I hate being afraid. I can run, I can fight, I can bleed, no matter. Fear, though...

  Fear is the mind killer. It will make you forget the details that keep you alive. That's why I'd always called my ship the Bucket. Bucket of Ice, Bucket of Dice, Bucket of Gold. That was the one we were broadcasting at the moment, using hacked trans-space validation codes listing our home port as Aisin.

  Either way, it was the Bucket. Allowed me to react when someone said the name. Same with Jake. It could become Jakob, Jander, Joachim. I'd once had a navy code-id stating my name was Manuhuran Rodain, and Jake was a nickname. I'd trained myself to react to Jake.

  So that I could run. And now I was going back into Syndicate territory.

  Crudmunging stupid.

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  Except that there were Kylians down there. People Riina and her crew might know, or have relatives who knew. Maybe they even were relatives. And Riina was good people. Very good people. The best.

  She could have paid me off and let me go. She could have seized the Bucket and left me behind, and kept Hao with a job offer. Hao might even have accepted.

  Instead, Riina had taken me on, and Hao had stayed.

  Good people. There were too few of them in the galaxy. Far too few.

  But there could be more. People I could trust. Should trust.

  Another chunk of my ego-armor broke away, this one evaporating before it could hurt. There could be more good people in the galaxy. I could bring them back from Remba.

  The smell of smoky black tea brought me out of my reverie. Without thinking, I took the steaming cup from Hao's hands with steady fingers, staring out the Bucket's high-tempered quartz viewports. Remba's star was a tiny, bluish dot in the distance.

  "You good?" Hao said.

  "I'm fine," I said, surprising myself by meaning it. "I just had to remember what I was fighting for." I saluted her with the tea. The surface barely rippled. "Thanks," I said.

  Hao held out a fist and I bumped it.

  "Let's go to Remba," I said.