Barix gave him an incredulous look. “And you believe her, do you? Going from treating Ali as a potential traitor to doing everything she-” he cut off abruptly, eyes widening. “You're screwing her again, aren't you?”
Lana started in surprise, turning to look closely at Aiden. He was visibly flushing, looking equal parts annoyed and embarrassed. “Not your business,” he growled.
“It is when you want to suicide this ship because you're thinking with your drive piston,” Belix snapped.
“Weren't you both all about siding with the Caretakers?” Aiden said, temper obviously fraying. “We have good intel and a chance to make a highly profitable score with minimal risk, while striking a blow against allies of the Deeks and stopping them from continuing in an inhumane practice. More importantly, it's a chance to keep a good relationship with the one group in the universe that isn't trying to kill us. Which we'll probably need sooner rather than later. So who seriously thinks we should turn this offer down and fly away?”
Lana started to raise her hand, then hesitated. After hearing Dax describe what had been done to him, and in his case merely a mild version of what most Constructs endured, could she in good conscience turn her back on the who knew how many innocent people who'd be spared that fate by hitting this Harvester?
She settled back in her seat and looked around. Dax had been half glancing at her, as if unsure what she'd do, but when she did nothing he simply sat stoically in his seat as well. And surprisingly, in spite of their protests neither of the twins raised their hands, either.
Aiden nodded, not looking surprised. “All right, then. Let's plan our ambush.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ambush
Setting up the ambush was at the same time simpler and far more complicated than Lana had expected.
Planting the atomic was only the start of that. On the surface it just involved putting the bomb in the ideal location, but before that could be done it had to be put in an EM-shielded case, then carefully scanned to make sure it didn't stand out on sensors. Then they had to decide where to put it by calculating where the ship would need to be at the ideal time to spring the ambush.
And that was complicated in itself, because the Last Stand was going to be sneaking up on the Harvester by hiding in the shadow of an approaching comet. One which they had to drag out of its usual path to head in the direction they wanted, which required a lot of calculations to nudge it into the ideal trajectory.
Thankfully they had plenty of time to pound out those calculations, or more accurately Ali, Dax, and the twins did, since it would take days to move the comet into place. Just in time to ambush the Harvester when it jumped into the small, out of the way system the Ishivi ship would be passing through. On its path to find more genetic material to turn into genetically engineered slaves, or far more rarely superior offspring worthy of being called Ishivi.
Lana had to admit that, whatever she might feel about piracy, she was looking forward to the chance to take such callously cruel people down a peg. And she was pretty sure Dax felt the same, although at the subject of Ishivi and Constructs a lot of his previous disciplined stoicism returned, and he became uncharacteristically reticent.
At least, uncharacteristic for the new him. Probably a defense mechanism to a painful subject; she did her best to be supportive about it, considering how understanding he was about her own challenges with her past.
Or lack of one.
As for Aiden, in spite of his professed altruistic motivations for hitting the Harvester, from the things he said as they prepared the ambush she got the impression he was looking forward to taking this prize for other reasons. Mostly to do with how the Ishivi had played a decisive role in helping the Movement win the war, and in subjugating humanity afterwards.
Not to mention the fact that the man had his own personal reasons for hating Ishivi and their cruel practices. Most of those reasons having to do with his unrecognized son, which Lana could sympathize with since most of her motivation was for Dax's sake as well.
Since everyone was busy with calculations, some of which required coordinating with the others on the work they were doing, the entire crew had gathered in the bridge. Aside from the combat androids, of course. They'd all been working in focused silence, with Lana passing the time studying instruction manuals for emergency repairs to the shielding systems. She would've got more out of them if she was down in the shields room, directly working with the system, but she wanted to keep Dax company while he worked.
After a while, though, there was an almost unspoken agreement among the others to take a short break; she supposed you could only strain your mind on such complex calculations for so long before needing to rest it.
Ali went and grabbed them snacks from the galley, while everyone else leaned back in their seats and rubbed their eyes. “So, Captain, just to sate my curiosity,” Barix said, glancing after the departing Caretaker. Or, more accurately, at her perfect backside. “Does you tapping your robotic resource mean you trust her again, or were you just tired of the sudden return to celibacy?”
“You know, I really treasure these little chats of ours,” Aiden replied dourly, sidestepping the question.
The slight man raised his hands. “Hey, I don't blame you. My little purebred is always dragging me into doing stupid things, too. For someone of my superior intellect, it's actually quite frustrating to be constantly having to fight those base instincts.”
Lana rolled her eyes, thinking of all the wildly inappropriate things the Ishivi had said to her since she'd come
