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was filled with a sudden panicked thought.
     
    Did I log out of Humphries’s computer?
     
    He took a deep breath.
     
    Held it.
     
    And kept walking, forcing himself to keep a slow, easy stride.
     
    Fuck it. It’s too late to turn back now.
    ~ * ~
     
    5
     
     
    WELCOME TO THE SRV-66
     
     
     
     
    Annie sat down on the—for her—oversized seat and looked at the massive, intimidating control board in front of her.
     
    Considering the size of the board, it always amazed her that the SRV actually had something that resembled a steering wheel.
     
    That this ... vehicle could take people across the galaxy, and if you held the wheel, and sat back in the pilot’s seat, you might think you were driving an Italian sports car.
     
    Except sports cars didn’t come with a panel full of lights, switches, a bank of holoscreens, computer readouts, and a “Heads-Up Display.”
     
    Then another part of that thought.
     
    And I actually know how to drive this.
     
    Even more amazing.
     
    She liked this moment—sitting in the chair, ready to run through her pre-journey checklist, minutes away from following Mobius Control’s checkout procedure.
     
    For these few moments, the SRV was all hers.
     
    And then Jordan entered the cockpit, hurrying up the steps from the passenger and baggage area below. He had to bow his head to avoid hitting it against the overhang.
     
    “How we looking?” he asked.
     
    She turned to him.
     
    “Not too shabby.”
     
    She waited to see if Jordan got it. That hint of innuendo. Jordan was mighty quiet but also very easy on the eyes.
     
    He seemed, though, oblivious or else willfully ignorant of such things.
     
    Innuendo? Not in his vocab.
     
    She turned back to the SRV control board and threw some switches, watching the displays change as the ship powered up. A faint hum filled the cockpit.
     
    “All good. Think we have some time before Control begins checking us out.”
     
    Jordan sat down in his chair, resting his hands on the console.
     
    SRVs didn’t normally travel with copilots. Annie imagined that was because an SRV was really more like a bus or a truck, or interstellar cab. Why have a copilot?
     
    But they always traveled with gunners.
     
    She also knew that Jordan, from both experience and training, could—in a pinch—operate the vehicle.
     
    And when they were between portals, there wasn’t much to do except keep the SRV centered on the ribbony twists of road, activating small jets that sprouted from all around the vehicle, little bursts that kept the SRV squarely in the center of the “road” even as it twisted and turned through hyperspace.
     
    Despite the hundreds of lights and switches, the thing wasn’t really that hard to operate.
     
    Jordan started toggling switches.
     
    Checking his guns...
     
    For a few minutes, Annie didn’t say anything. Then Jordan turned to her.
     
    “I’m going to check the main,” he said.
     
    The main.
     
    The massive gun at the rear of the SRV had a 360 view of the area around the vehicle.
     
    A holovid screen in front of the gunner’s seat showed the pod that housed the main. Smaller screens had panoramic views from the SRV, now looking down on the launch platform.
     
    Jordan could operate all the gun remotes from the cockpit, even the big main.
     
    But if anything happened, she knew Jordan would go back there, strap into the narrow seat at the rear, to be a hands-on gunner, and operate it from there.
     
    She knew that, having seen it happen.
     
    Jordan wanted to hold those controls in his hands and swing around in the seat, tracking whatever he targeted.
     
    And whatever he targeted almost always got hit. Annie couldn’t remember any misses when they were on the same flight, but she figured there had to have been one or two.
     
    Not that Jordan would ever admit it.
     
    She asked him once, after she saw him blast some Runners who thought they could get the jump on her small SRV.
     
    “You do that... go back