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“I am Jarrix To’vok of the Alliance Intelligence Service,” Jarrix hissed in the captain’s ear. “And that is the last time you will ever hurt my mate.”

And with a single twist of the blade, Sjer was dead.

With his raised boot, Jarrix shoved the captain’s body off the sword and let it fall. He wiped the blade clean on Sjer’s uniform, then gave the body a kick that sent it sliding across the deck until it hit the far wall.

I sagged into my sister’s arms and let her hold me. The burn on my arm was agonizing and my hip hurt where I’d landed after Calla knocked me down, but I’d take a flesh wound and bruises over three holes in my chest anytime.

Vos and Jarrix reached us at the same time. As Jarrix helped me to my feet, Vos gently gathered Calla in his tentacles and ran his hands over her body, cooing while he searched for injuries.

“I’m all right,” she reassured him. “None of this blood is mine.” She cupped his cheek and gave him a kiss so sweet it made me smile despite my pain.

Jarrix wrapped his arms around me and drew me tight against his chest. “Mate,” he murmured into my hair.

I wanted nothing more than to breathe in his scent and let him heal my wounds in medbay, but we might have more problems waiting for us outside.

“We need to find the Fancy,” I said into his chest. “If anyone else is alive, they need to be dealt with.”

“These males were the four remaining members of the Fancy’s crew,” Jarrix told us, gesturing at the dead. “If there are any more aboard, they joined after I left.”

Vos set Calla back on her feet. “Let us find the ship and be certain,” he said.

“Vos…” I began.

He raised his hand, his expression surprisingly gentle. “There is no need to apologize. These males were our enemies as well. It was my honor to stand with you in this fight.”

Calla caught my eye. Told you, she mouthed.

He and Calla gathered all the working weapons from the bodies around us while Jarrix treated my burned arm and administered some much-appreciated painkillers.

We left Zwee to guard the ship—and finish her meal—and went hunting for the Fancy.

Vos and Calla’s flyer had avoided the same fate as the Nivilus thanks to its multiphasic shielding. I made an immediate decision to add that expensive but clearly necessary feature to our ship at my earliest opportunity.

When we finally found the clearing where Sjer had hidden the Fleeting Fancy—three kilometers from the raider base, in the opposite direction of Vos and Calla’s home—the ship was already gone.

Jarrix speculated the newly hired corsairs Sjer had left aboard while he and the other original crew attacked us on the Nivilus had taken the opportunity to steal the ship the moment the captain was dead.

Once we returned to the Nivilus, Vos allowed Jarrix to use the flyer’s comms to transmit a secure, encoded message to Byx. We relayed our situation and requested assistance with both my ship and tracing the Fancy.

While we waited for Byx’s response, Jarrix and I set to work cleaning the Nivilus’s cargo bay as Zwee basked outside in the faint, lavender-tinged sunshine, her distended belly and all her tiny walking tendrils turned skyward.

Vos and Calla overrode our protests and helped us clean up and dispose of what little remained of Sjer and his crewmates, making short work of the task.

I was sitting at the top of the open cargo ramp, resting and daydreaming of a long, hot soak in Vos and Calla’s bathtub, when Jarrix returned from the flyer with news.

He sat next to me, wrapped his wing around me, and coiled his tail around my calf. “According to Byx’s sources, the Fleeting Fancy has already been re-registered with a new name and a new captain,” he said.

I snorted. “That didn’t take long.”

He grinned, flashing his fangs. “He also informed me the bounty on my head has been withdrawn. It seems the new crew of the Tamias has better things to do with their time than hunt me—like try to find the crashed vessel full of luxury goods Sjer was tracking before your bounty caught his eye.”

Finally, no more bounties. I heaved a sigh of relief. “I approve of the new captain’s priorities.”

“That crashed ship is worth a fortune. I’m sure it wasn’t a difficult decision.” Jarrix rubbed my back, careful to avoid areas that were still sore. “Byx is sending a trusted friend to tow the Nivilus to Trakhan for repairs,” he added. “The ship will be here in two days.”

“Is two days long enough to make amends?” I gestured toward the beach, where Vos and Calla were watching something big swimming in the distance. She was standing in front of him, wrapped in his arms and tentacles. “I did this,” I said, my throat suddenly tight. “I brought this to their door after I swore to myself I wouldn’t. I don’t even know how it happened.”

“Byx has a theory,” Jarrix said, his expression grim. “One of his deck crew quit abruptly. It appears he joined the crew of a merchant ship and left the station immediately before we did. Byx suspects the crew member was either bribed or forced to put a tracker on the Nivilus after the final scan was done. Byx apologized profusely for not suspecting the male’s motives for suddenly leaving and has insisted on covering the cost of repairing our ship—including some upgrades.”