Page 89 of Kryxis

“That’s not all,” Dani continued. “The company that took Kryxis and experimented on him paid Nexacor to try to hide the evidence.”

“You have no proof of that either,” Leland said. “These are false, baseless accusations.”

Dani went to argue that she did, then remembered the datachip was gone. “We did have proof. I swear we did, but they took it.”

Leland started to argue when Kryxis made a sound. He slipped his hand to the waistline of his pants and revealed a narrow inner pocket. From there, he took out a slender black device. Dani recognized it as the datachip.

“Kept safe.” He grinned.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Dani

The ship was a decent size. Just big enough to fit her crew comfortably with rooms for each of them and a few extra to spare. It sat in the ship bay shiny and brand new, already stocked with supplies, fueled up, and ready to go.

She’d probably been standing there gawking at it for nearly a half hour now, unable to believe it was all hers.

They’d been traveling with the alliance now for several weeks, fighting together to expose Nexacor and Marityne for their illegal dealings. The datachip had all the evidence they needed to put Marityne under for good while Nexacor paid heavily, their reputation damaged. The alliance did more investigating, finding the creature that had gotten on board Nexacor’s main vessel, discovering it had snuck its way onto the response team’s ship and hidden away. They found pieces of bruiser fungus in the ship’s engine room, which had gone unreported. They also found the bodies of Garret and his crew, discovered in various places that the creature had hidden them.Despite what she might have thought of Garret, she was sorry for what happened. Sorry that he was gone.

While they had been investigating, Kryxis was examined by a few alliance doctors, who determined he was healthy despite what had been done to him. The spliced DNA shouldn’t cause him any problems, though, if it did, he could come to them right away. They took samples of his skin and samples of the bruiser fungus for further study to determine the effects and dangers, promising never to experiment with it like Marityne had.

Once a settlement had been made, the alliance gave her crew their share, compensation for what they had gone through on X110 and for helping Kryxis and aiding the alliance. They had enough credits between them to live out the rest of their lives comfortably on some civilian world, but none of them wanted to leave the crew behind, one that was the closet to family any of them had.

So, she bought a ship to call home and started a new organization. It was small but it was theirs. A team that worked to study and collect life on other worlds, regrow on abandoned ones, and serve as a response team for those stranded.

They were just still fighting over the name.

“Almost ready, just a few more things to load up,” Myrell said as she came to her side. She handed her Chowder’s carrier. Chowder pawed at her through one of the little holes playfully. “Where’s Kryxis?”

“He’s close by, just preparing.”

“Better not be messing around.”

Dani laughed. “Not this time.”

“Good. I’ll be inside. The others are on their way.” Myrell tugged at her sleeve. “You were right, the blue looks good on you.”

Dani looked down at their uniform, a deep sea-blue. No emblem yet since they hadn’t determined that either. She brushed her hand along the fabric and smiled. “It does.”

Myrell winked and started for the ship. Lex and Phen arrived not long after, holding hands. “Captain,” they called, nodding her way.

Morse came next, his bag of mechanic’s tools over one shoulder, and nodded. She gave him a spare box of motion sickness pills and patted his back as he made for the ship.

Tom and Sheek came last, Tom talking her ear off about something to do with calibrations for rocket pulsers, which Sheek hardly listened to. She bowed her head and Tom waved as they passed.

Dani watched them climb aboard the ship, a smile growing on her face, when she felt something brush against her neck, making her jump.

“Hello, my mate,” Kryxis hissed in her ear, making her shiver.

She looked around at him and saw him clothed in a leather-like armor the vrisha called grivhide and pants made of kelva. His scales shined, and she caught a few gold rings tied to his horns. All gifts from Crux.

She stared at him in awe. “Hello, mate.”

Kryxis grinned at her, then pulled her into a firm embrace, nuzzling the top of her head.

Crux had helped them both, giving them knowledge of vrisha culture and their customs while aiding them in the language barrier. Once Dani understood more of his words, she learnedVassaladidn’t mean just lover. It meant mate.Vassalafor female mate andVassalarfor male.

He released her and gave her a sly look. “I have something for you,” he said.

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