He leaned his shoulder against the frame and folded his arms. He kept his mouth shut. He knew enough about freight to understand what this meant. Reputation was currency. You didn’t get the good contracts if your ship was flagged on a security broadcast. You didn’t get fuel. You didn’t get dock clearance. You got boarded, stripped, and shoved in a cell while some bureaucrat decided whether you were a victim or an accomplice.
And she was carrying a fugitive, which made her an accomplice whether she liked it or not. She turned to face him with a precision that had nothing soft in it. She wasn’t scared. In the little time he’d known her, he hadn’t once seen her scared. This wasn’t it either.
This was fury, and he’d been on the wrong end of enough post-match tribunals to recognize the look of someone deciding who to destroy first.
“The pickup.” Her voice was quiet and controlled, which was worse than yelling. “The contract. The return leg. All of it, gone.”
She took a step toward him, her hands fisted at her sides. “My registration on a fucking security broadcast. My company’s name attached to a stolen vessel report from a penal colony.”
“He said I couldn’t handle the run.” Another step as she shook her head. “He said the ship was garbage, and I was worse. Now I’m the idiot who got her license pulled because she let a stray dog on board. Congratulations. He was right.”
He took it. He stood there with his arms crossed over his chest and let the words land. Because she was right, he had come onto her ship, used her as his way out, and torched her life behind him.
“I needed a ship,” he said. “You were there. I didn’t ask what it would cost you.”
“Great. So you knew, and you did it anyway.”
“Yes.” He pushed off the frame and stepped into the cockpit, stopping by the co-pilot’s chair with his arms folded. “I can’t fix that. What I can fix is what happens next. The garrison won’t stop looking. It’s not about a stolen ship. They don’t care about the freight. They care about me.”
“I don’t care about you. I care about my ship.”
“They’re looking for a fugitive with a genetic defect,” he said. “If I can prove I’m not that, the flag on the ship goes away.”
She just stared at him. “What?”
“The diagnosis. It was faked.” Saying it aloud felt like forcing a broken bone back into place. “I’m not Izaean. The healer who ran the tests cooked the results.”
She crossed her arms. “And I’m supposed to believe that? You kidnapped me. You threatened me. You look like a nightmare, but sure. You say you’re innocent, and I’m supposed to believe that?”
“I didn’t say I was innocent,” he argued. “I said the diagnosis was faked. There’s a difference.”
He gestured toward the nav console.
“The healer was transferred. Last I heard, he was stationed on Venrexx Prime. If I can find him and get the original data, I can clear the warrant.”
She let out a short, rough laugh. “Venrexx Prime? That’s three sectors away. And you want me to taxi you there? Why in the hell should I do that? Especially for some asshole whose name I don’t even know!”
“Because you’re already dead in the water. And it’s Raaze.”
She went very still.
“You can’t make your pickup,” he pointed out. “You can’t go home. If you go back now, you go back with nothing. He wins. The company takes the hit. You lose the ship.”
Her jaw locked hard enough that he saw the muscle jump.
“Or,” he carried on, his voice lower. “We go to Venrexx. I find the healer. I clear the warrant. The garrison rescinds the report of the stolen vessel, and you go home with a clean ship and a story about a navigational error.”
It was a long shot. Worse than that. It was the long shot to end all long shots.
It was still a chance, though, and right now she didn’t have many.
She leaned back against the console, her gaze distant, and her jaw working like she was chewing on something that tasted bad.
“He bet the fee,” Fred said. The speakers made his voice louder than necessary. Which, he realized, was the machine’s version of being a prick.
She looked up. “What?”
“On Parac’Norr, before he boarded. He bet your lost docking fees that you wouldn’t shoot him. I checked the records. He currently has zero credits. He is a penniless exile. He cannot pay for the fuel, let alone the diversion.”
