Page 10 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

The command module smells of burned stimulant, damp insulation, and fear carefully hidden under professional irritation.

I stand beneath a flickering ceiling strip while the dig site’s security feeds unfold across the projection wall in overlapping panes of blue-white light. Outside the reinforced viewport, Nareth-Kul lies in jagged darkness, its excavation towers and flood rigs throwing hard shadows over stone that has no business standing upright after so much planetary violence. Dust scrapes against the module in dry gusts. The outer struts groan whenever the rogue world shifts beneath us, and each vibration travels through the floor plates into the soles of my boots like the slow heartbeat of something buried too deep to kill.

Every worker in the command module pretends not to hear it.

That is the first thing I learned about archaeological crews years ago. Soldiers hear danger and name it. Academics hear danger and invent fifteen reasons why it should not interrupt their work.

The second thing I learned is that academics lie badly when they think they are telling the truth.

“Run the access log again,” I say.

The Alzhon technician at the console glances over his shoulder. His name is Pell. He has red scales and the exhausted defiance of a man who would rather crawl naked through fusion exhaust than admit his systems have been compromised.

“I have run it three times,” Pell says. “The official log shows no unauthorized entries prior to expedition arrival.”

“Then show me the unofficial log.”

His mouth flattens. “There is no unofficial log.”

I look at him.

Pell exhales through his nose and touches the side of his console. “Fine. There is a corrupted backup cache, but it is probably residual data from setup crews.”

“Show me.”

Council Liaison Merrow stands near the rear hatch with his arms folded over his narrow chest, looking as if every practical question is personally eroding the dignity of governance. He has been hovering since I brought Doctoral Candidate Prentiss back from the western fracture zone for medical review. He pretends he is here to supervise security procedure. He is really here because he thinks authority has mass when gathered in one corner.

The projection wall stutters. Several time-stamped entries appear, then fragment into blocks of missing data. I move closer. My reflection looms faintly in the glass beside the pale lines of the report, dark iron-red scales cut by old scars and the severe gold of my eyes. I look controlled. I always look controlled. That has been useful for most of my life.

It is less useful when my control is a shell over a detonation.

“Pause there,” I say.

Pell freezes the report.

Access hatch C-7. Western service tunnel. Three openings before the arrival of the primary academic team. Two occurred during approved equipment staging. One did not. The unauthorized entry lasted eleven minutes and forty-two seconds. Long enough to hide equipment. Long enough to copy survey data. Long enough to mark a route for later use.

Merrow clears his throat. “That could be a sensor error.”

“It could,” I say.

He relaxes a fraction.

“It is not.”

Pell enlarges the entry. “The badge signature is scrambled. Whoever accessed the hatch either used a cloned credential or piggybacked on a maintenance pulse.”

“Before official team arrival,” I say.

“Yes.”

“How many sections show similar anomalies?”

Pell’s fingers move with reluctant speed. “Western service tunnel, lower winch bay, sealed storage annex, and a maintenance crawlspace beneath the primary generator stack.”

Four points. A path.

Merrow steps forward. “Commander Vek’Talan, I must caution against exaggerating the significance of routine irregularities.”