Page 2 of Naughty List Delivery
Shit. She’s going for the guilt approach, and it’s working. Because I do know what it’s like to lose everything. To watch the only good thing in your life slip away because you were too stupid or scared or principled to hold onto it.
“When do I leave?”
“Now. Christmas Eve deadline—seventy-two hours to complete all three deliveries.” The softness disappears, replaced by Mother’s usual granite efficiency. “Don’t screw this up, girl. These families are counting on you.”
No pressure or anything.
Twenty minutes later I’m aboard the Wandering Star, running pre-flight like my life depends on it. Because it probably does. My ship’s not much—a beaten-up Kestrellion with more patches than original hull—but she’s clean. No hidden compartments, no illegal mods, no weapons that aren’t on the manifest.
She’s everything I used to hate: honest, reliable, boring as recycled air.
“Morning, Noomi,” PIP chirps as I strap in. My AI’s got a voice like synthetic honey and the personality of an overenthusiastic puppy. “Ready for another thrilling day of legitimate commerce?”
“Watch that sass, PIP. Just because I went straight doesn’t mean I forgot how to reprogram snarky AIs.”
“Noted. Plotting course for Kepler-7b terraforming station. Estimated travel time: four hours, seventeen minutes.”
The cargo bay holds three sealed containers marked with priority Christmas delivery codes that make my palms sweat. Whatever’s inside, someone thinks it’s worth more than my ship, my life, and probably my soul. Christmas wrapping is visiblethrough transparent sections of the containers—bright red and green packages that could contain anything from children’s toys to family heirlooms. The biometric locks gleam like promises, and everything’s stamped with routing codes that could buy a small planet.
So why do I feel like I’m running contraband again?
Because you’re paranoid, I tell myself as the Star clears Junction’s traffic control. Two years of looking over your shoulder will do that.
The hyperspace jump should take four hours. Four hours of silence, of fighting memories that taste like stolen champagne and promises we were too young to keep. The comm’s cycling through Christmas music—ancient Earth songs about peace and goodwill and coming home for the holidays.
Last Christmas with Ober cuts through me like fresh vacuum. We’d hit some corporate exec’s private transport, liberated enough “presents” to buy a small moon. But we kept that one bottle of Altarian ice wine—crystal-blue and cold as starlight.
“To us,” he’d whispered, his alien heat warming my back as twin moons painted his skin silver through the viewport. The soft fur along his jaw had tickled my throat when he’d leaned down to kiss me. “The universe owes us this much.”
Three months later, I learned the universe keeps better books than we thought.
The proximity alarm jerks me back to reality just as my long-range sensors pick up something that turns my blood to slush. A ship’s been shadowing my route, staying just at detection range like a whisper of bad intentions.
Professional work. The kind that takes skill, patience, and intimate knowledge of how prey thinks.
The kind I used to do.
I adjust course slightly—just a minor deviation that could be explained by asteroid drift. The contact mirrors my movement with mathematical precision.
Whoever’s following me knows my ship, knows my capabilities, knows how I think. They’re not hiding anymore. They’re herding me.
Could be coincidence. Could be corporate security. Could be—
The Star drops out of hyperspace into a trap.
The ship waiting for me is painted the color of dark wine and built like seduction wrapped in violence. The Shadowhawk—sleek, deadly, beautiful in the way that sharp things are beautiful right before they cut you. Modified Raptor-class with military-grade engines that purr with barely contained hunger, enhanced shielding that bends sensor readings like light through water, and weapon signatures that make my instruments scream warnings in three different languages.
My hands shake on the controls. Two years of nightmares, two years of jumping at dark ships on scanners, two years of telling myself he’d moved on.
I should’ve known Ober Kraine doesn’t move on. He obsesses.
The comm crackles with a voice like dark honey poured over broken glass. “Hello, Nova. Permission to come aboard?”
His weapons are locked on my engines with surgical precision. We both know I can’t outrun him—not when he taught me half the tricks I know. But I could try. Punch the hyperdrive and pray my modifications are enough.
Except that means abandoning the packages. Abandoning the families counting on me to bring Christmas home.
The old Nova would’ve run without a second thought. The new Noomi doesn’t abandon people.
