She looked at Shank’s profile and the huge smile on his face. Yeah, she wouldn’t mind a few kids. She just wished her mouth would sometimes let her make an actual decision before blurting things out without warning. If she was supposed to be the brakes in this little family, they were all seriously screwed—any future children included.
Chapter Seventeen
Shank had to ask aMitakuye Oyasincrew member for the exact room the rest of the crew were using once they got into the right section, and Allie noticed the door was locked. Shank thumbed off the controls from the outside panel. Allie’s stomach gave a flip of fear as she realized Ben and the others had let themselves be put under lock and key, trusting her and Shank to fix this.
There was something intensely terrifying about having people trust her that much.
Ben was on his feet before they even finished walking in the door. “How’d it go?”
“Shank’s mother hates me,” Allie said with a weak smile.
“Yeah, but she hated you before the meeting,” Shank said as he passed Allie and leaned against the wall. “Allie’s stunt with the ship impressed her, and while my mother kicked me out of their little get-together, we aren’t under guard any longer, so I think it went well.”
“Your mother kicked you out?” Becca looked shocked. She stood, her hand braced on a table. Her white-blonde curls had gotten longer over the last few months, and now they brushed her shoulders. With her eyes wide in shock, she looked far too young to be gunner. Allie’s heart ached as she realized Anpaytoo could have dumped Becca right in the middle of Command central if Allie had said the wrong thing.
“Allie?” Shank’s voice startled her out of her funk. He stared at her with dark, curious eyes. She gave him a quick shrug. After a second, he turned his attention back to Becca. “I’m pretty sure my mother thinks I’m an idiot. My uncle... Well, he came right out and told me I’m one.”
Ben laughed. “Don’t take it too personally. After basic training, I had some release time while I waited for the training class on Nicve to open up. I went home, and my father was utterly shocked I got into the program. Two days into leave and he still couldn’t believe it. It got to the point where I was too fed up to even get offended anymore.”
Becca frowned as she sank back down into her seat. “But will she help us?”
“She hates me, but she’ll help us,” Allie reassured her. “Shank’s not the only one she called an idiot though.”
These quarters were definitely smaller. Nice, but small. Two semiprivate alcoves had bed platforms, and the public area was little more than a slightly enlarged corridor with rounded, padded chairs and curved tables. Unfortunately, Ben and Becca had the chairs, and Copta sat on the closest bed, so Allie picked a spot on the wall near Shank and leaned against it. “She pointed out that we have a lack of exit strategy.”
“You just now figured that out?” Ben shook his head. “Luckily, the universe is a big place.”
“Not big enough,” Allie said. “The station where we’re going is crawling with Security Central.”
Ben took a deep breath and slowly let it out, but Becca spoke first. “We can’t sneak around on a station with SC troops.”
“I don’t know that we have any choice,” Allie said wearily, even though she knew where Becca was coming from. The SC had elite units, and about half the time, SC ships employed Nicve marines.
“No,” Ben said, interrupting the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the room. “That’s good. The SC isn’t going to pay as much attention to a few pirates as Command ships would, and if there are a lot of SC ships there, we aren’t going to see a lot of Command.”
“What?” Shank asked.
