Page 51 of Journey to the Forbidden Zone
She turned to Letitia, who was watching her, the fury in her eyes tempered now by a flicker of … relief? Approval? Carmen didn’t care.
“Letitia, gather the rest of the crew. Inform them of the situation – Zed’s atmospheric analysis, the effects, the contamination, everything. No sugar-coating.” She took a breath, the recycled air suddenly feeling thick and toxic in her lungs. “Tell them … tell them I’m working on a solution.”
“Solution?” Letitia asked, her brow furrowing. “What solution? We can’t filter it out. Zed said?—”
“I know what Zed said!” Carmen snapped, the control cracking for a second. She reined herself in, clenching her jaw. “Just tell them. And keep them away from Engineering. Especially Sark. Understood?”
Letitia nodded slowly.
“Understood, Captain.”
Letitia cast one last, hard look at Mila, then turned and strode out of the bay, the heavy hatch sealing behind her with a final-sounding thud.
The silence that followed was profound. Only the hum of the ship and Zed’s quiet whirring filled the space. And the scent. That damned, cloying, treacherous scent. How had she not noticed it before?
Carmen couldn’t look at Mila. The sight of her, standing there, radiating confusion and hurt and that impossible allure, was unbearable. It felt like staring at the instrument of her own violation.
The violation of her mind, her control, her very sense of self.
“Continue the thruster adjustments with Zed,” she ordered, her voice tight, staring fixedly at the deck plating near Mila’s feet. “Get them as stable as possible. We still have a course to hold.”
She didn’t wait for a response. She couldn’t.
She turned on her heel and walked out of Engineering Bay Alpha. Her boots echoed too loudly in the corridor. The air out here was no different. It still carried the faint, sweet musk. It was inside her. In her lungs. In her blood.
The shame rose then, hot and choking. She’d risked her crew for a chemical illusion. The weight of it pressed down on her, a crushing certainty.
She’d thought Corso’s mutiny was her greatest failure. She’d been wrong. This was worse. This was a betrayal from within. Aslow, insidious poison that had turned her own desires against her.
And she had no idea how to purge it.
CHAPTER 19
The heavy hatchsealed with a final, pneumatic hiss. Mila stood frozen in the center of Engineering Bay Alpha, the echo of the captain’s retreating footsteps still vibrating through the deck plates beneath her bare feet. The cold fury in the captain’s eyes, the disgust twisting her features as she ordered the quarantine, hung in the bay like acrid smoke, choking Mila.
She slowly turned, the fur along her spine bristling slightly despite her effort to remain calm. Zed stood motionless nearby, his multiple camera lenses focused on her, unblinking. His rectangular head offered no expression, no judgment, only silent observation.
“She thinks I deceived her,” Mila whispered.
Her voice trembled, betraying the shock and hurt coiled tight in her chest. She hadn’t deceived anyone. Deception implied intent. Malice. The very concept was anathema to her Harimi training. Service was offered freely, transparently. How could she serve if she lied?
“She thinks Idruggedher.”
She walked towards Zed, her movements less fluid than usual, weighted by the crushing agony of misunderstanding.The cool metal of the deck felt grounding against her pads. She stopped before the Mechan, looking up at his impassive sensors.
“Zed, you heard. You analyzed. The compounds are simply part of me. Like the stripes on my back. Like the fur.” She gestured helplessly at herself. “I breathe. I perspire. These volatile organics are just released. It is biology. Physiology. Not … not a weapon. Not a trick.”
She remembered the captain’s touch moments before the confrontation – the warmth of the captain’s hand on her arm, the fleeting connection. The spark of attraction had felt real, genuine.
Now, it was tainted, reduced to chemical manipulation in Captain Díaz’s eyes. The memory of her leaning in, the intense focus in her dark eyes, the dizzying closeness all replayed in Mila’s mind, now overlaid with the subsequent revulsion. The contrast was a physical ache.
“I assumed they knew,” she continued, her voice gaining a desperate edge. She paced a small circle, claws clicking softly against the metal. “They recognized my species. They knew I was XenX. The UPA restrictions exist because of our biology. It seemed logical that the knowledge of our physiological emissions would be included in the basic xenocultural data the crew possessed. Why wouldn’t it be?” She stopped, facing Zed again. “It would be like a human not mentioning they require oxygen to breathe. It is fundamental. Obvious.”
The logic felt sound, irrefutable within her own understanding. Yet it had failed spectacularly.
Zed’s chassis emitted a low whir as processors cycled.
“Cultural knowledge transmission is often incomplete or fragmented, especially regarding species designated as restricted within UPA space,” he said, his voice monotone. “The probability of the organic crew possessing detailed physiological data on XenX, beyond superficial identifiers andlegal restrictions, was 21.3% prior to the atmospheric analysis. The emotional response exhibited by Captain Díaz and Ms. Anderson indicates a significant knowledge gap regarding the specific neuroendocrine effects of XenX secretions on Pan-Sentient Mammalian Derivatives.”