Page 172 of Red Scale Daddy
“For you, humiliating.”
“Charming.”
“You will complain.”
“Loudly.”
“You will keep moving anyway.”
“Obviously.”
Pally turns from the table and studies me, not the wounds or the rig or the size of me in his cramped ship, but something underneath. “You are not treating this as a glorious last stand anymore.”
“No.”
“What changed?”
I rest one hand on the edge of the tactical table. The metal is warm under my palm, humming faintly with the ship’s engines. “She did.”
His eyes hold mine.
I shrug, but there is nothing casual in it. “I came aboard her ship thinking maybe dying for something useful would be enough. That was easy. Lazy, honestly. Real neat little ending for a man who couldn’t figure out what to do with himself after the war.”
“And now?”
“Now dying sounds like leaving her with another ghost.” My jaw tightens around the words. “She’s got enough of those.”
Pally’s face goes still.
I do not apologize.
He turns toward the painted scrap panel near the console, the child’s crooked stars sealed behind cloudy plastic. For a moment, he looks like a man listening to years he cannot get back.
“You are right,” he says.
That surprises me enough that I blink. “Careful. You’ll strain something.”
“I dislike you less when you are correct.”
“That’s practically affection.”
“Do not get comfortable.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He picks up a small tool case and shoves it into my chest. I catch it with a grunt as the wound in my side complains.
“Inside are seal cutters, bypass pins, two charge clamps, and a field injector,” he says. “Do not improvise with the injector unless you want to lose fingers.”
“How many fingers?”
“Enough to affect your swagger.”
“Tragic.”
“And Dux?”
I look up.
