Page 101 of Journey to the Forbidden Zone

“Bullshit,” he snapped, leaning forward. “You’re bluffing.”

“I assure you, I am not, Mr. Corso.”

Nick leaned forward and rubbed his chin. He stared at the Collectivist through the viewscreen. The blue face showed no emotion whatsoever. Bastard was likely a hell of a card player.

“Why would you do that?” he asked. “You just seized control of the ship. Why would you want to blow it up?”

“The decision was not made lightly,” Norvik replied. There was no hesitation, no tell in that flat voice. “Captain Díaz’s refusal to cooperate, coupled with your aggression, has left us with limited options. Liquidating the asset offers no survival guarantee if your vessel remains functional. Mutual destruction,however, eliminates the threat permanently. Logic dictates it is the only viable course should negotiations fail.”

Nick gaped at him. The Collectivist son of a bitch sounded utterly convincing. Coldly rational. Core overload. They’d blow themselves to hell, taking the Xena – his payday, his leverage with the client – with them. Along with the satisfaction of seeing Díaz broken.

Fuck.The rage surged back, hotter than before. Trapped. Blinded. And now held hostage by a coolly calculating alien threatening cosmic suicide! Díaz’s crew had teeth. Sharp ones.

He forced himself to breathe, to think past the fury. Norvik was Collectivist. Pragmatic to his core. He wouldn’t choose annihilation if there was a deal to be made. He was signaling. Offering a way out. For a price.

“All right, Norvik,” Nick growled. “You’ve got my attention. Name your price for the Xena. But make it fast. My patience is thinner than your captain’s moral high ground.”

He could almost hear the calculations whirring in Norvik’s alien brain. Credits? Safe passage? He’d pay. For now. Get the Xena secured. Then hunt down theAntilleslater and peel Norvik and his mutinous crew apart bolt by fucking bolt.

“We require a significant infusion of cash,” Norvik replied. “In exchange for the Xena, you will pay our fines to the Corporate Operational Police Service and the money we owe to Cortez Velasco. In addition, we require twenty thousand credits for repairs and upgrades toAntilles.”

Nick coughed at the audacity of the blue-faced bastard. Twenty thousand creditsandpay off their debts? Who the fuck did he think he was?

“Fuck you, Norvik,” he replied. “I’m not paying that kind of cash. You’re not getting a windfall out of Maltese’s fuckup.”

“As you wish, Mr. Corso,” Norvik replied. “I suggest you reverse course and return toStar Shrikeimmediately. It’sunlikely you will survive our core detonation, if you don’t make it back to your ship.”

“Oh, fuck you, Norvik, I’ll just have James carve the engine chamber off your rust bucket. I’m out of patience. Prepare to be boarded.”

“I advise you to reconsider, Mr. Corso,” Norvik said, his voice cold, calm. “We have blindedStar Shrike’s sensor arrays. She will not be able to lock weapons on us. Furthermore, we have moved our vessel from the last location your ship had us. Your ability to hitAntillesat all is infinitesimally small, and if you should get lucky, you risk accidentally killing the Xena. That would make this venture a total loss to you. Given that the alien confessed to a high-ranking UPA official being her intended master, I would imagine losing the merchandise would bring consequences many orders of magnitude greater than what we risk, having broken contract with Cortez Velasco.

“Your only option to stop the meltdown is to agree to my terms. You have thirty seconds before it will be too late.”

Nick’s eyes practically fell out of his head. The little fucker was serious! He’d blow them up and take the Xena with them.

And then Nick would be fucked. Without finishing the delivery, those government assholes would hunt them to the ends of the galaxy. TheShrikecould take any regular ship he could think of, even a UPA battlecruiser if need be.

But a stealth ship he couldn’t see coming? They’d never survive that for long.

Damn Díaz anyway. The thought of her locked up somewhere on her own ship was delicious. hearing him take what was his was a dark, sweet promise. But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough for the price he would have to pay to get the Xena back.

Unless …

A slow, predatory smile spread across his face, wider and far more dangerous than the glee he’d felt moments before. He leaned closer to the comm.

“All right, you win,” he said. “You can have your money and your debts paid. But I want something else added to the deal….”

Letitia sat rigid at the sensor station, her knuckles white where she gripped the edge of the console. Every second felt like a lifetime. Sark fidgeted incessantly in the pilot’s seat, his orange fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the armrests, his red head-fin twitching like a metronome set to panic. Norvik remained implacable in Carmen’s chair.

“He’s stalling,” Letitia muttered, unable to bear the quiet any longer. Her voice sounded strained, too loud in the tense atmosphere. “Waiting forStarShriketo shake off the probe. Or figuring out how to target us blind.”

The image of another plasma bolt lancing out of the static, findingAntilles’s weakened shields, flashed in her mind. Sark whimpered softly.

“Maintain separation, Sark,” Norvik ordered, his voice cutting through Letitia’s fear like a scalpel. Cool. Unaffected.

Then he returned his vision to the viewscreen, met Corso’s savage sneer with utter passivity.

“What is it you require, Mr. Corso?”