Tala followed Sage through the corridors of his ship, watching the interplay of his muscles as his arms swung at his sides. She had never seen him with his jacket off before, and she hadn’t quite realized how cut he was underneath it. Even if he lacked the hulking brawn of many of his men, he was clearly fit. Very fit.

She caught herself glancing down at his butt too. It was usually hidden by the fall of the uniform jacket, but not now. His trousers weren’t tight, but they were fitted, and showed enough that she knew she wouldn’t mind seeing more. Too bad there hadn’t been a medical reason to relieve him of his clothing when he’d been lying there, unconscious on that cot.

Her cheeks warmed at the thought of seeing him naked, and of him waking up and catching her looking at him. What a lie she’d told him about that dream. It had definitely been about him.

And that kiss. Had he read her thoughts? It was exactly what she had been thinking about while standing so close to him, stroking the back of his neck and wanting to stroke more of him.

What would have happened if his logostec hadn’t beeped? The kiss had started out sweet and gentle, but in those last few seconds, she’d sensed more hunger from him, more urgency, and her own body had responded in kind. She’d been a second from tugging his shirt out from his trousers and shoving her hand up under it to feel more of his hard body. All of his hard body.

She flushed anew at the memory. Between that kiss and the way he’d quietly apologized to her, telling her that he appreciated her, she imagined she would have many more dreams starring him.

He turned a corner, and she reminded herself that they had more than sex to worry about, and also that she’d told him another lie. That injection she’d given him had also contained a drug designed to stabilize his mood and make him feel mellow, in case the enzyme treatment did nothing. She’d almost laughed when she’d seen the chemical composition in the database she’d been browsing, because it had appeared similar to marijuana.

Sage might not laugh, though, if he realized she had drugged him. He would no doubt want his mind clear to deal with the ship’s problems. But, not confident that fiddling with the testosterone would do much, Tala had wanted to find another way to blunt the edge of the nebula’s effects.

Sage entered a ladder well, sliding down using the outside of the bars rather than the rungs, and disappearing into a corridor two levels below. Tala hurried after him and heard men’s voices as she came out.

“Report,” Sage said.

Tala caught up as two ensigns, one pointing toward the ceiling with one of those bow weapons that fired energy bolts. The other held something that looked like a compact blowtorch.

“They come out of nowhere, sir,” the ensign with the weapon blurted.

“Not nowhere,” the second one said. “That shaft around the corner. Somehow, he got the vent off without us hearing. Or one of his stupid flying robots did.”

Lines had been cut into the bulkhead next to the door, and a panel on the other side hung loose, wires dangling from inside. The men’s attempts to override the lock, apparently.

Sage looked distastefully at the mess, then lifted his logostec. “Chief Hierax.”

“Yes, sir, Captain, sir. What does his worshipfulness want now?”

“That mine detector you promised me. Any chance it’s ready?”

“Nah, I’m working on something else today.”

A thunk sounded over the comm, and Tala thought of the report that Hierax was in there throwing knives.

“We’re in the middle of a Zi’i minefield, Hierax,” Sage said with something akin to his usual calm. Was the estrogen working? Or maybe the drug? He hadn’t snapped those words the way he’d been snapping at people earlier. “I need you to work on the detector.”

“Not really interested in that, sir, Captain, sir.”

“What reward would I have to offer to get you interested?”

The ensigns exchanged surprised looks. Sage was probably used to having his orders obeyed without negotiations or bargaining.

Sage pointed at the one with the blowtorch, then at the wall. The man went back to work cutting an opening.

“Well now, I might have to think about that,” Hierax said.

Sage muted his logostec. “Eridanus, can’t you force this door open?”

“I tried, Captain,” the AI responded. “He’s overridden the computer and also locked out the cameras. I can no longer see what he’s up to in there. He has quite a gifted mind. For a human.”

One of the ensigns bumped the other. It seemed to be accidental, but it resulted in the heated exchange of words. It also delayed the blowtorch work.

“How many doses do you have with you?” Sage asked Tala quietly.

“Ten.” Tala adjusted the dosage meter, taking a guess at the rowdier ensign’s weight.

A faint buzz sounded, distracting her. Something small, no more than six inches wide, flew around the corner near the ceiling. The ensign with the weapon whirled and fired at it. The device—a drone?—zigzagged back and forth with impressive speed. He kept missing.

Sage pushed Tala against the wall as the drone fired. Something like BBs pelted the deck where she had been standing.

Sage sprang away from her and toward the drone. He paused, shaking his head as if something was bothering him, then growled and grabbed the ensign’s bow.

He only fired once, but it was enough. A bolt of energy slammed into the drone, shattering it into dozens of pieces that rained down onto the deck.

Wordlessly, Sage handed the weapon back to the ensign.

“That was brilliant shooting, sir,” the man said.

“You should have been able to do that, idiot,” his fellow ensign said.

Tala crept forward and jabbed the surly one in the back of the neck.

“What?” he blurted and whirled toward her.

She jumped back, since that blowtorch was in his hands, but Sage stepped in and deflected it away.

“Get back to work, Ensign Lysan,” Sage said, pointing his chin toward the half-started hole.

“But she stabbed me with something.”

“You destroyed my favorite toy, Captain,” Hierax’s voice rang out, coming over speakers in the corridor this time instead of over Sage’s logostec. “You won’t have as much luck with my booby traps.”

“Lysan,” Sage said, and jerked his chin toward the bulkhead again.

Tala stepped away from the wall and eyed the tiny gouges the pellets had left in the deck, glad she hadn’t been hit by them. And glad Sage had the reflexes of a ninja.

She opened her mouth to thank him, but caught him giving her a dirty look.

Puzzled, she mouthed, “What?”

“Later,” was his curt reply. “Eridanus, mute us from him.”

“I shall do my best, Captain.”

Sage commed the bridge on his logostec. “Lieutenant Coric, status?”

“Korta is still working on the mine problem. We’re close to the gate, and it’s possible we could roar through without hitting anything, but it wouldn’t be a good idea. Nobody’s working on getting the shield power back to full, so we can’t take another hit. It looks like we’re in the middle of the field and should neither back up, nor move forward. Nor up or down, for that matter.”

“I’m still trying to get that detector,” Sage said. “Go to the helm, and see if you can cause some engine alerts. Attempt a Qualiz Loop while we’re stationary.”

“You don’t actually want us to go anywhere, right, sir?”

“Correct. I want the engines pissed off so Hierax will have something to work on. I’m hoping he’ll feel compelled to fix a problem with the ship, whether he’s annoyed with me or not.”

“Yes, sir. But he’ll figure out I’m the problem and lock me out eventually.”

“We just need a few minutes.”

Tala must have been looking at him with confusion, because Sage tersely explained, “Like hitting the acceleration and the brakes at the same time on an auto-chariot. Progress, Lysan?”

“Almost through, sir,” the ensign with the blowtorch said. “Uhm, about the booby traps he mentioned…”

“Yes, I’ll deal with them,” Sage said, then turned to Tala. “Stay here.”

He jogged down the corridor and disappeared around a corner.

“Eridanus,” she heard him say as he ran, but the rest of his words disappeared with him.

The ensign that she’d drugged glared over at her as he worked. Apparently, he wasn’t in touch with his softer, grinnier side yet. The other one looked at her more curiously.

The blowtorch flicked off, and Lysan pried the square he’d made away from the bulkhead. “Hope there aren’t any booby traps in here,” he muttered, pulling a multitool out of his pocket and flicking open pliers.

“I wouldn’t put it past Hierax,” the other man said, his bow pointing back toward the ceiling again. “He’s an evil genius. I much prefer it when he’s on our side.”

“Me too.”

Tala shifted her weight from foot to foot and started to feel guilty that she wasn’t back in sickbay. She’d wanted to come with Sage to help him with his problem—to have him see her helping him with his problem, especially after he’d thanked her for her assistance thus far—but her skills would be put to better use patching people up rather than standing in a corridor.

A clunk-clang came from the other side of the door, and Tala tensed. It had sounded like they would have to storm the fortress, so she didn’t expect the engineer to come out, but she lifted her injector in case she had a chance to use it. Before leaving sickbay, she had jammed the stunner and another injector with a sedative into her pockets too.

A boom rattled the corridor, and her first thought was that the ship had somehow floated into another mine, but the entire deck didn’t pitch like the last time. The explosive seemed to have come from behind the door.

She’d no sooner had the thought than the door slid open, and smoke poured out. The ensigns jumped back. Tala lifted her stunner and her injector.

A man with a soot-stained face stumbled out, clutching his bare shoulder. He wore a grey tank that matched Sage’s, but his had a flap torn away, revealing a fresh gash dripping blood down his abdomen. He dropped to his knees, hands on the deck for support as he coughed.

“You fall on one of your own booby traps, Chief?” one of the ensigns asked.

“Shut up,” the man—Hierax—growled between ragged coughs.

Tala lowered her weapons, such as they were, and started toward him to help, but heavy footsteps behind her made her pause.

One of the Star Guardians strode toward them, wearing full combat armor. The faceplate was reflective, so she couldn’t see inside the helmet. Sage? She wasn’t sure, since the armor made everyone look huge, but he still wasn’t as tall as some of the other men.

Hierax wiped spittle from his mouth and glared at the armored figure. “Damn it, doesn’t anyone ever get the best of you?”

Sage—after that comment, Tala was sure that was who it was—stopped, his helmet swiveling toward the open door.

“What gas was that you were pumping through the vents?” Hierax demanded. “A sedative? And how in all of Hades’ dominion did you get the vents working? I had everything locked down—I know I did.”

“Not the speakers,” Sage said, his voice sounding muffled through the helmet.

“What?”

“You didn’t have the speakers turned off. You only heard the sound of gas hissing in.”

Hierax’s face gradually shifted from angry to enlightened—and appalled. Or maybe that was disgusted. He looked from Sage to engineering, and back to Sage. “Fuck.”

“Doctor.” Sage gripped his engineer by the upper arm, not appearing overly worried about the man’s injuries. He hefted him into the air so that his feet dangled a few inches above the deck. “Make him a woman.”

“What?” Hierax cried, his eyes bulging as they focused on her injector.

Tala recovered from her own surprise at the turnabout and stepped forward. Hierax wasn’t a small man, so she assumed that armor enhanced its wearer’s strength—Sage was holding him up one-handedly.

Hierax tried to bat away the injector, but Sage’s other arm came up, his hand clamping down on the engineer’s wrist. Those gauntleted fingers squeezed, and Hierax gasped.

Tala felt bad for the man, even though he’d all but sabotaged the ship because of his irritation with Sage, but that didn’t keep her from tapping the injector against his bare skin. An almost comical groan of defeat came out of his mouth.

“Am I going to turn into a woman too?” Lysan whispered to his fellow ensign.

“You’re already a woman, dummy.”

Sage lowered Hierax to his feet, but didn’t let him go. “How many booby traps are left?”

“Screw you, sir, Captain, sir,” Hierax snarled.

Sage’s faceplate turned toward Tala.

“It’ll take a few minutes before the hormone takes effect,” she said. She still wasn’t sure her enzymes had done much. Her drug might have played as large or a larger role in mellowing Sage. “You didn’t get cuddly for several minutes.”

“Cuddly?” one of the ensigns choked out. It seemed he couldn’t imagine his captain having such an adjective linked to him.

Tala thought about stepping close to Sage and patting him on the arm, but she remembered that annoyed look he’d given her and wasn’t sure how he felt toward her at the moment.

“You lead the way in,” Sage said, shoving Hierax toward the doorway. “I’d prefer not to need the services of the armor smith today.”

Tala realized he had put the armor on assuming he would have to walk through the engineer’s booby traps. He must not have expected his ruse to work. Or maybe he was the sort to always have a backup plan. That seemed likely.

Hierax grumbled under his breath, but with Sage behind him and holding him—and applying pressure as necessary—he walked slowly back into engineering.

“Not there,” his voice drifted back out. “Or there. Or especially there.”

They successfully walked inside without any further explosions occurring.

“Ensign Lysan,” Sage called back. “I expect that bulkhead repaired by the end of the day.”

The ensign looked down at his blowtorch and sighed.