Page 71 of Command

“Renza!” Threxin barked, chest still shaking with remnants of amusement. Renza cocked his head when he reentered. “Take this idiot away. I will work on him tomorrow.”

Something tugged at him as Renza dragged the human to the door.

“Your son’s female,” Threxin called to him. “What ‘other uses’ does she have?”

Per Halen stuttered his step, looking back. “Perhaps you should ask him.”

The lash of anger at the human’s defiance didn’t get a chance to rise before it was forced back down as a thick pit in Threxin’s throat. He had been looking for this human for weeks, and all he came away with was more questions.

CHAPTER 32

ALINA

As soon as Threxin had left the night before, Alina had taken a scalding hot shower and grabbed her remaining stash of his hak. She’d sat bundled in her quilt in bed, staring at her wall as the mineral scraped her throat in the most satisfying way.

He’d done it again, and Alina refused to call it anything other than a kiss this time. And she had gone along with it—not because she was scared, or because she knew he could take whatever he wanted from her. She wanted it. She’d fucking cried with the frustration of having to stop.

It had taken hours for that suicidal lack of fear to wear off, and when it did, she was doubly terrified. There were so many things to fear with Threxin, but the most terrifying part was that, in that moment, she wasn’t scared enough.

He said he lied. He’d looked at her with black in the seam of his mouth, his pupils pinpricks, and his apertures wide open as he mirrored her body’s betrayal in his own way. And he said he’d lied about this being just a study, or morbid curiosity.

Alina wished it had been all those things. The alternative—developing some sort of fucked-up attraction, or worse, a connection—was much more terrible than simply being used.

But now that it was out there, Alina couldn’t just put it back.

She’d fucked up enough by unilaterally deciding to save the invader instead of leaving the choice to the rightful commander and his wife. She had a responsibility to use it now, to turn it into something that could help her people.

All signs pointed to the idea that Threxin, in his own stunted way, on some level cared about her. He’d brought her to the medbay when she was hurt. He came to check on her the night before. He was even intending on compromising on security to ensure she could walk as her physio required.

Alina could use that. She had accidentally positioned herself into some sort of…somethingwith the alien, and now it was her job to use it for her people’s benefit. Maybe she could make him gentle his treatment of them, make him see them as more than just pests. Maybe she could make him resume their Uploads.

Alina stashed the hak away and pulled the untouched Harmonapam Dr. Pertin had given her out of her bedside nook, counting out two doses. If she was going to go through with this, she’d need to have her head on straight.

It was just past midnight, and Alina was watching herself sneak out of her cabin into the deserted halls of the ship.

It’s my physiotherapy-mandated walk,she’d prepared her excuse.The commander said it was all right.

A guard had still not been installed back in her hallway since Threxin’s stay in her cabin, so she got to half-limp toward the command center in relative solitude for a few minutes. The suede soles of her shoes whispered against the floor like she was one of the ghosts haunting this place. Like this, without anyone else around, the soul of the ship permeatedthe air around her. She feltColossal’s breath, its pulse, its lifeblood in the walls.

She ran her fingertips along the hull-side wall as she walked, stroking the ship as though it were a gentle beast beneath her touch. As much as she, like everyone onColossal, dreamed of finding New Earth and making a life there, now that the hope of it seemed entirely dashed Alina realized how little she had appreciated the ship that had been home her whole life. In that moment, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to leave it. Perhaps she’d rather haunt its halls forever.

She ran into her first guard just a few minutes later—a pale green glowing male whose grip tightened on his weapon when he spotted her. She hesitated.

“It’s my physiotherapy-mandated walk. The commander said it was all right,” she said.

The uhyre adjusted his weapon, apertures narrowing. They really were such curious creatures.

His spikes flicked in what appeared to be annoyed recognition as he grunted and jerked his chin toward the hall. She assumed that was a motion for her to keep going, so she did.

A human guard might find her being out so late suspicious, but from what Alina had gathered, the uhyre didn’t experience time in the same way. Threxin regularly referred to time spans as “ticks,” which seemed largely undefined in their duration.

It took longer than her mandated twenty minutes to reach the rear dock at her pace. By the time she got there, her injured leg was beginning to tire, but she rallied and walked with a purpose as she approached the uhyre guard standing outside the entrance.

Luckily the guard did not question her, perhaps used to seeing her in the dock for her scrubbing shifts. The light was on in the dockmaster’s office. Alina wondered if he ever slept, considering they were too short-staffed for a switchover. She padded across the unlit dock toward the utility closet. Theblack silhouettes of Ariels loomed in the shadows, but it was the floor where Alina’s eyes kept gravitating. Though it was black as exorin in the darkness, Alina honed in on exactly the location where the blood had been. She visualized the black and red pool spreading on the tiles and was satisfied when the image did nothing to her. The meds were making her blood and bones cold, but at least they were working.

Alina picked what she needed from the utility closet and gave herself a few minutes to rest her leg in the darkness. It was time for the hard part.

Alina took winding side passages toward the command bay of the ship in hopes of lessening her chances of running into uhyre or people. But there was no avoiding walking past the command center to get to Threxin’s quarters, and that would always be guarded.

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