Both of the corridors were empty. She made her way onto the landing and then headed directly for the docking port that led to her Runabout, pausing only for a moment at the viewport that still showed the frozen, swirling planet far below.

"Ca'ana," he whispered. "It's a beautiful planet, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said touching the window lightly. Too many times had she passed this planet, hoping beyond hope that there would eventually be a good reason to end her career with a visit the wintry slopes. To burrow into the snowy infested woods and subsequently lounging about in a warm spa at the end of a long, cold day bundled up next to a roaring fire while drinking liquid chocolate. That was her dream and she could almost taste it.

She was nearly lost in her fantasy when Xatah straightened and turned to the side.

"Someone is coming," he said pulling her towards the docking port.

The steps were quickly closing in when she finally entered the appropriate passcode and the next passageway opened before her. The door was still closing when she saw someone in a uniform round the corner. She hid until the door had completely closed before peering through the window in the airtight door, looking for the solder. She was uncertain whether he had seen her or not, but they were running out of time.

"Nice shuttle." Xatah whispered against her neck, smelling her scent.

The Runabout had been her first spacecraft. It was far from luxurious, but it had enough of the simple amenities like the overly plush chairs and contoured command consoles that made it quite cozy. The setup was nearly identical to the bridge of her cargo ship though more compact with a couple of beds separated by a replicator in the rear.

"Okay pirate," said Jenny mockingly as she sat off to the side, "Kidnap me."

She watched as he moved about the shuttle preparing it for take-off. It was crazy, but the idea that he was kidnapping her and could ravish her at his leisure made her want him again, but this time she was desperate to have him inside her.

"I don't suppose you have any useful skills, Captain?" He asked, pressing several buttons at the helm causing lights along the side of the ship to come up as several motors along both sides of the ship started to vibrate.

Jenny glared at him with her feet up on the nearest console.

"Of course. I'm a pilot, and a passable engineer."

He paused over the control panel that gave a readout of the fuel and gave her a curious look.

"What's a passable engineer?"

"Served two tours on a science ship and when their engineer accidentally blew himself up, the crew decided I could take his place. So I learned enough to keep the ship going long enough to complete a Kessel drop in the Antaries cluster." Jenny waved her toes about as though it were no big deal. "And then I decided I'd rather be a pilot instead of risking blowing myself or my ship up."

"Good, then you wont mind flying us down to Ca'ana," He said, grabbing her hand and gently throwing her into the pilot's chair.

Jenny glowered up at him. "You want me to fly?"

"Are you saying you can't pilot?"

"This is your kidnapping! I can't help but feel that you're making me do all the work around here," she said defiantly.

He stood still for a moment, hovering over her as she sat resolutely unmoving with her arms crossed.

"I can fly this boat with or without you." She said, and there was a menace to his voice that did nothing but excite her. What was wrong with her, she wondered? "However, if I'm going to be doing everything around here without your help, I'll be rearranging a few things as I see fit."

Xatah turned and grabbed the pilot's chair by the base and began to lift the bolted down chair from the floor. There were two small pops as broken nuts flew across the room before the horrible squealing sound of metal being torn asunder reached her ears. He then lifted the chair and threw it towards the back of the cabin where it smashed against the secondary command station. He was well on his way to the pilot's chair when she finally gave in.

"STOP! Don't touch that. No! Fine. FINE! I'll do it. I'll fly you down to your planet. Just don't touch anything anymore."

"I appreciate your cooperation," Xatah said, bowing his head once again. "I'm going to be programing our flight path. You just follow it. And I'll keep your crew and those military imbeciles from finding us."

Jenny ran a quick check of the Runabout's status before starting the sequence to disconnect the shuttle from her cargo ship. The entire shuttle came alive with a low-level hum.

"We'll have about ten seconds before they realize what we're doing," Jenny said trying to remain optimistic. "I figure if we stay away from those long cannons on the Commander's ship we should be good. On your mark." She looked up at him, waiting for his signal.

He nodded.

There was a little pop as the air lock disengaged, followed by the loud roaring as her thrusters engaged, pushing her back into her seat. Vaguely, Jenny knew on the cargo ship there would be an alarm going off, telling the entire crew that the shuttle had just deployed, but there was no way for her to disengage the alarm system from the shuttle so she hoped her crew would be too busy dealing with the Commander to come after her immediately.

As they pushed off and rounded the cargo ship, they could see that the Commander's ship was still attached. Grimly, Jenny was glad to see how incompetent the Commander was. His inability to stick to a tight schedule meant her crew wouldn't be tangling with her alien pirate anytime soon.

"How did that guy catch you anyways?" She asked Xatah. "He hasn't even unhooked his ship yet."

Xatah just laughed. "He didn't catch me. I gave myself up."

"Oh?"

He grinned at her. "I was on my way to Ca'ana when the ship I'd stolen broke down."

Jenny gave him a cross, judgmental look, but he ignored her.

"Anyway, I sent out a distress beacon and got picked up by those morons. I would have commandeered his vessel, but those damn things have so many lockouts it's ridiculous. Well, that and his ship isn't meant to be manned by just one person so I sabotaged their vessel hoping something better would come along."

"So here you are, on yet another stolen vessel heading towards a planet under strict quarantine," said Jenny keeping one eye on her trajectory and the other on the two ships that were quickly falling away. "I take it you don't care much for laws, or rules, other people's property. Ever tried following guidelines?"

Xatah updated his console as they plummeted towards the planet.

"I get the impression you don't fully approve of my life choices." He said.

Jenny glanced at him briefly, "Oh, I'm just guessing there's a reason the planet is off limits to civilians."

"Of course there is. Ever been to Australia on your own planet? Same principle. Everything on Ca'ana wants to kill you, and then devour you slowly, but it's still quite lovely."

"That still sounds rather serious," said Jenny glaring at him. "I'd rather not be eaten."

"Don't worry, I've hunted the Thoratts before. They're a stupidly predictable creature. I'll protect you."

"Uh huh. And what's a Thoratt?"

He shook his head as the ship began to rock violently with the turbulence of hitting a new atmosphere and this one in particular was jarring as the entire sky was filled with storm clouds.

"Story time later. Now, you fly us down to the planet."

Jenny nodded then gritted her teeth as a wild gust of wind nearly upended them.

"Just an FYI, I'm not going to be able to land in this." She told him, unable to even see where the ground was.

"Just follow the flight path and we'll be okay."

The hull of the shuttle-craft groaned.