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She flared her hands out dramatically without looking away from the screen.

“What the hell is going on?” Stevie’s voice issued over the ship-wide com. “The engineering panels up here are going absolutely fucking nuts.”

B leaned over to activate the comm.

“Starboard engines’ ventral vents aren’t cycling properly.” Her voice was calm, but he easily read the tension in her lithe frame. “Hold one. Running a force purge now.”

She entered the final command and watched the screen in front of her like a kinerys hawk.

Words scrolled by rapidly and he frowned, leaning forward. Okay, that definitely wasn’t standard Terran and now it was starting to bug him. “What is that language?”

She slid him a sideways glance. “I thought you were a charter pilot?”

Leaning one hip against the console nearest to him, he folded his arms over his chest.

“Yeah. I am.”

Arching an eyebrow, she went back to reading.

“So a charter pilot who doesn’t recognize Neo-English when nearly all chartered ships run on the KU-42 operating system… which is in Neo-English.”

His expression froze.

Oh trall, he’d draanthed up and nearly given himself away.

Keeping his expression level, he shrugged.

“Sorry, beautiful, never could read well. Flight jockey controls are easy, though. Push to go, pull to stop.”

She wasn’t listening, though, slamming her hand against the console as something flashed up in red. “Fuck it, the forced purge failed.”

Reactivating the com, she said, “Stevie, keep things level up there, would you? The vent’s been a bitch. I’m gonna have to head out there. Probably something got stuck in the damn fins again.”

“Understood,” Stevie replied. “I’ll activate the hall cameras so we can keep an eye on you. Make it quick. Stay safe.”

“You know me, always am.”

B turned and he stepped in front of her, blocking her path. Sighing, she looked up at him and ran a hand through her short dark hair. “Rann, get out of my way. Bit of a time crunch here.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re not going out there.”

Her look could have cut perma-steel. “Seriously, I don’t have time for whatever bee you have in your bonnet.”

She tried to go around him, but he simply stepped to the side. From hitting his head every third step anywhere on the ship but in here, now his size and greater stride really worked to his advantage.

“No, I said you’re not going.” He growled, folding his arms over his chest and glaring down at her.

Usually, when dealing with females, especially smaller and more delicate human females, he always tried to hunch his shoulders and minimize his height so that he wouldn’t intimidate them. But now he didn’t bother. There was no point; he didn’t think even a vorrtan in full battle form would intimidate B—not with the way she was looking at him.

“I’ll go,” he announced. “And you can walk me through what I need to do.”

She looked at him like he’d grown another head, then reached to the back of her belt and drew out some kind of thin tool.

He tensed for a moment, memories of how effective she’d been with that wrench back at the station filling his mind.

“Do you know what this is?” she asked.

His gaze flicked from hers to the tool and back again. It was a thin, flat piece of metal without any markings that he could see. Racking his brains, he tried to remember if he’d ever seen Anson or Jex use anything similar, but came up blank. If they had, it had never been when he’d been around.