Page 15 of Sway’s Peace (Delivery Service #2)

“However, if you look at this list over here, it includes all of those changes, plus a few more things. The engine can be serviced for actually a fairly good price. Given all the upgrades you’d be buying, I can get you a discount on that.

This here is a cleaning service, giving us permission to do a deep clean of all the public areas.

So, that gets rid of the body stain and the two headed beast stain, but it wouldn’t touch your privy since that’s private, so that would get to remain haunted. ”

She sent Sway a smile, the two of them sharing in the little joke he had made to cover for his crew.

“You’re going to clean up our crime scene?” Sway asked, grinning back at her.

“Well, I can’t let the peacekeepers haul you in yet. We’ve only just met,” she giggled, giving him a teasing look. Completely unaware that they were joking about a literal crime scene.

Completely unaware that the crew of the Humble Delivery Service were a group of barely reformed criminals. That the body shaped stain came, in fact, from a body. All that remained of a male that threatened their crew, their ship, and their freedom, then paid the price for it.

Sway still had burned and singed feathers and skin on the back of his neck, hidden under the long feathers of his crest, from that encounter. Their medical officer was still learning her trade, so she hadn’t been able to heal it completely. But it didn't hurt anymore, and that was enough.

No, Grace didn't know any of that.

“Our refuse storage is actually full as well,” Sway said. “Any way we can get that dumped?”

“Oh, sure. There’s no charge for that,” she said, adding the service to their list. “Did you need anything refueled or restocked?”

“Well, we should still be alright from the last station we were at. What is this charge here?”

“That one, and these ones, were all automatically added after the droid identified problem areas during its scan.”

They went through each of them one at a time.

Most of the proposed repairs and upgrades from the droid were cosmetic.

He rejected all of those. The Humility might not have been a pretty ship, but none of them cared for how nice it looked.

It did manage to find that the area around the side stowage door was getting weak.

It wasn’t yet to the point that it was in danger of breaking, but it recommended the entire area be resealed, and he accepted that as important.

There were also a few other things that he deemed necessary that were added to the list.

The full consultation took a lot longer than he expected. They went much more in depth than he thought they would. But he supposed that was only to be expected from a company like Uver Prime. You didn’t become that good and big for no reason.

“Alright,” Grace said sometime later, bringing up the final itemized list. “With everything that we’ve discussed, including the complimentary filtration cleaning with that promotional sale, the total cost will come out to one-hundred thirty seven thousand eight hundred fourteen credz.

There is a required deposit of one quarter the price before service begins, which would bring your total right now to thirty-four thousand four hundred fifty-four credz.

Here’s the list and all the prices if you want to look through and check for yourself. ”

Sway did so. Not because he didn’t trust her specifically, but because he didn’t trust anyone in general. It was just smarter to always double check things like this.

And the dry listing of numbers and services helped keep his thoughts from going to bad places all centered around the pretty human. The way she pushed her long, smooth black hair over her shoulder. The way she smiled at him so temptingly. The way she made him want things he wasn’t used to wanting.

The total cost was outside of the budget Tanin set for him of one hundred thirty thousand creds, but as Sway looked through, he couldn’t see anything that he wouldn’t consider vital. Even if he decided to give up the food synthesizer, it wouldn’t put them back under budget.

After a moment, he decided to just say screw it and pay whatever was over budget with his own funds instead.

It wasn’t like he ever spent his own credz.

He had what he needed and didn’t see the need for filling his life or space with clutter or useless things.

As a result, he still had almost everything Tanin had ever paid him since they began making a profit on their business.

Including the credz from the gemstones that they’d sold to fund this overhaul in the first place.

The rare gems had come with his newest crewmates.

The stones were the distraction, trying to hide the true cargo they had been hired to transport.

And since they weren’t in the business of trafficking, they’d considered the contract null and void and claimed the gemstones as their own.

They might not have been real cargo, but that didn’t make them less real stones.

Tanin had given everyone on the crew two gems as part of their cut of the payment for the job and kept the rest for the communal funds that he used for things like repair and supplies. Sway not only still had those gems, but he had practically every other cut he’d ever been given thus far.

And he considered it a worthwhile expenditure to afford that food synthesizer.

“It’s fine,” he said, turning the holodisplay in the air back over to Grace.

“Great!” She beamed, reaching into her desk. “Then, I’ll take the first payment now, and I just need your biometrics to confirm your agreement.”

She pulled out a small cannister and held it up.

He offered his finger, allowing her to take a drop of blood.

It didn’t hurt and was over in a second.

The cannister began glowing purple as the plan and agreement inside was sealed so that nothing could tamper with it.

In case either of them went back on the deal, that was the proof of what they agreed on.

She stored the small cannister back in her desk and brought up the credz transfer process on her displays.

While she was putting in the cost of the deposit, Sway was opening his own combat.

He transferred the credz from his account into into the communal funds immediately, though he wasn’t paying the full price now.

When Grace offered him the holodisplay, he put in the information and completed the transfer in moments.

“Wonderful,” Grace smiled, bringing the display back.

She transferred the list of repairs into a task manager that she then sent to someone – the repair team, he imagined.

“Your estimated time of completion is four to five days. Until then, here are your complimentary meal tickets. As a thank you for using Uver Prime you can trade these for any meal of thirty credz or less anywhere on the station. Do you need information for inns or restaurants?”

“No, thank you. I’ll be staying on the ship while repairs are ongoing, and the rest of the crew already took care of themselves.

” He took the ten tickets she handed him with a smile.

He supposed he should find the others to give them away.

Or maybe he’d use them himself since, until the new food synthesizer was installed, he wouldn’t have a way to eat besides the pre-packaged food he kept in the bridge.

He couldn’t believe the next time he used the galley on the ship, he would be getting food that didn’t taste highly artificial or have unsynthed nutrition powder still inside.

There was nothing quite so disgusting as eating some basic gruel and biting into a pocket of nutrition powder.

While the powder itself was, technically, edible, it didn’t at all taste good, and it dried out the mouth terribly.

He’d been in a position of having to eat the powder by itself to survive before, but he would rather never do it again if he had a choice.

And now, he might not have to. He was actually getting excited about these repairs.

“So, you’re staying on your ship?” Grace asked, leaning in over her desk. Like she wanted to get closer to him.

Now that the business was settled, her voice changed. It wasn’t super perceptible. He wouldn’t say it went deep and needy, but there was a clear difference in the happy tone. Like the mask of professionalism had faded and she was focused back on him as a person.

He had to get away before he was tempted by those sweet, sparkling eyes to do something foolish. He needed to figure out these new feelings and desires and how to control them.

But despite telling himself that, he didn’t move.

“I’m more comfortable on the ship,” he said, leaning in closer as well. “It’s my home.”

“That must be amazing,” she said, letting out a short breath that made her breasts heave.

His eyes immediately glanced down. He forced them back up without lingering, but it was too late.

The sight of them, resting against her arms, tempting him into feeling their softness, was seared into his eyes.

Farasie females didn’t possess breasts. They did have fluffier chests, the feathers there thicker for keeping hatchlings warm when held, but they weren’t breasts.

However, Sway had been raised on a station, which meant he was more accustomed to alien females anyway.

He’d honestly never met a farasie female and only seen males of his kind from afar.

He’d always at least partially attributed his general disinterest in sex to that, but apparently, that hadn’t been the problem at all.

“Living on a ship is amazing?” Sway asked, trying to force his filthy mind back onto the conversation.

“Sure,” Grace smiled dreamily. “I’ve only been on two starships. The one I initially took to Holotulle, and the one I took here when I got transferred to this station.”

“You lived on Holotulle before?”