Page 43 of Journey to the Forbidden Zone

“Right. Sark, adjust our course. Take us directly to the nearest estimated entry point for the Forbidden Zone. Best speed Zed says the drive can handle without blowing us to scrap. We’re not waiting around.”

Sark swallowed, then nodded. He turned back to his station.

“Aye, Captain. Calculating the course adjustment now.”

“Norvik, Letitia,” Carmen continued, locking eyes with each of them. “I need intel. Everything we have, everything you can dig up, scrape, or steal about the Forbidden Zone. Patrol patterns near the perimeter, known hazards, comm frequencies, cultural protocols for the XenX, the Kovoids, or any other major species in there. Anything. We don’t walk in blind. Understand?”

“On it, Captain,” Letitia said. “I’ll scour the public nets, see if I can slice into any low-level corp archives, maybe some old smuggler logs.”

“I will access the Collective’s restricted cultural exchange databases,” Norvik said. “While direct data on the Forbidden Zone is limited, peripheral information on neighboring systems and intercepted comm traffic may yield useful patterns.”

“Good.” Carmen straightened, the weight on her shoulders feeling marginally lighter, replaced by the sharp focus of a plan, however tenuous. “Move. We’ve got forty-seven hours till drop-out. Use them.”

Letitia and Norvik left quickly, their footsteps fading down the corridor. The bridge was suddenly quiet, empty except for Sark entering commands on his console and the lingering ghosts of stress and that faint, sweet musk.

Carmen sank back into her command chair, the adrenaline finally fully drained, leaving a hollow exhaustion. She stared at the schematic still glowing on the screen – the crippled thrusters highlighted in pulsing red. Thirty to forty percent.IfMila could work some magic,ifthey slipped through the perimeter,ifthe Kovoids didn’t blast them on sight….

So many if’s. So many ways for it all to go catastrophically wrong. The fear, cold and sharp, coiled in her gut. She’d made the call. Committed them all. For Mila. Because it was right. Because she couldn’t see another path that didn’t end in moral ruin or a slow death in a UPA penal colony.

She closed her eyes, listening to the ship’s heartbeat – the rumble of the engines, the creak of stressed metal, the faint whine of the damaged jump-drive. Her ship. Her crew. Her responsibility.

And now, hurtling towards the unknown on a wing and a prayer, gambling all their lives on the word of an alien concubine who smelled like temptation and thought like an engineer.

Mierda,what had she done?

CHAPTER 16

Letitia stared at her terminal.She’d fallen down a rabbit hole researching Kovoid fiscal policy. At a glance it was even more rapacious than the UPA and its emphasis on mega-corporation business. The Kovoids practiced a type of financial feudalism that saw wealthy warlords command vassal states based on who had the most money and could hold onto it. Conflict – mostly monetary but occasionally violent – was common, and influence was fleeting. Consequently, their government was largely decentralized and lacked any sort of uniform policy on virtually anything.

XenX were second-class citizens. The Kovoids largely left their culture and their institutions alone. But they forced them to accept Kovoid overlords, and because what passed for law and order was the might-makes-right policy of the brutes in charge, XenX had little legal recourse against abuses. They were allowed to own property and have wealth. But unlike their Kovoid masters, they had no protection from someone taking it away.

Letitia sighed. This wasn’t helping. She’d been conducting research for nearly two days, and she hadn’t found anything that might help them penetrate the Forbidden Zone. And what shehad discovered seemed like it would be largely useless once they were inside.

She rubbed her temples and tried not to think about Carmen naked before her, Letitia’s mouth on her sex and listening to her moan. Their last tryst had been intense, satisfying in a way the ones before it hadn’t.

Especially because it shouldn’t have even happened.

What the hell had she been thinking? Why would she have gone to Carmen’s quarters so soon after friend-zoning her? What did she think would happen?

Not that, obviously.

And why did it happen? What the hell was the matter with her? She could barely remember anything leading up to the kiss. They were arguing about the Xena. Carmen was being a total bitch about something.

And then they were kissing. Letitia fucking kissedher, not the other way around. Carmen even offered her an out.

But Letitia hadn’t taken it.

She’d pressed on. She’d fucked her captain – the woman she was pretty sure she loved – but good. She didn’t even know why. Maybe it was Carmen’s frustration with not having a good option. Maybe it was Letitia’s own fury at Sark and Norvik wanting to sell Mila.

But, God, it was good. Everything – the heat of the cabin, the taste of Carmen’s cum, even the funky-ass smell left over from the Xena’s shower – was delicious, sensual, perfect.

And now? Now, Carmen was spending her time with Mila. With the woman Letitia had insisted they rescue.

The memory was a physical ache, a hot flush crawling up her neck. She’d stormed in there, righteous fury burning, ready to tear strips off Carmen for evenconsideringselling Mila. It was slavery, plain and simple, no matter how the alien woman dressed it up in cultural respectability. Letitia had argumentslined up, ethical frameworks, historical precedents. She’d been prepared to fight.

But all she’d had to do was fuck Carmen to get what she wanted.

Except that she didn’t. She wantedCarmen.