T’arq scowled, but nodded. “Yes. I wouldn’t do it again, but Tomas ordered it.” He stared down at the prone form of Krystal, lying so still in the bed. If he could go back… but that wasn’t worth thinking about. What was done was done.
“Ah.” Oren pushed off from the wall and came to stand next to T’arq.
“They’re preparing an assault.” T’arq turned his head, purple eyes serious as he met Oren’s cool aqua blue gaze.
“On Earth?” One eyebrow lifted in question.
“Where else?”
Oren nodded, rubbing his chin in thought. “There isn’t anywhere else they could hit, not from there.”
The two Taureans were silent for long moments, considering the consequences of a Xakul attack on Earth. The humans were so ill-equipped to face an enemy like the Xakul the outcome was obvious. And would be as terrible as it would be quick.
“It would be a massacre,” T’arq stated boldly.
“A total annihilation,” Oren agreed.
“We can’t let this happen.”
“I concur.”
“We have to keep them safe.” Not that T’arq had done such a good job of that so far. All he had to do was keep Krystal safe. That was his one job on this test flight. T’arq rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. So much for that. She lay in a medical bay bed, unconscious!
T’arq brushed his fingers over the back of her small hand, then taking it in his own to feel her pulse jerk against his fingers. He sat there, drinking in everything about her; the freckles over her nose, the long brown lashes that curved against her cheeks, the way her hair curled wildly. He committed it all to memory.
She had saved them both, and he had done… what, exactly? He’d flown them into a Xakul fleet, got them caught, shot at, and sent her on a solo spacewalk, the outcome of which was so poor that he may as well have sent her to her death. And she had survived and saved them both.
He knew she was attracted to him, but he also knew that she didn’t want something temporary. His track record was just that—temporary. How could he offer her anything more? Why would she want anything more with him?
Enough people had told him of his reputation, and he was beginning to think they had a point. What was that brilliant Earth saying? If it looked like a duck and quacked like a duck?
He was jerked from his thoughts by Krystal, her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks as she woke. He held his breath. Would she be all right?
Krystal’s head rolled around on the pillow, her eyes opening to mere slits, as if the light in the room hurt. “T’arq?” Her voice was croaky, hardly recognizable.
“I’m here,” he squeezed her hand.
“I found you.” She smiled at him, and he had never been so glad in his life. “I saw you on the ship and I came to you.”
“How?”
“I used the oxygen tank.”
“To propel yourself?” His eyes widened.
“Yes.” She smiled. “It worked.”
“You could have died.”
“But I didn’t.”
He sat back in the chair and stared at her. “I didn’t deploy the emergency beacon.”
“I did it.”
He nodded. She had done everything. The little human who had struggled to even get onto the ship in the first place had saved them. And all he’d done was knock himself out with a plasm cannon blast.
He’d promised to keep her safe. Promised her it was just a test flight, and that nothing bad would happen to her.
