It didn’t work, of course. But this time I was already nestled against him, my back curled into his chest, when I felt his arms tighten against me. “Mack, wake up,” I whispered, rubbing his forearm. A deep sigh, as if something was letting go, and he relaxed.

“Thanks.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head.

“Fair trade,” I mumbled. He’d stayed awake until my mind quieted and I had drifted off, as safe with him as anywhere I could possibly be. But now the endless lists of things that could go wrong spooled through my mind again. Was I going to get us killed? Was our escape going to bring retribution down on the entire satellite?

“Stop thinking,” Mack commanded. “Plenty of time for that once we’re in the compartment.”

And surprisingly, I did.

* * *

When the lights brightened for day shift, I woke in the bed alone.

“Mack?” I called out, confused. And was then angry with myself. We’d known each other for two days, by the end of today I'd never see him again. So why was it so bewildering to wake without him beside me?

I slipped out of bed and found him on the other side of the screen. The chairs had been pushed to the side, and he flowed through a series of stretches, positions that hovered on the line between looking uncomfortable and lethal, his eyes closed, and his movements sure.

When I stepped past the chairs, he froze, eyes snapping open.

“Where did you learn that,” I breathed.

He shook his head. “No idea. But it seemed like a good idea to get some stretching in this morning. You may want to, as well. We’re going to be pretty cramped in there.”

We skipped the mess, even though the bitter kaf in the hall called my name. We both knew we'd be better off with nothing in our systems during the trip.

I paused, uncertain of where to go first. “I think if I don't show up at the clinic, Denon will just assume I was taken last night. I'm sure he's been expecting it. Let's just go, get ready to load up.”

Mack said nothing, just looked grim as he checked outside the small apartment, and then held the curtain aside for me. The guard had changed during the night.

“Big day, eh?”

“Everything goes to plan, it’ll be a quiet day, actually.” Mack shook the man’s hand. “Thanks.”

Ardelle met us in the corridor outside the Down Low. “You've got to see this,” she whispered. “Elsu has done an amazing job.”

I might have been expecting a buzz of activity at the loading bay, but, at first glance, everyone looked bored, waiting for the shuttle to arrive so they could get on with this task and get back to their day.

Eight strong men and women lounged on overturned crates. One side of the bay held a line of what looked like shelving units, except each shelf burst with greens, tubes running down the sides in a confusing tangle.

“Wouldn't it make more sense for the station to have us harvest the greens and package them here?” I asked, confused.

Ardelle smiled, humor sparkling in her eyes. “Probably, but, apparently, so many people want the absolute freshest food possible, and are willing to pay for it, that they do the final stage there.” She shrugged. “Saves us time and labor, and they send back the empty racks on the next shuttle.”

“Of course, if things go as we hope, that won't be happening for a while.” I added. “This will be the last they get, won’t it?”

“Until they’re willing to deal. We can always make more racks if we need them, but there’s more than enough to keep Minor fed.”

Each of the racks had an enclosed cabinet at the bottom.

Mack tapped one as we got closer. “That's where the water filtration and nutrient system goes. And that's where we’ll be. The plants won't be as happy, but it’s a sacrifice we’re willing to take.”

I looked at the cabinet and then back at Mack. “How exactly are you going to fit in there?”

“Like a pretzel,” he grimaced. “But it works, believe me. We tried it out a dozen times yesterday. It’ll work.”

Jado and the tech whose name I never caught last night came into the room, her arms waving wildly. While I wondered if Jado was taking in every bit of jargon, he was certainly smart enough to know where she was going with things. He looked happy, so I’d bet she’d raised her prediction estimates for a successful takeover. Good.

Lights flashed and a low siren wailed.

“Incoming shuttle,” Jado called out to the group. “Everybody behind the line.”

We hurried to make sure we were behind the scuffed yellow line painted on the floor, walls, and ceiling before the field snapped into place.

Through its shimmer, I could see the landing bay doors begin to open into the cold blackness.

I shivered, and my hand crept into Mack’s. “I don't think I've ever seen this before. It's so easy to forget we’re floating in a thin shell of metal in the middle of space.”

He squeezed my hand, and I noticed he didn't seem fazed at all. Whoever he was, wherever he'd come from, it wasn't the first time he'd seen this terrifying sight.

The shuttle glided in, and we could feel its engines cut even as the loading bay doors sealed behind it.

The fields dropped, and Jado's crew rushed to the slowly extending loading ramp, ready to check for incoming prisoners before loading the racks.

Our attention was so fixed that none of us heard the rush of oncoming footsteps.

“You bitch,” was the only thing I heard as my hand was ripped away from Mack by a rough grip on my shoulder.

I had no time to notice anything else before a stinging blow landed on my cheek and I stumbled backwards.

Larko crouched over me, features contorted with rage. “You’re still just station trash, you-”

Mack leapt on him with a low growl, cutting off anything else he planned to spew.

The force of impact carried the two of them back, away from the shuttle, where everyone had frozen to their spots.

I shook my head and climbed to my feet, ears ringing. “Larko, what the hell is your problem?”

What I saw tore the rest of the rant from my lips. I stopped talking and rushed forward.

Mack held Larko's throat in one hand. The creep’s hands scrabbled at Mack’s fingers, his feet kicking air, his eyes beginning to bulge.

Jado stood next to Mack, voice even, ignoring Larko’s quickly reddening face. “Hey, man, you got him. We’ll take him from here. No one’s going to hurt her.”

But Mack gave no sign of hearing him.

I slipped under Mack’s arm, wrapped my arms around his waist, and rested my head on his chest.

Void, I could hear his heart beating loud and fierce, even as one arm wrapped around me, held me closer.

“Mack, I'm right here. I’m fine.” He didn’t move. “Please put him down. Let’s go, please?”

Gradually, Mack lowered Larko's now limp body to the deck. His other arm came around me and I could hear his breathing ease, become regular.

Jado wandered over to Larko's limp form, prodded it with his foot. “Think we figured out what to do with those cuffs. Nice of him to volunteer.” He flashed a slightly nervous smile at Mack, who still stood unmoving. “Good job you left him with a pulse.”

The tech popped our cuffs off and replaced mine on Larko's right arm, and Mack’s around one of his legs.

“Maybe we'll just see how many he can carry,” Ardelle spat.

A commotion at the door to the loading bay had Mack spinning, shoving me behind him. The sound of an odd, high-pitched voice was the last thing I expected to snap him out of it, but he suddenly relaxed.

“Let him in,” he called.

A skinny, older man shuffled forward, hunched over a bundle of fabric he held to his chest. His eyes lit up when he saw Mack.

“I heard, I heard the whispers,” his eyes slid back and forth, weighing the trustworthiness of our band of rogues and scoundrels. “You’ll need something, I made it, I did.”

With a little bow, he handed me one of the bundles. I turned it over in my hands, then gasped, shaking it out to flow before me like a slice of midnight, shaped into a halter necked dress with a flared skirt. “It’s lovely!”

Beaming, the little man handed the second bundle to Mack. As Mack unfolded the black pants and short sleeved green shirt, he patted Mack’s arm, chattering all the while. “Can’t go down looking like us, can’t do it. Need to look like them, blend in.”

If you knew the clothes had been refashioned from standard regulation uniforms, you might be able to tell how he'd done it, but no one passing by on a glide on Orem would give us a second look.

“These are amazing!” I couldn’t help but hug the little man. "Thank you so much!"

He started patting my arm, now. "I was a tailor, I was. Had a wife and little girl." His bloodshot eyes grew misty. "All gone now."

Ardelle wrapped her arm around his thin shoulders. "Would you like to be a tailor again?" she asked softly.

He blinked, looking surprised. "Can I?"

"Things are changing around here. I'm going to have all sorts of projects for you. Why don’t you wait for me, and we’ll head back together and talk some.”

He beamed at her. Maybe things could get better up here after all.

“Okay, boys and girls, let’s get moving.” All of the grow racks had been loaded except for one. Jado stood by it, while an older gray-haired man slid open the short panel at the end, revealing the empty chamber within.

Mack nodded goodbye to his tailor friend. “We’ll need these. Even before we get there, we could use the padding.”

I looked at the compartment dubiously. “How do we even get into this?”

“Yesterday we realized that backwards is the way to go.” Mack handed me his change of clothing and proceeded to back into the crate. It couldn't have been comfortable, he would have to keep his knees bent at an awkward angle and his shoulders hunched together the entire time we were inside.

But he was right, there was no other way.

I padded the clothes around his head the best I could and then gave my new dress to Ardelle.

“I want that back in a minute,” I teased. “No running off with it.”

She hugged me fiercely. “We’ll get you down there, you’ll do your whatever it is, and then you find a way to message me, got it?”

Ardelle waved away my unspoken words. “Don't tell me what it is you’re doing, I don’t need to know, it doesn’t matter.” Her face softened. “Just let me know you're all right.”

I nodded, throat too tight for words. Then I backed into the dark box and pressed against Mack’s chest.

Our position was a mockery of the way we had slept last night. Instead of taking comfort from each other out of choice, we were wedged in as tightly as possible by necessity.

Ardelle tucked the dress under my head. “The racks are secured to the shuttle deck, but I don't know how much bouncing around there's going to be.”

I twisted, saw where the thin lines came in from the two oxygen tanks that had been added underneath the bottom rack of plants. The tubes fed through the top of our compartment, ends dangling over our heads, each hooked into the end of one of the hyperbaric envelopes.

Gently, I unfolded one, exposing the wide opening on the underside. In the clinic, we’d position that over the wound. This was not the normal procedure.

“This might hurt when you pull it off.” Adhesive backing uncovered, I positioned the opening over Mack’s nose and mouth, carefully checking for gaps around the seal.

Ardelle watched intently, repeating the same process for me.

The bags didn't inflate, they didn't in the clinic either, but with a few tentative breaths, I knew oxygen was flowing. If the box had been airtight, we could have just pumped the oxy in, not bothered with the masks. As it was, this would do.

“Time’s up.” Jado crouched down next to Ardelle. For once, he seemed at a loss for words. “Good luck,” he finally said, and slid the panel back into place.

Immediately the loading crew rolled us up the ramp, stomping and chattering.

I could hear clamps lock around us, and the clang of the loading ramp retracting.

And then the only sound was the reverberation of the shuttle’s engine echoing through our tiny chamber.

We were out.