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“Almost all are still frozen, safe and sound,” Tark said, angling theArrowaround toward the entrance to theDaredevil’sshuttle bay.
“The Grug woke other Hyoo-mon females besides you. We’ve rescued some, and Kirel, our computer genius, keeps searching for more.” My arms tightened around her. I’d used the excuse of having only two chairs in the small cockpit to pull her onto my lap. But really, I’d wanted to hold her one last time before she met the rest of the crew.
All my earlier worries rose to the surface. So many males, all eager for a mate. Would she still want me?
I breathed in the sweet smell of her hair as she settled back against my chest again. “He’s the reason I found you.”
“I’m going to tell him you called him a genius,” Tark said.
I grunted. Kirel would crow and strut with pride for weeks. But he deserved to. He’d led me to my soul’s breath, my most special Zo-Fee.
ARK 1slid to the side as Tark lined us up for our approach.
TheDaredevilgrew until it blotted out the stars, filling the entire viewscreen, and my mate edged backward as if to get away from a collision, pushing into my chest.
I reveled in the feel of her pressed against me, her ass tucked tight to my groin. My tail snuck forward to coil around her calf, its soft buzz giving away the direction of my thoughts.
Tark sent me a knowing smile and opened his mouth.
I pointed at him and mouthed, “Don’t.” I didn’t want anything to spoil these precious moments, since this was perhaps the last time I’d get to hold her.
The huge outer hatch of the ship airlock slid open, and Tark eased theArrowinside. It wasn’t as tight of a fit as with our largest shuttles, but it also required a steady hand to not scrape any of the walls.
“This is so cool!” Zo-Fee craned her neck, taking in the plain metal of the ship airlock as if it was something special. “OnARK 1, we have to evacuate the entire shuttle bay to launch a shuttle.”
“It’s a tradeoff,” Tark said. “A ship with a huge shuttle bay door can launch lots of smaller ships at once, but it takes forever to evacuate the entire bay before you launch. Or you have a smaller shuttle airlock like this one. It can only do one ship at a time, but that first ship can launch almost immediately.”
“So you chose to have a shuttle airlock.”
“No,” I said. “TheDaredevilis a Raptor-class warship, so it came with both. We simply haven’t needed to use the main shuttle bay door.” At least not yet.
“Still, it would make thingssomuch easier.”
“What kind of things?” I asked her.
“A lot of the mining I planned to do would use automated drones to mine asteroids. No matter how well you program them, they’re never perfectly in sync. There always ends up being a lot of downtime while the drones that finish first have to wait for the rest before you can bring them all inside.” She waved a hand at the viewscreen, excitement filling her voice. “With a big airlock like this, the drones could enter in smaller waves. You could have one batch unloaded and ready to go back out by the time the stragglers arrived. It would speed things up a lot.”
“You have mining drones on ARK 1?” I said.
“Of course.”
I shared a look with Tark, who grinned. “Frek yeah!”
Zo-Fee glanced over her shoulder at me. “What?”
I smiled. “You might have solved one of our biggest problems. The Tula have a lock on mining in the seven sectors, so we had no real way to get any zurilium without them knowing and potentially selling the information to the Grug.”
“But I told you, with the right equipment, we can make zurilium.”
“We’ll still need raw materials.” I squeezed her tightly. “And with your drones, we can get you the metals you need.”
The inner hatch slid open on the well-lit expanse of the shuttle bay, which looked even larger than usual since so many craft were currently in use. Huge swaths of the metal deck stood empty, but Tark still set theArrowdown in its designated spot.
A crowd of people stood waiting for us, with a couple of Hyoo-mon females at the front.
Zo-Fee must have seen them too, because she tugged on the safety straps. As soon as I released them, she wiggled from my lap and hurried into the main cabin.
Lila and Tark followed her, but I remained seated for a moment, unable to move from the spot. My hands tightened on the armrests.Will this be the last place I’ll ever hold her?
