Page 60 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

“What do you think now?”

I remember children in a burning shelter while an admiral called the strike strategically inevitable. I remember Vakutan warriors shouting Precursor invocations as they charged through smoke. I remember realizing too late that belief can make men brave, but it can also make them obedient.

“I think formations are made by commanders,” I say. “Commanders can be wrong.”

Anita’s face softens, and I hate how quickly I notice.

Sira touches the wall lightly, and the script fades beneath her fingers. “There may be more fragments below.”

“Of course there are,” Brakk says bitterly. “The universe never kicks you in the face once when it can install stairs.”

Anita lifts the case again. “Then we keep going.”

Her voice is steady, but her body is not. Exhaustion drags at her shoulders. Dust clings to sweat along her temples. She has lost someone she barely had time to know, survived two collapses, witnessed an archive vision that left her shaking, and now carries evidence dangerous enough to summon trained killers. Still, she looks toward the next passage with the same hunger that drove her through every locked door since she arrived.

I step in front of her. “We rest.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

She glares up at me. “We are being hunted.”

“We are exhausted.”

“Those are not mutually exclusive.”

“Exhausted people make mistakes.”

“So do patronizing ones.”

“I am not asking.”

The second the words leave my mouth, I know they are wrong. Not because the decision is wrong. Because the shape of the words is wrong between us now. Her face closes, and something defensive rises in her eyes.

I correct course. “Anita, listen to me. We need ten minutes. Water, wounds, equipment check, orientation. If the Choir catches us because someone collapses on their feet, your archive dies with us.”

That reaches her because I make the argument through the work, not through her fragility.

She exhales hard. “Fine. Ten minutes.”

Brakk drops onto a low section of black stone with an exaggerated groan. “I could kiss both of you, but neither of you deserves the honor.”

Sira chooses a place near the wall where she can watch both passages. “I will listen for movement.”

We settle in a chamber shaped like a crescent, with two narrow exits and a shallow depression along the center where the floor emits faint warmth. I do not trust the warmth, but I trust the cold less, and the group needs rest. Brakk checks the fusion cutter, curses over its charge levels, and begins prying open a compact field kit with his teeth. Sira sits cross-legged near the wall and closes her eyes, though her head remains tilted toward the corridors. Anita drinks from a canteen in small careful swallows, then tries to keep working on the scanner core until her hands tremble too hard to adjust the interface.

I crouch beside her. “Sleep.”

Her eyes flash open. “I’m not sleeping.”

“You nearly dropped the scanner.”

“I was testing gravity.”

“You were losing consciousness.”

“It’s rude to diagnose people accurately without consent.”