"You as well."
I went inside, leaned against the closed door, and tried to remember how to breathe properly.
"You're in trouble," Elena called from her bunk. "I can hear the catastrophic feelings from here."
"It's professional."
"It's professionally catastrophic. There's a difference."
She wasn't wrong.
My datapad chimed, priority message from Zor'go. I pulled it up, expecting work updates or schedule changes.
Instead:Same time tomorrow. 0600. Bring the charcoal.
I stared at the message, my heart doing complicated things in my chest.
Then a second message:We need to assess the potential expansion site in Cargo Bay Seven. Rarely accessed areas need evaluation. Just the two of us.
Just the two of us. In an empty cargo bay. To assess a potential expansion site.
That was work. That was professional. That was absolutely, completely, totally appropriate.
So why did my pulse kick up like I'd been offered something dangerous?
I sent back a simple confirmation, crawled into my bunk without bothering to change, and stared at the ceiling until exhaustion pulled me under.
And dreamed of crystalline markings flickering in empty spaces, of hands almost touching, of words almost spoken, of the moment before something shifts from professional to personal and there's no going back.
When my alarm screamed at 0530, I woke up with Zor'go's message still glowing on my datapad and the absolute certainty that tomorrow was going to change everything.
I just didn't know how yet.
Chapter 6
Zor’go
I'd made a catastrophic error.
Not in the expansion calculations, those were flawless. Not in the structural integrity projections or the traffic flow optimizations or the power distribution models. My engineering was perfect.
My personal conduct was a disaster.
I stood alone in my office at 0200, surrounded by holographic blueprints that no longer held my attention, and replayed the moment in the cargo bay for approximately the seventy-third time. The exact sequence of events: Jalina's fingers touching my arm. The electric shock of contact through the environmental suit's thin material. The way my markings had brightened involuntarily, an autonomic response I couldn't control, advertising my attraction to anyone who knew how to read Zandovian physiology.
Her confusion when I'd pulled away. The hurt that flickered across her expressive face before she masked it with professional courtesy.
I'd handled it with all the grace of a cargo freighter attempting atmospheric entry.
For three days now, I'd avoided direct interaction. Sent data messages instead of meeting in person. Delegated project updates to Kex'tar. Buried myself in calculations that didn't require Jalina's spatial visualization skills, even though her absence made every design decision harder.
She'd noticed. Of course she'd noticed. Jalina noticed everything, the small details other beings missed, the emotional undercurrents in spaces, the way light changed the character of a corridor. She read environments the way I read engineering specifications.
Her recent project submissions arrived through official channels now, no longer accompanied by her handwritten notes or quick sketches in the margins. The work was still excellent. Still innovative. Still exactly what the expansion project needed.
But the warmth was gone.
I'd done that. Sabotaged our professional collaboration because I couldn't manage my own inappropriate emotional responses like a competent adult.
