Falconi faced her full on. His middle finger tapped the grip of his blaster in an irregular tempo. “I get it. But even if the UMC does disable a ship, that won’t mean all the Jellies on it will be killed.” He motioned downward. “I have everyone in the hold to think about. Lotta people could get hurt if we have fighting on the ship.”

Kira couldn’t help herself: “And how much were you thinking about their welfare when you started charging for rescue?”

For the first time, Falconi seemed offended. “Doesn’t mean I want to see them killed,” he said.

“What about the Wallfish? Does it have any weapons?”

“Enough to stop a rim runner or two, but this isn’t a warship. We can’t go up against one of the Jellies and hope to survive. They’d cut us to shreds.”

Kira stood back, put her hands on her hips. “So what are you going to do?”

Falconi studied her, and she saw the calculations going on behind his eyes. Then he said, “We’ll still head for that asteroid, because we might need it in the worst-case scenario. But if one of the Jellies’ ships gets disabled, and if it looks doable, we’ll board it.”

A sense of enormity filled Kira as she considered the possibility. “Okay then,” she said quietly.

Falconi chuckled and ran a hand through his bristle-like hair. “Shit. If we pull this off, the UMC is going to be so mad we got the jump on them, they won’t know whether to give us a medal or throw us in the brig.”

And for the first time since she’d woken up on the Wallfish, Kira laughed as well.

2.

The waiting was torturous.

Kira stayed in the galley with the crew, watching the progress of the Jellies. She quickly decided she would rather be shot at than sit around waiting to find out what might or might not happen. The uncertainty drove her to bite her nails, but the slightly metallic taste of the Soft Blade filled her mouth and her teeth bounced off the fibrous coating.

The last time it happened, she sat on her hands to stop herself. Which made her wonder; why hadn’t her nails grown in the past few months? The xeno hadn’t replaced them; she’d seen the nails on her left hand—pink and healthy as ever—when she’d caused the suit to retract. The only explanation she could think of was that the Soft Blade was maintaining the same nail length she had when it first emerged.

When she couldn’t bear sitting anymore, Kira made her excuses and went to Trig. “Do you have any spare clothes on the ship? Or a printer that could make me some?” She plucked at the jumpsuit. “After a couple of months in this thing, I could use a change.”

The kid blinked as he switched his focus from his overlays to her. “Sure,” he said. “We don’t have nothing fancy, but—”

“Plain and simple is fine.”