Page 23 of Journey to the Forbidden Zone

The outburst hung in the sudden silence. Sark looked like he wanted to crawl under the table. Norvik remained impassive, though a slight tightening around his eyes suggested he was recalculating. Letitia stared at her, the fury in her eyes banked, replaced by something harder – disappointment, maybe. Accusation:

You’re the captain. Fix it.

The weight of it pressed down, crushing. The responsibility. The fear. The impossible choice. Sell Mila, condemn her to God-knows-what, and risk dying in a firefight for the privilege. Try to take her home and probably get killed trying to break into theForbidden Zone. Keep her and live every moment waiting for the COPS to kick in the hatch. Or for Velasco’s thugs to find them.

You are free to determine my disposition.

Disposition. The word tasted like failure.

Letitia broke the silence, her voice lower now, strained.

“There has to be another way, Carmen. We find a neutral port, somewhere off the main lanes. We drop her off with enough money to disappear. Let her make her own choice, truly free. Away from the UPA, away from her ‘patrons’.”

“With what creds, Letitia?” Carmen snapped, the frustration boiling over again. “The coffee money? The insulting pittance Maltese paid us for a suicide run? That won’t cover a week’s air on a backwater rock, let alone set her up to vanish!

“And how does she vanish?” She gestured sharply towards the hatch. “Look at her! She stands out like a supernova in a dust cloud! Every scanner, every bounty hunter, every back-alley snitch would spot her a light-year away! She’d be picked up before she could blink, and we’d be next on the list!”

“Then we protect her!” Letitia shot back, her own frustration rising. “We find a way! We use theAntilles! We hide her! We fight if we have to!”

“With what?” Carmen’s laugh was harsh, brittle. “Point-defense turrets that jam? Shields that flicker? Sensors that pick up every piece of space junk like it’s a dreadnought? We’re not ghosts, Letitia! We’re a target! A slow, noisy, busted-up target hauling the most illegal thing in the sector!”

She ran a hand over her face, the gritty fatigue settling deep into her bones.

“Fighting isn’t an option. Not against what’s coming. Not in this rust-bucket.”

“So,” Sark ventured, “selling her is the only way wecanfight? Get the cash, fix the ship, get teeth?”

Norvik nodded, a single, precise dip of his chin.

“Correct. Investment in capability increases survival probability exponentially. The initial high-risk transaction enables long-term security.”

“Security built on her back!” Letitia insisted, her voice trembling. “How is that any different from the Kovoids? From the system that trapped her in the first place? We just become another link in the chain!”

The chain. The word resonated. Carmen felt it like a collar tightening around her own neck. The chain of debt. The chain of failure. The chain of responsibility she couldn’t seem to escape. And now, the chain linking them to this alien woman whose fate felt heavier with every passing second.

She looked around the table. Sark’s terrified hope. Norvik’s detached pragmatism. Letitia’s burning, righteous fury. They were pulling her apart. Each argument had its own brutal logic. Each path led to darkness. She needed clarity. Space. Air that wasn’t thick with conflict and the lingering ghost of desperation, of failure.

“I’ve heard enough,” Carmen said.

She pushed her chair back. She stood up, the movement abrupt.

“Sark, get back to the bridge. Monitor passive sensors. I want to know the second anything bigger than a dust mote twitches within a million klicks.

“Norvik, run the numbers again. All the numbers. Survival odds for every damn scenario you can think of, including ones that don’t involve selling sentient beings.

“Letitia ...” She paused, meeting the taller woman’s defiant gaze. “... check the point-defense systems. Run diagnostics. See if Zed can coax another ten percent efficiency out of the targetingarrays. Or just make sure they don’t blow up in our faces if we need them.”

She didn’t wait for acknowledgments. She turned and strode towards the hatch, her boots loud on the deck in the sudden, heavy silence.

The argument hung behind her, unresolved, a toxic cloud she needed to escape. She needed to think. Alone. Without their voices, their needs, their desperate eyes pulling her in three different directions.

The hatch hissed open at her approach. She stepped through into the cooler, quieter corridor. She didn’t look back. The weight of the decision, of the impossible choice, settled onto her shoulders like a leaden cloak. But for now, the silence was a relief. A small, temporary sanctuary before all hell inevitably broke loose.

CHAPTER 9

Carmen thoughtshe might lose her mind. When did she become babysitter to a pack of children? She thought she was captaining a competent crew. These people were supposed to be reliable in a crisis.

And this was a damnedcrisis! Their backs were against the wall. Maltese had fucked them overhard. She needed answers, solutions. Not philosophy and technicalities.