Page 59 of Rogue Starfighter

She smiled with her eyes closed. I wrapped the thermal layer around us again and held her against my chest. Within minutes, her breathing slowed. Her weight settled against me. I had known desire. I had known loyalty, grief, and the bond between scouts. This was all of them and something more. I loved her. The realization was not complicated. It was only late. I did not wake her to say it. We were stranded, hunted, and still losing power. She deserved to hear the words somewhere safer than a damaged cockpit. So I kept watch while she slept. I listened to the hull. Monitored the core. Held Priya tighter whenever she shivered. And waited for dawn.

10

CHAPTER TEN

Priya

I woke at dawn with Vesh’s hand on my breast. Not in the fun place. Over the flight suit, unfortunately. His palm was warm and heavy beneath the thermal layer. My back fit against his chest, my head under his chin, and one of his thighs was wedged between mine. Apparently we’d shifted in our sleep. A lot. The hard length pressed against my ass suggested he was awake too.

“Morning,” I said.

“Do not move.”

“Again?”

His fingers tightened once against my stomach. “The core is stable. I am not.” I smiled into the dim cockpit. “Good to know.”

“Priya.”

The warning in my name had lost some of its power now that I knew exactly how he sounded with his fingers inside me. Actually, that was a lie. It had become significantly more powerful.

“Hours,” I reminded him.

“When we are safe.”

“You keep moving the goalposts.”

“I do not know what that means.”

“Convenient.”

Red light crept across the cracked canopy as the sun cleared the horizon. Vesh removed his hand from my breast and sat up. I missed the warmth immediately.

“Core at twelve percent,” he said. “Pressure stable. Port engine damaged but functional. One starboard attitude jet responds intermittently.”

“So basically factory condition.”

“If the factory were operated by your bitter-root tea manufacturer.”

I turned to look at him. “That was a joke.”

“We have more important problems.”

“Still counting it.”

He climbed into the copilot seat and activated the passive optics. The system came online reluctantly, image stuttering across the main display. The sun had changed the view beyond the moon. From our landing site, we could see past the debris ring to a shipyard hanging above Xandrax. It was larger than any of the yards we’d recorded the day before. A vast framework of metal surrounded a single unfinished ship. At first, my brain refused to understand the scale.

“Vesh. Is that ship attached to the yard?”

“No. The yard is attached to the ship.”

He increased magnification. The vessel filled the display. It was longer than Moon Base Arturri, with multiple engine rings and weapon placements large enough to be visible from kilometers away. Construction craft moved across its hull like insects.

“What is it?”

“Nothing in our fleet has a designation for that class.”

“That’s a very military way to say you have no idea.”