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have to buy them. Tell him that later.
    And then Javier’s back flexed. Zakhar couldn’t think of a better term to describe it. It he had been a cat, it would have been that moment when they arch their back and puff all the fur out.
    It had that same feel to it.
    He considered saying something, but he was afraid Aritza would realize that he was being watched so closely and clam up more. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t liked and respected. Javier was just a loose cannon on a pitching deck. A good Captain paid attention.
    The profanity, only sort of quietly muttered over there, got attention from more people than just him. Several heads turned.
    Javier repeated the word. Louder this time. He still hadn’t looked up from his screens.
    Zakhar watched Javier’s head come up so that he was staring at the bulkhead beyond his station. Then it cocked to one side. Then it bent back down. Looking at the screen.
    Javier repeated the word a third time, this one more of an incredulous whisper.
    It was amazing how much of a conversation you could have, inflecting a single profanity different ways.
    Javier turned, realized he had an entire audience.
    “Captain,” he said mildly, “you won’t believe this…”
    Zakhar agreed internally. Little that happened on this ship, especially when either of those two was involved, was believable to outsiders. And sometimes to crew.
    He fixed Javier with his Command Eye. It made him feel like an evil wizard, eyeing his realm. And it usually worked, on the rest of the crew.
    “Mister?” he replied, aloof, supernatural. The Captain.
    “So A’Nacia has a single moon,” the Science Officer began, pitching his voice into storytelling mode.
    That was never a good sign with Aritza.
    “I’m aware of that,” Zakhar continued. Easier to just let Javier run.
    “It’s not as big as the homeworld’s is, but it is still significant,” Javier kept up his patter. “And because it is there, there are LaGrange points. Nice, happy little pockets in the gravity web where something will stay put after you leave it.”
    “Navigation 101, Aritza,” Sykora called from across the way. She was apparently feeling feisty today.
    “And as a rule,” he continued, ignoring the agent provocateur , “I scan those as soon as possible, looking for things other people thought might be interesting enough to park there.”
    “Go on,” Zakhar said. Javier had his own pace for this sort of thing.
    “Most of the ships out here are just pieces or shells. Nothing that looks really valuable until we board some of them and take inventory. However, there is something interesting in the trailing LaGrange point.”
    “Define interesting,” Zakhar’s bad feeling had nothing to do with horror movie results. Javier was too much a sarcastic jokester.
    Javier’s smile probably would have chilled a lesser Captain to the core. He kept expecting the man to crack his knuckles ominously.
    “Well, sir,” Javier’s smile grew, “there’s a ship over there. It’s an older model, but even the design is a century later than the battle that was fought here. After the minefield.”
    “So somebody else did the same thing we did and got here earlier. And?” Zakhar felt like the straight man here, but anything else would just slow it down. Nothing was dangerous or shooting at them, or Javier would have been acting more professional.
    “It has power,” Javier said simply.
    “Oh.”
    There really wasn’t much more to say at that point.

Part Three
    “One of these days,” Javier ranted gloomily, “I’m going to learn to keep my big mouth shut.”
    “Ooh, can I sell tickets to that?” Sykora smiled down at him sweetly. “I’d be rich.”
    That woman had a knack. She just seemed to know instinctively where all his buttons were, and how far she could push them without making him do something about it.
    He decided to talk to her boobs instead of her face. Craning his head back got old, anyway.
    “For you, maybe never,”