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In the Stars
By : Bebe
Category: 1 through F > Andromeda
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In the Stars
Chapter Five: All I Want Is to Fly with You

On the Andromeda, not the Maru; Beka could tell before opening her eyes. The omnipresent hum of the ship and the feel of the mattress were enough to tell her. And she was probably in her quarters aboard, rather than Tyr’s, because the sheets didn’t smell like him and she didn’t usually spend the night in his. Of course, he didn’t usually spend the night in hers, either, but the heavy arm slung across her back would argue against that.
It was her quarters, though. The Maru was out, Trance and Harper aboard and due back that day, and when Tyr had come looking for her the night before she had already been getting ready for bed. She’d been bone-tired from a couple of tricky slipstream routes and one finicky repair that hadn’t been able to wait for Harper to return after a part wore out abruptly. She’d only been putting a last few things in order before getting to sleep when the door access had gone.
“I had thought—” he’d said once she opened it, but something about her must have indicated without a word just how disinterested she was in his likely suggestion at that moment. “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” She hadn’t been able to fight the yawn, but before he completely turned away she managed, “Stay?”
He’d stepped inside when she moved back to let him, but still seemed uncertain. “To sleep, or…?”
“Sleep now and ‘or’ in the morning?”
Hesitation, a slow nod, and she’d led the way to the bed. It was risky, spending the night together if they didn’t want anyone asking questions, but at that moment she hadn’t much cared and apparently he hadn’t either, shedding his clothes and crawling in beside her. With her exhaustion dragging her down she’d fallen asleep quickly next to his warmth.
Whether it was from sheer tiredness or the feel of the body next to her, she’d slept well. At some point they’d ended up pressed side-to-side, and it was a good thing she was comfortable because she didn’t think she could move far easily with the weight above the covers pinning her down. Not that she blamed him for that, as there were only so many ways he could lie down without shredding her or the bedding or both with his boneblades.
She wouldn’t have been surprised if there were an element of possessiveness to it, too, consciously or not. Weeks ago he’d promised to restrain his more overt impulses out among everyone else, and he’d kept his word, but in private? When it was just them, when not even Rommie could bear witness? She was starting to think she had a pretty good idea of how a Nietzschean husband would act toward his wife. Outside of the obvious, of course, because he still held fast to that refusal. But increasingly their time together had been as much focused on each other’s presence as it was about sex. They’d pushed the hours that they dared to steal to just talk or lie together. He supported her quietly, even a few times around the others. He helped her with repairs more often than before, had listened to her vent over Dylan or a potential ally more than once, had come back from their last shoreleave with a CD to replace one she’d mentioned her brother stealing on their last encounter. He had sought her out more than once for her opinion and let slip a few stories about his childhood before the Drago-Katsov attack. She would have sworn he’d smiled or laughed more with her lately than he had with all of them the first few months, and frequently the way he touched her seemed less lust-driven than affectionate. It seemed, sometimes, like he might be falling for her and it scared the hell out of her, not least because she was pretty sure she was falling for him, too.
It was a bad idea. A terrible one, really, even by her standards of falling for lousy men. A Nietzschean mercenary? One who had been prepared to kill her and her crew if they got in Gerentex’s way less than a year ago and now she had to work with every day if this all went to pot? One who was going to leave sooner or later, for a Nietzschean wife or for his own goals or from butting heads with Dylan too many times? And that was assuming they even survived this lunatic quest. She could feel it happening, though, from that stupid little heart flutter she’d felt when he’d asked her if she ever wanted to be a wife to her reluctance right now to disturb their moment of peace. She even resented that sleeping like this was a risk rather than something they could just do if they wanted to. Frankly, more days than she wanted to admit to herself she’d had in the back of her mind the hope that the stars would align enough for him to come to the Maru that night or answer his door when she asked for access. Knowing what it all meant didn’t make accepting it— or accepting that anything more was already doomed no matter how they both felt— any simpler.
Tyr interrupted her considerations, murmuring, “You’re thinking very loudly.”
That answered the question whether he was awake or not, at least. She turned her head to him. “I didn’t know you were engineered for telepathy.”
“I can tell that you’re awake. Since you haven’t said anything…” Rather than finish the sentence, he moved the hand that had been draped across her to brush the hair away from her eyes.
“It’s nothing,” she reassured him, “just letting my mind wander.”
It was still dim in the room, still early enough in the ship’s day that the lights weren’t fully up, but they were enough for her to see that he didn’t seem to fully believe her. He could probably tell she was eliding the truth some but didn’t pursue it, tucking the errant hair behind her ear. “How did you sleep?”
“Pretty well. We should do this more often,” and she was only half-teasing as she said that but much less so when the hand that had been by her ear drifted down to rest on her ass.
“Perhaps.” It seemed like he was about to say more, but he stopped. After that odd pause, barely even long enough to be a pause at all, he leaned to kiss her and she met him enthusiastically, twisting just enough to make it possible to do so without straining her neck, but not without wondering what words he’d closed his mouth on. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d chosen not to voice the objection she would have had if he’d said that to her, of how to keep it from becoming a habit that would tip off everyone else when she could see how easily it would become a habit.
Forget falling for him. She was pretty sure she’d already fallen and was just sinking deeper.
It wasn’t hard, with the way he kissed. Well. Among other things. But starting with the kissing. He’d barely touched her, had only just brushed her lips with his, but already she felt herself warming to that little. Slowly but intently he pressed more insistently, coaxed her mouth open. Not rushed or demanding, but welcoming, encouraging, as if he were as reluctant as she to pierce their bubble of quiet intimacy. She responded in kind, edging closer to twine her fingers in his hair and hold him there. She wanted more, much more, but they had the day and it was still early; they had the time to savor it, let the heat build slowly, and they did. When he retreated she followed, and when she broke that next intense kiss he brushed over her ear and neck, moving down centimeter by centimeter to graze her collarbone. She slid her hand down his arm in response, needing to give him space to continue sending shivers of sensation through her, and was startled when her fingers caught on the base of a boneblade rather than the edge of the leather bracer as she expected. He must not have anticipated it either, a muffled noise against her shoulder betraying that, but he didn’t seem to object judging by the tightening of his hand on her and the renewed kisses working down the strap of the tank top she’d worn to bed.
The jolt had pulled her momentarily from the haze she’d been in, letting her think once the surprise had worn off. She’d never seen him with them off except in the shower, and she’d have to think about that later, because right now she was more concerned with him sliding down the strap to tease the upper curve of her breast. “Mm, wait,” she managed, and he did, though she completely understood the faint grumble when she pulled back slightly. She hated to have him back away even that little. “Let me get this off.” The way he watched her as she stripped off the top was rewarding in itself, almost enough to make up for the lack of touch, his eyes on her breasts as she sat up to tug it over her head, and his interest didn’t waver as she wriggled off the shorts, either. She’d barely dropped them over the edge of the bed and well out of the way when he rolled to his back, still intent on her body and motion, and reached out a hand to catch hers and urge her to him again.
She came, stretching to kiss him again while his hands explored her newly exposed flesh, stroking her back, her legs and breasts and hips, holding her jaw as she teased him with her lips and tongue on his. She shuddered at the barely-there drag of his boneblades over her skin, knowing from experience that the faint tracery of red lines would fade within hours, like her nails on him but welcoming the sparkles of sensation at the contact. Yielding to temptation, she did much the same, the hand that did not support her roaming over his chest, making his breath hitch when she rubbed her thumb over a nipple and his abdominal muscles shudder when she followed the curve of a rib to his sensitive side.
The game of the slow build-up abruptly turned serious when his fingers diverged from their path up the back of her thigh, sliding between them to press shallowly at her wet folds. She couldn’t prevent the gasp at the barely-there penetration, abruptly wanting far more when seconds before she had been content with the roaming touch he’d been giving her. Curious if it had been his own impatience that had changed first, she slid her hand down his torso and under the blanket to the place she’d been careful to avoid rather than be the one to elevate them from play to deliberate. Once she had she realized that he must have been exercising a great deal of patience to wait this long.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that she didn’t think he’d been this hard before, steel under her hand and smooth skin hot to the touch. She’d barely pressed her palm to the rigid shaft when he dipped his fingers farther inside her: reward, distraction, coincidence? She didn’t care, pushing back to encourage him deeper, wanting more of him, wanting all of him. He obliged as much as he was willing, making her moan when he curled inside her to that one spot that sent her rocketing closer to orgasm, and she wasn’t sure whether to curse him or praise him for knowing her body so well.
But she wanted to take him with her, wanted him to feel just as much at her mercy, and as gratifying as his groan was when she slid over him it wasn’t enough. He was close to the edge, the head of him damp with sheer need just from her playful touch and what he was doing to her, and she was greedy for more.
She moved. Quickly, before he could protest, away from his touch though she was loathe to lose it and swinging her leg over his pelvis. “Beka—” he gasped, losing whatever he was going to say when she settled on him. She needed the pressure of him against her even if she couldn’t have it inside. If he had been about to protest, he didn’t after all, instead grabbing her hips to drive her more firmly onto him, her wet cunt pressed against his length. She sighed, a breath of relief at the feel of him hard beneath her at least, close to what she wanted and apparently close to what he did as well. Almost immediately his fingers were digging into her hips and ass to encourage her to move. So she did, leaning forward until she could feel him all along her aching flesh, until her clit was pressed to that rock-hard shaft just under the head where she knew he’d feel every nuance of movement, and she started to rock above him.
The strangled growl he made sounded inhuman as she ground against him. Once it might have made her nervous, but now she reveled in it, knowing what she was doing to him to earn it, feeling the vibration ripple through her in response, and she kept going. She wanted him to succumb to her completely as she felt herself drawing nearer to her own climax. He pulled her onto him harder, making her shudder at the new wave of pressure, but she didn’t think it was entirely intentional. His eyes had drifted closed and his muscles were trembling with tension underneath her. Knowing what it did to him, she leaned forward to bite his chest, shifting just enough to rub at the head of his cock.
That was all he needed, jerking up to her and groaning as if he were dying when she came at her control, and that heady rush of power was almost enough. She met his thrust up once, twice, and the last shudder that ran through him was enough to pull her over the edge with him in a rush of sheer bliss.
When Beka came back to herself, she was shaky, her limbs weak, and she gave into the impulse to lie down against him rather than trust her weight to her arms. She realized as she did that he wasn’t in much more solid shape; the chest she leaned on was moving unevenly with his ragged breaths, and when she rested her head against his shoulder his heart was racing still. She didn’t trust herself to say anything, at least nothing that wouldn’t be a bad idea, and so she didn’t even try, deciding to just stay there and soak up his presence. It was an easy decision even before the shakiness. He wasn’t exactly inclined to be lively, either, his only motion after she essentially collapsed being to run his hands slowly over her back and thighs. The gesture was surprisingly gentle and absolutely perfect for the mood she was in. The telepathy comment may have been a joke, but sometimes it didn’t seem that far off.
Eventually she did feel more grounded, and she could feel his breathing calming and evening out, but neither of them made any attempts at getting up or even shifting away from each other. It was still early, after all, and they had nowhere to be and nothing to do until the Maru returned. She was seriously considering that they just stay in bed until that happened, although food would probably be a consideration before that. Her quarters had a small box of emergency rations just like the rest, but no one who didn’t have to would eat those by choice, and she didn’t stock food in hers like Tyr did. She was still contemplating that quandary when Tyr spoke, a low rumble by her ear. “You’re right,” and she wondered for a moment what she was right about until he finished, “I believe we should do this more often.”
“I’m the captain, I’m always right,” she said once she caught up to what he was referencing. She laced her fingers together and rested her chin on her knuckles. “But by all means, tell me more about how right I am.”
He smiled faintly, glancing away from her eyes before looking back. His hands slowed to a stop at her waist, but he kept them on her, warm and almost affectionate. His tone was, as well, despite the words that were less than flattering taken at face value. “I doubt your ego needs further stroking.”
“Oh, come on, whose doesn’t?”
“Given that we are not only attempting to revive a fallen government but are arrogant enough to think we can succeed? No one on this ship.”
“Fine,” she admitted, but then grinned. “Bet you still wouldn’t complain if I stroked your… ego… though, would you?”
“I’m Nietzschean. Of course not.”
“And that is called a double standard.”
“Nietzschean. Besides,” and his hands started to slide up her back again, something that abruptly made her very nervous, “I never said that I wouldn’t… stroke your ego.” He framed her skull and tilted her head enough that he could kiss her thoroughly.
When it broke, well after she could feel her body responding and probably after he could pick up on that, she frowned at him as if she were confused. “Hm, what were we stroking again?”
Tyr growled at her, playfully this time, the low reverberation of it going through her where she still lay against him. God help her, the fact that she knew he had a “playful” growl and that she could identify it… She was immediately distracted by him rolling them over, yelping and grabbing for purchase but failing when he started to kiss her again, not that she was really trying that hard.
They did make it out of her quarters before the Maru returned that afternoon, but not by much and only because they decided they were too hungry to do anything else around lunchtime.

The last fastener on the panel was surprisingly stiff, but Tyr got it screwed back on. In this instance, a sentient ship was not a disadvantage, the AI being able to warn them of a section of this missile array failing before it burned out in battle. As Harper had been prioritizing the more delicate systems the last repair run had yielded parts for, the task had fallen to the ship’s nominal weapons officer.
As he cleaned up the mess the replacement work had made, he heard a noise at the edge of his hearing and held his breath. Yes, footsteps were approaching. No scrape of claws on the deck plating, so not the Magog. Heavier than Trance’s, lighter than Dylan’s. Harper’s were quicker than these, a bleedover of his usual manic energy, and the android’s had a certain military crispness these lacked.
Beka.
He didn’t even try to deny the anticipation. They had left her quarters three days before out of necessity, but then the Maru had returned and their time had been subsumed into repairs and upgrades. They’d seen each other around the ship, of course, had handed command back and forth at the end of shifts and assisted each other and Harper with the work, but time alone and uninterrupted had as always been at a premium, and with the others around and the ever-watchful ship they had been limited to barely-there touches and whispered words once again. But he had become accustomed to her presence, to the feel of her skin against his whenever possible in the last few months, and he missed them even in that short span of days.
But the missile work was the last to be completed, and while it was possible that she was coming to give him more to do it was equally possible that they were now both free to pursue their own interests. At that prospect he worked to stow the last of the tools and run the final check on the system, to be closer to done in either case. That was the right decision, as once those footsteps reached the entrance to the maintenance bay for the array he heard Beka’s voice. “Rommie, a little privacy, please?”
He smiled, at both the request and the acknowledgement, knowing what that usually meant, but he schooled his features before she stepped in. They usually stayed out of the public areas of the ship, after all, so he shouldn’t assume too much. “Beka.”
“Tyr.” She came toward him, her scent carried ahead of her, and he was surprised that it didn’t have the heavier notes of arousal he expected. He was still watching the working display rather than having turned to face her as she entered, and before he did she crossed the small room. Immediately she forestalled that movement, leaning against his back and sliding her hands under the chain mail to rest on his stomach. The display beeped as she did, showing that nothing else in the system needed attention, so he cleared it before pressing his hands over hers, ignoring the links pinching at his palms. This gesture of hers was odd, curiously needy or affectionate or both, and he wondered at it in conjunction with her scent.
“Is something wrong?” he asked after a moment. The change was disconcerting and he wanted to know why.
“Maybe.” The word was muffled into his braids, and she edged away so the next two were clearer. “Rommie knows.”
“The ship?” He let go and turned to face her, her hands sliding from under the shirt as he did. “Knows or suspects?”
“Knows.” She grimaced. “I never put on privacy mode in my quarters the other night.”
That was.. a complication. “She told you?”
“Yeah. Said she’d suspected for a while with privacy mode all the time, and then…” Beka sighed. She rubbed at her forehead like she had a headache at the prospect. It was not beyond belief that she did.
“And then she had the opportunity to watch.” Mocking tones, but truth. He was never sure of or comfortable with the extent to which the AI could monitor the crew, for so many reasons.
“She swears she only did enough to make sure it was— um. Though not in so many words.”
“And you believe that?”
“Not much more than you do.”
He groaned and leaned back against the console, bracing his hands on the edge. “Wonderful. Shall I assume Dylan knows as well?”
“‘Not yet.’ As in, since we’re not High Guard technically, we don’t fall under fraternization protocols, and as our relationship hasn’t impacted ship functioning— her words—she hasn’t, but if it does or we do anything that poses a threat she will.” She sighed again. “I still can’t believe I forgot privacy mode.”
“It wasn’t just you,” he pointed out, frustrated at his own lapse. Though he didn’t voice the thought, he was aware of how much they’d been pushing the limits lately, and while this was not the avenue he’d been expecting the AI realizing had never been an impossibility. It was perhaps more impressive that it hadn’t come up already, given the time closeted away together or some of the more daring touches in public areas of the ship, but then for a machine certainty may have been needed before action.
“No, it wasn’t.” Beka crossed her arms and looked at him steadily. “So now what?”
“Now what?” he echoed, not sure what she was asking.
“Now… Do you want to stop? This isn’t exactly something you want known, is it?” She waited, impatience in her expression.
No, he hadn’t wanted it known, but they’d never discussed why, or what to do if they were exposed. Foolish, in retrospect, living on a warship that seemed at times too small for only seven beings even before considering the all-seeing AI. “No,” but as her mouth tensed he added quickly, “but that is because I prefer my affairs to be my affairs rather than someone else’s. I am not… ashamed of this.”
“Didn’t you say it was only the inferior prides that would use Humans?”
“Slaves and prostitutes, I said. Not Humans as a whole.” She’d had some bite to her words with her last statement and he could understand the hurt if that was how she interpreted it. “Do you think I would consider myself inferior?”
“No, I think that’s about the last way you’d think of yourself.” She smiled faintly and reluctantly in response to his, amused as he was by her immediate and accurate response, and let him catch her by the hips and pull her to stand between his legs. “I thought you’d be more upset by this,” she said quietly after a moment.
“I’m not pleased,” he admitted, “but it was always a risk.” He was pleased by her uncrossing her arms and resting her hands on his shoulders. “Now. Do you feel comfortable continuing?”
“Right now?” she asked brightly. “Or can we get to the Maru first?” He gave her a withering look, but it didn’t depress her much, if at all. She did sober somewhat with her next words. “Yeah. Like you said, it was always a risk. I don’t like Rommie knowing, especially by watching, but if we’re careful about privacy… I don’t really need anyone else knowing, or her knowing more.”
“That I can agree with.”
They stood in silence for a moment longer, regarding each other. He was frankly glad that she didn’t want to end their… arrangement. She wouldn’t choose to be his mate even if she could, he knew, but she was the closest he had, and he valued the companionship perhaps even more than the physical release. That she was so refreshingly self-interested did not dissuade him, her attitude at times so Nietzschean that he half-expected her to be one in fact. There were moments he wished she were, the idea of her with boneblades on her arms and her stomach swollen with his child one he had contemplated more than once.
But that was impossible. She was not Nietzschean. She could not be his wife and she could not have his child. The stigma of being half-Human and half-Nietzschean was not what he wanted to be responsible for conferring on an infant no matter the appeal of seeing what their mixed genetics would yield, her more admirable strengths and traits combined with his. He would not chance it. That did not remove the temptation, however, or any of his more husbandly impulses, the ones that she rolled her eyes at but accepted nonetheless.
Of course, while he suspected that she would not want to be his wife and decidedly not the mother of their children no matter his opinion on the idea, she still seemed to want his presence for reasons other than straightforward sex. The other night, when she’d requested that he sleep with her, to start. The countless other times she’d risked exposure by a casually intimate touch, on Command deck or elsewhere. Now, as she started to slide her hands slowly down his arms, for no apparent reason other than to touch him. Giving in to his own urges engendered by her closeness and contact, he tilted his head to meet her lips with his. She kissed him back, surprisingly softly, and he let it stand, not pushing for more but enjoying the simple contact.
Eventually it drew to an end, but they stayed close, Beka dragging her fingers slowly over his arms again. The frown when she reached his forearms concerned him, though. “Beka?”
“You weren’t wearing these the other night. Usually you do.” She traced the edge of the bracer near his elbow.
“I don’t always.” She focused on him and he wondered if she would understand the full import of his explanation. “If I’m alone or with someone I trust, for example. A wife, perhaps.”
He saw her eyes widen, but she went for the low-hanging fruit of the statement. “It took you this long to trust me?”
“Well, that and removing them takes time we don’t often have.”
“Ah.” She seemed thoughtful and fingered the leather. After a beat, she asked, “Why only around people you trust?”
He shrugged, casually, as though he didn’t know she wasn’t above using the information for her own means regardless. One of the reasons he had been so reluctant to remove the guards, never mind suspecting that “her own means” would mostly or entirely be what they did behind closed doors. “The skin around and between the bases is sensitive. Too much stimulation can be… uncomfortable.”
As he’d suspected, she seemed to calculate that statement. “And just a little stimulation can be…?”
“Stimulating,” he deadpanned.
She smirked. “Like the kind of stimulating you only want when you’re in bed with your wife?”
“Precisely.”
“So how about when you’re in bed with me?”
The drop to the more sultry tone was sudden, startling, and seductive, especially when combined with her fingertips dragging along the slits at the bases of the blades, pressing lightly against the leather and the skin underneath. “Then, too,” he managed, slipping his own fingers up from her hips, stroking over the upper curve and under her shirt to feel her warm, smooth skin. “Do we have the time?”
“If you’re done here, then we’re off the clock. We have all the time in the world.” She moved up his arms again, edging closer so her hands met behind his neck. He pressed against the small of her back to bring them flush. “Enough for all the stimulation you can stand.” The last words were whispered by his ear, low and husky.
“That may be more than you anticipate,” he murmured, enjoying the promises as much as the feel of her body against his.
“Oh, I can anticipate a lot.” Then she was kissing him, as soft and entrancing as her nerves had been. He was willingly entranced, letting her lead, and disappointed when it ended far sooner than he would have liked. Less so when she continued, “Hours of it. Until we’re starved and exhausted and have to stop… and then we start all over again.”
He could see what she painted vividly, hours spent with his hands and mouth on her, hers on him, the day escaping them while they dedicated themselves to pleasure. Impatient, knowing they were where anyone could walk in and not at that moment caring, he took her mouth back, ignoring the surprised cry. Soon she was undulating against him, moaning at the back of her throat when he bit her lip. They would have to move soon, he knew, but he wanted to delay that moment, to keep touching her and driving her to new heights of need.
“All crew to Command.”
The ship’s voice echoed through the corridors and into the maintenance bay, and at first Tyr disregarded it, far more intent on Beka’s skin under his tongue, but when it repeated he groaned in disappointment and heard her do the same.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she muttered, but stepped back reluctantly. He let her go, but agreed with the sentiment. “We,” she told him firmly, “are continuing this later. Yes?”
“Yes.” He brushed his fingers over her shoulder as they turned toward the door, a silent promise to make good on hers. “Later.”
Their walk to Command was quick but quiet. For his part Tyr was working to get his own self under control, calming his breathing and trying to concentrate on whatever task might be ahead of them. It was a difficult process with Beka walking next to him and her scent filling his nose as much as her taste was on his lips. He could only imagine she was doing much the same with similar results.
It was no surprise that her first words when they reached Command were, “If this is a drill I’m lodging a complaint. I was working on enjoying my downtime.”
“I understand the sentiment, but this is not a drill,” Dylan said from his station. “We have several small ships heading straight for us and I want everyone ready to say hello.” Tyr noted just as much on the display and headed for the weapons station.
Beka, meanwhile, went for the first officer’s station as Harper said from the pilot’s chair, “Yeah, we’re executing the famous High Guard Sitting Duck Maneuver.”
“Part of which, Mister Harper, is being ready to paddle like hell.”
“Are we only trusting to our ability to flee, or should I prepare missiles as well?” Tyr already had his hand over the control, would have done so already if their situation were more dire, but he had time to hear out the captain’s plan before the other ships reached firing range.
“Yes, all point defenses ready. Rommie, have we gotten any transmissions?”
“If any of them transmitted once they dropped out of slipstream, we should be getting it… Now.” The screen image looked smug. “Audio only. It appears to be from the lead ship.”
“Andromeda Ascendant, this is the Clausen Four. I need help. Urgently! There are Nietzschean fighters right behind us.” The voice was, if Human, apparently young and male.
“Guess that answers the question of who we shoot at,” Beka commented.
“Yes, it does. Can we get any better visual of what’s happening?”
On the screen, the figures representing the ships were drawing closer to the Andromeda. It wasn’t a straight pursuit as he would have anticipated if they were trying to outright destroy the lead ship, but bunching to one side and then shifting when the Clausen Four dodged and juked them and apparently also their weapons fire, the indicators for the missiles going wide or easily avoided. It did not appear to be entirely due to the pilot’s skill.
“They’re herding him,” Beka said, seeing the same thing he did. “Or trying to, anyway. Either that or they’re the worst shots in the history of the universe for all six of them to be missing that consistently.”
“There’s something on that ship they want back, I bet. Rommie, are there any pride markings on the fighters?”
“No, they appear to be missing or obscured on all six.”
“That’s… unusual, isn’t it, Tyr?”
“Very. They may have been recently liberated from another pride? Usually we want our accomplishments known, or at least the blame placed on somebody else specifically.”
“Huh.” Dylan appeared to be contemplating that, although Tyr was sure the man already had at a minimum the start of a plan in mind. That suspicion was borne out when he continued, “Well, since they’re not being polite enough to introduce themselves, let’s give them a little reminder and maybe help out the little guy here. Warning shot, please.”
Tyr did so, Andromeda’s missiles cutting a clean line between two of the fighters. The pilot of the Clausen Four put on a burst of speed right then, momentarily outpacing the fighters.
“Rommie, direct him to a hangar bay. Tyr, target the first slipfighter, let’s see if they decide to give up yet.”
“Are you sure taking him aboard is wise? It’s not out of the question for this to be a way to get a bomb or other device on the ship.” Tyr targeted the slipfighter as he said it, but as he did the Nietzschean ships seemed to give a little more space to the lead ship, an action that made him even more suspicious.
Beka shook her head. “Scans are saying two people, nothing indicating explosives or anything else hazardous. It really does seem to be just a courier ship.”
“Seems to be.” But the actions of the slipfighters still bothered him. If it were the Drago-Katsov, they probably wouldn’t destroy the ship they suspected of having the Progenitor aboard without an attempt to retrieve it first. There were no other obvious prides that would have an objection to them other than—
Two people. A courier pilot and who else? A passenger? Recently acquired slipfighters, trying to retrieve something or someone, hanging back after a warning shot as if reluctant to engage at the risk to themselves or maybe to the courier ship…
“And they’re turning around,” Beka announced. “So, Dylan, does this count as diplomacy or tactics?”
“It counts as something that makes me very suspicious,” Dylan admitted. “Harper, move us out in case they decide to come back with reinforcements.” Tyr doubted that there were reinforcements if he was correct, but better to be cautious regardless.
“The courier ship has docked in hangar bay six.”
“Excellent, Rommie, thank you. Beka, with me. Tyr—”
“I’m coming with you.” To Dylan’s obvious surprise Tyr said, “If this is in fact a trap or decoy, you may need another hand.” And if it wasn’t… “The ship can handle any immediate fire needed.”
Dylan looked like he wanted to say more, but let it go, nodding and gesturing him on. Tyr went, the other two behind him but quickly outpaced. If he was right, if those slipfighters were Orca, then the second person may well be an Orca, and he could only think of one individual from that pride who would be fleeing to them. He arrived at the hangar as it finished repressurizing and the airlock unsealed.
A young man, apparently Human and in a plain flightsuit, was pushing open the side hatch of the courier ship. The words emblazoned on the side of the ship matched what he had told them. Once out he looked around and then turned to extend a hand to the other person aboard. Tyr held his breath, waiting, not moving even as the Dylan and Beka caught up to him. He had his hand on his gun, but had neither drawn it nor opened the airlock, not wanting to commit until he was sure.
“You can wait all you want, but I doubt they’re going to do anything actually nefarious until we give them a target.” Beka, stepping to the airlock controls.
He felt a pang. If he was right… But his hands were tied, with Dylan on his other side and the second person taking the presumed pilot’s hand, and he had no way to warn Beka, if there were even a way to warn her. “I’d like to confirm those scans were right before painting that target on my chest,” he answered, trying to focus on the concrete. He may yet be wrong, and at this moment he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be.
He wasn’t wrong.
“Open the airlock,” he said quietly. When Beka hesitated, apparently confused at the sudden change, he repeated, “Open the airlock. I don’t believe there’s a threat.” He looked at her, saw her glance to Dylan, who must have given her some confirmation as, hand on her own gun, she pressed the control. They followed him through, he knew, and he stayed alert for any sudden change and ready to draw his weapon, but all these were secondary as he went to the side of the small courier ship, brushing wordlessly past its pilot to its passenger. He couldn’t quite believe that this wasn’t all a dream until he held her shoulders, his eyes searching hers.
“You came. I hadn’t thought you’d come, after…”
Freya looked at him steadily. “I had to protect our child.”
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In the Stars	By : Bebe Category: 1 through F > Andromeda Views: 302 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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In the Stars