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I manipulated the controls. Propulsion, fuel, gravity, life support, nav sensors. Datastreams climbed like columns of green fireflies, showing me engine sensors, tactical schematics, slipspace equations.
    I selected control frequency on the etherwave comms, and thumbed the contact. “Axis Arclight, this is RapidFire , Phoenix on platform six-five, flightplan delta one epsilon. Request departure vectors.”
    A crackle of etherstatic, and a deep male voice came on. “ RapidFire , this is Arclight, affirm. Cleared on vector one-seven-five, departure pattern theta.”
    Sexy voice. I resisted the temptation to ask him what he was wearing. “One-seven-five theta, Arclight. Have a nice day.”
    The blast doors ground aside, scarlet sunlight pouring in, and I kicked the arc rockets alight and speared out into the traffic. Wind buffeted the ship as I climbed on my assigned departure trajectory, rockets howling. Particle coolants hissed as the ion stardrive accelerated to escape speed. My clearview windows dimmed, polarizing to block out UV and sunflash. The thinning atmosphere gave one last golden glimmer and broke to black.
    My butt lifted in the chair as the console chimed the escape velocity warning, and I killed the rockets and spiraled sunward on stardrive, the smoky red globe of New Russiya receding in the rear clearview.
    I’d seen the view a hundred times. Normally I didn’t think much of it, but today it invigorated me, the stars misting into sight beyond that dusky twinkling planet I now called home. Here I was, just a girl from some grotty farm world, off on another mission to save the Empire. It seemed naive, but I couldn’t deny the thrill sparkling through my body, the navset’s static-charged warmth under my fingertips, the excitement pulsing in my blood. I was alive. I was making a difference. And that’s more than anyone else on that grotty farm world could say.
    Not that they talked to me any more. The last conversation I’d had with my father, right before I ran away to join the marines, had involved yelling and tears and the words traitor and collaborator . I just wanted a decent life, proper food and an education. But my parents were separatists, opposed to Imperial expansion, and they’d disowned me.
    I still missed my family: Mom, Dad, Janey and little chubby-cheeked Will, who’d be grown into a young man by now and breaking hearts with his big brown eyes. For all I knew, they were dead, starved or frozen or killed in a food riot. But they were the ones who wouldn’t return my calls. I’d given them the chance to support me, and they’d thrown it back in my face. I was sorry they were gone. But I wasn’t losing any sleep over it.
    I glanced out the clearview again, where stars glittered golden in fading sunset swirls, and smiled.
    Once I’d cleared Moskovi space and passed the last departure beacon, I set an evasive course for Esperanza. Straight lines had landed me in trouble before, and even though it was difficult to track a ship through slipspace, if anyone was watching for my arrival I didn’t want it to be too obvious where I’d come from.
    Besides, to say I wasn’t keen to see Malachite again would be a cosmic understatement. Damn it if he wasn’t already in my mind, in the way my sweaty fingers slipped as I entered the course coordinates. I’d avoided thinking about him for six years, but now the memories came flooding back to swamp me. Malachite has gentle, precise fingers, a lilting voice I could listen to all day, a smile that weakens my knees. He smells of something exotic and mysterious that drives me wild. He’s funny, charming, a good listener, embarrassingly good in bed. The bastard can even cook.
    It’s ironic how attraction blinds us to the bleeding obvious. When Malachite left me to burn on that dying prison hulk, my oxygen depleted and my rifle’s last laser charge half-empty, the only one left wondering why was me.
    I dragged the last coordinate across the glass a