“Hell yes!” He spat the words. “Those women? They pulled us out of the wreck. Came to our rescue. And we abandoned them out there. Well . . . the IG did. You give me the word, ma’am. I’m begging for the permission. There’s a charged airtruck waiting. Let me ask for volunteers. I . . .”

She steadied him as he almost collapsed. Saw him blinking, reaching up from the crutch to rub his eyes.

“And Supervisor,” he said, “there’s something else. Granted, I was hurt. But I had to see. On the shuttle, I mean.” He glanced sidelong at her with worried and fatigued eyes. “Did you have anything placed in the electronics? Like, maybe to keep the shuttle from flying?”

“No. What are you talking about?”

From his belt pouch, Bogarten extracted an electrical device. Maybe as big around as a tennis ball, it had clips and connectors on the sides. “Found that on the main bus relay, ma’am.”

Kalico took it, frowned as she hefted the thing. “I haven’t a clue.”

“Me, either. But looking back, I’m wondering if the IG, shit on a shoe that he is, didn’t have one of his robot-people stick this on the electrics to make it look like you tried to kill him. Like you wanted him to die in that shuttle. I . . .”

Bogarten’s eyes rolled back. Kalico barely caught him before he collapsed, struggled to keep him upright on his crutches.

A couple of Hofer’s guys were coming down the avenue with a ladder. Looked to be on their way to the landing field to do who knew what.

“Hey!” Kalico called. “Got an emergency here. I need you to get Bogarten to the hospital.”

“On the ladder?” one called.

Kalico braced a hand on her pistol, arching an eyebrow.

“You got it!” the second one told her with a worried smile. “But if the boss yells about it . . . ?”

Kalico gave him a deadly grin. “I’ll have Kylee Simonov beat the shit out of him again.”

She watched as the mumbling Fenn Bogarten was summarily loaded onto the ladder—parts of him slumping between the rungs—and carted off.

For a moment, she stood, considering the device Bogarten had given her. Sabotage? No, it didn’t make sense. And when it came to shuttles, Bogarten wasn’t even a lowly rated Tech I. The part might be anything, and Bogarten had been badly hurt.

She stuffed the thing into her pouch.

Yvette was hurrying down the avenue toward her, shot a worried look at Fenn as he was carted past, and called, “You heard?”

“Yeah, just now. From Fen.”