They took another hard turn. The harness bit into her side this time and Barnaby yowled, a sound of pure feline outrage that said he was absolutely going to remember this and someone was going to pay for it later.
"I need you on that console." Thyaar jerked his chin toward the secondary station to her left. The display was dark.
What? She looked at it.
"I can't read alien."
"You won't need to. I'm going to route the shield frequency to your station. When I tell you to hit the button, you hit the button. That's it."
She stared at him like he’d grown another head. "You're giving me a job?"
"I'm giving you a button." He tapped something and the console flickered to life. As he said, it was a single display, a circle that glowed a soft amber. "When I say now, you press it. It cycles the shield harmonics so they can't get a weapons lock. Can you do that?"
"I can press a button, yeah."
"Good."
Unclipping her harness one-handed, she kept Barnaby clamped against her chest with the other as she slid into the seat at the secondary station. The chair was enormous and her feet didn't touch the deck. She felt like a kid sitting in a grown-up's chair, feet swinging, except this grown-up was an alien and the chair was on a spaceship being chased by pirates.
So… not quite the same.
She breathed out slowly. It was one panel. A button. Easy peasy.
"Now!" Thyaar said.
She hit it.
Something shimmered across the viewport, little more than a ripple in the light, like heat haze. The ship behind them fired and she squealed, but the shot went wide, skating off into the dark somewhere.
"Again."
She hit it again. Another shimmer. Another miss.
"You're a natural," he said, and she couldn't tell if that was sarcasm. Probably. Didn't matter. His voice had dropped into that clipped, flat register she'd heard on holofilms. Command voice. No humor in it.
She risked a sideways glance at him. He didn't look like the man who'd fixed Barnaby's diabetes. He looked every inch an alien warrior about to do something dangerous, and her stupid pulse picked that exact moment to notice.
Great timing. Pirates now, ogling later. If there was a later.
The Vett'an shuddered as something hit them. Not hard, but enough to rattle the deck plates under her bare feet.
"Shit. Was that?—"
"Glancing hit. Shields held." His eyes didn't leave his console. "They're herding us. Trying to box us in."
"That sounds bad."
"It's not ideal. Again."
She pressed the button again and again. She got into a rhythm with it, watching him for the call, hitting the panel the instant the word left his mouth. Then she started to watch the console and she was already hitting the button before he said the word.
A thrill ran through her. It was working. She could see the shots going wide on the display, the shield cycling fast enough that nothing got a clean lock.
Barnaby, however, was not getting into a rhythm.
He'd tolerated the first few maneuvers from her lap, claws dug in, body tense, ears flat. But his tolerance had a shelf life, and it had just expired. He squirmed and she tightened her arm around him. He squirmed harder, back legs kicking. His claws raked down the front of her thigh, deep enough to make her wince as fire trailed in lines.
"Barns, stop— fuck?—"
