Four planet rotations passed. The warriors on Mercury Minor continued to talk about Briella’s participation in the mock battle.
She had earned their acceptance, and it felt damn good. The high was better than an impossible rescue, sweeter than a perfectly placed projectile.
But not as good as her cyborg’s touch. That couldn’t be beat.
She walked with him between the ships on the landing site. Wiseass comments and clumsy compliments bombarded them.
“Are you planning to shoot a B Model this planet rotation, Odium’s female?” A C Model male yelled at her.
Odium’s fingers splayed over the small of her flight suit-clad back. A thrilling rumble rose in his throat.
The C Model’s gaze lifted and his grin faded. He abruptly turned away from them.
Briella looked over her shoulder.
Odium was glaring at the male.
Her lips twitched. He was so damn dominant. And possessive.
She loved that about him.
His gaze flicked to meet hers. “They should speak to you with respect or not at all.”
“It was a legitimate question.” She smiled. “I could be planning to shoot a B Model.”
Gold glowed in the depths of her cyborg’s dark eyes. “If you’re planning to shoot me again, you should also plan to not sit comfortably for six planet rotations.”
Stars. She enjoyed it when he walloped her ass. Not that she would ever dare tell him that.
“I didn’t plan to shoot you the first time.” She shrugged. “It just fuckin’ happened.”
They navigated around a warship.
The next space on the landing site was empty. Mohini stood in the middle of it.
Her head was tilted back. She gazed up at the blue sky and appeared heart-wrenchingly despondent, as though the universe had fuckin’ failed her.
Briella had to comfort her. She stepped toward her friend.
Odium grasped her hand, stopping her.
She glanced behind her, met his gaze.
Whatever he saw in her eyes must have communicated her distress. Her cyborg squeezed her fingers, silently conveying his support.
And he let her go.
Her warrior didn’t know her full history, yet he somehow understood the situation, understood she had to go to her friend.
Other beings had deserted her in the past. She couldn’t desert the Praecipuan the same way.
Briella moved to Mohini’s side. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“I failed my kind.” The female sighed. “But I can still fix it. If I can get to Keid 9.”
Briella didn’t want to go to Keid 9. It was far away, and landing on that planet would be dangerous, and she’d already told Mohini no. Multiple times.
But that was before the female became her friend. “I’ll transport you there.”
Odium’s deep, rolling growl communicated his unhappiness with her offer.
He likely had good fuckin’ reasons to feel that way.
But it was too late for misgivings. The words had been spoken.
Briella couldn’t, wouldn’t take them back.
“You’d transport me?” Mohini turned her head and stared at her. “But that’s not the deal. Keid 9 isn’t the first planet, nor is it friendly.”
“You’re my friend.” Briella shrugged. “And you need to fix something.” She didn’t know what that something was, but it was important to Mohini, and that made it important to her. “I can help you with that.”
Mohini’s expression softened. “You’re my friend also. Which is why I can’t say yes. Keid 9 is a dangerous destination. If you were a stranger, a mercenary interested only in earning credits, I might place your lifespan in peril. I wouldn’t care as much if you lived or died. But you’re more than that now. And I can’t lose you.”
The female couldn’t lose her. Her.
Emotion choked Briella’s throat. “I’ve risked my lifespan for less.”
A solar cycle ago, she would’ve been that mercenary Mohini had referred to. No one would’ve cared if she lived or died.
Now, she had a friend who valued her presence so much she refused to put Briella in danger.
And she had a warrior who desired her, who cared for her.
And she was standing on a planet inhabited by beings who accepted her as she was.
Fuck. She was fortunate.
“I wouldn’t risk your lifespan for more.” Sincerity rang in her friend’s voice. “And it wouldn’t merely be your lifespan we’re risking.” Mohini glanced at Odium. “Your cyborg would insist on accompanying you.”
Odium nodded, confirming he would remain by Briella’s side during the mission.
Which fucked Briella up also. The male would leave his home planet for her.
“Your cyborg’s presence would put my plans in jeopardy.” Mohini shook her head. “The Humanoid Alliance have been hunting his kind, and the rest of the universe would be wary of him. If a lifeform scan was done on the freighter, we’d be blown out of space.”
Future rescues would be more challenging with Odium on board the freighter.
Briella eyed her warrior.
But if he was willing to take on those missions with her, she was willing to figure out a way to overcome the lifeform scanning issue.
“I’ve been told there will be more ships landing on Mercury Minor soon.” Mohini returned her gaze to the sky above them. “Those pilots will be strangers.” Her lips quirked upward. “I can risk their lifespans more easily.”
Her friend wasn’t hesitant to make terrible sacrifices to achieve her goal.
Briella understood that determination. Once she had realized the direness of her family’s situation, she would’ve done anything to save them.
But, by that time, it had been too late.
“If the Praecipuans in the other ships ask where we are, tell them we’re safe, and we’ll contact them soon.” Mohini modified the request she’d made upon landing on Mercury Minor. “I need more time to fix this.”
“I won’t tell anyone where you are.” Briella hadn’t yet contacted Levi-Lucas the Third, the Beings For Peace operative, for that reason. She preferred not to lie to beings.
“Thank you.” Her friend visibly relaxed.
Silence stretched.
Briella was acutely aware of the warrior behind them.
“I’ll be fine.” Mohini’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I merely have to think about things, make plans, plot a little.”
“Contact me if you need help.” Briella’s communication lines would always be open to the humanoid. “I’m very good at plotting.”
That drew a laugh from her friend. “You are very good at plotting, and I might contact you.”
Mohini looked less sad.
She should be okay.
Briella returned to Odium’s side. “She might contact me later.”
“I heard that.” Her cyborg grasped her hand, led her toward their freighter. “I heard everything.”
His jaw was clenched. His lips were grimly set.
“You’re displeased that I offered to transport her to Keid 9.” She sighed. “I knew that would’ve been a dangerous mission. Keid 9 is under Humanoid Alliance control. But she’s my friend, and I had to try to help her.”
“When I first spoke with you, you were involved in a dangerous mission.” Her cyborg guided her between ships. “I expect they’ll be part of our future. That isn’t why I’m displeased.”
He expected dangerous missions to be part of their future. They were partners.
She’d acted alone, as she always did. Her stomach sank. “I should’ve consulted with you first.” That was what a true partner would have done. “I’m not accustomed to having anyone.”
He linked their fingers. “You have me now.”
“I know that.” She followed him up the ramp. “But it’s a big adjustment, and I forget sometimes.”
“Would a reprimand help you remember?” His eyes gleamed as he ushered her into the freighter.
Joy unfurled within her. “A reprimand—”
The communications system beeped. Loudly.
“Fuck.” She hurried toward the bridge. “Someone is contacting me…us.”
“Us—I like how you say that word.” Odium trailed after her.
The word sounded strange on her lips. “This is new to me.” She sank into the captain’s chair. “I’ll fuck up. Often.” She warned him.
“I’ll reprimand you. Often.” He lifted her, claimed the seat for himself, sat her on his lap.
“Then I’ll come. Often.” Their reprimands usually led to fast and fervent fucking. “Oh shit. I…we missed the communication.”
That troubled her. It might’ve been an emergency.
She played the recording.
“Beast. This is Levi-Lucas the Third. If you’re alive, contact me.” The Beings For Peace operative’s message was surprisingly brief.
Briella placed her hands on the control panel, preparing to respond to the male.
Odium shifted in the seat under her.
Right. She had a fuckin’ partner now.
“Levi-Lucas the Third is my Beings For Peace contact.” She provided her cyborg with the intel he needed to make future decisions. “He’s tremendously uptight and is likely shitting blocks because I haven’t checked in. Not that he’s worried about me.” Her lips twisted. “He’s concerned about the Praecipuans, wants to look like a big hero in front of his superiors for rescuing them.” She paused. “He also owes me credits. I’m not interested in him in any other way.”
“Credits are numbers in easily manipulated databases.” Her warrior placed his hands beside hers. “If you require more credits, inform me.” He secured a communication line. “And I projected this Levi-Lucas the Third being wasn’t a rival. You didn’t trust him with your preferred name.”
The operative called her Beast. She smiled. “I only trusted you not to mock me.”
His eyes glowed. “Speak with your Beings For Peace contact.”
She opened communications with the male. “I regret to inform you I remain alive. You owe me bonus credits for the last retrieval.”
“Was there a retrieval, Beast?” Levi-Lucas the Third’s tone was more snitty than usual. “You didn’t check in. I can’t arrange a pickup if I don’t know the drop-off location.”
“Sit tight on the pickup, LLTT.” She leaned back, sinking deeper into her cyborg’s big form. “The Praecipuans are in a safe location, and they’ll contact you when they’re ready to be transported.”
“You don’t get paid until they’re picked up.” The male reminded her of that requirement.
“Then I’ll have to wait to get paid.” Briella had no choice. She’d given her friend her vow. “I don’t like it any more than you do.”
“Tell me their location, Beast.” Levi-Lucas the Third wasn’t willing to wait for the Praecipuans to contact him. “I want to close this mission off.”
“I want that also. Clearly.” She rolled her eyes. “I have to get paid. I’m not a fuckin’ charity.” She donned the mercenary role he expected her to hold. “But the Praecipuans are on their own schedule, and who knows what they’ll do if we fuck with it. I don’t get paid to deliver dead beings.”
“Stars.” The operative’s voice was barely audible. “It’s that bad?”
“It’s that bad.” Briella didn’t know what that meant, but she agreed with the operative to get him off her fuckin’ back. “Is that the only reason you’re contacting me—to bust my boots about checking in?”
Odium’s body shook. She suspected he was silently laughing at her.
“Yes. No.” Levi-Lucas the Third, in contrast, seemed confused. “Your next mission, if you choose to accept it, is a pickup on a Humanoid Alliance-controlled planet. One being. Bare-bones Humanoid Alliance presence. No hostilities.”
“Are you getting soft on me, LLTT?” She laughed. “You’re arranging a pick up for one being? And you’re asking me to do it? On a planet with bare-bones Humanoid Alliance, no hostilities? That’s a mission even you can handle.”
“The planet is Sabik Binaire.” The operative’s response smacked the mirth out of her.
“Oh.” She stared unseeingly at the nothingness displayed on the main viewscreen.
“You told me to let you know if any distress calls were made from there.” Levi-Lucas the Third’s words rolled through the emptiness in her brain. “We received one of those two shifts ago. It consisted of beeps, but the site of origin was relayed.”
“There hasn’t been contact from Sabik Binaire in six-and-a-half solar cycles.” She had thought everyone on her home planet was dead. The Humanoid Alliance had ravaged the terrain for its ore and sunstones and had killed everyone on the surface. “There’s a survivor?”
“There’s a signal. It might’ve been transmitted by a machine.” The operative cautioned her. “I’m sending you the coordinates. It’s one being. The payout for this retrieval isn’t much. You would be the only pilot interested in it. The mission is yours whether you take it or not.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Her mind remained numb.
“Try to talk the Praecipuans into arranging a pickup.” The male returned to that topic. “I want to close that mission.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Briella repeated her previous reply, unable to think of any other response.
She closed communications, then sat silently.
There had been contact from her home planet. She rotated that new development in her thoughts, examining it from different angles, unsure of what that meant for her, for the future.
“My female.” Odium covered her trembling fingers with his. His hands were steady, warm, comforting.
“My warrior.” She turned within the circle of his arms, seeking more of his heat, more physical connection with him.
Her cyborg rearranged her until she sat sideways on his lap and her cheek was pressed against his body armor-clad chest. He rubbed her right shoulder, arm, side.
She closed her eyes, listened to the thump, thump, thump of his big heart, the triple beat distinctive to his kind. “There’s been a distress signal from Sabik Binaire.” She whispered that information, fearing if she relayed it louder, it might cease to be true.
“What does Sabik Binaire mean to you, my little mostly human?” Odium’s voice was equally soft.
“It was my birth planet, was the last, the only place I was fully human.” Unshed tears burned her eyes. The darkness made it easier for her to talk. “My parents are dead. As is my older brother.” She’d seen their bodies.
For a moment, that was all she could envision—the corpses of her parents, her brother, his kids. Grief gripped her. She almost blubbered like a fuckin’ baby.
But she pushed that sorrow ruthlessly away. Because there was hope. Someone had sent a distress signal.
“My sister and her family might be alive.” They could’ve hidden from the Humanoid Alliance. “They could’ve survived.”
That might be possible.
Seeking to confirm her optimism was justified, Briella opened her eyes and surged forward to access her ship’s databases.
“This is the best map I have of the planet.” She placed the image on the main viewscreen. “The coordinates place the distress signal here.” She added a dot. “It’s coming from a mountain situated near my family’s settlement.”
Odium leaned toward the map also.
“A system of tunnels, used by my kind’s ancestors, run through that mountain.” She’d explored them as a child. “Agri-lot tenders stored preserved nourishment in some of them, and there’re underground streams coursing through others. They contain fresh water.” Nourishment and water would be all a being would need to survive there. “The rock blocks lifeform scans. The Humanoid Alliance couldn’t detect beings in the tunnels.”
“If the rock blocks scans and other monitoring systems, beings would have to leave the tunnel to send a distress signal.” Her cyborg rested his chin on top of her head.
She savored that contact. “They wouldn’t have to leave the tunnels. Wires have been run through holes in the stone. They extend to the outside of the mountain.” She’d tried to trace their route once, as a child, and had failed. “There are also ventilation gaps and lighting underground. The tunnels were maintained as emergency shelters.”
“Someone might’ve utilized it in that way.” Odium’s comments fed her hope. “Where is your settlement?”
“The east side of the settlement is here.” She added a red line to the map. It was close to the base of the mountain.
“There’s a 12.2365 percent probability a fully functional human could reach the distress signal coordinates in time, assuming the Humanoid Alliance attacked from the west and were flying their warships at 50.0000 percent of their top speed.” Her cyborg’s ability to complete calculations impressed her.
“The Humanoid Alliance did attack from that direction.” It was possible someone had survived. “It happened right before sunrise.” Many of the residents had still been asleep. “My sister and her family lived here.” She put a dot on the map.
“That’s much farther west.” Her warrior’s tone turned solemn. “The probability of survival drops to 1.2365 percent.”
“Fuck.” She stared at the map for a moment.
1.2365 percent was higher than 0.0000 percent, which was what she’d thought the odds of anyone surviving were one planet rotation ago. She had successfully completed rescue missions with lower odds.
It was possible her sister and her family were alive.
And, if the distress-signal sender wasn’t her sister or her family, they could still be Sabiks, could still be her family’s kind. Those beings would be a connection to her past.
They would be grateful for the rescue, would view her as a savior, not a demon. And that would be like acceptance.
She would do it. Briella’s head dipped. She would travel back to her home planet, locate the survivors, and bring them to safety.
But first she had to tell Odium about her past. He deserved to know that soul-shredding truth before he made the decision to accompany her.
Once he found out what type of being she was, he might tell her to leave Mercury Minor and never return.