“We’re coming up on the Dead Rock,” Bradley said over the communication system. We were near the end of our argon, and the fuel that came on our little hijacked ship had long since spent itself as we flew across the gap. Dead Rock was a colloquial term for a rogue moon that had somehow missed the party where the black hole had gobbled up the rest of its solar system. It had a small colony on its surface that acted as a refueling point for almost anyone trying to jump the gap.

We had to stop there and refuel ourselves, but I didn’t have to be happy about it. The problem with Dead Rock being one of the few stops was that when you’re running for your lives, the people chasing you know where you’re going. The Valraithi Pirates probably had to return to the Revaulo station to refuel and grab enough extra gas to get across the gap to chase us. That bought us some time, but not much. The only thing we had going for us was that our speed on the stolen Revaulo ship was approximately the same as a comms burst. That meant that if we got very very lucky, either the port authority here wouldn’t have seen our wanted posters yet or wouldn’t care.

“Is that a pair of banged up looking humans piloting a Revaulo military ship?” came an unknown male voice over the communication system. Dead Rock must have already picked us up on scans.

I flipped a switch to internal frequencies only before responding. “You know this guy?”

Bradley’s gruff voice answered in normal annoyance. “No, but whoever it is, don’t they sound playful?” I heard the static hiss when he switched channels back to global. “Yeah,” he replied, his tone now as smooth as fresh engine oil. “We picked it up in a junk field on the other side of the gap.”

There was a pause over the line. Whoever was speaking to us was also clearly having a secondary conversation just like we were. “It seems like I’d heard about a ship like that a few days ago, but that one doesn’t look anything like the one you’re driving.” There was another pause before he continued. “The way I heard it, the Revaulo weren’t too keen on giving up their ship. How’d you get it?”

Bradley clicked back over to our internal frequency. “Thoughts?” he asked.

I scratched my arm absently as I filtered through the options. “We could tell him the truth, lie flat out, or run.”

“We don’t have the fuel to run, and this guy’s already half-caught us in a lie.”

“You want to tell him the truth?” I asked, incredulity clear in my voice.

“Why not,” Bradley said. “It doesn’t sound like he’s too friendly with the lizards.”

“Sure, but even if he isn’t, how we took the ship is going to raise questions. When they find out I’m a necromancer, they’ll just shoot us with those fancy orbital cannons that are all the rage on colonies these days.”

“You’re too negative. I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Bradley said, and before I could protest he swapped back to global. “Yeah, you’re right. They blew a hole in my old ship and I took it personal. We killed their boarding party and then returned the favor thanks to some necromantic help.”

What in all the twinkling stars is he doing?

This time the pause on the other end of the communications system stretched into an uncomfortable silence. We reached our breakpoint and fell out of hyperspace in front of the moon. The colony sprawled across the surface like a pixelated spider’s web, and I could make out the space-based orbital cannons as little pinpricks too close for comfort. I gripped the chair in tense nervousness and waited.

“If I didn’t already know who was on your ship with you, I’d swear you were lying.”

“You weren’t supposed to believe me in the first place,” Bradley replied.

“Yeah, well we weren’t expecting a surprise guest either.” With that there was a small pause as the speaker handed the communicator off to someone else.

“Hey toots.” Tessa’s voice was equal parts a shock and a relief.

She made it.I had been worrying that our extracurricular activities had made things a lot worse for Tessa and was pretty sure she wouldn’t be any more welcome on the Revaulo Space Port as we were. Somehow she had made it off the rock and gotten away. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where we were going. It was why we were in such a hurry. If the Valraithi Pirates or the Revaulos gave up looking in the Gap for us, this would be their first stop. We had been dodging them the whole time and getting in big space fights. Meanwhile Tessa had just made a straight shot across the Gap to beat us here and roll out the red carpet.