An alarm sounds.

I’m not asleep, just half-dozing on my cot, face in my pillow, shoulder throbbing. Bat slept before we started the job, so he’s piloting for a while. Burns from the close calls with bullets yesterday aren’t severe enough for me to feel them, not after slathering salve all over them and trying to think of something else.

The hole ripped through the human flesh in my shoulder is more difficult to ignore. I have stronger pain killers, but I don’t like the needle it’ll take to get into my system and don’t want to be fuzzy in the head when we catch up to the sister in her stolen ship.

The alarm sounds again, this time in the comm behind my ear as well as over the ship’s speakers.

“You awake?” Bat calls, soft enough it probably wouldn’t have woken me.

Muffled by my pillow, I say, “Yeah, I hear it.”

I don’t want to get up. Heat from the low, red fire of a nearby star shimmers through the window parallel my bunk, baking the entire ship. After that frozen piece of rock, it’s welcome. Leftover annoyance with yesterday’s botched job isn’t adding to my motivation.

The damn fisherman had to go and shoot me.

Trying to keep my eyes closed, movements small, I fiddle with the wall panel beside my bed before remembering I turned off all exterior communications. Just left the ship’s AI to tell me when our escaped prisoner putters into range.

There’s only one contact who would override the computer.

The alarm crawls through my head as I consider answering. It bounces off the inside of my skull until I press my finger to the implant behind my ear. The sudden silence has a ring of its own.

Carefully, I ask, “What?”

“Are you asleep? It’s five in the afternoon. And you turned off all your comms.”

After only hearing from her once in six months—just to tip me off on this job—her once-familiar voice is strange.

I roll off my face, turning my eyes back up to full sight. They send me blobs of reds and oranges from all the heat. Rays of starlight warm the metal along my bare chest, tinting long streaks of my skin in red.

What do I say? I don’t want to mention how terribly the job is going so far.

“Not everyone goes by your time standard.”

“You do.” There’s uncommon amusement to her voice.

I sigh, my chest knotting. She doesn’t sound worried, but then again, she never does. I’ve never known her to call just for a chat.

“I’m almost afraid to ask why you’re calling—”

“I need you to back off this job.”

That wakes me up. I sit, ignoring the fire in my shoulder, and lean against the hot glass of the window. Bat waddles in from the other room. His comm is connected to mine and I didn’t shut the connection off, so he’s listening.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“It’s 300,000 credits. My ship needs repairs. I’m not backing down on this—”

“Aaron—”

“And you tipped me off!”

Audra’s voice dips quiet and stern. “You never wondered why the price was so high?”

“They broke into Amerov and out of Clock. It isn’t that much of a stretch—”

“Captain’s coming after them.”

A knot starts in my stomach to add to the one in my chest. The veins of metal in my bones and skin ache. It isn’t real pain, but I flex my fingers. My ears ring, eyes burning. I pinch my fingers together until the phantom pains ease. Bat jumps onto my knee, snout pointed up to look at me, a welcome weight to remind me where I am.

“Aaron, do you understand what I’m saying?”

I understand. Amerov’s leader is dangerous. He isn’t unkind, per say, but he’ll drag me back to Amerov for reconditioning in a heartbeat. There are plenty of unregistered cyborgs floating around the galaxy, safe for the most part, but Captain is fanatical about his creations. When he runs into one not functioning as it should, he takes great pains to fix the problem.

He’ll find out my chip is missing—that I never had one in the first place—and make sure I have one implanted.

A complete wipe of who I am as a person.

And Audra won’t be able to let me go again. Not with the close eye he’d be keeping on me. The mechanical joints in my fingers are still throbbing.

Irritation replaces the leftover panic. More so at Audra for bring it up than at Captain for being on the chase, which I know is unfair. But I live with the knowledge that, with how I look, any Amerov number that crosses my path will know I’m unregistered and try to bring me back to Amerov. Any that might have showed up on that ice planet Yayth to chase the bounty could’ve tried to turn me in. It’s never stopped me before.

I’m fast. I can work quick and disappear before Amerov catches up. I have the head start. Captain being on the job himself doesn’t change the odds. Just adds another level of panic. There’s a chance I can catch the woman before Captain even enters this star-system.

A good chance.

Trying to even out my voice, I say, “I understand you sound worried and you’re not telling me something.”

“He wasn’t on the job when I alerted you to it. He is now. And I don’t think you want to come face to face with him. And if they discover your…situation with your chip, I’ll have a hell of a time of it as well. You’re reading into nothing.”

She’s lying. Her voice is the same emotionless drone as usual, but she’s lying. It’s never so simple. And she’s trying to guilt me into backing off the job. Yes, she would get in trouble, but we both know nothing would come of it. Of all his creations, she’s Captain’s favorite. I doubt he’d do anything more than yell at her, if even that. Cyborgs aren’t programmed well to yelling.

“Just back down,” she says. “I’ll send you the next job when it comes. Keep checking your bounty charts.”

I toss a pillow aside, pick Bat up with one hand under his belly and slip down the few steps to the ship’s controls, trying to ignore my aching shoulder. Bat squirms in my grip until I deposit him beside the manual steering.

“Fine,” I say.

There’s a considerable pause before Audra says her goodbyes quick and curt.

I’m not sure she believes me. Then again, I’m not sure I believe her.

This job cannot go right.

“We’re giving up?” Bat asks.

“You remember Captain?” We’re both his creations, after all.

He leaps to the floor and noses his way into the nearest cupboard containing snacks. “I remember shadows, lots of shadows.”

“No names?”

Black eyes blink at me, his big ears flapping. “Not back then. Names didn’t have much meaning.”

I know the feeling, vaguely, like a dream stuck with me too long. We’ve always kept on the outskirts of Amerov’s reach. They made us and would have us back, but our ship is old and beat up as I feel, soon to fall apart at the seams. A little risk is worth a large reward.

Plus, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to myself this feels a little personal now, thinking about both sibling’s bounties and everything that happened on Yayth.

The brother saved my life.

Bat’s head is cocked, watching me weigh danger against reward.

There’s a blip on the sensor. We’ve been tracking the sister and her run-down ship for the past eight hours, and she’s finally getting within sight. Probably trying to slow down and find a habitable planet to hide on circling this bloody star.

We can beat Captain, if we run.

“You want to risk it?” I ask Bat.

He rolls each shoulder of his metal limbs like one, giant, full-bodied shrug. “No giving up.”

I rub his ear. “No giving up then,” I say, and send our ship zipping for a collision course.