Read Online Drifters' Alliance, Book 2 by Elle Casey - Free Book Online Page A

and reading stress into anything I hear.
    He breaks my concentration by adding to his last transmission. “Listen, I’m uh, running a little short on water. Any chance you’d be willing to stock me up?”
    Baebong’s head shakes no, but he doesn’t look at me. Jeffers turns his chair to observe my next move.
    The alarm bells are ringing like crazy in my head again. If he needs water, he’s going the wrong way.
    “Water’s in short supply everywhere, in case you haven’t heard. Why are you headed away from it if you’re short?”
    Jeffers nods and turns around to watch the PC through the clearpanel. I feel as though he’s approved my transmission, and I’m annoyed that it makes me want to smile in satisfaction and self-pride. He’s not your parent or your superior. Stop seeking his approval.
    Captain Bob doesn’t answer right away, which only serves to heighten my sense of foreboding. “Lock onto his position with the junk vaporizers,” I say to my lieutenant after muting the comm. “We can at least knock him off that trajectory. Give us some more personal space.”
    Baebong speaks facing the clearpanel, his hand hovering over his array. “You want an actual lock? Because you know he’ll get an alert if he has his sensors up.”
    “Yes, I know that, thanks. And of course, not an actual lock. Just visual. Be cool about it. We don’t have enough power to vaporize him, anyway. I just want to deflect him or anything that he might be stupid enough to send our way.” Battling with those puny vaporizers is not an optimal setup, but Baebong and his cohorts haven’t had enough time to outfit our ship with anything better, and our shields aren’t that great against certain weapons this guy could be packing, so this is all I have to work with. I’m hoping I won’t have to use the stuff at all.
    “Oh, I have enough water to last me,” says Captain Bob. “Just thought I’d take the opportunity to top my levels.”
    Now he’s just pissing me off. A frigging vulture is just what I need in my life right now. “Well, we’re not exactly full ourselves, so how about I top my levels with what you’ve got?”
    “Now, now, no need to get all riled up. It was just a simple question.”
    All I keep thinking is that I have a ship to clean, crewmember mysteries to figure out, a hull to outfit with equipment, and a whole entire plan to come up with if the Alliance doesn’t accept us into their ranks, not to mention the issue of whether our universe is about to change in some fundamental way with the OSG hovering around all the water supplies. I don’t have time for this game he’s playing, whatever it is. And I’m pretty sure there is a game being played here, I just don’t know why I’m at the table or what the stakes are. Time to call his bluff.
    “Bugger off, Captain Bob. We’re not interested.”
    Jeffers turns to me with his eyebrows up in his hairline.
    I shrug at his shocked reaction. Maybe I should have been more professional about it, but I’ve learned that getting right to the heart of the matter tends to speed along the things that were going to happen anyway.
    “Now, that’s just downright rude, young lady. You don’t own this piece of the Dark, do you? No, you don’t. So, with that in mind, I think I’ll just hunker right down here in this spot and stay a spell. How d’ya like that?” His ship straightens out and suddenly starts acting like a well-manned Dark vehicle.
    I smile. Now we’ll see where this is really going . “The Dark is big enough that you don’t need to be parked at my front door. We have first comer’s rights to these coordinates. Stay near my ship, and I’ll consider that an act of aggression. You have one minute to bug off. Remain a minimum of two hundred klicks away if you want that hull of yours to remain whole.” There’s no weapon or listening device he could possibly have on that ship that’ll affect me from more than a hundred klicks away, but I like having a