Page 24 of Alien Soldier's Heir

He’s still there, watching me. Not possessive. Not smug.

Just… like I’m the only thing holding him to the deck.

And gods help me…

I don’t want to let go.

CHAPTER 12

KAZ

The hangar smells like ozone and old ambition—burnt circuit boards, grease, and the slow decay of metal under stress. I’ve been elbow-deep in my bird’s guts for an hour, hands slick with coolant, sweat crawling down my spine. The preflight diagnostic threw a tantrum and the systems readout lit up like a party invite I didn’t ask for.

No engineer in sight. All slammed with the sim pods being recalibrated after last week’s blackout. The younger techs avoid my gaze like I bite.

Screw it. I grew up flying ships twice as broken as this. If I can’t fix her, I shouldn’t be flying her.

I slide under the console, knees jammed against a tangle of coolant lines, my shoulders crammed against the internal wall. There’s a static discharge bite when I connect the manual relay, and I hiss through my teeth.

“Really?” I mutter. “That’s how it’s gonna be, sweetheart?”

The ship doesn’t answer. She’s got Nova’s attitude today. Stubborn. Precise. Gorgeous pain in the ass.

Which, of course, is exactly when Nova decides to show up.

I hear her boots before I see her. Clipped, efficient. She doesn’t walk like other people. She moves like she’s alreadyfigured out the whole damn room and is just indulging its existence for a while.

I don’t move. Maybe she’ll go away.

She doesn’t.

“You’re gonna fry your stabilizer coil if you cross those wires,” she says, voice flat, amused. “Unless you’re planning on turning this fighter into a low-orbit firework.”

I close my eyes. “I’m perfectly capable of not killing myself.”

“Debatable,” she says, crouching beside me.

She’s too close. Her shoulder brushes mine as she peers under the console. The static charge in my skin isn’t from the wires anymore.

“You’re not even grounded,” she murmurs, reaching in. “Slide over.”

“There’s no room.”

“Make some.”

I grunt, twisting just enough to let her in. Our knees knock together under the console. Her thigh presses against mine. My brain shorts out for a second.

Nova doesn’t seem to notice. Or she’s better at pretending it doesn’t affect her.

She probably is.

She passes me a tool without being asked—right size, right grip. It’s a quiet flex. I respect it.

We work in silence for a few minutes. The only sounds are the soft click of metal, the occasional spark, and the whir of a diagnostic fan trying not to implode.

Then she says, “You always fix your own ship?”

“When I don’t trust anyone else to get it right.”