Page 18 of Cloverleaf Station

Ouch. But Kieron could see Elenus’s point. “I want to save her,” he said at last. “I want to help you get her back, but I want us to—”

“—eeeeee—”

“That’s her!” Kieron could tell the moment he lost any and all of Elenus’s attention. The sound was similar to what he’d recorded on Cloverleaf Station, but softer, like someone whispering for help instead of shouting it. Or …

“—to get around this big one up here, it’s the only asteroid in this section that’s large enough to hide them, and if we’re close enough to get a signal this clearly, then—”

“What if it’s a fake?” Kieron asked.

Elenus turned wild eyes toward him. “What the hell do you mean?”

“What if your partner is forcing her to make this noise? I mean, come on—there’s no way he wouldn’t know she was broadcasting this, right?” Kieron pushed. “He might not have cared when they were entering the asteroid field, because there was no way to go after them—if you hadn’t come by, I’d have brushed it off as an anomaly. But he must know it’s going on now. Why is he letting her make it? Or making her make it?”

“He’s not that smart!”

“He was smart enough to escape with her!” Kieron protested. “Just—check around for surprises before you go flying us into a subsection of the asteroid field that’s killed more people than any other place here!”

“Keep your eyes on your sensors and shut the fuck up,” Elenus replied, turning back to the control panel with an air of finality. “I know what I’m doing. We need to—” A proximity alarm began to sound, and the Lizzie came to a stop. “What—no—”

“Too many unknown variables ahead to compute a safe course,” the ship announced. “Waiting for clearance before continuing.”

“What?”

“There’s too much floating around out there for your ship to handle it,” Kieron said gently. “It’s okay. We’ve got probes loaded, let’s send them out and collect some data, and then we’ll come back better prepared to get through this part of the field and—”

“Fuck it.” The proximity alert cut off as Elenus punched a code into the control panel. The ship lurched a second later as he took control of the helm.

Kieron stared at him, his mouth falling open. “Are you insane? You can’t hand fly an asteroid field!”

“Watch me.”

“Elenus!”

“Seeing as how we might die if you keep distracting me, you’d better sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.”

Dumbfounded, Kieron watched as Elenus carefully piloted them closer to the tight-floating debris field in front of them. They made it a meter in … ten meters … twenty meters …

Dink.

“Impact on aft portside hull,” the AI intoned. “Damage minimal.”

“Elenus …”

“Shut up.”

Dink. Dink-dink. Dink dink—thud.

“Impact on front starboard hull. Panel is at eighty-two percent capacity.”

“We need to turn around,” Kieron insisted. “We don’t know how to fly this safely!” He triggered the probe release. “A day, maybe two, and these will help us figure it out, all right? But we have to leave before this gets any—

Thud. Thud—CRUNCH. The ship actually went into a spin with the last hit.

“Impact on aft portside hull. Panel is at fifty-five percent capacity.”

“We have to turn around!” Kieron snapped. “Elenus!”

“We’re so close!” The other ship’s cry was getting louder, a pathetic keen.