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“So?” Cal jerked his shoulder.

“So you can’t…” Roy groaned, his heart fluttering. “Just stop the engines. I have insurance, they’ll repay me⁠—”

The speakers rustled again. “Answer or perish.”

“Uh, there’s a—” AVOS’s voice joined in again. “A missi—le aimed at the hull.” The last syllable faded in a whirl of electronic noises. AVOS shut down with a quiet beep, snuffing out the ambient lighting and comfort systems. The automatic navigation screen flickered, then died. A basic pop-up map filled Roy’s screen.

“They won’t let us go,” Cal said. The manual override switches clicked under his fast fingers. “They’ll take the ship and leave us stranded on some hostile planet.”

“But—”

“I can do this, okay?” Cal side-eyed him, gripping the throttle. “Trust me. Now, can you navigate?”

“Uh—”

“You’ll manage.”

“Cal, this is⁠—”

“Enough.” Cal’s expression hardened, revealing a side of him that Roy had never seen before—a prince who would not take a No for an answer. “I’m the pilot of this ship, and it’s my responsibility to keep us safe. You’ll listen to my command. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” Roy strapped himself in, as if that would help once a missile hit the flyvan.

Cal’s head bobbed. “Now, open your console and find me a swing-by. And hold on to something.” The heel of his palm nudged the throttle almost to idling position.

“Very smart,” the raider’s gritty voice seeped through the communication line again. “Hold steady until we hook in.”

Cal’s eyes stayed glued to the lidar screen. When a dot appeared on the edge, advancing toward them, he sneered, “The fuck you will,” and pulled the lever all the way down, rotating the thrusters until the acceleration pushed Roy into his seat.

“Come on, come on,” Cal whispered. A wide ribbon of small asteroids appeared in the viewport. Cal’s fingers curled on the throttle, but he barely reduced the speed—the FTL control kept pulsing.

Roy’s breath caught as his gaze landed on the galaxy map, unrolling on his dashboard. “Gas giant on your starboard, direction Polaris.”

“Nice,” Cal grinned. “Now, things might get bumpy.”

Bumpy had to be Cal’s euphemism for diving straight into the swarm of asteroids, tilting the ship in one direction only to flip immediately to the other. Roy’s stomach wobbled. He pushed down the urge to grab the bin next to him and use it as a vomit bucket, focusing on the lidar.

“They’re still behind us,” Roy rasped.

“Copy that.” Escaping the asteroid belt, Cal aimed toward the gas giant, glowing blue in the distance. The arrow on the velocity display trembled and jumped toward the red maximum as they passed the planet.

“Still there,” Roy exhaled.

“Aether damn those—FUCK!”

Cal twisted the controller, barely dodging a missile that flew past them and struck a floating piece of scrap metal. The explosion sent a wave of radiation through the hull, the dosimeters squealing.

Roy’s eyes darted to the dashboard. “Cal—we’re low on fuel.”

“I can see that,” Cal gritted. His chest heaved; sweat trickled down his temple. “We need to find a-a rift or…”

“Imperial gate,” Roy gasped, his head tilted upward.

“Precisely.”

“No—there was one just there!”

“What?” Cal peeked into the map. “Give me the coordinates.”