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Starship pilot who isn’t.

Six re-emerges through the hatch onto the cramped bridge, swearing in several languages.

"How bad is it?" Anya asks, tossing over a ration pouch.

Six catches it and takes a long swig before answering. "Fucked, is how bad. That missile the Blowjob Brothers hit us with had a bio payload, one of those engineered slime molds the fucking Accordance use for sabotage ops. Kill to know how the hell the bastards got their hands on that shit... Anyway, it ate half the engine before I could vent it, plus I think some of it might've gotten into the fuel lines, so I'm gonna have to empty the tanks, decontaminate the fuel, flush the whole system before I can even start on repairs..." She does some quick mental math. "Five days."

"Five days?"

"Five days for me. Anyone else, it'd take a couple weeks."

"So we're out, then." Anya slumps forward in her seat, forehead against the dashboard. "Even at max speed, we'll just barely beat the last stragglers to Eris XIII. No first-place finish, no grand prize, no money to pay off the Ocelot before he harvests my organs..." She turns her head slightly, looking at Six out of one eye. Times like this, Six always has some sort of miracle waiting in her back pocket. Maybe, just maybe...

"How much do you know about nullspace drives?"

Anya sits upright slowly. "I know they're fast. And I know they're ridiculously illegal in pretty much every inhabited system. Six, you didn't –"

"One of my guys had a find. I'd been wanting to try one out. Didn't have any other ship I could install it into. You wanted fast, this whole race is illegal anyway, figured it couldn't hurt."

"The Andromeda Run is suspended pilot license illegal, not summary execution illegal! 'Couldn't hurt' my ass, why the fuck would you..." Anya pauses, takes a breath. In... Hold... Out... In... Hold... Out.

"... Anyway. Fine. Here we are, out of options, you win. And it's ready to go?"

"As soon as I get the engines up and running. Should be fast enough to make up for a five-day lead, if we really push it."

Anya pinches the bridge of her nose. "Okay. Sure. Sounds like a plan."

Six tosses her empty ration pouch into a waste chute and disappears back down into the engine room. Anya pulls up her offline library, and starts looking for anything that'll help her operate the bombshell she's been unknowingly sitting on all week.

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Demon who was once worshiped as a god, but whose name is now forgotten.