Page 27 of Doom Averted

“I can be yours,” I said, “If you promise to make sure I never run scared again, I’ll promise to fill your days with happiness.” He laughed, his grip around me tightening, his mouth coming back down to press against mine. That was answer enough, the man was kissing me like his life depended on it.

Then his head jerked back, “I smell smoke, fuck. Akri status report. What happened?” I saw the wide-eyed worry on his face and watched his jaw clench tightly when the ship’s AI never responded. That wasn’t a good sign, that AI was always up for talking, I’d prattled endlessly to it the past two weeks, whenever I felt lonely. Akri never judged and he always had questions. Why wasn’t he answering now? “I need to get to the engine room,” Da’vi said, but he didn’t let go of my middle.

I grabbed his hand and started pulling, shoving aside my worry for the AI so I could help. “Let’s go then, together.” That got him in motion, I was flung over one shoulder, and then he was running from the room at breakneck speed. I didn’t complain, but I did wave at Babbit when the animal started running after us.

We skidded to a stop just inside the cavernous room. There was no hum of an engine and smoke filled the air, something was crackling and burning. Worse, it smelled like barbeque in here and I had the feeling that was really bad news. “Stay here, Arianna. Don’t touch anything,” Da’vi said and he sat me on my feet just inside the door opening.

I watched him dash across the space to the main console, it was still lit up and giving out readings but he froze just in front of it, his head turning to the left. I followed his line of sight and gasped in shock, the stasis pod that had been parked in one corner, hooked up to some cables so the Doc could get readings… A body lay over the top of it.

“Oh no, is that Eoin?” I asked, already stepping that way when Da’vi shot a glare over his shoulder. I froze on the spot, especially when I realized I’d been about to step over a bunch of cables and one of them definitely looked a bit melted. This was not a safe place for someone to be in when they had no clue what was safe to touch or not.

“It’s Eoin,” Da’vi confirmed his head tilting left and right as he assessed the situation. “He is still breathing, there’s blood seeping from a gash on his head, I’m going to move him.” Then he stepped closer and carefully picked up the downed male without touching the stasis pod himself. I followed him out into the hallway just in front of the engine room where he laid his injured brother down on the flooring.

Eoin was covered in white, lightning bolt-like streaks on every exposed bit of skin. His hair was smoking and blackened, but his chest was moving up and down steadily as he breathed. When I pressed my fingers to his neck I could feel the steady beat of a pulse, he’d been struck by a strong current, but it hadn’t done anything to his heart rhythm.

Da’vi had already disappeared back into the engine room, this time talking on his com. “Ziame, I can’t get a hold of Akri. Is everyone okay?” I heard the sound of hissing noises and saw from the corner of my eye that he was flicking switches, tapping something with a wrench, and even perusing the readings on the main console while he spoke with the Captain.

I had to strain my ears to hear what Ziame said, the volume of Da’vi’s com not quite loud enough to make it over the engine room noises from this distance. “Everyone is fine, we’re dead in the water. That damn Kertinal ship hitched a ride.” That made Da’vi curse, banging his wrench against some nearby pipes.

“Engine is fried, it overloaded thanks to those assholes. I need Luka down here, Eoin is injured. Let me see what I can do to get power back. They’re not firing now, right? Did you get a prepare to be boarded warning yet? Can you stall?”

I was pretty sure that Ziame promised he’d try to stall so that Da’vi could try to create some semblance of order in this chaos. I didn’t think he’d manage to get us engines back before the Kertinals did board. My belly clenched painfully as my mind raced with possibilities. They were going to board this ship, try to take him from us to force him to build them this super engine. I was going to lose him, I couldn’t let that happen.

Looking around, I tried to locate a weapon. It was a silly idea, I couldn’t possibly fight against trained soldiers the size of Da’vi. It would still make me feel better to know I had something to fight with, this coming from me, the girl who had always considered herself a pacifist, ever since fourth grade when fighting bullies for my brother hadn’t worked out.

Eoin made a moaning noise on the ground and I froze, the doctor was coming, but should I be doing anything to help him? Tearing the cuff off my sleeve, I settled for pressing the fabric against the gash on his forehead, putting pressure on the still bleeding head wound.

“How bad is it?” I asked Da’vi, daring to look back into the engine room to see that he was neck deep in some hatch, I could only see his tail sweeping back and forth, and the scrumptious curve of his ass. Normally, I would have been willing to watch that all day long, but now I was just filled with fear. What if he got shocked too? It was a miracle Eoin wasn’t more badly burned, that his heart was still working…

“Engine isn’t damaged according to the readings, but my prototype exploded. I’m disabling and removing what I can so we should have normal functions again soon.” Da’vi didn’t need to say more to let me know that he was destroying the evidence too, removing anything that the Kertinillian Army could try to appropriate and rebuild that upgrade from without his help.

There was the sound of racing footsteps, then Luka came around the corner, pulling a floating stretcher behind him, and a leather bag dangling from one shoulder. “I’m serious Luka, I’m not an invalid, I can carry stuff,” Noa was saying, jogging after the Doc with a disgruntled look on her face. I wasn’t quite sure what this was referring to, but Luka was a hundred percent focused on his patient as soon as he spotted him.

“Keep the pressure on Ari, you did good,” he said as he dropped to the ground next to Eoin, his handheld scanner running over the big guy’s prone body. “Heart’s good, no damage, all vitals are fine actually. Just damage to the epidermis and a nasty bump to the head.” I breathed in relief at the verdict, even more happy when Noa sat at Eoin’s head and with a warm smile directed my way swapped my wad of cloth for a proper pad to press against that bleeding gash.

“We’ve got him, honey. Why don’t you go help Da’vi?” she said gently, gesturing with one colorfully tattooed arm at the engine room where I saw that Da’vi had collected a pile of parts in the middle of the room. He was making grumpy, snarly noises as he worked, but I saw his head turn every so often, purple eyes going to me. He was checking to make sure I was alright.

Leaving the professionals to take care of the injured, I stepped cautiously inside the engine room. “What can I do? Do we need to hide that stuff?” I asked him while I gestured at the pile of parts, I was pretty sure that was all stuff from his upgrade. It needed to disappear.

“Yes, you’re small, stick it as far as you can into the cleaning bot tunnels. Babbit can help, he likes to use them.” Da’vi gestured at several small openings along the edges of the walls. At the sound of his name, the male Riho popped out of one of those holes and I hurried to hand the animal a cluster of wires with a dangling square box. It was fascinating to see him agilely disappear into one of the small tunnels with it.

I’d gotten on my knees and started stuffing more parts down another little tunnel when the ship-wide intercom came to life. “Everyone, please gather in the mess hall. I’m afraid we can’t keep these bastards off our ship. No fighting, we’re severely outnumbered.” Ziame’s growled words shot a chill down my spine. This was it? End of the line for Da’vi? I couldn’t accept that.

The hand coming down on my shoulder had me spin around, a fist raised to punch my assailant straight in the face. My hand was caught in a metal grip and I deflated on the spot, “Da’vi. I can’t… You can’t let them take you. I don’t want to lose you!”

He was kneeling behind me, his expression determined, eyes glowing intensely. Gathering me in his arms, I happily burrowed against his chest, even if he smelled like oil and sweat, he also smelled like Da’vi. “You won’t, we’ll figure this out, my Sunshine. I promise.” I wanted to have faith in those words, spoken in that beautiful voice of his, but what could we do against a literal army?

“Come on, Babbit will take care of hiding the last parts, the engine is back online so we’re not helpless. I just wish I could figure out what happened to Akri. He’s still not responding…” Da’vi helped me to my feet, his arm slung around my shoulders as he steered me away from the now softly humming, blue glow of the engine. Without Da’vi’s added parts, it suddenly looked strange and bare to me.

Yanking on Da’vi’s collar was more than enough to get his attention, he tilted his head to look at me, and I curled my arm around his neck. Then I was kissing him, not the wild passionate kiss like before, softer. This wasn’t a kiss I was familiar with, this was a kiss to let someone know I loved them. To remind him that I’d agreed to be his.

“Yeah, I love you too,” he groaned against my lips. Then he looked away, and I knew that he was trying not to let me see his own worry. He’d promised me that we would figure this out, but what if that meant that he’d leave? That he’d protect us by going with them?

Chapter 19

Da’vi

We were gathered in the mess hall as instructed by Ziame, even the Doc and his mate were there with Eoin. The young male was sitting up on the stretcher, a thick bandage wrapped around his head. Already, the white markings that had scarred his skin were fading, the piece of leftover ore that Noa had pressed into his hands slowly diminishing to nothing. So he could heal himself with the metals he consumed, could he? That would have been a very interesting skill in the arena or any battlefield.