[Christy]

  She let the anger that had flared in her chest die down a little.

  ‘He’s been unconscious for a while and was incredibly paranoid before that. Take a breath.’

  She took a deep breath and focused back on her partner.

  Who had a strange expression on his face.

  “How long was I out for you to manage getting us a shuttle?

  “Wait is this the shuttle?”

  His expressions shifting like that almost made her want to tease him. He clearly still wanted to run, his body tensed like he didn’t think they were safe, but was calming down a little.

  ‘If he would actually stop and let me talk, he wouldn’t be so worried all the time.’

  “You were only out for a day or so. I don’t know the exact amount of time, but you were clearly tired. You didn’t even wake up when you were being hauled around like cargo.”

  That seemed to snap him back to her and the current conversation.

  “Before you ask, it’s not exactly our shuttle. Even that much money wasn’t enough to skip regulations like that. I had to register the shuttle to the ship, not to a person. It was a fairly nice one as well, large enough for comfort and a smooth flight. Even had a place to cook and sleep. It was probably a pleasure craft or system jumper, at least before it got impounded. The station was happy to hand it over, they didn’t want the expense or hassle. It still cost an eye watering amount, but I got a nice discount since it was a direct exchange.

  “You should be glad I managed to convince the girl that it was a good deal. Between that and the massive amount of supplies, I managed to get everything we need to disappear. For a while at least.”

  She could see the fight come back to him. He was clearly not happy about being near that female creature. She couldn’t really blame him, if she had been handled like that she would be unhappy too.

  Not that she would have gotten into that situation in the first place.

  “Are we in that shuttle or not?”

  This was clearly bothering him a lot. He had never held her shoulders like that before. She would almost say he seemed terrified, but if she asked, he would deny any amount of fear.

  “Of course we aren’t in the shuttle. There is no point being in that shuttle if we are in that same empty system on the edge of nowhere. The only reason we even managed to get away with any of that is because no one even blinked at a deep space vessel taking on a station’s worth of supplies and a highly versatile shuttle.

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  “I still haven’t learned the power dynamics on this ship, the ship being that deep space one I just talked about, but the only reason we can even have this discussion is because I can convince that girl to let me handle that ‘boring paperwork’.

  “If you are so hyper about leaving, then take a walk down to the shuttle bay and leave. I’m pretty sure we are in FTL, but you seem to think launching a shuttle is the safer option, so go have fun. I for one, am going to wait until the plans are not reliant on surfing a drive wake in a shuttle. Once you’ve gotten the suicide drop out of your system and feel like calming down and listening, you’ll know where to find me.”

  She knew she was being harsh.

  Even she didn’t really remember how long they had been on the run. A few years at least. It made sense to see enemies everywhere and to worry about unknown situations. She knew he had great difficulty with plans that didn’t involve gratuitous bloodshed and use of his combat skills. The problem of simple tools leading to simple solutions. But this wasn’t something he could fight his way out of. The female creature had already shown how useless that was.

  With the Canirean girl being so docile and accepting, it was clear this problem needed a diplomatic solution. Something he was utterly unfit to handle. Which he knew. He had asked her to join him for that very reason.

  Why he was having such trouble understanding it this time was a mystery.

  It seemed she had broken through something at least. He took a breath and let go of her.

  “You’re not understanding. We can’t stay here with that…. thing. We need to leave.”

  She cocked her head, trying to figure out why he hated the female so much.

  “The female creature? If you hadn’t been such a hot head, you would have been fine. She didn’t do anything to me. Other than be scary I guess.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m not talking about the War-beast. That’s a danger all its own, just as dangerous as that data disk.”

  She felt her feathers close in.

  She had heard whispers. They were supposedly a highly classified super weapon. Even the highest circles she had stepped in had only whispered rumors.

  Planet ending rumors.

  ‘That was a War-beast? No wonder he was acting like that.’

  She was glad she hadn’t known before. She didn’t think she would have been able to remain coherent enough to negotiate. Being followed by a weapon wasn’t conducive to difficult negotiating.

  ‘Wait, did he just say ‘not’ the War-beast?’

  That had almost managed to slip by her. If only the stress could have as well.

  “I haven’t seen anyone else on this ship. I- I negotiated with the girl. Told her that the station couldn’t fully pay. We took on some non-contracted cargo that the station was trying to sell off. I made a contract to help her sell that cargo wherever we could, but we get room and board. Essentially a face and muscle in return for travel expenses.

  “I- I figured that we could let them worry about travel and slip away with the shuttle when we got to a good area of space. The girl doesn’t know who we are and the shuttle is registered to a deep space vessel. We would disappear. If we leave, we will breach that contract. It could cause an open man hunt before we are able to vanish.”

  She could see he wasn’t happy about what she just said. Had she known just what she had tied them to, she might have reconsidered. Or left the contract more open.

  ‘Maybe I was more affected by the female than I thought.’

  She really needed to sit him down and get the full story out of him.

  If they survived that long.