by S. E. Smith
Chapter Six
Until Caitlin said those words, Marq had felt like an invisible weight was crushing him. The moment she agreed to help, it lifted.
“You heard her,” he said.
He ended the transmission before Dane and Brigid could respond, then turned back to Caitlin. Her eyes were wide as she stared at him. A nervous gaze.
Now that they were alone once more, Marq found himself uncertain of how to proceed. He didn’t want her to change her mind.
“I promise I will keep you safe,” he said.
“You don’t have to keep saying that. In fact, it’s starting to freak me out.” She paused, then asked, “Is it really that dangerous on your ship?”
“Most of my crew is loyal to me or to our new leader. The few who remain focused on the past have no means to recreate it. They will share our perspective eventually. There is no way but forward for our people.”
Unless they wished to let their ignorance lead them to destruction, as the High Council had done.
“I have a lot of catching up to do,” Caitlin said. “But first, you need to get me to my patients.”
Another palpable wave of relief swept through him. He felt his mouth twitch into a smile, the muscles in his cheeks stiff and unused to the movement.
Caitlin’s gaze seemed to be locked on his lips. The skin of her neck reddened.
He felt his body lean toward her of its own accord, as though she was his personal source of gravity.
If he let himself go to her, he would kiss her again. He wouldn’t want to stop.
He needed to get them to the Reckoning.
Forcing himself to turn toward the ship’s command console, he said, “Agreed.”
She stepped closer, further testing his control. “What are you doing?”
“Commencing systems checks in preparation for departure.”
He entered the sequence and looked over his shoulder as the ramp slid into the ship and the hatch closed. Caitlin was staring at the console. It helped that her attention was diverted from him.
“Are these markings your ship’s controls?” She pointed to the designs etched into the metal of the bulkhead.
“They are.”
“How cool.”
Marq tapped on another command sequence, opening the storage compartment that contained his uniform, along with spares in several size ranges. “We’ll draw less attention if we’re in standard uniforms.”
“Okay.”
Caitlin crossed to the open compartment and pulled out one of the silver catsuits, as the Earthlings called them. He still didn’t understand that reference, even after caring for a cat of his own. Perhaps Caitlin could explain it to him after Meredith and her kittens had been checked.
Marq pulled his T-shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor, then unlaced his boots and tugged them off, as well as his socks.
“Seriously?” Caitlin laughed as she held up one of the uniforms and turned to face him. “This is like something out of a B sci-fi movieeeeeee.”
Her voice rose in pitch as she drew out the last word for some reason. She was staring at his chest, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open.
“Are you all right?” he asked, unfastening his shorts and pushing them to the ground, along with his undergarments.
Her eyes widened further, her eyebrows rising almost impossibly high on her forehead. Her gaze dropped to his groin and seemed to become frozen there.
“Caitlin?”
She didn’t respond, but her face was now bright red, the color spilling down her neck and chest. Perhaps she was revisiting their conversation from earlier—about exploring their physical reactions to one another.
The thought of it caused his dick to twitch. Moons, it had only recently ceased being hard.
“You’re… You’re…” she stammered. “You’re naked.”
“It’s a necessary preliminary step to donning my uniform.”
“But… But…” She pointed at his groin.
“I told you earlier that I have a profound physiological response to your proximity.”
“Yeah, that’s…profound,” she murmured, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. She shook her head as her gaze snapped to his. “So, you don’t usually have this reaction when you’re getting into uniform?”
“No. It would be extremely awkward for myself and my crew if that were so.”
“Wait a minute. You all usually get naked together when you change clothes?”
“That makes it sound strange, but yes. Our ships and stations are necessarily small to utilize the least amount of resources. Most spaces are shared among crewmembers. But we also don’t change very often. Our uniforms keep our bodies clean, in addition to providing us with protection and access to much of our technology.”
That reminded him, he would need to deactivate most of the functions of her uniform’s bracer. It would be too odd to have her walking around without it, yet much too dangerous for her to have full access to its technology.
The thought assisted with bringing his body back under control. That and the fact that she was no longer staring at him with that potent expression.
He took the opportunity to pull his own uniform and regulation undergarments from the storage compartment and put them on. He tightened the seals on his boots and snapped his bracer into place on his left forearm. After gathering his Earth clothes, he stuffed them in the storage unit.
“Do you require privacy to change your clothes?” he asked. “My attention will be diverted during the launch.”
“Um, yeah.” She was still staring at him, but without such a…hunger. “Privacy would be good. You can just turn toward the wall, since you’ll be doing that anyway to work the controls, I guess. Just promise not to look.”
It seemed an odd request, but one he could grant without difficulty. “Of course.”
He turned to the command panel, quickly entering their course and beginning the launch sequence. Behind him, he could hear the soft susurration of her clothing as she dropped it to the ground. Suddenly, his promise didn’t seem so easily kept.
If his body reacted so viscerally to her looking at his naked form, what would it be like for him to gaze on hers?
He clamped down on his curiosity. He had given his word.
And yet…
Merely the thought of looking at her was enough to cause his body to stir. He had to get this under control before they reached the ship.
The course was set, and he could feel the vibration of the ship’s engines as they primed. He placed his hands on the wall and closed his eyes, trying to think of anything but Caitlin’s warm lips and the fullness of her hips and breasts.
And failing.
She was close to the ideal size for Sadirians, but her soft, full shape was radically different than most of the women he’d been surrounded by. The genetic engineers wanted citizens who could navigate compact spaces—unlike Marq, with his abnormally large physique.
But then, he wasn’t one of their products.
He reached up, pressing his hands and most of his forearms on the bulkhead above him. The ceiling was so close, if he jumped at all, he’d hit his head on it.
They’d be back on the Reckoning soon, and at least that ship had been designed to accommodate soldiers of various sizes. It was where the societal rejects were sent, after all. Anomalous results from mistakes or experiments.
“I could use some help here,” Caitlin said. “These boots are weird.”
“Is it acceptable for me to turn around?”
“Yes.”
He turned to see her bent over, trying to seal the clasps of her boots. The skintight silver uniform strained against her ample bottom and hips. The sight made him want to reach for her, to feel those curves beneath his own hands, pull her close and…
“How do you— Oh, hey. I got it.” She clicked the seals of her boots into place, then stood and ran her hands over her uniform, as if smoothing away nonexistent wrinkles. “How do I look?”
Like a s
tar made flesh. Like the promising depths of space.
Her hair brushed past her shoulders in dark waves. The contrast with the silver fabric was mesmerizing. Again, he found himself wanting to touch her.
He cleared his throat, then turned back to the command panel. If he couldn’t control his reaction, perhaps he could minimize the source of the stimulus.
“Adequate,” he said.
Chapter Seven
Adequate? Wow, that was harsh. So much for “her proximity causing profound physiological reactions.”
Marq looked stunning in his uniform. It stretched across his shoulders and hugged his ass. The wide belt looked ridiculous, but highlighted his narrow waist.
“I’ve initiated the launch sequence.” He tapped different etchings on the chrome wall and ran his fingertips in intricate patterns over its surface.
A soft whirring filled the space and a panel slid away to reveal a window above the controls. The landscape outside was still illuminated by the lights from the ship, the cacti and brush casting long shadows away from them.
“I thought you would appreciate being able to see our departure,” Marq said.
Caitlin stepped closer to get a better view. The ship rose from the ground quickly, the plants becoming blurs before fading from the reach of the ship’s lights.
She didn’t feel any change in their inertia, but the information her eyes fed to her was at such odds with what she was experiencing that she grew disoriented. Marq was suddenly at her back, his hands on her arms, holding her up.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Are you all right? You looked like you were about to fall.”
“I’m confused. I see us moving, but I don’t feel it.”
“The ship is creating its own gravity field. You shouldn’t be able to detect any outward movement.”
“That is so cool.”
Like the view out the window.
Lights skittered by beneath them. They must be flying incredibly fast.
Then, suddenly, the lights below disappeared, to be replaced with a sky filled with more stars than she’d ever seen, even living on the edge of a town in the desert. They were also clearer, the space between them velvet black.
“Whoa,” she whispered, leaning against Marq’s chest.
A larger light source entered the screen. They were approaching the moon. The moon.
The reality of her amazing situation finally hit her. She was in an actual spaceship, outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, traveling through space.
She felt a little woozy. Marq kept his gentle grip on her arms, silently supporting her as she took in the view.
Familiar features became strange as they neared the moon—the edges of craters that looked blurry from Earth standing out in stark relief. It was so bright from here, and there were many more craters than she realized—a history of impacts etched into its surface.
They sped across the gray-white landscape, flying low. It was like being in a movie with the most epic special effects.
“We’re passing beyond our view of Earth now,” he said.
He reached past her, wrapping one arm around her and hugging her close while the other worked the controls. A small screen appeared on the window, with a transparent image of Earth and weird symbols scrolling beside it.
“Are we going to the dark side of the moon?” she asked.
“Dark side?”
“That’s what I’ve always heard it called. The side of the moon we never see.”
“We call it the far side. Your moon is tidally locked to the Earth, so you only see one side of it, but it’s still illuminated by Sol the same as any other object in your solar system.”
“Sol?”
He hesitated for a moment. “That’s the name of your sun.”
“Oh.” Crap, she should have known that. “I guess I need to learn more about astronomy if I’m going to be your people’s veterinarian.”
She felt as much as heard him suck in a breath. He rested his head against hers briefly.
“I would be honored to teach you,” he said.
Her heart sped at the thought, at his voice close to her ear. She wanted to lift her arm and wrap it around his neck. Pull him closer for a kiss, and then—
Her fantasy stuttered to a stop, the view before her taking up all of her brainspace. She flung herself forward, hands on the window and face pressed close to the glass or…whatever it was.
“Oh my God!” she said.
Two enormous domes rose above a crater before them, made from a latticework of metal triangles filled with transparent material. She could see ships flying around inside the domes, and the tips of structures that disappeared below the moon’s surface.
“Is that the colony you built?” she asked.
“That’s the mining and manufacturing facility.”
He stepped forward so he could stand next to her, his hands flying across the symbols on the wall. The skimmer rose, then circled the structures at an angle so that she could see into the shafts the domes covered.
Artificial lights ran along the walls on either side of the craters. The domes were connected at the center, sort of like a chunky number eight, and the pits they covered went down farther than she could see.
Spires rose from the center of each hole, with metal bridges linking them to each other and the side walls of the tunnels. Vehicles traveled across the bridges, kind of like trams, and elevators rose and descended on the sides.
“How long have you guys been here?” she asked.
“A couple of months.” He tapped more commands and the skimmer turned, heading back over the lunar landscape.
“And you’ve done all of this in that short amount of time?”
“And more.”
She glanced at him in time to catch his gentle smile. Her toes curled in her fancy silver boots.
Marq gestured back to the window, his smile deepening. When she turned around, her breath caught in her chest.
They were approaching another structure, but even at a distance, she could tell this one was different. It was filled with green. The skimmer circled the single, enormous dome, again angling so that she could see into it.
“This is our colony,” he said. “It’s called Kindred.”
Gleaming silver and white buildings stood throughout the covered crater. The structures were wrapped in what looked like brown tree roots that gracefully spiraled around them. Window-like holes, lush plants, and even small trees adorned the roots.
The skimmer rose higher, revealing expanses of green surrounding the tall buildings. There were parks, bits of forest, and a small lake, as well as other structures scattered throughout.
“It’s beautiful.” Her throat felt tight. This was just…so much.
“Yes. It’s the first settlement of its kind. We hope there will be many more to follow.”
“What makes it so special?”
“It’s the first colony the Vegans have established in thousands of years,” he said.
“Vayguns?”
“They’re from the Vega system.”
“Wait, V-E-G-A-N-S?”
“Yes.”
She was quiet for a moment, then said, “You know, that could cause some confusion if people only saw it spelled out.”
He smirked. “It already has, with fortuitous results. The Vegans were attracted by an Earthling who intended to advertise her restaurant’s healthy cuisine by proclaiming ‘Vegans Welcome’. That first contact has set events in motion that will benefit both of your people.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s kind of cool.”
“This colony is the result of the alliance between Earth, the Antareans, and the Vegans. We assisted as well, but the Coalition never would have been able to make this much progress so quickly. Nor would our design have been so…”
“Spectacular?”
He let out a small chuckle. “Human.”
She smirked and shook her head. “Well, I’m sure the Antareans and Vegans
had a say. I mean this is amazing.”
“And the diversity and creativity of Earthlings isn’t?”
She’d never really thought of it that way.
“The structures were influenced by multiple cultures on your planet,” Marq said. “The integration of natural and fabricated materials is based on the technology of the Vegan Life Ship.”
“Wow.” Caitlin tapped on the screen, pointing at one of the tallest structures. “I love how the trees and plants are growing on and around the buildings.”
“Those are actually tunnels. They give the Antareans a feeling of home while also granting them access to the buildings. The dirt they’re made from is an excellent substrate for the plants that provide food and oxygen for the colony. Once everything was put in place, the entire city became self-sufficient.”
“That is so cool.”
“It was Paige Sloan’s idea. She’s an environmental scientist from Earth who is working with the Coalition to restore the ecosystems of many of our worlds.”
Caitlin shook her head, unable to form words as the magnitude of what she was witnessing settled in. Finally, she managed, “I’d like to meet her.”
“Now that you’ve been made aware of our presence, you’ll very likely get a chance.”
With an effort, Caitlin turned away from the window to stare at Marq.
Okay, maybe not that much of an effort.
He was still looking at the city, his expression more relaxed than she’d ever seen. Light from the lunar surface reflected on his features, casting them in a glow softer than the lights from the ship.
She reached out and ran the backs of her fingers across his cheek. His eyelids drifted shut, his chest filling with a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, he was looking at her.
She’d seen that look a time or two. Usually before the best sex of her life.
Pure, raw hunger.
Whatever was going on with his communication style, he wanted her. And she wanted him, too.
Chapter Eight
Caitlin’s gentle caress stirred the ache in Marq’s chest once more—as well as other parts of his anatomy. He gripped her wrist as she started to pull her hand away, pressing her palm to his cheek and holding it there.
