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something other than the Imojenna ’s bulkheads. We’ve still got a few weeks of traveling, and I don’t want you flipping out because you’ve gone shipbound crazy.”
    She shot him an even look over the rim of her cup. “The concept of ‘fresh air’ is a psychological one. There’s nothing wrong with the air on this ship. And I assure you, I am not in danger of flipping out .”
    “Do you have some weird phobia about going out in unfamiliar places?” He leaned down and braced his hands against the surface of the table in a way that would have intimidated anyone else. But apparently it did crap-all to unsettle Ella. “Are you going to make me order you to leave my ship for a few damned hours, princess ?”
    She inclined her head. “It is your prerogative to do so if you feel it is strictly necessary.”
    Always so damned correct. She never said a thing wrong, her words and tone designed to soothe and beguile whatever poor moron she was talking to.
    He straightened and crossed his arms. “The weather where we’re going on Nadira is a balmy eighty-five degrees, so when we land, you’re going to go for a nice long walk and take in some of that fresh air you don’t need.”
    Ella inclined her head, expression serene as though she didn’t care either way…which just jacked his temper like usual. He spun and stalked out of the galley, back up to the bridge without the drink he’d intended on getting. Not that it mattered; he wanted something hard-core, and water just wasn’t going to cut it.
    “Any messages?” he asked Lianna as he slid back into his seat and glanced over the landing data displayed on his screen.
    In his peripheral vision, he caught the exasperated look she sent him.
    “No, Lieutenant Marshal Mae Petros has not contacted us yet. If she had, I would have told you right away. Just like the other half dozen times you asked.”
    Goddamn. He leaned back in his chair, shoving his hair back from his forehead and then dragging a hand down his face. Mae was several hours overdue for contact. He didn’t even know if she’d made it to her fake posting on the Swift Brion .
    Had something happened to her already? Maybe he shouldn’t have sent her after Graydon. Mae was good—the woman could definitely take care of herself and then some. But the Reidar weren’t exactly a rogue soldier, black-market trader, or pirate. They were a whole other level of psychopathic. They’d proven that time and again, especially when they’d recently tried to steal his ship. Which just so happened to be when Zander had been onboard for a short passage.
    At the time, he’d taken it for coincidence and nothing more. But after finding Zander on the Reidar list of names, he’d started thinking and hadn’t liked what he’d come up with.
    Sure, Zander had stood shoulder to shoulder with him and held the line when the group of aliens had stormed the ship to kidnap Ella, but had the guy been placed there by the chief Reidar scumbag to gather information? But if that had been a fake Zander alien, why not snatch Ella? The guy had stayed on the ship for another entire rotation after they fended off the attack. An entire rotation when he could have gathered jezus knew what intel on Rian and his crew.
    He took a breath to shove the futile rage back down.
    The lack of perspective was starting to do his head in. Which was why he needed Mae to come through and deliver Zander to him. And if she didn’t contact them soon, he was going to have to make some hard choices. Forget his plans for Barasa, turn the ship around to go after Mae, and piss off his sister—and probably the entire crew—when he broke his pseudo-promise to Tannin about following up on his friend’s disappearance? Or hope Mae had a handle on things and stayed his course?
    With people disappearing all over the place, was this unofficial war he’d declared costing too much?
    He could count on one hand the number of people outside his ship he trusted, and Mae was