She remained silent but drummed her fingers on her armrest. I hoped that was a sign that she was at least thinking about it.
Something crashed in the galley, and I twitched in my seat. It wasn’t my fault that any sudden moves from Eton made me jumpy. A platter had slipped from his fingers as he deposited the layer of frothed fruit on top of something cakelike, and now he was picking up the pieces angrily. “Qole, you can’t seriously be considering this royal. Can you not see how dangerous he is? Can’t all of you?”
“I am dangerous,” I responded evenly. “But the alternative for you, this ship, my family, and Alaxak is much more dangerous.”
“She’s not thinking about it,” Arjan said. “She’s just thinking about the best way to get rid of him.”
Telu leveled a stare at me, one that made me nervous with its intensity. But then she said, “Nev does make a certain amount of sense. And we’re going to need money for repairs after the hits we took from that blasted destroyer.”
Still, Qole was silent.
“A vote,” Arjan said suddenly. “We can put it to a vote.”
“All in favor of watching me beat him senseless?” suggested Eton.
“All in favor of dropping our friend here off somewhere and going back to a normal life?” Arjan amended generously.
Arjan and Eton raised their hands. Shockingly enough, they were the only two.
“All in favor of going with him and believing his lies and becoming a lab rat?” Eton snarled.
Telu snorted. “Well, when you put it like that. How about all in favor of listening to the nice prince with guns and money who probably doesn’t want to kill us but has enemies who probably could?” She raised her hand.
I felt a disproportionate sense of satisfaction; I had won over a member of Qole’s crew who had been adamantly against me only moments before.
Arjan looked at Basra. “Bas?”
Basra shook his head. “Neutral.”
“Surprising,” Telu said. Arjan looked visibly disappointed.
“It’s not a vote.” Qole spoke, finally, and stood up. She looked around the room at each of them. “You don’t get to decide what I do, and you don’t get to decide what I do with my ship.”
“Fine.” Eton let out an exasperated breath. “Captain, what are we going to do?”
“What I’m going to do is go with Nev.”
Such relief washed over me that I almost sagged in my chair. I had to remind myself to focus on what she said next.
“I’ll give each of you the option to stay if you want, but decide now. If you come with me, you remain on the Kaitan, and you listen to me. And that includes you,” she said, meeting my eyes again. “Promise me that you’ll follow my orders, that you will protect this crew and my ship, and that you’ll compensate us for any losses we incur.”
I nodded, taking my time—no, relishing her clear and steady gaze. “I promise, Captain Qole Uvgamut. You have my word.”
“Good. We’ll find out what it’s worth. Does anyone want to leave?”
Everyone else was silent.
“Good,” she repeated. “Telu, set a course for Luvos and get to sleep. Eton, make some dinner, and wake me up when it’s ready. Everyone else, to your quarters. You need to get some rest as well.”
Eton nodded. “Do you want something heavier with sauces, or something refreshing?”
“I want dinner, Eton. Pick something.”
“Aargh.” He threw his hands in the air, and then set to sharpening a knife by hand, running a flint along the considerable edge. He was as precise in that as he was in a fight, and as my gaze lingered on him, his eyes rose and latched on to mine. I opted to leave. Sleep sounded incredibly nice…but first I wanted to talk to Qole privately. To thank her.
As I exited the mess room and headed down the hall, I heard Telu’s voice behind me. “Hey, Nev, hold up.”
I turned around, unable to help my smile. At least I had one other ally on the ship. “What can I do for you?”
Telu walked up and lowered her voice. “You know I’m a hacker, right?”
I nodded. “Yes, I’ve noticed. Impressive work, I might add.”
“You bet I’m good. I had that destroyer compromised and their weapons offline and they never even knew it happened.”
I blinked. So it hadn’t only been Qole who’d disarmed the destroyer, even though she’d disemboweled it. “That is good. I…That’s impressive. And that was the fastest drone rerouting I’ve ever seen someone pull off.”
Telu drew nearer. I could see the intensity of both eyes, even through the sweep of her dark hair. “Yeah. So when I say I’m going to hack something, you know that it’s going to happen, hey?”
I nodded. “That seems like a reasonable statement to make.”
“It is. So is this.” She stood on her tiptoes and whispered in my ear. “If you ever hurt Qole, I will hack you to pieces. Real small ones.”
Then she was gone.
My encounter with Telu hadn’t exactly instilled me with the confidence I would’ve preferred to have to approach Qole alone in her quarters, but there wasn’t anything else for it.
The messroom was on the second-to-highest level of the ship, with only the bridge above it. This same floor housed Telu’s and Basra’s stations, which Qole overlooked through the grating at her feet. But she wasn’t up on the bridge now, with the ship on autopilot. Below this level were the living quarters and a few maintenance rooms, above only the cargo and containment holds and the engine rooms. I took a metal staircase down.
Her quarters were the biggest, farthest back down the hall. The riveted door was cracked open, so I hoped that meant visitors were still welcome. I knocked.
“Hey?” Qole responded, her voice tired.
Her room was as functional as the ship, equipped with a bed, a plate-metal desk, a trunk, and a few shelves. The only decorations were some faded, ancient-looking photographs—I didn’t even know those existed outside of museums anymore—and a few other obviously old trinkets: bits of braided leather, a string of blue stone beads, and a dented tin mug, together with the photographs. It looked almost like a crude, cobbled-together shrine, flanked as it was by two dim Shadow lanterns. A curious mix of dusty past and dangerous present. A single painted picture also hung on the wall. It was an abstract of a Shadow run, all blacks, purples, and whites.
I pushed the heavy door farther open to see her sliding down the fur-lined robe she’d borrowed from Telu, baring her tawny, toned arms and the ruined black tank top she’d been wearing since we’d left the destroyer. Her black hair was freed from the constraints of her braid, hanging long and wavy and wild down her back.
Great Collapse. “Oh—uh, I can go,” I said hurriedly. I took a step back into the door frame, ready to close the door and run.
“What do you want?” she snapped.