Page 6 of Crush

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Impossible. This couldn’t be happening. He’d never felt anything like it, not even when theDeepWanderhad been attacked by a marauding ship shortly after their most recent collection. The orcs had fought off the pirates with only minor damage, but the heat of battle had been exhilarating.

This was different. It was…

Sometimes we’re afraid.

He scowled. Orcs were never afraid. Not of struggle, certainly not of the dark. They couldn’t afford to fear. But this…

It was the i’lva—the bonding fire.

Like the scorching geothermic energy that churned in the cores of planets and moons, the i’lva burned up from the depths, powerful and relentless. Such magma could reshape everything it touched, originating new land, blazing pathways for the most precious of minerals and gems, igniting the building blocks of life.

Or it could tear apart everything around it—crumbling the roots of mountains, exposing the delicate darkness, turning the vulnerable to ash.

At least according to old orc poetry.

Taking a slow breath, as if mere air could squelch the i’lva, Teq averted his gaze from the female, who was wiping the hatchling’s hand with her tunic, and took another step back. Even in his consternation, he hadn’t failed to notice how she’d flinched away from him when he scowled. Why had she joined the Intergalactic Dating Agency if she was afraid of aliens?

Fortunately, he didn’t have to deal with any of this. Once they’d realized—thanks to the hatchling’s call—that theDeepWanderhadn’t properly calibrated the wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, Sil had sent a slymusk to light up the hatchway, and now Mag and Amma were officially welcoming the Earthers. As they all exchanged pleasantries, Teq skulked to the back of the gathered orcs, taking the opportunity to rub his knuckles over the spot on his carapace where the female had touched him.

It didn’t feel damaged. Did the alien females have some previously unidentified toxin in their dermis? Maybe the IDA was wrong about the biological compatibility between their species.

Or maybe…. The hatchling’s mother had accused the slymusk of being poisonous. Was that a ruse, a wily misdirection to distract the orcs while the Earthers ransacked theDeepWander? After all, the orcs had just fought off a pirate attack. Maybe this was a subtler attempt to take their newfound fortune. According to the IDA contract, there were supposed to be six potential wife-mates. Instead, there were seven, so already this endeavor was suspect.

Teq scowled again. Of course Mag and Amma wanted to seize a future for theDeepWander, but what if they’d been tricked? For all their orc toughness and defenses, those two were essentially dreamers; they needed protection from their hopes.

Teq would not be blinded by unfamiliar and unnecessary wavelengths of light—or feelings.

He narrowed his eyes, focusing his antennae on the one female who’d touched him. It couldn’t be the i’lva. Orc poetry was as dead and lost as their planet. Had she marked him in some other way?

As a crusher, he was taller than most of the other orcs, so he was able to stay in the background but still keep watch as Mag and Amma offered introductions all around. The female’s name was Adeline. Teq subvocalized the word in his throat, and the syllables reverberated through his thorax in an unnerving way, like when his soundings identified a hidden chasm, explosive gases, or other danger deep in the stone. Such flaws could destroy expensive machines or even kill an orc. Was Adeline such a menace?

The little Earther didn’tlookdangerous, although he supposed she could be hiding explosive gases somewhere. Like the other females, she was slight compared to the orcs, even Amma. Her eyes were wide, though not as large or faceted as an orc’s, and a hue of brown Teq associated with coffee, one of the few authorized exports from Earth. It was an absurdly expensive beverage with a mild stimulant, much sought after in the civilized galaxies. The many keratinous filaments on her head were a few shades lighter than her eyes. The long strands seemed to not be in her conscious control, sliding restlessly over her shoulders in the drafts of fresh air that flowed through the corridors. His fingers—all of them—twitched with a matching restlessness as he wondered how those strands would feel…

No, remember, he didn’t have feelings.

But he would watch her closely, because he wouldn’t let anything negatively impact his ship or crush his crew.

The hatchling was her son, Oliver or Ollie, a nomenclature she alternated between based on criteria he could not quite pin down. She was the only one of the newcomers with a hatchling, and although he had the sense that none of the females were officially in charge, when Mag asked if they were ready to transfer their belongings and release the IDA transport, all the Earthers looked to Adeline to answer.

After a pause that was likely no more than a moment but seemed to stretch on for a lightyear, she nodded. “We are very happy to meet you and to be here,” she said in that husky voice that thrummed along Teq’s antennae. “Let’s get on with this adventure.”

Ollie made a vigorous whooping noise. And for no reason Teq could explain, that sound resonated within him too.

As most of the crew dispersed to their duties, Teq lingered. Mag had assigned a few of the orcs—those who had most enthusiastically agreed to read the IDA handbook on the care and feeding (and mating) of Earther females—to show the newcomers around. The hatchling was talking to Amma with very large parabolic gestures, and Sil was speaking with Adeline and another of the Earther females. Teq stiffened at the worried and confused stances pinging back to him, so he strode over.

“What’s the problem?” he demanded.

The Earthers jolted at his abrupt presence and even more abrupt words, and Sil gave him a chiding look. “No problem,” he said mildly. “Kinsley here was just never fitted with a universal translator.”

Teq narrowed his eyes on the Earther female. She was the tallest and largest of the bunch, but still fragile compared to an orc. “The IDA let you off planet without a translator?”

“We were just explaining to Sil,” Adeline said in a voice even more repressive than the one she used on her hatchling. “Our departure from Big Sky was a bit…chaotic due to some recent changes there, and perhaps some of the details were missed.”

Details like a thorough vetting? What if the biological compatibility was wrong too? Would that explain the lingering sensation in his carapace where Adeline had touched him?

Teq rumbled low in his throat at all the questions that couldn’t just be crushed into oblivion.

Adeline crossed her two arms in front of her, her gaze going hard as polycrystalline diamond drill bits. “Don’t grumble at us,” she said sternly. “We’re here to get to know each other, to see if this…dating might benefit us all, so trying to scare us is a terrible first step.”