Page 6

6

R ian escorts me to the bridge.

“Ooh, this is new!” I say excitedly. “It’s a real mark of your trust in me.”

Rian neither confirms nor denies this. I take it as a win.

The bridge on Halifax is far more expansive than the little cockpit on Glory. I can fit a copilot and a navigator with me, but it’s tight and there’s a good chance someone’s sitting on someone else in the tiny space. The Halifax is designed to easily fit a crew of at least four, with a few more spots left over if anyone wants a show. Saraswati and Magnusson aren’t just shuttle crew; one of them is a nav, and one’s an engineer, I’d bet coin on that.

Rian sits down at a table with an inlaid screen and gestures for me to sit opposite him. I swivel the chair on its base and plop down, my eyes bumping from the ostentatious captain’s chair over to the lockbox built behind the main console, protected by a biometric scanner. It’s shut and secure, I think, but I don’t look at it too long. I don’t want to call attention to it.

I fiddle with the earring in my left ear, a little silver stud. It’s not just a metal decoration; it’s got a pretty decent voice recorder in it, one not linked to any comm sys. I wear it always, a backup where I can record stuff offline. I could “accidentally” lose it here and let the audio pick up some of Rian’s secrets . . .

No. Too risky. I’d have to retrieve it again to get the data off it. And if Rian finds it first, it’d give away the game. Still, looking around the bridge, I make a mental note to be better prepared next time.

If I had something valuable on board a ship like this, the lockbox here on the bridge is the most obvious place to put it.

I flip my gaze over to Rian, who’s watching me as if I’m the most fascinating person in the room. I mean, true, there’s only the two of us in here, but still. A girl likes to be appreciated.

“So, about your story,” Rian says.

Great. This is more interrogation. One day, I’m gonna get him to trust me properly.

“I’m an open book.” My smile is all teeth.

“So, in the three cycles you were on the planet—”

“Two,” I say.

“Right, right. And how much metal were you able to scavenge?”

I laugh. “I didn’t bother weighing it. But I got maybe a third of my cargo bay filled? I was moving quick. Figured a wreck this size would draw some...” I rake my eyes over him. “. . . unsavory sorts here.”

“Unsavory?” He cocks an eyebrow, a wry grin playing at his lips.

“Clearly the worst kind.”

He holds my gaze just a beat too long, then he drops his eyes to the table. I can’t see what the data screen set into the enameled surface shows; there’s a privacy reflector on it. “About a third, though,” he mutters, repeating what I told him.

“Give or take. I figured one or two more trips down would have done it. Had it all gone well, I might have left before you even got here.”

He nods. His jaw is tight, and he doesn’t look back up at me, despite the way he’s got to feel my stare. “And you looted mostly...”

“Metal,” I repeat. I don’t bother hiding my impatience. I know what’s in my cargo hold. Crumpled sheets of steel, copper wiring, alloys.

“About the hole that blew in the side of your ship,” Rian starts. “You thought you ran your fuel too hot?”

I shove my frustration out of my nose in the form of an impatient sigh. I can see what he’s doing. “Yeah, maybe.” He opens his mouth, and I slam my palms on the table, forcing him to focus at me instead of the screen. “Fine. Look, I’ll you the truth.”

That eyebrow again. Ugh. Might as well get it over with.

“One of the containers at the wreck did have something of value,” I start.

“Something not just scrap metal.” He speaks with the tone of a man who already knows the truth.

“Yes,” I growl. “I found a packer crate with half a dozen solar fuel rods.”

His eyes widen at that. A nice little stumbling block for the man who thought he had me cornered.

“I know, I know , it’s dumb to salvage fuel like that,” I continue, plowing ahead. “And I checked it before I loaded it up.”

“You took the whole crate?” he gasps.

“ No, I’m not a fucking moron. I took one. And once I was back in orbit, I very sensibly checked it again and...” I shrug, as if what I’d found was obvious.

“And?” he prompts when I don’t answer.

He’s going to make me say it. “ And it was cracked. A hairline fracture, barely visible.”

Now his eyes are so wide, they might fall out of his sockets. Which would be a damn shame, because when he’s not looking all gobsmacked, he’s very hot. “But a broken solar fuel rod...” His voice trails off as he considers the implications.

Solar fuel rods are the most expensive part of keeping a ship running. Any looter who saw one would take one, even if the danger of a cracked fuel rod would be...catastrophic. And how could a fuel rod not be cracked if it were in a crash like the Roundabout ’s? Still.

“Those things are fucking expensive,” I mutter.

“Yes, but—”

“Well, I learned my lesson, didn’t I?” I throw up my hands. I hate losing my cool like this, but damn. “As soon as I saw it was compromised—”

“That’s one way to put it,” he says under his breath.

“—I threw it out of the airlock. But it was too late.”

Realization settles on him. The three-meter hole in the side of my ship. Right at the airlock. Rendering my ship breached and the cofferdam inaccessible.

“That’s an . . . impressive way to destroy your own ship,” Rian says finally.

“ Glory ’s not destroyed,” I snap back.

He shrugs as if conceding the point, but it’s hard to argue that a gaping hole isn’t a legitimate concern.

Rian flicks the data screen built into the table, and the privacy filter fades. It takes me a second to register that I’m looking at the interior of my ship, caught through a drone lens. Rian sent out a cam to confirm my story. This was all recorded before. He’s no doubt already viewed it at least once. I take one little nap, and he got busy spying on both my suit and my ship.

I shoot him a look that clearly says, Really?

He shrugs.

I mean, I get it. But my story is more airtight than my ship.

I made sure of that.

Rian taps a control. “Magnusson, can you confirm solar fuel on the Roundabout manifest?”

The crew member’s voice is gravelly over the comm unit. “Stand by.”

Rian smiles placidly at me, but I’m kind of pissed that he’s so obvious about his line of questioning. Where is the respect here? I drop my eyes to the screen, watching the drone recording slowly pan about the bridge on Glory before drifting through the secure bulkhead door and down the main corridor, mimicking the path I’d taken before evacuating.

I know that ship backward and forward. Every rusty bolt, every frayed wire. She’s mine.

And it guts me to see that wound on her side, so fresh and raw.

When I look up, Rian’s eyes are softer. Kinder.

Shit.

I roll my shoulders back and stare at him, running my tongue on my teeth. I did not mean to let him see anything real. Before I can say something snappy, the comm crackles.

“ Roundabout cargo logs confirm three full cases of solar fuel rods, contained within half-units.”

Three? Damn. I should go steal some more.

Just not any of the cracked ones. Obviously.

“Do not think about going back for more,” Rian says, eyeing me.

“I would never consider it,” I say, aghast.

“Approximate location of those units would be...” Magnusson rattles off some number coordinates, and then Rian tells him to make note of possible danger should the remaining rods be cracked as well, for when Saraswati and Magnusson go back down.

I cross my arms over my chest as Rian disconnects the comm. “Told you.”

Rian nods, still thinking.

Still trying to find a hole in my story.

“I was concerned that there was debris in the orbital field or something else that may pose a threat to the Halifax ,” Rian says, not quite meeting my eyes.

“Bullshit; you thought I faked my ship being damaged.”

“Why didn’t you seal your bulkhead? That would have maintained flight integrity and life support—”

“Yeah, if I still had power,” I snap. “Turns out when you lose part of your portside hull, it takes out, you know. Power. Life support. A chance to survive.”

Rian nods slowly.

“It’s good to know that we don’t need to worry about damage in the same way,” Rian finally says. “I’ll inform the captain that your ship lost viability due to...” He cleared his throat. “User error.”

I stand up so abruptly that my seat goes swiveling. “User error?!” I shout. “I will have you know that I—”

“Took a cracked fuel rod to your own cargo bay and blew up your hull when you didn’t evacuate it quickly enough?”

My mouth hangs open.

Rian stands, grinning, a gleam of triumph in his eyes. “Look, we all make mistakes,” he allows.

“True,” I grumble.

“It’s just that my last mistake involved me staining my favorite shirt with hot sauce, and your last mistake led to—”

I punch him before he finishes, but all he does is laugh.