Page 45 of Shielded in the Shadows

“None at all.” She shrugged. “You know, that information about a rendezvous on Forval IX isn’t on the bounty posting, so it’s something your former captain found about some other way. He must have been in contact with whoever posted the bounty or one of their agents. Maybe he knows more.”

“That occurred to me too.” I returned to her side and risked pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “If I get a chance, I’ll ask him before I kill him. In the meantime, hopefully my contact at Trakhan will come through for us when we get there.”

She chuckled. “Ah yes, your good friend Byx with the private docking bay and the proper payoffs. I look forward to meeting this male.” She stretched. “We need to hit the cleansing unit and get changed. Captain’s prerogative to go first.”

“Is that ground rule number eight?” I asked.

“Absolutely.”

“I need to make a record of these,” I said, feigning exasperation.

Keela chuckled. “Siber, have you been tracking the ground rules?”

“Affirmative, Captain Wren,” the AI said. A display came to life in the corridor, showing all seven—now eight—“ground rules” listed in numerical order. “Is this list complete?”

“No, it’s ongoing.” Keela gently unwound my tail from her leg and headed for her quarters, hips swaying. “Keep adding to the display as necessary. I have a feeling there will be plenty more rules that need codification. I run a tight ship.”

“Of course, Captain,” Siber replied.

“Ship’s status?”

“All systems are nominal. We are on course for Trakhan Outpost. ETA is seventy-one standard hours.”

“Thank you, Siber.” Keela unlocked her cabin doors and turned back to me. “Meal in the cockpit when we’re clean and changed? Or do you have something else you need to do?”

What else she thought I might have to do, I had no idea. “A meal would be perfect,” I said.

“Good.” She disappeared into her cabin, then stuck her head back out. “I’m suspending ground rule number one for today. I want a bowl of those dumplings you made yesterday. Extra sauce.”

I folded my hands behind my back and gave her a little bow. “Of course, Captain.”

“Right answer.” She disappeared again. The doors to her cabin hissed closed.

On the corridor display, rule number one blinked out and then reappeared with an addendum: Exception made for dumplings with extra sauce.

Chuckling, I returned to the cargo bay to clean my blood off the mat.

I spent the next seventy hours getting to know my mate and her ship.

Keela and I shared meals in the cockpit three times a day, trading stories from our pasts. She’d admitted her eating habits involved doing the bare minimum necessary to fuel her body, a lingering effect of her many years eating plain rations in the food hall of the gladiator barracks. I was more than happy to prepare meals for us that were simple but delicious and offered more than merely nutrition. She grumbled as she ate, but she ate with gusto.

Between breakfast and the midday meal, she acquainted me with the ship’s operations and its engineering level, though I remained locked out of essential systems. I didn’t press the issue and I didn’t take it personally. She trusted me, but she was clinging to control and safety where she could.

It helped that if Keela were to be incapacitated, Siber had proven capable of running navigation, weapons, and defense systems, as well as critical operations. For now, that would have to be enough.

Once our midday meals had settled, Keela and I spent hours in the cargo bay, training individually and then sparring. I improved my ability to mask how much I disliked seeing Keela hurt. It helped that we ended up about equal on the number of injuries sustained and that we healed each other in the medbay after.

Unfortunately, there were no more wagers about kisses—and no more kisses. At her request, though, my tail stayed wrapped loosely around her leg or ankle unless we were in training or in our separate quarters.

Late in the day, after the final meal, we sipped tea either in the cockpit or while walking around the cargo bay as she told me about her recent jobs. We’d sifted through her records and found no ties to Forval IX, so the bounty and its origins remained a mystery.

As did Keela’s reason for visiting Ghira Station, which was one of the few things about my mate I found truly frustrating. The moment the subject came up, she shut down, and Siber offered no clues either.

And so on the long ship’s nights alone in my cabin or in the cockpit, where I kept watch for several hours prior to when Keela emerged from her cabin precisely at 0600 each day, I found myself speculating as much about that mysterious visit to Ghira Station as the bounty. Something about it seemed deeply personal and deeply painful. Keela hid her emotions well, but twice I’d glimpsed a profound level of grief and shame in her eyes before they shuttered and she changed the topic.

The secret bothered me like a splinter I couldn’t extract. Something was causing Keela pain, but she wouldn’t let me anywhere near it.

Three standard days after we’d left Hidria, the Nivilus dropped out of hyperdrive an hour from Trakhan. Both Keela and I were in the cockpit when the stars transitioned from streaks of light to distant pinpricks in the black void and the sound of the ship’s engines changed from a deep thrum to a quiet, higher-pitched hum.