Page 28 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

I look at her.

She winces. “That was meant to be charming.”

“It was not.”

“Then I withdraw the charm but retain the accuracy.”

I should march her back to the habitat module and post a guard outside her door. I should revoke her access credentials, seize her scanner, and keep her under observation until Director Halvek wakes and decides whether to pack her into the next shuttle. That would be correct procedure. It would also be useless. Anita would escape through a vent, recruit Teren with guilt, terrify Pell with technical questions, and somehow convince Brakk to lend her explosives in exchange for future academic favors.

She is not a civilian I can contain with orders.

She is a problem with legs.

The bond tightens in my chest with savage approval of that thought, and I despise it.

“Did anyone see you enter?” I ask.

Her expression shifts. She expected anger. She did not expect a tactical question. “No.”

“Did you connect the scanner network to outside channels?”

“Absolutely not. I am reckless, not incompetent.”

“You overestimate the distinction.”

“I do not, actually. I keep a spreadsheet.”

I cross to the nearest console and pull the access log. “The door recorded a forced diagnostic loop. Anyone checking the right subsystem will know someone entered.”

“Can you erase it?”

“Yes.”

She blinks. “You can?”

“I was security commander on Alliance forward stations before I protected academics from themselves.”

“I thought you said you weren’t a commander.”

“My contract titles are not my life.”

“That is a suspiciously poetic way to say yes.”

I access the system and bury the diagnostic loop under a scheduled cooling-cycle reset. Pell will find it if he looks closely. Merrow will not. That is enough for the next few hours.

Anita watches my hands move over the console. “Why are you helping me?”

“I am not helping you. I am preventing panic while I determine whether this equipment has been compromised.”

“That sounds like helping with tactical hair-splitting.”

“It sounds like survival.”

The projection sphere flickers, and one lower layer brightens unexpectedly. I freeze the scan. A narrow side passage branches away from the western service system and ends at a sealed excavation tunnel that should not be connected to the mapped routes.

The door marker glows red.

Forced-entry warning.