Shiu's ship vibrated violently as it passed up through the atmosphere of the planet, and he felt like he was being slowly crushed by the forces that kept him pressed into his seat. But finally, once he passed through the atmosphere and got into space proper, the roughness disappeared and let him begin to cruise more smoothly.

With no more need for manual control, he started to plug the coordinates Tethryn had given him into his navigation system, but he couldn't remember anything further than the quadrant number. It would be a good enough start to at least get the autopilot going and a course plotted with any opportunistic slingshots he could get off of planets along the way. She'd been perfectly willing to cover the cost of the extra fuel canisters, but there was still no reason not to take any navigational freebies he could get.

The navigational computer was one of the few things that still worked as well as the day it was made. Unfortunately, it still worked about as well as the day it was made, so while it took its time computing the route, he went through a few more diagnostic checks on the ship, confirming that nothing important had broken during that last take-off. It was going to be a long time before he could stop in for repairs if anything went wrong.

Two full minutes after he finished the checks, he was drumming his fingers on the patchy armrest of his seat while staring out the cockpit window at the stars, resting his head on his other hand. The computer finally finished calculating a route, and a quick glance was enough to tell him that they were, indeed, headed out into the ass end of nowhere. Nothing the autopilot couldn't handle, thankfully; despite its proximity to the border, the destination wasn't near any minefields or similar hazards, and the few known debris fields near to it would be easily avoided. With the course set and the autopilot running, he undid the straps holding him into the seat, swiveled around, and got up, a quick pat of his sides confirming that his pistol and knives were still secured to his toolbelt.

Once again, he needed to have a talk with his passenger.

Striding down the corridor to the engine room, he pushed open the door and knocked on the wall before entering. "Hey, I need-" he began, but stopped short when he saw Tethryn lying on the folding travel bed he had bought for her, having evidently set it back up quickly after they left the atmosphere. It was small and made of cheap materials, not much more than a deckchair with a different shape, but with the blankets and pillows he had acquired it would be vastly better than sleeping on the floor.

The reason he was staring, though, was that she was naked, fanning herself with her right hand. She looked more or less how he had expected her to under her clothing, with more red skin on her front covering her bared breasts and the dark red nipples. However, she had one leg she had crossed over the other, preventing him from peeking between them, and he could see that her feet were divided at the end into only two toes, if that's what they even were; they looked a little like long hooves made of flesh. The only thing she wore was the bandage wrapped around her upper left arm, still bloodied and unchanged from when she had applied it.

She turned her head and glanced over at him. "What?" she asked incredulously, "It's fuckin' hot in here. Don't give me that look, mister 'It's my ship and I can be naked on it if I want'."

"I don't mind, I just wasn't expecting it," he remarked with a shrug. "Feel free to strut around naked, just be aware I might get a little stiff from the sight."

She gave a snort and a small laugh in response. "Oh, go fuck yourself," she told him jovially.

"You know I'm big enough that I could," he replied with a grin.

"Yeah, ain't that the truth," she agreed. Shifting in her bed, she couldn't hide a wince of pain, even though she was clearly trying to tough it out.

Shiu frowned and started to approach her. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"Other than living in fear for my life?" she replied snarkily.

"If you're hurting, you should say something. The last thing I need is you getting sick."

"I'm-" she began with an elaborate shrug, but winced again as she moved her left arm. "Okay, fine, it hurts, but I got shot. I'd be more surprised if it didn't hurt."

"Did it hurt like that yesterday?"

"Not as much, no. It's fine-"

Shiu shook his head. "You need to let me take a look at it."

Tethryn raised an eyebrow incredulously. "Uh, no? What, are you looking for some excuse to feel me up?"

With a sigh, he put one hand to his face. "Lady, if I wanted to take advantage of you, I'd have done it already. Besides, you're the one who opted to go naked, I didn't force that on you."

"Fair, but you're a smuggler, not a doctor. Unless you're going to try and tell me you got a medical degree before your fall from grace?"

"No," he told her with another shake of his head, folding his arms. "But I was a soldier. Not a field medic, but I do know basic first aid. Plus I had to learn the ropes to take care of myself out here. And I do have some medical supplies with me, as long as you're not one of those species with weird allergies to common meds."

She gave a sigh and sat up. "All right, all right. But don't try anything without my permission first, or you're going to need a lot more than a bandage."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he muttered, turning around. "Come this way."

She followed him back to his cabin, grateful for the cooler air outside of the engine room. Standing just inside, she watched him open the cabinet close to the door, pulling a semitransparent white plastic box off the top shelf, then setting it down on the kitchen area's counter. Opening it up and reaching inside, he took a tinted plastic bottle out from it and looked over the label. "I don't know shit about Kryterans; are you a Class C, F or K species?"

"Nope, Class D."

"Good, this should work just fine, then," he said before rolling up the sleeves of his jumpsuit, unscrewing the cap of the bottle, and splashing a little disinfectant onto one hand before rubbing both of them together. "Sit on the bed, please."

"I thought you said you weren't a doctor," she teased, doing as instructed.

He gave her an unamused look over his shoulder before turning around and kneeling down in front of her. Her legs weren't closed, and despite his attempt to remain serious, he couldn't resist taking a quick look down below; unsurprisingly, she had a slit between her legs, and what little visible inner flesh he could make out was a dark red. She didn't look much different than he had expected, other than having a pair of identical small bumps above and to the sides of her slit, one on each side. "I need to take the bandage off," he told her as he quickly lifted his gaze. "If everything's good, I can put a clean one on. You should be changing the dressing on an injury like that regularly anyway."

"Well excuse me for not having proper medical supplies with me as I fled for my life," she muttered, slowly holding out her left arm for him. "Go ahead."

Reaching out, he tugged at the blood-stained, makeshift bandage, unwrapping it from her arm. She winced again and bit her lip as he did, the bandage pulling off a bit of the scab underneath. It was an unpleasant sight, but plasma burns always were; a small chunk of her flesh had been vaporized and cauterized by the plasma, leaving an ugly black and red scar. But worse than that, Shiu could see that it was swollen around the edges, with purple and green colors that definitely didn't look healthy.

"It's infected," he told her bluntly. "This is why you need to clean and re-dress wounds regularly. Using unsterilized bandages didn't do you any favors, either."

"Ugh. Great. I guess we'll need to make a detour to find a doctor."

"Not necessarily," Shiu replied as he stood back up, reaching for the top shelf of the cabinet again. "You're lucky that I had the foresight to skim a bit off the top of some of my runs. I've got plenty of good med-tech lying around. Stuff simple enough that even I can use it."

"Really?" she asked, disbelieving. "I thought you just ran drugs."

"I run what I'm needed to run," he told her matter-of-factly as he pulled down another box. This one was metal and had catches on the side like a briefcase, but was quite thick. Setting it down on the bed, he continued, "Just not live cargo, since the ship's not made for it, and no weapons or volatiles, because the last thing I need is something blowing up in the back of my ship. I even smuggled a shipment of candy once. Some places have weird cultural prohibitions, and whatever is forbidden is lucrative to sell."

"Fair," she muttered, watching him as he knelt down next to her again, opening the box. It swung open on a pair of hinges all the way; the bottom half of the box seemed to be devoted to some kind of specialized computer, with other implements clipped onto the inside of the lid. "I'm surprised smuggling medical stuff is worth your time."

He let out a snort, and then had to stop for a moment as he gave a deep laugh, shaking his head and clearing his throat, pulling a small booklet out from the box lid and flicking through it. "Oh, you have no idea how this works, do you? Med-tech is some of the most profitable stuff I can run, if I get it from the right source."

"What? How? None of this is illegal, right?" she asked, gesturing with her right hand.

"No, but what it is, is expensive," he explained. "Of all the megacorps out there, none are greedier and more ruthless than the medical ones. If you live in the core, you probably won't need weapons, private security, or the other high-end stuff. Luxury services are only for the rich. Essentials like food are easy to make, so it's a race to the bottom on pricing and margins. But meds? Sooner or later, everyone gets sick or hurt, and not just anybody can manufacture meds. The processes are complicated, and everything is patented twice over."

Flicking a few switches on the machine and turning a dial as a screen came to life, he continued, "You've got a very tightly controlled supply and a universal demand, which means they can dictate whatever the fuck price tag they want. As long as they don't price themselves out of the market entirely, they can, will, and do gouge anyone and everyone. But if I cut out the middleman with some clever sourcing, I can charge half of what the corps do and STILL come out of it with a fat profit."

"Real quick, you DO know how to use that thing, right?" she asked as he pushed a few buttons on the device, picking up what looked like a pen with a wide, flat tip, connected to the device by a coiled cord.

"Well enough. It's intended for use by people like me who didn't go to med school," he told her as he tore open a tiny packet with a disinfectant-soaked pad inside, pressing it against the end of the pen. "Hold still while I do this." He raised the pen-like tool to her arm and lightly pressed the flat end of it near her wound, against the infected area.

She gave a sigh, watching him warily, and muttered, "Well, anyway, I can't really argue against you on that one, considering how much debt my cousin got saddled with after his infection." Shiu pressed a button on the pen, and there was a sudden loud clicking sound; Tethryn grimaced as she felt something sharp jab at her arm painfully, but it only lasted a brief moment. Numbers and symbols started to dance on the screen inside the case, and Shiu waited until they stopped before flipping the disinfectant pad over and wiping the pen again on the other side.

"So, what's this thing do?" she asked.

"Just a diagnostic tool," he told her. "I need to know if I've got what I'll need to clear that infection up."

"And if you don't?"

"Then I hope you've got a strong immune system."

She frowned and waited. The machine beeped and a green light came up after a short delay, and Shiu looked it over. "Well, I have good news, and I have bad news," he told her as he stood up and reached into the top shelf of his cabinet again.

"The good news is you can cure it, right?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes," he replied, taking down another plastic box, opening it and looking inside. "As long as I have a Class D compatible dose in here." He pulled a syringe out from the box and read the label on it, shaking his head before putting it back and taking out another.

Hesitantly, she asked, "And the bad news...?"

"It's going to hurt," he answered bluntly.

"Oh," she said, relieved. "I was worried you were going to tell me you'd have to cut off my arm or something."

He set the syringe down and put the rest of them back, kneeling in front of her again. "No, thankfully it's not that bad yet," he told her.

"Ha ha, good joke," she muttered. He lifted his head and gave her a firm glare, and she sheepishly asked, "...it was a joke, right?"

"No."

Chastised, she frowned, and leaned forward. "Okay, well, I can handle a jab, let's just get it over with," she said, holding her arm out again. "You've done this before, right?"

"Yes," he answered, carefully sliding the protective covering off the end of the needle. "Usually to help an associate get their fix, but it's the same idea." Taking a firm hold of her arm from underneath, he gripped tightly and kept her arm in place as he rested the tip of the needle against her skin close to the infected area. "You might want to hold onto something," he warned her.

"It's just a shot," she said as Shiu pricked her with the needle, "how bad can-"

He pushed down on the plunger, and she let out a cry of pain, swinging her right fist down against the bed and clutching at the bedcovers. Several colorful curses spilled from her mouth, first in the Galactic Common Lingua, and then in what he presumed was her own native language. She gritted her teeth, legs swinging and thumping her feet against the drawers under the bed...

...and then it was over, just as suddenly as it began. She seemed barely aware of Shiu dabbing the injection site with another disinfectant pad, not even reacting to the stinging sensation it brought. Panting for breath, she looked over at her arm cautiously, as if expecting to see it shriveling up.

But instead, it looked better. There was still the scarred tissue from the plasma shot, and the purple discoloration was still there, but the green was gone. "Holy shit," she muttered between breaths as she looked it over.

"The wonders of modern medicine," Shiu muttered. "Of course, you're still missing some flesh, and I can fix that too, but you need to do something for me first."

She took a deep breath, calming herself down. "What's that?"

"You need to tell me the whole story," he said firmly, fixing her with his gaze. "Where we're going. What's there. Why you want it. Why RanaTek wants it. What you're going to do with it. And how much of an idiot I've been for going along this far without getting those answers first."

She couldn't meet his gaze, and looked away. "I-" she began, but her less-than-enthusiastic tone was immediately met with a narrowing of his eyes.

"Don't forget, we're heading out of the normal travel lanes. I can toss you out the airlock and nobody will ever find you."

"You could, but you won't," she retorted. "You're not that kind of guy! You act tough because you have to, because of this life you lead. Not because that's who you are. You're not out here doing this because you want to, it's because you have to."

He gave a small snort. "You're right that I didn't want this," he murmured darkly. "I tried to go legit at first. But there's not enough business for an independent shipper like me, even out here on the fringe. The corps take all the good jobs. If I hadn't taken up smuggling, I would have lost what little I had left." Inhaling deeply, he pressed on, "But that doesn't change the fact that I'm not following along on a plan without being informed. If you can't trust me, then I obviously can't trust you either."

She lowered her head. What choice did she have? But she knew he was trustworthy; she'd admitted as much moments ago. If he was going to ruin everything for her, he would have done it already.

"I know. I'm just trying to keep you out of it. I don't want you ending up having to go into hiding as well."

"Your concern is appreciated, but I want you to tell me. Call me stubborn if you want, but I want all the details. I'll find out one way or another anyway if you drag me along." Leaning in a little closer, he gave a small smirk. "I'm too inquisitive for my own good, you know."

"All right, all right," she said, defeated. "But please treat me first."

"How do I know you're going to tell me?" he asked.

She raised her right hand and pointed to his belt, where his pistol was still clipped. "Because if I don't, you can shoot me, right here," she told him. "I'm obviously unarmed, unless you think I've got a gun stuffed up my cunt. Feel free to lock the door too. I'm basically helpless right now; you could knock me out and have your way with me and I couldn't do anything to stop you." She gave a sigh and continued, "Because you're right. I'm being unreasonable. I'm asking a lot from you and not giving very much in return. I need your trust, and so, I have to trust you."

He leaned back a little, his expression softening. "Thank you," he told her simply after a moment, then stood up.

"Where are you going?" she blurted out.

"Just cleaning up," he replied, gathering up and disposing of the used syringe and disinfectant pads. She watched him as he put away the medical supplies and the diagnostic machine solemnly and methodically, retrieving a pair of disposable gloves and slipping them into a pocket on the front of his jumpsuit. She felt nervous, unsure what was about to happen, but stayed where she was on the bed.

Then, after closing the cabinet, he reached around both sides of it and pulled on it, tugging it away from the wall. Behind it were more panels like the rest of the wall, but she saw him run his fingers along one edge, and with a click, the panel swung open, revealing a hidden compartment. She couldn't see inside, and he reached in only long enough to take something out before pushing it closed again, snapping closed once more.

He turned around and she finally saw what he was holding: a dull metal cylindrical canister as wide as it was tall, with thick rims on the top and base, a heavy catch at the top, and a protrusion on the front that ran the canister's entire height. It was just a little bit bigger than his hand, and he showed it to her as he knelt down once more. "Do you know what this is?" he asked.

"Yeah," she answered, staring at it with her bright green eyes. "How in the fuck did-"

"Skimmed off the top," he said, preemptively answering her question.

"You took a canister of fucking Medigel from a shipment, and nobody noticed?"

"Six canisters, actually," he answered nonchalantly. "Had a contact who got it direct from a factory. Cuts out the corps' margins. They don't mind so much if a little goes missing. It's expected when you work with smugglers, really."

"But how? One canister of that costs more than my yearly salary!" Tethryn demanded. "...back when I HAD a salary, anyway," she added quickly to correct herself.

"It would've broken the bank for me as well, back when I was a wage slave," he agreed, idly tossing the canister in one hand. "But do you know how much it actually costs to make a can of this stuff?"

She stared at him blankly, and gave a small shrug. "A thousand credits?" she offered as a shot in the dark.

"Less than a credit."

Leaning back, Tethryn stared at him in disbelief. "You're fucking with me."

"Well, sure, there's some up-front costs," he replied with a shrug. "Building the factory, doing the research, acquiring the patents, and all that. But those are all one-time expenses. The gel itself they make in giant batches, and none of the ingredients are too hard to get hold of, especially when you're a corp and can buy in bulk. The can costs more than its contents; it's just a standard vacuum-sealed cryo-can with a single-purpose microcomputer attached to it." Reaching for the protrusion on the front, he pulled a thin strip of plastic out from it, with a tiny needle on the end. "And this thing too, but it's a regular blood-reading strip. Sells for about 50 times what it costs to make."

Tethryn uttered a curse in her native language under her breath. Undaunted, Shiu continued, "It's a miracle substance. Cuts, gashes, anything short of a missing limb, it can fix. Regrows muscle, tissue, and skin. Not fur or scales, but they'll come back on their own time. And not bones, either. Doesn't do shit for infections though, which is why I had to give you that shot."

She stared at the canister again, and then a realization hit her. "Wait... and you're going to use that on me?"

He gave a small nod. "Nothing else is going to fix a wound like that. Unless you want a fucked-up arm for the rest of your life."

"But you can't use something that expensive on-!" she began to protest.

"I can, and I will," he asserted, cutting her off. "...with your consent," he added a moment later, a small smirk crossing his face.

She sat in silence for a moment, and then raised her left arm again, holding it out to him. He took hold of her arm once more, but gently this time, and pressed the needle on the blood-reading strip against her arm, pricking it lightly, just enough to get a blood sample. Sliding it back into the slot on the canister, he waited a moment until it beeped, and the catch on the lid unlocked with a click.

"Hold this," he told her, handing her the canister as he fished out the disposable gloves, pulling them on.

"Is this going to hurt?" she asked, her worry written on her face, but he gave a small smile as he took the container back.

"No, but it will feel weird," he told her reassuringly. Opening the latch on the side of the canister, he raised the lid, making a hissing sound as the seal was broken. A small cloud of condensation flowed out from the cryo-canister, but as it cleared to mere wisps, she saw the inside was filled with a clear, gelatinous substance. Reaching in with a gloved hand, he simply scooped a bit of the gel out with his fingers, his other hand holding her arm steady as he pressed the gel against the plasma wound and rubbed it in.

Tethryn shivered and gritted her teeth, not because it hurt, nor because the gel was very cold, but because it did, as he had warned, feel weird. It was like her skin was crawling, except deeper in her arm than the surface. She made an "Eeeuuugh" sound, feeling the flesh and muscle regrowing and mending itself rapidly; it was a deeply uncomfortable sensation, as if something was wriggling around inside her arm, and it made her squirm on Shiu's bed.

The sensation eventually eased as the gel did its work, and she looked over at the wound. Or at least, where it had been – the only sign she had been injured there was the excess gel on the surface of her arm, and the remaining purple discoloration from the infection that would go away over time. She stared at it wide-eyed, moving her arm about slowly, glad that it no longer hurt to do so.

Shiu pulled off the gloves and closed the canister, sliding it over towards her. "Don't you want it?" she asked him as he got up and pulled a towel out from the cabinet, holding it out to her.

"It's useless to me now," he told her as she took the towel. "The gel is coded to your DNA, and it can't be re-programmed."

She froze midway through wiping the leftover gel off her arm. "Wait wait wait wait wait," she stammered as the realization hit her, "You just gave up an ENTIRE canister of Medigel... for me?"

"Yep," he answered simply.

She remained perfectly still, staring in shock, as he knelt down by her again. Lowering his voice to a quiet tone, he leaned forward and asked, "Now do you trust me?"

After a brief pause, she nodded back to him. She took a moment to clean her arm and then folded up the towel, setting it aside. "Okay. Take a seat. This might take a while. I'd like some water too, please."

Nodding, he opened a cabinet in the kitchen area and retrieved a tall plastic cup from it, filling it with water before handing it over to her. She gratefully took it and sipped, steeling herself as he took a seat on the floor, knees bent, arms resting on them, only silence passing between them as she worked up her nerve. She wasn't normally one to give away secrets before putting them to print, but this time, she had to make an exception.

He'd earned it.

It still took a moment for her to summon her courage, but she forced out the words. "Those coordinates I gave you are – with 99.98% confidence – the location of a shipwreck," she told him when she finally spoke. But once she'd started, the rest flowed naturally, and she kept going. "A very particular shipwreck. One that, officially, doesn't exist."

He raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry, and she continued. "I had to do some serious digging just to scratch the surface on this one. Three cycles ago, mercenaries raided a high-security research outpost in the Cosmic Federation. It was in a remote location to try and keep its existence unknown, but someone who wasn't supposed to know found out, sold the info, and someone else cashed in on it. They stormed the place, killed everyone, and made off with an absolute fortune in military secrets. Experiment data, prototypes, plans, research notes, you name it."

"Which corp owned the place?" Shiu asked.

She shook her head. "None. It was one of the CF's own outposts." Shiu's eyes widened, and she nodded. "Yeah. So right from the beginning, this is some serious shit. Either treason or espionage, depending who the mercs worked for. Unsurprisingly, the Federation threw everything it could spare into tracking down the mercs. There was just one problem: someone beat them to it. By the time the Federation located the mercenaries' base, they found only bodies, rubble and wreckage. And none of their stolen tech."

She paused to take another sip of her water. "And that wasn't even the end of it. It changed hands a few more times over the course of the next cycle, never peacefully. Stolen again and again and again before anyone could sell it off or make use of it, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. And that's where RanaTek comes in. Did you hear about the Battle of Telradin Belt?"

Shiu gave a nod. "Yeah. Or at least, the official story; terrorists hijacked a luxury liner, Cerulean Enterprises steps in, RanaTek claims the whole thing is a false flag and their fleet opens fire. I'm gathering there was more to it than that."

"The 'terrorists' were the last owners of the stolen tech, another mercenary group. They commandeered the liner to use it as cover, figuring that nobody would think to look on a five-star resort ship making its slow way to the other end of the Federation through empty – but pretty – sections of space. But they were sloppy when they hijacked it at the spaceport, and left some survivors. Cerulean found out first, but RanaTek had a spy on their staff. They all wanted it, so lasers started being fired."

"And the wreck is that luxury liner?"

"No. Cerulean's boarding teams recovered the tech and brought it back to one of their ships. Then, one of RanaTek's cruisers ambushed it, disabled it, boarded THEM, stole the cargo, and tried to flee."

"I thought RanaTek lost the battle," Shiu said, looking perplexed. "Quite decisively, too. No survivors."

"And that's technically true, in the big picture. One ship got away: the RT A7401, with the stolen cargo on board. It fled the battle, but it wasn't undamaged. Far from it. Their last transmissions indicated they were going to try and rendezvous with reinforcements, but when the reinforcements came, they couldn't find it. Cerulean assumed they'd accidentally destroyed the ship, and gave up. RanaTek turned the whole quadrant upside down, but couldn't find the ship, its distress beacon, its locator, or its black box, but also couldn't find any sign that anyone else had found it. So, they assumed it had been caught by some star's gravity and incinerated, and wrote the whole thing off. Just to be safe, they tried to purge any official record that the ship had been fielded to the battle, or even built in the first place, though they missed a few spots."

"But you found it," Shiu surmised.

"With 99.98% confidence," Tethryn reiterated. "I just wanted to write a story about the whole thing. It'd be a great multi-part piece, you know? Lots of combat and greed and theft and in the end, nobody gets the prize. It could even have been movie material, audiences love that stuff, and the Conglomerate would have gladly funded it. All I wanted to find out was what sun it drifted into so I could wrap up the story and give it a proper conclusion. But there was just one problem: that's not what happened to it."

She paused again, taking a bigger gulp of her water, but now that she had started telling her story, she wasn't going to stop. "So, this is where my contact at Chiralan Station comes into it. She's a Kryteran like me, and my entry point to the criminal underworld for the most part. I got all my contacts through her, including Grikk. I had a simple enough request for her: get someone to hack into RanaTek's systems, pull the final transmissions and damage report of the RT A7401, and its last known coordinates. She found a hacker willing to do the work, and although it cost a good chunk of credits, I got the data. And I found out why it never made that rendezvous."

Shiu silently motioned with one hand for her to continue, and she nodded. "I got the damage report analyzed, and they told me that the engines were about to fail. Catastrophically, I might add. Now, normally, this wouldn't change anything, as on that model of ship, the engines and the cargo bay are next to each other, so the explosion would take out the goods. But," she emphasized, "the ship had just finished a boarding raid, so all the loot was still up at the front by the docking points for the boarding vessels, and they hadn't moved it yet because they were more concerned about getting the fuck out of the battlefield. They'd already taken hits and had two hull breaches. The captain ordered the engineering crew to divert all power to the engines, and..."

"Kaboom," Shiu guessed, and she nodded.

"I don't know the exact spot where the engines blew, hence only 99.98% confidence," she continued. "But it's a mapped sector of space with nothing important in it, so all the astronomic data is public. Didn't even have to pay a licensing fee. Of course, simulating an entire quadrant of space and the exact planetary motions of everything in it over a long period of time is quite computationally expensive, even before you throw in trying to calculate the possible trajectories of a ship whose engines are exploding in one of a few possible ways. I took the data to someone else to crunch the numbers and figure out where the ship might have ended up."

"The coordinates you gave me?"

"Yep. The most likely trajectories didn't send it into a star at all, not even close. And it turns out the possible deviations from the explosion wouldn't matter that much with how much forward velocity it already had. It's almost certain that it struck SR-754, which is probably the only interesting thing about it – it's a barren, lifeless, worthless planetoid with a metallic core near a pulsar, so there would have been all kinds of scanner interference. The kind that would mess with a distress beacon. That kind that would stop locator pings getting through. I even have a pretty good idea of which part of SR-754 it crashed into. It's got a huge margin of error, of course – the 99.98% confidence is that it hit SR-754, but I can't narrow down the impact site any further than about 70% of the planet's surface, though some parts are more likely than others. That said, there's fuck-all else on that planetoid, it should be easy to find the wreck. The coordinates are where SR-754 was at the time the ship crashed into it, and it's in a stable orbit, so it won't be hard to find wherever it is now."

She grinned proudly for a moment, but then sighed, looking down and staring into her water cup. "It was an amazing discovery and – if I may say so – a brilliant bit of investigative work on my part. How could I not boast about it?" She gave him a wry smile. "I took all this information to work, and smugly announced that I'd figured out where the RT A7401 had gone. ...and then explained what it was, when all I got was blank stares. I was proud of what I'd done, and that pride was my undoing. ...In retrospect, it was pretty fucking stupid of me, but that's hindsight for you, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically, before raising the cup to her mouth for another sip.

"People more powerful than either of us have been undone by not keeping their mouths shut when they ought to," Shiu agreed.

She snorted derisively. "Yeah. And I'm not some powerful member of the elite. Just a small fish in a big pond. And boy oh boy did the big fish ever come out to hunt once they smelled the proverbial blood in the water." She glanced over at Shiu, and the obvious aquatic adaptations of the water dragon's body. "No offense...?" she hazarded.

He gave a small chuckle in reply, and she shrugged and carried on. "Anyway. Someone else at the news division sold me out to RanaTek, hoping to get a finder's fee. I only escaped because the receptionist of the building called and told me she'd just directed a bunch of troopers upstairs to my floor – makes me really glad I said hi each morning and got her coffee a few times, you know? Lucky for me, I still had the only copy of the data, so while the troopers were coming up the elevator, I bailed down the stairs. Barely escaped, made it home, stuffed what I could into my backpack and fled thanks to some help from my contact's contacts, stealing what I could from my now ex-employer. The bounty went out on my head, I fled from place to place, and eventually ended up at the station you picked me up at. You know the rest."

Shiu was staring at her in silence, and she shook her head again, holding up one finger. "So. I want to finish this, or die trying. First off, I'm going to find that stolen tech and prove that RanaTek took it. If I prove they knowingly stole Federation tech with the intent to use it themselves, the Federation will declare war on them. Every RanaTek vessel in Federation space will be as good as scrap, and the Federation will offer lucrative bounties to anyone who wants to shoot them on the Republic's side of the border."

Raising a second finger, she continued, "I'm also going to find out which shit-eater sold me out to RanaTek in the first place and get my revenge, but that's secondary. As long as I'm still alive though, they're living on borrowed time." As she raised her third finger, she took an air of finality and said, "Then, once that's taken care of, I'm going to disappear. I can't get my old life back, so I'll settle for early retirement. Somewhere I can go fishing."

Shiu drew in a long breath in wonder, and let it back out again slowly. "Yeah, that's all quite a bit over my head," he admitted. "I figured you were just going to have blackmail material or something."

She gave a short laugh, and held her arms out to the sides in an elaborate shrug. "Hate to say I told you so, but, I told you so. I was trying to protect you; I didn't want you to get wrapped up in this. But you're an accomplice now, so you'd better follow through with me on this."

"Yeah, I will," he said as he got back to his feet. "You've got me curious, too. I want to see what we can find, and if any of it survived the crash. Or if we get bitten in the ass by that 0.02%."

"The cargo should all be intact, it was all packed into heavy duty containers ever since it first got stolen. Those things can withstand just about anything short of a direct hit from a ship-to-ship weapon. Or the main engines exploding in the next room over, as I mentioned. But that's why I specifically needed the help of someone with a cargo freighter; even if I get over there, I can't just slip it into my pocket."

"Okay, well, that's something you REALLY should have told me before we left. I'm not equipped for a salvage operation. Fortunately I do have a spacesuit, but only one, and it's sized for me."

"Darn," she said with a small smirk on her face, "I guess you'll have to do all of the heavy lifting."

Folding his arms, he tapped one foot as he raised his muzzle and gave her a side-eyed look. "You're going to cut me in on the money you get from this, right?"

"Absolutely," she told him with a nod. "Honestly, without you, I wouldn't be able to finish this off. And..." she glanced to the side for a moment. "...you deserve it, too. I think you deserve a lot better than what you've got right now."

"Well, at least someone does," Shiu muttered darkly, turning away and opening up one of the kitchen cabinets. "But enough of that. You won't get poisoned by alcohol, will you?"

"No more than the majority of sentient species," Tethryn joked. "Let me guess, skimmed off the top?"

Shiu pulled down a couple of small glasses and a clear bottle of brownish liquid. "Yep. I don't run booze often, but some destinations will pay a price for it that's worth the trip." Unscrewing the cap, he poured a splash of the drink into each glass, then put the cap back on and brought a glass over to Tethryn. Raising it in one hand, he flashed her a wide grin. "To fucking over a megacorp!" he proclaimed.

She laughed and raised her glass. "To revenge!" she toasted back. Both of them tipped their glasses back to down the drink in one gulp, though she was left coughing for a few moments afterwards.

"Damn, that stuff is strong," she told him once she stopped coughing. "But also, really fucking good. And I'm not just saying that because I haven't even laid my hands on some synthahol since this all began."

"More?" he offered.

"Fuck yes."

--------------------

Tethryn, sitting on the end of the bed, tipped back her head and laughed uproariously at Shiu's last comment, her host lying naked on the bed as well, unable to sit on it due to the cabinets above.

"But wait," he told her between chuckles, gesturing towards her with his glass, "I'm not done. After that, he opens the crate, and what's inside? A big fuckin' pile of dildos, all different shapes and colors. All of his men start laughing at him and I'm like, I tried to warn you, but noooooooo, YOU wanted to detain me and inspect my cargo, for which I had the appropriate licenses and paperwork. I think he knew in that moment, just as much as I, that he was never, ever going to live that down."

"Amazing," Tethryn gasped out between bursts of laughter, holding onto the bed with one hand for support as the other clutched her empty glass.

Shiu chuckled from the memory, then gave a mirthful sigh as he leaned back against his pillows. "So now that he's been publicly humiliated, he just tells me to pack up and get out of his spaceport already. Which I am more than happy to do because the crates in the back half of the hold are loaded up with enough Rainbow to OD an entire nightclub of junkies."

Still laughing and rocking back and forth, Tethryn held one hand to her chest after a few moments. "Fuck. Oh, fuck me. Let me breathe."

"I hear that from women a lot," Shiu joked, grinning wide.

Laughing as she raised a hand to make an offensive gesture at him, she took heavy breaths to calm herself down, coughing a little. "Ahh. Fuck," she gasped eventually.

"Want a refill?"

"No, I think I've had quite enough, I'm having trouble sitting straight," she said with a dismissive wave of one hand.

"Guess it's a little more powerful for someone so small," he teased, gesturing at her with his glass.

"Ha, ha. Fuck you. I mean, you're right, but also, fuck you," she retorted as she held out the glass, and he bent forward to take it from her, putting it on the floor next to the bed with the half-emptied bottle. "You know how many crimes you've admitted to in the last hour?"

He shrugged, leaning back. "It's not like I have to worry about you going to the authorities, is it?"

"Well, no." Leaning back as well, she flopped onto the bed by his feet, staring up at the bottom of the cabinets overhead. "Ah, fuck. This is my life now, isn't it? Hanging out with career criminals because going straight isn't an option any more?"

"Yep. Welcome aboard," Shiu said, raising his glass and then draining it before setting it down with the other one. "It's not so bad once you get used to it. You just have to rely on yourself; there's no justice out here but the kind you make for yourself."

"Easy for you to say, mister ex-military," Tethryn grumbled.

"You've done all right for yourself so far. Being able to run and hide can be just as valuable as being able to fight. Maybe even better."

"Maybe," she admitted, stretching her arms over her head. Tilting her head to the side, she tried to look at him, and only ended up staring in between his legs. "Fuck, you look even bigger from down here. Are all water dragons hung like you? You must've won a few dick-measuring contests in your time."

Shiu lifted his head a little to look back down as her with a snicker, grinning wide. "A few, yeah. But nah; I'm just pretty gifted. My wife certainly loved it. They don't make 'em like me where you're from?"

Snorting derisively, she waved a hand vaguely. "Fuck no. Male Kryterans are long, but they ain't thick. Kinda the opposite. It's not much better than riding a stylus."

"A lot of unsatisfied women where you're from, then?" he inquired.

"Eh. I mean, we've got different, uh..." her intoxicated mind blanked on 'erogenous', and she shrugged. "Different sensitive spots than most other species. A lot deeper." Sitting up, she swung her legs up onto the bed to sit facing him, spreading her legs out wide and pushing her hips forward, making him raise an eyebrow as she bared her loins to him, reaching down with one hand and spreading out her slit lips to reveal dark red fleshy tunnels beyond.

"It's not often women do this for me without me even having to ask," Shiu teased. But not one to pass up the opportunity, he leaned closer to get as good of a look as he could take from his current position. Other than the different color, the only other main difference he could see was the absence of a clit at the top of her opening.

"Shut up for a second," she told him, rolling her eyes. "Our sensitive bits are really deep in there, like, right up around the, uh... cervix?" He nodded. "Yeah. So fun fact, we don't usually finger ourselves like other species do, but we've got long tails that do the job better."

"Guess oral's not all that fun either, huh?" he joked, chuckling only briefly – he went silent when she opened her mouth, revealing her teeth, but also extending a very long and dark red tongue that came to a pointed tip. She wiggled it around in the air for emphasis before drawing it back.

"We make it work," she said smugly.

"So I see," he conceded. "What about those nubs?"

"Huh?" she looked down as he pointed at her, and she eventually figured out he was pointing to the little bumps on either side of her pussy. "Oh, those? I don't fuckin' know," she told him with a shrug. "Pretty sure they don't do anything. Maybe they served a purpose a million cycles ago or something."

"I see," he muttered.

She broke into a wide grin as she leaned back. "Though I don't know why I'm telling you this. That ain't the hole you're interested in, is it?" she said playfully, rolling onto her side away from him before reaching back to spread her rumpcheeks and show off her ass. Much like her other orifices, the flesh was a darker red than he typically saw, but otherwise average. "You want some of this, don'tcha?"

He raised an eyebrow again, but craned his head forward for a better look regardless. "Why, are you offering?" he asked to test the waters.

She gave a short laugh, and called him something in her language that he guessed was an insult. "Yes, I'm trying to hit on you! You realize it's been fuckin' forever since I've had any good sex, right? There's not much chance for it while you're on the run, and while I've sold myself a few times to save money for fares and favors, that doesn't do anything for me. Some horny guy just has his quickie and doesn't even ask if it was good for me, let alone if I finished."

Getting onto her hands and knees, she crawled up the bed towards him and in between his legs, eyeing up his package hungrily. "But you... you're better than that," she murmured, reaching out towards him, starting to stroke his cock when he did nothing to stop her. "Even for that whore in the nightclub, you still made sure she had a good time too. I need that right now. And I can... I can -trust- you. It's been a long time since I could say that to anyone, you know?"

Shiu leaned back, watching and enjoying as she felt him up, his shaft thickening as blood flowed to it under her touch. "Yeah. I get you," he replied as he watched her stroke him with both hands, pulling the forescales up and down the end of his length, her tail curling and teasing between her own legs to idly rub at herself as she did.

"Good," she told him, lifting her gaze from his loins and to his face instead. "Then that's enough talk. Just fuck me already, will you?"

"Well, how could I turn down an offer like that?" he replied with a grin. Shifting to the side to the edge of the bed, he stretched out his arm across the gap between it and the drawers. Even with the quarters being as cramped as they were, he was just barely able to reach the handle of the bottom drawer and pull it out as far as it would go. As he did, Tethryn kept riling him up, stroking his stiffening cock with both hands for a while until she reached down to rub at his balls with one of them.

Pulling a bottle of lubricant out, he left the drawer open as he shifted back towards the middle of the bed. She all but tore the bottle from his grasp and opened the cap, pouring it liberally onto his almost fully-hard cock, the excess spilling onto his sack and then the blankets below, though he ignored that for now. "Eager much?" he asked as he held his hand out for the bottle.

She thrusted it back into his grip and then used both hands to start smearing the lubricant over his length, leaving the scales glistening, making sure to slick up the head of his cock under the forescales as well. "Hey, you said it the other day, women have needs too," she fired back at him. "And right now, I need a good fuck."

He only chuckled in response, giving a low, pleasured hum as she worked his now completely erect shaft, throbbing lightly in her grip. He poured out some of the lubricant onto one finger, then reached behind her, and she obligingly raised her hips and tail upwards for him, letting him press the slicked digit against her backdoor and start pressing it inside.

Biting her lip a little as he applied pressure, she let out a gasp when he penetrated; with their difference in size, even his finger stretched her out a bit. He worked it into her a short distance and then started to gently pump it in and out, loosening her up while slicking her anal walls, as she idly stroked his shaft to keep him hard while he got her ready.

"That's good enough," she suddenly told him after a moment and climbed forward, crawling on top of his body, the tips of her ears brushing against the underside of the cabinet above. He helped her onto him, but she was determined to take the lead, spreading her legs wide to straddle his body as she backed up and raised her tail high. Shiu reached behind her to grab his cock with his thumb and index finger and guide it to her back door, prodding the tip against her rear entrance as he kept the forescales held down.

"Last chance to back out," he told her quietly.

With a curt "Fuck that," she pushed her hips backwards. She bit her lip as his slicked tip began stretching out her ass, while he sucked in a breath, both of them moaning out when his cockhead finally pushed through her backdoor and into the tight tunnels beyond, spreading them out. Tethryn trembled as she lowered herself bit by bit onto him, and Shiu groaned from the snug walls slowly engulfing his cock, resisting the urge to buck his hips up to her.

"Ahhhn, oh fuck, you feel so much bigger than you look," she groaned out as she stopped with her ass halfway down his length, panting heavily.

"Too much for you?" he asked between breaths of his own, patting her rump.

"I can take it, I'm no quitter," she retorted, "I just... need a moment." She lifted herself up a little bit and began riding just the top half of him, making them both groan from the up and down movements. She was wrapped tightly around his cock, every motion squeezing at him, and precum spurted from his tip, providing a little extra slickness.

Taking a breath, she lowered her hips further, taking roughly three-quarters of his spire of flesh into herself. She trembled for a few moments and gasped out, putting both hands on his chest to hold herself steady, soon starting her rocking motions again as she took him deeper into her tunnels. Reaching up, Shiu gently put his hands on her side, but only to support her, letting her set the pace for now, and she curled her tail down to slip the end of it underneath his balls, rubbing and rolling them from underneath.

Finally she felt comfortable enough to take the rest of him and sat down fully in his lap, making him shudder as she gave a louder groan when the final inches of his shaft disappeared into her, her pussy leaking a slick fluid onto his belly as it pressed up against him. "Nnh, oh yeah, I'm going to be walking funny tomorrow," she muttered, her eyes unfocused, breaths coming heavily. "...worth it, though," she added as she took a deeper breath, and began rising up again.

Though her rhythm was slow and she only raised herself up a few inches on his cock, his girth and her tightness meant both of them were panting and moaning. His cock pulsed within her against her tight walls, and she kept her legs apart, giving him a good view for a brief time before he leaned back and rested his head on the pillows, his hands keeping hold of her to help guide her movements as she rode him.

"You're so tight...!" he groaned out to her, starting to gently rock his hips upwards when she descended.

"Anyone would be... tight around this monster..." she muttered back, only a tiny bit of her green and black eyes visible as she could barely keep them open. She rocked her hips back and forth, repeatedly sliding a few inches of his slicked flesh out of her, only to shove them back in under her tail, more of his precum leaking into her as he throbbed against her tight depths. More of her slick pussy juices dripped onto his belly in long strands, and the motions of her tail rubbing against his sack became uneven and sporadic, a little extra teasing whenever she could focus enough for it.

"Fuck," she gasped out after a little bit, panting as she sank down onto him all the way and shuddered, barely holding herself up. "You'll have to take over, big guy," she told him between breaths, grinding her hips down against him. "Most guys... don't last this long."

Sliding his hands down to her hips, he gave an affirmative sound, getting a firm grip on the red curves of her sides with his fingers under her rump. Pulling upwards, he was able to move her smaller body without too much effort, and while he moved her a little faster than she had been going on her own, he didn't treat her roughly, guiding her through similar movements.

Each time he slid her up or down his length, he felt pleasure course through him from the tightness of her walls, and now that he was the one in charge, she was just trying to hold herself up, groaning and panting for breath along with him. Whenever he hilted her on him, he could feel how wet her snatch was, their moans mingling in the air of his cabin as he kept his eyes closed and enjoyed the pleasurable sensations.

She slumped on him slightly, her chest heaving from her heavy breaths. "You... gonna cum, big guy?" she asked, speaking with difficulty between groans of pleasure.

"If you keep squeezing like that, yeah," he answered, speaking quickly and between inhalations, slightly changing his pace so that he was pulling her up further on his length before pushing her back down.

"Fuuuck..." she groaned out, shuddering against him. "Go for it," she then gasped out, "I can take it."

"If-"

"I'm sure," she cut him off pre-emptively.

With a brief, amused chuckle, he tightened his grip on her hips, and then started to bounce her more rapidly. He still only moved her along the bottom part of his shaft, but he moved her up and down much faster, and thrusted upwards to pound into her as well, her ass meeting his hips with loud smacking sounds.

"Oh fuck," she gasped, but she didn't tell him to stop, so he didn't. Shiu shuddered under her and groaned as he felt his pleasure mounting, and just focused on keeping up his movements, feeling his climax building and getting closer and closer...

He cried out, and so did she; he would have been hard-pressed to tell who came first even at the best of times. Lost in the haze of pleasure as his orgasm hit, continuing to thrust up and bounce her down, he was only vaguely aware of the splash of juices on his belly, feeling her anal walls tighten around his cock in the throes of both their orgasms, his shaft pumping great thick ropes of cum into her ass as his balls began to empty. At some point he simply held her down and grinded against her as he filled her tunnels with hot jizz, the tightness of her tunnels keeping every drop inside of her.

She sprawled out against his front, but he was too lost in the moment to tell if her orgasm was over or if she had been overcome by it. He shuddered under her as he rode out his own climax, and then sprawled underneath her once he had blown his load, both of them panting and gasping for breath. They lay there for a while, and he wasn't sure how long, listening only to each other and the faint humming of the engines in the background.

"Hey, Shiu?" she asked eventually, still breathing heavily.

"Yeah?" he replied after a moment.

"Thanks," she said quietly, and they both left it at that without any further remarks.