Krystal had heard horror stories of entire squadrons of ships being lost because of previous cloaks failing at exactly the wrong time. She shuddered. She didn’t want any blood on her hands.
“Are you cold? I can turn the heat up.”
“No, I’m fine.”
Far from what she had expected, spending this much time with him in such close quarters had her feeling a little ashamed at the assumptions she’d made about him. She should apologize.
“T’arq?”
He turned to face her, his full attention on her, and she found herself a little overwhelmed at the intensity of his gaze. Those purple eyes glowed, and she struggled to keep her thoughts straight. What would it be like to have his attention all the time? To be his one and only?
She chickened out.
“Ah, let’s try the cloak in the asteroid field.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners, but he did not smile. It was as if he knew she had wanted to say something else and had been too scared. He didn’t push her though, and instead just quirked an eyebrow before turning to the controls and easing the ship close to a large asteroid.
“Is this OK?” He gestured to the giant rock, over ten times the size of the ship, and she nodded.
The next hour flew as Krystal deployed external sensors to test the cloak’s performance from outside the ship. They tried slow flybys, gradually increasing in speed until Krystal was satisfied that the ship’s cloak would replicate the exterior of an object it passed in front of.
“It’s working!” She exclaimed, excitement pulsing through her. She reached out and grabbed T’arq’s hand, squeezing before she realized what she was doing.
“What’s next?” he asked.
She let go of his hand. “We need to contact the Zataras again and see if the combination of objects and comm signal has any effect on the cloak.”
“OK, I’ll do that.”
T’arq keyed the comm. “Huh. That’s strange.”
Krystal watched as T’arq’s previously calm manner became much more serious. His hands moved over the various controls much faster than he had since they’d boarded the stealth ship,
“Starship Zataras, this is Qu’Ress Alpha.”
Silence.
“We need to move the ship to get a better signal,” T’arq said as he moved the ship away from the asteroid where it had been tethered while they finished the testing.
Krystal realized he had been humoring her. Keeping calm and fluid movements to not startle her. The speed at which he maneuvered the ship made her stomach jump. She swallowed past a lump in her throat and must have made a noise because T’arq’s hand reached out to pat hers where it was gripping the armrest of her chair, knuckles white.
“Sorry. I need to get us back in range… quickly.”
Krystal nodded and closed her eyes, fighting the impending sense of doom that had flooded her.
Breathe in, one… two… and out… one… two.The mantra running through her head helped her heart rate to slow somewhat, though it still pounded in her chest.
She looked at T’arq as he guided the ship so smoothly, his hands moving sinuously over the controls, like he was playing a musical instrument. Muscle memory knew where every small switch was, where every tap of a finger would show information on the display.
“Let’s try here.” T’arq’s voice was strained.
They had quickly popped out of the bulk of the asteroid belt and, as Krystal confirmed with her own map, they should now have an unobstructed comm path to the starship. They still knew where they were and there was no issue with making it back to the Zataras.
T’arq tried to raise the Zataras on comms again, but there was still no answer.
“Please tell me that there’s a simple reason we can’t reach them?” Krystal pleaded.
T’arq set an automation to continue trying to raise the Zataras.
