“Just in case it was confused.” He hustled toward the cockpit. “This way you can steer us right.”
“That’d be a first,” she muttered as she followed him.
As he settled into the pilot’s position, he didn’t have time to ask her what she meant. Not when he had to quickly cue up the launch. Teq had tightened security after the pirates had tried to take Dorn and Roxy. But the often overlooked little brother of the apex still had some tricks.
Choking out an oath as the shuttle jerked into motion, Kinsely quickly took the seat beside him. She’d left her bag in back next to Roxy. “What’s the hurry?”
“Oh, no hurry at all. Just trying to save the ship and its crew and our future before the Luster exposes our failed fortune hunting and we are doomed to the void of space—”
“Okay, okay, I get your point.” She latched the safety harness around herself; obviously she’d been paying attention during the safety drills too. “I just didn’t realize we were going in this little bucket. I thought we’d all be going together in theDeepWander.”
He clacked his tusks once before stifling the giveaway emotion. “This will be faster and less obtrusive.” He gunned the shuttle toward the hatch.
Kinsley pressed back in her seat. “Um. Not that I know anything about flying a spaceship of any size, but doesn’t the door need to be open?”
“It will open, in just a second,” he reassured her, wishing he could reassure himself. “There is a scheduled duty cycle that runs through a sequence with an option to vent the bay in case of emergency.”
She whipped her head around to stare at him. “Emergency? Why doesn’t the door just open on command?”
Before he could answer—and he really should’ve thought of a better answer—the comm crackled.
“Sil,” Teq growled. “Why is your brother’s security signature on the shuttle bay emergency override sequence?”
Refusing to meet Kinsley’s accusing glare, Sil cleared his throat. “Because otherwise the hatch wouldn’t open?”
“Because you are not authorized to leave,” Teq said, as if they hadn’t just had this conversation. “Because your brother, your apex, who apparently did not hide his codes from you, specifically forbade you from leaving.”
Sil clamped all four hands around the shuttle controls. “This is our best option, Teq. Why won’t you all believe me?”
“Because you’ve stolen a fortune and abducted an alien?” Teq’s growl was so deep, the words almost vibrated the comm panel.
“He’s not stealing the rock,” Kinsley said. “He’s just borrowing it. And I’m not abducted. I’m…borrowed too.”
Unable to stop himself, Sil glanced at her. She was watching him, her smoky blue gaze steady; if there was more nuance to the look, he didn’t know enough Earther expressions to interpret it.
“Kinsley, is everything all right?” Adeline’s voice was softer than the crusher’s, but no less stern.
Kinsley snorted. “I’m not going to use the IDA safe word. Really, everything is fine. Or maybe not fine exactly.” She rolled her eyes at Sil. “Sil says this is what we need to do to save the ship. And I believe him.”
The hatch opened, and Sil gunned the shuttle toward the expanding square of darkness. Within him, something else leaped forward, energized by Kinsley’s words.
Some murmured conversation between Teq and Adeline didn’t quite come through the comm until the crusher’s voice cleared. “I’ll cover for you as best I can.”
“Kinsley, this is your chance,” Adeline said. “Make it count.”
The comm blanked with a soft chime, and Sil punched the acceleration, hurtling them out into space.
Chapter 5
Kinsley kept her hands wrapped tight around the lower armrests until the G forces pulling on her eased. By G forces, of course she meant guilt.
“I should’ve told you,” Sil said softly.
Apparently she wasn’t the only one feeling guilty, for a change. She rolled her head against the seat back, the headrest sized for an orc and thus too high for her. There’d been many times she felt out of place—usually because she’d sneaked into some place she wasn’t supposed to be—but for some odd reason, despite the fact she was in a purloined spaceship in a too-big seat next to an apologetic alien, this was not one of those times.
Probably because this was a mistake. Yeah, that felt very familiar. But for once, she wasn’t in it alone: they werebothin trouble.
“Tell me which part?” she drawled. “Disobeying, thieving, or abducting?”
