Lisa sealed the airlock and settled into the captain’s chair, pulling up the ship diagnostics. The injection Mek’d given her just before burn had eased the chaos in her head. She knew the nanites were still warring, but her synapses no longer fired in response to the attacks. The doctor had explained how it all worked; something about human synapses being promiscuous and hooking up in new ways? The biology was way over her head, so she’d just nodded and been grateful for the relief, however temporary he warned her it could be.

On the dashboard, she slid aside a holocube displaying the 3D image of a much younger Noatak wearing an innocent smile sitting next to a man and a woman. His parents? She’d have to take a closer look later. Right now, she needed to figure out this ship’s systems. The control panel lit up with several segments of data at her touch. During her time in the ‘corp lab, she’d practiced hacking ship systems, but it had never been intuitive for her. She could recognize basic sequences without the aid of her nanites, so she looked for the code controlling life-support.

Every vessel’s interface was slightly different, and after setting life-support’s auto-diagnostic, she noted the ship had an internal camera system. After a few minutes of fumbling, she engaged the one in the cargo bay. An image came on-screen just in time to show Qaiyaan venting the bay door, the barest hint of a shimmer around his body. He’d explained that he could endure the vacuum of space for ten or twenty minutes—even longer if he didn’t exert himself. She bit her lip, sure he was about to be sucked out of reach. But his feet remained locked to the floor, his long hair and beard pulled outward in the escaping air.

As if sensing her watching him, he looked over his shoulder at the camera and nodded once. His cochlear implant would allow her to speak to him through the comm, but he couldn't respond in the vacuum. His flowing hair relaxed into a billowing halo at the same moment her stomach fell out from under her; the gravity system had dropped. Whoa. He hadn’t mentioned losing gravity. Her ass lifted off the captain’s seat, and she put a hand up to keep from bumping her head on the ceiling.

Luckily, the control room was small, and she grappled for the safety straps on the chair. The ship shuddered while the big bay doors cranked the rest of the way open. Qaiyaan took a few slow steps down the cargo ramp. His broad shoulders cut angular lines across the velvet blackness of space beyond. As if he wore a full vacuum-worker’s suit, he walked around the edge and disappeared.

She checked the scrolling diagnostics again. Several blinking red lines indicated issues, but they'd already been flagged at some point by the crew and obviously pushed aside until later. She was looking for something new. One of the panels chirped at her, and she scanned the surface of the dash for the source. The proximity sensor. Probably Qaiyaan walking around on the ship. She returned to the diagnostic. The ship shuddered, rocking her in her seat harness. Frowning, she looked at the cargo bay camera again and gasped. The dull, black patina of a cartel courier ship sat parked in the bay.

“Qaiyaan!” She scrambled toward the comm. “There’s a cartel ship in our cargo bay!” Where had it come from? Had they seen him?

The small black ship’s doors winged open, disgorging two rakwiji in vacuum helms packing military-grade pulse pistols. Their hard, scaly hides allowed their bodies to withstand vacuum as well as a suit. Bile rose in her throat. “Two rakwiji with pistols.”

She didn’t even know if Qaiyaan could hear her. What if he hadn’t seen them and came back to a trap? She had to do something. She looked around for a vacuum suit, but the control room was empty.

Qaiyaan’s voice filled her head, solid as if he was standing right next to her. Stay put. I’m coming.

Her breath choked off at the sensation of him in her mind. Her nanites shot woozy sparks across her vision. Was Mek’s shot wearing off?

One of the bounty hunters clumped to the bay door controls, magnetic grav-boots slowing his movements. It carried a disk the size of a man’s footprint. At the control panel, it slapped the disk over the keyboard.

The doors began to close.

Her vision swelled and shrank in time to her thundering heartbeat. She keyed the comm again. “Hurry, Qaiyaan! The doors!”

Fingers flying over the controls, she tried to override whatever the invaders had done. Error messages popped up across every screen. ACCESS DENIED. They’d placed some kind of lock on it, probably that big disk. The doors sealed shut with a thump she could feel through the deck. Terror settled like a rock in her stomach. How long could Qaiyaan stay out there? “I can’t override them!”

Warn the others. His voice floated into her mind again.

She engaged the comm to the med bay. “Mek, Noatak, Tovik, wake up!”

No response.

She pulled up a second screen with a view to the med bay. All three men lay sound asleep, strapped to the medical cots to keep them in place without gravity. Again, she keyed the comm. “We’re being boarded! Wake up!”

The men didn’t budge. She called Qaiyaan again. “I can’t wake them up.”

He didn’t respond either.

She scanned the comm diagnostics. The comm wasn’t transmitting. She’d been locked out. She couldn’t warn the crew or Qaiyaan. She was all alone and rakwiji were on board. Her heart threatened to break through her ribcage. Qaiyaan!

Stop panicking. His mental voice was calm. Reassuring.

She took a deep breath, looking around as if he might appear next to her. You can hear me?

Yes. Now tell me what’s happening.

Her nanites hummed at the edge of wakefulness, but she tamped them down. She wasn’t sure how she was talking to Qaiyaan without them, but she knew in her gut she couldn’t give them control. They have the ship systems completely locked down; communications, navigation, even life support.

There’s another access portal near the thrusters. His thoughts sounded strained. Can you open it?

I’ll try. Eager for a solution, she read through lines of code, looking for a way around the block the rakwiji had put on the systems. If only Doug was here. A block like this would be nothing more than an inconvenience for him, even before he’d received the nanites.

Full gravity returned with a jarring rush, pressing her into the seat cushions and slamming her arms against the control panel. She checked on the men in the med bay again, but they still hadn't budged. They must be even more exhausted than they'd let on. Either that or Mek'd given them something to help them rest. She wished she had sight of Qaiyaan, but she could no longer access the other cameras.

She continued trying to hack into the portal in engineering. Panic was making her brain jumpy. How would Doug look at this code? Maybe if she thought like him, she could find a way in.

The rakwiji crouched in feral positions, conversing next to their ship, their helms still in place. Although they'd engaged gravity, they'd elected not to reestablish atmosphere. They probably thought they had the crew at a disadvantage. The larger one pointed to a nearby cargo box, a sharp-toothed grin visible inside its face-plate. A familiar, blinking green light illuminated the viewport on what had been her cryo-pod.

The smaller rakwiji moved toward it, its mate scuttling close behind. The two exchanged leering gazes, and then the first rakwiji extended a necrotic claw, tracing the viewport. With slow, almost sensuous movements, it tapped a command into the pod's control panel. The second rakwiji rocked back and forth, scales rippling with excitement as the light in the pod flashed red.

The lid popped open, and Lisa could imagine the hiss of escaping air as the cartel guy half-fell from the box. He rolled onto his side, looking up at his rescuers with a horrible grimace. His face turned purple and his eyes bulged. One pleading hand extended toward them, but the rakwiji only stepped back and watched, toothy grins gleaming through their faceplates. Lisa couldn't look away, reminded of Seloh's torturous death at rakwiji hands. Is this what would happen to Qaiyaan when he could no longer keep up his shield? She wanted to vomit.

Jabbing at the control panels, Lisa tried to force the internal comm system to work. Tried to think like her brother. But her clumsy hacking attempts only covered her screens in error messages. She had to warn the crew. Make them get up. Get ready for battle. But they were all but helpless in the med bay.

With the cartel man dead, the rakwiji headed for the catwalk, side-by-side like the prey animals they were.

Qaiyaan, they just killed their own man. Silence roared in her ears. Qaiyaan?

I’m working on it. Qaiyaan’s frustration pounded at her. His need to breathe couldn’t be masked. He was running out of air.

She pictured his face, his beautiful copper skin darkening, his features disfiguring. Adrenaline had her hands trembling as her fingertips pounded the control panel with every hacker command she knew.

ACCESS DENIED.

Qaiyaan’s voice reached her, faint along the mental connection. I want you to know that I love you, Lisa.

Every muscle in her body tingled. This was not how she wanted to hear his feelings. Don’t give up.

She stared at the error boxes plastered across her screens. Her skills weren’t good enough, not without help. There was only one thing to do. Squeezing her eyes shut, she placed her palms flat against the dashboard and gathered her nanites. Qaiyaan would die if she didn’t get him inside. She needed to override the lockouts, to at least give him and the others a chance.

Packets of cyber-information threatened to knock her flat against the nav chair.

Don’t. Qaiyaan’s voice held command, even though she could sense he was failing. I’ll figure something out.

There’s no time. Savoring the last brush of his mind across hers, she said, I love you, Qaiyaan.

And dove into the ship’s system.

* * *

Qaiyaan stared at the blackened streak across the Hardship’s hull, his oxygen-deprived brain turning the laser damage into a monstrous grin under the beam of his headlamp. Lisa? She was no longer answering his thoughts. His heart beat too rapidly in his ears, burning precious oxygen at a rate he couldn’t afford. Anaq, Lisa, answer me!

He grimaced at the damage and pounded a fist against the plating. His body lifted away, free-floating toward open space. Clamping his fingers around the edge of the nearby landing fin, he dragged himself back toward the ship. Maintaining his ionic connection was becoming more difficult.

Maybe you should just let go. If Lisa was gone, what did he have to live for, anyway? His crew was comatose, at the mercy of cartel bounty hunters who would probably chop up the Hardship for salvage—right after they chopped up the crew.

No. That was the oxygen deprivation talking. He’d die before he gave up.

Hand-over-hand, he pulled himself between the landing fins and paused at the sealed access door into engineering. The entry panel was dark and unresponsive. Anaq. He’d hoped Lisa would be successful. That some miracle might give him a fighting chance. Instead, the woman he loved was in trouble. Lisa, wake up!

He couldn't feel her in his mind like he had before. He panned the light of his headlamp along the hull again as if the dull metal surface might provide more options. His lungs burned with a desire for air. The cartel ship must've pulled into the Hardship’s wake mere moments before the burn and somehow hidden here in a blind spot between the fins during his initial scans. Sneaky cartel bastards.

The comm webbing embedded across the hull was broken by laser fire in a couple of places. Tovik had connected an external booster to the comm array to act as an independent backup if they took too much damage. The chance of someone being within signal range was slim to none, but at the very least Qaiyaan wanted to leave a message. A legacy. The other Denaidans out there deserved to know how close he’d been to finding a mate. Mek’s medical notes had to be worth something.

Edging along the ship's exterior, he reached the comm junction and had to pause to calm his breathing. The dire cold of space was leaching through his shield and sinking into his bones, making it hard to move. His fingers were stiff, but he managed to open the junction box. Inside, Tovik's booster keypad was affixed to the side wall. The micro-screen blazed to life at Qaiyaan's touch. Using the frequency the Denaidan fleet used to alert each other of Syndicorp activity, he entered the ship's coordinates then encoded the message:

Under attack by cartel. Medical breakthrough on board.

The message was so inadequate, he laughed, and the expulsion of air caused his oxygen shield to slip. Icy vacuum nipped at his skin before he re-established control. Fuck it, he thought, and typed in:

If you ever hope to have sex again, send help.

That ought to get the fleet’s attention. Putting the broadcast on repeat, he headed back toward the access door to engineering. The message would continue to play until the booster’s battery pack ran out. Maybe someone in this sector would stumble across it. Someday. After he and Lisa were long gone.

Ahead of him, the door’s keypad looked like it was glowing. His vision swam, stars pressing in around the edges of consciousness. His ribcage felt as if bands were tightening around his torso, keeping him from taking a full breath. Staying connected to the ship took every bit of his concentration. He reached the access door, every muscle quivering with cold and exhaustion.

The keypad was live.