Page 59 of Journey to the Forbidden Zone
“Corso’s all talk, Sark,” Carmen replied with a dismissive snort. “He wants to tear-ass through the galaxy, dick-first, taking whatever he wants. But he doesn’t have any guts. He’s a bully, and he crumbles as soon as you hit him in the nose – metaphorically and literally. He’s not a threat.”
“I don’t know, ma’am. He says the Old Man is too old to do this anymore, that the universe has changed and he hasn’t kept up. People are listening to him.”
“No, they’re not,” Carmen said with a laugh. “No one on this crew thinks Nick Corso is anything other than a blowhard. He’s ambitious, yeah, but he doesn’t have the guts to try anything against W’Ooshlee. Or me. And no one is stupid enough to believe he does.”
She finally looked at him. Genuine fear swam in his brown eyes.
“Relax,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Keep your head down and do your job. I’ll handle Corso.”
She hadn’t handled him. She’d dismissed Sark’s warning like it was background static, a kid’s jitters.
And less than a week later, Corso’s ambition had painted the bridge deck with W’Ooshlee’s blood.
She’d underestimated Corso, read him all wrong. Her arrogance, her refusal to see the threat right under her nose, had cost a good man his life and shattered a crew.
Just like you’re doing now.
The thought slammed into her, brutal and undeniable. Sark’s terrified face in the mess hall, pleading about COPS patrols and Velasco’s hunters. Norvik’s icy logic laying out the cold, hard numbers: sell Mila; save the ship; save them all. Letitia’s furious moral outrage, yes, but also her desperate pragmatism screaming that this was suicide.
And what had Carmen done? She’d stood there on her freaking moral high-horse, spouting noble intentions while she drove theAntillesstraight into the graveyard. Because of an alien. Because of feelings she couldn’t control, couldn’t even trust were real.
The scent of Mila – warm fur, something sweet and alien – coiled around her again, triggering a cascade of images:
Mila’s calm focus in the engine bay, diagnosing the thruster failure when Zed was stumped.
The precise flick of her claw as she severed the fused conduit …
The flash of intelligence in those green eyes when she proposed the reroute, the capacitor buffers …
The quiet dignity when she’d explained her Harimi choice, the sacrifice for her family …
“I would never deliberately manipulate you or your crew. My Harimi training forbids such deception. Service is offered freely, not coerced!”
The words echoed, carrying a conviction that resonated deeper than the chemical haze. Mila hadn’t hidden her nature. She’d assumed they knew. An oversight, yes. A catastrophic one. But not malice. Not manipulation. Her skills were real. Her mind was sharp. Her courage, facing quarantine and Carmen’s fury, was undeniable.
The tight knot of anger and disgust Carmen had been clinging to began to unravel, replaced by a different ache. It wasn’t just the pheromones. It wasn’t biology hijacking her senses.
It wasMila.
The woman beneath the fur and the scent and the impossible situation. Her strength. Her resilience. Her quiet, unwavering presence.
Carmen Díaz needed control. It was the air she breathed, the bedrock of her command. But with Mila, the terrifying, exhilarating truth was that she didn’twantcontrol. She wanted to let go. To surrender to the pull that felt less like chemical intoxication and more like gravity.
Inevitable. Terrifying. Real.
The realization hit her like a hull breach. She’d been hiding in her quarters for days, wrestling with ghosts and guilt, while the woman who had somehow become the epicenter of her crumbling world was confined to Engineering. Quarantined like a disease, because Carmen was too scared to face what she felt.
“To hell with this,” she muttered, the words rough in her dry throat.
Hiding solved nothing. Drowning in self-recrimination wouldn’t fix the thrusters or hack the satellites. And it sure as hell wouldn’t tell her what Mila wanted, what she felt beneath the Harimi conditioning and the enforced servitude.
She rose from her seat and started toward the hatch. She needed air that wasn’t saturated with memory and regret. She needed to see Mila. To talk to her. Not as captain to contraband, not as victim to manipulator, but as … whatever the hell this was rapidly becoming.
Carmen needed to know if the connection she felt, the desperate, clawing need that had nothing to do with sweet musk and everything to do with green eyes and a brilliant mind, was reciprocated in any way.
Decision crystallized into action. She took a step towards the hatch release. One step towards the unknown, towards the terrifying vulnerability of admitting she needed someone.
The deck vanished beneath her feet.