"The log entry is already filed."
Krilly is biting her lip, trying not to laugh. Delight and pride and the warm certainty of a woman who is about to fly her first official run with her partner beside her.
"Ready, partner?" she asks.
The color in my markings settles to steady warmth. The claiming color shimmers opalescent at the edges. My ankle is bare, my name is on my chest, my mate is in the pilot's seat, and ahead of us is a twelve-hour run carrying medical supplies to people who need them.
"Ready."
Docking clamps disengage. Buttercup the Second lifts smoothly, the new engines humming at a frequency that Bebo has already begun cataloguing. Junction One falls away through the viewport, the station that took us in, processed us, heard us, freed us, employed us.
The stars stretch ahead.
"Jump coordinates locked," Krilly says. "Twelve hours to Kappa. Let's deliver some mail."
The jump drive spools. The stars begin to blur.
Then Bebo's tone shifts.
"Proximity alert. Unknown vessel on intercept course. Bearing two-seven-zero, closing fast."
My tactical systems engage before the sentence ends. Sensor feed, threat classification, weapons hot. The co-pilot console lights up with data that my arena-trained instincts parse in less than a second: vessel configuration, speed, trajectory.
"Pirates?" Krilly's hands are already adjusting course, her voice calm and sharp.
"Configuration matches Fringe raider profiles. Armed. Running dark, no transponder." Bebo's voice carries the specific edge of an AI delivering bad news. "They appear to have been waiting at the jump point."
Krilly's focused determination, bright and fierce. Not fear. Not panic. The specific energy of a courier who has survived a murder jungle and is not about to lose her first official cargo to pirates.
"Options?" she asks.
"Outrun them. Outfight them. Or outthink them." My hands find the weapons console. "I recommend option three, but I'm prepared for all of them."
She grins. The grin reaches me as a blaze of certainty and joy and the particular reckless competence that made me fall in love with her in a jungle and keeps me falling every day after.
"Then let's show them what OOPS delivers."
The raider closes. The medical cargo hums in the hold. Bebo runs calculations. My hands are steady on the weapons console, and Krilly's are steady on the helm, and our heartbeats synchronise into the specific rhythm of two people who work together because they chose to.
My first run as a free male. My first run as a partner. My first run as a person with a name on his chest and nothing on his ankle and a future that belongs to him.
Whatever comes next, we face it together.
18
What Gets Delivered
Krilly
Bebo'salertcutsthroughthe hum of Buttercup the Second's engines with the specific tone that meanspay attention immediately.
"Unknown vessel on intercept course. Bearing two-seven-zero, closing fast."
My hands are moving before the sentence finishes, muscle memory from a thousand training sims merging with nine days of survival instinct. Sensor data blooms across the display, and Horgox's tactical focus sharpens my attention like a lens clicking into resolution.
He doesn't speak. Doesn't need to. His arena-trained threat assessment feeds directly into my awareness: vessel configuration, speed, trajectory, the specific energy signature of weapons powering up. Information my sensors would take thirty seconds to compile, delivered through his nervous system in three.
This is what the bond gives us. Not just love. Not just dual heartbeats and shared sensation. A tactical advantage that no unbonded partnership can match.
