"For how long?"
"As long as it takes. Okay, this should do."
Thyaar turned the Vett'an and brought the ship to rest inside a hollowed-out mining shaft. The engines dropped to a low idle, barely a vibration through the deck. Thyaar unbuckled his harness and crossed to another console, muttering under his breath.
She sat on the edge of her chair, eyes wide. The walls of raw rock were close enough on either side that she could have reached out and touched them. Well, if there'd been a window to open anyway.
The red lights on the console were still flashing though.
Barnaby jumped up onto the pilot's chair, circled twice, and lay down on the warm spot Thyaar had just vacated.
She looked at the cat, then at the red lights. Glancing over her shoulder, she winced. Thyaar stood with his arms folded, staring at the console in front of him. He sighed and rubbed at his eyes.
Shit, they were in so much trouble.
"I'm sorry," she said. "He's never— Well, no, that's a lie. He's always doing shit like this. But usually it's just knocking mugs off tables, not..." She waved at the console.
Thyaar looked at her, then at Barnaby. His left eyebrow took up residence in his hairline.
"The Emperor's lateral drive array," he said slowly, "has been disabled by a cat."
"He's…” she shrugged and tried, “thorough?”
The hard line of his mouth twitched. And then he barked a laugh.
"The Emperor is never going to believe this."
6
The lateral drive array, it turned out, was under the floor.
Thyaar had the plates off the side of the console within minutes. Three of them, all levered free and set aside in a haphazard pile. Under the console was a tangle of components she couldn't name, all packed tight and glowing faintly in more colors than she could count.
If her attention was on them… which it wasn’t.
Thyaar had stripped off the top half of his uniform and dropped into the gap without a word. His head and shoulders were under the console, but the rest of him stretched out across the deck plates, bare from the waist up. Every time he reached for something, the muscles across his stomach tightened and bunched. God, the guy was ripped, and then some.
His skin was darker than she'd expected. Not like he had a tan as she’d assumed at first, but more like old bronze that had been left in the sun. There was a scar low across his ribs. A long one she itched to trace with her fingertips.
And where the fuck had that come from?
Sitting on her hands, she put her back against the bulkhead and watched him work. Well, watched half of him work anyway.
Not that she had much choice, because, where else was she going to go? They were the only two people here and the mining shaft was barely wider than the ship, so she couldn’t take a walk outside and look at the scenery. Plus, there was the little issue of the lack of atmosphere and the fact the pirates were out there, circling. So her options were a little limited. She could sit here, or sit over there.
So she sat here.
Which had nothing to do with the abs. Or the scar. Or the way the amber light caught the flat plane of his stomach every time he twisted to reach something. She was not looking at any of that. Honest. Not looking at all.
Barnaby had no such reservations. He'd circled the open deck plate twice, sat on the edge looking in. Finally, he’d dropped into the gap with Thyaar. She heard a grunt, a soft Latharian curse she didn't catch, and then the rhythmic rumble of purring from somewhere inside the ship's guts.
"Your cat is lying on the distributor coil."
“Yeah. He does that." Not lie on the distributor coil, per se, but get in the way.
"I need the distributor coil."
She grinned. “Good luck with that.”
