I nodded.“All that’s left is to request a departure time.”
“Great,” she said.
Silence fell heavily between us.Finn’s presence—Finn’s anger—had effectively killed the ease between us.
“You should go to the bridge.Get the ship ready for takeoff.I want to take one more pass through here and then make sure the engine room is secure.”She turned to go.
I caught her hand and she faced me reluctantly.“Are we okay?”
She sighed but didn’t look away.“My sister is missing, your crew hates me, and we’re surrounded by deadly cargo.We passed okay a long time ago.”
I tucked an errant hair behind her ear.“Everything will sort itself out.”
“I hope so, Dax.I really do.”Lacy tugged her hand free.“You’re needed on the bridge, Captain.”
“Let me know when the ship is secure.”She wanted distance, so I’d give it to her.For now.
32
Dax
Burn was stillon the bridge when I returned.“Everything good with the cargo?”she asked.
I dropped into the captain’s chair.“It’s fine.Strapped down solidly.Shouldn’t move at all during this trip.”Man, I really hoped it didn’t.
“You’re not worried about this, are you, Sarge?”
Shifting in my seat so I faced her, I said, “In my head, I know that we flew with munitions a thousand times more dangerous than what we have in our cargo hold right now.But now that it’sourship, oursmallship, it’s kind of terrifying to have that much explosive power just one level away.”
When we’d discussed having our own cargo-hauling business, we’d never actually talked about what the cargo would be.We hadn’t discussed a lot of the realities that we now faced.
Burn smiled wryly.“It’s probably too late to get out of this contract, isn’t it?”
Remembering the stacks of crates strapped in below, I laughed and shook my head.“Yeah, definitely too late.”
We couldn’t afford to lose another cargo.Our accounts were running low.Food, fuel, and other necessities were expensive, especially out here on the farther reaches of space.
“Even after Moya’s cut, our finances should be pretty solid.Enough that everyone could take their share and still have enough in the ship’s account to hold us over a few months if we need it.”
“How big a cut?”Finn dropped into the chair behind us.Both Burn and I swiveled to face him.
I shrugged.“I haven’t done the math.We need to ensure thatFortunahas enough in reserve to hold us through any dry times.”
“Lacy definitely earned her keep getting us this contact and loading the cargo,” Burn said.“She gets a cut, right?”
Burn seemed to be coming around to having Lacy on board.I don’t know if she was friendly, but she definitely wasn’t as antagonistic as she’d been.
“No!What the hell?”Finn’s outburst was unexpected, but par for the course since he’d been on the ship.Whatever was going on with him, that shit needed to stop.
“What the fuck, Finn?”Burn said.“Without her, we wouldn’t even have this cargo.She deserves a cut.”
“What the hell does this woman have on you?You’re both all ‘Oh, Lacy should get some of our hard-earned money.’She isn’t one of us.She doesn’t belong here.”Finn’s tone was darker than I’d ever heard him use.
Burn placed a calming hand on his arm but he shrugged it off.“I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, but you need to cut this shit out right now.You’ve been an asshole since you got on board.Lacy’s a perfectly nice woman whose sister is missing.We’re going to help her find her.In return she’s teaching us a bunch of shit we didn’t know when we started this business.”
Finn surged to his feet.“What kind of bullshit story is that?She fed you some sob story about a missing sister and now she has free range on the ship?Engineering.Cargo hold.Captain’s bed.Has she been in your bed yet too, Burn?”He sneered.“You’re a bunch of suckers.She’s here for the ship.Probably some mission for Blazer.Hundred percent she’s still on his crew.We’re probably gonna get boarded and our cargo stolen before we even reach the mining colony.”
I stared at Finn in shock.That was quite an imaginative story.Where the hell was all this coming from?“Stand down, marine.”
