“Rico said you might have some training programs you could set up for me.”
“He did?” She frowned. “Why do you want to learn? Aren’t you a politician? Who do you want to shoot?”
Janey sounded suspicious, and he tried to think what would be a good answer. He reckoned one of the reasons the crew was so against him was because they were protective of Tannis. He could work with that. “I’ll be going down to Trakis Seven with Tannis. I might need to protect her.”
“From what? There’s nothing alive on Trakis Seven.”
“Maybe someone will follow us down there.”
“This is Trakis Seven we’re talking about. Somehow, I doubt you’ll be inundated with company. Besides, the captain is quite capable of looking after herself.”
He resisted the urge to follow his natural inclinations and order her to give him the stuff. Instead, he took a deep breath. There were some occasions when only the truth would do. “Okay, the truth?”
“A novel idea, but why not?”
“I suspect, at some point in the near future, I’m going to want to shoot Devlin Starke. Unfortunately, he’s essential to our plans, so I want to make sure that I don’t kill him by accident.”
Janey grinned. “Great reason. You’ll find a headset underneath the console in your cabin. I’ll send the files through there.”
…
“You know, you should think about joining us,” Devlin said.
Tannis hadn’t been paying attention. Instead, she’d been playing with her food and watching the doorway. Now she turned to the man at her side. “Sorry?”
“I said, I think you should consider joining the Rebels. We need good captains.”
The comment took her by surprise. She wondered why. On the outside, she supposed she was ideal rebel material. She was a GM and an experienced captain. Still, anyone who knew her well could have told him she wasn’t one for causes, and she certainly wasn’t a joiner. Rico’s influence.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?” He reached across and stroked a finger down the back of her hand, and she twitched with the need to pull away. She didn’t like unsolicited personal contact. But maybe Devlin didn’t realize that. After all, she’d hardly been standoffish with him. She was just unused to this sort of situation, so she left her hand where it was and tried to control her twitching. He obviously took that as positive and stroked her again. She analyzed the resulting feeling: not unpleasant, but not wildly exciting either. Her gaze strayed to the door.
“We’d be good together,” Devlin murmured.
She realized he was still on about her joining the Rebels. At least she hoped that’s what he was talking about. She turned to face him. Close up, he really was very good-looking.
“No we wouldn’t,” she said. “You like to be in charge and so do I. Besides, you’re an idealist and I’m not. You want to save the world, and I just want to earn lots and lots of money.”
“You don’t come across as the mercenary type.”
Tannis grinned. “Believe me, I love money.”
“Is that why you’re working for that bastard? For money.”
She presumed he meant Callum. “Yeah, for money. Mainly.”
He frowned. “Maybe you need to open your eyes and see what’s going on in the world. GMs are suffering. It’s our duty to stop this, to bring down the government—”
“Yeah, yeah, and make the world a better place,” she interrupted his sermon as irritation nipped at her nerves. “My eyes are open, thank you, and I think I know what’s going on, probably better than you. I just don’t want to make that my life.” She pulled her hand free and picked up her spoon, starting to eat and hoping he would get the message.
Callum was late for supper. Where was he?
He’d left her alone for the last couple of days, and she didn’t blame him. After all, she had poisoned him. At first, she’d tried to tell herself that she liked it this way, but her deep-rooted self-honesty wouldn’t allow her to accept that. She missed him.
But the one time he turned up unfailingly was mealtimes. The first couple of times, he’d sat in silence, obviously listening. He hadn’t attempted to sit next to her, usually taking a seat opposite. She occasionally found his gaze on her, but he would just smile politely and go on with his food.
Then, after the first couple of meals, he’d started joining in with the conversation. Making the odd comment. Asking questions. Last night, he and Rico had gotten into an argument about an old program they had both watched back on Earth—Star Trek—and which season was the best. But the argument had been friendly—it looked like Rico had forgiven him for his time in the research center.
Afterward, she’d asked him, and he’d shrugged. “We’ve all done things we should probably be ashamed of. Hell, I changed Bastian, and look how that turned out.”
Now, she played with her food and waited for Callum to appear.