Blood Will Tell by Christine Pope

after explosion shook the vehicle, followed by waves of black smoke. By the time it had cleared, Miala could see that the ore processor had been completely flattened.  
    Miala slowly let out a breath, and then shook her head. There was something very odd about being in the middle of a conversation with a person and then having that person suddenly snuffed out of existence. Not that the universe would miss Rafe Darlester, she thought, but it was still a peculiar sensation. One minute he had been there, and the next—
    And the next there had been nothing but static. Static and smoke. But at least he was gone, and that meant one less thing for her and Eryk Thorn to worry about.
    She looked up and he was suddenly there, pausing in the doorway to the guard chamber.
    “Nice shooting,” she commented.
    He shrugged. “They were an easy target. Hadn’t even bothered with particle shielding.”
    “How did you know?”
    “I analyzed the data from the first attack. Sloppy. Then again, most land-based attackers don’t use torpedoes, so I suppose they weren’t out of line in thinking they were safe.” The black eyes glinted at her, his amusement showing in the slight crinkles at the outer corners. “You did a good job of keeping Darlester talking.”
    “Well, it’s easy when you’ve got someone who likes the sound of his own voice.” She stood, feeling suddenly awkward, and pushed her loose hair back over her shoulders. “Of course, he also liked what I was promising him.”
    “Which was?”
    “Forty-five cases of silk and about a quarter-million in loose change.”
    “No wonder he wanted to go on talking.”
    Miala crossed her arms, and fixed Eryk Thorn with what she hoped was a no-nonsense stare. “Well, I had to keep feeding him what he wanted to hear, considering how long it took you to finally get it together.”
    He lifted an eyebrow. “Ever been on a spaceship?”
    “No—so what?”
    “Even the fastest ship takes a few minutes to power up. You can’t force some things.”
    Once again, he was right. Whenever she was around Thorn, Miala seemed to be constantly reminded of how little she actually knew about how the galaxy worked, of how sheltered her life had really been. It was not a feeling she enjoyed. For the first time she realized she had always thought of herself as—how had Thorn put it?—a big fish in a little pond. She’d always considered herself superior to the denizens of Aldis Nova, people whom she’d considered to be narrow-minded at best and positively backward at worst. It humbled her to realize how insignificant she really was.
    “Miala.”
    She lifted her head to look at him. Someone who hadn’t spent the last week watching his face would have thought there was no expression on those dark features, but she knew better. There was approval in his eyes, approval and growing respect. Once again he had set a task for her, and she had not been found wanting. She had a feeling that it was no easy thing to earn Eryk Thorn’s respect.
    “I suppose we’d better get back to work,” she said, and at that he actually smiled.
    “I had something a little different in mind,” he replied, and held out his hand.
    She took it, wondering what was going to come next. She should have known.
    “I hate being interrupted,” he said, pulling her toward him.
    Once again his mouth met hers, and she let herself fall into the embrace, letting him surround her, become her universe, until nothing else mattered. She had only an intellectual understanding of what drowning was, but she thought dimly that this must be what it felt like—to swirl down into darkness, to feel nothing but the pounding of your heart in your breast, the pulse of blood in your ears and throat.
    Finally he let her go, and she stepped back, gasping a little.
    He smiled a bit, just that small lift at the corner of his mouth, then said, “ Now we get back to work.” And with that he turned and headed back out into the corridor, obviously