“I understand the psychology.” The lift doors slid open, revealing a cramped interior with an unpleasant mechanical odor. “I’m asking if you can manage it.”
She stepped into the lift without hesitation, already shifting the infant’s position, bringing the small silver face up to rest against her shoulder. Her hand moved in slow circles on the baby’s back. Her voice dropped to a soft murmur, words he couldn’t quite catch but whose meaning was clear enough.
Comfort. Safety. I’ve got you.
Something shifted in his chest again. Something warm and entirely unwelcome.
The infant’s screams faded to whimpers, then to hiccupping sobs, then to silence. The female looked up at him with something like triumph in those warm brown eyes.
“Experience,” she said.
“Clearly.”
Once again he wondered if she had children of her own, and why that thought made him so uncomfortable.
The lift descended, metal groaning in protest. His ears swiveled, tracking sounds beyond the walls—weapons fire, running footsteps, the distinct sizzle-crack of an overloading power conduit.
“You’re different to the guards,” the female said.
He glanced down at her. She was studying him with an intensity that might have been unnerving if he wasn’t used to being examined like an exotic specimen. The combination of Tajiri and Markelian features didn’t happen often.
“Obviously.”
“But you’re working on their ship.”
“Was working. Past tense.” He watched the level indicator climb downward. “I was looking for something they were carrying. Turns out I was wrong about what that something was.”
Her arms tightened around the infant. “Her?”
“Her.”
“Why? What is she?”
One of the Seven Keys to the Vault. A living genetic cipher that could unlock technology beyond anything the galaxy has seen in eons. A child worth more than most planetary systems combined.
“That’s a long story.”
“I think I deserve to hear it.”
She did. But not now. Not with Grorn warriors hunting them through a dying ship, not with his own plans crumbling around him, and not with the dangerous distraction of her scent filling the enclosed space of the lift.
She smelled like fear and something else—something sweet and warm that made his fur prickle and his tail twitch.
Female pheromones. Nothing more.
“The short version,” he said as the lift shuddered to a stop, “is that the baby is valuable. More valuable than you can imagine. And the Grorn will do anything to get her.”
And she’d made herself a target the moment she lifted that child from the stasis pod.
The lift doors opened onto a dimly lit corridor, this one lined with storage lockers and equipment bays. The hangar was close. He could smell the fuel residue and hear the distant whine of engines on standby.
“Stay behind me.” He drew one of the knives hidden in his boot, the blade glinting in the emergency lighting. “If something happens to me, take the child and run. There’s a shuttle in the hangar—small, fast, white hull with blue markings. It should get you clear.”
“What makes you think I can fly a shuttle?”
“I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.”
He stepped out of the lift and immediately pressed himself against the wall, every sense straining. The corridor appeared empty, but appearances meant nothing on a ship this chaotic. The sounds of combat had grown louder, closer. Someone was fighting their way towards the hangar.
