It took Alex two days to be somewhat back to normal, not that the nightmare about killing the man went away, they mixed in with those of Tristan killing Alex, Killing Jack, of forcing Alex to kill Jack, or of Jack killing Alex. Alex no longer expected restful sleep, so he was happy when he only woke up a couple of time through the night.

    His first reminder that life had to go on was Jennifer.

    She caught him on his way to the computer and dragged him to the shooting range.

    Alex recoiled away when she handed him a gun. "No! I'm not using one of those things aver again."

    She looked at it, then him. "Why? You seem good enough already."

    "Are you crazy? I held a gun twice in my entire life, and each time I ended up killing someone!"

    "That's sort of the point of them."

    "I didn't want to kill them!" Alex paced away. "That first one, Samson, He startled me and that thing went off. I never meant to kill him. The other one? I don't even know his name. I should know the name of the guy I killed. Those things make it to damn easy to kill. I want nothing to do with them."

    She snorted. "So what? You want to have to get in close and personal to kill someone? Use a knife to gut them. Get your hands bloody?"

    Alex stopped his pacing. He didn't want to ever kill someone again, but if he was going to do it.... "Yes, exactly. If I ever have to kill someone again, I want to have to look them in the eyes. I want to see how much they hate me for doing it. Damn it, I want to have so much blood on me I'm going to throw up and never do it again!"

    She studied him for a long time. Long enough that Alex worried she might make it easy on him and throw him out an airlock. Then she nodded. "Okay, I know someone. It might take some work convincing him, but he'll teach you how to handle a knife." She offered him the gun again. "Now, pick this up."

    "Didn't you hear anything of what I said?" Alex screamed. 

    "What I heard is that you don't want to kill someone by accident again. That starts by knowing how to handle one of these so that if you ever have to shoot someone, you'll only kill them if you decide to."

    Alex looked at the gun in her hand. It was one of the smaller model, barely larger than his own hand. The one Terry had left him had been twice that size. Reluctantly he took it, and after she told him too, wrapped his hand around the grip.

    For the next hour she went over proper handling, cleaning, and storing of guns.

    * * * * *

    His second reminder was two hours later, when Anna pulled him out of Asyr's lab to train. Alex told her he didn't have to anymore, that Anders was leaving him alone. She snorted and attacked him.

    After an hour of getting his ass handed to him, she let him go.

    * * * * *

    he third reminder came with dinner, when Carlina refused to let him take what he wanted and handed him a tray with what Doc allowed him to eat. The portions were decent, meat and vegetable, with a fruit cake for dessert, but he'd been in the mood for the pasta in cheese sauce.

    He was back on his diet, that he wanted to or not.

    * * * * *

    The next day he'd just finished dressing when Will burst into the room. "Come on!"

    Alex tried to remember what part of his life Will was in charge off, and remembered it was his exercise regiment.

    "Damn it, Will, I just got dressed. I'm going to work on the computer, We can exercise another day."

    Will looked at him, dumb expression on his face for a moment. "Oh, not that. Something you got to see."

    Once Alex had his shoes on will grabbed him and pulled him out the room. Will let go once Alex swore he would follow him, then they moved about the ship, toward the hold, he realized.

    He'd only seen the hold once, when he got on the ship. He'd entered that way, but hadn't paid much attention. The place was huge, a few hundred feet high, deep and wide.

    Crates were stacked one on top of the others, forming walls going almost to the ceiling. Each crate had a display with information, and Alex knew that if he looked at them closely, he'd be able to figure out where it came from, where it was going, and possibly the content. His father's company used such crates to move the produce off planet.

    It took him a moment to realize this was all from the other ship, or at least most of it had to be. On the station they'd only unloaded, as far as he knew.

    "Lea!" Will called to a woman leaned over a crate and rummaging through it. She looked over her shoulder. "This is Crimson. Crimson, that's Lea."

    She let herself fall to the ground and offered her hand to Alex. "You're the guy who made this job so easy. Pleasure to meet you."

    Alex shook it. "You're welcome. Did I really help that much?"

    "Are you kidding? Because of you, none of the cargo got damaged. Well, except for the stuff in that crate those two idiots caused to fall on them, but that's one crate, one. If we'd have to fight our way on and off the ship we'd have been lucky to get have the stuff back intact."

    Alex blushed. He wasn't used to seeing the result of his work like that. Let alone having it save lives, on both side, he realized.

    "I got to say, I'm a little worried that having you here is going to make us lazy. If we aren't kept on our toes by security, we are going to get really hurt the day you aren't here to help."

    Alex grinned. "So next time, I should just let some of the guards through? To keep you on your toes and all that?"

    "Oh no, just tell me when you're leaving, so I can jump ship and go with you. I don't like being shot at."

    "You out of luck, when I leave, it isn't going to get on another ship, but to settle down."

    "Really? You're going to use you cut and settle down? Never heard of anyone leaving the life like that."

    "What do you mean, my cut?"

    She looked at Will, "Doesn't he know how it all works?" 

    The shorter man shrugged. "Never thought he'd do anything, so I didn't bother explaining it." 

    "Explaining what?"

    "Once I'm done appraising everything, everyone gets an even share."

    Will snorted. "Some get more even than other." 

    "The captain's entitled to more," she said.

    "And Anders," Will added, "And Gabriella, and Joe, and Mitchel, and-"

    "Okay," she stopped him, "but on a haul like this, you really think a few percent is going to matter all that much? We're all going to be rich!"

    "What exactly was on the ship?" Alex asked.

    "Oh, lots of things. Antiques, new computers, house stuff, oh, and we actually got some wine this time."

    Alex was about to ask to see the computers but that made him frown. "You make it sound like it's uncommon." Wine wasn't rare, back on his home planet they exported the stuff by the ship load.

    Will chuckled. "Nah, it's not that. We got conned last time."

    Alex looked to Lea for an explanation, he didn't feel like having to decipher his friend's quick and truncated speech.

    "We picked you up at the last station, right?" she asked. Alex nodded.

    "Okay, well, we'd attacked a cargo ship before that. We were after it because it was supposed to have really rare and valuable wine. We boarded it, dealt with the guards and all that and managed to bring every crate back, with only a quarter of them damaged, so over all, it was really good. Not Crimson is helping good, but compared to some of our other jobs, good.

    Anyway, we get away,and once everything's quiet I start inventorying, and appraising, but instead of crates of wine, I find that we have crates of grapes."

    "Grapes?" Alex asked, "As in, unfermented wine? Grape juice?"

    "Not even that, grapes, the fruit, little ball shape things."

    "How did you confuse grapes for wine?"

    "We didn't, the manifest said it was wine."

    "But they were grapes?" Alex now remembered a comment about wine, during the meeting. A jab, he now realized. It explained the glare.

    "Yep, in preservation containers." 

    "So there was an error on loading?"

    "Or it was a scam, and we got the ship before the planned attack. No idea. All I know is that for once, we got to act like the merchant ship we claim to be."

    "So that's the risk of piracy?"

    "Sure, happens a lot less then being shot though," Will commented.

    "You said there were computers, can I see them? Can I take some, instead of the money, or what ever I'd get for what I did."

    "Sure. I'll deduct their value from you share." She searched through her pad. After twenty minutes Alex glanced over her shoulder. She was going through each item, line per line.

    "Can't you tell it what you're looking for?"

    She rolled her eyes. "The damned thing's crazy. I can ask for computers and it'll bring down tomatoes. That's if it gives me anything at all. Last time I tried it, it tried to drop a crate on my head. I had to clean up pebbles all day."

    "You've stolen pebbles?"

    "No, rare statues, but you drop a crate from that high." She pointed to the ceiling, "and there isn't much left of it."

    Alex looked around for a place where nothing could be dropped on him.

    "You know I've been working on healing the ship's computer, right?"

    "Really? Haven't noticed any improvement. How is it going?" 

    "I've just been working on the central processor for now, but I'm at the point where I can start integrating other sections. If you want, I can start with the holds' inventory management system. It's fairly simple so it should be able to handle it without having a relapse."

    She looked at him, "You manage that, and I'll give you half my share."

    Will looked up. "I'll help!"

    She grinned at him. "You don't count, short stuff."

    Alex hid his smile. "The down side is that you won't be able to access it while I'm doing that. It's probably going to take me a few days to get everything working properly."

    She looked around. "That's okay, I can bring enough crates down ahead of time to keep me busy. It isn't like we can go anywhere until I'm done."

    "Why not? Why don't you do that while the rest of us are in cryo?"

    "Oh no. I'm not staying up alone on this thing." She lowered her voice. "This place gets creepy when everyone's under."

    "Ship's haunted," Will said, and she shushed him. 

    "You're joking, right?"

    "Nope. Heard from guy, who's wife had to do some repair while we slept. She told him the ship was talking to her, telling her nasty thing, like she aught to kill herself."

    Alex rolled his eyes. "Your friend was putting you on." 

    "Not my friend, just a guy I knew," Will said.

    "And I had a bunkmate who's cryo failed in the middle of a trip," Lea said. "He had to look around for another bed, and he said that the ship tried to get him to space himself, locking doors and leading him around in circle."

    "Where is he now? I'd like to ask him some question." There were enough safety programs in place that even on a ship like this, there was no way the computer could actively try to hurt someone.

    "He jumped ship the next port we got to. Never heard from him."

    "Right." Alex looked from one to the other, certain they were putting him on. He decided not to ask more questions and let her continue her search.

    Fifteen minutes later she'd ordered the crate down. Alex watched it carefully, and made sure never to be under it. It came down without incident. She entered a code on the crate's display, and the top unsealed with a hiss. She brought a ladder and they peered into it.

    Alex's breath caught. He was looking at a crate full of Kaldary. He pulled out a a blank box and had to look around to find the model number. Alex grinned. He had a crate full of C-348. Luminex was still using a modified version of the C-332. "I'm going to need four of them." These would make healing the ship's system so much easier. He couldn't see Asyr complaining about the upgrade. "If there's anyone on the ship who does anything close to programing, Tell them about this. No one should pass up the chance to get a Kaldary."

    Lea looked into the crate and shrugged.

    With Will's help, Alex bought the four to Asyr's lab, and spent the rest of the day setting them up.

    * * * * *

    Over the next few days Alex made good progress on integrating the hold's management system with the central processor. The Kaldary were so much better, faster and the display clearer. As he expected, the computer had a mild relapse when the hold's insanity jumped across the barrier, but with Alex's help it was quickly brought under control. Then it was only a question of helping the processor learn how to talk to the hold again. Once they spoke the same language, they would become one system.

    * * * * *

    Alex was walking along the corridor, when he noticed the control panel. He remembered what Lea had said, about her friend being led around in circle with locked doors. He chuckled to himself, that couldn't happen. Hallway controls were part of environmental controls, and there were more safety programs in that system than anything else on the ship. No, they had been joking.

    They had to be.

    He moved to the control and activated it. It looked normal, it gave him the temperature, energy usage on lights and life support equipment. That looked a little high to him, but he wasn't an engineer so what did he know.

    With a quick series of command he dismissed the interface and looked at the code directly. Under five minutes Alex's blood ran cold. Hardly any of the safety programs were in place. He had to integrate that next, their lives could depend on it.

    He headed directly to see the captain.