Page 36 of Alien Knight Teddy Bear Troubles

“Cassie? What are you not telling me?”

“Later. Okay?” She reversed engines on both sides, rolled in the opposite direction and dove down, toward the planet. “These guys are starting to make me mad.”

He chuckled at her ire until the scanner in front of him blared with a proximity alarm. How was that possible? She was issuing orders before he could ask.

“Do you know how to work that weapon?”

“The Black Star? Only In theory.” It had been thousands of years…

“Do it. Put it together.”

“We can’t fire at them from inside the ship. We will be destroyed right along with them.”

“I have a plan. Just get it ready. Please.”

The please did him in. He either trusted her to know what she was doing, or he didn’t. And he had given her the weapon and this ship. She was the commander here. The ship was hers.

As he was.

Still, if felt odd not to be in command.

“Only for you, female.”

“Hurry.”

No respect. He unbuckled and slipped behind the pilots’ seats to find the weapon’s case exactly where he had secured it earlier. He pulled it from the wall and opened it. The weapon was surprisingly heavy, for something not much larger than his arm from shoulder to wrist. “I’ve got it. Where’s the activation crystal I gave you?”

“My pocket. Right side. Front. You’ll have to get it.”

With pleasure. He made sure to tickle her hip and plant a kiss on the side of her neck as he dug around in her pants’ pocket for the small item she’d referred to as a chip. It wasn’t a chip of anything. It was networked Lumerian black crystals encoded with quantum commands that controlled the Ancients’ weapon—and just about everything else they’d left behind.

“Taeger.” Her protest was weak, more groan than sass and he waited until she turned to face him so he could grab a quick kiss.

“There will be a lot more of that later,” he promised.

“Not if you don’t get the weapon operational in the next thirty seconds.”

He smiled. Fuck, he loved her sass. “Yes, Captain.”

Both of their grins died as the small ship’s alarm system peeled a warning.

“They fired a cannon blast,” he said.

“I know.” She confirmed his assessment, but did not alter course.

“That’s a tracking missile, Cassie,” he informed her, hard pressed not to grab the controls, every muscled tense. Ready to fight whatever came at him. “We’re heading straight toward it.”

“I know,” she said calmly. “Trust me.”

Sweat broke out on his brow. He’d been in too many battles. Lost too many people. Family. Friends. He was willing to die to protect those he loved. Cassie had become his everything. His reason for being. For continuing his lonely existence. He couldn’t lose her now. Every protective instinct he had roared at him. He reached for the controls in a bid to take over. She was too calm, either too tired or confused to realize what she was doing. Perhaps she was in much worse shape then he’d assumed. Injured. Confused.

“Don’t.” The plea in her voice froze him in place as nothing else could. He looked at her over his shoulder, hands frozen over the control panel.

“Don’t Taeger. Trust me.”

He glanced from her earnest gaze to the missile bearing down on them. They had seconds to live if they didn’t get out of the way. Seconds. At most.

And she was asking him to trust her with his life. Trust her to make the decision. Trust her skills as a warrior and a pilot. This moment was everything, her final test. He’d be damned to eternal suffering if he lost her.

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