the ship to suggest it wasn’t engaged in legal activities. The least they could do was have a flag or a sign or something so she could have avoided them.
Her hands shook as she tried brushing her hair out of her face. “I’m sure you’re very successful at it, but I don’t need to know anything about what you—”
“Oh, you should be interested in what we do,” Faros said smoothly. “Seeing as we’ve got several bounties on our ship and our crew. The Tyboli are particularly interested in seizing the ship; there’s a substantial bounty on us, and everyone on the ship is forfeit if they capture us. So it’s in your best interest to pay attention, since you picked the wrong ship to sneak onto. You just worked your way into a Tyboli bounty.”
Her heart dropped to her feet and her guts followed right along. A Tyboli bounty? That was bad news, worse even than staying on the gen ship. If the Tyboli picked up the Sraibur while she was on it, she’d end up in slave chains and auctioned to the highest bidder in the worst kind of market. The room started to darken around the edges as she focused on breathing, even as her heart raced and panic simmered in her chest. Leibniz help her, this was the absolute worst decision she’d ever made. And that bastard captain sat there and enjoyed her fear.
EJ tried to compose herself, struggling to swallow the knot in her throat. “You can just drop me off wherever. Take me back to the port or leave me at a new port; it’s all the same to me.”
“Why would I let you flee? I’m wasting resources on you; surely I should get something out of the bargain?”
Her stomach curdled. She’d sort of offered herself to Nokx in return for hiding her, but that was entirely different from what the captain suggested. He was power-mad and awful, and he sat there judging her for wanting to escape a bad situation. EJ braced herself to bargain for her life. “I can work for my passage, if there are chores...”
“Chores,” the grumpy security officer said. “And waste more resources supervising you doing things that our crew could already accomplish?”
She wanted to stomp her feet in frustration and despair. Maybe being jettisoned was the only option. At the rate things were going, that might have been the best option available. Before she broke down completely and turned into a miserable puddle right there on the bridge, Nokx heaved a sigh and fixed the captain with an even look. “We have a lot of cargo in the hold that needs to be inventoried and put in the right systems so the food generators keep moving. She can push boxes around for a while.”
Both the Xaravians turned their attention on him. EJ didn’t need to be an expert in Xaravian emotions to see the surprise and speculation on their faces. She filed that away as something to worry about later, since she had bigger challenges to deal with.
The captain hmm’d under his breath as he tapped his fingers on the chair, studying them both, then glanced at the security officer. “We can’t stop at another spaceport without jeopardizing the ship’s safety. If we stop too frequently, the Tyboli will track us and attack when we’re in deep space, or some of those damn bounty hunters will pop up again.”
The security officer nodded. “Agreed. We need to minimize exposure.”
“Seems like the best option is to take her back to the gen ship.” Faros started to smile, hints of his pointy teeth visible as his grin broadened. “Drop her off with her original jailers and see whether there’s anything on the gen ship that’s worth the trouble of returning her to them. I’m sure they’d be grateful for us returning their little runaway.”
EJ started shaking her head before she could stop herself, even retreating a step out of instinct. She didn’t get far, of course, because Nokx put his hand out and stopped her short. She shivered and clenched her fists behind her back. “You really don’t need to. They’ve only got farming equipment and seeds and some life support gear for when they arrive. It’s a bunch of poor people with nowhere else to go.”
“Unless they choose to stow away on another ship, then they’ve got somewhere worse to go, apparently.” Faros still smiled, despite there being no warmth in it, and gestured at Nokx. “Very well, Commander. She’s all