Qaiyaan shook his head as he stomped back to the control room. With effort, he could’ve forced himself to stay away from the med bay and the alluring patient within. But a woman with IMC? Cancer had been all but obliterated except for the rare kinds that took hold without symptoms until it was too late. Like the kind that had destroyed his entire race. Lisa’s arrival was like the ever-sneaky Ellam Cua had connived to taunt him—his entire crew—with memories. Even Mekoryuk was obviously taken by the human female. She was so exquisitely vibrant, despite the lingering effects of the cryo. Despite the disease eating her bones. The perfectly sculpted curves of her body beneath the thin sheet had been difficult to ignore. And when he’d touched her hand… The almost electric jolt at the connection had almost made him wonder if she was Denaidan, too.

But that wasn’t possible.

Cancer had wiped every female from existence. Syndicorp had wiped them out. And now they were gunning for Lisa.

He hadn’t had the willpower to ask her why they might be after her. Hell, they might not even be after Lisa. There could’ve been something on that ship the ‘corp wanted to hide. Syndicorp wasn’t above ancillary damage—they’d proven that on Denaida-Daru. No need to upset her while she recovered. After he’d arranged for her medical attention, he’d explain how Syndicorp had destroyed her ship.

Sitting heavily in the captain's chair, he began scrolling through the star charts to line up the nearest non-Syndicorp hospitals. The galactic corporation had spread in influence and power since the destruction of his homeworld fifteen years ago. Few in the galaxy even remembered the name of Denaida-Daru, a backwater ag-planet with an indigenous population too empathically sensitive to join the rush-and-bustle of the galactic market. Denaidan women, in particular, were unable to withstand the proximity of other species' unfiltered emotions and desires, making it impossible to leave the planet; they were also the only females who could tame the intense sexual connection of a Denaidan male, a fact Qaiyaan was more aware of than usual with the charcoal-haired beauty lying in his med bay.

Jaw aching, Qaiyaan dismissed a nearby hospital as having close ties with Syndicorp and pulled up the board members of a second facility to review their names. So many companies these days were mere subsidiaries of the Syndicorp conglomerate. He kept a sharp eye on the movements of Syndicorp’s CEOs and holding companies, exploiting whatever opportunities he could. The few Denaidan men who’d been off-planet during their world’s destruction had formed a loose brotherhood of pirates, determined to make Syndicorp pay for their crime. The annihilation of his species couldn’t be undone, but he’d make Syndicorp pay in whatever ways he could.

“Captain.” The control room speaker popped with Tovik’s voice, difficult to hear over the hum of the ship’s engines in the background. “You there?”

"Go ahead." Qaiyaan continuing cross-referencing photos and names with his list of Syndicorp supporters, glad of the recovery stim Mek had provided after the grueling burn. Without it, he'd be laid out on his bunk right now.

“Have you found a buyer for these supplies yet? The climate control for the lower cargo bay is taking more power than I anticipated.”

Qaiyaan looked up from the computer and scowled at the gauges on the control room wall. He’d forgotten about the salvaged supplies completely. Over half the inventory had turned out to be medicine, stored in cryogenic cases that were failing just like Lisa’s. Keeping the fragile compounds viable until they secured a buyer had required some hack engineering on Tovik’s part, and the fuel-cell gauges were flickering toward empty. Qaiyaan reassessed the star chart he’d been searching for hospitals. “How far can we get?”

"Three parsecs at full burn. Perhaps as far as the Bolisare system, but no more than that." Tovik didn't hedge his bets. What he said was the honest truth, no sugar-coating, no buffer for mistakes. "We've had to divert a lot of energy to the shields during the last three burns. That repairman on Finofan must've skimped on some of the hull platings."

The repairman had skimped, but it was all Qaiyaan had been able to afford. His crew had no idea how fragile this bucket-of-bolts really was—or at least they pretended not to know. He did a quick run-down of the hospital facilities within a three-parsec sphere. Here at the edge of un-classed space, there wasn’t much to be had. There was a garan’uk medical facility six and a half parsecs in, but even if the methane breathers offered services for humanoids, they were known Syndicorp allies, and Qaiyaan was a wanted man.

He widened the search. There was a Saluqan healing temple on Oruq Nine, four parsecs beyond Bolisare in another un-classified sector. If they stopped and unloaded on Bolisare, they could fuel up and get Lisa to Oruq Nine in a week or so. Did she have that long? Not that he had much in the way of options for her. Mek was a genius in his own right, but the Hardship lacked medical equipment, let alone medicine for humans.

Adjusting the ship’s heading, he said, “We’ll head to Bolisare. I’ll work on finding a buyer.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.” The hum of the engine room silenced as Tovik ended communication.

The Hardship’s last visit to Bolisare hadn’t been an exemplary experience. Noatak’d relapsed on recovery stims and gotten into a brawl with a prominent cartel businessman. The crew’d been forced to break him out of prison. Luckily, Qaiyaan’s contact on the planet was also on the alternate side of the local law. He wouldn’t offer a high price for the salvaged medicine, but at this point, unloading it for cheap was better than having to jettison worthless cargo.

Feeling guilty about lying to Lisa about their comm system, Qaiyaan accessed the long-range channel for the planet's black market and sent an encoded message. The communication would take at least twenty hours to reach his contact and another twenty for a return message. By then they'd be almost halfway there. Setting the navigation controls to auto, he headed to the lower cargo bay where they kept the workout equipment. His nerves were jangling from the recovery stims, and he needed to focus his ionic energy if he was going to have a clear head for bargaining.

He also needed to keep himself from hovering over the luscious human in his med bay.

* * *

Lisa pivoted to sit on the edge of the cot and wrapped the sheet around her, her body still naked from the cryo-pod. Mek had finally left the med bay, muttering about someone named Tovik who might have a fix for his malfunctioning sensors. He was dead-set on getting a reading of her cancer, and she felt bad for putting him through so much work for nothing. But she couldn’t risk exposing the Syndicorp technology. For all she knew, these men were pirates and would sell her off to the highest bidder once they found out what she carried. Her ship’s demise couldn’t have been a mistake. Someone was after her, and she needed to let Doug know where she was. The only way to do that was through Syndicorp.

Planting her feet on the floor, she wobbled upright. Her feet left the ground unexpectedly, and she threw out both arms to keep her balance. Whoa. The ship’s gravity was barely enough to hold her feet to the deck. The sheet came loose and slithered down around her hips before she caught it and secured it around her breasts again. This was going to be interesting. She moved carefully toward the door. While interfering with the doctor’s scans, she’d determined that the med bay computer was only attached to the internal systems, and she’d need to find one connected to the external comm to get a message out. Her head hurt from controlling her nanites to block the doctor’s probes, but she’d need to use them again in short order.

Cautiously sliding the door open, she peered into the half-lit corridor. The stark wall panels were similar to a half-dozen cargo ships she'd been on. Damn. Some part of her’d been hoping for one of those junker ships with exposed conduit running along the walls of every corridor. Should’ve known better than that, based on the orderly way Mek ran his medical bay. She had to find an access panel so she could physically hack in. Or find an actual comm unit. That would be way easier. Doug could’ve hacked in from anywhere on the ship, the lucky bastard. He also could’ve accessed the ship’s blueprints and known exactly where to go.

Thinking of her brother made her chest tight. If someone was after her, they could also be after Doug. He was Syndicorp’s star pupil, and much more valuable than she was. She prayed he was safe and waiting for her at the ‘corp lab, wherever that was.

She stepped into the hall, listening for approaching crewmen. To her right, the passage ended at a closed airlock in the floor. A door across from her stood open, revealing a lavatory with a shower head in the ceiling. Left, the hallway extended maybe fifty or sixty feet toward a big bay. Closed doors to either side likely led to crew quarters. Her nanites thrummed in the soles of her feet, telling her that engineering was down the airlock to her right. At the far end of the dim hall, in the wall near the catwalk, she spotted what looked like a conduit panel. Jackpot!

Her bare feet slid along the metal deck, her footing unsure in the low gravity. She reached the panel and pried the metal cover loose, her fingertips stinging from the effort. Inside, cables and wires entwined each other like a nest of snakes. Tracing her fingertips along several wires, she searched for a familiar interface, skin heating and temples throbbing with effort. Damn, why did a ship need to have so many separate systems?

From behind the nearby closed door, a man’s voice cut through her concentration. “She said she paid Syndicorp for medical treatment, so she has to be on the galactic net somewhere.”

“Well, she isn’t. Not under the name Lisa Moss, anyway.”

Lisa paused her search. It hadn’t occurred to her that not having a presence on the galactic net might be just as incriminating as her real files. Syndicorp had removed every trace of her and Doug to prevent the black market cartel on Whylon Station from tracking them down and exacting revenge. Looking back, she should’ve suggested arranging an “accident” to make it appear she had Doug had died rather than disappeared.

“Cryogenic containment isn’t cheap,” one of the voices continued. “She’s got money to afford that plus whatever she’s paying Syndicorp. She probably told us a fake name to protect herself.”

“Think her family will ransom her?”

“We don’t know if she’s Syndicorp yet. We don’t target non-‘corp citizens.”

“I’m just saying, our hull’s got to be repaired—for real this time—and this latest heist isn’t enough to pay for it. Especially if the meds go sour before we get there.”

Heist? Queasiness roiled at the bottom of her stomach. So these men were pirates. They must’ve attacked her ship. But if they knew about her nanites, they hadn’t revealed it.

“Let me take the money to the kwirn tables and—”

“Usviilnguq! Last time we had to haul ass out of Bollisare so fast, I didn’t get my kiss goodbye.”

“The house was cheating! And your limp ucuk isn’t my problem, Tovik.”

Suddenly the door in front of her flew open, and she was looking at the broad chest of another monster of a man. Five long braids hung from his chin like tentacles, gathered at the bottom with a metal band. Her gaze followed them upward to meet a scowling bronze face.

She clutched at the sheet around her torso, stuttering out her backup excuse for wandering around. "Uh, where's the restroom?"

His gaze flicked to the open conduit panel. “Not in there.”

“Sorry about that. I lost my balance and the cover fell off when I leaned against it. So clumsy.” Batting her lashes, she giggled and tried to affect an innocent smile. “Don’t you guys believe in gravity?”

He grasped her left biceps with a hand that felt as hard as metal. Even his knuckles gleamed like bronze ball-bearings. “I don’t like eavesdroppers.”

A younger man appeared in the open door, his beard a bit scruffy around the edges. “She’s awake?”

“I’m not eavesdropping,” she rasped out. Her racing heart was making her dizzy. “I didn’t even know you were there until you opened the door.”

The hand around her arm tightened. “Liar. Your pulse is going supernova.”

The younger man put his hands on his hips but didn't intervene. "Take it easy, Noatak. She's our guest."

Lisa yanked her arm out of the bigger man’s grip. “I want to talk to Qaiyaan.”

His upper lip curled into a sneer. “Oh, you’re going to talk, all right.” He targeted the younger man with a glower. “Tovik, check the panel. Make sure nothing’s compromised.”

Once again he clasped her arm, nearly yanking her off her feet in the low gravity. He dragged her the rest of the way down the hall and onto a catwalk over a large, mostly empty cargo bay. Below, a shirtless Qaiyaan was performing a slow series of moves that looked almost like tai chi. Only his feet weren't on the floor; he stood on the wall as if gravity had lost all meaning. His gleaming copper muscles bunched and flexed in ways that made Lisa's insides quiver.

“Captain!” the man beside her shouted.

“What is it now, Noatak?” Qaiyaan jerked to a halt. He turned his head and his electric blue gaze met hers.

As if gravity had suddenly returned, he belly-flopped against the decking.