“Not enough. We need to—”
She cuts off abruptly, her hands flying across the controls in response to something I haven’t seen yet. Two seconds later, a piece of debris the size of a cargo container tumbles through the space we would have occupied.
“How did you know?” I ask.
“I didn’t. You did.” She glances at me. “Through the bond. I felt your danger sense spike and reacted before my own sensors could confirm the threat.”
The implications settle over me like a revelation. We’re not just bonded partners tolerating each other’s presence. We’re becoming something synchronized. Something tactically enhanced by our connection.
“That’s...” I start.
“Terrifying and useful,” she finishes. “Which describes most of what’s happened since you accidentally bonded us.”
Despite the danger, despite the crisis, I laugh. “That is accurate.”
“Thek-Ka closing distance,” KiKi announces. “Revised estimated intercept: one hour, thirty-seven minutes.”
The laughter dies. He’s learning. Adapting to the field. Using our cleared path to improve his own navigation.
“We need more speed,” Zola says, but I can hear the frustration in her voice. “And you need...”
She trails off, but I know what she’s not saying. The pheromone production is building again. The atmospheric processors are already working overtime. And worse, the biological tension is starting to fragment my focus—instead of channeling everything into threat awareness, part of my attention is constantly diverted to fighting the need for relief.
I’m becoming a liability again.
“I need to—” I gesture vaguely toward the back of the ship, hoping she’ll understand without me having to actually say that I need to relieve the biological tension that’s building to dangerous levels.
She glances at me, and I can see the moment when she understands exactly what I’m asking.
“How far is too far?” she asks practically.
“What?”
“The bond. How far apart can we be before the separation causes problems?”
The question makes me realize the logistics of my situation. The refresher is approximately twelve feet from the pilot’s area. Previous experiments have shown that anything over ten feet causes discomfort for both of us.
“Ten feet,” I admit miserably. “Maybe eight.”
“So if you go to the refresher...”
“We will both experience separation discomfort severe enough to affect piloting ability.”
“And if you don’t...”
“My pheromone production is going to reach levels that will make this ship uninhabitable for anyone not biochemically bonded to me.”
She’s quiet for a moment, executing another perfect course correction while processing the impossible situation we’re in.
“But it’s not just the pheromones, is it?” she asks, her analytical mind cutting to the real problem. “You’re fighting your biology right now. I can feel it through the bond. You’re using energy to suppress responses that want to happen naturally, and that’s fragmenting your focus.”
She’s right. I can feel the split in my attention—part of me scanning for threats, part of me desperately trying to control the physiological responses that keep spiking every time she demonstrates competence.
“I cannot maintain full tactical awareness while fighting my own biology,” I admit. “The more I suppress, the less I can sense through the bond. I’m becoming a degraded sensor array instead of an enhanced one.”
“Options?” she asks, her voice sharp with command authority that makes my biology spike again despite the crisis.
“I could attempt to meditate the biological responses through mental discipline.”
