Kevin's Watch

At this time, we know how Agnus acquired Morn and how why they hate each other.
Agnus is a pirate; Morn a UMCP cop.
But both are murderers - whether deliberately or by accident.

In this short chapter, Agnus starts to turn his attention away from his pleasurable actions with Morn
and focuses it towards the needs of his damaged ship The Bright Beauty.

"He was risking too much. Granted that his treatment of Morn Hyland felt as good as he said it did,
it still wasn't worth the risk of remaining stationary, hidden, without repairs."

Since he hasn't been with a woman like this before, she was all he could think of...
but Agnus is starting to come back to reality.

" Therefore it was stupid to remain where he was, risking himself to gain nothing."

From here, things to hinge on desperation. I feel that this whole chapter is about desperation.

"He was almost ready to summon her for her first lesson when a small blip on his sceen began flashing."

This set Agnus in a near panic.
Had he sat in waiting too long?
Did another UMCP ship discover where he was hiding?
Is Bright Beauty in danger of a hull breach?
No, it was Morn in sickbay. She is trying to find a way out from Agnus' hold on her.

"Morn Hyland was no novice. They taught her well in the Academy. During the few seconds he spent identifying the alert,
she succeeded in reprogramming the sickbay computer.
Her instructions copied across his screen. She was telling the sickbay to give her a lethal injection of nerve-juice."

She hated her situation so much that she is attempting suicide.
Agnus desperately races to sickbay and at the same time, pushes the controls on the zone-implant remote to put Morn into a catatonic state.
But Morn had planned things ahead. Things are in motion and she had strapped herself down on the berth.

"The fact that she was now blank as a disconnected circuit couldn't save her from the cybernetic probe
which reached toward her from sickbay's equiptment bank, aiming its needle for the vein in the side of her neck."

However, Agnus arrives just in time to launch himself at the cybergenic arm and snap off the needle with his fingers.
Breaking the needle stopped the probe and halts the computer's program.

Enraged by Morn's suicide attempt, Agnus raises his hand to strike her.
That's when he seen where the needle scratched his finger.
Scratched deep enough to draw blood.
And that meant nerve-juice may have gotten into his blood when he carelessly snapped off the needle from the probe!

"Desperation was almost normal for him."

Acting on this desperation, Agnus unstrapped Morn and flung her onto the floor so he can get up on the berth
and programmed the sickbay's computer to counter-act the lethal dose.
A close call!

Agnus never does strike Morn, even after what she had done.
I think this is where he starts to have some positive feeling towards Morn.

"Maybe he'd accomplished something wonderful by making her desperate enough to attempy suicide."

Once the treatment is over, Agnus makes a few threats towards Morn and then tells her: "I want you to start earning your keep."
as he heads back to the command module.

"He still wasn't sure why he hadn't hit her. Must have been the effect of the cat.
Or the possibility that soon she might be desperate enough to fall in love with him."

Nice work.

I think it is Angus who wants to convince Morn that they are both murderers. I don't think of Morn as a murderer, myself. She had zero control over her actions. Gap sickness took over. She couldn't even recall what she did. Her actions did kill, but there was no way she could have known or predicted her gap sickness.