Wed to the Rim Captain

The mining station owed the Rim Vanguard eleven years of ore and no money. So they paid with me. I'm the best structural engineer on the Kestrel. Now I'm the bride in a treaty, married in a docking bay, to a captain who recites the contract instead of vows. Captain Rhosk has two years to produce an heir. He regards me as an assignment. I regard his flagship as a structurally unsound death trap. I filed a repair request. It was denied. I fixed it anyway. When the ore deck breaches and my patch holds, Rhosk has to defend me to his own command — and the cost of that defense is higher than either of us expected. Because back home, the council is quietly selling my contract to a rival clan. Rhosk can keep the treaty, or he can keep me. He picks me. Now the Vanguard is in open revolt, the rival clan is at the door, and I have forty-one hours to reinforce a hull and write a new contract in my own hand. I didn't sign up for this marriage. I'm about to renegotiate it.