Page 12 of Cloverleaf Station

Elenus traced the edges of his intricate facial hair before nodding abruptly. “There’s only one thing to do, then. We’ll have to handle her together.”

We what now? “Your ship’s interior is too small for both of us to move around in there,” Kieron protested.

“It’s built to house two,” Elenus replied. “Not comfortably, but the safety equipment is there. It won’t be the smoothest ride you’ve ever had, but I’m not letting anyone else handle her controls, and you’re not letting anyone else pilot those probes. That makes us co-captains of the Lizzie on these expeditions, Sparky. Any questions?”

Co-captains. Holy hells. In a space that tight, it was going to be hard enough to avoid committing an act of homicide, much less keep his mind as sharp as it needed to be to pilot the probes. Still, what choice did he have? “Just one question,” Kieron replied. “When do we start?”

***

Kieron wasn’t expecting the answer to his When do we start? to be Tomorrow, but there it was. He blinked at Elenus, feeling thrown off-kilter. “What?”

“Tomorrow,” Elenus repeated, a pleasant smile on his face. “Now that we’ve worked out our agenda, there are a few changes I need to make in the Lizzie—a little housekeeping, so to speak. Not to mention, I’ve been flying on next to no rest for the past hundred and eleven hours, and that’s a lot, even for me. I need to catch up on my beauty sleep if I’m going to be as useful as I need to be.”

He stood up, in a second back to towering elegantly over Kieron. For a guy who claimed to be tired, he moved like he had all the energy in the world. Tall, handsome, and full of life … he was tempting in a way Kieron hadn’t experienced in a long time.

Too bad he was such a fucking asshole.

“How long do you need?” Kieron asked, staring just past Elenus’s face.

“Aren’t you accommodating all of a sudden, Sparky?”

Kieron bristled. Was there no way to please this guy? “I can be something else real easy.”

“Oof, hey.” Elenus raised his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t get me wrong, I like accommodating. It just doesn’t seem to be your style.”

“It’s how I get every time someone threatens me into compliance,” Kieron replied sweetly. “I like to lie low until I get a clear chance to stab them in the back or cut their throat. Not,” he added, “that I would do anything like that to you, boss.”

“Oh yeah? Are you sure of that?” Elenus looked at him a little more closely. “Kieron Carr … with that name, that carriage, I think odds are even that you come from Hadrian’s Colony.”

Kieron felt the blood drain out of his face even has his hand automatically reached for the knife it had taken him months to train himself out of keeping at his hip. Luckily, he didn’t need a knife to be taken seriously. He had Elenus bent back across the control station, one arm across his throat as the other hovered over potentially fatal pressure points, before the other man could finish the final syllable of colony.

“Whoa, whoa!” Elenus’s mock surrender had transformed to a real one, his hands not trying to push Kieron away—that would be futile—but plainly open and vacant in his line of sight. “No harm, huh? No harm, it’s all right, I’m not an enemy. What am I going to do, report you? To whom? There’s no one left.”

“There are people out there who would pay a hell of a lot of credits to get their hands on me,” Kieron growled. “And you just happen to be able to pick out what I am? My file says—”

“Drifter, I know, I read it.” Elenus’s voice was astonishingly calm. “Drifters are the best designation for someone like you, aren’t they? Someone who’s been everywhere, influenced by everything … and I respect that, I do. I swear, on my baby’s life, I’m not here for you. It’s pure coincidence that I figured out what you are, and it’s only because I know someone else from Hadrian’s Colony.

“Someone alive!” he added with a wheeze as Kieron’s grip tightened. “A friend of mine, I swear it! I haven’t turned her in, and I wouldn’t turn you in either.” His glittering gaze met Kieron’s as he said, with perfect earnestness, “No one deserves to be taken apart just for who they are. Not my baby and not you. I’m no threat to you, Kieron. How dumb would I have to be, to threaten you right now? My life is literally in your hands.”

“Then why did you mention it at all?” Kieron asked, reason slowly coming back online in his brain as adrenaline stepped aside. “Why bother?”

“Because I find it hard to shut up sometimes,” Elenus replied. “I ramble to myself and everyone around me a lot, and things can slip out without me being aware of them. I’d rather get this out of the way now instead of during our mission, when it could cause a real problem.”

That was a good point. Kieron inspected Elenus’s face for any trace of dishonesty, monitored to his heartbeat and his other biometric tics, but there was nothing to suggest he was being anything but sincere right then. Slowly Kieron leaned back, removing his weight from Elenus’s body. The taller man closed his eyes for a long moment, then let out a gusty sigh and held out his hand.

“Help a guy up, huh?”

Kieron rolled his eyes. “Oh my god, you’re ridiculous,” he muttered, but he helped Elenus to his feet.

“Thanks, Sparky.” Elenus winked at him. “Trust me, your secret is safe.”

“Until you start rambling to someone else and slip up.” Ugh, that was a good point. Maybe Kieron should just …

“No, nope, I see your murder hands getting twitchy, and no,” Elenus said sternly. “It’s only on my mind right now because you’re on my mind. Once we’re done here, and we never have to see each other again, it’ll fall right out of my mind. I generally don’t keep close track of things that aren’t immediately relevant to my life. If that’s not good enough for you, I’ll let you put a neural block in.”

That was a … decent solution. Not great—neural blocks weren’t invisible to a professional, and they weren’t foolproof either, but it was probably the best Kieron was going to get. He nodded, took a step back, and watched as Elenus’s shoulders dropped about an inch with newfound relief.

“Threatening the boss with death on the first day,” Elenus said, shaking his head as he walked out of the room. “You’re a firecracker, aren’t you, Sparky? I’m going to send you some specs for the Regen unit,” he added in a louder voice as he strode down the hall. “The changes are nonnegotiable. Let me know if you don’t have any of the parts required, and I’ll see you in eight standard hours!”