He turned to face her. She was wearing her usual overalls with a pink T-shirt underneath, her hair up in a ponytail. There might be other females who were considered more attractive but he couldn’t name any of them. There was something about her natural beauty and her genuine excitement for life that appealed to him. It made him want to protect her from all the bad things that could happen to her in life, but that wasn’t realistic.
“After you.” He waited for her to climb on board.
“Where’s the pilot?”
“I will pilot the shuttle myself.”
She looked back at him in surprise. “I don’t understand.”
He moved to the pilot’s seat and motioned for her to sit in the copilot’s spot. “I have my warriors doing perimeter checks ensuring the safety of the transport and of the planet below.”
“Toro has his own warriors I’m sure are set up for security.”
“Whether he does or not, these are my people and I won’t trust their safety to someone else.”
He expected her to argue or defend the Balar leader but as he glanced over at her, her attention was already on the control panel. He noticed that about Teagan; often either her attention quickly wavered from one thing to another or she became super focused on one project she worked on.
“What’s this for?” She reached toward a blue dial.
“Self-detonator that will blow the shuttle up.”
She yanked her hand back. “What?”
He chuckled. “It’s actually the release of the connectors that hold the shuttle to the docking bay.”
She punched him lightly on the arm. “That is just cruel.”
He laughed, barely feeling the punch at all. “You can press it.”
“Really?” She leaned forward and pressed the button. “So the connectors hook onto the shuttles from underneath when they dock?”
“Yes.”
“Can I take a look at the shuttle underneath? Do you have some kind of lifter that raises it up to have work done? I would love to get my hands on the engines on this baby.”
She was talking really fast and he had to pay attention to catch everything she said. “There are connectors that attach to the top of the shuttle that raise it up so work can be done. I do not think it is wise for you to touch one of our shuttles.”
She pouted, which was adorable with her lips like that. It made him want to kiss her. He kept his eyes on the monitors in front of him and entered the coordinates for the Balar landing area. The shuttle slowly left the docking bay and went out into space. Her sweet scent filled the shuttle and he was grateful it wouldn’t take them long to reach the planet’s surface.
“What does this do?”
He looked over and saw she was tapping the little meter. “It’s an oxygen meter. It tells whether oxygen is at the appropriate levels.”
“And this?”
“Communicator that will automatically reach out to the nearest transport.”
She got a gleam in her eyes and pressed the communicator.
“What are you doing?”
“Commander LemAN, are you experiencing issues?”
Before he responded that it was a mistake, Teagan spoke. “Hey, is this Lieutenant ComEY?”
“Yes. Is this Teagan?”
“Yep! I’m learning all about shuttles today.”
