Chapter 15
Captain Jennifer Brooklyn stood in front of the airlock door, her hand hovering over the button that would open the exterior hatch. The precious oxygen in the small chamber would rush out, and the cold void of space would rush in.
Major Ontarii, the first alien she’d ever met, would tumble into the blackness of space to join his dead comrades if she moved even an inch forward.
That is, if hewasMajor Ontarii.
When she’d moved him into the airlock, she’d planned only to hold him there for the next eight hours or so, or until he became a block of red jelly. If he changed, he was a shapeshifting creature known as the Hareema, who were hell bent on taking over her ship and invading JL-398, or, as those who lived there called the planet, Zanthar.
If he didn’t change, then he really was the Ontarii. That meant he could be trusted.
But, if it was him, he was going to be pissed.
Brook bit her lip, her hand trembling over the button. The major stared at her, his eyes dark, his expression hard. Just before she’d locked him into the airlock at laser point, he’d tried to blast her with his bioelectricity. By the look of things, he was highly considering doing far worse to her than a quick jolt to her nervous system.
The thought made her unaccountably sad. Before distrust had built a wall between them, the handsome alien major had kissed her so passionately, she’d gotten dizzy. Ontarii had held her gently in his strong arms, comforting her at the discovery of the corpse of one of her crew.
Now it would appear that he hated her.
Worse still, the man in front of her might not even be Ontarii. It could be a Hareema operative, playing off her fears and ignorance, trying to manipulate her into its grasp.
Either he was a shapeshifter, and therefore a risk she couldn’t afford, or he was an angry leader with a fleet at his back and revenge in his heart. Either way, she was making an enemy as she stood there deliberating.
Brook never would have imagined her current scenario as she headed toward JL-398 to look for the missing scientist, Dr. Sylvia Cohen. She didn’t know whether to believe Ontarii when he'd told her that Cohen was alive and well, and in the company of the Supreme Regent of Zanthar.
Instead of making it to the planet and staging a rescue of the scientist, she was stuck out in space, her crew missing, except the ones who were dead.
“Captain Brooklyn,” Ontarii started, his voice like broken glass, but he was interrupted by a loud banging noise coming from outside the corridor.
Brook turned, peering down the hallway, but was unable to determine the source of the sound. She took a couple of steps down the hall towards the crew’s mess.
“Captain, wait!” Ontarii’s face tightened as his eyes narrowed. “You can’t go down there.”
Brook shook her head at him. “I need to find out what that is. The ship could be malfunctioning, or it could be a member of my crew, injured and in need of help.”
“Or it could be a fucking Hareema agent setting a trap for you,” he growled at her with hate in his gaze.
His warning gave her pause, but there was the issue of her not trusting him at all that pushed her to ignore him.
“Stay put,” she said, turning her back on him and starting down the corridor, feeling like an idiot for her comment.
Stay put? Really? Where was he going to go?
“No!” His shout came out of the speaker above the door and echoed down the hall, making a shiver slide up her spine. “Let me out. You can’t go out there alone.”
“I’m not alone,” she replied over her shoulder. “I’ve got my FIDOs.”
She left with her chin lifted and her shoulders square. With her four robotic companions at her back there was nothing to fear.
