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“One-forty accounts for the part where she sees her hot alien and goes all gooey and sweaty over him.” Monica fanned her face.

“My pulse does nothing when I see our client.”

“Babe, your pulse has been doing a thing since he landed on top of you on the gangway.” Monica patted my arm. “It’s okay. We support your terrible judgment.”

“My judgment is excellent!”

“Your judgment gave him a room key, and then you slept in the crew bunk, which we know you hate because Tambi barks in her sleep.” Doc tilted her head. “You didn’t want to check on him and see how he was doing? Maybe give him a kiss goodnight?”

“Moving on.” I drained my coffee. “I’ll take a full toolkit and the portable scanner. If the ship seals me in again, I talk her down.”

“Everyone’s assignments are locked in. Check your readouts, then get to work,” Tambi said.

We split. Monica took the lower decks and the power grid. Doc set up a monitoring station in the corridor just outside the room. Tambi took the bridge and the ship’s log files.

I grabbed my kit and headed for the room with the alcoves and spooky shapes.

Rennick was leaning against the wall outside the entrance with his arms crossed, like he’d been waiting since I left.

“You don’t need to stand guard.” I unclipped the scanner from my belt, ignoring how fast my heart hit whenever I was around him.

His gaze tracked me as I set up the portable scanner on the floor and checked the calibration. “You’re going back in now?”

“Yep.”

“And if I’ve changed my mind about trusting you or my ship?”

“You’re not that kind of jerk.”

“Am I any kind of jerk?”

“TBD.” I looked up at him. His worry pretended to be casual, but he tracked my every move like I was the most vulnerable thing on this ship and likely to be obliterated at any second. “Rennick, relax. I’ve been elbow-deep in live warheads with worse odds than this.”

“That makes me feel no better.”

“It wasn’t supposed to. It was supposed to make you move, and to trust me not to fuck things up. I have skills, and I intend to use them to fix this space angel. But only if you get out of my damn way.”

He didn’t move, so I stepped past him into the doorway, close enough that his body heat registered against my arm. If I turned my head, I’d be looking at his throat. I didn’t turn my head.

“If the ship seals the door, don’t break it down. She opened for me last time, and she’ll do it again. Trust the process.”

“I trust you. The process worries me, so does this ship.”

I entered the room. Gold veins brightened as I crossed the threshold, the temperature settling into a perfect warmth, and the hum from the channels in the floor shifted pitch.

“Hey, gorgeous.” I put my palm against the nearest wall and waited. The resin warmed under my hand. “We’re doing this properly. You show me what you need, and I figure out how to give it to you. We go slow. We go together. Deal?”

The alcoves glowed brighter. Every channel in the floor lit, warm amber lines racing from one to the next.

“I’m taking that as a yes.” I set the scanner running and walked the perimeter, one hand on the wall, looking for the logic underneath the chaos. “Doc, you got your readings active?”

“Loud and clear.”

I moved to an alcove. “I’m counting twelve alcoves, all connected to the central matrix through the floor channels.”

“What you thinking?” Doc asked.

I turned to look at Rennick. “This is a bonding room, right?”