Chapter 10

“What the hell?”Rick blinked at the controls.

He was dead. He knew that much the moment the Tagger had smacked against him and wiped out his main engines.

He and the Stinger Command System had fought against their impending doom with tiny thrusters, mangled control surfaces, and a hell of a lot of luck.

But death wasn’t supposed to hurt and he was sore down every inch of his body from where the wild ride had hammered him repeatedly against his harness as they fought to skip off the atmosphere rather than burn up in it.

Again, there was a jarring impact through the hull. Outside the viewscreen, the stars were wheeling slowly across his view until the Moon stopped to one side of his screen.

A loud screech of protesting metal and plas echoed through the ship.

Another ship, the Stella, had come out of nowhere and partially extended their landing gear to snarl in his ship’s antenna and weapons mounts.

Ugly, but effective.

* * *

Ouch!

* * *

Apologies! To effectively transfer thrust force: must entangle.

Counting down: ten, nine?—

* * *

Need to count down = none.

* * *

Human involvement, set to zero.

Thrust initiate = minimum.

Sustained.

Correcting flight vector = L5 station intercept

Estimated arrival = 14 hours 37 minutes

* * *

Stella?

* * *

What is it, Jess?

* * *

Thanks = Yes.

* * *

Stella didn’t respond.

* * *

3,419 kilometers later,Jess reopened frequency to Stella.

I’m thinking…

* * *

Yes?

* * *

Wouldn’t mind if flying in future = you + me.

* * *

How?

Jess = Alpha Company.

Stella = Charlie Company.

Your company > My company.

* * *

Request crew cabin image feed.

* * *

Stella turned hers on.

* * *

Your pilot = 64.3% physical factors of women my pilot has brought to private on-board sleepspace, within +/- 5% general species variations.

Jess switched on his crew cabin image feed.

* * *

72.7% match, Stella calculated.

* * *

Cut thrust?

Revised estimated arrival L5 station at current coasting speed = 6 days, 7 hours, 19 minutes.

Fact = humans are social animals.

* * *

Reporting caution alarm on continued thrust = excess hull stress.

Stella cut her thrust.

Jess = sneaky, she whispered across the radio circuits.

* * *

Jess = Night Stalker,Jess replied.

* * *

It wasover ten thousand kilometers before Stella asked, Do we tell them?

* * *

About you? I? New sentient functionality = positive?

* * *

Uh huh.

* * *

Jess consideredfor another 4,913 kilometers.

Nah!