the usual hood and mask. One would think it would be difficult to exercise in. Yas imagined face sweat and having to breathe through mesh, but the man fought battles wearing it—and a huge pile of combat armor—so he must find it suitable.
“These are weenie exercises, Doc.” Chief Jess Khonsari wrinkled her nose at him.
Yas didn’t share that the gesture was cute or that he liked that their physical therapy sessions gave him an excuse to spend time with her. Jess should have had the services of someone who actually had a background in this, but he was the best the ship had.
“You can increase the resistance more next week, but remember what I said. Using your—”
“Yeah, yeah, the side with my cyborg bits is stronger than the side with my human bits, and my human spine is caught in the middle.”
“That’s the technical explanation I put in my notes, yes.”
“Did you use the word bits?”
“Every chance I could.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Your mistrust wounds me.”
The door opened, and Lieutenant Amergin ambled in. The Intelligence officer was a rare sight in the gym, despite the frequent fitness tests and exercise sessions Rache demanded of his crew. Maybe the cybernetic headset permanently integrated with his skull made him worry about gravity and dumbbells. That wide-brimmed cowboy hat wouldn’t protect his head.
As Jess finished another set of her back exercises, Amergin approached Rache and the two stepped away from the other men.
“Maybe he’s telling Rache that the gate is open again,” Yas said, “and we can go to a nice peaceful system where a cybernetics surgeon can modify your spine to be stronger and a real physical therapist can work with you afterward.”
“You dream big, Doc.”
“I like my patients to get better.”
When Rache and Amergin stopped to talk, they were close enough for Yas to hear. Rache glanced at him, but he must not have cared if his doctor and engineering chief overheard, because he didn’t walk farther away.
“You’re sure it’s Dubashi?” Rache was asking.
“He may not be there personally, but ships working for him are chasing the Kingdom’s Chivalrous. They’re hidden from us by slydar hulls and distance, but I intercepted their encrypted transmissions to him and decrypted them. I figured you’d want to know if someone else completed the job and took out Prince Jorg first.” Amergin lifted his chin. “I was surprised we didn’t go right after him ourselves, Captain.”
“I was asked not to,” Rache said shortly. “How far away are we from the battle?”
The last Yas had heard, they’d been trailing the largest chunk of the Kingdom ships and keeping an eye on them. Most of their vessels were spread around the system, still trying to gather allies, but the core warships were heading to Stardust Palace. The day before, the Chivalrous had broken away from those warships and headed off in a different direction. The Fedallah had opted to stick with it.
“If we boost to max speed, we could catch up in less than an hour,” Amergin said. “Might be fast enough to make a difference. Uhm, are we trying to make a difference, sir?”
“We don’t get paid if we’re not the ones to kill Jorg.”
“Right, but can we boot our own allies out of the way to do it first? Their presence is problematic, isn’t it? Dubashi might not pay us then.”
“Maybe we’ll sidle up and see if they need some help,” Rache said. “I assume the Chivalrous is fighting back.”
“Yes, but it’s only one ship. It’s well armored and has a good amount of firepower, but it’s outnumbered. I picked up desperate comm messages from it to the rest of the Kingdom fleet. Unless you’re planning to switch sides and help Jorg, I don’t see what we can do to change anything.”
“We will not side with the Kingdom. Not now, not ever.”
“I figured not, but—”
“Victory, Lieutenant, comes from finding the opportunities in problems.”
“That one of your book quotes, sir?”
“Something like that.”
As the two men walked out of the gym, Yas wondered what victory Rache sought. Not only Jorg’s death but getting credit for Jorg’s death? Or something else altogether?
“I don’t think we’re going to find that nice peaceful system of yours, Doc,” Jess said.
“I have that fear myself.”
5
Qin woke up with her body throbbing and Bonita kneeling on the deck next to her.
“Wake up, wake up, wake up,” Bonita was chanting while shaking Qin’s shoulder and glancing toward the force field.
“I’m ’wake,” Qin mumbled, her tongue thick. Memories of being stunned rocketed to her mind. She’d