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The Long Tall Sally responds to a distress call, and Casey and Dev do some growing. Maybe.

This is sort of a sequel to "The Good Ship and Crew," in that it (and the next story; they're kind of two parts of the same narrative) wraps up Dev's past and firmly pivots him towards his future with Casey. Simultaneously Casey also winds up... maturing? Oh, God, what's happening? Patreon subscribers, this should also be live for you with notes and maps and stuff.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute--as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

---

"Closure," by Rob Baird

Casey shrugged. "Complain about those fuckin' reports to the commission?"

The jackal wasn't being serious, of course. Only her scowl was sincere. The Long Tall Sally was running nearly a full day behind on what should've been a simple hop to Kemmerer Station.

Nothing in the contract hinted that hyperspace was all but un-navigable, and the official reports the Terran Confederation's transit regulators published were mum about why, exactly, conditions were so godawful. Coincidence, probably--disruptions from far-off singularities and random fluctuations joining forces, as they sometimes did.

Coincidence or not, the turbulence was so bad that they'd had to reduce speed, and the delay getting to their destination would only worsen. Casey, like Dev, was unhappy about that. But when he'd asked her what she wanted to do, complain about those fuckin' reports was the only answer.

"Screw it, though. How long is the work gonna take, 'yote?"

"A few hours. I'll try to make it quick."

Casey shook her head, sighing. "Fine. I'll be in bed. Hopefully I can get some fuckin' sleep."

"Shouldn't affect the inertial dampeners," he promised. She shook her head again and left. Devin turned back to the console and started going through the checklist of what was needed to finish securing the Long Tall Sally for the rest of the trip.

He'd just finished up adjusting the structural integrity generator when the computer lit up with an unmistakeable buzz. Unmistakeable, though he'd only heard it a few times, because the alarm sent an immediate jolt of adrenaline through his system--even before he flipped the radio switch to put the message over their speaker.

"Freighter Katabasis to any ships who can hear us. Our FTL drive is disabled and we require assistance. We're unable to exit hyperspace, and the main reactor is failing. We predict we only have sixteen hours before our repulsion field collapses."

The distress call carried additional details encoded in the transmission. Katabasis was a heavy freighter, 2700 meters long and probably obsolete given the size of her crew complement. Modern freighters didn't need 700 people. Modern freighters didn't lose their propulsion in hyperspace, either.

Of course, he was well aware of that. Dev swallowed heavily and keyed the intercom. "Casey. Get to the bridge."

He repeated the command when, after a few seconds, there was no answer. This time he heard her growl. "Fuck you, Dev."

"We're receiving a priority distress call."

The growl broke into a curt snarl. But, half a minute later, she was back in the cockpit, jacket hastily thrown on and eyes narrowed. "What's going on?"

He pointed to the recorded message saved on his console. "They say their nav gear is bent, but I've triangulated their position and they're about an hour from here."

Casey kept reading, the heat in her glare fading with each new line. "Sixteen hours left. Any sign of the Star Patrol?"

"No. Smart people are apparently staying clear of the RAM-D."

"Sure. But what about the Star Patrol?" she repeated.

He reached over and patted her side. "Sorry. We seem to be on our own, Case."

The jackal had tensed up at the contact. Finally she rested her paw over his, patting distractedly. "What are we supposed to do? Three kilometers long? That's a G-class freighter, at least."

"With 700 people aboard."

"Again: what would we do?"

"Try to help. Like they'd try to help us, if our positions were reversed."

Her ears splayed, and she shut her eyes completely. "Dev. Fuckin' hell, coyote. We could land in their shuttlebay. They outmass us by... what..."

"Couple million tons, uncompensated. We might find out when the reactor goes up. The particle annihilation will be detectable. If the shockwave isn't big enough to tell us, that is."

Casey opened her eyes again, cast a sideways glare at him, and set her jaw before huffing a sharp sigh. "Comms?"

"Ready. Hail 'em?"

She nodded, and waited for him to get it done. "Katabasis, this is the Long Tall Sally. I've got a Sierra 254 here. I know it's not much, but I'm changing course to meet you. Give us an hour."

"Oh, thank God. We've been transmitting for six hours. Nobody's answered."

Casey held her finger on the 'mute' switch. "Take over," she ordered, and headed forward to the pilot's seat.

"It's a quiet area," Dev said. "You got lucky that we heard you. My name's Devin, and I'm the ship's engineer. Who am I talking to?"

"Gavin Tanner, second mate. Luck or not, I'm glad to hear your voice. You said you're an hour out?"

"Looks like it, yeah. We're bound for Kemmerer, but we've diverted."

"Kemmerer? That's in the Deshal sector, right?" the voice on the other end sounded puzzled. "We're headed from Paveen to Molon-Dohar. The navigator said we were losing steering, but..."

"Well, you've drifted into the Rali-An-Mei to Deshal transit corridor, somehow. We'll get you out of the RAM-D as soon we can. What's the problem with the drive?"

"Total motivator failure. We hit some kind of shear--took us completely by surprise. Before we could react, the field shapers overstressed and blew out. We can't get 'em back online, and the reactor's just barely managing to keep us isolated from hyperspace."

"Can you NEEP?" Even in the event of catastrophic failure, ships were supposed to be able to execute their non-standard emergency egress protocol. Confed regulations made this ability a legal requirement--but Dev knew from experience that this was more wishful thinking than anything else.

And he wasn't surprised to hear Gavin's answer. "Without headway, we don't have enough power to create a portal. And without the shapers, we can't make headway. Conn managed to get some attitude control, so we're not completely adrift, but that's just buying time."

"We'll do what we can. But... being honest..."

Devin heard the hesitation in the other man's voice. "I understand. You're a small ship. I've seen Sierras before. How well do you know intersun freighters?"

Enough. I know enough. "Served on a couple," the coyote said. Admitting he'd been one of two survivors from the Luke Lane in all-but-identical circumstances wasn't likely to reassure Gavin Tanner. "Transmit all the information you have and we'll start thinking of a solution."

He plugged in his neural link and spent the next hour going over the blueprints, trying to figure out what that solution might be. Everything came back to creating a hyperspace aperture long enough for them to escape, but...

Casey tapped him on the shoulder. He disconnected from the computer and pushed back, scowling. "Hey, Case."

"We're here. You have any ideas? Now would be a good time to have ideas, coyote."

"If they could activate their gateway generator, they'd be able to... ah, it's called a NEEP. Non-standard exit from hyperspace. It's stressful on the hull, but they'd make it. Probably."

"You think you can figure out how to boost their reactor output? I bet it's not as simple as saying 'divert auxiliary power.' Not everybody has a coyote to beat up on like that."

"No. I know, and..." Auxiliary power. "Fuck."

"What?"

"Hold up." Ignoring the jackal's raised eyebrow, Dev called up the Sally's schematics, double-checked, and cross-referenced them to what they'd been sent from the Katabasis. "We have an auxiliary reactor. We can disconnect from our grid and tie it into theirs--gets us around the frequency mismatch, too."

"There is... a catch to this idea," the jackal pointed out. "Which is that our reactor is in here. And their power grid is not."

"True."

"We'd have to dock with them. In hyperspace."

"Yes."

Casey spun the Katabasis's blueprints around with her finger. "They do have a shuttlebay, right here. If they positioned the bay doors in the lee of the currents, we could probably make it. Well. A decent pilot could probably make it."

"You wouldn't have a problem."

She stared at the blueprints, ear flicking lightly. "No. And you could hook into their grid?"

"I think so. I'd have to confirm some details."

"Ask," she said flatly. "Let's see."

Fourteen hours remained until the Katabasis would lose their reactor altogether. Dev hailed the freighter and asked to be put in touch with their chief engineer. "I might have an idea. Will your PDN take a TCRSC-4032 connector?"

"Yes. It hasn't been used since last time we were in for repairs, but it should work." The woman's voice betrayed a certain awareness of how noncommittal she'd been. "Tell you what: we can make it work. Why?"

"We can connect our auxiliary reactor and use that to power the generator. I can make sure the power output is compatible. We'd have to get aboard, though--that means landing in your shuttlebay, while we're both in hyperspace."

"Christ almighty. Are you serious?"

"It's the best I've got. But honestly, any solution is going to involve something like that. I can't do much from out here."

"Yeah, but... well. Let me get back to you."

Casey had left the pilot's seat and was standing behind him. "Think they'll go for it?"

"Maybe. Will you?"

"Why not?"

He twisted around, looking up at the jackal. "Could be a one-way trip. Even minor interaction between chaikalis particles and their hull will be... pretty rough. If we don't get them out of hyperspace, I'm not sure we'd be able to leave without destroying the ship. And us with it. Probably."

"I know." She showed teeth. "It better work, then, huh Dev?"

"Yeah."

Twenty minutes went by before there was any reply from the Katabasis. "To be clear here, based on your plan... you'd have to come aboard."

"Can't transmit that kind of power, no. We'd need a physical link."

"Well, the master's agreed to try it. If you come in fast enough, we might get away without compromising the hull when you breach the repulsion field. So... it's a 'go' from our side. And we're ready when you are. The aft shuttlebay seems like the most logical place to try docking."

"The bay's empty?" Casey asked. She was already settled into the pilot's seat. Out of an abundance of caution, and intimate familiarity with jackal behavior, Devin cinched his harness straps tighter.

"Of anything that matters. You're cleared to land. We'll hold position here."

"You do that," she said, and Devin felt the Long Tall Sally lurch as it began to pick up speed. "Twenty kilometers. Should be enough time."

"To do what?"

"Accelerate, Devvy. Want to minimize our exposure, y'know? Like we were asked."

"Right," he said, but Casey's view of acceleration was rather worrying. She didn't stop--they were aiming to hit the Katabasis at nearly a hundred kilometers an hour. "But--"

"Long Tall Sally, watch your approach speed." The voice was frantic and, Dev figured, wouldn't have been any happier to see the jackal's expression. "You need to slow down. Slow down."

Casey swung them around hard, pointing her ship's stern towards the looming shuttlebay. Finally he understood what she was planning. "Case, you're gonna have maybe a quarter-second."

"Less," she admitted. "Plenty of time."

The instant they crossed into the bay she pulsed the Long Tall Sally's main engines--once, and at full power. Fortunately it was empty, as promised: the debris that remained vanished, instantly incinerated.

And the ship dropped to the deck like a rock.

Nothing was broken, to Devin's faint surprise. At least, nothing on the Sally. As expected, exposing the superfreighter's outer hull to the matter of hyperspace had done the ship no favors. The main bay doors were melted in place, and only the secondary ones designed to serve as an airlock kept the atmosphere where it belonged.

Gavin met them as soon as the hatch opened. "That was some flying," the badger said. "Welcome to the Katabasis. Sorry about the mess."

"It's fine," Casey told him. "We've stayed in worse. Can we get started, coyote?"

"Sure." He handed a computer to Gavin Tanner. "Specs for our auxiliary reactor. We'll need to run a cable to the maintenance port and make sure we have a good connection to your PDN."

"Consider it done. Can you send a tech with me?"

Devin glanced at Casey. "Afraid it's just us. Case, do you think..."

The jackal turned her paws up, shrugging. "I guess, huh?"

He heard Gavin confirm, incredulously, that it was just the two of them as they headed deeper into the superfreighter. Yep. Just Dev and me, she said. But you came to our aid anyway? Casey muttered something about 'coyotes,' but he couldn't really make out the conversation anymore and his attention was elsewhere.

He'd survived the breakup of the Luke Lane by escaping in one of the ships she happened to be carrying as cargo. If the Katabasis went up, the Long Tall Sally might be able to make it--with their shields properly reinforced. 'Properly,' in that case, would require adding the output of the auxiliary generator to their main reactor.

Putting that thought from his mind, he disconnected the secondary reactor and watched the power readout drop. "Committed," he told himself. "You're committed now, coyote."

He said it again when he pried the maintenance hatch open, compromising the Sally's plating to expose her inner workings. It was routine at any starbase. Not routine, becalmed in hyperspace: even if their shields managed to hold out, radiation would savage the machinery.

They still might survive. Maybe. How many of the Katabasis's crew could join them? And how long would they be able to make it? Their life support wasn't designed for--"Stop. Don't think about that."

"About what?" Casey asked.

He shook his head, turning to find the jackal watching him. "How closely we need to match the power frequency."

"That'll all be automatic." Gavin and Casey had come back with another woman, a leopardess who held out a scarred paw for him to shake. "Tracy. I'm the plant engineer."

"Miss 'Christ Almighty'?"

She nodded. "One and the same. Are you ready to hook in?" Behind her, an antigravity sled carried the end of a power connector--the cable behind it thick as Dev's leg, heavily insulated and unwieldy.

It took both of them to wedge the plug into the Long Tall Sally's hatch. "Is this even compliant? What is it, Polyvan?"

"Pretty much. VanEx. Picked up about ten kilometers of it cheap when the TC announced Polyvan was being phased out and everybody saw the writing on the wall. Probably get another few years out of VanEx before they decide to ban that, too." He recognized the fatalism in Tracy's dark grin. "It'll carry the load, at least."

Thankfully, the reactor's control unit didn't fight back despite the antiquated equipment. "And we're connected. You can get us synced?"

"Yep." Instead of a wristband communicator, the leopardess had a radio clipped to her shoulder--less likely to get caught in machinery, Dev guessed. "Ash, it's Suiter. We're live up here."

"Confirmed. You're giving us... sixteen kilovolts at sixty?"

Tracy looked at Dev, who nodded. "Sounds right, Ash."

"Eleven degrees. Running the sync program now." Dev watched the computer like a hawk as the Katabasis negotiated--or fought--with their auxiliary reactor. The phase shift narrowed, and finally disappeared altogether. "We're synchronized. Ready whenever."

"Cross your fingers," Tracy said.

Casey leaned into view, eyebrow quirked. "This isn't a matter of luck, right? It's engineering. You know what's gonna happen. Dev--you know what's gonna happen, don't you?" Devin crossed his fingers and held them up for the jackal to see. "Great."

"Suiter to the bridge. Try the gateway generator."

"We're trying, chief, but we don't have enough power. Can you give us anything else?"

They were already at their limits. Dev sucked in his breath. "How much?"

Tracy's eyes were fixed on the output display. "It's a big ship, coyote." Her claws extended, and her tail twitched. "Bridge, Tracy again. Start drawing power from the main reactor. Even if it compromises the repulsor fields. We need that gateway."

"Yes, ma'am." Bit by bit, the shuttlebay lights dimmed.

And then the computer fixed to the AG sled made an unhappy noise and switched off. Suddenly the bay was at full brightness again. Tracy snarled. "What happened?"

An amplified voice answered before anyone on the bridge could. "Fire team to secondary power control. Stand by to secure all bulkheads for possible decompression."

From what he could see of the Long Tall Sally's diagnostic panel, their own systems were all still operational. "Grid couldn't take it?"

Tracy focused her attention on the computer, ignoring him until it finally restarted. "Yeah. Probably. Backup circuits ain't rated for those loads. Didn't I tell you to cross your fingers? Were you crossing your fingers, Casey?"

"Next time," the jackal promised. "How's the ship, though?"

"Well, what with the fire and all... seems like three hours until we lose the main reactor. But the gateway generator seems to be operational, so if we can find another way..."

"Use the auxiliary reactor to charge it."

"Even if our power banks weren't overloaded, they're not designed to store that kind of energy. Nothing is. Unless..."

"Use the structural integrity system as a capacitor? Discharge it through the main relay into the jump motivator?"

She blinked at him. "Why would you think of doing that?"

"Just seemed logical?"

Her skeptical expression didn't waver. "You're a strange one, coyote. But yeah, I think that'll work. I'm rerouting power now--we're just gonna get one shot at this."

Reconfiguring the power grid only took her a few minutes. When she stepped back from the computer, Casey lifted her head. "So I should start thinking good thoughts?"

"Yeah. Fuck knows I'm gonna get my praying in for the year." Tracy tapped her radio on. "Ash, this is Suiter. We have enough power stored in the structural integrity system. Begin charging the generator."

"Trying. We... can't. The power transfer's being blocked."

Tracy's head jerked in alarm. "Blocked? By what?"

"Wait one, Suiter."

She scowled at the dead communicator, then looked back at the computer. "The grid's overloading. You might have to disconnect, guys."

There was, however, a problem with this idea: "I don't have shutdown authority. We transferred that to your computer when we synched the reactor. I'd have to scram it--and we wouldn't be able to restart in time."

"If it's that or exploding..." Tracy gritted her teeth, and tapped her shoulder again. "Engineering. What's going on?"

"Safety protocols are locking out the command, ma'am."

"Bypass them!"

"I can't figure out how. It's that old Io module--none of our commands work. All the readouts are in some kind of foreign language and the interface is... I don't get it."

"You've got two minutes until we blow the grid. Figure it out."

"It's--"

"Dev?" Casey prompted. "Talk to the coyote, cat. He's a hacker. He does computer stuff."

Tracy shook her head in frustration. "It's not even a computer. Ruggedized power module from a Jovian shipwright. There's no UI, and everything's obfuscated in some... I mean..." She gestured at her console.

Devin tilted his head. The screen was mostly black, and the interface was decidedly not compliant with modern Confed protocol. If, indeed, it had an interface beyond maintd@scm:/ $

"I don't think it's a foreign language, but it's definitely not--"

"It's a Unix system," Dev realized. "I know this."

"Enough to kill the safeties in the next sixty seconds?"

He cracked his knuckles. "Why not?" It only took fifteen. "Done."

"I got questions--later. Engineering, start the power transfer now."

"Yes, ma'am! Transfer commencing. The gateway generator's online... Stand by, nav, switch back to the main circuits. Energizing cycle... start--confirm stable readout and--"

Silence. But the constant shudder under their feet had stopped. Hesitantly, Dev checked the reactor diagnostics. "Ambient radiation alarms just dropped off a cliff. We're not picking up anything anymore."

And Tracy's radio crackled back to life. "Chief. Main power's out. Surged when we dropped out of hyperspace."

"But we did drop out?"

"Yes, ma'am. Grid's not responding. We're running on reserves right now, so we'll probably need--"

"Take your time." She switched the radio off. "We owe you. A lot."

Casey grinned. "I torched your shuttlebay. Your owners won't like that."

"They'll learn how to deal."

Despite Tracy's flippant answer, Dev agreed with her--the owners would deal. They hung around until a Star Patrol cruiser finally answered the distress call and, in a gesture of thanks, the Katabasis's crew allowed the Long Tall Sally to depart before any nosy Confed types could ask questions.

Four hours later, back on the way to Kemmerer and curled up in the bunk they shared, Dev took a deep breath. "Hey, Case? Thanks for, uh..."

She lifted her head from the mattress, tilting it slightly. "For what?"

"Stopping."

"You were right. We had to. I mean... like, ethically. Is that how that word is pronounced?"

He grinned. "You're asking a coyote? But for real, Case, it... was risky."

The jackal shrugged, and took the opportunity to drape her arm over the coyote. "A lot of things are. We've done worse. Besides, maybe you're cute when you're all... competent and shit."

"Did you call me cute?"

She sidled closer to him, until their bodies were pressed gently together. "'Oh, no big deal. Just shunt the reactor output into the structural integrity grid. Seems logical.'"

"It did. I'm still stuck on the 'cute' part."

"Is that a problem? Maybe you are, coyote." Their lips met--softly. Even delicately, where Casey was concerned. She pulled away, staying close so he felt the warmth of every word on her breath. "No? Did you want me to be more of a bitch?"

"I didn't say that."

She rolled her eyes and smirked. "Uh-huh. 'This is a Unix system! I'm a coyote! I know things like this for no good'--"

She gasped when he kissed her. And when he didn't stop--when he leaned forward, and his tongue worked between her lips--she wrapped one leg about him, tightening the embrace by degrees. He rolled atop the jackal, arching into a tentative thrust.

Two of those later, when the coyote's stiffening length nudged into place, Casey's head jerked back and she took a few deep, panting breaths. "Yeah? That--that more like it for you?"

"Either way." He worked his hips carefully, until his cock bumped against her again, and held himself still. She looked up, curious. "I love you, Casey. Everything about you."

"You too, coyote." She flicked an ear and, running her paws up his sides, gave him a lopsided smile. "I love you a lot, Dev. Kiss me?"

There was a sort of vulnerability in the request--and in the smile, and the explicitness of her words. And rather than dwelling on it, he did as he was told. Their muzzles met, and he tasted her tongue again.

Casey squirmed underneath him, her movements becoming a little more purposeful and deliberate. The coyote's mind was elsewhere, though--too distracted to realize the purposeful part before his cock met soft and now decidedly slick warmth, and a careful nudge from the jackal pushed him partway inside her.

"Casey..." It escaped as a muffled groan--lust-heavy and strained. For all intents and purposes she echoed him, in actions rather than words: hooking her claws into his shoulder, and wrapping both legs around her coyote so he had no choice but to sink smoothly forward and into that welcoming, wet heat.

Then she did find her voice again, albeit as a guttural, gratified oath. He kissed her in reply, rocking pointedly to grind his buried shaft along her walls until she relaxed the grip of her strong legs and he could pull free enough to start thrusting properly.

Properly meant his first strokes were steady and fluid. He slid back to leave just an inch inside her and without hesitating pumped back in, eyes slitting at the steamy, slippery vise enveloping him. He worked his cock slowly while he still could, before the carnal pleasure started to take hold.

Because properly also quickly accelerated his pace. Soon he was taking her harder, pounding firmly into her flexing hips to hilt his cock with every forceful plunge. His knot hadn't yet formed enough to count, but he fucked her with the full, heavy movements of a dog trying to mate his bitch anyway--driving them together, bucking deep and staying deep so the tie when it came would be inevitable.

Casey helped, meeting him where she could and hugging the coyote into her, paws almost painfully tight in his pelt. She moaned and whimpered, and the kiss became ragged and rough while his tempo built before she finally gave up altogether, back arching and throat bared to him.

Devin nosed her, nipping the jackal's neck where tan gave way to black, and her pitch rose at the touch of his teeth. He bit down, her fur taking the hoarse grunt of his exertion and the effort of their energetic coupling. His words were muffled growls, timed to his eager strokes. "God--jackal--god, I love you!"

Casey cried out in answer like she could understand him around a mouthful of jackal, clutching him in taut fingers. As the yelp of his name reached the coyote's perked ears he was already giving in. Now his knot was calling attention to itself, working its way between the jackal's taut lips with an undeniable, demanding pressure. Devin took no chances--a hard lunge buried him well inside her, and instead of pulling out he rutted the jackal in short, hitching thrusts to keep her in place.

And to let Casey feel his cock claiming her, of course, stretching her until he was locked. He kept swelling, movements growing more constricted, friction building as the coyote's shaft rapidly shifted and tugged. Her muzzle snapped open, and she locked up.

The tension released in an urgent howl--her chest heaved with it, and she went rigid again--and with one last shove and a lip-curled snarl the coyote joined her. Ears back, groaning in pleasure, he pumped his release deep into the jackal's cunt.

Casey's wailing went high--keening, exulting, and she jerked under him convulsively as his cum splashed into her. His weight, and the strength of his final thrust, held her in place to buck erratically on his knotted cock while each throb and pulse steadily filled her with the warmth of her mate's copious seed.

For a good spell after he finished she stayed trembling; then, finally, she slumped under him and the coyote fell to his side, pulling the jackal in for a close, tight hug. His muzzle bumped at her ear. It twitched and, her voice uneven, Casey managed a quiet: "I know."

"Mm?"

Her paw ruffled up his side. "You told me you loved me."

Had he? Probably. Almost certainly, in fact. "I was a bit... distracted. But it's true."

"I love you, too, coyote. Glad we pulled it out of the fire again, though."

"We always do." He closed his eyes and snuggled her while she was too spent, and in too agreeable of a mood, to pretend she wanted anything else. "Maybe we can find a quieter job at Kemmerer."

She shrugged, and adjusted the hold of her straight, slim arms around him. "This was supposed to be a quiet job. But yeah, I could go for that."

"I'll let you pick? If you let me smooth over this contract."

Because while he loved her, he also knew Casey would want to fight penalties for late delivery. It wasn't their fault, after all... but the customer wouldn't care about that, and the jackal was liable to bare teeth at the wrong time.

And, as he'd hoped, explaining a bit of his personal history softened the blow. They made it to Kemmerer Station four days late, but when Dev let slip that he'd been wrecked before--had a personal stake in the affair beyond a simple legal requirement to render aid--the broker on Kemmerer agreed to discount the fees.

Buoyed by that, he detoured through the station's abundant shops on his way back to the Long Tall Sally's landing pad. Casey was in the cockpit, but she rose at the sound of his footsteps, turning to face him. "There you are. Took you long enough."

Devin shrugged. "I stopped by the bazaar."

"Anything good?"

He stuck out his tongue. "None of your business."

The jackal was in an upbeat mood, which made her easy to disarm with the mild provocation. "Says who?" she asked--but she was already stepping towards him, pinning the coyote to the bulkhead with a soft growl.

She didn't really care about the bazaar anyway, Dev knew: as long as the Long Tall Sally was still being unloaded, they didn't have much to do. The fleshpots of Kemmerer Station weren't much to spur a trickster's interest: expensive galleries and even more expensive restaurants, courtesy of the station's cosmopolitan reputation.

He returned the kiss she pressed to his lips, and waited for her to pull away. "They knocked the late fees down by seventy percent. About as good as we're gonna get, I figure. You put us up on the board?"

The jackal nodded. "A few offers already; still turning 'em over. New generator for the agricultural colony on Palset VI, maybe... fifty-five thousand credits, plus a twenty-percent bonus if we manage it in under a week."

"What's the plot look like?"

"Six days at cruise speed. Easy money."

Devin leaned back to look the jackal over. "What's the catch? The generator's stolen? The colony's stolen?"

Casey rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "No catch. I told you I'd find us a quieter contract."

"Yeah. But I never know how likely you are to actually go soft, Case."

She laughed. "Don't try me, dear."

Dear: said with what, for a jackal, looked to be genuine affection. It might've been a phase she was going through--like the willingness to take on a straightforward cargo run well within the Confederation's core after the last bit of excitement rather than jumping straight into a new adventure--but Dev grinned anyway.

"Maybe I also think we could do with a little less trouble," she finally allowed. "On occasion."

"Maybe."

A chime announced that someone was at the entry hatch, bringing the conversation to a halt. "Probably the loader telling us he's got the bay empty." Casey shrugged and ambled towards the door. "What do you say, coyote? Palset sound okay?"

"Fine by me, sure. Lookin' forward to something easy."

"Going soft," Casey said, snickering, and opened the door. Her body language immediately changed: "What the hell? What are you doing here, Tory?"

The jackal's younger sister didn't have a starship of her own--at least, not that Dev was aware of--but she managed an itinerant lifestyle anyway. He wasn't too surprised to find she'd wound up on Kemmerer Station. "Looking for you."

That was enough to surprise Devin and the jackal girl's older sibling. "What for?"

"I have an opportunity. A profitable one!"

"That you're sharing with us out of the goodness of your heart?"

Their relationship had, in Dev's experience, often been tense. Tory obviously expected that it still was; her ears twitched and flicked at Casey's question. "No," she finally admitted. "Not exactly. Can I come aboard, though? Please?"

He half-expected Casey to slam the hatch shut. Instead, the jackal stepped back, letting her sister enter. "Don't break anything. I have a coyote for that."

In the ship's mess, Dev got out three bottles of beer. Tory took hers with the warm smile of someone who'd spent most of their life working in hospitality. "Thanks, dear."

"Don't," Casey warned. "What part of 'I have a coyote' didn't you get? Start talking, Tory. You said you had something for me."

"Okay, okay." She cracked her beer open on the side of the table. "Did you hear about Galena, or did that not make it out of the core?"

"Doesn't mean anything to me. Dev?" The coyote shook his head. "Doesn't mean anything to us. Planet?"

"Mining company. They hired the Mokaris for protection, then skipped out on the bill when there was an ambush. Ellen Mokari hit their central refinery with a few torpedoes as a warning."

Dev raised an eyebrow. "The Mokari family doesn't do 'warnings.' That's kind of their whole thing."

Tory gave him a toothy, playful grin. "They also don't do 'a few.' The refinery's toast, and so is the Galena Corporation. The president's on the run, and Ellen told me that he's supposed to be meeting someone from MKP, a big mineral company in the Rali-An-Mei."

Casey took a healthily skeptical swig of her beer. "Where do we come into this?"

"He saved all their mining surveys. The data are worth tens of millions of credits, at least. Ellen Mokari thinks he's going to barter it to MKP in exchange for his safety."

"Good for Ellen Mokari," Casey sniffed. "Where do we come in?"

"Stealing the survey data."

"You know I'm a pilot, right? I fly freight."

Tory pulled a computer from her purse and turned it on. And then she handed it to Devin. "Ask your coyote. He's a hacker. He does computer stuff."

Despite Casey's scowl--"how would you know?"--Dev took the computer warily. The screen displayed schematics for an Amat Robotics Model 3030 survey scanner. Integrated signal processing and analytics, he read. Native support for Jisso-Tawul regression. Expansion slots for 12-exabyte storage cards.

Tory took his free paw and guided the coyote's index finger further down the datasheet. "That means something, right?"

Casey's eyes narrowed at the provocation of her sister's touch; she reached over and freed Dev's paw. "No."

"Sorry," the other jackal muttered. "But does it mean anything?"

TC/SDI-54 compliant. SDI-54 was a communications protocol; that meant the computer had some kind of transceiver built into it. "You want me to remotely connect to the survey scanner and pull the information off."

"Exactly! Get all the records and wipe the storage cards. Simple."

"It's not simple." He set the computer down; Casey took it, while he mused, though the information wouldn't mean as much to the jackal. "SDI-54 is protected with 2048-bit Rejmanova encryption."

"You can't crack that?" Casey asked.

"If I had direct access, and a couple hours? Maybe."

"If you could, Ellen Mokari's offering a ten-percent cut. Even if they can't find a legit buyer, that's gotta be a couple hundred thousand. Right?"

"What's she offering you?"

"Ten percent, like I said. You can have it all, though."

"You get in trouble with them? Fuck, Tory--you crossed the goddamn Mokaris?"

"No." Tory swallowed, glancing away from her sister. "The opposite. I want to show 'em I can be... useful. I'm tired of working for tips and third-hand shares, Casey. Ellen said if I can make this happen, they'll give me a chance to prove myself."

"And you think that's a good career move?"

The younger jackal's ears splayed. "Don't get all high-and-mighty with me. You don't stay out of trouble, either. I want a chance at my own future, that's all. Like you."

"Me? My future?"

Tory lifted her head, looking around at the walls of the freighter. "It worked out, didn't it? You got a ship, a good reputation--you know how often I'm doing shit jobs for Benaventi or some asshole like that and they ask if I'm 'Casey's kid sister'?"

"And?"

"And that's what they tell me. The rest of it comes later, when I can't hear_._ 'Hey, did you know that dumb slut we stiffed on her take was Casey Carr's kid sister?' I'm tired of it."

Casey sighed. "Coyote?"

Devin was still thinking. "The transceiver will have a dedicated encryption module--probably a CTO option. If we were close enough, I could bridge my set into that module and extract the encryption keys. But we'd need to be... hell, I dunno. No more than a couple hundred meters away."

"Like at a dock?" Tory asked. "His private ship has been cruising between stations while the meeting gets set up. Ellen can give me the final location."

Casey sighed again, and jerked her thumb towards the exit. "Scram. I'll hit you back up in a bit."

"You'll think about it, though?" Her sister's voice was cautiously hopeful.

"Go." Casey watched her leave. "Dev. Is it doable?"

"Practically? I don't see why not. Of course, I thought we wanted to stay out of trouble--so I'm a bit surprised you'd do it for Tory's benefit."

"Tory's..." The jackal leaned back in her chair, shrugged her shoulders, and drained the rest of her beer. "She's okay. Everybody's got to find their own way, you know?"

"I've never seen you quite so... indulgent."

Casey eyed the drink her sister had left behind and switched bottles. "Probably blamed her for some things that aren't really her fault," she admitted. "Stuff's changed. I've changed."

"But not enough to avoid trouble," Dev teased.

She laughed. "I'm still a jackal."

"So you want to take it?"

"If you don't mind." Stuff's changed. She was asking him genuinely--he could've held up his paws; stepped away from the Carr family drama. But then, of course, stuff had changed, and not just with Casey...

He didn't hesitate before answering.