“Keeps me alive.” She walked past him to the console and checked a streaming wall of green text. “Fred, log the diagnostic. We’re green across the board.”
A voice answered from the corridor speakers. “Acknowledged. Fuel consumption is fourteen percent above nominal. Recommend reduced velocity.”
“Denied,” she said. “Maintain current velocity. I want to be at the drop point on schedule.”
“Noted. Logging objection.”
Raaze tipped his head, analyzing the voice. Male, human, and older. Definitely older than Cait. “Cheery guy.”
“He’s a realist,” she said.
She keyed in one last command, and the screen blinked dark. Around them, the ship hummed in a steady rhythm as the engines settled into the long run.
Her pace shifted after that, not stopping exactly but just easing off, like an engine finally cooling down from a hard run. She drifted through one last sequence of chores—checking the corridor, snapping the cargo seals, locking the nav—all of it muscle memory, the same boring order she probably used every damn time. Just putting the ship to bed.
He watched her finish.
At the junction where the corridor met the crew section, she stopped. She didn’t bother turning all the way around, just a half-turn that let the red light catch the edge of her profile.
“Stay put,” she said.
“Where are you going?”
“To sleep.”
“Leave me alone with your homicidal partner’s finger on the trigger?”
“Fred won’t kill you unless you move.” She looked straight at him. “So don’t move.”
He gave her a slow, mocking salute. “I’ll try to behave.”
She didn’t answer, stepping through the door, and it slid shut behind her with a soft hiss. Then he was alone. Leaning his head back against the bulkhead, he closed his eyes with a sigh.
All he could do was wait it out.
6
Chapter 5
The fuel projections hadn’t magically improved overnight.
Fred had been chewing on the numbers since Parac’Norr’s atmosphere had stopped trying to murder them, and Fred was never optimistic on a good day. After the detour? Forget it.
Cait hunched over the main console and keyed a new sequence into the nav-comp, fingers stiff and awkward on the glass. The steady vibration of the drive core thrummed up through the deck and into her boots, a familiar chorus.
“Fuel consumption on the port thruster is seventeen percent above nominal,” Fred announced through the cockpit speakers. He normally didn’t bother, but he had since the alien had come aboard.
“On it,” she muttered, eyes fixed on the crawl of green data over the screen. “I’m adjusting the intake mix.”
“Adjusting the mix will increase thermal stress on the manifold.”
“Better thermal stress than drifting in the void because we ran dry halfway to the drop point.”
“Debatable. Drifting implies a lack of explosion. Thermal stress implies we stop being a ship and start being shrapnel.”
She scrubbed both hands over her face. “You’re a ray of sunshine this morning, Fred. Truly.”
“I am a realist. And the math is ugly, Cait. We burned too much on the ascent. The detour cost us. If we make the pickup, we arrive with reserves at four percent. That is within the margin of error for stranded.”
