Just like an oversized bit of luggage. Don’t you feel special now?
He let his head thunk back against the bulkhead and sighed. Prison planet to luggage rack, what an upgrade.
Click.
He froze, staring at the ceiling. Counting to three, he shifted his left foot two inches to the right, just to see.
Click.
Yeah, good old Fred was still tracking him.
Great, just great.
Three days to Vess'tra. Wrong direction. Wrong sector. Wrong draanthing everything.
He’d run the math twice already, because surely it couldn’t be that bad the first time. Same answer both times. Which meant the math was fine and the problem was his life.
He’d been down by worse. Down by twelve with six minutes left and a whole stadium already composing his obituary. He just needed a play, and he didn’t have one yet. What he had was a fold-down bench, a female who looked like she’d drown in her own flight suit, and someone apparently getting off on red lighting.
Great start. Really draanthing great.
Movement at the end of the corridor pulled his gaze up.
The pilot came back through, eyes on a comp unit. She didn’t so much as glance at him. Just kept moving.
“Where is he?” Raaze asked.
She stopped at a panel three meters away and keyed in a sequence. “Who?”
“Fred. The invisible one.” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Does he come out, or does he just hide in the walls all day?”
She went still and looked at him. Her head tipped a fraction to one side, attention sliding somewhere that definitely wasn’t the corridor.
“He’s busy.”
“Busy.” He tipped his head back to look at the hidden mount in the ceiling. “What’s the matter? He ugly? Or just afraid I’ll make him look bad?”
She shrugged.
“Fred doesn’t feel the need.” She snapped the panel shut and turned to face him. Tiredness sat under her eyes like bruising. “And he says your ego is taking up too much mass on the sensors as it is.”
“Funny guy.” Raaze didn’t smile. “Tell him to come out. I don’t like talking to walls.”
“Then stop talking.”
She turned and started away again.
Raaze got to his feet.
Whirrrr… click.
The sound in the walls was really getting on his nerves now.
“Sit down,” she said without looking back, continuing toward the cargo bay access.
“We need to talk about the route.” He stepped away from the bench and into the center of the corridor. The targeting system gave a high, needling whine, but he ignored it. “Vess'tra doesn’t work for me.”
“The terms were clear.”
