Page 6 of Alien Devil's Prey
"The Conclave will send reinforcements," she said, her voice flat.
"Standard protocol," I agreed. "If a strike team doesn't report in, they send a search party. We have maybe six hours." I moved to her station, checking the propulsion readings over her shoulder. "Can you get us to jump distance?"
"The hyperdrive motivator is fried. We're stuck in normal space until I can reroute power through the secondary systems." She pulled up a schematic of the ship's internals. "It'll take time."
Time we didn't have.
"We use the wreckage as cover while we work," I decided. "How long for the repairs?"
"Six hours minimum. Maybe eight if we run into complications." She rotated her chair to face me, and I saw the guilt in her hazel eyes. "The failsafe wasn't supposed to be this catastrophic. My father designed it as a targeted surge, but I must have modified something wrong?—"
"You saved us," I cut her off. "Without it, we'd both be in Conclave interrogation cells right now."
She blinked, surprised by the absence of accusation in my voice. Good. She needed to understand that this was a partnership now, not a capture scenario.
"I need your expertise with these systems," I continued. "I can handle standard repairs, but this ship has modifications I've never seen. You know it better than anyone."
She nodded, some of the guilt fading from her expression. "The power coupling that controls the hyperdrive is three decks down. The access route isn't easy."
"Show me."
We made our way through theDrifter'scorridors, emergency lighting casting red shadows on the walls. The ship groaned around us, stressed metal settling after the trauma of our escape. Every sound made me tense, waiting for the catastrophic failure that would end us both.
The power coupling was buried deep in the ship's mechanical spaces, surrounded by a maze of conduits and support struts. The compartment was barely large enough for two people, forcing us to work in uncomfortably close quarters.
"Hand me the plasma cutter," Tamsin said, wedged halfway into an access panel. "I need to bypass this burned-out relay."
I passed her the tool, our fingers brushing in the confined space. Her skin was warm, a sharp contrast to the cold metal surrounding us. The simple contact sent an unexpected jolt through me—not attraction, exactly, but awareness. Recognition of her as more than just an asset or obstacle.
"You're good at this,"I said, my voice lower than I'd intended. "We might just survive." I paused, the moment stretching in the humming silence. "I'm Talon, by the way."
She glanced back at me from the access panel, a flicker of surprise in her hazel eyes before it was replaced by her usual guarded focus. "Tamsin," she replied. "And I have no intention of dying in this tin can."
I didn’t need to tell her I already knew her name. But she was competent. That counted for more than I wanted to admit.
"There." She emerged from the panel, sweat beading on her forehead. "Try the diagnostic now."
I activated the test sequence, watching data flow across my handheld scanner. "Power levels are climbing. You got it."
"One down, about fifteen to go." She wiped her hands on a maintenance rag, leaving dark smears. "Next is the sensor array. We'll need to physically replace the primary coupling."
We worked for hours, moving from system to system like surgeons repairing a patient. Her knowledge of the ship's quirks proved invaluable—she knew which circuits could handle overload, which components had built-in redundancies, where her father had hidden backup systems that weren't on any official schematic.
"How do you know all this?"I asked, watching her reroute power through a conduit that looked like it should have been dead. "These workarounds aren't in any standard manual."
She didn't look up from her work, her expression a mixture of concentration and old grief. "They're not. My father left notes for himself in the code, commented out so only another programmer would find them. Little reminders about redundancies, hidden backdoors... It's how I learned."
The admission hung in the cramped space between us. She wasn't just a good navigator; she was the inheritor of a secret language, one only she and her father's ghost could speak.
I found myself watching her work, noting the economy of her movements, the way she anticipated problems before they manifested. I realized her paranoia was a survival strategy. She knew every weakness in these systems because she'd spent years looking for them, waiting for the day they would inevitably fail her.
Smart. Paranoid, but smart.
"Sensor array is coming back online," she reported, checking her readings. "And I'm picking up something."
I leaned over her shoulder to study the display. A single contact, moving slowly through the wreckage field toward our position. Too small to be a ship, too regular to be random debris.
"Probe," I identified. "Automated scout. The Conclave must have launched it before their ships went dark."
