"Not as high as me, but you're getting there," Sam said, her voice teasing and very much not helping.

I stared at the screen. Technically, the information would have been in the computers for the last week, but only after dropping out of the Rift somewhere above the ecliptic, did I think about checking my bounty? "How the hell did I commit insurance fraud?"

X-Talia shrugged while Sam just patted me on the shoulder. An extra 2,000 credits on top of my bounty of 15,000 didn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but seriously how is getting pulled out in the middle of the shipping lane in between stars my fault and at the very least, how is it fraud?

"Anyway, I think we should pick up a mattress for the captain's quarters," Sam said.

I had to play the statement over in my head again as it seemed so far from my current concerns. "Why?"

"You can't seriously keep sleeping there," Sam said, pointing to the corner where I had my bedding rolled up and stashed.

"I don't want to sleep that far away from the bridge." I really did hate the design of the ship. The fact that the crew quarters and captain's quarters were basically on the other side of the cargo bay just seemed stupid. If anything went wrong while we were sleeping, we were basically screwed.

"At least get a new mattress and try," Sam insisted.

I opened my mouth to argue, but was cut off by X-Talia. "A Rift has been detected," she announced.

I looked at the screen where her avatar was turned, so it looked like she was thoughtfully staring off into space despite just being a 2D image displaying in my direction.

"Out here?" Sam asked, as clearly even the girl who knew nothing about Rift Drives and space travel realized that being above the ecliptic was a strange place to pop in and out of real space.

"Did something come out or go in?" Sam inquired.

"Out, I think," X-Talia said, with considerable uncertainty in her voice. "However, there's no transponder IDs and I didn't pick up anything beyond the initial shedding of energy."

"Radar?" I asked.

"It's a bit out there. We're still waiting for the ping to come back, and this ship doesn't really have the greatest sensors," X-Talia replied, while popping up a timer for when she expected the information to be available. As the timer ran out, she gestured to one of the screens off to the side which displayed a whole lot of nothing.

"Is it supposed to say something?" Sam asked.

Sometimes I was really glad I had a girl with me who knew nothing about this stuff. It certainly made me feel better about not knowing what was going on.

X-Talia gestured at the blank screen and said, "That's an extrapolation of what the radar ping picked up."

"So there's nothing?" Sam asked in confirmation.

X-Talia shrugged. "There's an oddly vague..." she paused as though looking for the word, "vagueness to it."

"You think there's something stealthed out there?" I asked.

"Stealthed?" Sam asked.

"I'm pinging again, but I really don't expect to pick up anything," X-Talia concluded.

"What about IR?"

"The extrapolation includes all infrared, there's nothing."

"Can you get one of the telescopic cameras on the location where the Rift was?"

"Oh, sure," X-Talia said while pointing at another screen which lit up with a starry vista.

I put my nose right up to the screen and stared, trying to see if I could pick out any stars that faded from existence for a moment. I was a bit surprised when a green circle popped up, followed by another and then another in a bit of a line. Following the projected line, I actually managed to see stars blink out of existence only to reappear a moment later.

"There's a stealthed ship out there."

"Do you think they're following us?" Sam asked.

"I really don't know," X-Talia replied.

Another screen popped up with a blurry black image with the words "Vessel Shape Extrapolation" written at the top of the screen. Presumably, X-Talia was trying to figure out the shape of the vessel based on the stars that disappeared. Best she was gonna do was a silhouette which probably wasn't gonna help much.

"Should we send them a comm to let them know that we know they're there?" I asked.

Sam shrugged and X-Talia gave me a blank look. "I guess it can’t hurt?"

"Stealthed vessel, please state your purpose." We all sat in silence and waited for the reply. It was gonna take time for the message to get there, be heard, then for a response to get back, X-Talia had a timer, but when that timer started hitting the negative and no reply was forthcoming, I began to get the idea that they were not going to respond. We shifted course slightly to see if they would follow, but it pretty much looked like they were just drifting silently through the void, unpowered. For the next couple hours, we watched the vague nothingness and compared it with the telescopic lens picking out where something with a very low albedo was momentarily blotting out the stars. X-Talia’s extrapolation still hadn't resolved into anything that looked like an actual ship when time was up and the capacitors were charged. I opened the Rift and slid through into the alternate subspace.

"Well, that was more excitement than I wanted," Sam said, letting out a long sigh of relief.

"Yeah, I'm not sure I've ever been so happy to be back in the Rift." I said, thoroughly agreeing with Sam's sentiment.

***

Seamus O'Connor ignored the message. It honestly perturbed him a bit to know that the other ship had been aware of him, but one couldn't exactly hide a Rift between real space and wherever the hell it led to. He considered his options as he drifted. There was another likely place for the ship he was pursuing to pop out, but if he had to venture a guess they would either come in below the Ecliptic, above again, or to either side of the actual system. Not only did he doubt seeing the vessel again would matter, but it would also slow him down when it came to beating them to their destination.

"Well now, let's just see if we can beat ya to your destination. Get to the station, nab the kid, get paid." It all seemed pretty simple. The Lilith was more of an ambush predator. Taking folks alive was not his forte, but theoretically, this was a simple snatch and grab. Once he was on the station and had Mr. Takata, he’d get paid right there.

***

I flinched. I didn't expect to see a red face in mine the moment I removed the Neuro helmet. Sam was looking at me concerned.

"That can't be healthy."

"It's fine. Did you need something?" I asked, irritation clear in my voice.

She looked down, presumably at the comfy chair I had taken off the Flying Brick, and shrugged. "We're dropping into real space soon. I didn't know how to wake you up."

"I had a timer." I pulled myself out of the chair and set down the Neuro helmet. Sam practically scowled at me as I walked off to use the head. She had apparently decided to wait for me because I was first on the bridge with her close behind. Within about 15 minutes, we were out of the Rift and waiting to be able to pick up a signal from our destination. Another 20 minutes, and I pretty much had our next cargo picked out and a work schedule lined up.

"Don't forget the mattress," Sam said.

I looked at Sam. "Seriously?"

I couldn't believe she was still on about the stupid mattress. I know she wanted me to sleep on a real bed instead of the floor of the bridge, but the captain's quarters was literally on the other side of the ship. I really did not like the idea of being that far away if anything went wrong.

"Yeah, the mattress. Get a new mattress."

I let out a long-suffering sigh. "Fine."

I ordered a mattress from the chandlery to be delivered at our scheduled docking arm. All actions were done by one Captain Rick James who was now in charge of the Flying Brick, despite the fact that Rick James was dead and floating in the void somewhere and the Flying Brick was in, who knew what system, likely impounded or being auctioned off? Life is fucked up.

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It took a few hours to get docked up and have the previous cargo unloaded. I learned my lesson last time and managed to actually give enough time for the outgoing cargo to get out of the way before the incoming cargo. Everything went rather smoothly right up until the end when one of the workers loading the cargo onto the ship paused at the lock and produced a tablet.

"We just need a signature lad," the man said with an odd accent, like he was trying to impersonate some old Earth local.

"I already signed for the cargo."

"Aye, this is a station thing. Just verifies we did our job."

I took the tablet from him, but never managed to actually get a good look at it before I felt myself spun around, my arm twisted behind my back, and my face shoved into the bulkhead.

"Grant Takata. This isn't the Flying Brick, is it lad?"

There was a sudden pain in my chest as my heart figuratively skipped a beat. It would seem that I had been caught. I only managed to stammer out a brief, "W-what?"

"All right, laddie, why don't ya tell ole Seamus how ya ended up flying this box o’ bolts? Ya are wanted for piracy, but ya don't seem the sort."

"I was attacked by pirates," I said, gritting the words through my teeth.

"Ah, I see. Ya got yerself up against some pirates, and I assume you came out on top. Yer little Flying Brick didn't have a Rift drive. So ya took their ship. Is that it? But why are ya still flying their ship, and why are ya way out here? Shouldn't ya have gone straight to the authorities and got it all cleaned up?"

The guy's tone seemed entirely too reasonable and at odds with how forcefully he was pushing me into the wall. I didn't really know what I was doing, trying to buy time perhaps. I needed some plan, and the guy was talking calmly, so I was going to talk back.

"There was something on the ship. Some broker wanted it, they were paying 100,000 credits for it."

"Ahh, and ya decided to complete the job yerself? Is that it lad?"

"Yeah."

"All righty, but if that's the case, why aren't ya 100k richer? And why are ya way out here?"

"The broker sent another ship to make sure I was actually doing the job. I didn't realize it till after I shot him down."

"Oh. And what about the thing that was on yer ship?"

"Red herring."

"I see," he said with a half chuckle before patting me on the shoulder with his other hand. "A decade ago. I was in a similar situation. I took the gamble just like ya did. So trust me when I say I track what ya sayin’. Now, only difference was my gamble succeeded. And here I am where yers failed, lad. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take this easy. I'm gonna turn ya in and get paid, and ye're gonna deal with the legal..."

I felt the guy behind me flinch before I even registered the ‘blat’ sound. A wave of pain shot through my body as all my nerves seemed to tighten, a hoarse choked scream sound escaped from my lips as I fell to the ground and I'd swear a similar sound came from the other guy. I found myself lying on the cold deck plating, not entirely sure I remembered the fall. The guy who had me pinned against the bulkhead seemed to be scrambling away as another ‘blat’ resounded through the cargo hold, and the man made a strained wheezing noise.

"Grant? Grant?" I heard Sam yell as their footsteps on the metal catwalk above told me she was running for the ship's ladder. I tried to get back up, pushing myself first onto my arms and knees before right-ing myself into a mostly upward kneeling position. The tips of my fingers hurt along with my ears, my face, my shoulder, and, well, literally everything. The other guy was lying on the floor unconscious, still in the cargo handler's jumpsuit. Sam made it down the ladder and quickly approached me, keeping her arc pistol pointed at the unmoving body. She hooked an arm under mine and tried to help me up. I leaned half against her and half against the bulkhead and waited for the ship to stop spinning.

"Sorry, there was no way I could hit him without getting you too."

I wasn't 100% sure what she was talking about. Everything seemed so fuzzy. Sam left me leaning against the wall, grabbed the guy by his leg, and started trying to pull him towards the lock. Realizing that our best option was to get the guy out of our ship and get lost, I took a tentative step forward before grabbing the other leg and trying to pull. I was having a hard time keeping my balance, but between the two of us, we managed to slide the body out into the passage where we unceremoniously dropped off the bounty hunter or lawman or whatever the fuck he was and stumbled back into the ship.

“Wait, the mattress."

I didn't give a flying fuck about the goddamn mattress, but Sam ran back and I had to run back after her and grab the mattress and start pulling. Once it was in the cargo bay, I shut the lock and started stumbling up towards the bridge.

I was a bit surprised when flight control let us undock and leave. It likely meant that the guy was not part of station security, which had me again pegging him as a bounty hunter. I really wish I didn't have 17,000 on my head. It hit me as I pulled away from the station, but this was the first person who was actually directly after me. The guy or guys or ladies or whoever was in that ship I blew up didn't really count. They weren't specifically after me. They were just doing an observation job and I got fucking spooked. Goddamn it. I mean, like really God damn it. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Was this gonna be my life from now on? Always watching over my shoulder. Would it have been better to kill the guy? Was he gonna continue coming after me?

I sat back in my chair and tried to relax. My fingers and toes still felt tingly and my skin itched like it didn't fit me correctly. I'd never been hit by an arc pistol before and this kind of fucking sucked.

"X-Talia, do you know what Sam's up to right now?"

The little blue and white avatar girl grinned and popped up a screen showing Sam with a mattress held above her head, climbing carefully up the ladder to the second deck. I had to stare a while. She was carrying the damn thing like it was nothing. Closer inspection revealed that she was walking so carefully because she had likely dropped the artificial gravity in the room and it actually did weigh almost nothing. Apparently, Sam knew how to use the artificial gravity controls. Why the hell did she care so much about that damn mattress?

"How much longer before we can jump into the Rift?"

"About 2.5 hours," X-Talia cheerfully replied.

I just couldn't feel quite as cheerful as she seemed. Then again, she hadn't gotten attacked by a bounty hunter, or shot by Sam.

"All right, I'm gonna just sit here and maybe take a nap. Either wake me up when it's time to fall into the Rift or if something horrible happens. Keep an eye on the station, again, watch out for stealthed ships if that's possible."

Shit. That guy was likely the operator of the stealth ship. I leaned over to another screen and popped open the bounty Hunter console. Something X-Talia had helped me port over to the bridge from the captain's room. I skimmed over the information, but it didn't really give anything new. I was still worth 17K, I was still known to be flying on the Res-a-tesseract. My crimes included piracy and fucking insurance fraud. What bullshit.

***

"Ok. We're in the Rift, right?" Sam asked. She knew the answer by just looking out the forward viewport, she could clearly see the pulsing green and blue and other multicolored energy that was the Rift. Look too deeply in those colors and you might see something else. I idly wondered if people actually did go insane staring out into that.

"Yeah," I said.

"And we're safe for now then, right?"

"Yeah," I said again in the same deadpan tone of voice.

"Ok. To the medical bay with you."

"What?"

"You got hit with an arc pistol. I want to make sure that you're fully functional. To the medical bay," Sam explained.

I think one of the main problems I was having is that we didn't actually have a medical bay. It was a crappy, hastily built room that had a desk, a table, and a couple instruments. Really more of a closet. And she wasn't actually medical personnel. She was a plastic surgeon and gene therapist. Though, I suppose that made her far more qualified to check and make sure my nerves were working than I was.

With a sigh, I got up and made my way through the galley and cargo bay to the other side of the ship where the crew quarters were. I sat down in her little medical room. In the chair. I wasn't gonna sit on the table. She didn't complain about it. So I guess it was fine by her. I spent the next 15 minutes getting poked and prodded in various places, with the question of "How does that feel?" Mostly things felt fine. My vision was fully back to normal and my tongue no longer felt like it was vibrating. I got to walk out with a clean bill of health and Sam dragged me to the captain's quarters. Presumably to show me that she had put the bed in place.

She had put the bed in place. The old mattress was sitting up against the wall and the new one was on the bed frame latched in the place covered in fresh sheets. Well, I admit it did look inviting. It was still too damn far away from the bridge to be actually useful. She turned me around and pushed me backwards so that I fell onto my ass on the mattress. I cocked an eyebrow at her, but was stunned when she climbed up onto me, her legs straddling my hips as she looked down into my eyes. She took a deep breath before speaking.

"Ok. Here's the deal. I'm horny. You're the only guy in a billion light years I can trust right now. Do you have any objection to casual sex?"

I stared at her. The only word going through my brain at the moment was "Huh?" Heavy on the question mark. Did I have any objection to casual sex? The answer was yes. There were objections. That was not something that would end well. But being a stupid male, I opened my mouth and said, "No."

"You don't sound that sure. Let me ask you again. I want to fuck you. Is that OK?"

No, no, that was not okay. That was gonna cause problems, but she was a sexy goth succubus doctor. "Yes."

For some reason, the doctor part struck me, likely because she was still wearing the stupid lab coat, though it was open and her graphic t-shirt was promoting some band called Five-G Nightmare.

"Yes?" She asked as though she wanted to get a third verification.

"Yes. Doctor?"

Sam's pupils dilated, her eyes going slightly wider and she took in a somewhat sharp breath. "Call me that again."

“Doctor?” I wasn't actually calling her doctor so much as asking if that was what she wanted me to call her. Her response was to lean into me and stick her tongue in my mouth. She had a long tongue. She felt very soft and warm. I was having trouble trying to remember why this was a bad idea.

She pulled back, breathing slightly heavier. Her burning ember eyes staring into mine, "just for absolute verification. You have no problem with this, right?"

There was a problem. I just couldn't remember what it was. “No problems. Doctor.”

She took the same sharp intake of breath and then pushed me fully down onto the brand new mattress. The brand new mattress. That pinged around in my head before docking at its assigned berth. She had been planning this for weeks, and apparently I had inadvertently discovered her kink. She certainly had some issues with her medical degree.

***

Seamus O'Connor stumbled into the bridge of the Lilith and flopped down into his seat. He made his request to depart and poked the ends of his fingers, which he still couldn't feel quite correctly. Once flight control gave him a path outward, complete with all the required warnings about deviating from the path, he undocked and set the Lilith into backing up. Mr. Takata had an hour head start on him. That might honestly be enough to get away free and clean. Seamus wouldn't be in missile range for quite a while and he couldn't start launching while he was too close to the stations. He knew where the guy was going, but was this really worth 17,000 credits? The Lilith and by extension, Seamus O'Connor, was far better at ‘seek and destroy’ contracts. This ‘capture the target alive’ thing had never been his forte and this one clearly had not gone well. Taking a deep breath, Seamus pulled over a side console and started a quick search. He hadn't quite gotten a good look at the girl, but she was so distinctive that if she was wanted for something, he could probably find her. It didn't take long.

"Well now Mr. Takata, looks like the whole time ya were just the consolation prize."

The number sitting on Samantha Drake's head made the decision for him. The next time he'd be prepared for multiple parties. Why he had not considered the possibility that Grant Takata was not alone, he could only chalk up to his own inexperience doing this specific type of contract. Seamus would never catch up before the Flying Brick or the Res-a-tesseract or whatever the ship was called entered into the Rift. But Mr. Takata had not been particularly good at covering his tracks. The guy was not an experienced criminal. He was still picking up cargo with published destinations. Grant Takata didn't know what he was doing and he was going to lead Seamus directly to the real prize: Samantha Drake.