Talina trotted down the wooden steps, quetzal-hide boots shooting prismatic rainbows of color as they hammered on the treads. People glanced her way, then back at Shig, Allison, and Kalico. Figuring—wrongly—that this was some momentous occasion.

Talina answered the greeting calls, waved, and nodded to those who dipped a head her direction. In some ways, it was almost like the old days before she’d become a freak infected by quetzal TriNA. She’d made it down the central aisle, was headed down the bar when Hofer turned, drink in hand, and met her eyes. She gave him her “we-going-to-have-trouble-tonight” look, to which he replied with a slight shake of the head and a guilty grin.

Talina gestured with a thumbs up, made her way to her chair, and unslung her rifle from beneath her cape. Placing it butt-first on the floor, barrel leaned in its usual position against the bar, she climbed into her chair.

Shig, Kalico, and Allison watched, the question in their eyes.

“Yeah, Dek’s off,” she told them. “Took Wejee, Cal, and Ko for security while they escorted him to his airplane. Knowing that Whitey’s in the area? That’s guaranteed to stand your short hairs on end.”

Kalico arched her eyebrow, the one with the mobber scar running through it. “I figured you’d be riding shotgun. Flying alone? Not to mention in the dead of night?”

Talina took a deep breath, gestured to Inga for a whiskey and a stout, and turned to look at the others. “This is Tip Briggs we’re talking about. Now, if it was Kylee?”

“We’d be taking the A-7 and marines in armor,” Kalico replied.

Talina shrugged. “Dek’s got a weak spot for both of those kids. Something more than a bonding with Flute, shared TriNA. This is lineage. It goes back to some event that happened out in the bush a couple of years back.” She slapped the bar. “As for me? There wasn’t room. Dek figured that with Tip in that bad a shape, he’d have the boy, Chaco or Madison, and Kylee aboard.”

“His airplane is only built for four,” Shig reminded them as he fingered his half a glass of wine.

“So, here I am,” Talina told them. “Waiting for Two Spot to either tell me Dek’s safe, or making sure I’m in a place where I can wheel around and call ‘Who’s up for a rescue mission in the middle of the night?’”

“You’d have plenty of takers,” Allison agreed, where she leaned forward over her glass of whiskey.

“That’s my hope,” Talina told them as Inga brought Talina’s mug full of stout and a glass with two fingers of amber spirits.

“My tab,” Allison called.

“Thanks,” Talina told her. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your little confab here.”