6. Zeerah

"So…" I pick up a sample jar, shake it, and set it back with the others on the labeled tray. "I've got a question."

"Go ahead," Noemi, my ace passenger, says.

It's been eight goras since the false alarm and almost four kortans since the Vanadisans sprayed me and drove Falkion out of his mind.

This science office is where I started with the Arrisans. Now, it's the only place I can find answers.

"How long until the Vanadisans' mysterious ‘mating' drug wears off?" I ask Noemi for about the hundredth time. "I've shaved off every strand of hair and removed at least the top layer of skin. Is it in my nails? Or where?"

"Mm, it's difficult to say. The records were blown up along with the rest of the Vanadisan fleet. But let's scan you again." Noemi places black shades on her nose and escorts me into the science office scanner.

I shift my weight, staring at the unbroken wall of the tiny, formless room.

Noemi is the only other human who never really left the dreadnought. As a science office technician, she has a good amount of freedom. I've been coming to her privately like this since the first shift Falkion allowed me out of his sight.

Unlike me, though, she receives unwelcome attention wherever she goes. The lusteal in her blood is still potent and twists the minds of Arrisans. Where I can slip through unnoticed, she always has to tread with caution. There's no sneaking around the empire for her.

Her face appears above the glass ceiling, and her voice sounds tinny. "Hm. Just as before, the scanner says there's no lusteal anywhere in your body."

"How?"

"Well, that's actually the way it's supposed to be. Your system recognizes lusteal as a foreign substance and flushes it out without it ever affecting you."

Well, sure, it doesn't affect me. "What about other weird chemicals? Anything in the Vanadisan spray?"

"No. There's absolutely nothing unusual in or on you that this scanner can detect."

I dig my fingernails into my palms in frustration. "Then what in the H is he still reacting to?"

"I don't know." Noemi disappears from overhead and reappears at my door to let me out. "But remember that we never identified our lusteal problem on Humana because we didn't have a test for it. Maybe the same thing is happening here. Ukuri did promise to review the findings of the science team analyzing the mating spray."

"Once I receive them." Ukuri smiles coldly, the dark surgical lenses completely shading his eyes.

He originally wanted to cut us open for his research, but then he met Noemi and got mind-controlled by her lusteal. Now she has his mating mark on her shoulder.

I still get the feeling he'd have no qualms about cutting me open if the situation were required. But he does anything she wants without hesitation. Like now. He's working on a different project at another terminal, but he listens in to everything Noemi says and adds to it. "Science officers don't share information prematurely. Due to the chaos of the recent, mm, misunderstanding, some of our science officers are not where they are supposed to be. Results may be much delayed."

I heave a sigh. "This is terrible."

"Have you reported your harassment to Captain Falkion?"

"Falkion? Er, no."

"He will surely reassign your harasser to another warship."

"Oh, no, no."

"Yes, Zeerah. Falkion has a rare dedication to healing the rift between Arrisans and, ah, non-Arrisans. It's quite unusual."

Hah. "I'm sure he does," I say dryly.

"Would you like one of us to make the report?" Noemi asks.

"H, no. I'll get around to it." I chuckle awkwardly. "It's just too bad you haven't found a reason for the, uh, illness. Or a cure…"

Ukuri and Noemi exchange looks. Silent communication passes between them. Ukuri shrugs one shoulder, but it's Noemi who speaks. "Actually, we did think of one possible cure."

"You did!"

"Ah, but…" She lowers her hands to quell my excitement. "You may not find it to be a good solution at all. It involves—"

A crowd of science officers bursts into the office. "We have the samples!"

Ukuri pivots immediately to deal with them. They take over the scanner and argue loudly about their research. And they ignore me, which is nice. I remember when everyone ignored me. The good old days.

"Sorry," Noemi murmurs. "It's really exciting right now. The Harsi ship is regenerating."

I feel a sliver of unease. "Regenerating?"

"Regrowing, really. It seems that all Harsi ships ‘grow' into the same layout. When we put an energy wave through a wall, the existing metal stretches and ‘regrows' across damaged areas. It's creating all-new theories about how they build ships, communicate, everything. If we send enough current through it, someday we might have a fully rebuilt ship."

Great. That, plus her casual use of the H-aliens' name, like she's not afraid of summoning them, squiggles the nerves in my belly. "Is that entirely safe?"

"Well, there's no Harsi left to fly it." She tilts her head. "Why wouldn't it be safe?"

Fair question.

Whatever. I'm not in charge. That's someone else's problem. "You said you had an idea about a cure?"

"Yes." She folds her hands. "You know I and the other women cured ourselves through sex. Right?"

"Temporarily, yeah."

"But with our Arrisan partners, the cure was permanent. The male climax draws lusteal like a magnet from our brains, where it causes our neurological problems, down into our wombs, where it's basically inert. So…"

I don't like where this is going.

Or maybe I like it too much.

Either way. "But I don't have any lusteal in me."

"Correct. Your male harasser appears to have lusteal improperly inside him. So, perhaps a climax will draw the lusteal out of his brain."

Okay. "He needs to wank off?"

"Sex is foreign to most Arrisans, so it may be more complicated."

"What are you…" Is she really…? No. "What exactly are you suggesting?"

"Well, you don't want to report the Arrisan who's fixated on you, and you also don't suffer fools, Captain." She smiles serenely. "Perhaps his attention isn't entirely unwelcome…?"

Heat shoots through me. "It is! Entirely!"

Her smile broadens as if I'm protesting too much.

"It…it's like you said, it's complicated. Anyway, how is this your solution? You, of all people?" I nudge her with my elbow. "You don't even like sex."

"I like it now. Often, I like it more than a long bath or a relaxing massage."

"What? Since when?"

"Since I was cured. On Humana, sex was mediocre and certainly not worth the effort, and I only did it because the sickness forced me to. But with Ukuri?" She smiles faintly. "It's worth the hassle."

Crazy. "That good?"

"Well, with Arrisans, you see…" She leans close to my ear and whispers. "You get an ‘o' with every thrust."

Huh? Say what now?

She chuckles at my shock.

"Noemi?" Ukuri waves. "Will you confirm this scanner is running your most recent update?"

Noemi bustles to him and operates the scanner.

Their orange cat, Tom, curls around my legs and meows.

I pet him absentmindedly.

The other science officers avidly watch the screen, their arms crossed, stone-faced. There's a dark urgency to their movements. Maybe it was always there, but since the recent false alarm, it feels heightened.

Only Ukuri diverts his gaze to Noemi, as if he has every faith she's doing her job perfectly so he doesn't have to watch. He brushes her hair, exposing his red mating tattoo on her neck. His long fingers stroke her skin, tracing the outline.

That's what happens when Arrisan men get obsessed. Their bite injects some kind of poison that makes a permanent tattoo.

Permanent.

Tattoo.

Huh.

Tom play-bites my hand a bit too roughly—no, no, Tom—so I wave goodbye to the rapt faces and leave the science office.

An orgasm with every thrust?

Really?

An "o" with every thrust…

The information echoes in my head as I return to my small private room, the room that's currently my compromise with Falkion. I refuse to live in his officer's quarters, and he doesn't want me holing up in the enlisteds' barracks. Honestly, I was fine in the barracks for over a Standard Year, but now that people know it's me—because he keeps coming around and drawing all kinds of attention—it does feel more unsafe.

Thinking about him coming around, the fierce intensity in his silver eyes, I have to wonder how it would feel to have him run his finger along the column of my neck like Ukuri just did with Noemi…

Delicious heat swirls in my lower regions.

Which I absolutely do not feel.

Unlike Noemi, I do feel sexual attraction, and I had no qualms about satisfying my needs back on Humana. I had scores of interludes with men throughout my years. They were never that important or even made much of an impression. In the end, I obsessed over getting the Harvester up and running, and so I let go of almost all of my other interests.

And yet… An orgasm with every single thrust? I might want to have that experience. Once in my life would probably be enough.

I reach my room, which is a repurposed storage closet, and open the door.

Falkion rises from where he was leaning against my sleeping pod.

My heart thumps. Excitement mixes with relief, chilled and then hot. I orient to his solid, male form like a compass needle pointing to a false north.

H.

I let the door close to prevent anyone else from seeing us, and then I cross my arms and pray the sensual fire raging behind my rib cage will go out if I starve it of oxygen. "You can't be here."

His lips twitch.

Yeah, I guess it is funny that someone like me is telling the captain that he can't be literally anywhere on his own warship. This room just happens to be mine.

He lifts his chin. "Did you get the answer you were seeking in the science office?"

Because of course he knows my every move. "What are you doing here?"

"You're supposed to study for your certifications in my quarters."

"I'm not studying right now."

He stalks toward me, a powerful predator obsessed with one target. "Lying is beneath you."

"I'm telling the truth."

"Before you went to the science office, you accessed the certification programs."

"But I wasn't studying ships." I tighten my arms, trying to contain the glowing embers. "I studied navigation."

"Zeerah." He stalks around me, so close, I can smell the masculine power. I feel his heat against my back. "I need you near me."

A delicate shiver runs up my spine. He says my name with just the slightest catch. I can't breathe.

An "o" with every thrust…

But that won't be my experience because this drug is going to wear off.

I suck in a breath that rattles down my dry throat and whip around to face him. "Seriously, why are you here? You're doing great without me. At the start, you couldn't go five clicks, and now, you can handle a whole shift. I bet you could go two shifts. I bet you could go a whole gora now."

He doesn't bother responding. Doesn't justify himself or argue. His silver eyes are magnetic, drawing me deeper. I feel things happening between my thighs, and I cannot stop.

And that's why I have to cut it off. Now. Before this whatever-it-is goes any further.

Or I'll have to leave.

I will.

"I might know a cure," I blurt out.

"Oh?"

"That's why I visited the science office. Um…it's not a for-sure cure. It's just an idea. You have lusteal in your brain, okay? And you have to draw it out through your, uh, dick."

He tilts his head.

What do the Arrisans call it?

Oh, yeah. "Your jack."

He hooks an index finger in his collar and draws it down to his midline. His skinsuit parts and falls to the floor, pooling at his feet.

His body is gray perfection, hard and rippling with masculine assurance. Darker gray skin shadows his nipples and his male member, which is large.

And, for the first time, it's hard.

I have seen quite a few nude Arrisans, including him. Females and males look almost the same, even with their skinsuits off. I'm told it changes when they go to the reproduction arena and get dosed up with lusteal. Even though most babies come from test tubes, they still do some the old-fashioned way.

I've never, ever seen an Arrisan hard.

Until now.

Falkion focuses on me, intense, like a predator sighting a new and unusual prey.

I swallow in a dry throat. "Uh, you have to draw the lusteal out through, um…" My brain inserts all sorts of answers. I grasp the one I need. "Uh, your hand, probably."

He curls his lighter-colored fingers around his dark cock. "How?"

"You just…" I start the wanking gesture, then stop. "You know."

He shakes his head.

There's a line in an old Humana song that the Arrisans are too busy killing to think about kissing. I guess it really is true. "Don't you have to give, um, samples so they can make the test-tube babies?"

"They use a machine. And in the arena, males deposit their generative tissue directly into the female."

"Did you ever do that?"

"I've been to the arena once. It was over five years ago."

Once, over five years ago…

His lips twitch. "When it comes to sexuality, humans are the experts."

I guess. "Well, you just stroke with your hand until it feels good."

"Show me."

Images surge through my brain. Him groaning beneath my fingers, velvet-encased heat slipping across my wet palm, losing his mind as I bring him to—

"No. I can't. Let me know if you need privacy."

"How will I know if it's successful?"

"You'll know. It'll be obvious."

He slides his fist up and down his member. The girth increases, and his cockhead flushes dark gray and thickens with veins. Although his skin is a different color and the lines under his nails and on his wrists are black, he is still a perfectly virile man.

My small room grows hotter and hotter. Sweat breaks out on my upper lip. I rub it with my fingers. It tastes like salt.

He keeps the pace slow and steady. And when I remember to look up at his face, he's only watching me.

"It's not working," I guess.

"Help me."

How reasonable his request sounds.

And how much I want to take him up on that offer.

That's why this ends.

Right now.

"Okay. I'll help." My heart kicks in my chest because of what I'm about to do. "Get in my sleeping pod."

He opens the lid and stretches out inside.

I walk after him.

My instincts fight.

I don't have to run. I could do what he wants, get inside the pod with him. Slide my fingers over the divots of bulging muscle, curl around that proud, magnificent dick. Woo him with pleasure. Take my own.

But what if we're successful?

What if the drug wears off while he's pressing me tightly against him? What if it reverses time, and his expression changes to confusion, then fury as he's horrified he touched a human like me…?

"You stay right there." My lips smile. "Wait a moment. I have to prepare something."

He holds my gaze as I lower the lid.

It seals with a slight hiss.

I pull the screwdriver from my calf pocket and jam it into the locking mechanism. The electricity on the tool melts the controls.

He's locked in.

I pull on my hood and exit the room, jog down the hall, and leap into the grav tube. My heart races. This is nuts. I'm nuts. Locking up an Arrisan? The captain? Am I insane?

But another clearer voice tells me the truth.

The insane thing would be to stay here, to get drawn deeper into his web. To feel him beneath my skin, taste him under my tongue, breathe him in when I sleep. That's insanity.

I should've left a long time ago.

I grab the bar and swing into the smaller grav tubes that cross the ship diagonally on the most direct route to engineering. I land on the huge main arterial and jog down the busy hall to the giant entrance.

Hundreds of ships dock against the different levels, and I've only gotten to pilot a precious few. This whole area is teeming with science officers and others who've come to study the H-alien ship. Hopefully that means it'll be easy to sidle up to the nearest space-worthy vessel and make a quick exit.

Arrisans have one way of dealing with races who've wronged them. Stealing a toothpick has the same punishment as mass murder. They take a crime against them very personally.

So I just have to not get caught…

Although a Needle- or Bullet-class ship would be plenty for me, they've all been signed out already. Ooh. That was not in my grand plan.

But there is one ship I can pilot, even though I haven't bothered to study it officially yet for obvious reasons.

It's a Harvester.

And it's close, which is convenient but also nerve-racking because I have to pass right by the engineering office.

A crowd of engineers wearing yellow coveralls and tool bandoliers across their gray skinsuits argue with some bridge officer.

I keep my hood down, just like I did when I was a stowaway for over a Standard Year and move quickly past.

"You have to obey my orders as if I'm the captain," a familiar voice insists over the engineer's protests. "He's not well. See the instruction from the High Command?"

I glance over.

It really is Falkion's second-in-command, Kollok.

He looks over at me at the same moment. He's also wearing a hood, which means our dark patterns interfere, and it's like looking through clear glass. I can see his face doing a double-take as he recognizes me.

Uh-oh.

Fear jolts me.

"Hey," he snarls.

H.

"Hey! That's— Stop her!"

I scurry into a miniature grav tube and fly up a level to the Harvester's dock, wheeling off-balance as I land.

This outs me as a non-Arrisan even more effectively than Kollok's cry.

Double-H.

The shouts below increase in volume.

The Harvester is open, and its mouth is fused to the dock. Only a few feet of scaffolding separate us. I'm almost free.

An engineer swings up and lands right in front of the entrance with a deft thump. She sizes me up with a cocky gaze. "What are you doing there?"

I rock to a stop. "Oh, um, piloting."

"You're what?"

The soft thud of Arrisans behind me fills the walkway. I turn slowly to face them. They eye me with unfriendly curiosity. Distant construction noises echo, but this area is too quiet. These scaffolds have no railings. If I fall, it's meters and meters to the bottom of the bay. My skinsuit will keep me from getting hurt. But it's still nerve-racking.

"I'm getting my certifications." I swallow over the dryness crackling like leaves in my throat. "I already have it for Needles and Bullets. The captain approved me for practice."

"You're lying." Kollok pushes through the unmoving crowd and straightens his skinsuit. "The captain would never approve that for you."

"Except he did. Look it up."

"Impossible." He reaches out to grab me.

I jerk back.

He lunges.

I hit the unmoving front of the first engineer.

But one of the engineers also stops Kollok, blocking his advance.

"Hey, uh, Kollok." The engineer scratches at her five-pointed ear. "She might not be lying. The captain does spend a lot of his rest shifts with her."

"Because she's an enemy agent who's the direct cause of everything that's wrong in the empire and our own current state."

"That's not true." My fear tastes metallic. "I didn't attack your dreadnought."

"You gave the Vanadisans the tainted blood they needed to mount an attack."

"Because I thought they were going to help us."

"So which of our enemies has offered to help you now? Hmm?" He shakes his head. "This is why the captain can't leave you alone. He's skipping his rest and destroying his health because you can't be trusted."

"That's not true," I repeat.

The engineer blocking Kollok scratches behind her ear again. "So, ah, if it's not true, why is the captain spending so much time with you?"

Report your harasser, and he'll get assigned to another ship.

I shouldn't care what happens to him. I should tell them all what happened to Falkion, why he's obsessed.

Everyone will know. They'll look at him differently.

That one high commander guy will probably take away his command, and he'll get demoted to being a nobody somewhere.

Any potential husband will have his worth brought down and degraded by your presence.

I hate that I've flown about a million actungs from Humana, and yet I still hear my uncle's favorite words in my ears. I also hate that he's still not wrong.

"It's a different reason." I cross my arms. "Not that."

The engineers look at each other.

Kollok smiles with superiority. "Get away from that ship before you steal it."

"But I am studying to be certified in your stupid system. If you'd just look it up, you'll see I'm getting in practice clegs."

"Tell it to the other criminals in the brig."

"I'm not going to the brig with you."

His mouth flattens. "Take her in."

The engineers shift their weight, but nobody moves.

"Take her to the brig!" Kollok snaps.

"Careful, big man." The chatty engineer grins, but her smile takes on a feral edge. "We take orders from one guy on the bridge, and it ain't you."

"Fine." He swipes a laser cutter dangling from her tool belt. "This is faster."

She lunges for it.

He dodges and points it at me.

"What are you doing?" she gasps.

"Solving a problem. The captain can't or won't." A high-pitched whine sounds as its laser light turns on. Kollok smiles faintly. "So I will."

Skinsuits are pretty hardy. An ordinary laser wouldn't penetrate one. But an engineer's laser? The same one they use for cutting through ship walls?

The engineers back away, horrified, like it's about to skewer me.

And I believe them.

At that moment, a silver sword erupts upward through the walkway between us.

The blade slams into Kollok's forearm.

It doesn't cut.

Seriously, Arrisan skinsuits are made to be impervious to almost anything, including their own blades, but the force shoves his aim upward. The laser's beam burns into the Harvester behind me, melting a line across its otherwise shiny hull. So, yeah, it definitely would have sliced me in half.

Kollok drops the cutter, and the piercing beam shuts off. The wide sword's polished silver reflects my own shocked expression back at me.

It's Falkion's blade.

The high point is on the left, and then the tip curves down to a right point. The end is the widest part. It tapers as it goes through the floor. The right side is flatter, as if it could be safely touched. The left side is so sharp, it almost seems to cut and bend light.

He saved me.

I locked him in a sleeping pod, and he saved me.

My heart squeezes.

Kollok hugs his forearm to his chest and backs away, grimacing and wincing. Even though it didn't cut through the suit to his skin, it clearly hurt.

Falkion's sword descends through the floor, and an instant later, he rises on a circular sled piloted by the head of engineering. It's just big enough for the two of them and some equipment.

Falkion stands beside her, nude.

My heart squeezes again.

Oh, no.