"Dana," the Captain said directly, "on behalf of Mothership's crew, thank you."
The assembly erupted in a gesture I'd learned meant approval: hands pressed to hearts, then extended outward.
Acceptance. Finally.
I returned to quarters to find my friends waiting with worried expressions and too many questions. We talked for an hour with me explaining Kim's capture, them processing the implications of another Liberty survivor who'd chosen deception over honesty.
"She could have joined us," Jalina said quietly. "Could have integrated with the other survivors. Instead she spent six months lying to everyone."
"She thought she had a debt to repay," I said. "Thought that obligation outweighed everything else."
"Did it?"
I didn't have an answer to that. Debt and obligation and survival all tangled together in ways that made simple moral judgments impossible.
Eventually exhaustion won over conversation, and I collapsed onto my sleeping platform with thoughts too complicated to process.
I dreamed about escape pods scattered across impossible distances. About brilliant engineers making desperate choices. About the fine line between survival and betrayal.
And about amber eyes watching me with concern that felt like more than professional interest, though I wasn't ready to examine what that might mean.
Tomorrow would bring investigations and interrogations and countless complications.
But tonight, Er'dox was walking me to my quarters, his presence solid and warm beside me.
At my door, he hesitated. "Dana. What you did today—defending me, stopping the saboteur?—"
"We're a team," I said. "That's what teams do."
"Is that all we are?" His amber eyes held mine. "A team?"
My heart kicked against my ribs. I don't know what we are."
"Then maybe it's time we figured that out."
He leaned down, and I stopped breathing entirely. His lips met mine as he swept me into his arms and carried me to his room.
The Mothership hummed around us, a constant reminder of the vast unknown we were about to explore. But in that moment, none of it mattered. Not the mission, not the uncharted sectors, not the responsibilities waiting for us. There was only Er'dox and me, and the magnetic pull between us that had been building since we first truly saw each other.
His quarters were less the stark, functional space of an engineer alien and more a blend of our two worlds. The Zandovian tech still pulsed with its familiar blue glow, but Earth fabrics softened the edges of the room, and a holographic display of Earth’s night sky rotated slowly above us, a gift from the Mothership’s archives. It was a place where two species, two lives, had learned to coexist.
Er'dox stood near the viewing portal, his broad shoulders tense beneath the dark fabric of his uniform. I stepped up behind him, my hands finding the hard planes of his chest. His skin was warm beneath my palms, the steady beat of his heart a contrast to the rapid pulse I could feel in my own veins.
"You're thinking too much," I murmured, my lips brushing the ridge of his shoulder.
His hands curled around my waist, pulling me flush against him. "And you're not thinking enough."
I laughed, the sound swallowed by the vastness of space outside the portal. "Maybe I just know what I want."
He turned then, his glowing amber eyes locking onto mine. There was no hesitation in him now, no conflict. Just hunger. His hands cupped my face, thumbs brushing over my cheeks before his mouth claimed mine. The kiss was deep, demanding, the kind of kiss that erased everything else. His tongue swept against mine, and I melted into him, my fingers tangling in the short, thick strands of his hair.
Clothes were an inconvenience, something to be shed quickly. My uniform jacket hit the floor first, followed by his. My hands traced the ridges of his abdomen, the alien musculature that still fascinated me even after all this time. His skin was warm, almost feverish beneath my touch, and I could feel the way his body reacted to me. The way his muscles tensed, the way his breath hitched when my nails grazed over the sensitive scales along his ribs.
He growled low in his throat as I explored him, the sound vibrating against my skin. His hands were just as eager, mapping the curves of my body like he was memorizing me all over again. When his fingers found the swell of my breasts, I arched into his touch, a gasp escaping me.
"So responsive," he rumbled, his lips trailing down my neck, over my collarbone. His tail flicked against my leg, the appendage more sensitive than it looked, and I shivered as it brushed against my inner thigh.
I pushed him back toward the sleeping platform, needing to feel him beneath me. He went willingly, sprawling across the surface with a predatory grin. I straddled his hips, my hands pinning his wrists to the platform as I leaned down to capture his mouth again. He let me take control for all of three seconds before his tail wrapped around my waist and flipped me onto my back.
