I pulled the slate toward me and started reading. It was my standard contract, modified in a few places with some of the changes we’d discussed in the landing bay. The modifications were not unreasonable. I glanced at Torran, who sat staring at a second slate.

Without his eyes on me, he was handsome, in a harsh sort of way. His features benefited from the fine bone structure common to Valoffs, which kept his face on the attractive side of brutal. He looked like someone who could take a fist to the face without breaking stride.

Right now, I would very much like for someone to test that hypothesis.

I returned to the slate, modifying Torran’s changes until I was happy with the resulting contract. Before I slid it back to him, I had to ask, “Why did you start with the other contract if you already had this one ready?”

His gaze met mine and I fought the urge to look away. “If you had signed the first contract, you would’ve proven that you were the wrong person for the job.”

I scoffed. “No one would sign that contract.”

Torran’s mouth thinned. “You’d be surprised.”

It took us another thirty minutes to nail down the minutiae. But at the end, I had a signed contract, a promise of initial payment later today, and a start date of tomorrow morning. Torran had pushed for starting today, but I still had a few things to finish up before we left.

Tomorrow, we would head directly for Valovia with a single stop to pick up Lexi, if she could join us, which meant I had less than twenty-four hours to resign myself to the fact that I’d be hauling around a squad of Valoffs for the next two months.

Lucky me.

Chapter Three

We returned to the ship and Kee met us in the cargo bay, her eyes bright. “Lexi is in. She has to finish up a job and will meet us at the Bastion station.”

“Good.” Bastion was the last human system before Valovian space. We’d have to travel through it anyway, so it was a good place to meet. But I wondered why Lexi was so close to the border.

Kee clasped her hands in front of her and sent me a pleading look. “Now that we’re getting paid, can I order a new processing unit?”

“How much?” I asked.

“Forty thousand.”

I couldn’t quite suppress my wince. That would be almost a third of our initial payment, and I still had to pay Lexi and hire a mechanical engineer or two, at least temporarily. If we were heading into Valovian space, then I wanted to ensure that we would make it back out again, no matter what happened.