Free Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair Page B

0542. He looked like he could use another few hours of rest.
    She should have forced him to spend another day in sick bay. But her need to get the
Venture
functioning quickly had taken precedence over his medical condition. She felt slightly guilty about that now. “You want a light trank?”
    “Of course not! I am fine.” He tugged on the strapping with a show of force.
    “Yeah, yeah. I heard that line before, Rhis-my-boy. That’s what you said just as you passed out in—”
    “You said something about a full systems check?” He overrode her comment, focused on the screen flickering to life on the console.
    She chuckled, swiveled her datapad into position. “Okay, tough guy, have it your way. Full power active. Let’s run down the list. Life support.”
    “Power levels optimum. Filters online.”
    “Got it. Auxiliary generators?” It was odd hearing Rhis’s voice, not Dezi’s reply to her routine questions.
    “On standby.”
    They went back and forth for the next five minutes, making a small adjustment here, a slight change in levels there. Several times Trilby noted Rhis almost issuing the command before she did, as if he were about to take over the captain’s prerogative. She doubted that Senior Captain Tivahr would have tolerated that on the
Razalka
’s bridge.
    But evidently a lowly Zafharin lieutenant felt himself more qualified than an Indy freighter captain. Well, she’d show him a thing or two yet. “Do much heavy-air flying, Rhis?”
    “Enough.”
    “Keep in mind that this is a cargo freighter, not one of your sleek, high-performance Imperial toys, okay? Try to let me handle her ’til we clear dirtside gravity.” She tapped at his hand resting on the throttle and command pads. “I do know how to fly this ship.”
    He snatched his hand away.
    “That’s better. Now, let’s get this bucket of bolts in the air.”
             
    As the bulky ship strained upward, Rhis grudgingly admitted she’d been right about one thing. His heavy-air time had all been in high-performance and high-priced Imperial toys. Toys that had better gravity buffer systems than the
Venture
did. His side twinged again. He worked on his breathing, brought his mind out of his physical frame and focused on the instrument readouts before him.
    A half hour, twenty-nine minutes . . . his focus changed from the readouts to watching Trilby Elliot at the controls. She was breathing a little harder, her own body fighting the strain. But her hands moved flawlessly, correcting rotation and axis, fiddling with a thruster.
    “The starboard auxiliary is always fritzy,” she said when she saw him watching her. “That’s my safety valve. Some damned fool tries to steal my ship, hell, he’ll find her skittering out of control before he can begin congratulating himself on his prowess.” She gave a small chuckle. “If I thought the Zafharin had any interest in old junkers like mine, I wouldn’t be telling you this.”
    The Zafharin never had much use for small freighters. Warships, scoutships, large-cargo conveyors, yes. But an old Circura II wouldn’t be worthy of their attention. He, however, would never be able to see one without thinking of a certain pale-haired air sprite. But perhaps air sprite wasn’t the proper analogy for her. Her fragile appearance was all a sham, a trick of nature that had given her the face of a princess and, he was beginning to understand, a life of privation.
    A very wrong number on the console caught his attention. “Your ascent angle’s too steep.”
    Trilby raised her right hand over her head. The plush toy felinar bumped against it. “Nope. Just fine.”
    He looked at the long-tailed toy, at the red-tinged readout, then at Trilby. “Don’t tell me you’re serious.”
    She grinned.
    He understood. “Another theft-prevention device?”
    Dezi answered for her. “Captain Elliot has always stated that pirate factions intent on capture or sabotage would overlook the simplistic. Begging