It was quiet. But in a peaceful way.

After accelerating into the nebula at full speed, Shiu had shut off the engines, turned the reactor down to minimum power, and let physics take care of the rest: the ship's inertia far outclassed the meager drag the nebula's gases offered, hiding them from view and most scanners. Visual sensors could only detect things within a limited distance, since the nebula wasn't terribly dense – just massive. Nobody outside of it would have any chance of finding the ship.

He had no idea how long it had been since they had entered the nebula. It was pretty common for him to not even look at a clock while out in deep space, and instead to just follow his body's guidance, only eating when he got hungry and sleeping when he was tired rather than trying to keep to a schedule. The best estimate he had was that he had slept twice since their escape, but he didn't know for how long he had slept nor how long he had been awake. Different planets and stations all ran on different schedules anyway, even if there was a standardized interstellar clock.

Another nice upshot to the engines being off, except for periodic small bursts to offset what little speed they lost to drag in the sparse nebula, was that the engine room was a reasonable temperature. It didn't stop him or Tethryn from going naked around the ship anyway, but it did mean he could train there more vigorously without having to take so many breaks to cool off and take a drink.

This time, he was practicing with his knives, while Tethryn stayed stretched out on her travel bed, up against the far wall to give him as much space as possible, reading on her tablet and occasionally glancing up. Whether she was watching his form, the knives, or his junk flopping around, he neither knew nor cared. He had both knives held in a back grip, his body twisting and flowing as he sparred with imaginary opponents, running through old training exercises he'd learned long ago, and some he'd picked up along the way.

A slash and then a stab to take advantage of an opening. A block from an incoming strike. Dancing backwards to reposition. All maneuvers he'd done countless times, but keeping muscle memory trained was how you kept yourself alive.

Finishing his exercise, Shiu took a heavy breath and began stretching to recover a little. "All done?" Tethryn asked him, having been quiet while he was training.

"For now," he told her, setting down the knives and grabbing his bottle of water to take a long drink. "I had a question for you."

"Oh? Usually I'm the one asking questions around here," she joked, sitting up a bit. "Go ahead."

"How did Sarydra get a camera feed into the backrooms of Euphoria?" he asked, drumming his fingers idly on the side of the water bottle. "There's not supposed to be any cameras there at all."

Tethryn chuckled, then flashed in the biggest, toothiest grin she could manage. "She didn't," she answered.

Shiu narrowed his eyes. "Then how did-?"

"Shiu, I KNOW you," Tethryn cut him off. "I knew where you were, and I know what you do to pass your time. You took long enough to come back that I just played the odds and won."

He took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. "You know, I can't even be mad about that," he muttered with a touch of amusement. "You were right, after all."

"Like I said, I know you. You wander off and fuck people to take your mind off of things. Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging. At least it's not narcotics."

"Plus, you've seen how lonely it can be out here in deep space," he remarked.

"Yeah, that too. Speaking of, is this all you do while you're out here in the middle of nowhere?" she went on, gesturing vaguely. "Train, sleep, jerk off, do maintenance?"

He gave an amused snort. "And sometimes read."

"I thought you said you weren't book-smart."

"I'm not," he replied with a shrug. "That doesn't mean I'm illiterate."

"Oh yeah? What kind of books do you read?"

He took another long swig from his water. "Other than manuals, just fiction. Generally romance novels," he added, before she could ask for more specifics.

"You? Romance novels?" she asked incredulously.

"I like to dream about what I lost," he replied flatly.

Chagrined, she looked away from him. "Right. Sorry. That makes sense," she murmured. He drank again, draining what remained in the water bottle, and he screwed the cap back on. "So like... how did that happen?"

"How did what happen?"

She looked back over at him with a concerned expression. "You told me about what happened to your daughter, but not your wife. ...if you don't want to answer, it's okay, though. Just curious, and, well, you know. I'm still a journalist at heart."

Shiu took a deep breath and walked over to the wall, turning away from it and leaning back against it. He was quiet for long enough that Tethryn started to suspect he wouldn't answer, but then he spoke in an emotionless voice. "It all happened at once. Hei – my daughter – took a turn for the worse. She wasn't going to last much longer. It was a question of when, not if. And at the same time, GSE, my employer, asked me – you know, that corporate 'asking' that's more of an order – to make an extended trip to cover for someone. Five days isn't a long trip normally, but when your daughter is in critical condition, and your wife is relying on you for stability... I said no, of course. But they sweetened the deal. A promotion. A raise. And for me, knowing that the one thing that could save my daughter was money... those poisoned words were exactly what they needed to tell me to change my mind."

Lowering his head, he raised one hand and rested it partly over his face, not fully covering up the expression of deep sadness he wore. "I was a fucking idiot. I shouldn't have taken it. I should have known better. I should have told them to find someone else. I should have told them to fuck off instead of asking a grieving father to leave his dying daughter's bedside just so they wouldn't pay a late fee on a delivery." He swallowed heavily, closing his eyes. "I don't regret a lot in my life, but that's got a permanent spot at the top of the list. I was... blinded, by a foolish, false hope. Even if I'd made it back and gotten the money, I still wouldn't be able to afford a treatment without taking on a crushing debt, assuming she even lasted that long. But that hope, that tiny, insignificant little spark of hope... it made me the universe's most gullible dumbass for just long enough to fuck myself over irreparably."

His voice cracked slightly as he went on, grimly. "And I have nobody to blame but myself. I'm the reason my daughter died without her father by her bedside to watch over her. I'm the reason my wife realized I couldn't be relied on. She took everything she could and left me, leaving behind only a savage recorded message telling me all of the ways I had fucked up. And it hurt. It hurt because she was RIGHT." He had to pause, taking a deep breath, speaking flatly again when he resumed. "When I left on that trip, I had a life. A family. A career. A nice house. Friends. When I made it back, it was all gone. There were no second chances for me."

Lowering his hand and clenching it into a fist, his face twisted into a scowl of anger. "Those bastards at GSE didn't even give me the reward. They twisted their way out of it, said they'd only told me they'd 'consider' me for promotion, and the raise was 'conditional'. Typical corporate bullshit. They'd never had any intention of rewarding me. I lost everything, for nothing. Not even a consolation prize for losing my family!" Leaning on the wall behind him and staring at the ceiling, he continued, "So I quit. Vehemently. A table was flipped, and that was the last time I ever lifted a finger to help a megacorp. They're all just as bad as each other. It was my fault for accepting their offer, but that doesn't make them any less evil."

He went quiet and folded his arms. "Shiu, I..." Tethryn began, then fell silent again. "Fuck. I had no idea."

"Now you know," he remarked glibly. "Everyone knew what I'd done. My friends became distant. My neighbors suspicious. I couldn't stand my home any more, and all the memories, reminding me every moment how much I'd screwed up. So I left. Sold almost everything so I could afford a second-hand freighter. Tried to eke it out as an independent shipper, couldn't find enough work, and turned to smuggling."

Silence fell, and Shiu eventually pushed himself away from the wall. "I'm going to the cockpit to check our course," he declared, striding out of the room and grabbing his knives along the way.

Tethryn watched him go, then sighed. They were in a gigantic space-dust cloud with no hazards in any direction for a long, long way; he didn't need to check the course. It was obviously an excuse to leave, but she let him go. Some things needed to just be left alone.

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

Shiu awoke from the fifth time he had slept since their escape to the sound of a periodic beeping, and grumbled a little. What was that beep pattern again...?

He blinked and frowned as he remembered. It was for an incoming transmission.

"I've gotta go answer that," he whispered into Tethryn's ear, slipping away from her and out from under the bedcovers. She grumbled sleepily and stretched her arms a little, and he tugged a jumpsuit out from his closet to pull it on just in case whoever it was wanted a video call. This far out into the middle of nowhere it was just as likely to be a distress call as it was something more concerning, and people generally preferred if you weren't naked when you answered an S.O.S.

They were still in the nebula, but from a glance at the navigation computer he could tell they were close to the edge, and he could see it getting thinner. All he could tell from the call signature was that it was coming from a small, unregistered vessel.

Warily, he flicked the switch to accept the call. "Captain Lin speaking. Please identify."

"I don't think I will," the voice on the other end said, in a raspy voice that sent a shiver down Shiu's spine. "Fetch your passenger."

His pulse quickened. Most likely, the other vessel was outside of the nebula, ready to intercept him. But if he turned on the engines, the heat signatures would give him away. Swallowing, his mane stood on end as he fought down fear; he had to stall for time.

"Which passen-?"

"You only have the one, Captain."

It was very difficult not to panic. Whoever the stranger was could blow him to pieces and he'd never even know which direction it came from. "I'll go get her," he conceded. All he could hope for was to remain in their good graces long enough to get a better handle on the situation.

"Get me for what, now?" Tethryn asked, yawning and stretching as she entered the cockpit. Shiu glanced back and saw she had pulled on her jacket and pants, though she was bare-chested underneath the open jacket. She had one hand on her rump and was standing a little bow-legged, but that was to be expected considering how the two of them passed their time.

"Ah, good, she's still there and alive," the caller observed dryly.

Tethryn blinked, looking at Shiu in confusion. He gave her a silent, questioning look, and she simply shrugged and shook her head; evidently, she didn't recognize who this other person was either. Leaning forward, Shiu tried to peer out through the clearing nebula, but still could barely see anything.

"Captain Lin, I have a very simple demand: turn Tethryn over to me, and I will let you live."

"Who the fuck are you?" Tethryn demanded.

"You have no need to know that. Let's make this easy on all of us, shall we? Hand her over without any fuss, Captain, and you will be free to go."

"You can't trust him!" Tethryn blurted out, and Shiu held up a hand; he didn't need convincing.

"You want the bounty on her," Shiu stated, stalling for time.

"That is rather the point of being a bounty hunter," the voice on the call remarked. "I would have had you at Chiralan Station, but RanaTek got there first, and then screwed up, as they do, allowing you to slip away. I knew you'd gone into this nebula, but couldn't track your heat signature – an old trick, though effective. With the caveat that when someone with half a brain knows about it, and knows the trajectory you entered on, it's effortless to determine where you will come out."

"You've been hunting me?"

"Not you, her," the bounty hunter corrected him. "You're not worth my time, not even worth the ammunition it would take to destroy your freighter. You are merely a pawn in this game, Captain. I lost your trail temporarily, Tethryn, but I have my ways. You will not escape."

The nebula began to clear fully, but even looking through the front of the cockpit, Shiu couldn't see anything out of place. He had to keep the bounty hunter talking. "What ways are those?" he asked, turning on the external cameras and trying to look around.

"You do not need to know, and I have no desire to gloat. Now, I can see your ship, so I will make this very simple: You will completely power down your engines and reactor and allow me to dock with your access hatch. Turn on your engines, and you're dead. Turn on your reactor, and you're dead. I will take Tethryn from you, and leave. She is much more valuable to me alive, but rest assured that her bounty is still high enough dead that I will not hesitate to destroy your ship if you do not comply."

Finally, Shiu caught a visual on the other ship: off to his starboard side and quite a bit above him, a long, sleek, heavily armed, and jet-black ship was cruising slowly in his general direction. Zooming in the feed, he could see a whole line of red marks on the port side of the nose, indicating ships the bounty hunter had destroyed. A menacing red stylized emblem depicting a knife through a circle was painted on the front of the ship, and written underneath in the Galactic Common Lingua, a name that he'd heard Vanala mention offhandedly...

"Orlan's Dagger," he murmured. "I've heard of you."

"That's the name of my ship, not me, but yes," the raspy voice remarked with slight amusement, the first bit of emotion it had conveyed since the call had begun. "It's always nice to have my reputation precede me, though it does not change your situation. I'm not entirely unreasonable, Captain: cooperate, and I'll see to it that you are cut in on... I'd say 10% of the bounty is fair, wouldn't you? Especially considering that it went up again after your escape from Chiralan Station. You probably didn't hear about that while drifting through a nebula."

Shiu looked at the camera feed. The bounty hunter's ship had him outgunned, easily. The main particle cannon mounted to the top, with a barrel that was almost the same length as the whole ship, would blast straight through his hull like it wasn't even there. Not to mention all the missile pods on its sides, and the smaller laser turrets dotted along its hull to provide coverage in every direction. And there wasn't a chance he could outrun it.

"We don't have the cargo any more," Tethryn cut in, panicking. "The hold's empty."

"The bounty isn't on the cargo, it's on you," the bounty hunter asserted. "And Captain, if you don't comply soon, I will open fire."

Shiu's eyes flicked back over to the enormous main gun. What choice did he even have?

"Very well," he conceded, holding up his hand towards Tethryn to indicate for her to stay put as he reached out with other and pulled on a lever that was already most of the way down, lowering it the rest of the way to power the engines off completely. "I surrender."

"I knew you were a reasonable man," the bounty hunter remarked. "I'm pleased that you didn't decide to do something stupid. See you soon."

The call ended, and Shiu turned his chair towards Tethryn, but she was backing away from him, her astonishment turning to anger. "What the fuck?" she blurted out, gesturing at him with both hands. "What the fuck, Shiu?!"

"Teth-"

"No, fuck you, fuck this, I won't let you fucking sell me out to save your ass," she shouted, reaching into her jacket. "I don't want to hear another word! I should just shoot you right now!"

She pulled out her gun as Shiu lunged off the chair and pounced on her. It was over as quickly as it had begun; in a blur of motion he had her face-down on the floor of the cockpit with her arms behind her back. She kicked fruitlessly and struggled as he pinned her down, his knee pressed into her spine, and even as she groaned out in defeat, she continued to try to pull free from his grasp. She had the gun in her hand, but she hadn't been able to take the safety off, and his iron grip prevented her from doing so. He kept it pointed away from himself regardless.

"Fuuuuuuuuck..." she complained, trying to kick at his leg ineffectually. "Of all the things for you NOT to be lying about..."

"Tethryn, listen to me-"

"Fuck you!" she shouted, trying to pull free and failing. "Was this your plan all along? To offload the cargo so Grikk could sell it and then double-dip on my bounty? Well, too bad! He won't give you a credit if I don't make it out of this alive!"

"I'm not betraying you!" Shiu insisted.

"It sure looks like it to me!" she snarled, wrenching her body to the side, unable to escape the pin. "Considering you just surrendered to the bounty hunter coming after me!"

"Listen-"

"Fuck you!"

He didn't want to do it, but he shifted his body to shove his elbow against the back of her head, pushing her mouth against the floor to muffle her protestations. "I'm sorry, but you NEED to listen," he apologized, resisting her struggles. "I surrendered because I'm in a cargo freighter, and he's decked out with a squadron's worth of weapons. I can't win a fight, and I can't outrun him. This is the only option." Taking a deep breath, he leaned in closer. "But don't think I've given up."

She went still, but he didn't release his grip on her. Not yet. "I need you to trust me," he told her firmly. "I have a plan. I'm not going to lie, there's a good chance it'll get us both killed." Leaning in closer, he lowered his voice for emphasis. "But do you REALLY think I'm going to help some corporate stooge?"

He shifted his arm away to let her raise her head enough to speak. "For enough money, you would," she spat.

"If it was only about money, I could have turned you in for the full bounty," he pointed out. "I've had any number of chances to betray you if that was my plan. But I'm not that stupid. So listen. You MUST trust me. I need to be able to devote my full attention to this, and I can't do that if I have to worry about you shooting me."

"Why should I trust you? You just sold me out!"

"Do you honestly believe, for even one moment, that he'll actually let me live?" Shiu snapped. "Or do you think I'm the one stupid enough to believe it? He's only keeping me alive for now to take YOU alive. Why would he split the reward with me when he can simply keep it all? The moment he has you, I'm as good as dead."

"I don't know that! You two could be buddies for all I know! I can't know that I can trust you!"

"No, you can't," Shiu acknowledged. "That's what makes it trust. You have to acknowledge that I COULD fuck you over – and to believe that I won't. That's what trust is! So please. Trust me."

She took a few heavy breaths. "...what's the plan?" she asked, only slightly more calmly. "How do you plan to take him out with an unarmed ship?"

"They want you alive. To do that they're going to dock. And they'll have to get close for that." Cautiously, he took his knee off her back, keeping his hands on hers. "And I never said this ship was unarmed. It's just not armed nearly as well as he is. The guns are all concealed. Autocannons, sniper cannons, rockets..."

"You couldn't afford a single laser on this thing?" she scoffed. "Great, so you have guns, but they're all old tech."

"Yes, but there's an important thing about that. They're low tech, but they still have their advantages. Kinetic weapons don't have a charge time, don't make energy signatures that scanners can detect, and can be used while we're running on battery. They're not great... but if I target a weak spot on their ship and concentrate my fire, we might just be able to pull this off." Inhaling, he added, "Or, we'll both die, but at least we'll go down fighting."

She hesitated, and then at last, stopped resisting him. "What if he has a shield?"

"He'll have to lower it to dock. So I need to wait for him to get close enough before springing the trap. I only have one hatch, and he already told me he's going to dock with it, so I know the angle they'll approach from. Now, let go of your gun, so I can do this. Please. Otherwise he'll dock while I'm still holding you down and we'll both be as good as dead."

The conflict was clear on her face. For several seconds she didn't move, and he saw her grimace. But at last, she let go of the gun, and he took it from her, letting go of her wrists. Getting off of her, they both got to their feet, with Tethryn rubbing her arms after they'd been held behind her back. "Okay. Just so you know, if it turns out you're betraying me, I'm going to bite your balls off even if it's the last thing I do."

"I can respect that," he muttered. "Now, take this back so I can focus."

He held out the pistol to her, and she stared at it. "What? You're giving it back?"

"I told you before, trust goes both ways," he said firmly, and she slowly reached out and took it from him. "I'm asking you to trust me, and so, I need to trust you too."

"I could shoot you any time I wanted, now," she pointed out, holding the gun at her side.

"But you won't."

For a moment there was only silence as he gave her a pointed look, and then he returned to his seat, swiveling to turn away from her. Cautiously tapping the controls, he switched the external camera feeds all to the starboard side. "Now, be quiet. I have to aim these manually – they'll pick up any targeting locks if I get the computer to do it."

"All right," she said quietly, standing by the pilot's seat and watching him work. Orlan's Dagger was drawing closer, albeit slowly: because it was approaching from the side to line up parallel to Shiu's ship, the bounty hunter's vessel had to use its smaller side thrusters, normally for adjusting course or getting into a docking bay, to propel itself closer to Shiu's ship.

As it did, Shiu focused his attention on the monitors, working a set of controls that Tethryn hadn't seen him touch before. Red crosshairs appeared on the external camera feeds, overlaying the approaching ship, moving as Shiu manually adjusted the aim of the weapons while they were still concealed by whatever external plates kept them from sight. Tethryn's nervousness grew as moments passed in silence, and she looked up at Shiu's face, seeing an intense concentration there that she didn't dare risk breaking.

Orlan's Dagger drew ever closer, and Tethryn began to worry, tapping her fingers against the grip of her pistol. What if this was just an elaborate ruse and Shiu was merely buying time to let the bounty hunter approach so he could hand her over? But she'd already made her decision to trust him. Besides, even if she did shoot him, then what? She didn't know how to fly the ship, and she'd just get blown to smithereens before she could get away. She really did have to trust him – it wasn't like she had any other options.

"Almost there..." Shiu murmured as a panel on the side of the approaching ship slid open, revealing an airlock door and a collapsed umbilical tunnel. The space around the ship wavered almost imperceptibly, signifying its shields being powered down. Tethryn stared at it while Shiu began aligning all of the crosshairs overtop of the other ship's airlock one at a time. If he was faking it, he was the universe's best actor; she could see the fur on his mane standing on end, and the fin at the end of his tail twitching. "If Kryterans have any gods, you'd better start praying..."

She didn't, but she appreciated the sentiment.

Then, as the umbilical began to extend towards Shiu's ship, he sprang into action, shoving a lever with his right hand. She saw an indicator light change from red to green, the crosshairs on the camera feeds turning green as well as the weapons were exposed. That hand moved to the side, and at the same time that he slammed the levers for the engines and reactor back up to full power, he reached for a grid of buttons with his left hand, jamming his fingers into the three at the top-right, then slid his fingers down the grid to press everything in those columns in quick succession. She could hear and feel all of the weapons firing off from the vibrations being sent through Shiu's ship, and the camera feeds revealed the carnage that unfolded.

Shiu's alpha strike was on point. The extended umbilical had no armor over it; all of its armor was on the panel that had been moved aside. A hail of kinetic projectiles and explosive rounds tore into the bounty hunter's ship, and Shiu immediately began accelerating away as all of his missile salvos fired off in rapid succession. Debris, air, and several bodies were sucked out of the hull breach, violently depressurizing the section next to the destroyed airlock, though it would have been too much to hope for it to be as poorly prepared as the CorpSec ships at Chiralan Station. The force of the escaping air pushed the ship in the other direction, away from Shiu's ship, and turned it further away from him.

"Hold on to something!" Shiu shouted as he pulled away and attempted evasive maneuvers. Orlan's Dagger did the same, its helm clearly still operational, trying to regain control of its movement, only for its exposed back to be struck by all of the missiles Shiu had fired off. Explosions engulfed the engines and started a chain reaction, blasting open the rear section of the ship. The force of the detonations sent the bounty hunter's ship careening into a roll, its side thrusters firing to try and stabilize.

But it wasn't enough to destroy the other ship. As Shiu pulled away, Orlan's Dagger's missile pods all fired off together, and a shimmering field surrounded the ship as its shields were brought back up. More troublingly, the enormous main gun on the top of the ship began to turn, and the laser cannons on the side opened fire, the ship's uncontrolled roll causing its shots to miss. Shiu had the engines going as hard as he could to accelerate, but Tethryn saw the energy gathering on the main cannon, pointed right at them: it was clear that the bounty hunter intended to take them down with him.

"Shiu-!" Tethryn called out in warning.

"I'm sorry," he panted, shoving the controls to try and pitch the ship forward as the missiles turned and began homing in on them. "I think we're dead...!"

She wanted to close her eyes and hunker down, but some part of her knew it was pointless. Just like Shiu had said, at least they'd go down fighting. If she was going to die here, she wanted to see it coming.

The main cannon fired, and Tethryn heard a horrific racket behind her, closely followed by a blaring of alarms from Shiu's computer. Her panic overcoming her, she dropped her pistol, collapsed to the floor, and waited for... for what? For nothingness? For pain? For blackness? For silence?

But whatever it was she was expecting, it never came.

She opened one eye and looked up. Shiu was hunched over the controls, his eyes closed as he gritted his teeth, just starting to look around as well. Both of them looked over to the external camera feed, but where Orlan's Dagger had been, there was now only an expanding cloud of debris. The missiles it had fired off no longer had the ship's targeting data, and were careening off into space.

"What... what happened?" Tethryn asked.

"Hang on, I have to check the damage report first," Shiu told her, flicking some switches and silencing the alarms. The camera feed was replaced by an exploded wireframe of his ship with bright red coloring on both sides near the back, and he leaned back into his chair, exhaling. "They hit the cargo bay," he said with relief. "Nothing but empty space in there. Thank fuck. Expensive as all fuck to repair... but Grikk owes me."

"How the fuck can you be so calm? That was fucking terrifying!"

"I'm not! That was hardly my first brush with death, that's all," he answered, leaning forward again. In a slightly more anxious tone, he added, "Definitely one of the closest ones, though!"

"But... but what happened to them?" Tethryn demanded. Her whole body was shaking, and she gripped the armrest of Shiu's chair to try and steady herself.

Panting as well, Shiu flicked more switches and pressed more buttons to bring back the camera feed, rewinding it. They both watched as the events replayed: the main cannon fired, only for another explosion to rip the ship apart near the back, likely from the reactor going critical under the damage and strain. A series of explosions tore their way straight down the center of Orlan's Dagger, blowing it apart from inside.

"Holy shit," Tethryn stated in disbelief. Shiu pressed a button and the feed fast-forwarded back to real-time, but all that happened was the debris cloud expanding. She could barely believe it.

Taking heavy breaths, Shiu sent out a LIDAR scan, breathing another sigh of relief when it came up empty. "Good thing bounty hunters always go alone," he muttered. "I wonder if I can grab some salvage..."

Tethryn didn't know if he was joking or not; if he was, it was in poor taste, and if he wasn't, he was insane. "We need to get the fuck out of here!" she snapped. "Fuck the salvage! Just get Grikk to do it!"

"Yeah, I'll just record where we are and we'll leave," he told her, tapping at the controls. "I'll start plotting a course to Grikk's shipyard, it'll take fuckin' forever to compute anyway."

"No, take us to Salavon VII," she told him. "Don't head for Grikk's shipyards."

"Why not?" he asked, looking over and raising an eyebrow.

Shaking her head, she replied, "It's time for me to disappear. I've got all the details worked out, I just need you to get me there."

"Never heard of it," he muttered, returning his attention to the controls. After a wait, information about the planet showed up on the front display. "That's a long way away. I don't think I have enough fuel."

"We can stop along the way. I'll pay for it."

"All right," Shiu conceded, and began calculating a route. "But why are you suddenly so eager to leave?"

Tethryn sighed and glanced away from him. "He won't be the last, especially if my bounty went up again. I'm putting you in danger just by being around you. I need to disappear. A little sooner than I expected, but... this is the only way."

"...I see." Turning in his chair towards her, he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "Well, I hope that some day, I run into a mysterious green-eyed Kryteran with a different name who just so happens to be a good shot, plays a mean game of Seven Kingdoms, and can take it up the ass without complaining."

She had been smiling until his final comment, at which she narrowed her eyes and smacked at his arm. "Fuck you!" she retorted, but couldn't help laughing, shaking her head after a few seconds. "But how will you know it's me?"

He stared out the front of the cockpit and leaned back in his seat. "I've never told anyone else about what landed me out here," he murmured quietly. "About Chiang, or Hei, or my own idiocy. So as long as you keep that to yourself, you'll be the only other one to know about it. Mention any of it, and I'll know it's you."

"All right," she answered, and leaned on the armrest of his seat for a little bit, staring out at the stars ahead of them, saying nothing as she contemplated what lay ahead.

A few full minutes later, she broke the silence. "Your navigation computer sucks ass."

"It sure does," he agreed grimly, giving the progress bar on the display an annoyed tap with his index finger.

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

Salavon VII was a neutral planet, and since his cargo bay was empty, Shiu had little trouble requesting permission to approach– even with the two enormous holes blown in opposite sides of the cargo bay by the particle cannon. Each hole was big enough for him to climb through in his spacesuit, the metal around them scorched from the superheated particle beam that had punched right through his hull. He'd have to have both entire sections cut out and replaced, and that wasn't going to be cheap.

Even worse, the damage to his ship was severe enough that he couldn't make an atmospheric entry – without proper hull integrity, the entire back half of his ship would get torn apart from the stress if he tried. He'd had to refuel at orbital stations along the way, and since he couldn't make planetfall, he had to stop at the space station in orbit around Salavon VII. Fortunately, Tethryn insisted that would be good enough for her to be able to get where she needed to go.

After landing in the docking bay and shutting down the engines, he made his way back to the engine room and found her with all of her things already packed up, save for the travel bed which was simply too large for her to take with her. "Hey, big guy," she said quietly as he entered, looking up from her tablet with a sad expression.

"Hey," he replied, folding his arms and leaning on the wall by the door. He was wearing his jumpsuit, having expected to get off his ship to escort her somewhere, but she looked ready to head off on her own. "Going somewhere without me?" he asked with a grin to lighten the mood.

"Heh... yeah," she replied, looking back downward. "Time for me to head off."

"No time for one last game?" he offered. "I still haven't beaten you."

"I'm afraid you'll have to keep your perfect losing streak," she teased mirthfully. "I've got a little time, but I shouldn't stick around too long. Sarydra's already got most of it taken care of – new identity, transport out of here, a backstory, faked documentation, the works. My ride's coming up from the surface to pick me up. Sarydra'll be in touch about your cut of the money."

"She already has been," he told her with a nod. "I'm heading to Grikk's after this to do the transfer... and get some repairs done."

"Good. But it's time to split up. I'm... really grateful to you. I can't thank you enough. Who the fuck knows where I'd be without you – probably dead or captured or both, or wishing I was dead in some interrogation cell." She sighed and tapped the side of her tablet, turning it off, then stashed it in the backpack resting on the floor nearby.

"Sounds like you're all set," he observed. "Do you want an escort anywhere?"

She shook her head. "No. I need to go as incognito as possible. Thanks anyway. But..."

"But what?"

Looking up at him, she wrung her hands a little. "Well, this might be the last time we see each other for a while, maybe ever. I'll have to lay low for quite a while to help establish my new identity. I'm gonna miss you. ...and your fat dick."

With a chuckle, grinning and perking up his whiskers, Shiu asked, "Do you actually want to see me again, or just my fat dick?"

Snorting, she retorted, "Well, unfortunately, the latter is firmly attached to the former, so I can't get it by itself." Softening a little, she went on, "But no, seriously, you've been a lifesaver. Literally. When Grikk pointed me your way I was expecting... well, a lot worse. But you're a good guy, Shiu. Even with all the shit that's happened to you, even with what you do for a living, you've still got your heart in the right place. We've all fucked up in our lives, but you keep on going, and that counts for a lot, you know?"

He lifted his muzzle a little bit. "Thank you."

"And, well, I guess what I'm trying to say is..." she began, trailing off, then took in a deep breath and flung her arms upwards. "Aw, fuck it. I can make the time. You wanna have one last round with my ass before I go?"

Already, he was pushing himself off the wall and heading back towards his room. "I thought you were never going to ask."

He began undressing along the way, trying not to think about what was going to happen after this. For now it was time to just focus on the moment, and take one final pleasurable indulgence before this chapter on his life closed forever. No point ruining the mood by being gloomy, after all. Once he was free of his jumpsuit, he tossed it into a heap on the floor, not wanting to waste any time.

She certainly seemed equally eager, for by the time she got to his room she'd only bothered to strip off her shoes, pants, and panties, leaving her bottomless with her shirt and jacket still on. "On your back, big guy," she told him as she strode into his room and found him bent over to pull a condom and a bottle of lube out from his toy drawer, "I want a good ride as a send-off."

He wasn't going to argue with that.

Pushing the toy drawer closed, Shiu tossed the lube bottle up a little and caught it with the same hand. "Anything for a valued passenger," he joked as he climbed onto the bed, keeping his head low to avoid bumping the overhead compartment. "Are you hoping this ride will go better than the last?"

She laughed and flipped an offensive gesture his way before clambering up onto the bed with him. "I've gotten used to that monster of yours," she taunted, reaching out and patting the top of his already stiffening cock. "I KNOW this'll go smoother... so long as you give me that lube bottle."

He tossed it to her gently, and she caught it against her front. Leaning over, she snatched the wrapped condom from his other hand as well and got to work tearing it open. "Works for me," he remarked as he watched her work, idly stroking his dick with one hand to coax himself to full mast, tugging his forescales down to leave his bulbous pink glans exposed once he was completely erect. "Not that I minded doing all the work while we were out in the nebula, but swapping roles is always good for variety."

She chuckled, tossing the condom wrapper aside, then turned to him to slide the condom itself onto his shaft, rolling the lubricated latex down the sides. "And I don't mind it when someone I can trust is taking the lead either, but I'm not a quitter. So you just lie back and let me handle this one."

He stretched out on his back, resting his head on the pillows and angling his muzzle down to watch. With the condom secured around his stiff length, she stood up while hunched over, but faced away from him, sticking her rump out towards him with her long tail held high against the underside of the cabinets above. First she opened the cap on the lube bottle and started pouring the slick fluid onto his cock generously, then liberally coated the fingers of her left hand with it and reached back, wiggling her rump towards him as she showed off sliding one finger, then two into her ass, slowly easing them in and moving them around to loosen herself up.

"I'm gonna miss this show," he teased as he watched her closely.

"Heh. You know, not that I mind since you're good at it," she began as she worked the lube into her rear entrance, "But what's with the anal fixation, anyway?"

"Hey, I like blowjobs, just not from someone with teeth like yours," Shiu protested with a chuckle. "And a good tit-fuck now and then. Handjobs or even thighfucking is good too, I'm just avoiding vaginal. At first it was just to prevent any risk of more kids, but then it grew on me. And everyone can always do it."

"Fair enough," she answered; she had a good idea why he didn't want kids after hearing what happened to his daughter, but didn't bring it up to avoid killing the mood. "We're not even the same species class, you know. You're Class E, right?"

"Yep," he remarked with a grin, "But the biggest factor here is that you've got a very fuckable ass."

Snorting in amusement, she spread her fingers apart to open her hole up a bit for him and show off. "Yeah, after you broke it in," she joked, starting to turn around to face away from him. "I'm glad this'll be the end of me having to bribe my way around with sexual favors because everyone else is going to be too small for me now."

He continued to grin at her as she backed into position, her dry hand on his chest while her lube-slicked hand held his cock. "You're not the first and you won't be the last to find fucking me unforgettable," Shiu boasted, putting his hands behind his head, feeling his latex-covered cocktip prodding at her rear hole. "Ready when you are."

"Yep. Here we go, big guy," she declared before pressing back. She took a deep breath as the penetration began, his tip spreading out her rear, but after all their time together she had definitely become accustomed to it and was able to slide down steadily, if slowly, legs quivering as she descended onto his cock, while Shiu himself moaned underneath her. He began to reach out, but she slapped his hands away before returning hers to his body. "Nuh-uh. I've got this," she told him, so he let his hands rest by his sides.

She continued to slide her way down, pausing halfway; he thought she would start lifting her hips but then she kept going, groaning along with him as she took his whole length into her rear hole one inch at a time. With a determined grunt she pushed down the last little bit and sank fully onto his cock, sitting in his lap with her rump pressed up against the top of his potent sack, and she took a deep breath before flashing him a victorious grin. "Hah! How's that?" she taunted, curling her tail back towards herself to tease the end of it over his balls. "Told you I've gotten better."

Shiu panted and agreed, "You sure have," looking up at her in a daze.

She took a moment of her own to recover before she leaned forward a little, both hands on his front, her left accidentally smearing leftover lube on his scales. He didn't care; he'd have to clean up afterwards anyway, and getting messy was just part of the fun. She lifted her hips up a little and then sank them back down as she started to ride him, letting out a groan and an "Oh fuck" but continuing her movements regardless, settling into a rhythm as he groaned out in pleasure underneath her.

If she wanted him to lie there and do nothing, he was fine with that. He kept still under her and let her move her tightly-squeezing ass up and down his throbbing cock, the copious amount of lube doing its job to let her slide his shaft in and out of her anal tunnels as smoothly as possible, making him groan periodically. Now and then she would still take a sharp breath, tremble against him, or pause for a brief moment, but she kept going regardless, milking plenty of pleasured moans out of him as she gave voluntary clenches of her anal muscles around his girth now and then.

Up and down, up and down she kept moving her hips for over a minute, until she stopped, pausing and panting. "Okay, I need just a little help," she panted, "Just hold me steady."

"Heh," he chuckled as he slowly lifted his hands and placed them on her hips, helping to keep her steady. She teased at his balls with her tail again, sneaking the tip of it underneath his heavy sack to roll the orbs within around a little bit while she took a breather, and he enjoyed the moment as well, grinding up against her ass and enjoying the way her hole acted like a sleeve around his dick. "I bet next time you could do it without my help."

"Yeah," she agreed, "But who knows if there'll be a next time?" She took another few breaths and then continued where she left off, holding his front as she brought her hips up, shoving them back down a little more forcefully this time even though it made her blurt out another "Fuck!" in response. After another heaving breath, she did it again, wresting another moan from them both over the sound of her jacket fastenings and the contents of her pockets jangling and rattling around from the motion.

Panting with effort, she rode him harder, grunting out, "Who needs to walk straight anyway?" through gritted teeth. With both hands on his chest holding herself up, she curled her tail around her side to tease the tip against her dripping wet pussy and slipped it inside of herself, groaning in tandem with Shiu as he tried to resist the urge to thrust his hips upwards. As much as he direly wanted to plow her ass as hard and as deep as he could, he let her remain in control, just keeping a loose hold on her hips, trying to focus on lasting as long as he could.

"Fuuuuck," she groaned out again as she slammed her hips down and ground hard against him, clenching her ass around his shaft. "Getting... close, big guy?"

"Nearly there," he told her with nod, squirming on the bed, his whiskers hanging onto his chest. "Keep at it and I'll blow soon."

"Okay, here goes," she said as she gathered her resolve and brought her hips up again. With rapid breaths she set an equally quick pace of thrusts of her hips downwards, grunting and moaning as Shiu squirmed on the bed, soon feeling the tell-tale tingling running along his spine signaling an incoming orgasm, and a powerful one at that.

"Don't stop... I'm going to cum...!" he warned her, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, trying to hold still.

"Me too... fuck...!" she moaned out along with him, working her tail deeper into her own snatch, struggling to maintain her quick bounces but powering through regardless.

Her stamina didn't quite match his, but only just barely; she let out another cry and shuddered, arching her back, and Shiu felt her anal walls clench hard and ripple around his cock as she kept moving her hips with great effort. It was too much for him to hold out any longer and he let out a short shuddering groan, his whole body trembling, before crying out with a much louder and longer moan as his climax hit him with full force.

As Tethryn's pussy squirted liberally onto his belly and her own tail, Shiu's balls pulled up in their sack and began to unload into her, his cum erupting into the end of the condom within her. Feeling him blowing his load, she sank down to the hilt and remained there as she rode out her own orgasm with cries of "Fuck!" and "Yes!" interspersed with each other and heavy breaths for air. They remained in orgasmic bliss for the rest of their climaxes, Shiu's fin on the end of his tail thwapping against the bedcovers as he emptied his balls into her rear, while she struggled to hold herself up as both her holes clenched and contracted, more juices leaking from her slit onto his front.

It couldn't last forever, and all too soon they both went still, both of them panting and gasping for breath together. "Fuck..." Tethryn gasped under her breath as she gave a little squeeze with her ass, "Kinda wish... I'd gotten to... take you raw... at least once..."

Shiu didn't respond, and lay there with his eyes closed, basking in his afterglow. He'd treasure the moment for as long as it lasted. His hands rested loosely on Tethryn's hips, and he listened to her panting for breath, feeling the wetness of her juices on his belly and the tightness of her anal walls around his softening shaft. He heard a rustling sound but paid no attention to it, not wanting to let anything distract him.

"Hey, Shiu?" she asked him after a few more moments, panting heavily.

"Yeah?" he replied, not moving from where he lay.

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure," he murmured, his head still clouded from the haze of pleasure.

He realized his mistake the moment he felt something prick the side of his neck, and his eyes shot open. Tethryn was leaning over him with her arm stretched out – though with his cock still wedged deep in her ass – and he felt a terrible chill spreading from his neck, numbing his body. He tried to sit up, but he felt like he was about to collapse, his head swimming. She was holding something against him, an injector cartridge most likely, and he already felt an immense fatigue overcoming him, his arms slipping from her sides, feeling as heavy as lead.

"Go to sleep," she told him, and despite every effort he made not to, his head slumped to the side and he blacked out.

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

From his perception, only a moment passed between her knocking him out, and him waking with a start, sitting up abruptly and banging his muzzle on the underside of the cabinets above his bed. But he could tell that a lot of time had passed: his cock was flaccid and the fluids around his crotch had dried to a sticky mess that he'd have to shower off at the first opportunity.

And as for Tethryn, she was gone. Long gone.

Cursing and rubbing the end of his snout where he had smacked it on the plastic surface, he rolled out from the bed. As he pulled off the used and well-filled condom and tied it off to throw it away, he saw that she had left some things behind: the shield bandolier, a stack of credit sticks, and a folded, written note. After taking a moment to clean off his hands, he reached down, picked up the note and unfolded it, turning it over to orient it correctly so he could read it in the quiet of his cabin.

'Big Guy,

I'm sorry, but leaving like this is for the best. It's better for both of us if you can't tell anyone exactly where I went. Even Click won't know where I am. I have to disappear completely, and that means no loose ends.

I've left you the personal shield – it's too bulky and heavy for me, and too suspicious. Plus, you probably need it more. I don't really like the idea of that particular bit of tech becoming more widespread, either, so whether you keep it for yourself or hurl it into a sun, I don't care, just don't sell it.

I'm going to miss you, even if I'm going to be walking funny one last time on my way out of here. Don't try to follow me. I don't even like fishing or houseboats, I just told you that as a ruse. You told me you never got a second chance at life – I want you to have one, and that means you need to stay away from me.

Consider the credits a thank-you, and a down payment.

Best of luck out there. Don't get yourself killed.

-- Seeker

P.S. Destroy this note after you've read it, please.

P.P.S. I stole one of your toys as a souvenir since it's about the same size and shape you are. Hope you don't mind.'

After reading the final line, Shiu's eyes glanced upwards, and he noticed his sex toy drawer was ajar. "You thieving bitch!" he cursed under his breath, but it lacked any real venom; any anger he felt was tempered by the melancholy of knowing she was gone. From his life, at least. She'd still be out there somewhere, hopefully as safe and happy as someone in her situation could be.

That made one of them, at least. Sighing, he went into the main corridor and over to the access hatch she had left open, retracting the access ladder and closing the hatch. At least this space station was nice enough that leaving the hatch open for however long he'd been out hadn't led to him getting robbed.

Well, robbed by passersby, at least. Returning to his room, he shoved his toy drawer closed with one leg, then turned to his shower and began heating – or rather, warming – the water so he could clean himself up.

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

Standing by the observation window that overlooked the salvage docks, Shiu took a sip of his coffee. Even Grikk's shipyards had a vending machine from AllFoods Corp, and it still tasted exactly the same as it did everywhere else.

Watching the salvage workers in their space suits float around, cutting up the ships in the salvage bays and hauling off pieces to be melted down or recycled was oddly calming. It wasn't entirely unlike watching a group of insects or pack animals working together on something. Floating around in zero-G made their movements unusually slow compared to a similar operation planetside, as the workers on the left dock he was observing cut through the hull with incredibly high-powered torches made for that exact purpose. The ones on the right were gutting the interior of a partially stripped-down ship, forming a daisy-chain of spacesuit-wearing figures passing furniture, electronics, and removable fixtures all the way off to the big salvage receptacle so they could be examined later.

Working for Grikk didn't seem all that bad, honestly. Even though his repair and salvage yard was largely a front to cover for – and launder money from – his less legal operations, it was still a functioning legitimate business and as far as he knew it turned a decent enough profit by itself. And Grikk still took safety seriously enough from the look of it, though his approach was distinctly less... corporate. Shiu was pretty sure the poster of Grikk by the lobby that bore the words "0 reactor accidents have occurred on this site – don't fuck up and be the first" wouldn't really fly back at any of the corps' work sites. Still, it made sense; accidents that couldn't be covered up were still just as expensive for a criminal enterprise as they would be for a corporate one. Potentially even moreso if safety inspectors started showing up in droves and found things they weren't supposed to see. And people who knew how to look the other way and keep their mouths shut in exchange for greased palms were hard to come by.

He heard Grikk's heavy footfalls approaching from far down the corridor; stealth wasn't exactly one of Grikk's talents. "Shiu," Grikk greeted in his gravelly voice once he got close enough.

"Grikk," he replied, turning around, his eyes glancing downwards to the second person whose footsteps had been masked by Grikk's. "And Sarydra."

"Hiya," the Kryteran said cheerfully. Grikk was wearing safety gear sized large enough for his enormous body, including a hard hat and reflective vest; he must have been in the processing area before coming to meet them. Sarydra had deigned to wear an actual skirt along with her hoodie, leaving Shiu to quietly wonder if she was going commando underneath it. She had her hands in the front pocket of her hoodie, her whip-like tail swishing behind her.

"Got everything back together?" Shiu asked her.

"Oh yeah, I'm back up and running again at one of my other hideouts. Chiralan was just a case of lost hardware. It sucks but it's why I have backups." She gave an exaggerated shrug. "Pretty sure you had it worse than I did. I saw that someone tore your ship two new assholes."

Shiu snorted, nearly spluttering his coffee all over. "No kidding," he agreed, "It's going to be a bitch to fix. Here's hoping the payout's good." He saw the other two share side-glances with one another, and didn't know what to make of that. "I don't suppose either of you have heard from Tethryn?"

Sarydra tilted her head. "Haven't you heard the news?"

"What news?" he asked. "I only just got here."

Pulling her hands from her hoodie pocket, Sarydra took out her phone with her left hand. Her right merely gestured; she had a glove on it that let her interact with the phone without having to touch its screen, similar to her setup back at her hideout. Before it had been blown up, at least. "Here. Just remember you can't trust everything you see in the news."

She held out the phone to him and he took it. It was already on a news article detailing an end to a 'hunt', published a few days after Tethryn had left him. According to the article, the 'dangerous fugitive Tethryn Ralik' had been killed in a 'prolonged standoff' with RanaTek's security forces at a hotel on Salavon VII, and featured pictures of RanaTek enforcers in their bulky armor, with a mugshot of Tethryn accompanied by an impressive list of crimes underneath. Only at the very bottom of the article in small print did it mention that she'd taken 18 of them down with her. Links to more recent, related articles underneath bore headlines about RanaTek's crashing stock prices, the scandal of the RT A7401's black box, and the aftermath of the Federation declaring outright war on them. 'Is this the end of RanaTek?' one headline read, but any amusement Shiu might have felt was overpowered by the original article.

"What...?" he said quietly, only for Sarydra to cut in. 

"Hey, remember what I just said," she reminded him, and he looked over as he held her phone back out to her. "Helping her fake her death was easy! Just had to get the right contacts to set it up." Her beaming smile quickly faded. "But then she went off the grid completely. I haven't got any idea where she went, and I think that was her plan all along."

"How do you know she's not dead?" Shiu asked quietly.

Gesturing with her right hand, Sarydra pulled up another article and held her phone out for him to see. This one detailed a 'gruesome accident' at one of the Galactic Republic Publishing Conglomerate's offices, where an editor had suffered the terrible misfortune of falling from the 50th floor stairwell all the way to the ground floor, with predictable results. Investigators were considering it a suicide, as the railings were high enough that he shouldn't have been able to fall by accident.

"An assassination if I ever saw one," Grikk muttered as Shiu handed back the phone. "She'd said more than a few times that she was going to get her revenge on whoever sold her out."

Letting out a breath, Shiu relaxed a little. "Well. Wherever she is, I hope she's all right."

"Oh, she will be, with her share of the payout," Grikk said confidently. "Speaking of, I've got your cut right here. I'll get back to you on the salvage from that bounty hunter you told me about once my boys come back with what's left of his ship."

From a pocket inside his reflective vest, Grikk took out a tiny fortified metal case and pressed the thumb of his upper right hand against a reader on the top. It beeped, and with a click, the case popped open, and from within it he took out a pair of credit transfer chits, handing one to Sarydra and one to Shiu. "Divided evenly, just like Tethryn asked for."

The chit had a tiny display on it to show the amount it carried, and Shiu whistled as he squinted at it, holding it in his left hand. "Two hundred thousand? Damn, I can actually afford some repairs with this. I might actually be able to get that rust bucket into serviceable shape!"

"Ummmmm... no," Sarydra told him patronizingly, smirking a little. "Look again."

Raising an eyebrow, Shiu looked again at the display on the chit. 200000.00... wait, no, there wasn't a decimal point, he'd just put one in mentally from force of habit. "Oh, you're right, so it's-"

Dropping his coffee cup on the floor, his eyes opened as wide as they could and he held the chit an inch away from them with both hands, his mane sticking up and his tail straightening out from sheer disbelief. "TWENTY MILLION CREDITS?!" he blurted out, feeling dizzy, staggering back and putting a hand against the observation window.

"Keep it down!" Grikk growled.

Shiu took heavy breaths, holding his free hand against the side of his head. "I... I need a moment," he muttered, shaking his head to try and clear it. "Holy fucking shit."

Sarydra rolled her eyes. "Who would've known that extremely secret military prototype tech would fetch a good price on the black market?" she remarked sarcastically. "Especially since it was available to as many buyers as we could get hold of. Even with percentages taken out here and there by all the middlemen, and split between us and some other contacts, there's still a shitload left over for each of us."

Grikk just flashed Shiu a wide grin as he recovered his bearings. It still took a few more moments for the enormity of it all to sink in. "Holy shit," he muttered again, then looked up from the credit transfer chit. "Fuck getting my ship repaired – I'm going back to Lanbao and buying a new one! Custom built! With... with everything! Weapons and shields and hot water and... and a computer that doesn't take forever to calculate a fucking route! No, fuck that, I'm getting one with an AI assistant! I can finally say goodbye to that old piece of shit freighter and all the warrants that are still out for it!"

Chuckling, Grikk clapped Shiu on the shoulder with one enormous meaty hand, making the water dragon stagger. "At least bring it back here and let me scrap it. I'll even let you watch."

"I will!" Shiu promised excitedly, stashing the transfer chit into a pouch on his utility belt. "I'll get a tow rope installed and haul that junker back here myself! Fuck, lend me a torch and I'll help cut it apart!"

Grikk backed off and folded both sets of arms. Shiu looked over to Sarydra, who was nodding in approval at the chit she was holding. "Oh yeah, this more than makes up for RanaTek trashing my place," she said, tapping it against her other hand idly.

"Wasn't it your booby trap that blew it up?" Grikk mused aloud.

"Details," Sarydra dismissed with a wave of her hand. "So, Shiu! Want to come take a look at my ship?"

He blinked. "Why would I-" he began, then noticed her turning to the side a little and wiggling her hips, swishing her tail. "Ah. Yeah. I think I would."

Grinning, she patted the side of Grikk's closest leg. "I'll be in touch. You're a little too big to join in on this party, though."

Grikk gave a snort. "Too big for your tits, but you're the right size for me to grind on your whole body," he joked.

"Oh, I know," she replied with a wink and a swish of her tail. "I meant you're too big to fit in my ship."

With a laugh, he gave her a nod. "I have a shipyard to run anyway," he conceded, then bent at the knees to crouch down by Sarydra. "You two have fun. If you want even more fun after work hours, you know where to find me."

"I'll be along to cuddle your junk later," Sarydra teased.

Shiu chuckled. "Don't make promises you can't keep. I remember what happened last time."

Beckoning for him to follow, she wandered off one way as Grikk went in the other direction. "Do you, now? I don't recall. You'll have to remind me..." she teased in a playful tone that indicated she very much remembered exactly how their last sexual encounter had gone.

Shiu followed after her. "After I stop by my ship first to hide this thing," he said, patting the utility pouch. It would go straight to the secret compartment in the cockpit. That credit transfer chit held more than just money – it held his second chance at life. It held the means to escape from a meager existence, scraping along, constantly doing repairs, and living in fear that he might run into pirates that he wasn't on the good side of.

It held freedom.