A soft trill pulled me from drowsing.

I lay in the dimmed lights, Loree’s legs tangled with mine, her soft body sprawled over my chest, the raven dark hair spilling everywhere.

Somewhere in the room the maintenance bots would find the pins I’d pulled out with my teeth.

The trill came again, and I snapped fully awake. A call to the comm unit in the outer room of the suite.

Slowly I slipped out from under her, but not smoothly enough.

“What is it?” Her face turned to mine, eyes half-closed, lush lips calling me back for more kisses.

“Nothing, babe. Go back to sleep.”

She burrowed into the pillows, her answer too muffled to make out, even for my hearing.

A third trill, insistent. Pissing me off.

Pants. Find pants before answering call, even if annoyed.

I slid the bedroom door shut while hopping into what was left of them, hoping the room had a fabricator. Something stabbed my foot, and I bit off a curse. A jeweled hairpin. The sight of it enough to mellow my mood.

“Answer.”

Not surprisingly, Helo’s face filled the screen.

“Apologies for the early call.”

I checked the wall unit and remembered the manners Doc had drilled into us. “Not that early. We appreciate the place to stay.”

“Fantastic advertising.” He waved, dismissing the matter. “Thought you’d want to know my boys are hearing that people are asking questions. Who you are, who do you work for. The usual.”

Dammit. I’d hoped Loree could sleep longer. “I appreciate the heads up. We’ll get out of your hair, save you some trouble.”

“No hurry. I’ve spread the word that you’re working for me, here on a long contract.”

“That was very… obliging of you.” His face stayed a pleasant mask, giving me no clues. “What do you get out of it?”

“Nothing. Later, if we cross paths, I might be tempted to ask for a favor. I’ve made it a point to stay on the good side of people like you.”

My fists curled, hopefully out of sight of the screen. “What you mean people like me?”

“Lucky people, what else? I suspect I won’t regret offering favors to a couple as fortunate and quick of mind.” He settled back in his chair. “Now, we both know you’re not staying. You’d be welcome, but I’d be surprised if that was the plan.”

“No, moving on. Just need to buy a ship.”

“I’d be happy to send you some recommendations, but I suspect you’d be happier doing your own research.”

“A bit,” I lounged back, the smell of last night’s stale liqueur curling through the room.

“I do want to make one more offer,” he continued.

“You’ve already been more than generous.”

“Not really. But this is above board. If you’d like to leave your companion here, I can assure you she’d be safe until your return.”

“Really. Safe. On Outlander Terminal,” I growled, red anger simmering.

“When a man such as yourself wants to go somewhere discreetly, it’s fair to say the trip isn’t going to be safe. I promise, she’d be an honored guest.”

Loree. Safe.

Helo might be a gangster, or worse... but oddly I was sure he’d keep his word on this. If only because he suspected what I’d do if he failed.

“I appreciate the offer. Hell, enough to mark it as another favor to your credit.” I shook my head. “But she’s made her choice. She stays with me.”

“As you wish. Safe travels.”

The screen snapped off and I leaned back into the couch, rubbing my eyes. When we got back to Orem, I’d sleep for a week. Make that two. Until then...

“Good call, buster.”

Loree leaned in the doorway to the bedroom, wearing nothing but my slightly torn jacket from last night.

“How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough to wonder what he’s getting out of it.” She stretched, and the hem of the garment pulled up, drawing my eyes with it.

“Breakfast.” I blurted out, leaping to the fabricator.

“I don’t eat much in the morning, really.”

I flipped through options, carefully not looking her way. “It’s a good idea to eat when you can. Go get showered, dial-up some nondescript clothes. I’ll have food ready when you get out.”

Her small hand ran up my spine. Dammit.

“Don’t you need to shower too?”

“Yes,” I ground out, jaw tight. “But if we’re going to get out of here with any sort of speed, I’d better not join you.”

Her low throaty laugh would have to be reward enough.

Listening to the sprayer from the other room I programmed the fab for a new set of clothes. Last night we needed to blend in with the high rollers. Today was just about blending in. Grays and browns, loose. Practical.

And when Loree came in wearing a shapeless tunic and pants, she was still the most beautiful thing that I’d ever seen.

I handed her a small bowl.

She wrinkled her nose at the gray porridge within. “If I can’t keep this down I’m going to blame you.”

“I put extra sweetener in it,” I coaxed. “Just like Doc used to make for us.”

“You’re kidding.” She took a bite, eyes narrowed with disbelief. “Somehow I don’t imagine Doc fixing breakfast for a ship full of boys.”

“Not often,” I conceded, happily eating my own double serving. “But during testing, or if we got in ourselves into some sort of scrape, she’d make an exception.”

Quickly we finished breakfast and put the bowls in the recycler while Loree gathered the remnants of our clothes from last night.

She handed me her dress. “Save me a piece of that before you throw it in?”

I pulled off a strip for her. “It did tear nicely, didn’t it.”

She used the makeshift ribbon to tie her hair back into a simple braid and answered my grin with her own. “I remember.”

I ran my hand through my own short-cut hair. “White. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You weren’t, but honestly, it might not be a bad thing.”

“How do you figure that?”

“First thing anyone’s going to notice,” she shrugged, slinging the small bag from last night over her shoulder and slipping the tablet inside. “It’s enough of a distraction from the rest of the package.”

“We’ll have to hope that works. “ I scanned the room. Nothing left of us here. “Come on, let’s go get a ship. One without trackers this time.”

As we left, I bent down to retrieve one of the hairpins and slipped it into my pocket. A tiny memory of a perfect night.

At the docks I didn’t ask many questions, just wandered, keeping my ears open. A stranger asking about a ship for sale out of the blue would catch too much attention.

Luckily, people love to talk about someone else’s misfortune.

In less than an hour we had a lead on three different pilots who’d had a bad run of luck. Maybe bad enough to need to sell out.

The first one wanted an exorbitant amount for his ship.

Maybe, just maybe we could have made enough with another night of gambling, but it was far more ship than we needed for this run.

“Not worth it,” I decided. “Especially when we have other options.”

The next was a lovely little craft. Clean, the right size for the job. Looked well-kept, though I’d want to see the engines myself. The cargo loaders at the next berth over said the captain was looking to settle down. Was somewhere on the station, but they didn’t know when she’d be back.

I settled down to wait, and Loree curled up beside me, eyes glued to her tablet as she tapped and flicked through screens. “We may have a problem.”

“That wouldn’t be new.”

“No, but we may need to move a little faster. On the chatter for Fentria-3, it looks like they’ll be starting a hiring freeze in the next day or two because of security.”

Crap. “That’s the only way I can see to get inside.”

“I know... but how are we going to get there, and get hired fast enough?”

I stood up, offered her my hand. “Unfortunately, the first step is by not by waiting here for the owner. Let’s keep moving.”

The third ship was...not ideal. I’d flown worse, dealt with twitchier engines. But I was glad that our loudly announced three-week prospecting trip was a lie.

“What you think?”

“I liked the other one better,”Loree confessed.

“So did I. But if your research is right about the hiring freeze, we may not have any choice.”

I didn’t like it. My gut didn’t like it.

But sometimes, there wasn’t a choice. I closed the deal, paying extra to load food and fuel quickly. Loree kept working until I reached over to tweak her braid.

“The system here is fabulous,” she explained, fingers not pausing in their work. “Everyone runs different servers, locked down, bounced and scattered. I can’t get the identities set up that fast, but I can tunnel back to here, leave such a tangle of trails anyone would have a hell of a time figuring out where their systems were breached.”

She lifted her tablet up to my face and snapped. The bright flash left me blinking. “Thanks. Need to plug-in retina scans.”

The spots slowly faded. “Maybe work on our destination, first?”

“Looks like there are only five or six cities on Fetria. Towns really. Sustenance farming, basic food matter exports. Nothing of any particular interest to anyone. But folks looking for something more end up moving to the one larger town, Bartrowe. And that’s where Themis recruits from.”

“Then we’ll start there,” I decided. “Looks like that’s the last of the supplies to be loaded. Let’s go.”

Preliminary flight checks looked within tolerable specs. Still, the nagging feeling persisted.

“Odd question, but could you crash this if needed?” Loree asked.

“It might be better to ask if I can avoid it,” I grumbled, watching the gauges.

“Perfect.”

I settled down as we entered warp space and pivoted my chair to see if she was joking.

It didn’t look like it. “I think you need to explain your plan.”

“I’ve backdated the registration and ownership files. We’re now coming from Voslyn-8, two systems away. With the heightened security on Fentria-3, I didn’t think we’d be able to just land wherever without going through some security at a port of entry.”

“Good plan,” I admitted. “I’ve been thinking we would ditch the ship somewhere and sneak in, but this is better.”

“It doesn’t look like there’s much sneaking to be done.” With the swipe of her hand she threw the screen from the tablet on the ship’s side terminal. “SysSec already deployed satellites around Fentria. Whatever else is going on, they’re taking that job seriously.”

“Good for them. So why are we visiting from lovely.... where?”

“Voslyn. And it’s not lovely, its a desert. We’re coming for the algae.” I knew I needed sleep, because that made no sense at all.

“Algae?”

“Mass filler for replicators. They don’t really have anything else going for them, and algae farming doesn’t take much. Light, brackish water, carbon dioxide.”

Somehow through all of our training, I’d never really thought much about where our protein came from.

“They harvest a few other things, but algae is really what their economy is based on. What there is of it.” She went back to her screens. “We’re looking for new, cheaper strains of algae.”

The idea slid around in my mind, while I tested it for holes. No worse than any number of half-baked plans I’d used before. “Alright, that could work. So why do we need to crash?”

“Because we need a reason to take a job that everyone knows is dangerous. We need to fix up our ship.”

I scrubbed the side of my head. I should’ve thought this through better, but the pressure at the back of my skull wasn’t helping me process clearly.

“Sounds like it could work. Should work, even.”

“I’ll get our IDs and retina scans set up long before we get out of warp.” She looked up, frowning. “How long is that anyway?”

Checked the controls. “You’ve got, two, three hours.”

“Easy peasy.”

I heaved out of the pilot’s chair. “If I’m gonna pretend to crash this thing, I better go check out the engines, see what I’m really working with.”

Loree made little humming noise. Maybe she’d remember where I was going, but I’d bet not.

We bounced out of warp, and immediately were hailed.

“Small craft beacon number 2486SA, come in. What’s the purpose of your visit?”

Loree flipped on the comm. “Hey there! We’re traders, from Voslyn. Here to shop for some algae, our mother stock died last month, over oxygenated, couldn’t get it back up, you know how it is.” She took a deep breath, let all the words spill out like water. “Anyhow, we hear from everyone, just everyone, that the strongest, cheapest algae stock is found here on Fentria-3. So we figured we’d just head over and see what there is to -”

“Please submit your paperwork to the channel coming in on your comms,” responded the exasperated official.

“Happy to,” Loree continued. “While I’ve got you on the line, I wanted to know what you thought about Ciphra-B strand versus Brandon Blue-Green. I think Ciphra-B is best, but I’d love to hear what local folks think.”

“Ma’am,” the heavy voice cut back in. “I wouldn’t know. You’re cleared for landing.”

“Well thank you, sugar. We’ll be right down.”

She cut the mic and giggled. “It’s amazing how much people don’t want to listen when you try to tell them every. last. detail.”

Following the coordinates, I settled us into an easy glide. Until the cockpit lit up, lights flashing and alarms blaring.

“That’s a great job, I’m impressed you put all that together.” Loree’s voice was bright with excitement. “Good thinking, just in case they check systems logs.”

I kept my focus on the controls, but couldn’t help laughing. “You’d be more impressed if it wasn’t real.”

Loree’s eyes widened and she checked all the points of her harness before carefully tucking the damn tablet into the satchel. “You mean, we really...”

“Hang on, babe. We’re heading down hard.”