The drive core hummed through the deck under his boots. Loud all of a sudden.
Her gaze cut to him, sharp as a blade. “You bet money you don’t have.”
He met her stare and shrugged. It was the only answer. He’d stood on that slabcrete with nothing in his pocket and made the only play available. He’d known exactly what he was doing, and he’d done it anyway.
She looked at him for a long moment, at his empty hands and the frayed bandage wrapped around his arm, and her shoulders dropped a fraction.
“Fred.” She turned back to the console. “Plot a course for Venrexx Prime.”
“Objection,” Fred said at once. “Venrexx Prime is outside our flight plan. Fuel reserves are insufficient for a direct burn. We will need to slingshot around the mining colony at Sector 437 to conserve reaction mass. This will add three days to the journey. Also, I would like to note that transporting a fugitive across sector lines is a felony.”
“Noted,” she said, fingers already moving over the keys. “Do the math on the slingshot. Keep us out of the patrol lanes.”
“I am always doing the math,” Fred grumbled. “It is my primary function. Unlike some people, who appear to function entirely on testosterone and bad decisions.”
She ignored him. A star chart bloomed across the display, all lines and light and spinning markers. She didn’t look at him. Her eyes stayed on the nav readout, hands moving through route parameters with quick, economical taps.
“If we get there, and this healer isn’t there. Or if he won’t talk. Or if you’re lying…” She hit the final key and locked the trajectory. The ship gave a slight shudder as the nav-comp adjusted their heading. “Then I’m dumping you at the nearest station and filing a report that you hijacked me, forced me to fly to Venrexx, and I escaped. I will burn you to save this ship. Are we clear?”
He nodded. “Clear as glass.”
He looked at the new heading on the display, the healer’s last known station on a rock in the middle of nowhere…
She wasn’t the only one betting on a long shot.
7
Chapter 6
The ship was too fucking small.
If this had been a locker room, some red-faced coach would have been screaming about spacing and making them run drills until they learned how not to take each other’s heads off in close quarters. If it had been a holding cell, the wardens would have split them up by now just to avoid the inevitable bloodbath.
Instead, it was a human freighter built for three crew who actually liked each other. He’d never realized ships came this small. And at present, it held one pilot who tolerated him, one cartridge that openly loathed him, and Raaze, who occupied what felt like half the draanthing ship all by himself.
He flattened his back to the galley bulkhead as Cait squeezed past him. The whole thing was now a daily negotiation. A cramped little dance of not touching that took more concentration than a championship final.
“Excuse me,” she muttered without looking up.
“You’re excused.”
Yeah, he knew he was being a draanthic, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Not when she avoided looking at him at all.
She shoved an empty ration wrapper into the chute, stepped back, then turned for another hydration pouch from the dispenser. Her shoulder passed within an inch of his chest.
“Oxygen consumption is currently holding at one hundred and twelve percent of projected baseline,” Fred said from the overhead speaker. “This is largely due to the passenger’s metabolic rate, which appears to be less ‘standard humanoid’ and more ‘industrial furnace in a leather jacket’.”
Raaze huffed a laugh. At least the cartridge had jokes. They were terrible, but they were still jokes.
“Noted, Fred,” Cait said, ripping open the pouch.
“I am merely pointing out that if he stopped breathing so aggressively, we might extend the scrubber life by six hours.”
“I’ll try to shallow breathe,” Raaze said. “Wouldn’t want to inconvenience the hardware.”
“Your consideration is noted. And rejected. Your mass alone is costing us point-four percent fuel efficiency on the drag coefficient.”
Raaze picked up the protein bar Cait had left on the counter for him and bit into it. It was all chalk and cardboard… like misery compressed into edible form. He ate it anyway. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
