Chapter 3

Book was intrigued, either Pei was bluffing or she was more than she appeared to be. Then he remembered she had plastered his primary target’s brains all over the back wall of the bar. “So how do you know how to pilot a star ship?”

Ju Pei smiled, “If you’re going to be a closed book, so shall I.”

Book rubbed his temple, “But it doesn’t make sense why would you give up flying to work in a dive?”

“I guess you’re just going to have to wrap your head around that one by yourself then.”

Knowing he wasn’t going to get anywhere he went to the galley. He opened a few cans and began making a stew. A few minutes later Pei wandered in from the living quarters.

“What are you making? It smells horrible.”

“I uhh.”

“Move over. One can eat to survive, but I’d like to survive eating.”

She shooed him out of his own galley so he ended standing in the doorway watching. She moved with the grace and conservation of movement of someone who had worked in the cramped quarters of a ships galley before.

Book puzzled trying to figure out her past. She must have worked on a long haul freighter in her youth. Once she became pregnant she decided she couldn’t raise a child in deep space, so she decided to settle on a planet. But unless she had ended up destitute somehow why would she have chosen a hole like Regina. He imagined a barefoot young woman in rags clutching her child to her chest disembarking from a spaceport with no money to speak of and everything she owned in a worn shoulder bag.

A few minutes later she finished the meal and slid out the dining table and stools from the bulkhead. “Supper’s ready! Oh… I didn’t think you were still in here. Were you standing there watching me like some hwoon dahn?”

He ignored her, “My ship… oh and if I do recall you mentioned something about poison earlier?”

She nodded and sat. Book took his seat across from the mysterious woman and spooned up some of the mixture. After nearly scalding his tongue, he found the food to be quite good. “H