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“Fine,” I told him, adjusting my stride to match his.

I couldn’t make sense of this situation, he wasn’t treating me like a prisoner he needed to interrogate this morning.

When his hand lifted at hip height, palm open, it was to show me a silver-wrapped ration bar.

He was offering it to me, and I stared for a long moment, wondering whether this was a trap.

Maybe he thought acting nice now would make me so grateful I’d spill the beans.

Regardless, I needed that food, so I reached out and took it, digging in quickly so he couldn’t take it away again.

He didn’t talk further, though, just kept walking, his pace just right for me to keep up with.

I kept my eyes wide open as we went, searching for clues, gathering information.

The ship was powered down, and everything appeared to be in energy-saving mode, which meant they were trying to preserve what they had.

That could mean their engines were completely fried, that was good news.

I also saw signs of damage from a fire when we passed a crossing, and the Kertinal did not take me to an elevator but made me climb a ladder to reach a different deck.

Once we were approaching what had to be the top of the ship, more lights came on to illuminate the way.

There was less evidence of the crash here, and a cleaningbot was working hard to polish away stains of something , maybe blood, from one wall.

I swallowed roughly at the sight, but said nothing.

Where was he taking me? I thought he was the boss, but when he paused outside a set of double doors, I began to wonder.

“Word of advice?” he drawled, his expression cool, eyes glinting at me in the dark.

“Don’t pull a stunt like you did with me yesterday. ”

His nod back to where the industrious bot was working made my stomach clench with fear.

So he wasn’t the biggest bad? I didn’t want him to open the doors, but I knew I had no choice again.

I was getting thoroughly fed up, but fear still ruled.

I knew I would follow his advice, because I really wanted to survive.

When he turned away, I slipped my hand over my belly, the firm curve reminding me that I was responsible for more than one life right now.

The rooms beyond the doors were extravagant and large, with a domed roof made of either thick, space-resistant transparent panes or curved viewscreens tied into sensors.

They displayed the Serant skies, all beautiful purples and pinks with fluffy clouds.

The rest of the space was not nearly as beautiful as that sky, but it was clearly richly appointed: huge, heavily supported seats with golden cushions, tables laden with food(especially roasted meat), and artworks of nude female aliens hanging on the walls.

I might have stared at those with curiosity, but my eyes were quickly drawn to the alien sitting at the center of all that wealth.

He was so big, his horned head almost brushed the ceiling, his huge limbs stretching his black body armor to the limit.

Black, beady eyes appraised me from above his horned snout, small ears flicking back and forth.

He had a head remarkably like a rhinoceros’s, and I wondered immediately if that meant his eyesight was any good.

Random animal facts were not going to help me here, but who knew?

He took a step toward us—no, me—because the Kertinal had ushered me in but stayed by the door.

It felt like I could feel the thud of his foot vibrate through the deck and up my leg.

He was that heavy. For a rhinoceros-type alien, that made a certain kind of sense, but I had a feeling this one was particularly huge and maybe even overweight.

When he spoke, which he did with sharp barks and loud snorts, I could not understand anything but his impatience.

When he fell silent, it was the Kertinal who, with a sigh and a wave of his hand, translated.

“He wants to know who helped you. You need to tell him everything about the local species.” I twisted my head just enough to keep the red-and-black male visible from the corner of my eye, but I didn’t dare lose track of the giant, gray-skinned alien towering over me.

If he decided to squash me, all he had to do was raise a hand and lean.

I’d flatten like a pancake beneath one of those massive, thick-fingered hands.

Mouth dry, I rolled a shoulder and shook my head.

It set off the rhino guy into another long-winded, angry speech I couldn’t understand.

He had to be another Zeta Quadrant local, but I had never heard of his species, and he must not have been of much interest to the UAR, unlike the Kertinal.

That puzzled me, but this was neither the time nor the place to start asking questions.

The Kertinal translated again, sounding put upon for having to do so.

It was just a repeat of his first question, though he said there were some threats, which he did not translate, thankfully.

When I shook my head again, it went back and forth a few more times until the rhino had had enough.

He growled sharply, jutting the pair of long horns on his snout at his henchman by the door.

No wonder he’d stayed out of range; I winced back, stumbling over the edge of a rug as the rhino swung that huge head. Those things were terrifying.

“Fine,” the Kertinal snapped, and I yanked a device from his belt. “Come here, human.” He flicked his tail my way, and I silently mouthed coward at him. With a glance at the threatening, huge rhino-man, I shuffled to him. Maybe he had the right idea, staying by a wall and an exit like that.

“What are you going to do?” I demanded, when he raised what appeared to be a handheld scanner to my head. He lowered it a fraction and glared, the look chilling me to the bone. It reminded me of yesterday and my confrontation with him then. I shouldn’t forget how scary he’d been—not at all.

The device hummed as he held it by my head, but I felt nothing more than the slightest tickle along my scalp.

When he lowered it again, he nodded at his boss.

I faced the guy but didn’t move across the room to stand in front of him again, not even when he gestured sharply.

I thought the Kertinal might push me forward, but he did nothing except lean casually back against the wall beside me, his tail lazily flicking back and forth by his ankles.

“You tell me what I want to know, this instant, human,” the rhino guy said, sounding crisp and completely understandable to me now.

Ah, so they’d updated my translator implants.

It wouldn’t change anything. No matter what, I wasn’t going to betray Artek.

He’d helped and cared for me; damn it, he’d made me fall for him and his mysterious ways.

It was possible he’d even died for me, and I refused to repay that by giving up his species or him. No way.

I was about to shake my head, but then thought better of it.

Instead, I tilted my chin so I could stare that guy in his beady, black eyes.

“Where were you taking us? Did you buy us from the UAR?” Maybe questions were the right way to go after all, deflect and all that.

Even if he didn’t answer outright, getting him to talk was better than if I did the talking, wasn’t it?

But I was treading lightly. I wasn’t going to pull a ‘stunt’ like I had with the Kertinal. No way.

If this guy was in charge, he was the one to take down.

But he looked armored like a freaking tank—bigger than a mountain—and he was clearly the suspicious kind, because even while meeting a tiny human, he’d worn protective armor.

Now he curled a fat, wide lip and snorted, anger tightening his foreign features.

“You do not get to ask questions. You do not need to know. Tell me what I want, and maybe I won’t give you as a toy to my Krektar. How is that?”

He paced left, then right, and a very short, stubby tail with a tuft flicked behind his huge ass and thick thighs.

It was a silly sight, that tiny little thing on his huge body, that a wave of hysterical laughter began to rise in my throat.

“You’ll do that if it’s what you want anyway, and then what?

They’ll probably kill me, and then you’ll know nothing.

” I tried to channel a little Athol and a little Artek at the same time, but my heart was pounding so fast in my chest I feared it would burst.

The rhino guy raised his huge hand, and I braced myself for a strike, certain he was about to slam me across the room.

He thundered a step or two closer, then abruptly stopped, threw back his head, and laughed.

“Ah, human, you have more guts than brains, do you?” he barked, his belly heaving and trembling as he curled both hands around it and continued shaking with laughter.

Pressing my luck, I said to him, “You tell me what I want to know, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.

Sounds like a fair deal, doesn’t it?” When he jerked his huge head down in a nod I was fairly certain meant agreement, a wave of triumph surged through me.

I really was better with words than with swords.

Not that I wanted to deal with confrontations like this, but it was better than that terrifying fight yesterday.

That had left me paralyzed, but here, I felt like I had an odd amount of control.

And I did, because he wanted something from me.

“It does seem like a fair deal,” the huge rhino alien agreed, his snout turning to the Kertinal as if checking to see what his subordinate thought of that.

He was still lounging lazily against the wall next to me, using a knife to clean the sharp, black claws that tipped his hands.

He looked bored but lethal at the same time.

He shrugged at his boss’s look, as if he cared not one bit—though maybe that was all the rhino wanted.

“I did buy all of you from the UAR,” he said, and he turned to move slowly and heavily across the room and sit down in one of the huge, decadent seats, propping his thick, stubby feet up and leaning back, the picture of relaxation.

There was no aggression from him now, and I felt myself relax a fraction in response as well.

Maybe I’d navigated this conversation to clearer seas.

“Bought you in exchange for weapons, I did. For Drameil first, but he’s dead, so now Jalima is calling the shots.

” The rhino laughed, snout opened wide and fat lips smacking together.

“You were worth one laserrifle, that’s how much.

” The laugh that followed was sharp and cruel.

None of this information meant much to me; I didn’t know who either person was that he’d named, but he’d said the most pertinent part: the UAR was desperate for weapons, and that’s what they were trading us for.

His patience had worn thin again, and he slammed a massive paw down onto the armrest of his chair.

“Now talk, human. I have fulfilled the conditions of our deal; now it is your turn.” He said that so specifically that I wondered if I hadn’t accidentally triggered a cultural custom with him by demanding to trade information.

I licked my dry lips and nodded, then plucked with my good hand at the roughly sewn leather coat Artek had made for me.

“You have nothing to worry about from the locals. They are primitives, as you can see. I was just lucky that they managed to open my pod and not kill me on sight.” I added that the pod must have been damaged and had initiated emergency eject procedures, which seemed to satisfy them.

Then I added the final bit of truth I was certain would make the Naga seem like no threat at all.

“They are divided into Clans, war among each other with their stone spears, and their females are completely in control and self-absorbed. They won’t even want to get involved.

And they have nothing that could help you repair this ship.

” I rolled a shoulder, indicating I was done, and then stood in the uneasy silence that followed.

Maybe it was only uneasy to me, as the rhino guy seemed to sink back into his pillows and contemplate my answers.

The Kertinal continued to look utterly bored and disinterested.

Eventually, the rhino guy flapped his hand at us, and the Kertinal straightened and took me by the arm to lead me from the room. I’d survived, now what?