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Ready for anything.

I hoped Tasha saw that same preparedness in me.

That she might find me ready for a wife.

2

JAYA

It was smack-dab in the middle of nowhere that theLavariyadecided to call it quits.

“The sonic recalibrater needs replacing,” Lala said, detaching the spidery metal frame of her small robotic body from theLavariya’scontrol panel. Lala was both my first mate and a unique part of the ship that could splice itself off from the rest of the ship’s tech at will. She used the eight metal spindles beneath her fist-sized ball of a body to skitter up my arm and plant herself in one of her favourite spots – my right shoulder.

“I know!” I told her, frantically stabbing at controls. A whining alarm began to blare, spiking my heartrate.

“This is why I told you to order one back on the XrkXrk moonbase.”

“Thank you,” I bit off sarcastically. “I actually do recall that.”

Lala had been right, of course. My irritatingly loveable first mate had an annoying habit of being correct even more often than I was. The only problem was that sonic recalibraters did not come cheap. Especially for a human-designed ship this old. I’d wanted to complete one more job after the parts delivery to the XrkXrk moonbase. And we’d done it, too. We’d ferried a Hadorian high priestess back to her temple after her meditative retreat in an asteroid field. And we’d gotten paid damn well for that run, too. No one else wanted to bring their ship into that mess of floating rock, so the ferry price had been high.

TheLavariyamight have been old, but she was still small and nimble. We got it done and got our credits. Enough for a sonic recalibrater, at least.

If we had time to get somewhere that had one. With theLavariya’sage, and the fact that it was a human-designed vessel, Elora Station would have been the best bet. But there was no way we’d make it there now. We’d have to land somewhere and pour every extra credit available into getting the part delivered to our location.

Wherever the hell that location was.

“If the sonic recalibrater goes before we enter a planet’s atmosphere, we’ll burn out the engines.” Lala’s smooth, high voice cut into my thoughts.

“I’m aware.”

“Are you?” She adjusted herself primly.

“OK. You know what?” I cranked my head to the side to pin her with a glare. “You are being very sassy right now, and it’s not helpful.”

“Sassiness is not part of my programming. And I am always helpful,” she replied instantly.

“And yet here we are.” With a now very sweaty hand, I plucked her from my shoulder and dropped her back onto the control panel. “Why don’t you do something useful and scan the maps so we can find a place to land?”

Lala traipsed across the controls on her eight metal legs, then settled her round belly on a curved indent, connecting wirelessly with theLavariya’ssystems.

“There are four possibilities within a reasonable range,” Lala said, drawing up a star map on the screen ahead of me and zooming in. “Three moons and the planet they orbit.”

“What’s the planet? Any info? Atmosphere? Friendly?”

Before she answered, I was already changing course for the three-mooned planet.

“There is little information on the planet in any of the accessible databases,” Lala said. “It is called Zabria Prinar One, and appears to be a colony outpost for the Zabrian Empire.”

“Zabrian? Never heard of them.”

“They are not currently at war with any factions of humankind. They do some trade on Elora Station.”

“Well, that’s something,” I muttered. Hopefully that meant we wouldn’t be hit with a stunner beam – or worse – on sight. At the rate I was losing power already, we likely wouldn’t even have time to try to find a comms signal on the planet. It was going to be a messy landing.

But wewouldland. This ship was the last thing I had left of my Aunty Anjali and I’d die before I lost her, too. TheLavariyahad been my home ever since my parents died and my aunty swooped in to save me as I was staring down the barrel of the cold, cruel New Toronto foster care system. I’d been her sole protector since Aunty’s death last year.

I wasn’t about to fail in my duties now.