I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar.

Sam plopped down in the co-pilot's seat beside her favorite blondie, openly ogling her cousin. Cindi ignored her, staring out into space instead. Her eyes were taking in every millimeter of inky blackness, every comet's streak or wispy nebula. Sam wasn't immune to the charms of deep space, in fact starships had been her first love as a child. But it was hard to squint and peer at all that when she had a veritable feast sitting just an arm's length away.

Cindi was wrapped up in a one of Adam's old shirts, wavy hair pulled back in a messy bun, her eyes shining with excitement. After their falling out, Cindi's eyes never looked like that, not when she looked at Sam anyway. But here they were, bursting with exuberance and life. It was enough to make a girl all squishy inside.

Wet, too.

Cindi finally turned to look at her. Her face still beaming. "I never get tired of seeing this. All these lights in the dark. It's beautiful."

She was beautiful.

"Mmmmhmmmm." Sam agreed.

"You don't think its beautiful?" A frown creased that cute little face.

"It's nice enough. I just prefer pretty things that I can reach out." Sam grinned. "And touch."

Cindi's face burned as she hurriedly turned back to her console. She darted a look over to Sam and nearly squealed when their eyes met for a second.

It had been like this for days. Sam had been making it very clear what her intentions were for lil' Cin. Of course any time she so much as let her hunger show, the sweet innocent girl bolted like a rabbit. Sam knew the type, and they were oh so much fun to chase, and by far the most delicious when devoured. Sam slowly dragged her gaze away and put her feet, clad in knee high boots, up on a nearby console.

"Don't." Cindi murmured.

"No?" Sam didn't move. Was the rabbit finally willing to play with the fox?

"That's-um- that's important. Don't put your feet on it." Cindi didn't even look at her. She stared pointedly at the screen, but her voice was firm. Maybe there was an opening there?

"Alright, Cinderella." Sam swung her legs down. "You wanna tell me more about this stuff?"

"What stuff?"

"This stuff. Space. Flying. Whatever." Sam pressed. "You're clearly into it."

"What do you ...want to know?" Despite her apprehension, Cindi couldn't mask the excitement in her voice.

"Whatever you think is worth telling me about, beautiful."

Cindi flushed, then pointed to a distant speck on the LADAR screen. "That's a Tomian Fleet at the edge of the system."

"Really? I didn't even know they had fleets out here." Sam peered at the readout full of incomprehensible numbers and letters. She may have loved ships, but they didn't love her back. "How can you tell?"

"Look at their drive signature. It's huge. If its not military, it would have to be a massive cargo vessel, only, what kind of cargo ship has starfighter escort?" Cindi pointed to a cluster of smaller numbers, her voice gaining in intensity and volume with every word. "But that could be Alliance or Confederate, except its too hot. The LADAR profile says its running at LEAST 50 Celsius."

"And the lizards like it hot." Sam finished. "Are we stealth right now?"

Cindi shook her head. "I don't think they care about us. There's a half dozen other ships floating around out here. Probably freighters looking for a faster route or smugglers trying to avoid the Dragnet. We leave them alone, they leave us alone."

"Fifty C, huh? That's crazy."

"I wouldn't want to be on one of their ships for long."

"You wouldn't have to be, they eat their prisoners."

Cindi stared at her incredulously. Trying to decide if Sam was joking or not. "I definitely don't want to be eaten."

"Try before you deny, Cinderella." Sam cocked an eyebrow at her. Cindi flushed as she heard the double entendre.

"Let's just agree we're not on the menu." Cindi ground out the words, before falling into a red flushed silence.

Sam shrugged. They peered out into the abyss for a while until Cindi broke the silence.

"Thank you, by the way. You really helped me these last few weeks. And you saved my life a bunch, and I know things are weird and all, but I just wanted to make sure you knew, I appreciate it. I appreciate you, Sam." Cindi stammered out.

"Pretty sure you saved me too. We're cool, Cindi." Sam grunted out.

Damn this little blonde thing had a way of slipping right under your skin. How the hell did she do that? Sam could see why Adam was so fixated on her. It wasn't the eyes or the boobs or even the rather charming personality, Cindi just made you feel like she was your best friend with a handful of sentences. No, she was your best friend. She didn't fake that level of caring. Sam felt herself getting jittery, wasn't she supposed to be chasing this little rabbit?

"Speaking of cool, when did you learn to stop being a dorky, know it all brat?" Sam taunted.

Cindi's mouth dropped in mock outrage.

"Around the time you pulled that stick out of your ass, bitch."

"Dweeb."

"Rockhead."

"Virgin."

"Not anymore."

"Fair." Sam admitted. She pointed at the screens again. "So you really know your stuff, huh?"

"Most of it. I uh - used to dream about being a pilot on adventures." Cindi blurted out. "I snuck down to the simulator every night for a year. I love research and it's good job. It is. But there's just something about flying, it makes me feel ..."

"Powerful."

"Yeah"

"It's not easy being a girl. Not even in this family."

"Especially not in this family." Cindi agreed. She looked out into space, mind elsewhere. "Keith wasn't the first to try something, you know. I had some close calls at school. I HATED it, Sam. Being ....weak."

Sam knew the feeling all too well. Most women did unfortunately. She took Cindi's hands in her own. Made a fist.

"I'm strong here." She looked at her fist, then unclenched and tapped Cindi on the head. "You're strong here. I could never do the things you do." Cindi met her eyes for the first time since Sam came in. Whatever she saw in there, it made her face screw up with more love and concern than Sam could bear. It was she who looked away now. She tried to pull her hands back, but Cindi held fast.

"When I call you rockhead-"

"I know I'm not stupid, Cindi. I just... you, your mom, my mom, even Adam, you all have that brain thing you do."

"Brain thing?" Cindi asked?

"Adam told me about it once. It's like you're always thinking, even when you're not trying to. Like a calculator that's spinning in your head, always working, always moving, like an extra brain behind your eyes. I don't have it. And sometimes when my mom looks at me, I think that's all she sees. That missing piece"

Cindi looks her dead in the eye. "There is nothing missing from you Sam.....except you didn't get the family boobs."

Sam bit her lip fighting not to smile. Only for laughter to fight its way up from her belly and erupt. Cindi was laughing too. With her, not at her. With every chuckle she felt some ancient scar tissue loosen from her soul.

"Yeah, what is up with that? You had a bigger bra than me in middle school." Sam managed between the peals of laughter.

"Trust me, your back should be thanking you."

"Trust ME getting mistaken for a boy until you're fifteen, will give you PTSD."

Their laughter finally died off into a few stay chortles. And then they were just two people sitting waaaaaay closer than friends did. Why was SAM feeling nervous all of a sudden? Her heart was pounding, palms sweaty; it felt like Cindi could see right through her. The feeling was great and terrible in equal measure. Like running naked through a crowded park, only a hundred times more intimate. She wanted to cover up. She wanted Cindi to tell her SHE was beautiful. She wanted a thousand things, all at once, but not too fast.

Sam broke away. Looking for any excuse to cover, she pointed to a flashing red light.

"Uhhhh, what's that?"

"Hmmm?" Cindi murmured, still locked on Sam. "I dunno. Uhhhh. LIDAR ...locked?"

A second light joined the first.

INCOMING TORPEDO WARNING

"Oh my God!"

---

Onboard the Kalais, the Quarterback studied the charts and information scrolling rapidly down the wall of his domain. He'd been awake for two days and hadn't even left the ship yet. It felt like a lifetime, but he wasn't going to let this chance slip by. His strategy had to be detailed and thorough, with enough depth to allow him to regroup without retreat for when things went wrong. He had to get them all this time. "Summary, Vic."

"Reliable intel suggests Carter has entered the Dead Worlds. Crisis Team is in pursuit, we've isolated their drive signature and the Kalais is-

"Closer than they are. Tell the Amiral to slow to one quarter speed, we can't get there first or we'll spook them."

"Doing so now." Vic replied. "The Kalais will not be able to hide its approach, and there are likely Tomian fleets to consider. Your personal transport would likely be able to approach unnoticed."

"We'll go in sneaky. But the Kalais needs to be on hand. You heard the Amiral, we need to get this done. If we get lucky, we can kill 'em all with a couple of torpedoes. Besides, nobody would be stupid enough to land on one of those planets.

---

Sam wanted to throw up. Her five point harness was the only thing keeping her in her seat. Nothing was going to keep her lunch in her stomach though."Please don't puke on the screens!" Cindi called out.

"Why did you turn down the inertial dampers?"

"I need to be able to feel the ship, ya know?"

"No. I don't!" Sam shot back as the Invader flipped ass to nose in a heartbeat. Speaking of hearts, Sam's was currently in her throat. Straight in front of them was the ever closing, burning star of a torpedo. "Cindi. The torpedo."

"I can see it."

"Cindi. Torpedo. Cindi. Cindi!"

"Gotcha!" Point defense cannons burst from their concealed hatches and with a heavy rolling brrrrrrrrt, thousands of pieces of burning metal leaped across the voice to splash the torpedo into a molten rain that sprinkled harmlessly across the Invader's bow. "Talk about nova!"

A burst of pops like oversized firecrackers, followed by the whistling of decompressing air cut their celebrations short. Someone was shooting them with an autocannon! Cindi threw the ship into a hard spiral, slipping out of the path of the next salvo.

Cindi flicked the intercom on. "Adam, Aunt Kat, we're under attack. Hunker down in the medbay, there's emergency oxygen there and its sheltered. Strap in, its gonna be rough." She flicked it off as another torpedo warning light came on.

"Two more torpedoes launched, Cindi. They're locked on us. I'm putting the PDCs on auto-track." Sam tried to read the maze of information on the LIDAR screen. "Is it the Tomians?"

"No." Cindi groaned, hunched over the controls. "It's two ships. One's a heavy starfighter, I don't know the type, the other-

She cut off as the Invader went into a hard climb, the steady pop pop pop followed by more whistling, a clear indication she wasn't in a place to talk right now. More lights on the panel lit up.

"Cindi, there's a fire in the upper deck aft and we lost two external cameras and some armor." Sam read off a damage report.

"Vent the atmosphere." Cindi ordered tightly, still dodging autocannon rounds.

Sam **** the emergency bulkheads closed and set the pumps to depressurize. She brought up the external camera feeds and hunted for a picture of the ship hounding them. There! The squat boxy frame and oversized engines were familiar, the four heavy autocannons and oversized cargo pod were not. Didn't matter, she'd seen a hundred of these things at the Starport on Sirius Prime.

"It's a Kiora class shuttle, modified for extra weapons and cargo."

"Keith." Cindi hissed. "That means the Falcon-3 is out there somewhere, lobbing torpedoes at us. That sleazy-ugh!"

"Can we outrun him?"

Cindi shook her head. "We're slower than the torps and less maneuverable than the fighter."

Another pair of torpedoes locked on and began closing. Cindi jerked the Invader out of the path of another one, far enough away that it didn't detonate on proximity. As it snapped around to retarget them, a burst of PDC fire shredded it.

"Splash one." Sam acknowledged. She watched a camera feed as Keith's shuttle dodged around a burst of PDC fire like a graceful dancer. "We can't hit him. What about the other ship?"

"I don't know even know where the Falcon-3 is! Keep the PDCs on defense, if one of those torps gets close, it's over!" Cindi threw the ship 90 degrees on it's side and burned the main drive hard. The first torpedo blew by, but the trailing one corrected just enough to detonated on proximity. There was no sound or fury, just the console flooding with red lights as the shrapnel chewed through their starboard hull. One of the maneuvering thrusters flared and winked out. Cindi dragged their nose around and killed the other torpedo with a burst of fire.

Outside, Keith took advantage of their distraction, diving into their exposed underbelly and unleashing a long barrage that raked the Invaders hull from nose to tail. The ship shuddered and groaned, as armor sloughed off in layers.

"Get a torpedo lock on the shuttle!" Cindi cried desperately as she rolled the Invader, trying to put fresh armor between Keith's bullets and their damaged hull.

"It says we're inside the minimum safety distance for torpedo launch!"

"Turn off the safeties!"

"How!"

"Fucking bullshit training wheels!" Cindi growled. "One of our PDCs is dead."

"I can broadcast a distress signal over wave-comm. Maybe there's someone out there!" Sam scanned the screens desperately. What she wouldn't give for an Alliance navy task **** right now. Or even the Cons. But the scopes were empty.

"No one's out there, Sam. It's just us and Keith and....and...." Cindi trailed off. Sam couldn't see her face, even though the ship kept weaving and juking to dodge Keith's attacks, she'd bet anything that Cindi had that 'wheels turning behind the eyes look'.

"Sam." Cindi risked a glance at her cousin. "Target the Tomians and fire. A half dozen torpedoes should do the trick."

Sam didn't even ask what her cousin was thinking, she locked onto the largest hot blur she could find and sent six torpedoes out to kill it. No sooner had they launched than Cindi put them into a hard burn toward the nearest planet. The acceleration pushed Sam back into her seat. Somewhere near the Invader's midline, the three remaining PDCs fired continuously at Keith and more rapidly approaching torpedoes. Cindi, pried her hands off the flight stick and pulled up weapons controls on her console. She fired off two torpedoes in quick succession, only for them to flip and fall into formation, just beside and trailing the Invader. Cindi was steering one with each hand as the ship's AI randomly juked and dodged to avoid autocannon shells.

"How close are the Tomians?" Cindi didn't look up from her task, sweat pouring off her from concentration. A countdown flashed on the console next to them. 120 seconds.

"The big blur is getting closer, and the little blurs are too." Sam stared at the rapidly decreasing numbers, representing approaching alien ****. "Aren't you worried they're gonna attack us?"

"I'm counting on it." Cindi replied. "Didn't they ever teach you about space combat at the Citadel?"

"Adam was the fleet strategist, I'm a Marine!" Sam shouted back. "Is this really the time for a lesson?"

Cindi ignored her. "Space is really big right? And since there's no atmosphere, things just keep going. So most torpedoes are really shrapnel bombs. Get it close to your target and set off the explosive, it will shred anything with less armor than a destroyer."

Sam could sort of understand the numbers now, the torpedoes were less than a kilometer away. "Should I be happy to hear that you have to flying shrapnel bombs right next to our ship?" Sam croaked.

"Of course not. Only one's standard, the other's a nuke." Cindi replied matter of fact. "Did they target us yet?"

"What?"

"The Tomians. Are they targetting us yet?"

"Not yet." Ahead of them the planet was had changed from a tiny ball to an all view screen filling wall. Meanwhile they had less than sixty seconds before the torpedoes caught them. "Is your plan to crash us into the planet?"

"It's Yaffin!"

"What does that mean?" Sam cried out as the torpedoes ticked closer to 0.

"It's called Ya Fen. It means-

"I don't care what it means!" Sam cried out. Twenty seconds!

"Hold on." Cindi replied. One of her torpedoes, flipped and burned hard away from the Invader, only to explode seconds later. The two trailing torpedoes were shredded, but Cindi wasn't done. The nuclear torpedo fell back as well. Just before she squeezed her eyes closed, the rear cameras erupted into pure white light, then flicked to black as the optics burnt out. She waited for the shockwave to hit....kept waiting, until finally she dared open her eyes.

"What happened?" Sam looked at her cousin. Cindi was killing every systems as fast as she could reach them, her shaking hands betraying the massive surge of adrenaline she was on the wrong side of. She was nearly vibrating by the time she finished. Only then did she speak.

"We-we-we're in stealth mode." Cindi said, as she tried and failed to quiet her tremors. "If-if it works, the radiation from the nuke should m-m-m-mask us from the LIDAR and we'll just float down to Ya Fen."

"Don't we need an engine for that?" Sam felt the deck shudder beneath her feet.

"J-ju-just hit the atmosphere." Cindi stammered. "We can land with thrusters. I've done it before."

Sure enough as LIDAR slowly came back online, no one was chasing them. Even better, Keith was hightailing it out of the system, fleeing a swarm of Tomian fighters.

"P-pr-pretty good, huh, cuz?" Cindi shot her a triumphant smile.

"I'll say. I-

The rest of her reply was cut off, as Cindi dragged Sam into a kiss. Heat and hunger rolled off her tiny cousin in waves as she yanked Sam close to devour her mouth. Their hands scrambled at each other's clothes, fighting to pull them off faster.

A dull clang from the emergency bulkhead broke them free. Sam tried to catch her cousin's lips again, but Cindi slipped away, already flushing red. Her cockblocking cousin's voice came in over the comm.

"Are you guys ok? What the hell happened?"

Sam starred at her delicious little blonde rabbit. The hunt was far from over. And this fox wasn't giving up. Not when the prize was this sweet.

---

"So what's the plan?" Adam asked once they were all gathered in the cafeteria again. "Do we live here now?"

Cindi had tucked their injured ship neatly into the ruins of a gutted parking structure. With a roof over their heads and the reactor running cold, they were all but invisible from orbit.

"I got us to the ground. That was as far as my plan went." Cindi snapped. "You're welcome by the way."

Adam held his hands up in surrender. Cindi was on edge. They all were, but she clearly had it the worst. This little brainstorming session was the first time she'd left the cockpit since they touched down, and from the way she kept glancing to the door, he had a feeling she'd be back there as fast as her little legs could carry her. Sam tried to put a comforting hand on her cousin's shoulder, only for Cindi to startle from her touch. She nearly hissed, then settled back down, noticeably out of her cousin's reach.

Kat broke the silence. "We can't leave until while those Tomians are in orbit. Who knows how long that will be. But we should be safe here. We have food, supplies; we could wait them out, if need be. Good job, hun."

"Thank you for saving us, Cin. That was incredible. You're incredible." Adam agreed and was pleased to see his little girlfriend (sisterfriend?) relax a millimeter, and even flush with a bit a pride, before he continued. "But I don't plan on just waiting."

Sam narrowed her eyes at him. "You're about three 'saved my ass' deep to Cindi and I, right now. How about you lay off the stupid for a bit? Just for fun."

"We need to patch up the ship as soon as possible."

"You can repair the Invader?" Cindi perked up immediately.

"I'm not a licensed mechanic, but I had a lot of practice on my last ship. Damn thing leaked like a sieve."

"We can make repairs from the inside." Sam countered.

"To the inner hull, sure." Adam argued. "But the outer hull needs dead panels cleared away and holes patched, otherwise we could have an explosive blowout the next scrap."

"What about the ventral PDC?" Cindi pleaded with those eyes. "I need that gun Adam!"

Adam shook his head. "That's a harder fix. I'd need some replacement parts. Maybe the ship has them? Probably not though. I suppose it couldn't hurt to look around? See what we can find?"

"Absolutely not!" Sam slammed her hand down. "It's called the Dead Worlds! Have you looked outside? It's scary enough in here, with the lights on."

"There's nothing out there. It's all dead." Adam countered.

"We think!" Sam looked ready to take a swing. "You're not going out there!"

"Are you the Captain now?" Adam stuck his chin out, daring her.

"I'm the girl who just saved your life, and I'm telling you, this is a bad idea."

"We already said we'd go outside-

"Going outside is one thing, going looking for trouble is something else." Sam looked over at Cindi. "Back me up here, please."

"It does sound risky, Adam." Cindi muttered without meeting his eyes.

"What about our next fight? Huh? What are we gonna do, if the ship is half dead? Tell her, Cindi."

"We do need that gun, Sam." Cindi admitted.

"Stop trying to pressure her, asshole. Cindi's with me." Sam retorted.

"Settle down, both of you." Katerina tried, and failed to calm the rapidly boiling over atmosphere.

"Just because you decided you want to rub your junk on her, doesn't mean she belongs to you." Adam snarled.

"Hey!" Cindi shot up, eyes nearly blazing with tears as she ran from the room. "Just leave me out of this. Both of you!"

"Great job, Adam." Sam said flatly.

As he watched his little incestuous lover run out of the room, Adam felt his heart plunge into his feet, but still he pressed on. "We do have to fix this ship, Sam." He said, in a tone that was clearly not suggesting.

"You're not the captain either." Sam pointed out. "You're not just risking your life, you're risking ALL of ours. But it's just your vote against mine, so...."

"I agree with Adam, Sam." Katerina finally admitted. "We'd be foolish to just sit here and wait."

"Of. Fucking. Course." Sam starred daggers at her mother. "Thanks mom. At least you're consistent. Never had my back before. Why start now?" She looked back up at Adam. A hint of something painfully raw crossed her face, just behind the anger. Adam was about to draw her into a hug, when she turned and walked out. "Don't complain when you get your dick bit off, Captain." She called back.

Adam let out an exhausted sigh as she left. Wasn't getting your way supposed to feel good? Kat read his mood like the front page news.

"Welcome to being an parent. You try to do the right thing and then your kids hate you for it."

"Sam's not my kid." Adam slumped against the table.

"I wasn't talking about you." Katerina planted herself in front of him and dragged his chin up. "You're not the one she's mad at. She hates me Adam."

"She doesn't hate you..." Adam trailed off. There wasn't really a good way to describe Sam's feelings toward her mother. The girl had built an entire pathos of feelings toward her mom, like an emotional bomb waiting to go off.

"Don't be too hard on her. She's just worried about you. My advice. Run after her. Give her a kiss on the lips and a slap on the ass. Tell her you love her. Everybody needs to hear those words at least once a day."

"What about you?"

"What's broken between Sam and I, can't be fixed with a few words. I'll be alright. You go ahead."

Adam jogged out the door and was halfway down the hall before he stopped. He could still hear the pain in Aunt Kat's voice. How lonely must it be, to be so unable to bond with your own daughter? He'd make time for Sam later, for now he found himself quietly trotting back the way he came. Inside he found his distraught Aunt, with her knees tucked under her chin, silent tears rolled down her face as she looked up.

Adam almost wished he hadn't seen her like this. It was one more layer of their relationship striped away. This was a woman who changed his diapers. Who taught him the constellations. He'd been inside her before, but this was the first time he'd ever seen her naked. It felt wrong, but if there was one thing he knew, it was that his family were survivors. And to survive, was to change.

He reached down and plucked her into his arms, gently carrying her to bed, just as she'd done for him in reverse, twenty years ago. He stroked her hair and sung gentle lullabies in her ear, slowly luring her out of the storm of emotions she was trapped inside, bringing her back to reality. Back to him. And when her eyes shined through the tears and met his once again, he gently smacked her bottom, gave her a peck on the lips.

"I love you, Katerina." Adam said.

"I love you too, Adam." Kat laughed. "But you are a very dangerous boy. Keep this up and you'll have an army of women in your bed."

---

Cindi was safely in the cockpit again within one minute of leaving the mess. Her breathing normalized by minute two, heart slowed by minute five. The cockpit meant she was in control. Control meant she was safe. She was halfway through her first damage control assessment when Sam dropped into the chair with a huff.

"Can you believe they want to go sightseeing out there?" Sam broke the silence with a rhetorical question. "It's called the Dead Worlds. Emphasis on the Dead part. There's radiation pockets, tectonic activity. Pirates! He's such a stubborn idiot!"

Cindi didn't reply, instead she studied the readout in front of her. They'd lost a handful of thrusters and cameras, in addition to the PDC. There were a handful of spare part lockers for field repairs. The armor would be trickier to source. Especially since losing a chunk of it ruined their stealth profile. Worst case scenario, they might have to cannibalize fresh plates from one area and patch over the worst holes. It would make them even more ****, but without stealth, they were trapped anyway. They couldn't get trapped. Not here. Not anywhere. They had to keep flying. Sam interrupted her train of thought when she started leering rather openly at Cindi.

"Stop it." Cindi muttered.

"Stop what?" Sam's smile was more than a little predatory. "I'm just enjoying the view, beautiful."

Cindi whirled on her cousin. "You're right Sam, you're so fucking right! This planet gives me the fucking creeps. We're all scared. You think Adam wants to go out there? But guess what, our ship is half dead and we're probably gonna have to fight, or run, or fight while we run in the very near future. Great job, telling everyone what we can't do. Guess who doesn't have a plan for what we HAVE to do?" Cindi stabbed a finger straight at Sam's chest. "Oh, and if you have time, maybe you stop fucking trying to get inside my pants for five minutes? We're in a crisis, here."

The room fell into a shocked silence after Cindi's outburst. Cindi's arm was shaking so bad, she had to grab it with the other hand to keep it steady. She dared Sam to call her out on it.

"I'm pretty sure, last time, you kissed me." Sam said instead. "But you're right, there's a time and place. So what do you need, Cindi?"

Cindi finally let her trembling arm drop. "You and Adam really got into it."

"Nah. That's just usual stuff. We rage for five minutes, maybe throw a punch or two, then relax for the rest of the night. Honestly, it's only gotten easier since we started hooking up, the angry sex is almost better than the makeup sex....." She bit her lip. "Sorry. Too much information?" Cindi shook her head. She always thought she might find it repulsive to think of her boyfriend (what did she call Adam, the term 'lover' seemed archaic, on the other hand, 'muscular sex ****', had its appeal) with other women. But hearing Sam describe it with Adam felt...good. Really good actually. "Anyway, with him and me, fighting and talking is all good. It's when things are quiet that you got to worry." Sam gave her a sidelong glance. "What about you?"

"It's not really like that for me and Adam." Cindi muttered. "Ummm. He's more like a big teddy bear. Except sometimes he just attacks me and...I like it." She flushed as flashes of the various times they'd made love danced through her cerebellum, including in the very chair she sat in. It had been too long since she'd fallen asleep in his arms well fucked and warmed by his hot flesh. "But mostly the teddy bear thing. And I think I forgot how much I love talking to him. I used to tell Adam everything that every happened to me and....You weren't talking about that. Oh god, I'm rambling again!"

"I was actually asking if I needed to worry about you?"

"Me, why?"

"Well for one thing, just now was first time I've seen you calm since we rescued Adam. You've been spending more and more time in the cockpit."

"Someone has to fly the ship." Cindi shot back defensively.

"Cindi, you're shaking. Right now. You're shaking." Sam announced gently.

Cindi willed her treacherous limbs to still and her heart to slow. Neither obeyed her. "Ever since we left Thiidian, I can't stop feeling we're in danger. More and more and more."

"You could wear one of his shirts again." Sam offered.

"The one I took doesn't smell like him anymore." Cindi admitted. "I wore it to sleep every night and now..."

Sam hesitated. "You know, if you want to go back to his bed, it's okay. I know we said we'd figure this whole thing out first, but...."

"Sisters, not misters, right Big Sam? I can wait." Cindi smiled. "You should get at LEAST one more free pass though."

"Why?" Sam looked genuinely confused.

"I kinda ran up the score, while we were flying to Thiidian."

"It doesn't work like that Cindi." Sam brushed it off. "If we're gonna share him-

Sam suddenly cut herself off with an aghast look. They'd never actually said it out loud, never defined just how they were going to work out their love triangle.

Cindi summoned up her courage and met Sam's eyes. Blue gazing into brown. "We're gonna share him, Sam. He's gonna be ours. All ours." Cindi didn't answer the unspoken question of whether they'd be sharing each other as well, but Sam smiled anyway.

"Well like I said, we can't just keep track of how many times we sleep with him and the other person has to match it. I'll probably use him a LOT. I get pretty horny. So let's just agree, no keeping score."

"Okay." Cindi answered.

"Great." Silence.

"Besides, how many times could you have done it anyway? You said you were a virgin, and it was only-"

"We had sex thirty four times."

"What?"

"What?" Cindi tried to keep her face innocent.

"You counted? And you're thirty points up on me?"

"I thought we weren't keeping score!"

"That was before you beat me to the punch thirty times over! Your God damn right, I get a free pass." Sam laughed incredulously. "When did you even have time to eat?"

Cindi was laughing too now. "Sometimes we ate off each other."

For at least a few hours, the terror and anxiety that had been gripping her soul, fell away, and Cindi wasn't some fugitive on the run with a secret lover and a stolen, half ruined ship. She was just a girl, enjoying her night with a friend.