Chapter 17

Sophia worked alone on the Warlock through the next day while Bren went down to finish business with Essex dock and the city council. The Silvana was scheduled to lift off in the small hours of the morning, so she didn't expect to see him at all until the ship was airborne again.

She buried herself in her work, trying not to dwell on the possibility that she might see Bren later that evening only because he'd be pushing her off of his ship, leaving her stranded at Essex dock.

The Silvana's mechanics drifted back to the flight deck at various times. Banks was the first to show, overseeing the installation of a few new pieces of equipment. When everything was stowed according to his instructions, he dismissed the men and puttered around the flight deck for a few minutes before wandering over to see what Sophia was doing. She tracked his approach by the sound of tools rattling, then the tread of his boots on the deck.

"How's it coming, Princess?" He hung his arms over the side of the Warlock's cabin and poked his head inside, his feet braced on the outside of the ship.

Sophia didn't bother to look up from her work. Power gating calibration required most of her attention. "It's on schedule so far. Did the Captain order you to help again?"

"No, it's just me." His voice had been friendly, but Sophia stopped what she was doing and turned to look at the man. His black eyes were intent on her. She nodded to herself.

"So you came up here to see how much longer the Warlock would be on your flight deck, because when I'm gone, the Captain will go back to the bridge where he belongs. Right?" She phrased it as a question, but she already knew she was right.

Banks shrugged once, "That's about it, yeah."

"He's not ready to fly yet." She put a possessive hand on the pilot's chair, and knew it was a futile gesture, but couldn't stop herself from doing it.

"Who?" The head mechanic frowned at her.

"The Warlock. This ship. He's not ready to fly yet." She took a deep breath, and donned the serene expression that served her so well when sitting across from ambassadors, "Either the Captain will choose to have the Warlock brought down to ground here at Essex, or he'll permit me to finish repairs and I'll leave once those are complete."

His muscular arms flexed once in a movement that told Sophia that he was thinking. "Huh." He finally said, "So do you need any help?"

"I'll be just fine, thank you." She responded sweetly and insincerely, and waited until he straightened up and went back down the Warlock's side.

Then she went back to power gating calibration while preparations were made for the Silvana to liftoff.

"Nothing." Bren said after Miller had given him a summary of her work. "Two days of pumping experts, and we've got nothing." His soft voice held a lot of disgust, and a touch of worry.

"Not a thing." Miller agreed, sitting back in her own chair in the ready room. "Unless you count the massive headache I've got."

Bren acknowledged her long hours of work with an absent nod. "And our ambassador?"

"Better news, there." Miller let her head loll against the back of her chair. "At least I hope so. There's a man coming up from Kyr who claims to have diplomatic privileges under Sikandar's rule. No confirmations yet, so it might just be a hoax. He's scheduled to meet up with us in the air somewhere over Leyte."

"Name?"

"None given."

Bren took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with one hand. "It will have to do. Any problems come up with loading that I haven't already heard about?"

Miller clucked her tongue as she thought, "I told you about the mixup with the filters. That's the biggest one. Other than that, we're green up to actual crew."

"Not our problem." Bren stood up and Miller chuckled. The Silvana's policy was that if you weren't on the ship when it lifted off, you found another job, because you'd just been fired. "I'll meet up with you for our farewell dinner. I want to look at our new contracts again."

"Not checking in on the princess?" Miller rose as well to follow him out the door. There was no bite of annoyance in her voice anymore. As long as Bren was doing his job as captain, she seemed to have accepted that the Warlock and its pilot were going to be his new project on the side.

"Let her stew. Something's up, and she's not telling us what it is." Though Bren was reluctantly fascinated by the woman, he wasn't stupid. She was using him, and he was going to find out why.

Sophia chewed slowly on the reheated carrots of her dinner, her gaze pointed toward the back of the cabin, but her thoughts much farther away. She wished that Bren hadn't drunk all the beer from the other night. It went a long way to making the rations taste better. So did Bren's company, but she wasn't wishing for that right now.

There was still half a week's work to be done on the Warlock before he was airworthy again. And while she was pretty sure she could trust Bren with her life, that was only if he knew she was in danger. And that wasn't something she intended to tell him.