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“Look who’s talking,” he said.
She tensed beside him, shifting to create a few inches of distance. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I don’t? I know enough to know you’ve been working for the company responsible for the dehydration of millions of people just because they’re poor.”
“At least I’m trying to do what I can fair and square, not by stealing ships and tech,” she muttered.
“‘I’m in bed with the overlords.’ Some moral high ground you got there, Tessa. And we didn’tstealOlympus. It was abandoned. But hey, I guess you’d prefer us to have just blown it up and let it all go to waste, huh?”
He watched her gnaw her bottom lip from the corner of his eye, and the way her chest shuddered occasionally in his peripheral vision made him immediately regret the barb. They had hours to live, and he was making her feel like shit.
He turned to her, and she tilted her face away, blinking fast.
“Hey.” He moved closer. “I’m sorry, okay? It doesn’t even matter now.”
“No.” Her voice was steady, but hanging by a thread. “I’m a hypocrite.”
“Nah,” Stag said firmly. “You were surviving the best you knew how. We all were. The whole system is fucked.”
“Well,” Tessa turned back to him, a new spark in her eye, “since we’re making up super realistic scenarios for when we get off this planet… You could screw the system while also getting the resources you need.”
“Hmm?” He frowned, distracted by her touch as she reached for his hand again.
“Crowdsource. Ask other waypoint stations or planets to help source the stuff you need in exchange for bringing them with you. There’s plenty of material out there actually, it’s just that people are so spread out. Can’t organize unless you’re part of a company or colony. I’ve seen plenty on layovers traveling to station assignments. They’d probably love to get their shot at colony life.”
Stag frowned. “That wouldn’t work. We can barely afford to feed the people we have. We don’t have the nutrigel rations for more.”
Tessa shrugged, not pressing the issue, but it did get his brain ticking. Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea in the world. His people were so secretive over what they’d found for a reason, though. It wasn’t just colonies that would threaten to takeOlympusaway from them. Plenty of desperate people would pick them apart for scraps or hijacking if permitted.
Plus, none of it even mattered. He wasn’t making it back toOlympus, and New Earth was just a pipe dream he shared with the woman stuck in the same predicament beside him now.
“Thank you,” she said after a few silent minutes.
“For what?” He frowned.
“Saving me. Up there, you shot down the missile that was going to kill me. And then you brought me here.”
“Yeah,” he said wryly, “And condemned you to this instead.”
“If not forthis, I’d never have met you.”
“We met months ago, technically.”
“Not like this.”
“No,” he stroked lazy fingers through her hair. “Not like this.”
But he regretted it most of the time. In the really selfish moments he didn’t, because he’d much rather have this than not. But not for her. She should have been up there,living. Plus, what he had done impacted many more people than just the two of them.
Stag thought about his pistol tucked under the pilot’s seat. He wondered when, and how, he would approach her with the option of a less painful end than suffocation. Would she take it? Would he?
He’d have to do it. Even if he’d unlocked the griplock, enabling her to operate the thing, Stag would never let her be the one to pull the trigger. That was his burden.
But it wasn’t time yet. They had three more hours. He squeezed her hard against himself, his lips finding her in the darkness.
CHAPTER9
TEZ
