Footsteps echo through the hallway behind us.
“Fuck. She called them faster than I gave her credit for. I should’ve shot her.”
“Roger that,” comes Hit’s disembodied voice. “Hang on, it might get rough.”
“What took you so long?” the mechanic demands.
“Everyone else here?” I bend over, hands on knees.
“You can heal even that?” I ask without thinking.
Jael raises haunted eyes to mine. “Yeah. Even that.”
“Yet. They will find us if we are not collected by another vessel,” Vel says.
lf you’ve never tried hauling straight space in a skiff,
you don’t know what you’re missing.
I lift a shoulder. “Never tried it before. We usually have a half-assed plan.”
“Life in your vicinity seldom lacks excitement,” Vel observes.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Hit comes back.
“How long before intercept?” I ask.
“Stay strapped in,” the pilot adds.
No wonder each jump always felt like coming home.
“They have arrived,” Constance advises us over the comm.
I tap the comm. “Can you make out ship names or numbers?”
I say a prayer to the gods of luck.
“Report,” I demand, tapping the button again.
“Get that cable off us,” Dina barks into the comm. “Or they’ll take us with them when they blow.”