“Vess'tra.” He nodded. “Three days.”
“You don’t touch the cargo,” she added. “You don’t touch the flight controls. And if you touch me again, Fred vents the atmosphere wherever you are.”
“Understood.”
“Say it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I accept your terms, kelarris.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Captain,” He met her eyes without blinking. “It means captain.”
She held his gaze for a long beat for a moment, and he had to consider the possibility that she did actually speak Latharian. So he let her look and gave her nothing but the stone face mask he’d always used for press conferences after a loss.
Finally, she nodded.
“Okay.” She let out a breath, her shoulders dropping half an inch. “Okay. Fred, stand down to yellow alert. Monitor only.”
The hum faded. It didn’t disappear, just dropped back to a low, wary thrum in the background. The red lighting clicked off.
Monitor only.
So Fred was watching. Always watching and probably judging his posture as well, while he was at it.
She stepped away from the wall. The set of her shoulders had changed… the tension bleeding out, leaving something that looked a lot like exhaustion.
“Don’t make me regret this.”
“You won’t.”
She nodded toward his arm. "Medkit. Galley, bottom locker. Patch yourself up before you ruin my decking."
She half turned away, then paused and looked back over her shoulder at him. Just for a second, and there was something in her eyes… confusion, maybe? Or just the sheer absurdity of the situation catching up to her.
He watched her go, standing still even when the door closed behind her, and he found himself looking at the back of a metal bulkhead door.
Then he rubbed a hand over his face. He needed a plan, a stiff drink, and about fourteen things he wasn't going to get on a three-day run to Vess’tra.
Most of all, he needed to figure out why he was so bothered about Fred.
Fred. Gods, he hated that name.
Pushing off the wall, he headed down the corridor in the other direction.
He had no idea where the hell he was going.
“Carry on down the corridor,” the female said, her voice issuing over the ship’s comm. “It widens out to a sleeping area.”
He kept walking. The corridor didn’t change, just stretched on in a blur of gunmetal grey and humming conduits. When he finally hit the sleeping area, he stopped and just stared.
It was a hole. A pathetic, cramped little slice of a room that made the closet he’d had back home look like a palace. Everything was hard edges and cold, utilitarian metal that smelled faintly of ozone and old sweat. He’d initially mistaken the fold-down bunk for a storage shelf, it was that thin, and opposite that was a door leading to a washroom that was basically a glorified bucket with a drain. Draanthing luxury.
Right.
So here he was.
He dropped onto the bunk. The cold of the metal bit through his pants and had all the comfort of a storage crate. It was too narrow for his shoulders and too short for his legs; if he actually tried to stretch out, he’d just slide right off the damn thing.
