Her surprised blink gave way to understanding.“When I was a teenager, my father gave me a Cyclone.Mako.I lived and breathed that ship and learned everything I could about her.After a year, I could fix anything that broke.After a few years,” she said with a shrug, “I knew every corridor and cargo hold, every fact and figure about my ship.”
Her voice radiated love for her ship.Dax understood her talking to his ship now.Kind of.“What, um, what happened toMako?”Surely if she still had her ship, she wouldn’t have stolen his.
Her sigh echoed around the bridge.“When I decided to move to Elegium Station, my father convinced me that it was better to leave her with him rather than pay the exorbitant docking fees for a ship I wasn’t going to fly.I’ve never regretted that more than these last couple days.”
I laughed.“Tell me about it.”
She shrugged sheepishly.“That’s how I know so much about your ship.”
About to pull back, I realized that her answer didn’t account for everything.“How did you get on my ship?The doors were sealed.Locked.”I may not know much about cargo, but I damn well knew security.
Her lips pinched like she was biting into a lemon.Like she had something to hide.Something she didn’t want to tell me.
I leaned closer, giving her my best drill-sergeant stare.The one that made new recruits tremble.
She didn’t even blink.
Impressed despite myself, I needed an answer.I’d already fucked up once.I couldn’t let my team down further with a ship that could be stolen out from under us at any moment.
I was willing to wait her out, as long as it took, but she appeared to come to a decision.
“Factory settings.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” she said, exasperation clear.
When I stared at her expectantly, she continued.“When every Cyclone rolled off the assembly line, their systems were coded to a default, factory setting.Every ship got the same code.Since the ships were originally built for the military, it made sense for the ships and the pilots to be interchangeable.One code, many ships.”
Okay, that made sense.The military liked to do things the easy way, until they didn’t.But...“Fortunaisn’t a military ship.”
“Sure.But no one changed the default code.Not you, not the dealer, not even the previous owner.”
Flummoxed, I sat back heavily.“So you just entered a code and waltzed right onto my ship?”
“Basically.”
My jaw dropped.“How did you get it started?”
She raised her brows and gave me anAre you an idiot?look.
“Let me guess.Factory settings?”
She nodded.
Air whooshed out of my lungs.“Holy shit.”
“Pretty much,” she agreed.
“Does every ship come with factory defaults?”I couldn’t get over the horror of so many unsecured ships.
She shrugged but didn’t look at me.
“C’mon, Lacy.Just tell me.”
Her green eyes swiveled toward me.“Honestly, I don’t know, but I’d assume so.I know codes for five ship types, including the Cyclone.”
Five codes.That meant...“You could have stolen someone else’s ship.”Dammit.
