Page 17

It was still damn odd.

Maybe he was hiding, or running from somebody?

People disappeared all the time. Bad debts. Worse exes. The universe was full of reasons to get on a ship and not leave a forwarding address.

And considering their own expedition didn’t exactly want anyone looking too closely at why they were leaving, she couldn’t really interrogate him over the fact he’d bought new socks.

She picked up the crate and moved on.

The last stall had what she actually needed. A vibration damper for the LR-721’s starboard stabilizer array, plus the matching coupling nodes that usually sheared off three weeks into any serious haul. Rare as hen’s teeth, and the bastard behind the counter knew it.

He named a price that made her eyebrows shoot up.

“Try again,” she said, folding her arms. Fortunately, she’d always had an excellent resting bitch face, so she ramped it up a hundred. “And this time, don’t insult both our intelligences.”

He spread his hands, all wounded innocence. “Lady, those are factory originals. Discontinued line. You won’t find them anywhere else on this station.”

“Factory originals, my bloody arse.” She leaned in, bracing both palms on the grimy counter. “Those are refurbished. I can see the heat scoring on the collar. You’re charging me new-part prices for salvage, and I am absolutely not the idiot you clearly need me to be.”

Rann appeared at her shoulder, setting the crate down with a solid thump. The vendor’s eyes flicked up to him, and his expression shifted. Straightening, he aimed his smile past her.

“Perhaps we can discuss this reasonably,” he said to Rann. “Man to man.”

Oh, fuck that.

But she didn’t get a chance to reply. Rann just folded his arms, leaned one hip against the counter, and shook his head. “Nah, I’m just the brawn, mate. Wouldn’t know a talk wrench from my ass. It’s my boss you need to deal with.”

The vendor’s smile curdled.

She didn’t bother hiding her satisfaction. “Right. So, I’ll give you forty percent of your asking price, you’ll throw in the gasket sealant I saw in that bin behind you, and we both walk away before I find a station auditor who might care about your refurbished markup fraud.”

“That’s robbery!” The vendor clutched his chest. “I won’t be able to feed my kids this evening!”

“You should’ve thought of that before you tried to have my pants down over the price.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Forty percent. Sealant. Now.”

He stared at her. She stared back, unblinking.

Eventually, the parts hit her palm with a defeated clatter.

Paying the man, she tucked the dampers into the crate and walked away. Behind her, the vendor was still muttering about his imaginary starving children.

“Talk wrench?” she asked as Rann fell into step beside her.

He shrugged. “Seemed appropriate. Dumb blond routine and all that.”

She snorted and turned toward the corridor that would lead them to the tram platform.

He kept pace, one hand wrapped around the crate handle, the other hovering near his hip in a way that made her think he was used to carrying a weapon. She frowned. Most pilots didn’t move like that. Most pilots walked as if they had all the time in the universe and the right-of-way in every corridor.

They reached the corridor to find it cordoned off, yellow hazard tape flapping in the recycled air. A bored station worker pointed them toward a maintenance detour without looking up from his tablet.

“Corridor B-seven,” he said. “Temporary reroute to the platform. Watch your step.”

She sighed. She didn’t have the mental energy to argue with station bureaucracy, and turned that way. B-seven turned out to be a service passage, narrow and poorly lit, but it would get them to the docking ring eventually.

The wide, bright concourse fell away behind them, replaced by bare metal walls and conduits that dripped condensation onto the deck. The corridor twisted left, then right, narrowing until Rann had to turn sideways to keep the crate from scraping the walls. The lighting strips overhead flickered, some burned out entirely, leaving long stretches of shadow that pooled like oil.

The corridor opened into a small junction, then dead-ended into another passage that looked identical. She blinked. There was no crowd noise or foot traffic, just the hum of ventilation and the drip of water.