“If you cut me open, test my blood, check my scans, you’ll find a myriad of spider genes attached to mine. I can even create my own poison.” Dommik waited for her response, waited for her body to stiffen next to his, he waited for the horror that people who didn’tknowthere were creations like him. The women soldiers on his ship tripping over themselves to run away from him, the men who felt like they had to target their commander with their guns, unsure for their lives. The first women he took to bed, knowing what he was, cried to him afterward because she had lost a bet. “I make people sick by just the thought of me.”
He felt her shrug and curl closer to him, Dommik couldn’t get closer to her if he tried.
“You don’t make me sick, you forced the sickness out of me, and demanded I move on. I’m trying.” He felt her hand move down to grip something on her thigh, only to stop and relax. “I can’t move on if I fear one bug for another. Will you show yourself to me someday? I’d like to see you. In the light, that is.”
“Someday,”
“I’d like that. Mia is going to be so mad when we deliver her the flower and you haven’t lost me.”
“Maybe. Get some sleep, tomorrow we’ll reach out destination but tonight I just want to hold you.” He didn’t want to hurt her, he wanted to keep her. His ears perked up at the soft sound of her breathing and his nostrils filled with their mutual scent. He felt perfection. Or the closest he had ever come to it in his long life.
Chapter Eighteen:
---
Dommik left Kat at midnight Earthian time and went back to the bridge, keeping her door and the lavatory open for her use. He was covered in her scent and he relished it, knowing he took a little piece of her with him when he left.
Bin-One, his constant companion was waiting for him when he arrived.
“Report.”
“The Trentian aircraft is still tailing us, Master, they have informed nearby ships not to interfere with your passage,” it responded.
“What about our destination?” Dommik sat at the helm, pulling up the coordinates.
“We will be within Xan’Mara’s atmosphere in the next hour. Shall I find us a port to land, Master?”
He looked out over the dark room, eying the ropes he had hanging throughout his make-shift web in every corner. It was varying, thick in some places while others were just knotted heaps and bundles. Matted hair with wet and dripping fibers that almost touched the ground. He found a length and tugged it into his hands, enjoying the burn as it chafed across his skin.
“No, I’ll find us a place. Thank you, Bin-One, you can go below.” It left without a farewell.
Dommik checked his transmissions, finding only several from Mia and the EPED hailing him for his status, and one from Gunner.
‘Arrived at Xan’Mara, day 22th of May, with an escort from Space Lord Markoss to retrieve one O'lia flower.’
It wouldn’t arrive before he was done with this mission. Messages were slow this far out in space. He expected they would be on their way home by the end of the day. He opened the security feed to see that Kat hadn’t moved from her quarters.
He opened Gunner’s message.
‘Stryker’s a real dumbass who's going to get himself fried. I need you to take my deliveries in, I’ll meet you at the spot.’
Dommik chose not to respond. He didn’t want Gunner to know his current coordinates. If Gunner entered Trentian airspace, the aliens have an allowance to take him in and take him out without a reason. He wasn’t about to get mixed up with political warfare. It was his least favorite kind.
The moon came into view and he scanned the surface for the pilgrims, finding several settlements throughout the muddy-grey landscape. The surface reminded him of stagnant puddles of water left behind by the sun’s rays to birth new bugs.
The flower, a native to the moon, was harvested and sold by the pilgrims as their main source of income. It was often used for medicinal purposes for the aliens, as well as having a vitality boost upon intake, a natural steroid that could increase energy and endurance, it was a symbol in bonding pairs to be taken before mating to prolong the act and guarantee that insemination had occurred.
It was an outdated ritual that had come back in recent years. A small hope to replenish the Trentian species after the war and the breeder’s disease.
Earth wanted it.
One flower. One is all you get.
Dommik was sure the Space Lord believed he couldn’t keep the flower alive to bring one back. But he was going to damn well try just to spite the bastard. Even so, it was hard to care about anything anymore, his mind had been lost since Argo and now his heart was bleeding out of him every time he thought about Kat.
And the child he put in her womb. His nanocells reconfiguring and bonding to her egg to create a human baby. Cyborgs can’t be born but the child he gave her would be superior to any human alive.
Except for the monstrous qualities his father had...the blood of bugs.
