No wonder Dax avoided Belix entirely and only barely tolerated being around Barix.
That poor man. Aside from her and Ali, he didn't have anyone on the ship he could really spend time with.
Then again, that seemed to be the case for everyone else, too. No wonder they'd all been so happy when Lana came aboard, with Barix abandoning his haughty pride enough to practically beg her to be his lover, and Belix hugging her almost the moment they met. She wondered if Aiden would've been equally desperate if he hadn't had his companion.
During her reading of the databanks, she'd seen plenty of mentions of family, and had wondered if the crew of the Last Stand could be considered a type of family themselves. If so, they were a pretty messed up one.
Barix abruptly gave up the argument, turning back to his station. “Pirates . . .” he muttered. “Sewage clogs, the lot of them. I hate them so much.” Surprisingly, the others voiced their agreement. Even Dax.
Lana looked at everyone in bemusement. “Doesn't it strike you as a bit, um, contradictory, to say you hate pirates when you yourselves are pirates?” she asked hesitantly.
Aiden snorted. “Of course not, because we're privateers.” At her dubious look, he frowned in mild annoyance. “In any case, we're combating Deek dominance in this galaxy, trying to undermine their influence and eventually push them out entirely. Pirates are just opportunistic thugs, taking advantage of the chaos to attack innocent ships for profit.”
Wow, he'd said that with complete sincerity.
With a sigh, the captain stood from the pilot's chair and moved to stand directly in front of the large holographic display, reaching in to grab at the various pieces of the pirate ship and dragging them closer so he could read the sensor information on them. “All right. Those pirates looked pretty small time, and getting blown up by their own nukes certainly didn't help. But there still might be something worth salvaging in some of those pieces, so let's get salvaging.”
The man didn't look happy by his own order as he turned to the Ishivi. “Barix, let your sister know she's on sensor duty with you. Don't bother being too thorough, I don't want to waste all my time sifting through radioactive junk looking for anything that wasn't fried.”
He turned vaguely in the direction of Dax, although he didn't look directly at him. “You'll fly the ship and gather together the useful debris with the junker arm, so it's not all hurtling through space in random directions rotating like giant tops. The Ishivi will point stuff out to us, you hold onto it with the arm while we check it and tag anything that's worth a second look for you to pull into the cargo bay.”
“Thank you for instructing me on the usual procedure for salvage operations, sir,” the weapons officer said without the slightest trace of sarcasm.
“I wasn't instructing you, I was giving the basic details to our new crew member,” the captain replied. Lana jumped slightly as he turned to her. “Although unfortunately for you, crewman, the easiest job in space salvage is also the least fun. It requires almost zero training or skill, though, so that's what you'll be stuck doing. Along with me, Ali, and Fix. Let's go suit up and get to work.”
“Suit up?” she asked hesitantly.
Aiden nodded, not looking thrilled. “As in a spacewalk. And one where we search through an irradiated wreck. Sounds fun, right?” He turned to address everyone, clapping his hands sharply. “All right, people! We may normally be above salvage, but it's not the first time we've had to stoop to this level. You can thank our gunner for not leaving us with an intact ship, but it is what it is.”
At his station, Dax stiffened almost imperceptibly, and although his features remained rigidly disciplined Lana thought she saw him flush.
Aiden didn't seem to care how the young man responded to his rebuke, continuing firmly. “We all know what we're doing, let's do it and get out of here before someone else decides to take a shot at us.”
Chapter Nine
Salvage
“You haven't been in zero-g yet,” Ali said as they hurried down the corridor after Aiden, while at the same time slapping a sticky patch onto Lana's neck. “At least, if you have you have no memory of it. What do you know?”
“That I'll be weightless?” she replied hesitantly, fingering the patch. She had to resist the urge to try to peel it off. “Um, what is this?”
“Anti-nausea medication dispensed through the dermis. Being weightless causes the body to act in different ways, nausea being a common symptom.” The companion had retrieved some sort of medical scanner from a bag slung over her shoulder and was now checking her with it. “Movement in zero-g is going to be an adjustment. If you begin moving in a direction, you'll continue moving in that direction at that speed until some other force causes you to alter speed or direction. If you push on something it'll push back at you, causing both you and it to change trajectory.”
“Why are the rules different in space?” Lana asked, still fingering the patch.
“They aren't, they're the same laws of physics that are applicable everywhere. Weightlessness just makes them far more noticeable. Because of this, your movements in zero-g should be slow and use the minimum necessary force in order to avoid injury. For instance, if you jumped as high as you could here in this corridor, the artificial gravity would catch you and pull you back down to the floor with only a modest impact. If you made the same jump while weightless, you'd find yourself moving quickly and with great force in the direction you pushed off. Enough to hurt you, perhaps even seriously, if you were to collide
