Page 112 of Tracked and Taken

Past the chambers. The Krellan female. The Juneth pair. The Xarthian female at 41-B whose pulse on the panel is stable at forty-eight. She is going to live.

Twenty bodies.

We cannot move twenty sedated bonded mates in the back of Helia’s Reach.

Flossie cannot mobilize that capacity in the next forty-eight hours.

There is one person in the Velarkis sector who can.

My claws are still out a quarter-inch. I tell them to retract. They do not.

I make the call anyway.

“Flossie.”

“Vosk. I have been waiting on you. Status.”

“Kesh is dead. Natalie killed him. Compound exposure on Natalie. Counteragent administered, working. We are extracting now.”

The voice I am using is the contract voice. Level. Certified. It is coming from a room in me that the rest of me is not in.

“Copy. The station?”

“Twenty sedated bonded mates in observation chambers. Multiple species. Including Korrhai matching Thane’s case profile. We do not have the capacity. I need an assist.”

A pause.

“Yes, lovey. I’ll call in Morrison.”

The big gun.

“Tell her it is a twenty-body mass recovery, BioSystems-tagged, cross-species, with medical assessment and chain-of-custody requirements your intake staff cannot cover in the first forty-eight hours. She and Luzrak have the network.”

“Copy, Vosk. I will comm her now. She is going to want a casualty manifest by 1800 and a chain-of-custody log signed by both you and Torres before the Junction extraction shuttle leaves dock. I will route the paperwork to your overlay.”

“Copy.”

“Vosk.”

“Flossie.”

“Take care of your mate.”

The line cuts.

One hundred and two.

I keep walking.

The ventral hatch. Helia’s Reach receives us at 1108 ship time.

I cycle the airlock. The cabin pressurizes. The scrubbed air of my ship hits Natalie’s lungs.

She breathes. One full breath of clean air. Ninety-nine.

“Nat.”

“Tael.”