Chapter 43

CHAPTER 43

THREXIN

T hrexin had spent each night since their return to terms in Alina Argoud's cabin. The positive effect the smaller space had on his sleep quality could not be overstated. Except he knew well enough by now that the smaller space accounted for only some of the change.

It was her. Every morning that he crept quietly from her cabin and ducked into the nearest blood passage to avoid detection, he counted the ticks to being back there with her pressed firmly against him. The physical draw of her aside, once it was all set and done she made him sleep like a hakstone.

She had begun an extremely inconvenient topic four nights before, when she had asked about uhyre mating processes. She was his—he knew that much, and had been forced to recognize it.

But her loyalty was with her people. She had clearly known something about the dockmaster. She had warned him as best she could, but she did not say all. Threxin had a cohort to lead and care for, and their respective loyalties were a wedge he was not yet sure could be overcome. A vaccine could go a long way to overcoming it, but it had not yet been developed .

No… There were too many unknowns to make Alina promises or proclamations. Threxin was only certain of one thing: he would protect Alina Argoud until the ends of the universe, whether she was with him or not. And in the meantime he would be selfish and sleep at her side and spend hours consuming every part of her body except those that he craved most.

It was becoming harder to resist the increasing urge to take her everything as her touch ignited him… Her mouth, her cunt, her ass. But mostly her cunt… That foreign undulating channel that clamped tight around his fingers.

Threxin willed himself to focus as he buckled into the commander's seat and held his wrist up for the sampler. Renza was already there. It was the day of the supply delivery.

He had banished all humans from the command bay save the comms specialist, whose human voice he would require to speak with the incoming ship.

The night before, Alina Argoud had talked about making herself present in the arrival dock on the common residence deck to "keep an eye out for anything weird," a prospect Threxin had shut down immediately. If "anything weird" were to happen, Alina Argoud would be as far from it as possible.

She had recognized his command too readily to be believed, however. That was why upon quietly leaving her cabin that morning, Threxin had Colossal lock her door. Her subsequent chimes through her comms bracelet were difficult to ignore, but he had a delivery to focus on.

The cargo ship was a pulsing dot projected on the hull of the thermaview.

When the supply vessel identified as A025-Kirk made its seal with his Colossal , Threxin had made clear via the comms officer that only one crew member was permitted to dock. He kept the vid feed of the CRD dock up, watching intently for the slightest suspicious move.

The human female who emerged from the entry seal was hidden behind her helmet and a full black and orange suit. Threxin expected she would remove it at some point, but that time never came. She walked at a sharp clip to the dockmaster's office with a tablet in hand. Once inside, Threxin piped the feed from the cam he'd activated there to the thermaview, the mic feed going only to his earpiece.

"Sign this." The woman's voice was muffled behind her helmet. A moment later, an exasperated sigh. "No NS?"

"Network issue," the dockmaster, a stout man, said. He'd better not let the arrival notice his shaky voice.

The helmeted woman cocked her head for a moment, then tapped something out on her tablet. Her gloved finger prodded at the screen. "Transfer down too?"

"Like I said, it's a network issue."

"Uh-huh," she hummed, lifting her helmet to look at him. Threxin's spikes twitched, analyzing micromovements he had no idea how to interpret. He glanced at the sampler embedded in his port, a sanity check to confirm blood was indeed still flowing should he need to make a quick decision to vent the dock. His Alina wouldn't like that—there were other humans there. But this was a concession Threxin could not afford to make with his plan on the line.

Renza was close to the dock, just outside of it, along with almost half of his armed cohort. The rest were here, at the command bay with remainders sprinkled among other critical infrastructure.

Threxin fingered the strap of his laser rifle holder.

Finally, the helmeted woman handed the tablet over to the dockmaster, who tapped in what appeared to be an authentication code judging by the cam zooming onto the screen.

"All right. I'll hook ‘er up to the delivery ports. Y'all sure you don't want help unloading? It's… a lot."

"We're sure."

Threxin narrowed his eyes when the woman leaned forward at the waist, coming close to the dockmaster. "You found it, didn't you?"

"What?"

"Plasma pallets… Seeds… The secrecy. Come on…"

The dockmaster's already panicked eyes rolled around the room, searching for the camera Threxin warned him would be there.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered.

"Uh-huh." The woman leaned back, hands on hips, chest shaking a little with what might be a chuckle. "Good for you, you lucky bastards."

Threxin noted the comms officer shifting uncomfortably in her seat, sweat beading her forehead. He could not remember her name.

"You feel lucky, human?" Threxin mused, a wry smile twitching as she jumped, glancing back at him.

"Extremely, sir," she mumbled.

His spikes relaxed slightly as he watched the helmeted woman approach the auth panel set into the wall. This, apparently, was why at least one person had to come aboard, with no way to avoid it. The delivery person had to authenticate with her own code and retinal scan before the connected supply ship would finalize the lock to the delivery ports. Raw material storage space on Colossal was confined to huge chambers at the top and bottom of the ship, padding the main decks. The supply ship would connect its delivery tubes to the relevant ports for each material type. Normally Threxin had learned, the payment included human and robotic assistance from the company doing the supply—actually getting the stuff onto the ship.

This time Threxin would utilize Colossal's own autonomous transports only. The transports were not designed for large-volume cargo deliveries like this, considering Colossal was not in the business of being a supply ship. This would take longer… which would increase risk. But it was that or let external humans mingle with those on his ship, and that was worse.

Threxin flicked to the port feeds, leaned back in his seat, and watched.