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Jesus. She didn’t need that from him.

Her comm sat heavy in her pocket. One call to Stevie. One quick warning to lock down the ship, get everyone inside, check the docking clamps.

Except Joe could be listening. If those bastards had an ocular feed in a station thug, they could have anything. Everything. They could be in the ship’s comms already, waiting for somebody to slip up.

So she sat there, teeth clenched, while the tram carried them toward the docking ring.

The journey took no time at all.

The tram shuddered to a stop at the docking ring, brakes screaming against worn rails. Before the doors had finished opening, she was on her feet, pushing through the gap into the stale, recycled air of the station corridor.

Bay Twelve’s marker glowed at the far end.

“Come on,” she hissed to Rann, and set off down the corridor at a run.

They hit the airlock at speed, and she slapped the control hard enough to make the old panel complain as the inner door crawled open.

“Come on, come on,” she muttered.

The second there was enough space, she shoved through, then turned and grabbed the crate from Rann’s hands.

“Cockpit,” she ordered. “We have to get out of here. Now.”

His eyebrows rose beneath the cap, but he didn’t argue. Didn’t ask what the hell was going on or whether she’d finally lost what was left of her mind. He just spun and ran toward the cockpit.

And fucking hell, he was fast, ducking beneath the low conduit without slowing down, then disappearing around the bend before she could even get halfway.

Big men should not be able to move that fast. No way. No how.

Shaking her head, she hit the main alarm.

The klaxon started up, red warning lights pulsing along the corridor.

“Stevie!” she bellowed, already hauling the crate toward the cargo bay. “Stevie! Get your ass out here!”

A hatch farther down slammed open and Stevie emerged with her tablet in one hand, blonde hair coming loose around her face.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her expression sharpening as soon as she saw Blythe’s face.

Blythe dumped the crate beside the wall. “He found us. We need to go.”

Stevie froze for half a second, then nodded. “Right.”

“Layla!” she bellowed, her voice cutting through the alarm. “Get to the cargo bay and secure anything that isn’t bolted down. Callie, medical supplies. If it can move, strap it. Myla, find the others and get them aboard. We lift in five.”

Women began appearing from every direction, wide-eyed and pale in the red light of the alarm. Layla had a coil of cable over one shoulder. Callie clutched a datapad to her chest.

“What happened?” Layla asked.

“Later,” Stevie ordered. “Just move your asses. NOW.”

Blythe headed for the cockpit at a run, the deck shivering under her boots.

Shoving through the cockpit door, she nearly went ass over elbow as the ship’s engines came online with a jolt. Rann filled the pilot’s seat, broad shoulders hunched beneath the low ceiling, hands moving swiftly over the controls.

“I don’t care what the departure window is,” he snapped. “I’m going now, so make it happen.”

She blinked at him as she slid into the jump seat behind the copilot’s chair, yanking the harness over her shoulders with one hand while the other woke the secondary engineering console. The screens flared to life under her fingers, spilling status reports across the display.