Chapter 17
Kat stewed on the bridge.Left behind,stuck sitting here like a little girl on the beach who was too young to play with the flipper fish.
The Zantharian soldiers with her didn’t seem to mind their position. One stood guard at the bridge door while the other tried to familiarize himself with the controls.
“Have you had a look at their faster than light drive?” he asked, his voice full of humor. “It’s little more than a Zantharian child’s toy.”
It figures.A little girl trapped in a toy ship.
Kat’s anger grew until she was tapping at the armrests. Her legs were bouncing around with nervous energy.
Every second I sit here means another second wasted.
She had to admit, she was feeling unbalanced after what had happened on the scout ship. How easily the human male had broken down her defenses, how quickly she had succumbed to her lust for him.
The sex was incredible, there was no denying that. It was the most exciting and most satisfying experience she’d ever had. But it left her unsettled, unsure of what to do with her overwhelming feelings.
Could she admit to herself that what she cared for the lieutenant was more than simple attraction? Could she believe that maybe he felt more for her too?
It was all too confusing.
She was forced again to consider what that more might be. Even if she admitted that she wanted a relationship with Jeffrey Brunt, she wasn’t sure what that relationship would look like.
They were two vastly different beings, thrown together in crazy circumstances. Would their feelings even last once the threat was over?
And if they did persist, how could they manage to build a life together? They were both officers in different fleets. They’d tied themselves to careers that meant vast swaths of time spent in space. There was no way they could truly be together unless at least one of them sacrificed a career they’d spent their lives building.
And what about a family, she asked herself? Zanatharian females had a single egg. One chance to pass on their genes. Could a human male even fertilize that egg? Could they have a family together?
If the answer was no, then she would have wasted her chance on a male that could never reproduce.
Even though she wasn’t sure she’d ever have a child herself, the thought of not being able to made her feel empty.
And if the answer were yes, then what? They’d have a half human, half Zantharian hybrid. A child torn between two worlds for the whole of its existence. What kind of life would that be?
Would their relationship ever be accepted by either race? Would their child, if one came along, be accepted?
Kat couldn’t curse a child to a life on the fringes, never belonging to either side.
Alone.
Her thoughts were eating her up from the inside out. She couldn’t just sit there, dwelling on all the unanswered questions that were haunting her. She had to do something.
Kat leaned forward, looking for something to take her mind off her circling thoughts. The control panel in front of her was labeled with several words she didn’t understand. There were a few words she recognized, here and there, from her crash course in Earthling operations. One said ‘infirmary,’ and she recalled that’s what humans called their sick bay. Another said ‘engine’ and one said ‘exterior.’
She’d exhausted her Earthling language training and put her chin in her hands, staring down but not really seeing anything.
Suddenly a light blinked right about the word ‘engine.’
“Look,” she said, startling the Zantharian beside her. “There’s a warning light for the engine room.”
He shrugged, unsure of what she meant.
“The other team could be in danger! We should check out the engine room.”
The soldier tapped at the console, bringing up a display of the ship’s interior on the view screen. “That’s the engine room there.”
“We should check it out.” Kat stood up suddenly. “I refuse to wait here any longer.”
