Leo glanced at Baz, who shook his head. He remembered what Boo had told him not long after he’d come aboard the Icarus: Kat was mostly talk. One of the keys to being a good pirate was letting other people’s fear of you work against them.

Though fear, Leo knew, was only one way to keep people in line. There were other ways. More deceitful ways. Like convincing them that you had their best interests at heart.

“And Baz . . . ,” Kat added through the speaker. “You’re welcome.”

There was a buzz, and the door to the engine room hissed open. Standing right there with a power wrench in his hand gawked another Darkashi, bug eyes even more bug-eyed. He took one look at Baz and swung the wrench, aiming to stave in the captain’s head, but Baz easily stepped out of the way, letting the alien overswing and getting in behind him. One swift blow to the back of the Darkashi’s oddly shaped noggin and the alien was down. The captain holstered his pistol and stepped over the body.

“Is he going to be all right?” Leo asked.

“He’s going to wake up with a helluva headache,” Baz said. “But yeah, he’ll be fine.”

Leo followed Baz into the engine room, much smaller than the one on the Beagle, and much cleaner, its surfaces gleaming. Tex—the Beagle’s chief engineer—never cared if the research vessel’s engineering bay was clean so long as it was functioning. Leo had no idea what had happened to the big blue Eldrin with the foul mouth. The last he heard, the remaining crew—including his brother—had been brought onto a Djarik prisoner transport just before the Beagle was scuttled. Then that transport had just disappeared. No communication. No distress call. Just gone. Now you see them. Now you don’t.

He hoped they were all okay. It pained him knowing his brother was out there somewhere. But he couldn’t go looking for Gareth alone, and to even start searching required the Icarus to be able to get from one star to the next.

Which meant they needed more V. Couldn’t do anything without it, it seemed.

And Leo was staring right at some. Next to the ship’s jump drive, in a metal storage container specially designed for holding additional cores of the precious fuel.

“Only four?” Baz said, clearly disappointed. “I thought the Darkashi were supposed to be rich.” Of course four cores was infinitely more than Black found when he and his crew boarded the Beagle. Then, the only thing they’d come away with was Leo, hiding away in their underside storage compartment. “Better take ’em all.”

Baz handed Leo the satchel, which Leo opened to reveal a row of insulated sleeves, each the perfect size to hold one core. Baz went back to the door and stared out into the corridor, leaving Leo to gather the goods.

He stood in front of the ship’s supply, hesitant. This was the real reason he had insisted on coming. Four cores, plus whatever was left in their drive. Once the Icarus was gone, the terrorized Darkashi would want to reactivate their systems and make a jump to get away, just to be safe. Taking all four cores could very well leave them stranded out here. Leo knew what that felt like, floating in space, waiting on someone to come save you. Or finish you off.