Page 73 of Journey to the Forbidden Zone

She threw the hottest gaze she had at each crewmember in turn, saving the last, most severe one for Sark. He looked as though he might melt, quickly dropping his eyes to the deck.

“You’re all alive, because I let her out of her box,” she continued. “And she stays out, so I can utilize her as the asset she is to preserve the well-being of the collective aboard this vessel.

“Therationalchoice is my choice. And I choose no containment. Mila remains free to move within designated areas, supervised by Zed. That is an order.”

She held Norvik’s gaze, daring him to challenge it. The silence stretched, taut as a hyper-tension cable. Sark looked like he wanted to crawl under his console. Letitia’s gaze dropped to the deck plating, her expression unreadable.

Norvik didn’t blink. He simply absorbed the order, the rejection of his logic, with the same impassive efficiency. After a beat that felt like an eternity, he gave a single, minute nod.

“Acknowledged, Captain,” he said.

He turned on his heel and walked back towards the hatch. The dismissal in the gesture was more cutting than any protest.

Sark swiveled back to his console, his shoulders hunched, radiating discomfort. Letitia pushed off the bulkhead, her movements stiff. She didn’t look at Carmen as she followed Norvik out. The hatch hissed shut behind them, sealing Carmen in with the grumbling drive and the swirling chaos on the viewscreen.

The fleeting relief was gone, vaporized like mist in vacuum. The vibration through the deck felt less like motion and more like the tremors of a fault line about to give way. She’d won the argument. She’d asserted her authority. She’d protected Mila from being caged again.

But the cost was written in the silence, in the averted gazes, in the cold efficiency of Norvik’s acceptance. She’d drawn a line in the sand, and her crew had stepped back. Not with her. Away.

Carmen sank back into the command chair. The swirling pink of hyperspace blurred before her eyes, a mesmerizing, chaotic tapestry that offered no answers, no comfort.

She was the captain. The buck stopped here. The weight of the ship, the crew, Mila’s fate – it was all hers.

And for the first time since the jump-drive had roared back to life, Carmen Díaz felt utterly, crushingly alone. The island she stood on, built of her own stubborn conviction, felt very small inthe vast, indifferent void. The only sound was the ship’s labored heartbeat and the echo of her own isolation.

CHAPTER 28

The familiar gut-wrenchinglurch of the hyperspace drop-out slammed Carmen back into her command chair. The swirling chaos of the vortex vanished from the viewscreen, replaced by the unsettling, star-flecked emptiness of normal space.

And yet, nothing felt normal. The tension aboardAntilleswas tight and thick. It wasn’t just the fear that the patched-together drive would tear itself apart again, stranding them for good this time. Nor was it the ominous presence of the Forbidden Zone perimeter that now loomed before them like the jaws of some savage beast ready to devour them.

No, the real weight on her shoulders was the disapproval of her crew. Norvik had barely spoken to her in the sixteen hours since he’d insisted locking up Mila was in everyone’s best interest. She tried to tell herself that wasn’t unusual. He wasn’t really one for casual conversation or small talk. But it was hard to believe he wasn’t giving her the silent treatment.

Letitia, too, had been standoffish. Honestly, she had been since the pheromone revelation. Was she regretting pushing so hard for Carmen to rescue Mila? Would she cast a different vote if she had it to do over again? And how much of her attitudewas simply anger at Carmen rebuffing her desire for more than casual sex?

And Sark remained a trembling mass of fear. She’d known him long enough to know he wasn’t angry. He was just terrified by the potential consequences of Carmen’s decisions. Which was strange. He’d never mistrusted her judgment before. Even afterThe Buccaneer.

So here they were on the edge of Forbidden space. She’d brought them all here, yet it felt as though she were alone on the bridge of theAntilles, as if she had come here with no one at all.

Not even the woman they were here to save.

The memory of the kiss in Engineering haunted Carmen. What had she been thinking? Was it just the overwhelming smell of Mila’s pheromones? Did the scent get so deeply inside her brain that she abandoned all sense?

Surrender.

What was the matter with her? How could she even have contemplated such a concept, let alone acted on it? Somehow Mila was changing her, making Carmen Díaz into someone she didn’t fully recognize. She needed the XenX woman in a way she had never needed anyone.

But with her quarantined to Engineering, Carmen couldn’t feel her. It was as if she didn’t really exist, while Carmen sat staring at the doorstep of the contraband alien’s home.

They’d made it. Mostly. The drive’s deep, wounded growl vibrated through the deck plates, a constant reminder of its fragility, but it hadn’t shattered. Yet.

“Perimeter confirmed, Captain,” Sark announced, his voice tight. He tapped the nav console, bringing up tactical overlays. “No sign of patrols. Passive sensors running silent. Target dead-ahead.”

Carmen’s gaze turned to the main screen. There it sat, a cold, unwinking eye against the backdrop of distant nebulae and the oppressive darkness of the Forbidden Zone beyond:

The security satellite.

A sleek, predatory wedge of dark metal, bristling with sensor arrays, it looked deceptively harmless on the screen. But it was anything but. If they got too near, if they passed by it without disarming it …