After her run-in with the sexy side of Tolan Lark, Jax was determined to waste no more time fixing the ship.  She had been going slow and steady, the idea being that she could find out what she needed to find out before she was stuck in a ship in space with a mercenary of questionable intentions.  After the run-in and mating conversation she decided she needed a new plan and started repairs in earnest.  The things she could not fix quickly or needed parts for that they did not have, she whispered into shape and function.  The rest she continued working on the old-fashioned way, moving her timeline of a few more weeks to a matter of days.  She didn't bother to tell the Shakien.  They had been successfully avoiding each other since their last confrontation and she wanted to keep it that way. 

Right now he was off bartering for whatever supplies the rebuilding Rindel could spare.  Her hangar might have been the building that had taken the worst beating when Warrung came through, but the damage to the rest of the town was nearly as bad.  Because of that, supplies at the space port had been few and far between.  The Rindel powers that be had a call out to the other townships for whatever they could deliver in a hurry.  There might not be much to the Rindel space port but what they supplied the rest of the smaller communities of Rindel counted on.

Not to mention the miners who frequented the bars were not happy about that venue being closed to them.  Rindel had sent out a beacon to the Alliance for peacekeepers and help with rebuilding so they were all waiting for the first transport.  Warrung was already wanted for many Alliance crimes.  This was just one more in a long line, so no one really expected him to be brought to justice but they needed the relief the Alliance would supply. 

Neither Jax or Tolan Lark wanted to be around when the Alliance arrived, Jax because she did not want word of her to spread to Dainaree, and Tolan Lark for reasons she could not fathom since she knew he worked for them as a spy--that much she had discovered in her snooping.  So besides watching for Gorson or Warrung to return they now had to finish and get out before the Alliance showed.  That meant they were leaving today, tomorrow at the outside, hence Tolan Lark doing his best to replenish their supplies and Jax working quickly on the repairs that called for a total shutdown of the ship to complete.  They would have to find a safe port to finish the rest, preferably somewhere where she could get the parts she needed, as opposed to making them. 

Total shutdown besides coms and the early warning system, which she felt before she heard.  Elbow deep as she was in the guts of the ship, her senses pinged like a live wire was passing through her nerve endings before the warning could be heard by normal ears.

She didn’t bother to contact Tolan Lark; the Shakien would receive his own warning almost as quickly as she did.  Instead she dropped what she was doing, which was thankfully one of the lesser remaining systems and not a key one at that.  She headed for the bridge at all the speed her Dainaree legs were capable of, which was fast.  She had the com system up and had broken through Tolan Lark’s key codes and prepped the ship for takeoff even before he burst onto the bridge with loud curses.  True, the long-range sensors gave them time to act, but if the threat was moving fast, they didn’t have much.  Prepping the ship for departure was priority, no matter how much he hated it when she broke his security codes. 

His curses only became more inventive and colorful when he felt the ship hum to life and saw Jax in the pilot seat.  She stood up before he could snarl at her and sprinted to the com station to assess the threat.  Whatever it was, she figured the ship needed to be prepped.  Now she was looking and could not decide which of the expected scenarios would be worse.  What she saw had her giving Tolan Lark a gimlet stare.

"Gorson raiding party," she said without inflection.  She sent the warning planet-wide even as she was speaking.

He didn't take the time to curse but went cold before her eyes.  Nor did he bother with requesting clearance.  The engines fired and the ship rose from the tarmac just as another blared warning came over the coms warning everyone of imminent attack.

"Rindel is basically defenseless," she said with even less inflection, if that were possible.

"The Gorson will follow us.  If we can clear the spaceport before they fire, the town should be spared."

She did not bother to argue that the word should was an uncomfortable one.  He was right.  Leading the raiders away was their best option. 

Jax brought up the sensor reading on her com and found they had not one Gorson ship, but a whole lot more to deal with, all of them warbirds.  Leaving became the only option.  Even with the firepower Tolan Lark had secreted away on this ship, and the tinkering she had done since, they were no match for that many.

"How did you get away the first time?" she asked, shaking her head at the odds she was seeing.

"There were only five at the time, and I hacked the command ship and made them think they had a core explosion imminent."

She blinked at his words.  Hacked the ship?  She could do some very cool things with a computer but she could not do them from anywhere besides the ship itself.  That Tolan Lark was that good without any whisper abilities was a little daunting.  A dangerous man indeed.

"Oh well, if there were only five," she muttered offhandedly, knowing she did not fool him when she caught the edge of his smile. 

He hit the warning right before they blasted off into space, shooting through the blockade of raiders that was even now closing in on the planet.

What had to be an attack legion of Gorson warbirds surrounded the space port and most of the planet.  Maneuvering around them was tricky, but at least that number meant they could not fire their heavy artillery as The Fire shot around and through them; there was too much chance of hitting their own ships.  Instead they concentrated on trying to herd The Fire into tractor beam sights.

Tolan was having none of it and proved both his smarts and his piloting abilities by keeping one step ahead of the warbirds at the same time he factored in the light speed coordinates and deflected a computer virus that was sent at them from yet another ship.  Apparently, they were going to try to recreate his last attack against them. 

Jax felt it all with her connection to the ship as a sort of buzzing in the back of her brain.  Surprising her, Tolan caught it before she could give a warning and blocked the maneuver before she could work the tech around to rejecting the virus.  That had her blinking.  The man was seriously fast on that com unit to be able to do that.

The EMT pulse that came at them from the big cannons at their back was unexpected, but Tolan Lark managed a hair trigger flip and dash that kept them from having to find out if their shields were enough to handle it.  Jax knew they were but it was still a very impressive move.  Every minute she was with the Shakien mercenary she learned more of what he was capable of, and her respect for his abilities grew.  No wonder he had managed to hack Warrung and still lived to tell the tale.

A slight hitch and burn across her synapses had Jax returning forcefully to the matter at hand.  A laser nick against the rear shields had breached nearly 50% and without a word between them she repaired the damage, dragging power from the disposal system temporarily to compensate.  She heard a grunt of approval from Tolan when the computer flashed shield integrity back to 100%, but neither of them had time for self-congratulations.

"Here's to hoping you are as good as you think you are," Tolan muttered and hit the throttle for light speed.  The Gorson raiding fleet was still turning to pursue when they disappeared in a flash of light.

***

As soon as they were clear of Rindel and the Gorson, at least for the time being, Tolan Lark turned away from the controls and looked at Jax.  "You want to tell me how my ship sensed the Gorson before the planet defenses picked them up on long range?"

She did not bother looking up from the console she was perusing for pursuit when she answered lightly, "I fiddled a bit with your sensors while I was making repairs."

"You fiddled?"

Clearly hearing his doubt in that question, she turned and met his blank stare and shrugged.  "A bit."

"And that is supposed to explain why my ship now has sensors that rival that of planetary defense on an Alliance world?"

She raised her brows and gave him eyes that stated she thought the answer was obvious.  "Yes."

Tolan could not get his mind around the mech witch's abilities for a moment.  If he had not seen it for himself he never would have believed it.  Then he moved on to his next question.  "My light breaking limit was five.  We seem to be going eight without a single hiccup."

She shrugged again. "I figured we would probably need it against Warrung," she said by way of explanation.

"So you fiddled," he finished for her dryly.

She narrowed her eyes at his tone.  "Do you want me to change it back?"

"No, no."  Tolan swept his arms around him indicating his ship.  "Fiddle with anything your little heart desires."  He placed his hands on his chest.  "My ship,” he moved to point them both at her, "is your ship."   She rolled her eyes at his elaborate motions.

"Where to now?" she asked instead of responding, her eyes going back to the sensor readings.

"Now we regroup, finish repairs and find out where the hell Cor Warrung is hiding doing the same."

"If you have the entirety of the Gorson Legion of Raiders after you, I’m not sure anywhere will give us the time we need," she said, her eyes back on the sensors.

"I know a place they would not go," he muttered, and he knew he sounded pained. He had been hoping to avoid it, but with the Gorson clearly out for his blood after his last maneuver, they had few choices.  He was seeing that if Jax had enough time, and a stocked mech bay, his ship might be a match for anything Warrung would throw at him.  This was good.  The bad was that they needed time to make that happen and he needed information about Warrung, and he knew of only one place he could get both.

Something in his tone must have alerted her because Jax finally moved those pretty Dainaree eyes to his face with another raised brow, this one in question. "Going to Alliance space is not an option for me, so if you are thinking we head there, you can drop me off at the nearest inhabited port."

"That might allow us some breathing room from the raiders but it would not get us the information we need to find Warrung," Tolan said, his eyes already on the com as he started to input the destination, though he looked less than thrilled at whatever he was planning.

"You know some place not under Alliance control that the Gorson raiders and Warrung would fear to tread?  And you have contacts there that will give you intel on Warrung as well?  Where is this fantasy land you expect to hold all our answers?”

"Funny you should put it like that," he muttered.  "Have you ever heard of Port Sea?"

Jax knew her eyes were bugging, but everyone knew about the island moon that had once been home to pirates, and some said still was.  "Are you completely deranged?"

"Probably, and I would not go there if it was not absolutely necessary, but it's the only place I can think of where we might get the information we need on Warrung early enough for it to make a difference, and the Gorson do not go near that quadrant."

"No one goes near that quadrant, not without a death wish.  What makes you think he will even talk to you? Let alone allow us time on his moon to make repairs?"

"Let's just say this is not my first visit," Tolan Lark grimaced unhappily.

"So your big plan to fix the ship and end Warrung is to visit with his brother?"

"Basically," he answered and Jax felt the ship change course.

She studied him for a long moment.  "If you know Lucan Warrung will help, why do you look so unhappy about the decision?"

"Lucan Warrung is not the only person I know residing on Port Sea at the moment. Captain Barnos may also be present."

"Your friend from before?  The big, overly loud pirate who was with you on Rindel the first time?  And?"

"And let's just say I did not leave him in the best situation when we parted ways last."

Jax narrowed her eyes and studied him suspiciously.  "What did you do?"

Tolan Lark shrugged his broad shoulders.  "I knocked him out and sold him to the death games."

Jax sucked in a breath at that, her voice low in shocked dismay.  "You did what?"

"I put a tracker on him, and it worked; he and Lara made it out even before the raid," he explained, as if that made everything fine.  Then something he said penetrated.

"Lara?  The Lady from Heti that was with you?"  Jax had a vague memory of the beautiful and serene lady Lara.  Her impression of her had been of a soft woman completely out of place with the company she was keeping and completely oblivious to her danger.  "You sold a Heti female to Cor Warrung?"

At her question he grimaced, and finally looked contrite.  Marginally.  "Technically, I sold her to the death games, not Warrung, and that was more an accident than anything."

"You accidentally sold an empath to the bloodiest and most brutal men in the galaxy?"  Jax knew he could not miss the sarcasm but she glared at him just to be sure.  "Do you even know what happened to her?"

"Barnos got her out." Tolan glared at her, as if she had insulted his apparently nonexistent honor with her questions. "Last I heard they were on the run, along with every other being that had been trapped in the death games that we freed, thanks to my actions."

Jax studied him for a moment. She gave nothing of her thoughts away with her next question, her voice perfectly emotionless. "The end justifies the means?"

"It did this time. Lara was unharmed, Barnos is unharmed and the death games are done."

"Somehow, I don't think the lady or the pirate would agree with you," she answered mildly enough.  But it did answer a question she had been struggling with; Tolan Lark, most emphatically, could not be trusted. 

The disappointment the knowledge provoked was extreme in the circumstances but she allowed none of it to show on her face.  It was not as if she had been truly contemplating a permanent mating with the man.  Surely she was not so foolish?  No matter how lonely she had been since she left her home, she had not come to falling for mercenary spies who happened to look biteable in skin tight nanite. Had she?

"Yes, well, my plan was to avoid him until he got over it, but I'm thinking there hasn't been enough time."

"To get over being stunned unconscious and sold to slavers for the death games?"  Jax gave him a long look, shaking off her ridiculous disappointment.  "No, not unless he is a whole lot more forgiving than he looked when I met him."

Tolan Lark grimaced at that. 

Yeah, I didn't think so.  It hadn't even been her he betrayed, and she still wanted to whack him repeatedly with her stun stick for doing it.  She had no doubt Captain Barnos' reaction would be more extreme.