’ll admit to being pissed.”
“You’ll get your chance
to talk to him tomorrow. I’m assigning him to work with you.”
“Right now I’m not sure
if I want to deck him or kiss him.”
Fitz gave a
half-hearted chuckle. “Wolf and I hoped to get away for a few days, just the
two of us. He knew of a little cabin up in the Cloud River Wilderness—no
computers, no comms, not even a tri-D unit.”
“ Yeah, and you made
it plain that I wasn’t invited,” Jumper complained . “ Maybe Faydra
and I’ll go on our own holiday—no humans allowed .”
“I think the chance of
any of us taking a vacation has been flushed out the airlock.” Fitz rolled her
shoulders and, as she raised her hand to rub the back of her neck, noticed the
fine tremors.
So did Ski, her eyes
narrowing. “I thought I told you to lay off the stims.”
“It’s not like I have a
choice. I’ve been a little pushed for time.”
“Stims aren’t going to
help any more. The symbiont has to clear them out of your system, so in the
long run it’s a net loss to your energy levels. You’re better off loading up on
the elixir.” She studied Fitz’s face. “Or eating regularly. With the organism’s
higher metabolic demands on your body, you don’t have the option of skipping
meals now.”
“Things have been so
hectic for the last few days that I haven’t had the luxury of regular dining
hours, so I’ve been living on hits of the elixir and emptied out my onboard
reservoir. The stims are just to get me through until I can find a few minutes
to reload it.”
“For Yig’s sake. Just
because you appear indestructible don’t mean you are. Now, take off your jacket
and sit over there.”
Fitz stripped off her
black jacket, draped it over the back of the chair, and pulled up the high-necked
armorcloth undershirt. The three faint spots on her side below her ribs could
easily be mistaken for blemishes, but were the ports for her pharmacopeia’s
reservoirs, embedded just below the skin. Ski returned with an infuser loaded
with the same pale fluid that flowed into Wolf’s veins, and slipped the needle
through the skin and into the port with such practiced skill that Fitz hardly
felt it. The negative pressure in the reservoir sucked in the viscous fluid. As
soon as she received a green light on her pharmacopeia readout, Fitz dialed up
a hit of the nutrient solution and savored the warm flush spreading through her
body, much like the sleepy contentedness after a particularly large holiday
dinner. She sighed as the symbiont’s chorus inside her head smoothed out into a
comfortable babble.
Ski snorted as she
picked up the empty infuser. “You’d think I was some kind of drug pusher. At
least this stuff is good for you, but it’s no substitute for a decent meal.
When he gets up, Wolf is going to be hungry enough to eat a
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