Page 28

"We're coming." She nodded to Jex to shut down the display. As the hologram flickered out, Spot wrapped its legs around her wrist. "We can continue another time," she added quietly. "Only if you want to."

Spot made a rude noise, and she grinned.

"Okay... I hear the no. Now let's find cake for me and a power outlet for you."

* * *

The smell of steak hit Mira when she stepped into the galley. Not protein packs. Not those reconstituted nutrition cubes. Real meat, sizzling and dripping with fat.

Her stomach growled. Loudly.

"Someone's hungry," Covak called from his seat at the table. The massive Vorrtan already had half a steak shoved in his mouth, amber eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

Davis glanced up, catching her gaze across the galley. A half-smile tugged at his mouth, there and gone in a heartbeat. He'd changed. Physically. Broader shoulders. Sharper jaw. Those weird gold rings expanding in his eyes.

Her heart leaped. Stupid heart.

"Sit," he said, nodding to the space beside him. It wasn't a request, but it wasn't quite a command either.

She sat, ignoring the flutter in her stomach that had nothing to do with hunger. Spot scuttled from behind her, making a beeline for the power outlet under the table. The little Drakeen core chirped once before plugging in with a contented electronic sigh.

"Feeding time for everyone," she murmured, smiling at the robot.

Davis set a plate in front of her. Steak. Actual vegetables. Something that might have been potatoes. The smell alone made her mouth water.

"Holy shit," she breathed, grabbing her fork.

"You should have seen the vendor's face when Davis haggled him down," Covak said around a mouthful of food. "Three tentacles up, waving like crazy, screaming about thieves and pirates."

Davis snorted. "It was two tentacles. And they weren't 'waving like crazy.' It's a culturally specific gesture of commercial displeasure."

"Same difference." Covak shrugged, shoving another massive bite into his mouth. "Point is, Tell's got bargaining skills for a human."

She glanced at Davis. He didn't respond to the praise, just cut into his steak with methodical precision.

The door hissed open, and Anson walked in, eyes glued to a dataflex. He barely acknowledged the others, sliding into an empty seat across from Mira.

"Look who decided to grace us with his presence," Jesh said, sliding a plate toward him. "The food's still hot. For now."

Anson grunted, setting his dataflex beside his plate. His fingers kept working the screen even as he stabbed a piece of steak with his fork.

Mira watched him as she ate. The recovered fragments from Laaer's terminal had occupied him for hours. If anyone could make sense of the corrupted data, it was Anson.

His fork froze halfway to his mouth, his eyes widening at something on the screen.

"Anson?" She leaned forward. "What's wr -"

The lights died.

Not dimmed. Not flickered. Died .

One second, the galley hummed with power; the next, they were plunged into total darkness. The constant background noise of the ship's systems cut out, leaving nothing but startled breathing and the clatter of dropped utensils.

"What the fuck?" Ryke's voice snapped through the blackness.

Something cold and tight coiled in her gut. She couldn't see a damn thing. Not even shapes. A hand clamped around her upper arm, hot fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. She almost screamed, but then she registered the heat of his body. Davis.

"Stay put," he growled in her ear.

His body shifted, angling in front of hers, blocking her from the rest of the room. A human shield. Part of her appreciated the protective instinct. Another part bristled at being treated like something fragile.

"Jex, status!" Ryke barked.

"Environmental systems operational." Jex's voice came from the darkness, his faceplate the only source of light, casting eerie blue shadows across metal surfaces. "Ship's primary power grid is offline. Backup systems attempting to engage but encountering resistance."

Mira's eyes slowly adjusted. Shapes emerged from the darkness hulking Covak, Ryke's tall silhouette, the gleam of Jesh's cybernetic implants.

Davis remained pressed against her, his breathing controlled but faster than normal, his body radiating tension and something else. Something almost possessive.

Movement caught her eye as something small detached from under the table.

Spot. The little robot scuttled onto the tabletop, its optical sensors brightening as it oriented itself.

In the dim glow, she watched as Spot grabbed two steak knives from the tabletop and positioned himself in front of her, knives held ready.

What the actual fuck?

"Ship's computers under attack," Anson announced. The ke'lath lines beneath his skin pulsed brighter. "We have an external breach."

"How?" Jesh moved to another terminal, her cybernetic enhancements letting her navigate the darkness easily. "Our firewalls should have -"

"B'Kaar spike attack," Anson cut her off. "Sophisticated. Targeted. Piggybacked on the data packet I opened from Laaer's files."

She leaned forward. "Can I help -"

Davis yanked her back against him. "Stay. Close," he ordered, each word clipped and final.

Fuck that. She tried to pull away, but his grip tightened. Not painful, but unyielding. Like steel wrapped in skin.

"Navigational systems are compromised," Jex reported. "Attempting isolation protocols."

"Life support?" Ryke demanded.

"Stable." Anson's voice was tight with concentration. "They're not trying to kill us. They're extracting data."

A tense minute passed. Then another. She held her breath. This wasn't a battle she could help with. Suddenly, the lights flickered. Once. Twice. Then they blazed back to full brightness. Systems whirred back to life around them, the ship's ambient hum resuming as if nothing had happened.

Every eye in the galley turned to the table's center.

Spot stood motionless, brandishing the steak knives like some tiny, mechanical samurai. For a heartbeat, nobody moved.

The little robot's optical sensors blinked rapidly, taking in the scene. With a cheerful chirp that somehow sounded embarrassed, it carefully set the knives down and folded its appendages back against its body.

Covak's booming laugh shattered the tension. "Little guy was ready to throw down!"

" Draanthing warrior spirit," Ryke said with a grin. "Give him a rifle and I'll name him a Reaper. Start paying wages."

Covak's laughter choked off. "Wait, you pay wages?"

"Yeah," Ryke smirked, already cutting his steak like nothing had happened. "You eat yours in ice cream."

Laughter filled the galley. Even Davis's grip relaxed, though he stayed pressed against her side, his thigh still firmly against hers. She didn't move away.

Spot chirped happily, hopping down from the table to return to its power outlet.

"Nice work, killer," she whispered. The robot's sensors flashed in what she chose to interpret as pride.

Anson ignored everything, fingers already back to flying across his dataflex.

"They targeted information related to K ell specifically," he said without looking up. "Spike attack came from the Vaatenian sector."

"Can you trace it?" Jesh asked.

"Already did." A hint of smugness crept into the B'Kaar's voice. "It was a clumsy job. Sophisticated tech, but amateur execution. They left trails everywhere."

"And?" Ryke's patience visibly thinned.

"I followed the money." Anson looked up. "The buyer used a complex laundering system, but they fucked up their encryption algorithm. The same pattern appears in research papers published across three different systems."

He tapped his screen. A holographic display expanded above the dinner table scientific equations and data charts hovering in the air, sections highlighted in red.

"Look at the algorithmic structures." He pointed to specific sections. "Different research projects, supposedly different researchers. But the pattern's identical across all of them." Another tap. "And it matches K ell's known work. Perfectly."

Davis leaned forward, muscles coiling with sudden intensity. "He's publishing under different identities?"

"Exactly." Anson nodded. "And the money trail from the spike attack leads straight to funding for one of these projects. A remote outpost specializing in xenogenetics."

"Where?" Davis's voice dropped an octave, suddenly dangerous.

"Cetaaris IV." The B'Kaar's fingers swiped through more data. "The official purpose is researching indigenous plant adaptations. Unofficially..." He let the implication hang.

"How sure are you?" Ryke asked, all business now.

"Ninety-eight percent." Anson shrugged. "The patterns are unmistakable. Same researcher, different names. The funding model matches K ell's previous operations, too."

She felt Davis go rigid beside her, tension vibrating through every muscle where they touched. This was it potential answers about whatever was happening to him.

"How soon can we reach Cetaaris IV?" Davis asked, voice tight.

"Twelve hours at maximum burn," Rann said from the doorway. When had he shown up? "Give or take."

"Prep for launch in thirty minutes." Ryke shoved his plate aside. "Rann, plot the course. Jesh, Jex, you're on weapons and defensive systems. That spike attack could be the first of many." He turned to Anson. "Keep digging. I want everything on this outpost before we arrive."

The galley emptied quickly, half-eaten food abandoned as the crew scattered to their stations. Soon, only Mira and Davis remained.

He stared at the space where Anson's hologram had been, every muscle tense beneath his skin.

"This could be it," he said finally. "Real answers."

She reached for his hand. His fingers burned against hers, scalding hot compared to her own.

"We'll find them," she said. Not empty reassurance. A promise.

He turned, eyes boring into hers with an intensity that stole her breath. For a second, she thought he might say something something about them, about whatever the hell this was between them.

Instead, he squeezed her hand. "I should help with prep."

"Go," she nodded. "I'll clean up and meet you in engineering."

He hesitated, then leaned in and kissed her. It was hard, fast, and possessive. Not asking. Taking. And fuck if she didn't want to be taken.

Then he was gone.

She stood there for a moment, heart hammering against her ribs.

Spot chirped at her feet, offering a steak knife handle-first.

"Thanks, buddy." She laughed, taking the knife. "Good to know someone's watching my back."