“Never. I trust you. Them? No.”
“Then we’ll have to find mates for the single ones. Iwonder if that could be a viable business…If I can find a way to fund it, that is.”
“You want to bring females here? For the unmated males.”
“Why not? I have no idea how it could work, or even if it’s possible. But Rage said that the verexis’ allies had abandoned them. If we could get permission to fly through their territory, it might work.”
“I think that would be good. We all deserve to be happy.”
“Did you just admit I make you happy, Havoc?”
“Always.”
She beamed at him. “You make me happy, too.”
With that, she led him toward a gray-haired human female who stood apart from the others. Her wrists were free of marks, so she hadn’t found a mate among his brothers.
As they approached, the captain straightened and came over to meet them. Her face had several recent burns, and some of her hair was missing. She walked with a limp, but there was no scent of infection or weakness about her.
“You made it. Thank the stars. It was bad enough I lost theHarvest. If I had been responsible for losing my boss…”
“You weren’t responsible for any of what happened,” Maddison used the same words he’d offered her not long ago.
“You’re right about that, but you’re wrong, too. Iknow what happened, and I should have seen it coming.”
Cold anger flowed beneath the captain’s words, and Havoc tensed. What was she talking about?
“What happened? Tell me,” Maddison said.
“Hooper. That’s what happened. She was first officer, but she wanted to be captain. I didn’t realize it, but she was spreading rumors about me, trying to make me look incompetent.”
“But how do you know about it now? I mean…she died. Didn’t she?”
“She’s still alive. Though I was tempted to strangle her for what she did. Once you were off the ship, I treated her myself. I didn’t understand why she attacked Bashir at the end there. Or why she was so determined to get on that shuttle with you. If she died, I wouldn’t get any answers, so I fixed her up enough I thought she had the same chance to survive as the rest of us.”
Maddison exhaled. “I want to be happy about that. Something tells me I won’t be when I hear what you know.”
“You’d be right about that. You can get the details from her, but these are the highlights. Someone from head office offered her a lot of money and a shot at my job if she did something for them.”
“What did they want her to do?”
Havoc already had an idea where this was going, but he listened without comment.
“Install some code into the ship’s main computer.They told her it would screw with the logs and other nonimportant systems, making it look like I was incompetent. I can’t prove it, but I think that’s how we ended up in verexi space.”
And there it was. It didn’t matter who had made the offer, Havoc had no doubt that Maddison’s ex had been the one behind it.
“That son of a bitch!” Maddison saw it too. “He wanted to ruin me, and he didn’t care who else he hurt. I’m sorry, Captain Perez. I’m certain this was my ex-husband’s doing.”
“I figured. Rumors about the divorce were flying long before you came on board. Your ex is a real piece of work.” The woman looked at Havoc for the first time. “It looks like you got an upgrade this time around.”
“I really did.”
He gave her ten more minutes to talk to the captain. When that time was up, he scooped her into his arms and carried her away.
“Havoc! Where are we going?”
“Home. Too many males are looking at you, and I cannot think for all the talking. We are leaving. Now.”
