Good God, did she have to look so fragile? So different from her profile pictures?

But how did she get in here? And how the hell did she come by a wrist comm that let her into all manner of places, including the brig; one of the most secured sections of our vessel?

None of this made sense, but I couldn’t seem to make myself condemn her. This was dangerous ground to tread. What if she were a trap set by Price himself? I tried to wrack my brain, to remember what I’d read about their relationship.

But the leaseholder was a very private man, and if he was rarely seen in public, his daughter was seen less so.

“How old are you?” I asked as we walked the circumference of the room. Johnson was down by where the hatch had opened up; standing guard. Armstrong was near the official door to the room. I couldn’t see either of them.

Aquila’s towers rose above us, high into the upper atmosphere of the computer core room. The heat was getting to me. The soft hum of fans cooling the electronics was grating on my nerves.

The thought that this was a trap made me sick to the stomach.

I tried not to think of Lieutenant Commander Munro.

“Twenty,” she said.

It was young. Older than I had thought, but not by much of a margin. Still, I could hardly talk; I was only twenty-nine. And the captain.

“Your father became the richest man in America twenty years ago,” I said.

“Did he?”

“Don’t be coy,” I snapped. “You know exactly who you are and where you’ve come from.”

“Fair point,” she murmured. She didn’t apologise, which I was thankful for.

She looked off into the distance. Not that there was much to see.

“I don’t remember back that far,” she said.

I arched my brow. “I suppose not,” I said.

“I’m not my father,” she offered a few moments later.

I let out a breath and stopped walking. Turning toward her, I looked down at her slight frame. Her small size did not help me to see her as anything other than someone to protect. But she was Price’s daughter.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” I admitted.

She looked up at me from under a crooked fringe of hair. The ends were a jagged, hacked at mess.

“Who the hell cut your hair?” I asked before I could think better of it.

Her hand came up and touched the end of a strand. She winced.

“I did,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want my father’s men to recognise me.”

I hadn’t recognised her. But was this an act?

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at her. Fascinating little creature, I thought. She met my gaze with a level one of her own. There was a wounded look to her. A haunted look. But she didn’t look away. She held steady.

“Tell me about the mayor,” I found myself saying.

She blinked. The look in her eyes now was one of repulsion.

“He’s my father’s toady,” she said, bitterness dripping off every word.

She was a fine little actor.

“My father doesn’t trust easily,” she said. “He believes people need to be motivated in order to give someone their loyalty. I guess he motivated the mayor by selling him me.”

“What do you mean selling him you?”

She wrapped her arms around her body. I gritted my teeth.

“The day before Aquila went rogue he kicked Ratbag.”

“Ratbag?”

“My dog.” I grimaced. That little thing could snap like a twig. I didn’t like the idea that she was the only one onboard any of the vessels to be allowed to bring a dog along for the ride, but I didn’t wish ill upon the poor little thing. “He threatened to have Ratbag killed,” she went on. “I believed him. My father never says a thing he doesn’t mean. He made me agree to a business contract in order to protect Ratbag. That business contract ended up being a marriage agreement between the mayor and me.”

Fuck. That sucked. If it were the truth. But Jacob Logan was twice her age. And a creep.

“So, I went into hiding,” she said.

“Just like that?”

She looked directly at me, anger and frustration marring her petite features.

“My father is not a patient man, Captain. Nor is he forgiving. I took Ratbag and asked Aquila to hide us. And then came here.”

“After Aquila went rogue.” I was trying to work out the timeline here. Could she be telling the truth? It sounded so elaborate. But believing our AI would let a civilian passenger, albeit a VIP, have access to its computer core went against everything.

I guess that was the bottom line, really. It didn’t make sense. But I could hardly ask Aquila now, could I?

“Yes,” she said in answer to my last question. “I wasn’t sure how to find it, and until then, I’d wanted to stay near the habitats to see what was happening. That’s when I saw one of my father’s guards destroy my friend’s stall searching for me.”

Oh, this just got better and better. Could anyone really think up all these layers to their subterfuge? I guessed they could, but could this woman?

Nathan Price could, I was certain.

“When that happened, I started going deeper into the tunnels,” she said.

“The emergency access tubes,” I said. “About them. How did you know they were there?”

“There’re hatches everywhere,” she said. “It was pretty obvious.”

Now she was calling my bluff. I almost smiled.

“And you just…what? Pried them off with your fingernails?”

I looked down at said fingernails, expecting to see them painted and long just like in the top-tier newsfeeds. They weren’t. They were unvarnished and in most cases, bitten down to the quick.

A nervous habit that and not something I would have expected a socialite to do, even if trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the ship’s captain.

I watched as she pulled a screwdriver out of the back pocket of her trousers, tugging her shirt down again afterwards.

Now how the hell did she get that?

“Interesting,” I said.

“I bought it in Habitat Three,” she said. “It cost a hundred bucks.”

I bet it did. They saw her coming a mile off. But that wasn’t what was bothering me.

What was bothering me was this story was becoming more and more plausible. I didn’t want it to be plausible. Plausible meant she was a victim here as much as we were. And if that were the case, then I had no hope of resisting.

Small, fragile, dressed in rags and with a hacked at haircut; and a father that was a monster and did monstrous things.

I looked away abruptly. I felt the weight of her eyes on the back of my neck, making it itchy.

“What now?” she asked.

I thought perhaps she was asking me if I trusted her. Or if I’d lock her up and throw away the key. I didn’t know the answer to that. But I did know that she was important. And she might just be the answer to getting us out of this mess.

How much did her father want her back?

How far would that wrist comm she wore get us?

We’d left the merc’s wrist comms behind; they’d have been traceable. But either Adriana Price’s wrist comm was not traceable, or her father wasn’t concerned with where it was because she was deep undercover, working for him. Either way, I wanted that wrist comm, and I wanted to keep the threat in our midst close to me.

I turned back and looked down at her wrist.

She took a step away, her eyes warily watching me. Then, for good measure, she slowly put her arm behind her back. Purposefully.

My eyes met hers. She looked back at me.

“No,” she said.

And fuck me, but I couldn’t ignore that word. I couldn’t override it because if there was even a chance her story was true, others had overridden this woman’s objections before. And I couldn’t add to that injury.

“OK,” I said. “But you’re on my watch now, Ms Price. Welcome to Zenith.”