by Jill Myles
“Ours is toast,” he agreed with a grin. “But the Yokohama’s is not.” He turned to stab at a few keys on the panel. Another three-dimensional schematic appeared on the display, and it began to turn, slowly.
She was familiar with the Yokohama. After all, it was one of the wrecks she was here to study. A class-3 pleasure cruiser, it had been lost on the edges of fringe-space over a thousand years before. One of the greatest galactic disasters, the Yokohama had collided with a rogue asteroid and had gone down, all hands on ship. Just another victim of this particular system, and the first ship to go down near Titan 34. But as she stared at the report up on screen, she frowned at the section highlighted in green and at the multitude of sections highlighted in red. “Kaden, what is all this?”
“I sent out a probe,” he said in an excited voice. “As soon as Garcia, you know...” He cleared his throat. “I thought there had to be something we could do. Seemed stupid to go belly-up and die near a ship graveyard. I was wondering if their technology might be salvageable. And this right here,” he said, leaning in to tap the green-lit section on the display, “is the great-granddaddy of our sprint drive.”
Her stomach gave a funny little flip of hope, but she quashed it. She didn’t want to get her hopes up only to have them die all over again. “But what about all these red sections?”
“Well,” he said, rubbing at his too-long hair. “Those are the pieces determined to be missing or malfunctioning by the probe’s initial scan.”
Just like that, her stomach sank all over again. “Oh.”
“That’s why I sent out a second probe to the Cephalon,” he said, turning and pecking away at the next display, bringing up the view of another ship on screen, this one completely whole. It lay perfectly still amongst the asteroid belt surrounding Titan 34, dark and menacing. “And I think we can salvage what we need to get it moving from the Yokohama.” He pointed at a few green-lit sections on one of the broken halves of the first ship.
“You mean...”
“We pull up next to the Yokohama, space-walk out and salvage what we can, race our asses over to the Cephalon, attach the dark matter compressor to one of their lifepods and get our asses out of this system. It won’t be a pretty fit, but I think with some elbow grease, we can get it working and sprint far enough to get out of the way of the storm—”
She stared.
His eyes were lit up with enthusiasm as he looked at her. “What do you think?”
Zoey stared at the screens full of schematics. At the probe reports filling the screens, the ship’s computer crunching the lines of data from the reports, information scrolling over the monitor. She looked at Kaden. “I feel... stupid.”
He looked completely baffled by her response. “Stupid? Why?”
A laugh bubbled up in her throat. “I’ve been sitting here, feeling sorry for myself, taking baths and wasting water and moping about how we’re dying. And I’m the scientist. Meanwhile, you’ve been busy running probes and figuring out the backup plan, and here you’re just...” Her words died before she could get the insult out of her mouth.
“And I’m just the meathead?” Instead of being insulted, he grinned at her. “Pretty good for a meathead, if you ask me.”
“Pretty amazing,” she said softly, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You are amazing.”
He shrugged, his gaze dropping to the vee of her robe, that cocky grin spreading across his face slowly. “Just ensuring I have a bit more time to tap that sweet ass of yours, Science Officer Maldonado.”
She laughed. Then squealed, jumping up and down with joy. “A lifepod! Oh my god! We’re going to get out of here!”
He joined her in the celebration, laughing wildly and grabbing her by the waist, then swinging her around. After a moment, he slid her back down against him, and pulled her back in for another hard, intense kiss. “Don’t get too excited,” he said, his voice dropping low. “I can’t promise I’ll be able to make it work.”
“But you’ll try,” she said, running a hand over his wet shoulders, her desire suddenly returning. That she’d been all wrapped up in despair while this man—this man hired for his brawn and muscle—had been calculating a way to save them? That was incredibly sexy. “Going to set a course for the wreck of the Yokohama, then?”
“Course already set,” he said with a slow smile. “We should get there in about thirty-six hours.”
“However shall we pass the time?” she asked lightly.
Kaden hitched her leg around his hip and she felt the press of his cock against her pussy. “I have a few ideas.”
“Mmm?” She brushed her fingers over his brown nipple, plucking at the tip. “Do tell.”
“I think it’d be good for morale if a certain science officer sat up on this panel,” he began, lifting her into his arms and carrying her forward a few steps, depositing her lightly on the navigation panel. He tapped the screen, switching it off, and then pushed her robe open, exposing her legs.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” she said in a husky voice.
His hand moved between her legs and she arched, expecting him to slide a hand to her pussy. Instead, he pushed at her thigh, extending her leg and forcing her to spread her knees wide. “As the first order as your captain, I think I need you to spread those knees, sweetheart, and let me feast on your pretty flesh.”
A bolt of pleasure shot through her body and she shivered, then slowly did as he asked. She extended one foot along the counter and tilted backward slightly, her pelvis angled and bare on top of the panel.
And he sank to his knees in front of her.
She moaned before he even put his mouth on her flesh. When his tongue flicked against her folds, her body stiffened in response. His touch was so good... and so intense. Her hand strayed to his head, tangling in his hair and guiding him.
“You like that?” he whispered, and she could feel it against her pussy.
“Love it when you touch me, Kaden,” she said, her words sliding into a moan as his thumb parted the lips of her pussy and he moved higher, kissing at her clit.
Her hips flexed in response and he chuckled. “You do like that.”
“More,” she said softly, shifting in place. Her fingers curled against his scalp. “Don’t tease me.”
“I’d never tease,” he murmured in a husky voice, and his mouth descended on her clit once more, licking and sucking. As she arched with pleasure, he stroked a finger down her slick folds, then stroked it deep inside her.
She nearly came off the console with the burst of sensation. A low scream ached in her throat and she bit it back, shuddering.
He laughed, and she was intimately aware of that finger against her clit, even as he slipped a second one inside her and thrust again. “Don’t be quiet. There’s no one to hear you but me.”
He was right, she realized, and when he leaned in to nibble at her clit again, she let the moan in her throat rise as loud as she wanted. His tongue stroked fast against her clit, and her moans turned into a low scream. He continued to flick his tongue against it, faster and faster, as his fingers pumped inside her pussy.
She came with a rush, her entire body arching, her hips grinding against his face. “Kaden,” she cried.
He gave a sexy growl of pleasure at her response, and suddenly he was moving away from her hips and leaning her back against the console, kissing the hell out of her fiercely. She trembled in the aftermath of the orgasm, clinging to his neck. “All mine, Zoey.”
“Yours,” she breathed.
His gaze met hers and his dark eyes remained locked on her face even as he began to slowly push inside her, his thick cock a delicious sensation that made her entire body ripple and shudder again. Her legs went around his waist and she whimpered his name again.
Kaden’s hand anchored on her hip. He rocked into her slowly, her gaze still pinned to his. Then, he leaned in for another fierce kiss, thrusting hard. She felt that one through every inch of her body, her toes curling. His next thrust was equally p
owerful, and when he began to slowly piston into her, she thought she’d lose her mind from the intensity of his touch. Zoey raised her hips in response, though it was difficult for her to move with his weight pinning her onto the nav terminal. But she rocked in time with his thrusts, enjoying the scalding feel of his flesh sliding into her own. She sat back on her elbows, and it allowed her a delicious view of his body as he thrust into her: the cords of his muscles; the hard pectorals covered in tattoos; the way his neck tightened as he watched her, as if clenching his jaw.
God, she loved that.
His other hand moved to cup her breast, a startlingly possessive action, and his thrusts grew harder, his gaze still locked on her own. She moaned his name again when he pushed her back onto the panel even farther, until she lay prone, her hips tilted. His hand that dug into her hip became fierce, the fingers of his other hand closing over her nipple in a hard pinch that seemed to sync perfectly with the fierce splendor of his thrusts. And she held on to the nav panel because it was either that or he was going to fuck her right off the other side.
She came with another scream, her pussy clenching tight around him, his relentless thrusts dragging her over the edge in a rush. As she tightened around him, his thrusts grew erratic, and he bit out her name again, an invocation. And then he was coming inside her. She felt the hot release of his orgasm, her body tightening in response. When he collapsed on top of her, pinning her against the panel, she wrapped her arms and legs around him tight, holding him seated deep inside her.
It was the only place she wanted to be, right then. Come what may, she had this, and she had him.
And they had a sliver of hope.
#
“Well,” Zoey murmured some time later when they’d moved back to her bunk. Kaden lay against her, on his stomach, his arm wrapped protectively around her, his head pillowed on her breasts. A vidpic played in the background, but they’d lost interest in it some time ago. “I suppose if we’re going to be salvaging the Yokohama, we should do a practice run or two in the Zero-G room to make sure we’re prepared.”
“I hate Zero-G,” he said flatly, but leaned in to kiss her nipple. “That’s not a meathead’s area of expertise. We’re the gunners and the pilots. Let’s stay in bed for a bit longer instead.”
She chuckled and wrapped her fingers in his hair, playfully lifting his head from her breast. The strands were so thick that she couldn’t resist touching it, over and over again.
Zoey slapped his shoulder and wiggled out from under him in the bed. “Come on, slow poke. We have to practice. This is a critical mission and we can’t afford to mess it up. There’re some common salvage drills I can show you if you’re rusty.”
“Be there in just a moment,” he said slowly. “You go on ahead.”
Zoey frowned at his reluctance but quickly showered and dressed in one of her standard jumpsuits. Pulling her long hair into a ponytail, she moved to the Zero-G room and looked down the hall for Kaden.
No sign of him. Odd. This had to be done if his plan was going to work. Didn’t he want this to work? If so, they needed to practice. Zero-G changed how your muscles responded, and you had to work through the motions, practice with equipment before heading out into the actual environment. A twinge of annoyance flared through her, and she tapped in her identification number, then pressed her thumb to the bio-pad to pull up her sim hours.
102 hours logged in simulator during mission, the computer noted helpfully. Would you like to log this session?
She selected “no,” since there wasn’t really a point to it. Zero-G was something she excelled at. All astro-archaeologists had to become proficient in it, but Zoey liked the Zero-G for exercise as well as meditation. She did her drills when she was bored or restless because they calmed her and because she liked to be ready.
She’d been bored and restless a lot on the flight here, since Dr. Nevis had been more interested in working alone rather than showing her how things were done. She’d chalked it up to a quirk, but since he’d been so quick to abandon them?
Guess it hadn’t been a quirk.
On a whim, she punched in a request to look at all the sim hours logged for the trip.
102: Zoey Maldonado
27: Ian Nevis
13: Jorge Garcia
She did a query on Kaden’s name, but nothing came up. Had he been shirking his practice duties? Everyone had to have Zero-G practice, since a damaged ship would have to be repaired at some point. But she didn’t see anything for Kaden.
Zoey looked up as he came down the hall, dressed in his uniform. The corners of his mouth looked hard and there was a pale cast to his skin. “You okay?”
“I’ll live. Let’s get this over with.”
She frowned at his cold response but followed him into the Zero-G room.
The simulator was a small part of every science ship. A room no more than twenty feet by twenty feet in the belly of the ship, it was essential for crew to log in hours and ensure that they could handle themselves in deep space. Even though she loved Zero-G, she knew Dr. Nevis had found it boring and time consuming.
The room itself was plain, a large cube with a very high ceiling, the walls smooth gray panels. Strategic handles for participants to anchor themselves lay along the ceiling and halfway up each wall.
Kaden strode into the room, his body tense. She could practically see the muscle in his neck jumping. “Do you have a favorite setting?” she asked in a mild voice.
“Don’t care,” he said. “Just pick something.”
She nodded and moved to the wall panel, frowning inwardly. Was he mad for her suggesting it? That didn’t make sense. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d somehow done something wrong, offended him in some way. Nothing she could do about it, either, if he wasn’t willing to talk to her.
She punched in her favorite setting—Rings of Saturn—and waited for the program to begin.
A soft, subtle beep echoed in the chamber and then a warning. “Unit will lose gravity in thirty seconds.”
Zoey did a few stretches, waiting as the computer counted down. She noticed Kaden simply stood there, stiff and unhappy. It bothered her.
“Unit’s gravity has been disabled. Please return gravity to normal conditions when exiting the room.”
At once, her ears popped and she felt her heels begin to lift off the ground. She bounded away from the floor, letting the air carry her forward, and she dove around Kaden’s side, turning to smile at him.
He raked a hand through his hair and pushed off the ground, raising a hand to brace himself against the ceiling when he bounced off it.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Just tired,” he said, and still looked uncomfortable even as she drifted past him.
“We can do training exercises tomorrow, if you want—”
“No, let’s just get this done,” he said, glancing at the panels with a frown.
As if on cue, they darkened and transformed. The Zero-G room’s main purpose, after all, was to get space travelers comfortable with the concept of being in deep space. In addition to the anti-grav boosters, the room’s walls and floor were made entirely of LED panels that mimicked the feeling of space. When they darkened, distant stars appeared, and drifting asteroids scattered on the screens. A ringed planet hung in the distance. If she reached out to touch the planet, she’d encounter nothing but screen, of course, but it added to the soothing mood of the simulation.
Perfect. She stretched her arms over her head, enjoying the sensation of rocketing through the zero-gravity air. “We could start with a few easy exercises before moving on to the strenuous stuff,” Zoey told him. “Unless you want to move straight to the hard stuff?”
No response.
She looked over at Kaden again once the screens had darkened.
He clutched a chicken bar, his face gone entirely white. His body was stiff, unmoving, his eyes closed.
“Kaden?” Zoey drifted toward him and grasped the front of his ju
mper with her fingers, snagging her fingers on one of the patches and pulling herself close. “Kaden, what’s wrong?”
His didn’t respond, didn’t look at her. His mouth was pressed into a hard, tight line.
And she understood at once. It was a common fear—astrophobia. Lots of travelers (and scientists) experienced utter paranoia when in deep space. She’d just never thought she’d see it in a meathead.
He’d logged no practice hours. Of course. If the ship needed repairs, she’d imagined he’d delegated that task to Garcia whenever possible, hiding his fear. And now he was stuck, since Garcia was dead.
Her fingers brushed over his cheek, drawing his attention. The Zero-G made it hard for her to remain in place, and her legs kept drifting away even as she tried to keep close to him. “Kaden, talk to me.”
His gaze focused on her, the whites of his eyes so stark in his tanned face. “Zoey—”
“I’m here,” she soothed. “It’s just a sim.”
“Just a sim,” he echoed, then gave a jerky nod, releasing the chicken bar slowly. “Right.”
She let go of him and drifted away a slight distance, bouncing off the soft walls again.
He followed after her immediately, grasping her hands and dragging her back against him, face tense. “Don’t,” he said quickly. “I... don’t let go of me. I just... need to adjust.”
He was going to need to do more than that if he had a crippling fear of space-walking. Part of their rescue mission depended on it.
He must have seen her expression, because he gave her a half-hearted smile. “Sorry. I’m trying.”
Immediately, she felt like an asshole. “I know you are,” she said, leaning in and kissing him quickly on the mouth in encouragement. “I’m sorry to put you through this.”
“Has to be done,” he gritted.
“You’ll get used to it,” she said, not knowing if she lied. “You just need time and practice.”