I couldn’t make a truth serum. As far as I knew, no one could. But we had enough drugs to lower someone’s inhibitions by quite a bit.

That, plus Ronan’s scheme for the interrogation, would have to do.

I glared at the oily wreck of a man sprawled on the table. The rest of the captured crew had been bound, sedated, and locked into a small compartment.

“Captain Norman?”

“Hey, I know that voice. You’re a looker, little lady. You’re going to make me some good money.”

It was harder than I expected, keeping the revulsion from my voice. “That’s nice, Captain Norman. Can you do me another favor?”

“What’s that?

“Your crew asked me to take a message to the bridge, but I can’t get in.”

“‘Course not.” He puffed out his chest and patted his jangling vest. “Need the key.”

“Oh, that makes sense. I’ll bet your key is best of all. Can I use it?”

He patted his lap. “Why don’t you come over here, see what else I have?”

I took a quick step in front of Ronan.

“It’s not worth it,” he snapped. “I’ll bet it’s just thumbprints. That’s easy. I can take them both with me to check. He doesn’t need thumbs where he’s going.”

“One day without patching you up. That’s worth a lot to me.”

I watched the captain fidget with the trinkets sewn to his vest.

“Do they all have those?”

“What? All that junk? Yeah. Rattle like a music box, the lot of them.”

“It’s something on the vests.”

Ronan stared at the man, who’d apparently decided to go on a vacation in his own head. It’d make it easy to get him when we needed him.

“We could be here all night, trying different tokens on that panel.”

“Or, we could just let him go.”

“What?”

“Have him take me to the bridge.”

Ronan had his stubborn face on. “You’re not going on their ship.”

“Isn’t that what we’re leaving on?”

“Not until we have control of it. Not one step.”

* * *

He was still angry when I followed behind our good friend Captain Norman down the gangway.

Ronan, Geir, and Lorcan stalked behind us, ready to drop the captain as soon as it looked like he was emerging from the fog.

But he didn’t give any indications, just stumbled along, my hand tucked into the crook of his elbow keeping him upright.

We passed through the gangway, onto the strange ship. After the wide corridors of the Star, it felt cramped, dingy, the air stale.

“Thank you for taking me on a tour of your ship,” I forced a giggle into my voice. “I’m so excited to see the bridge.”

We got to the sealed door, with the optical pad beside it.

“I’m sorry, little lady. You need to turn away. This part is a secret.”

With my back to him, I watched Ronan step away from where he’d been pressed into the wall.

I crept behind him, let Geir pass me, and stood next to Lorcan.

Still, I was close enough to see the idiot’s face when the door slid open and he turned, slurring “Welcome aboard, schweetheart!”

The shock on his face at Ronan’s glower was worth having put up with his presence.

* * *

Once the entire crew was in lockdown, we proceeded to inspect the ship, stem to stern. No ‘passengers’ had been found, thankfully.

“If this is a known slaver, we’re going to have a problem docking anywhere.” Hakon had given the engines a reluctant seal of approval. “They work,” was apparently as high as he was prepared to go.

Aeden shrugged. “We’ll explain we found it as salvage. No one is going to wonder too much what happened to the original crew.”

“What are we going to do with the crew?” I asked.

“Space ’em.” I’d have expected it from Geir, but Xander’s terse words surprised me.

“We’ll do worse.” Ronan dropped his hands to my shoulders, taking up his position in our old conference room. We might have a ship now, but none of us seemed to be particularly comfortable on it. “We’ll throw enough mealpacks and water in the compartment to keep them alive, then send a tip to Imperial Authority when we’re well clear from here.”

“Are we sure we want the Imperials nosing around here?” Lorcan looked up from sharpening one of his knives. “What about…”

“We’ll take them with us, of course.” Ronan’s hands tightened slightly on my shoulders. “We can’t let anyone find the bodies.”

Of course. Erich and the other slain Wolves would be far too interesting to let the Imperial Authority find. They weren’t known for great leaps of inspiration, but even they might decide that where there were some illegally modified soldiers, there might be more.

“There won’t be room for all of the victims.” Ronan looked down at me, clearly worried about my reaction to leaving the fully human bodies behind.

“I know.” I reached up, twined my fingers with his. “I still don’t think we’re all just meat, but those people aren’t there anymore. I wish we knew their names, were able to tell their families what happened to them, but I know that’s not possible.”

Quinn looked up from his tablet. “I can check the lab records.”

“I don’t think it’s worth the time. I watched them pull us out of the cage one by one. They never asked for anyone’s name, never spoke. Just started their experiments.”

Nausea gripped my gut. “If I had a wish, I’d say burn it all. Shove the ship into the nearest sun, and erase all of it from the universe, not leave anything for the compound to find.”

“We could do that,” Hakon answered. His lips compressed, as if working equations in his head.

“I thought we didn’t have navigational control?”

“We don’t. Certainly not for the jump drive, and we don’t want to be on board long enough to get anywhere we’d want to be on standard propulsion.” He stopped figuring, looked around the room. “Steering the ship into a nearby sun is less navigation than math and physics. Find a sun, determine flight path, adjust the output of the thrusters. Don’t have to get into navigational controls at all.”

Silence wrapped the room.

Ronan spoke first. “How long would it take?”

“Need to do some calculations.”

“Get started while we make the new ship habitable. Let’s see what the options are.”

“Speaking of the new ship. Are we going to leave the crew on the Star to burn?” I’d never thought of myself as particularly bloodthirsty, but finding that slavers still roamed the spaceways seemed to have changed that.

“When we leave, they can ride in one of their own holding pens.” Lorcan’s lip curled. “I’ll make sure to keep one as filthy as they left it.”

* * *

The crew of the new ship had been pigs.

Not just that Norman and his men had been slavers; that would certainly qualify them.

But the entire ship was filthy, from the bridge down to the holding cells that none of the men wanted me to see.

Honestly, I was alright with that. Enough things had happened in the last two weeks that a little bit of shielding my reality came as a welcome break.

Hakon’s calculations had shown that with a few more days of modifications of the Star's thrusters, he could lock it down to its path to the sun. Even after we left in the ship that we had newly re-named the Legacy, the Star would incinerate in the closest sun in about nine weeks.

I certainly wasn't going to stay around for it, none of us wanted to. Hakon was certain. It would all be gone.

I thought of the bodies, the lab. Maybe something had changed within me, but fire seemed the only appropriate response.

Xander and Hakon had gone to plan for the careful transfer of Loree’s stasis chamber.

The gangway was just large enough, but the airlocks were going to be a problem. One we’d have to solve, because none of us would consider leaving her behind.

We’d been trapped long enough; to stay by our own choice while sorting out what felt like minor housekeeping duties and details was almost pleasant.

I had just finished my sixth load of the day, moving supplies from the Star to the Legacy, when the comm in my ear crackled.

“General warning, everyone brace for possible impact.” Quinn never sounded rattled, but I certainly was.

“What is it, meteors?” Ronan snapped. He and Aeden had resumed our plundering of the cargo bay. Now that we weren't just looking for items of survival, anything we could trade, sell, or use on a station or planet had new value.

“No, sir. Shots fired across the Star’s bow.”

“From who?” Ronan bellowed.

“No idea yet, they're coming around for another pass.”

I cut in. “Are we sure they’re enemies?”

“They are firing on us.”

“I know, but they don't know it's us, what if they think it's the Hunters? What if they’re actually firing on the slavers, because, whether or not we've renamed it, if they know what it looks like…” I trailed off.

“The enemy of my enemy isn't necessarily my friend,” Ronan said. “Chances are good it's just another enemy.”

“What does it hurt to hail them and find out?”

“The Star doesn't have much in the way of weapons, and tethered like the Legacy is, we’re pinned down,” Aeden chimed in. “We may not have a lot of options here.”

“Fine. Hail them, stall them, I'll be on the bridge of the Legacy and let's see who we’re dealing with.” Ronan didn’t sound happy.

I shoved the box I'd been carrying on to the nearest bunk and hurried up to the bridge to meet him.

He growled a little when he saw me.

“Stop that.”

I wrapped my arms around him. “I want to see who we’re facing, too.”

“But I don't want them seeing you.” His eyes scanned the bridge, the panels, and control chairs arranged in an arc around the compartment.

“There,” he pointed. “You should be able to see the screen fine, but out of their line of sight.”

I poked him. It couldn't hurt him. I wasn't entirely certain I could, but there were certainly times that something was called for, and he didn't listen to words when it came to what he thought was protecting my safety.

“Fine.” I went to my assigned position as the screens flickered to life.

A man's face crowned with spiky dark blond hair filled the screen, eyes hard and jaw set. I didn’t need to see his ears to start speculating.

“This is the Seeker. I don’t know who you are, but if you're allied with Base then I'd suggest--”

He broke off, brow furrowed. “Sir?”

“Connor, what the hell are you doing?” Ronan snapped. “Get your ass over here.”