One would think that, being a racer, Lix would find the crawling line of awaiting ships towards the Twister an exercise in tortuous patience. In reality, the Kux'lar pilot didn't mind the mind-numbing pace one bit, welcomed it even. It gave her ample time to explore the Gerthtrude's expansive control panel beyond the flight stick and thruster gimbal she was quickly becoming used to, her claws playing with switches and boards and learning the functions of each and every one. First were the external camera feeds, of which she'd only discovered two during the dogfight with Ters, those being the primary port and starboard views, but there were so many! The big troop transport had cams everywhere! With a flick of a claw, Lix could see above, below, behind, port and starboard quarter, and even the cockpit's blind spots were covered. Not to mention, the surprisingly large network of internal security feeds. The sweet, privacy invading internal security feeds.
Her toothy grin grew as she flicked through the cargo bay, taking a moment to gaze at her No Safety Measures, then to the lounge where she'd cooked a succulent chalky meal of Meelk, then to a disconcerting view of the bridge where she turned and stuck her tongue out at the camera bolted to the ceiling. Grinning, Lix hesitated for a moment as she read the next camera in the feed, deciding that sleeping dogs couldn't tell if they were being spied on, and flicked over to Jack's quarters. This final view returned nothing but a disconnected error message. Lix clicked her tongue, playfully annoyed at her denial to be a creep.
"Why did he disconnect his own camera?" There were none there to answer the whispered question, though most likely the obfuscation was a new addition, one she made a mental note to cheekily attempt and rectify. Maybe she'd draw something lewd on a piece of tape before placing it over the lens, that way she could play her prank and still maintain the man's sanctity? Sighing as she came to the end of the camera feed, Lix returned her gaze to the stars, tracking another strange vessel waiting to twist. It was a bulky thing, with spherical additions seemingly haphazardly added on at random, turning what might have once been a relatively sleek star ship into something resembling a floating piece of popcorn. A research vessel, she surmised, one that would never see the pull of an atmosphere but thrived just fine in the vacuum of space without a gravity well to rip it apart. Dishes and antennas spotted the thing like an infestation, each one lazily spinning or blinking in the black as she, too, languidly drifted forward on tiny little puffs of thrust. Lix did the same, using only the vicious killing claw of her left foot to slowly press the throttle forward before hooking the gimbal and pulling it back to its home position.
These quiet moments were appreciated, a time she could sit back and turn her brain off between all the running, hiding, and fighting. The latter was a newer addition to the racer's life, her modus operandi being to avoid violence but be ready to dish it out if need be. Jack on the other claw… Lix found her thoughts drifting from the myriad ships around her to the Human snoozing a deck below. Twice now he had shown little hesitation on that front, ending two people's lives in the terribly short time she'd known him. Granted, one was trying to capture her, dead or alive, and the other was inviting death for his actions on a station like Koorka… but, still… It planted a seed of doubt that Lix quickly uprooted and tossed aside. Maybe Jack was a little violent, so was the galaxy at large and, as had recently been proven, her chosen passion of asteroid racing could see her dead before she ever left the finish line of an official run. She needed a little bit of Jack's fangs, she decided, her tail tip wiggling at the thought of unleashing the man on her enemies like a dangerous hound.
A dangerous trained hound.
The man's effective, aggressive performance and smoothly barked orders during Ters' attack had been like second nature. His aim with the PDCs while their autotargeting systems were offline from the glitter case had been spot on, and his mood even while his precious transport was under fire from a high-powered laser was as cool and calculating as a coiled viper. It was a performance she'd only seen once from a corporate strike team sent out to deal with a pirate crew siphoning the raw materials for fuel from a gas giant mining station. Her killing claw tap-tap-tapped the thruster gimbal as she thought back to what he'd said.
"Used to run with a shitty crowd…" Lix mumbled, her long tongue licking up the side of her muzzle in a bad habit the raptor had picked up as a child when she thought deeply, that and the flappy quills atop her head quivering. Then again… as curious as she was… was any of it really her business? Jack hadn't even once tried to dig into her past, was it fair for her to dig into his? On a whim, she ran the cockpit camera back until the view of the Human walking to the lift came into focus, pausing at the sight of his back. Lix stared at the man as her mind churned on nothing.
Yes, it was fair, if he was harboring anything that could affect their ability as a crew… and no because if he didn't then… well, he didn't, and it really wasn't her business and as captain she should trust her crew. At least, that was all the cool shows said… Her eyes narrowed at the sight of the bulky revolver sticking from his waistband, the handle some metal alloy painted to look like wood. Claws tapping at the controls, she zoomed the feed in to get a closer look at the emblem on the grip. She'd been impressed with the weapon when he'd been forced to put down the rogue AI malfunctioning in some garbage workboat when she'd first met him. It had blasted a hole straight through the machine's hardened casing and damaged the vessel's nose, sending the man on a twirling course through the zero gravity of the workboat's innards at the time. The emblem was a simple thing, a stylized 'S' and 'A' that spun into two words, 'Sevar Armory', with a whirling calligraphy that was both brutal and pleasing to the eyes.
"Sevar Armory… I doubt I could shoot that thing… but…" Ters' demands of her surrender spiked a small bit of worry in the Kux'lar, her claws swiping the feed back to normal as she accessed the GalaNet, a data feed of connections fed by the Twisters that allowed galactic wide communications, to pull up the approved Council of Trade and Law search engine. "Sevar Amory…" She mumbled, typing the words out. "Let's see if they have something Lix sized! I'll need some long rang fangs if things really are heating up…"
And so, she waited.
And waited.
Then… she waited some more…
"Okaaayyyy?" It was unusual for the net to be so slow right next to a Twister… With a ping, her search results finally came back with… nothing. Not a single return for Sevar Armory was anywhere to found in the galaxy. "Uh. Okay." On a whim, Lix searched for bankrupted companies, shell companies, companies acquired by a merger or aggressively bought out, or any other business term the lizard could think of that could cause a firearms manufacturer to vanish or rebrand. Each and every one came up blank. "Is it… something he put on there?" Lix reached up to scratch her head in confusion, her mind a whirl with possibilities. In the end, she decided she'd just need to ask him when he woke up. "Weird novelty revolver. Who uses a revolver anymore anyways?" Lix asked no one, using her claw to, once more, puff the three hundred and fifty tons of Gerthtrude through the line of ships waiting like a slow queue at a license registry center.
***
Jack snapped awake from a mercifully dreamless sleep only marginally more rested than when he'd collapsed into his bed. That was fine, and usually more time in bed than he usually got. Often, he'd find himself having to claw his way back to the waking world as if fighting through a morass that threatened to pull him into an unsatisfying slumber that wasted half the day cycle. Now though, he had a goal. A sexy goal of steel and alloy just waiting for him a not but a single deck below. Rising with a crack of his back and the gentle crinkling of cybernetics, Jack donned a shirt, with sleeves this time, to hide his mass of burn and surgical scars before leaving his quarters for the galley.
"Gotta fix that damn CPAP implant…" Yawning, Jack avoided his usual breakfast of Meelk for a rare stick of dried meat, actual meat, harvested from the rats that liked to nest in the ducts of Koorka Station. It was a delicacy amongst the stars, real food, as Meelk and its many flavors, that all seemed to taste the same as the original, dominated the culinary scene and anything else was either expensive or hard to find. Treats such as dried rat meat was something he savored, not to mention hid, the Human ensuring that he stuffed his final stick under the filter inside the fridge before heading to the lift. A quick glance at the HUD in his ocular implant told him he'd only been asleep for two hours. "Hey Lix," He mumbled, his earbug automatically connecting a call. "How goes the Twist queue?"
"I'd say… another hour?"
"Fantastic. I'll be down in cargo, I wanna get some reads on the Safety Measures before we twist." Lix simply keyed up the line twice, signaling a good copy. Mechanical whirs filled the lift as Jack stretched his back once more, popping his neck as the shuddering metal box made the slow journey down into the cargo bay, his eyes agleam with eager intent. Today would be his first dive into the No Safety Measure's systems to see what he could tweak and twist and twiddle. "Ohhhhh yeah…" A moan left his trembling jaw as he made a quick jaunt to the workbench, his fingers flicking at switches that locked down the lift and lit glowing LED signs on every floor denying access unless authorized. "All decks be advised," The mechanic droned happily on reflex, reaching into a maglocked drawer for an oxygen mask. "Active vessel activity in cargo bay, no unauthorized access without proper safety equipment. Repeat, cargo bay is now considered an atmospherically compromised environment." As if on demand, several overhead vents opened with a roar, Jack skipping, skipping, along under their watchful breeze to the sleek racer secured right where he left her.
"Heeeey baby, I know I left you all tied up for so long. Don't worry, I'll get you purring and your juices flowing juuuuust right." Lecherous as his tone may have been, it was muffled by the tight oxygen mask sealed around his face. Grinning, Jack bounced up the shuttle's on ramp, through the tight entryway, passed Lix's tiny little captain's cabin, and into the glorious engine bay. Stuffed into the cozy compartment was a Haikyu Seventy-Eight, in particular, their Bunson edition, which was a fusion powered engine slapped into a tight drive bell that gave the deceptively small device a ridiculous amount of power for the fuel demand. Grinning like a dog trapped in a peanut butter factory, Jack went to his reader that gave him far more access than what he had previously told Lix, his fingers dancing over its grimy surface. In moments, the No Safety Measures was brimming to life and rumbling like an angry lion, her exhaust being whisked away by the overhead vents to be stored in separate compartments for dispersal into the void once the threat of anyone in the cargo bay having their eyeballs explode from negative pressure was no longer an issue.
"Oooohhhh, look at those numbers…" He said with a passionate moan. Unfortunately, looking was all the mechanic could do, as there would be no time to actually tweak and then test the No Safety Measures for improvement. However, he could already see several areas that could possibly use the loving touch of a man who knew what he was doing. For one, the fuel in the lines wasn't the cleanest. That simply couldn't be helped out here. One got what they could and Koorka Station certainly didn't shy around dirty gas. A good flush and some high-quality zoom juice would clean those lines up properly, though… he'd need to tear her down to scrub the engine's manifolds with a microbrush to get a proper flow however, which meant drydock… Another issue on the fuel front was the computer's timing of the magnetic field pulse that compressed her foil liners, which in turn shaped the plasma that would be her thrust. It needed a little love, some of that careful caress to get the magic tempo, but again that was something he needed time and a tear down to do. His eager dive into the racer's innards were interrupted as his earbug vibrated, Lix's musical voice filling his head like a morning tide.
"Hey Jack, we're third from the Twister."
"Good copy, I'll tidy up down here." Sighing, the Human ran his hand along the many pipes and bolts holding the powerful engine together, killing her power from his reader. "Soon, you sweet little treat. Soon…"
***
Lix greeted Jack with a strange reptilian trill that sent his eyebrow rising as he joined her on the bridge, the Kux'lar vacating the captain's chair to cede command. Sighing as he slipped into the vacant spot like a well-worn glove, the mechanic queued up his spot for the Twister on the comms with a reluctant flick of his finger on the comms panel.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
"Hate talkin' to these Twister AI's." He grumbled as Lix sat side saddle on the arm of his chair, her tail forcing itself between his back and the seat to snake across to the other side of the small space. "This is Captain Morgan of the Gerthtrude to Twister Lane Five-Niner-Eight-Eight-Tac-Two, lookin' for twist permission to trading outpost TRX Seven-Seven-Eight-Nine, Kuppa Belt, how copy?" Jack idled his heavy transport forward a bit as he watched some slender vessel seemingly fly into the Twister ring and, for all intents and purposes, vanish. Silence stretched on, punctuated by the ever-present hum of the transport's fat drive, as Jack and Lix awaited the overworked AI's response. When it came, the words were quick, clipped, and professional.
"Good copy on twist request, Gerthtrude. Proceed when current queue is vacated." That was it, no more and no less.
"Maaaan, I'm getting fuckin' fake goosebumps on my fake ass arms!" Metal creaked as Jack squeezed the flight stick, careful to avoid breaking it in his growing excitement. "Everybody watched at least one 'roid race on the holonet, but I ain't never seen one in the flesh." White teeth flashed as the Human grinned, carefully easing his fat transport forward into the vibrating Twister. A strange sensation of stretching passed between the two as the Gerthtrude continued to burn slowly forward, the tension rising as Lix matched her mechanic's smile with her own fang filled grin. A good way to gauge if someone was making their first twist would be if they blew chunks all over the deck at this particular point.
"Oh yeah, this is the stuff I live for. You just wait, the holo's can't hold a spark to the real deal." Her tail seemed to move on its own accord, reaching up to wrap around Jack's shoulder as the stretching sensation intensified, reaching the coveted a point where most first time Twisters vomited, the Spew Zone.
Then…
With a retching pop the Gerthtrude was slid forward several thousand light-years in the span of several thousand zeptoseconds. Jack's eyes widened as he burned forward into unbridled chaos. Normally, TRX 7789 would be a lonely little station hanging above a gas giant whose gravitational pull was slowly ringing itself with a respectable orbit of asteroids. Today, however, it was the scene of intergalactic racing mania. What the man had originally thought to be a cloud of sparkling debris was in reality ships. Ships of every shape, size, model, and inclination, all surrounding transit stations with their own built in FTL drives, appearing so much like spotted hives of swarming, blinking insects thrumming with power. Further still, closer to the ring of asteroids itself, were quickly constructed bubbles of atmosphere and massive surround sound augmented reality entertainment screens filled with milling people of every species Jack could think of, and many he couldn't. A steady stream of water, oxygenation, and supply shuttles flit to and from each bubble, carrying the life giving substances the many racing fans paid top dollar for within. Not to mention the food, booze, drugs, and more…
Beyond that even still lay TRX, a miasma of ships utilizing its refueling platform, and earning the station master more than a pretty Roark, as racers and their sponsors prepared for the upcoming run.
Every time Jack thought he had seen it all, another sight ripped his searching eyes asunder from whatever wonder currently held hostage his attention. Between the temporary stations and blinking clouds of shuttles motored massive capital ships, each one tailored to some different manner of entertainment, be it roving restaurants, traveling intergalactic clubs and strip joints, vessel component shops for the racers, narcotic barges, and even a cybernetic upgrade clinic.
And interspersed between them all were the yachts. The high rollers and the heavy hitters, the big spenders and inheritors, the investors and liquidators, the bankers and sponsors… These were the star ship business owners and lawmakers and their people. These were the betters. These were the winners, no matter who crossed the finish line.
These were the people Lix crossed when she qualified higher than she should have for an upstart new 'roid racer… these movers and shakers and powerhouses that believed they ran the stars and planets and everything in between. And honestly? There wasn't anyone around with the net worth to tell them they didn't.
And Lix had cost them money.
The thought brought a hungry smile to Jack's face, his belly rumbling for a plate that had been empty for so, so long. There was only one thought pervading the Human's mind as he gazed at the mass of Roarks and racers and seething, restless energy that swirled beneath it all like a coiled spring.
I'm gonna break you fuckers.
Lix could feel her own motivation rise as she watched Jack's eyes roam the veritable economy that followed the races, the vein in his neck bulging with his increasing heartrate. It was like looking into the mirror of her younger self at her very first race, back when her Pa was still able to fly them around the stars. She found her eager smile turning softer… warmer… her tail tightening around his unfeeling shoulders as the excitement morphed into a sense of… camaraderie. Tearing her eyes from the man's neck, Lix returned her gaze to the familiar line of purple blinking lights in the distance, small and innocuous amongst the sea of red and green running ship lights infesting the orange glow of the stations.
The Kuppa Run starting line… eight laps through the orbiting ring around the gas giant below whose name was nothing more than a pointless string of numbers and letters. One where she'd start in fifth place for coming in first during the last qualifier. Eight places further than if she'd taken Ters offer to throw the last qualifier…
"This is the last preliminary. We're looking at over five hundred racers here, but only the top twenty get to move on to the real races…" Lix breathed, her heart felt like a blacksmith's work, heated popping. This was it, the final obstacle to the real asteroid racing league…
"Then let's get to it, yeah? What's the process here?" Jack asked, burning for the nearby station on a long delta-v that would circumvent the crowded space between TRX and the boiling mass of ships and temporary stations near the starting pits where transport shuttles and racers were sequestered at what appeared to be a traveling dock.
"See that there? The red and yellow carrier?" Lix pointed at the very same vessel Jack had been trying to avoid, its tonnage putting it at the upper tier of capital ships in known space. In fact… it was probably the largest the Human had ever seen. The supercarrier was a Kolastia Star Whale, one of only four in existence, the other three owned by the Council of Law and Trade, the overarching house of congress that convened to write, implement, and oversee the governing powers of intergalactic commerce and enforcement. Clocking in at over one hundred and fifty thousand meters, the Racer's Heart was the central hub of the Asteroid Racing league, big enough to house the temporary stations, fan view bubbles, yacht fleets, and even boast its own refueling station. It was well known there would be no league without the Heart. It also served as the race registration office. "We'll need to register you as my official mechanic for you to do any work on the No Safety Measures, or it'll disqualify me. There aren't many rules, but the ones in place are pretty strictly enforced."
"To the Heart it is." Jack grinned, correcting course towards the gargantuan vessel. He'd seen stations smaller than the big, bloated monument to wealth and power, his mechanically apt mind reeling at the sheer implications just seeing her posed. "Look at her… just imagine what the engine room looks like…"
"Waaay beyond me." Lix huffed, crossing her scaly ankles over one another. "I hear it's powered by some wild engine produced by uh…"
"Lounhoon. They make all super-dreadnaught class drives." Jack was quiet. His face, normally twisted with a crooked grin, had become as unreadable as stone. "It's an antimatter drive, a big one… one of the biggest actually. The Star Whales all use the same one, you can tell by the drive bell at the rear, how the baffles overlap to handle the fuck-off thrust those things produce."
"Oh right!" Lix snapped a couple of claw tipped fingers. "I remember trying to read up on how they produce the fuel but it's proprietary data. Not something they're putting out on the net yet. Imagine a fast shuttle with one of those drives small enough to fit a racer!"
"Yeah… It's capturing anti-particulate for the fuel that's the problem. Well, capturing it in containment where it doesn't just dissipate. Ya see, antimatter is a fickle little bitch that happens when a split between a positive and negative…" Jack trailed off, glancing at Lix who had pinned him with a blank stare. Antimatter drives were a relatively new production headed up by several conglomerates under the Council of Law and Trade. Sure, there were theories and small-scale production… but nothing like what the Heart needed. "Nah, nevermind. I'd probably just be pulling shit from my ass."
"Wouldn't wanna do that." Lix snickered, eyeing the man's sudden… tension. However, just like the crate in his closet, the Kux'lar felt her throat tighten when she contemplated digging for information.
"You know this place is gonna be a den of vipers, right?" And just like that, the man's face twisted back into the cocky grin she was coming to know so well. "All the high rollers whose starting bets you fucked up in the preliminaries are right there… and the Heart is their den." Jack pulled his hands away from the controls just long enough to rub them in delight, his comms panel lighting with an incoming call. Lix couldn't help but feel his infectious motivation ease her worries as he swiped the comms approval. "Captain Morgan of the Gerthtrude, go ahead." The voice that answered was professional, eager even, in her response. A human woman smiled back at him from a resplendent desk of wood, several cybernetic limbs sprouting from her shoulders working a dizzying amount of holoscreens at once.
"Captain Morgan, salutations. I am Glorious Angela on board the Racer's Heart, please state your business on approach or, well…" The woman took a moment to giggle, a single thin metallic arm covering her petit lips. "We'll turn you into a cloud of freezing vapor!" She finished with a picture-perfect customer service smile.
"Ain't y'all got the greeting down pat." Jack returned her smile with his own, crooked and hooked. Like the rictus grin of a hyena. "Gerthtrude lookin' for docking permission to register a one Captain Lixistruzsias of the No Safety Measures for her final preliminary." Lix snapped her head at the man as he said her name perfectly, her reptilian eyes narrowing in a glare.
"I assume you are transporting the good Captain's shuttle in your transport?" Angela's smile never wavered nor faded, the woman's face devoid of a single blemish or wrinkle. It was as if she were made of living porcelain, the eyes a duo of shining marbles that retained their artificial dead stare as her smile failed to reach them.
"That's right, whoever sent those jackals to off her for not stayin' in her lane ain't comin' either. Or… at least one ain't. Uhhhh Ters, I believe." Angela nodded as if all Jack had mentioned was the weather was going to be particularly dry.
"Of course! Subterfuge and assassination are integral facets of the Asteroid Racing League's deeper culture, and a large part of why we are the premier entertainment entity for all things racing in known space! Please proceed to docking bay eighteen-six-victor and enjoy a complementary refueling on us as congratulations on a race well won! Good luck, and keep your engines purring." The feed went dark as Jack adjusted his approach to the far side of the Heart's port side, his navigation computer humming with new data.
"Aaannnd… autopilot engaged… huh, docking procedures demand autopilot. Ah well, not my multi-trillion-Roark super-dreadnaught." Jack shrugged, catching Lix as the captain's seat swiveled to release him from the command console. Squawking, the raptor lady rewarded him with a hard nip to his neck, her tail wrapping around his chest for support. "Yeowch! Damn, woman! You think you'd get used to that with how often you're parking your scaly ass on my arm rest!"
"That," Lix said, nipping him again, delighting in how he flinched. "Was for getting my name right."
"You bite me for getting it right?" He asked, incredulous.
"Yeah, 'cause that means all the times you've been getting it horrifically wrong means it was on purpose!" Lix nipped the man one final time as she rose, pulling his jacket tighter around her slender shoulders as she made a quick retreat to the lift, smiling wide all the way as her tail flailed, the sign of a playful Kux'lar. "And that was just because." Lix's elation turned to playful fear as she turned to find the man hot on her heels, her claws coming up too late to defend herself from getting smushed to the back elevator wall by the larger Human's back. "Gnah! Geeet off!"
"Huh? You talkin' more shit back there?" Jack grinned, leaning his heavier weight on the struggling, and chuckling, reptile as she struggled to push him away. Light thumps beat upon his back as her struggles turned to minor abuse, her balled up fists beating upon him all the way down to the lower deck.
"Uuuugh! I can't breathe, you fat ass!"
"I keep hearin' shit… can't tell where it's comin' from…" Air wheezed from the raptor lady as more and more weight fell upon her, her tail wrapping around the mechanic's leg as the lift dinged its final descent. Nonetheless, the treatment earned him a delighted giggle from the trapped racer.
"Jaaaaa-hahaahack!"
"Ah, there it is." Mercifully, the man eased away from his place on the wall, Lix squished solidly against his back. Deep lung rattling breaths filled the lizard's lungs as she padded closely behind her newest crew member, her eyes squeezed tightly with mirth. It felt good to faff around with someone for once, unafraid of betrayal or ulterior motives… at least… she hoped Jack didn't have any. Glancing down, she could see the handle of his thick revolver protruding from the back of his bulky, padded work pants covered in oil stains. Just like on the cameras, the stylized 'SA' gleamed back at her.
"Hey, what's this mean? Your revolver's… maker emblem, I guess? Sevar Armory? I looked it up 'cause that thing is a powerhouse and I wanted something maybe Kux'lar sized but I couldn't find anything on the net." Jack paused as he felt the Gerthtrude shudder, the vessel passing into the Heart's gravitational drive field on autopilot into a massive docking bay. The rest of the landing procedure would be handled by the simple but effective AI he barely ever used.
"Oh, this old thing? Uh…" Jack paused at the airlock, his steel alloy hand reaching up to scratch his neck as Lix padded around to stand at his side. "Had a buddy… he wanted to get into gunsmithin', thought it'd be his big break, you know? Well… I said, if you make a gun, and it doesn't blow the fuck up on the range, I'll buy it. So, he made this obnoxious thing. Bastard shoots the four-four-five breaker round which is normally put in a fuckin' rifle. Fifteen-millimeter round, stuffed into cut down brass, with five-hundred-ten grain loads, and is usually used to penetrate hardened targets an' such. I can get sabot rounds too in I feel like emptyin' my wallet. These babies," He said with a grunt, flexing his cybernetics arms. "Help a lot with aimin' and lock when I pull the trigger, makin' follow up shots way easier. Only downside is the bastard can only hold four rounds so the cylinder can be beefy enough to handle the pressure of the load. That, and it's damn dangerous to use on a ship. Liable to make a hull breach with the fuckin' thing." Lix simply blinked, shaking her head as she raised her scaly hands in confusion.
"Freaking why? What hurt you that you decided to carry around a handheld compensation cannon?"
"Whatever the hell needs shooting and I often only need to do it once!" Pride swelled in the man as his reptilian counterpart simply closed her eyes and rubbed the top of her muzzle.
"That thing is a joke, those rounds belong in a carbine at the very least."
"Yeah they do!" Jack's preening only intensified as the airlock klaxon began to blare, an automated voice demanding that any crew make way for the hatch. Slowly, determination and an air of sharp awareness fell upon him, his shoulders squaring and his back straightening with a pop. "You ready?"
"Oh yeah," Lix huffed, reaching down to pull the collar of his jacket to her nose for a deep inhale of the man's scent. That, more than anything, steeled her trembling nerves. "Born ready."