Their eyes met, and T’arq smiled gently, hoping to send some reassurance to her. She looked away quickly.
He sighed.
“Sir…?” Krystal began, her voice cracking on the word. She cleared her throat, continuing more confidently. “The cloak is a modification of your previous technology…”
The details were quickly lost on T’arq and, instead; he watched as she waved her hands enthusiastically. All she wanted was to be of use, to help people in some small way. And she had, except for that minor issue with the drone sensing them, but he was confident she would sort that out. She had sorted everything else out, hadn’t she? He felt a warm wash of pride fill him as he watched her speak. Her face was so expressive—her passion clear. What would it feel like to be the object of such adoration? A sudden craving hit him for her to look at him with the same passion she had for her work.
“… and T’arq.”
“Huh?” He jolted in his seat, blinking and looking around the room.
Laila’s eyes narrowed, and she began to speak, but stopped as Zac touched her arm lightly.
“Not now,” he said, and she pressed her lips together in obvious disagreement.
T’arq turned to look at Krystal, who took an unsteady breath and shuddered.
“Krystal?” He ducked his head to catch her eyes, but she avoided looking at him, turning her head, a slight flush filling her cheeks.
“Sub-Commander Qu’Ress,” Karik’s voice had him turning sharply to address the Supreme Commander.
“Yes, sir?”
Karik rolled his eyes. “It’s never going to stop, is it?” He spoke to someone off-camera that T’arq couldn’t see. A light laugh and a mumbled reply came and Karik grinned, then turned back to T’arq. “You have obviously been focusing on someone much more important than me,” he said, an eyebrow cocked in question.
He glanced at Krystal, whose face had gotten even more red. Something in her lap was fascinating, though, as she wouldn’t look anywhere else.
He sighed, running a hand over his face. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.Sir,” he said, unable to stop the note of challenge in his voice.
To his surprise, the most powerful man in the entire Taurean empire threw his head back and laughed. “What is it with you warrior types and humans, hey?”
Zac grunted, Laila choked, and Krystal finally looked up from her lap.
“Specialist Storey will—”
“SpecialistStorey?” T’arq interjected.
“You really weren’t listening, were you?” Zac shot him a look. T’arq shrugged. “Karik offered Krystal a role as the fleet’s cloaking specialist.”
T’arq gaped, then quickly darted a look at the woman next to him. “Are you going to accept?”
Her usually transparent expression was unreadable. “What do you think?”
And wasn’t that the problem? He hadn’t been thinking. He’d been feeling, and look where that had gotten him—all tied up in knots. He knew better than that. Don’t get involved. Never get involved.
Too late.
“Specialist Storey will roll out the cloak upgrades fleet wide,” Zac explained, “and you are going to help her. As the only pilot who has flown a ship with this new cloak, it makes perfect sense.”
T’arq grunted. Even if it made little sense, he could hardly reject a direct order.
Karik cleared his throat, drawing the attention of all in the room once more. “Then there is the matter of this new Xakul threat.”
Tomas stood and, flicking a second view screen into life, scrolled through images that T’arq had taken of the Xakul mass. Had Krystal saved the data drive from the stealth ship as well?
“They have to be destroyed. We cannot have such a large force massing so close to the only human settlements. If they reach Earth…”
Nobody spoke, though their grim faces said enough.
