Starflight (Starflight, #1)(29)

“Why not?”

“Because we just roasted their hull and sent them spinning.” The captain smiled at Solara. “Thanks to you.”

“I can’t take all the credit,” she said. “If Doran hadn’t kept a cool head—”

“So you’re telling me,” Doran interrupted, “that the whole ship is marked?”

Captain Rossi nodded. “For death.”

“Worse than that,” Cassia muttered behind her cards. “If the Daeva catch you, death will sound like a trip to the candy store.”

“What did they look like?” Solara asked, peering at the ship hands. “I never saw who we were running from.”

Neither had Doran, so he listened for the answer.

Kane spoke up for the first time, though his gaze never left his cards. “You can spot them by the metal studs on their temples.” He tapped a finger against the side of his head. “Prefrontal cortex blockers. Subdues the part of the brain that controls guilt and empathy.”

Solara’s mouth dropped open. “That’s…”

“Disturbing,” Doran finished.

“And how they do their job so well,” Kane said.

That clinched it. Doran was getting off this heap as soon as possible. “How much longer are we stuck here?” he asked Solara.

She powered off the soldering gun and inspected the rod she’d just reattached. “Until morning. I want to reinforce the other side, too.”

“How far is the nearest outpost?” he asked the captain.

“From here,” Rossi said, “a couple of days.”

“Good. The sooner the better.”

Solara stood from the floor and motioned for him to do the same. “Excuse us,” she said to the others. “Doran and I have to discuss some contract details, since we’re parting ways before Obsidian.”

He had no idea what she meant by that, but because he didn’t want to spend the evening in the company of death-marked fugitives, he gladly followed her back to their room. The door had barely shut when she lit into him.

“This is a bad idea,” she whisper-yelled. “We should be heading in the opposite direction, away from where your evil girlfriend thinks we’re going.”

Doran rolled his eyes. “She’s not evil. It was a secure line, and I trust her.”

“Well, I don’t,” Solara said. “And it’s not just your neck on the line. As your pink-haired princess pointed out, I have a record. Do you know what’ll happen if I get caught?”

“Yes, you’ll go to a prison colony. Which, if I’m not mistaken, is preferable to death by torture.”

“Not by much.”

“You don’t know Ava. She won’t tell.”

Solara shook her head. “You really are an infant, aren’t you?”

His anger flared, sending a billow of heat to his face. “We’re not changing course, so shut up about it.”

To reinforce the message, he turned his back on her and rummaged through her crates of supplies—which technically belonged to him—looking for objects of value. The Enforcers had probably frozen his assets and blocked his father from sending help, so he’d have to find more creative ways of reaching Obsidian.

“Stay out of my things,” she ordered. “I’ll give you some money.”

He would’ve laughed if his lungs weren’t hanging limp inside his chest. A false indictment and the threat of imminent death tended to have that effect. “How generous of you,” he said as a glimmer of fabric caught his eye. He smoothed his knuckles over the satiny folds. Whatever it was, it looked expensive. “Is that a ball gown?”

“Not important.” She grabbed the crate’s lid and slammed it down, barely missing his fingertips in the process. “You need to get your head in the game. A pocketful of fuel chips won’t take you far. And then what? Not even you can get by on your looks. Not out here.”

Her words stirred the anxiety that had already bubbled inside his stomach, but he faked a lazy shrug. “If my father doesn’t meet me at the outpost, I’ll just go to Obsidian. I have a private ship hidden there. That was the plan to begin with. I was supposed to find it and then travel to a set of coordinates my father gave me.”

What he didn’t tell her was that the coordinates were in the outer realm. He’d already shared too much, and he didn’t want her asking for a ride. The idea of having Solara as his permanent shipmate made his eye twitch.

“Transportation is the least of your problems,” she told him. “If the Solar League wants you extradited, there’s probably a reward for turning you in. Have you considered that?”

No, he hadn’t. And now his heart was trying to beat its way out of his body.

“Come on, Doran. Use that cool head of yours.”

“What do you suggest,” he snapped, “since you’ve got all the answers?”

She took a seat on the edge of the bed and said, “Stay here.”

“With you?”

“On the Banshee,” she clarified, as if there were a difference. “Your passage is already paid. And the crew has no love for Enforcers.”

“The same crew who you said would ransom me? The ones marked by a group of sadistic terrorists? That’s where you want me to put my faith?”