“Something like that.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I do not like asking others for help. Especially other males. It feels…”
“Like admitting weakness?”
“Yes.”
“I know the feeling.” She reached out, taking his hand in hers. His scales were warm against her skin, smooth and alienand somehow perfect. “But sometimes strength means knowing when you can’t do something alone. You taught me that.”
“I did?”
“From the moment you appeared in my life.” She squeezed his hand. “You accepted help from me.”
“That was different. You are my mate.”
“And now we’re both asking for help from someone else. It’s the same principle, just… scaled up.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Scaled up. Is that a joke about my appearance?”
“Oh God, no.” But she was grinning now. “I didn’t even notice. Though I’m absolutely using that from now on.”
The tension in the crawler’s cab eased slightly, and she climbed out with a smile on her face.
The station’s interior was exactly what she had expected—functional, impersonal, and absolutely freezing until she managed to activate the heating systems. Supplies were stacked in military-precise rows along the walls: emergency rations, medical equipment, fuel cells, survival gear. Everything a stranded person might need to survive until rescue arrived.
The communication array was mounted on the far wall, its interface glowing with soft blue light.
“The message,” he said. “What will you tell him?”
She stared at the array, her stomach twisting with uncertainty. This was the point of no return. Once she contacted R-339 and admitted that she had something GenCon wanted badly enoughto chase them through an avalanche there would be no going back.
“The truth,” she said finally. “Or as much of it as I can manage.”
“And if he decides to hand us over to GenCon?”
“Then we run again.” She turned to face him. “But I don’t think he will. R-339 follows his own code, and that code definitely doesn’t include helping corporations acquire ancient Martian lifeforms.”
His expression hardened. “Is that is what I am? An acquisition?”
“That’s what GenCon sees you as.” She stepped closer, reaching up to cup his face in her hands. “That’s not what you are to me.”
“What am I to you?”
The question deserved an honest answer.
“Everything,” she said simply. “You’re everything.”
His eyes—those impossibly blue eyes with their vertical pupils—softened. He bent to press a quick kiss to her lips, his mouth warm against hers. For a moment, they stood like that, connected and complete. Then she stepped back.
“Let me make the call. Stay out of view of the camera, just in case.”
He nodded and moved to the far side of the room, positioning himself where the communication array’s visual field couldn’t reach. His wings folded close against his back, and in the dim lighting, he almost managed to disappear into the shadows
She activated the array.
The connection took longer than she expected, although that wasn’t unusual for polar communications, where signal interference was a constant struggle. She used the time to compose herself, and arrange her features into something approaching calm.
The screen finally flickered and resolved into an image.
