Page 43 of The Commanders' Mate

“I will have you naked and screaming my name, female.”

He’d known my thoughts. The collars!

I stepped back, my hand slipping from his slowly until just our fingers touched. Then, nothing. “I’m going to hold you to that promise, mate.”

Kaed’s arm wrapped around my waist and he pulled my back to his chest. Mine again. For now. “Return to us Ronan. We’ll be waiting.”

Ronan gave a small salute and walked toward what looked like a super-cool black fighter jet. Except there were no jet engines. And it was a triangle. And black.

Nope. Didn’t really look like a jet at all, except for the guns and missiles mounted under the wings. Rows and rows of similar fighter ships, all with pilots scrambling to get inside and go hunting for the Hive were waiting to take flight.

“Shall we, Erica? We need to evacuate with the others.”

I nodded and allowed my mate to lead me toward the shuttlecraft as another fighter lifted off the floor of the launch bay and shot off into space like a silent rocket. I stared at the fighter as it grew smaller and smaller, until it was the size of a star. That pilot was flying toward Chloe’s skateboard constellation.

The thought made me smile.

And stop dead in my tracks. “Kaed?”

“Yes, mate? What’s wrong?”

For a split second, I wondered how he knew I was upset, but then I realized that for the first time since we’d placed the collars around our necks, my emotion was stronger than his. He sensed it. “There is something out there.”

Ronan appeared two steps ahead of us, as if I’d summoned him. “What’s wrong? I felt you, Erica. What is it?”

Kaed looked out the giant view of the stars offered by the invisible energy barrier that kept the air inside the flight deck, but allowed the fighters and cargo shuttles to pass through. How it worked, I had no idea. “I don’t see anything. What do you see? Where is it?”

I pulled Kaed down so that his face was next to mine, our cheeks touching, and raised my hand to point at the skateboard constellation Chloe had invented—and its three large wheels. “There. Do you see the line of stars that looks like a skateboard?”

“A what?” Ronan had his cheek pressed to the opposite side of my face, looking.

“A skateboard.”

They both drew a blank, and I saw Chloe walking toward a fighter. “Chloe!” I screamed her name at the top of my lungs, but she didn’t hear me. My mates jumped back, startled by my shout.

I turned to my mates. “I need Chloe. Or we need to go somewhere you have star maps and a telescope.”

Both of my mates bellowed for Commander Phan and she heard them, loud and clear. No doubt, so did half of the ship.

She jogged over, a frown on her face. “What is it?”

All three of them looked at me. I turned Chloe around and pointed over her shoulder. “You see the skateboard?”

“Yes.” She’d found it, named it, claimed it. I was relieved that she remembered. Not everyone was as star crazy as I was.

“How many wheels does it have?”

“Two—oh, shit. Three. Something’s out there. Something big.” She whirled and tapped the button for her comms. “I.C.C. – this is Commander Chloe Phan. The Karter has visual on a Hive attack vessel. Preparing to engage. Download all starboard visual data surrounding Beta Cluster 7-9-5-5. Analyze for anomalies.”

When she was done, I stared in shock. “Beta Cluster 7-9-5-5?”

She grinned. “Skateboard is a cooler name, but the Prillons don’t get really creative, nor do they know what a skateboard is.”

My mates were both transfixed, staring out into the stars.

“Fuck. I see it,” Ronan said, turning to look at me. “It has to be huge. How did you know it was there? No one has seen it until now.”

I shrugged. “On Earth I was an astronomer. It’s what I do, I watch the stars. They’re familiar to me, until they aren’t. Like this thing in Beta Cluster… whatever.”

---