Her speed was considerable. If she could last forty-eight hours before hooking up the distress 'arc', her signal might be received by an outbound transport. Law would compel pick-up, and if the crew was loyal to government, she might yet escape with the Quest's log intact.

    Shaking, Ataine straightened in her seat. The odds were like light years, inconceivably long. But no other alternative remained. Resigned to her fate, she dredged her memory for the timetable, and hoped bad luck would roost elsewhere.

    Her wish proved futile. She'd barely converted the chronometer reading back to Station time before an uncanny sensation of company invaded her cockpit. The presence was familiar.

    'Dorren? Never had his mental touch been clearer. Ataine banged her fist against the console and shouted angrily, as though he could hear. 'Don't pick me up. Please, Dorren, grant me that much.'

But his contact only intensified. 'I'm coming for you.'

    'No!' Ataine felt her throat constrict. 'You owe me, remember?' If she hadn't spared him, the Quest would not be crippled.

    I'm coming. Unarguably final, the response seemed graven in stone.

    Outraged by his ruthlessness, Ataine laced stiff fingers through her hair and tried desperately not to weep. Tell them I'm dead! But she knew he was beyond listening to her pleas. He would come for her, and short of suicide, she had nothing left to prevent him...

The bump as the Sabre's docking collar made contact jostled Ataine where she sat hunched over dead banks of controls. She reached listlessly for her helmet. Anger had ebbed, leaving resentment no sentiment could thaw, and numbed by the immediacy of defeat, she sought nothing but the chance to hurt the man who had stolen her inner trust, and betrayed her.

    She sat, helmet clutched in cold fingers, as seals meshed with the Quest's hatch and locked her craft in tow. A signal from Dorren's console opened the lock. Pressure equalized, rippling the hair against her neck.

    'Damn you,' she said succinctly, aware her suit mike would now transmit to Dorren's cockpit. A wave of consciousness probed her barriers in response. Passionless as ice, she rejected him.

~o5