Katie leaned her elbow on the tall helm console as Juanita, Yulia, Bethany, Angela, and almost all the rest of the kidnapped women filed into the shuttle. It looked like Tala was staying behind. It wasn’t surprising that the captain would want his new head doctor with them for the battle, but Katie wouldn’t have guessed Tala would be willing to stay. It wasn’t as if it was her battle, and to die out here in some other nation’s war… it was hard to imagine. For Tala. Katie would jump at the chance to go along if it meant she could fly a spaceship. Who knew when she would have another chance like this? If ever.

She smiled as she imagined herself bringing down enemy ships and becoming a hero to a people who hadn’t known until a few months ago that her planet existed.

Juanita waved, maybe thinking the smile was for her. Katie was surprised Juanita hadn’t convinced the captain that she should stay, right alongside Tala. Wouldn’t participating in some huge war be good fodder for one of her stories?

Orion filed in after her, so that could have explained her willingness to leave the Falcon 8. The captain must have decided that he should stay behind because he was a civilian.

As the women crowded in, Katie remained up front by the navigation console, clearly not in the passenger area. Clearly a pilot. She was ready to take control as soon as Zakota flew the shuttle out of the bay. That was the deal, and a few minutes earlier, he’d come down and told her to get ready to fly. Now, he stood in the hatchway, directing the women inside.

It would be a tight fit. The shuttle looked like it was designed to hold about ten of those hulking Zi’i warriors. Humans took up less space, but not significantly less space.

“Katie’s flying?” Indi asked as soon as she walked in, Hierax right behind her. “Where are the seat belts?”

“Probably wherever the seats are.” Juanita looked at the open space that could have held cargo as easily as people.

Orion walked over to a hook on the wall, grasped it, and waved for her to join him.

“That’s not going to cut it if she flies upside down,” Indi said.

“There won’t be any need for that.” Zakota waved her farther inside to make room for others waiting to board. “It’s a straight shot over to the station.”

“There was no need for it when she flew me to Brian Head, either,” Indi said. “But she did it anyway.”

“I thought you would think it was fun,” Katie said.

“I threw up in my mouth.”

“If her flying gets too alarming, we can turn control over to Zakota,” Hierax said, touching Indi’s back.

“Is that supposed to be comforting?”

“Well…”

“All right,” Zakota said, “let’s get everybody aboard. The captain said he’s leaving us all behind if we don’t get over there, buy the chief his supplies, and fly back within an hour.”

“He won’t leave without me,” Hierax said. “I’m mission critical.”

Katie tapped her palm on the console. She itched to get going, and it had nothing to do with the captain’s impatience. Despite the frustrating ending to her simulation, the “flight” had been fun—a lot of fun. Now she wanted the real thing.

Zakota closed the hatch with a resounding clang, and Katie bounced on her toes. Her fingers itched. She hadn’t realized how much she missed her plane back home. She’d often dreamed of saving up enough money to buy an old barnstormer with the cockpit open to the air, so she could feel the rush of wind as she flew. She could never have that with a spaceship, but how amazing would it be to fly to different star systems, to skim past gas giants and through asteroid fields and to race comets between the stars?

“Are we sure this boat isn’t sabotaged?” Indi asked.

“Er, what?” Katie frowned back at her. “Is that likely?”

“Back in the Wanderer System, the helm of the warship was sabotaged by an alien that was in hiding until it tried to kill me in engineering.”

The words spurred a flurry of alarmed conversations and glances toward the hatch.

“It’s not sabotaged,” Hierax said. “I checked both shuttles myself.”

“Did you check the helm before it blew up?” Bethany asked.

“It didn’t blow up. It caught fire.”

“That’s such a relief.”

“It was sabotaged after I checked it,” Hierax said. “We didn’t know there was a Zi’i warrior still in hiding on the warship.”

“What if there’s one still in hiding now?” someone asked.

Hierax gave Indi an exasperated look.

She winced and mouthed, “Sorry,” as women continued to voice concerns.

Zakota walked to his spot at the helm beside Katie and quirked an eyebrow at her. What, did he think she knew how to calm down a bunch of women? One could simply tell soldiers to shut up. That rarely worked with civilians.

“All right, all right,” Hierax said, raising his voice and lifting his hands. “I’ll check the shuttle again.” He walked toward Zakota and Katie, his voice dropping to a mutter as he added, “I’m sure the captain will love a delay.”

Katie stepped aside so he could take her spot. He pulled something that looked like a fancy multimeter out of his tool satchel and clipped a wire to a connector.

“You’ve checked the shuttles since that Zi’i was discovered, haven’t you?” Zakota asked quietly.

Hierax rolled his eyes. “I checked them an hour ago. Right before your protégé started blowing up simulated aliens.”

“So what are you doing now?”

“Nothing.”

Zakota snorted.

“The needle is moving on your gauge,” Katie observed.

“Yes, it’s confirming that there’s power to the deck warmers.”

“Deck warmers?”

“Apparently, the Zi’i like to keep their toes warm in space.” Hierax waved to the deck, unplugged his meter, and stepped back. “Shuttle’s safe,” he announced loudly.

The voices of protest in the passenger area faded. Orion eyed Hierax suspiciously but didn’t say anything.

While Zakota powered up the shuttle, he pulled his necklace of teeth out of his uniform so he could kiss the large one in the middle—it was carved into a humanoid figurine. He dropped it back under his jacket and reached for the controls, but paused, snapping his fingers. “Almost forgot.”

He ran to the hatch, opened it, and disappeared outside. He returned with a box in his arms, closed the hatch, and brought the item to Katie, setting it on the deck next to her.

“Footstool,” he said.

“Oh.” She nudged it into position. “That’s thoughtful. If a little embarrassing.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I’m not used to being short.”

“Everything is oversized for humans here. Nothing wrong with standing on something. Better than having to jump up to reach the weapons controls.”

Her cheeks warmed as she squinted at him. Was that a guess or had he been observing her? At the least, he had to have seen the results of the simulator test. Otherwise he wouldn’t have agreed that she could fly. She had been surprised by his announcement, given how the test had ended. Back home, blowing up one’s plane was generally considered a sign of failure.

Her hand rested on the controls, and he gave it a friendly pat.

Normally, she would pull away from a guy offering such a gesture—she was tough and independent and didn’t need supportive gestures, so there—but his fingers brushed across hers as he drew them away, and a warm tingle spread through her body, nerves in her core stirring to life.

For a moment, all she could think was that she wanted his hand back on hers, or maybe elsewhere on her body. But that was dumb. It hadn’t been a sexual gesture, and they barely even knew each other. And forty women were looking at their backs.

“Depressurizing shuttle bay,” Zakota announced, tapping various slides and buttons before resting a hand in the patch of gel that acted as a flight stick here.

It was weird stuff that one could squish, push, flatten, and mold. Rocking one’s hand from side to side and pushing forward and back in the three-dimensional goo wasn’t hard, but it had taken Katie a while to get used to manipulating it in such a way as to direct the shuttle up and down. One couldn’t bank in space, not in the traditional sense, and wings and rudders seemed to be purely decorative if they were there at all. Everything relied on angling the thrusters correctly.

“And we’re off,” Zakota said.

The shuttle did not have a view screen, not like on the Falcon 8’s bridge, but the holographic display wrapped around what Katie thought of as the cockpit area, showing more than one hundred eighty degrees around the nose of the fang. A camera display floated to one side, showing the view to the rear of the shuttle.

Even though the ship had dampeners or stabilizers or something that kept them from feeling G-forces, Katie’s grin widened as the display showed them advancing toward the shuttle bay exit. They were moving. Soon, she would fly.

Two huge doors slid open, revealing starry black space ahead of them. In the distance, she could see the station, a well-lit X within a wheel with bulbous protrusions up and down the framework. Hotels, restaurants, casinos, and whatever else a station held, she imagined.

She wished it were farther away so she would have more time flying, but at least this was something, a chance to control her destiny, at least for a while.

“Can I take over?” she asked as soon as they cleared the shuttle bay doors.

She expected Zakota to object, to make some excuse about why he needed to pilot them a little farther. Would he be nervous about handing a rookie the controls?

“I’m surprised you haven’t already,” he said, grinning at her and extending a hand toward the console.

She found herself grinning back, and paused to appreciate the amusement in his eyes before pressing her right hand onto the gel pad. Even though she barely knew Zakota, she felt more relaxed at his side than she would have expected. In the past, she’d gotten nervous under the eyes of flight instructors. Maybe because he was younger than those other instructors had been—or because she was older than she had been back then—this was more comfortable. Maybe it was also because he seemed more like a colleague than an instructor. He certainly had that roguish and mischievous attitude that many of her military colleagues had possessed.

Still grinning, she immediately commanded the shuttle to surge forward at a speed that wouldn’t leave the captain impatient. She was a little disappointed that the vessel compensated so well and that she didn’t feel the surge. Though perhaps it was a good thing since she was standing on a box instead of being harnessed into a seat.

Zakota smirked but didn’t comment on her speed.

When she saw how rapidly the station grew on the display, she was tempted to slow down to lengthen the trip, but she doubted that would be a popular choice.

An alarm flashed on Zakota’s side of the console.

“Is that the proximity alarm?” she asked, remembering seeing that flash over there during the simulation.

The computer hadn’t been amused by how close she’d taken the shuttle to some boulders.

“Yes, watch for traffic as we get close to the station. There’s a freighter coming in from above.” Zakota pointed toward the ceiling of the cockpit.

Katie almost flinched. She’d known the wrap-around display flowed across the ceiling in addition to the front and the walls, but she’d forgotten about it.

A hulking reddish-brown ship that looked like a flying brick had come in from an angle. It was heading toward the station, too, like an elephant that didn’t care if it stepped on some ants along the way.

She dropped lower to put more space between her shuttle and the brick, and she sped up, wanting to reach their destination first. After all, the captain didn’t want delays, right?

Ahead of them, a couple of ships the size of theirs flew into a rectangle on the bottom of the X. The opening led into a hangar-sized bay with at least a dozen craft of vastly different shapes, sizes, and designs inside.

She leaned forward, surprised by other figures. “Are there people walking around in there?”

Zakota glanced at her. “You have good eyes.”

“They don’t let you fly if you’re blind.”

“Yes, those are people—humans and aliens. After we land, we’ll be able to walk into the station. There’s artificial gravity in the bay. That’s something to be aware of when you’re landing. Which I’ll handle this time.”

“How are the people not being sucked out into space?” Katie glanced up, noticing that freighter over them again. It had sped up to match their pace. No, it was going a little faster than they were now. She scowled at it.

“Technically,” came Juanita’s voice from behind them, “you’re blown out into space.”

“I’m sure it makes a huge difference.”

“Actually,” Hierax said, in a tone that made it sound like a lecture was coming.

“There’s a forcefield across that opening,” Zakota said, putting a finger to his lips as he glanced back at Hierax. “It’s designed to allow ships to come and go while keeping the atmosphere inside. I’ll be flying us through it, but if you were to do it, you would feel the resistance as we enter. You have to be careful not to overcompensate, or you can end up kissing the far side of the bay. Spectacularly.”

“Which your engineer would not appreciate,” Hierax said, apparently feeling the need to say something.

“Let the freighter go ahead of us,” Zakota said.

“Even though he’s being a posturing asshole?” Katie asked, certain the brick’s pilot was intentionally crowding her.

“Well, we’re in a Zi’i ship, remember. Most of the galaxy has a reason to hate the Zi’i.”

“Do they eat other species too?”

“A few,” Zakota said. “Though I’ve heard humans are their preferred protein source.”

“Fantastic.”

Though she wanted to zip in to beat the freighter—Katie didn’t back down when people challenged her to races—she knew she shouldn’t start anything with forty passengers on board, passengers trusting her to get them safely to their destination.

“This is why I never got into commercial stuff,” she muttered.

She expected Zakota to ask what she meant, but his eyes glinted, as if he understood perfectly.

“Man, it’s like the camera panning across a Star Destroyer in Star Wars,” Juanita said. She and the other women watched as the huge brick flew over them, leaving them in its obnoxious shadow.

“It’s just a freighter,” Hierax said. “They don’t even have weapons.”

“It should be heading for one of the open docking spots,” Zakota said. “As soon as it passes, we can continue to the shuttle bay. The captain commed ahead and let station control know that we’re not Zi’i, so nobody should be wetting themselves as we fly in—or lunging for weapons.”

“Things I don’t typically have to worry about when entering a room,” Katie said.

Zakota glanced at her chest, and she thought he might ask about other reactions her presence in a room might inspire, but he quickly looked away. Had he been checking her out? She wasn’t showing any cleavage, but the top under her jacket hugged things nicely. Maybe he’d noticed.

She shifted her jacket open further, just in case he wanted to notice more. Then she snorted at herself. She wasn’t looking to date him, just play with his shuttle.

She smirked, imagining Hierax asking if that was a penis euphemism. Maybe this time, it was.

Zakota was a little odd, but he was handsome standing there in profile, his face expressive, his lips quick to grin. And he had forearms that would make most bodybuilders envious.

The freighter was flying ahead of them, and Katie shifted her attention to it again. The stupid brick seemed to slow down now that it had passed them. No, not seemed. She checked the shuttle’s equivalent of a speedometer. It had slowed down.

“We have weapons,” she said. “I know we do. I fired at things in the simulation.”

“This is civilized space,” Zakota said. “You don’t get to fire at people for being bad chariot drivers.”

“Hell, it’s as bad as home then.”

Instead of heading for one of the docking stations higher up on the X, the freighter ambled toward the shuttle bay.

“Uh, he knows he’s not going to fit, right?” Katie asked.

“If he doesn’t, he’s going to find out soon.” Zakota scratched his jaw and looked back at Hierax.

The engineering chief was the higher ranking of the two and in charge of the mission, despite Zakota shushing him earlier.

Hierax only shrugged. “No idea what he’s doing.”

The freighter came to a stop. Directly in front of the shuttle bay entrance.

“Well,” Zakota said. “That’s problematic.”

“Comm him,” Hierax said.

Zakota pushed a couple of the sliders around and tapped a holographic button.

Katie was forced to slow the shuttle to a stop, where they had a close-up view of the freighter’s pimpled red ass. “You’re sure we can’t fire at it? Just a little?”

“You sound like Killer,” Zakota said.

“Who’s that? One of the svenkars?”

“Might as well be. No answer, Chief. Which is odd. The Drynka are known for being chatty.”

Drynka? Was that a nationality? Or a species of alien?

“Maybe they’re busy talking to station control,” Hierax said. “Explaining why they’re stopping up the pipe works. Give it a minute to see if he moves, then comm the captain. His name carries a lot more sway than mine does. Unless we’re in engineering circles. Or Razor Wars circles. Where I’m known for being quite the badass.”

Katie snorted. She didn’t know what Razor Wars was, but Hierax was about as badass as Bill Gates. He had the Star Guardian muscles and the tattoo, but geekiness oozed out of him.

“In case you’re wondering,” Juanita said, “Orion showed me Razor Wars, and it seems to be a cross between World of Warcraft and the Star Wars MMORPG.”

MM-what?

“Just so you know, Juanita,” Katie said, tapping her fingers on her thigh, “when you clarify things for me, it doesn’t help as much as you seem to think it should.”

“Angela says that too. And Tala. I don’t think you all were the right people to go into outer space.”

“I’ve noticed.” Katie waved at the holographic display, wondering if she could zoom in on things or figure out exactly how much room was between the freighter and that forcefield entrance.

“Captain,” Zakota said, comming the Falcon 8, “we have a problem.”

“I noticed,” Sagitta responded promptly.

“Katie, er, one of the passengers thinks we should shoot at it.”

His flub reminded Katie that the captain didn’t know about the deal she and Zakota had made. She didn’t regret wheeling and dealing with him, but she hoped he wouldn’t get in trouble because of it.

“I’m talking to station control, who is talking to the freighter captain,” Sagitta said. “The Drynka claim they’re having a mechanical problem and can’t move.”

“They couldn’t have accidentally come to a stop right there,” Zakota said. “That was some precise navigation that halted them in front of the door.”

“I know. Station control is irritated with them, and the aliens have promised they’ll make their repairs as quickly as possible and get out of the way.”

“Should I volunteer to go over and help them?” Hierax asked. “I’ll only charge a few thousand drachmas an hour for my time.”

“I’ve already offered your services,” Sagitta said. “They rejected them.”

“Maybe you told them my rate too early in the negotiation.”

“It may be egotistical to think this,” Sagitta said, “but I suspect they may have been paid or bribed to delay us specifically.”

“That’s not ego,” Hierax said. “That’s logic. That timing and placement was too precise to believe anything else.”

“Why would someone want to delay you?” Katie asked, though she was only half paying attention to the conversation. She’d found a way to zoom in, with the sensors showing her what a camera couldn’t see, the amount of space between the hull of the station and the hull of the freighter. Just over thirty feet. She was fairly certain the shuttle was narrower than that. More like twenty feet wide. If the freighter didn’t have any shielding or protrusions that would get in the way, would it be possible to slip through?

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Sagitta said.

The problem was that she would need room to turn. Flying parallel between the freighter and the side of the space station wouldn’t get her anywhere if her pointy fang of a shuttle couldn’t veer into the bay.

“What are the specs for this ship?” she whispered to Zakota, not wanting to guesstimate on something this important. He hadn’t mentioned the shuttle having shields, and crunching against the side of the space station wouldn’t be good for anyone’s health.

“Uh.” Zakota poked at the controls on the device Hierax had hooked up.

“The Zi’i could have anticipated that we might make it out of the Wanderer System one way or another,” Sagitta continued, “and that it would be in time to join the battle, but it’s hard to believe that they would be that concerned about one Star Guardian ship.”

“And one of their warships,” Hierax added. “And don’t forget your reputation, Captain.”

“I haven’t, but it—and our two ships—are fairly insignificant in comparison to the home forces of the Dethocolean System. Further, there’s not any way they could know about Hierax’s plans to use Wanderer tech to build superior weapons.”

A new display appeared above the console, an image of the shuttle. It showed a cross-section with inside and outside measurements. Unfortunately, they weren’t in English. Back on the Falcon, the ship’s AI had been translating readouts into English for the Earth women. Apparently, Eridanus’s influence didn’t extend this far.

“Going to have to make a best guess,” she whispered.

Zakota frowned over at her and looked like he was going to say something, but the captain spoke again.

“If the freighter doesn’t move in the next five minutes, I’ll bring the Falcon in to deal with it.” His tone turned grim. “One way or another. We don’t have time for this.”

“Yes, sir,” Zakota said.

“I thought firing at other ships was frowned upon,” Katie said.

“He’s probably thinking of using the tow beam on it.”

“Would that work?” Juanita asked. She’d left Orion’s side to come up to stand behind Katie. “That thing’s a behemoth.”

“Probably not, unless the captain has got something creative planned,” Zakota said.

Katie fired the shuttle’s thrusters to nudge them upward.

“Creative?” Hierax asked. “Without me there to help?”

“There are other people on the ship with more than the average number of brain cells,” Zakota said.

“I bet you could list them on your fingers. Of one hand. I—what’s she doing?”

“I’m not sure.” Zakota peered at her. “Katie?”

“Trying something,” she said, guiding them over the freighter’s back. Or did spaceships have tops?

Now that she could see it with her eyes, she studied the gap between the freighter and the station. Yes, about thirty feet.

Hierax had moved forward to stand behind Zakota—Katie was starting to feel claustrophobic from the number of people coming closer for a better look. Shouldn’t passengers be penned in the back behind some locked door?

Hierax thumped Zakota on the shoulder. “I thought you were supposed to be the pilot when it was time to land.”

“We’re not landing,” Zakota said. “Er, are we, Katie?”

She smiled tightly and pressed her fingers into the gel. The shuttle crept closer to the hull of the station as it glided a couple dozen meters above the freighter.

The proximity alarm flashed again. At first, Katie thought it was warning her that they were getting closer to the station. But she realized the freighter had started moving, lifting up toward them.

“What’s that brick doing now?” she muttered, taking them higher while continuing toward the station.

“Trying to bounce us into the nearest sun, I think,” Hierax said.

Behind him, the women shifted around uneasily.

“Nothing to worry about,” Orion said calmly, answering some alarmed question about dying.

Katie, concentrating on flying, didn’t hear what else anyone said. She focused on the gap between the freighter and the station. They were almost to it now. The freighter kept rising. Was it enough that she might zip around it and enter the shuttle bay from below? Probably not. The massive ship had to have dozens of levels. She wasn’t the Trekkie that Juanita was, but she remembered the Borg cube. This was almost as big and clunky. And the way it kept creeping higher, forcing her farther from the bay, made her uneasy.

When she reached the station’s hull, she tipped them nose down, so she could skim through the gap. Yes, there was plenty of room for them to fit. At least five feet of clearance on both sides of the shuttle.

She was tempted to shoot down to the glow of light coming from the entrance, but neither the hull of the freighter nor the station was smooth. Here and there, metal lumps and boxes that reminded her of air conditioners protruded. She picked a careful route through them.

“Halfway there,” she muttered, realizing all the conversations had stopped.

The proximity alarm flashed again—it hadn’t stopped, but now it flashed more quickly. Urgently. Then a wailing erupted from the walls, and Katie almost fell off her stool.

“They’re trying to squish us,” Zakota said, reaching for the controls.

Katie growled, slapped his hand away, and slammed her fingers down into the gel. She shoved them forward, ordering the shuttle to accelerate.

She zipped past those protrusions so fast they blurred. The glow from the shuttle bay entrance grew brighter as they flew closer to it, but she could also see the massive hull of the freighter pushing inward, closing the gap.

The shuttle was slightly taller than it was wide, so she spun them on their side, darting left and right around the damn protrusions. Why hadn’t these idiots built a space station with flat walls?

The bay entrance came up, and she jerked the nose toward it as she threw on the reverse thrusters—the equivalent of the brakes. Right away, she knew there wasn’t room enough to turn them into the bay, not without—

A crunch-clank came from the back at the same time as a jolt threw Katie against the console.

The rest of the shuttle shuddered as they encountered the forcefield. The rear of the craft scraped along the hull of the freighter as she leveled them to fly into the bay. But she could only brake so quickly, and their momentum kept carrying them downward. Their belly slammed into the deck of the bay as they flew inside.

The shuttle bounced upward, the force too great for whatever nullified the G-forces to compensate. Katie was launched from her stool, and her head cracked the ceiling. Her passengers’ shouts and screams assailed her ears.

Katie came down on the edge of the stool, and her foot slipped off. She pitched sideways into Zakota even as she lunged for the controls. She couldn’t let them crash into some other shuttle—or smash innocent bystanders.

They bounced twice more before Katie managed to get them under control, pulling them to a hovering stop with the nose about five meters from the back wall of the bay. What had Zakota said about kissing that wall?

“Zeus’s butthole, Zakota,” Hierax said from where he lay on the deck. “She’s more of a maniac than you are.”

“I did try to help,” Zakota said mildly, resting an elbow on the console. Somehow, he’d managed to keep his feet.

Not many people in the shuttle had, though Orion, one of the few people who’d kept hold of a ring on the wall, had four women clinging to him. Most of the rest were in a tangle of limbs on the deck. Several dark glares were leveled at Katie.

“Perhaps seats and seat belts would be a worthwhile upgrade, Chief Hierax,” Katie said, and smiled sweetly.

He joined the others in sending a dark glare in her direction.

“You slapped my hand away,” Zakota said, quirking an eyebrow at Katie. He didn’t appear angry or even that fazed by the unorthodox entrance.

“There wasn’t time to fight over the controls.”

“Fight? As I recall, you were supposed to relinquish them to me for the landing.”

“You’re right. Have at it.” Katie lifted her hands.

Technically, they hadn’t landed yet. They were still hovering near the back wall. The display showed extremely concerned people and aliens peering out from doorways and other small ships, the places where they had ducked when Katie charged in. For a moment, the sight of the aliens snagged her attention, and she barely noticed Zakota giving her a dry look and taking the controls.

As the women stood or sat up behind her, Katie considered the variety of people—was that the right word?—out there. Some were bipedal, like humans, with feathers, fur, or scales, but even more looked nothing like them. She spotted an alabaster, the boulder-like being appearing identical to Commander Korta. There was also a being reminiscent of a furry Jabba the Hutt, and a squishy, tentacled alien looked like something that should be living in an aquarium rather than out in open air. An eight-foot-tall alien waddled toward an exit like a duck—a lot of people were hastening to that exit while throwing uneasy glances toward the shuttlecraft as Zakota sedately piloted it toward a parking spot. Katie didn’t know if it was because it was a Zi’i vessel or because of her entrance.

“You certainly can clear a room, Katie,” Indi said, helping Hierax pick up tools that had spilled from his satchel.

“I got us in, didn’t I? We were about three seconds from getting flattened like a soda can under a garbage truck.”

“We could have waited for it to move.” Indi pointed toward the display showing the bay exit.

The freighter was trundling away, revealing a view out to the stars and the distant Zi’i warship.

“No,” Hierax said, securing his satchel. “It’s fine. I think it was there to deliberately impede us. The fact that it’s moving now, right after we got past, adds evidence to that hypothesis, I believe.”

“Or it means that our crazy entrance was for nothing,” someone muttered.

Katie propped a fist on her hip and lifted her chin. She refused to feel bad for taking a risk. That freighter had definitely been impeding them—if not outright trying to destroy them. If she hadn’t done what she’d done, they might never have gotten here.

Still, it was hard not to have some doubts as, after Zakota landed and opened the hatch, many of the women rubbed shoulders and frowned at her as they filed out.

Katie waited a few seconds, for them to get ahead of her, before heading to the door.

“I’ve seen worse landings,” Zakota offered.

“At least the green button didn’t start flashing.” She waved toward it. No way would the computer ever talk her into using that again now that she knew what it did.

“The shuttle must have known that all hope wasn’t lost yet.”

“Even if the passengers didn’t?”

“They didn’t seem that worried. Hardly any of them screamed.”

“Only because there wasn’t time for screaming.”

“Nah, women can produce a good scream in less than a nanosecond. Trust me, I know. My flight instructor at the fleet academy was a woman.”

“Flight instructors are usually pretty unflappable.”

“Sometimes, extreme students rattle them.” Zakota winked and patted her on the shoulder before stepping out of the shuttle.

Katie smiled, feeling a little better, and she caught herself watching his ass as he led the way out of the bay. Maybe odd wasn’t that bad after all. Sometimes odd understood odd.