Maybe if they had met a few years ago, but that was impossible. Theo had been deep in the Core attending university while Jun had been bashing heads with his old Crew. Piling on the mistakes until he had built a razor-wire cage of his own making. Cutting his own path up from hired muscle all the way to captain of his own ship.
Now, it was worse than impossible. Jun was running out of time, and wasting any fraction of it chasing after Dr. Campbell’s adorable tail was unconscionable.
Jun pulled up the translation database on his pad and laid out the single precious hardcopy of his parents’ notes alongside.
This was what Jun should be focused on. He owed that to the memory of the greatest minds he had ever known. A pair of Core scientists who had fled to the Restricted Sector with a terrible burden of knowledge. And one inadequate son.
He might have been a bitter disappointment for most of his life, but he was seeing things more clearly now. The path before him was set, and no amount of distraction, however lovely, could divert him off course.
The stakes were too high for that.
He chewed his lip as he flipped through his findings.
Twenty languages, and Jun was only three-quarters of the way through, every passage a new revelation and every revelation tightening the noose.
There was no denying the timeline. Two months and three days.
Seven hours, twenty-six minutes, and twelve seconds.
Five passages left, and within them, the fate of tens of thousands.
After opening a new document, Jun copied over the remaining passages, making sure nothing else carried over. The information was too precious to risk a leak.
As innocent and harmless as Theophrastus Campbell appeared on the surface, Jun had been burned too many times to lay his trust at the feet of a man he had known for less than three days.
Intimately, for less than two.
Shutting that chain of thought down and throwing it in a padlocked box in the basement of his mind, Jun transferred the document onto a carefully disabled pad. He had painstakingly disconnected it and rendered all but basic word processing impossible as a precautionary measure.
Sometimes it felt like every move Jun made was a precautionary measure.
Except the way he had moved on Theo, shoving him up against the wall like an animal, every gasp and slide of soft, pale flesh a lightning strike bringing Jun back to life after years out here in the dark.
Focus.
Padlocked box. Basement.
Two months, three days, seven hours, and twenty-five minutes now.
The galaxy didn’t need him to get distracted by a pair of intelligent eyes in a pretty face.
The galaxy needed a hero.
Unfortunately for the rusted galaxy, all they had was Park Jun-Seo, prodigal son and reformed thug.
Mostly reformed.
He was working on it.
It would be easier if everything weren’t so aggravating all of the time. His rage waited so close to the surface, only requiring a tiny scratch to burst through.
Mindfulness, Dr. Park Min-Seo would have reminded him in that light, disheartened tone he reserved for his only son.
Discipline.
Focus.
Jun closed and locked all traces of the notes and tucked the hard copy away in the small uncrackable vault he had sourced from a first sector bank. Sourced, selected, extracted, and rehomed aboard his ship.
“Stolen” was such an ugly word.
As riddled with regret as his misspent youth may have left him, there were some skills he couldn’t have learned any other way, and for that he was grateful.
He’d still shoot his ex-captain in the heart if they ever came face-to-face again, but he was grateful for the lessons. Captain Barnes had been keen on instilling harsh lessons in his Crew. Prided himself on his callous, bloody mentorship of wayward youths like Jun had once been.
Kill or be killed. Trust no one.
How to take a hit without slowing down. Larceny and smuggling and the delicate art of infiltrating the data stream without detection.
Betrayal.
All important lessons, leaving him with as much self-loathing as self-reliance.
It was a fair trade.
Jun absently traced over the disconnected circuits on his neck, pressing against the phantom itch of data he was no longer plugged into, the remembered pain of disconnection keeping his touch wary.
He’d have had the empty circuits stripped from beneath his skin, but the process was as expensive as it was time-consuming, and time was the one commodity he was desperately low on.
Money was a close second.
He turned his head at a knock on the door of the command center, tucking the disabled pad away, down a hidden pocket of his pants.
“What,” he barked, hoping an aggressive greeting would be enough to forestall whatever bullshit awaited on the other side of the door.
The door slid open, the heavy clomp of tiny feet in giant boots telling him he was out of luck before he even got a look at Boom’s ticked-off face. “So we’re trading Dolls now, Captain? I thought you left your old Crew because you couldn’t stomach the business.”
Jun turned away, pulled up a surveillance data stream of the surrounding area, and pretended to study it, still clinging to the hope that she might go away. “Not trading. And he’s not a Doll.”
Boom sauntered over with her distinctive aggressive sway and hitched her hip up onto the console next to him. She stared him down. “Hmm, looks like a Doll, talks like a Doll, kept by some asshole against his will like a Doll, must be a fucking duck, then.”
Jun groaned. Giving up on the pretense of working surveillance, he met her sharp gaze. “It’s temporary. I need him to interpret the last of my notes. So we can finally move forward. Then I’ll set him free.”
Boom shot him a scathing look as she flicked her fingers to load a charge of her wrist blasters, the augments glowing ominously brighter. “Yeah. I’m sure lots of houses tell the Dolls it’s temporary. Because temporary enslavement
