She did not smile. She just sat there staring at nothing. That scared him more than the fuel readout.
This was bad.
Jack didn’t even have a frame of reference to consult. He didn’t spend much time in space, with the exception of trips to Alpha-Prime now and again. And those times, he had not beenpiloting the ship. He’d just ridden along in complacent idiocy regarding any fuel consumption or where the fuel stations in space were located.
Jack crouched beside her chair. “Madelaine.” He wanted to help, but didn’t know what he could do.
She closed her eyes. “I should have checked the locker before we lifted off. I knew we were running low before we left to go pick up the package from the Butlers.”
“Um. No. We’ve been racing to each package pickup because there is a ‘time is of the essence’ pall over your whole mission. And on the way back, there was a planet-sized windstorm trying to pin us to a wheat farm permanently,” Jack said. “Unless you have recently developed the ability to predict the future or see through locked compartments while running from agricultural planet doom, I’m not blaming you.”
“And yet, I am responsible for this mission.”
“No,” he said, more firmly. “You’re responsible for doing your best. You are not responsible for thieves being thieves. Stop blaming yourself. It won’t help, I promise.”
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the console.
Madelaine nodded and looked at him. “Okay. Maybe. Thank you for what you said. One other thing that’s really bothering me,” she said, her expression serious. “Do you find it odd that the only thing disturbed was the unmarked fuel compartment?”
“Maybe.” She’d figured out what he was also worried about. Great minds thinking alike and all.
“We were in a rush to get off planet, but what if we hadn’t made it in time? What if we’d been stranded there until the storm blew over?”
Jack mulled that over. “We might have been in worse trouble. We might have been stranded there for a lot longer. Mrs. Butler said possibly days, right?”
She nodded.
Jack said, “If we’d had to go back into the agrarian planet’s market hub for more fuel after ours was stolen, it begs the question, was someone waiting for us there? Was that the plan?”
Madelaine said, “My thoughts exactly. I think we may have just escaped a vile plot to thwart our mission. Although, being without fuel right now is certainly a rather distasteful challenge.”
“Dirk Zandis the Dirtbag strikes the first blow?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Jack said, “If not Dirk, then I have to tell you something. It worries me that more than one evil entity might be trying to spoil our efforts. What power could Dirk or anyone else exert with regard to your mission?”
Madelaine shrugged. “Dirk is not the Paladin Courier. No one will give him any packages.”
“How can you know that for certain? Can’t he pretend and just say he is the Paladin Courier?”
“No. Because the Paladin Courier is always a woman.”
“Ooh. That must really chap Dirk’s hide,” Jack said with a grin.
Madelaine shrugged. “Don’t care. He can suck a lemon dry for all I care.”
“But if another woman said she was the Paladin Courier, wouldn’t that be bad?” he asked.
Madelaine closed her eyes. “It would be catastrophically bad, except that the woman also has to be in my bloodline to open any of the packages.” Jack remembered she’d used her thumbprint on the packages he’d seen her open.
“I hate to say it, but at this point I’m hoping only Dirk—and no one else, especially any females with secret knowledge—is on our tail. If they can collect the packages even if they can’t open them, that would also be terrible, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. I hate to agree with you on this, but I do. We need to get fuel and get going to our next destination, whatever it is, and hope no one beat us to it.”
She sat in the pilot’s seat for several moments, silently staring at the blinking red fuel numbers. She stayed that way long enough that he was about to ask if she was okay. Then her whole body went rigid.
She straightened up and her eyes were wide.
