Tempted by Celestial Bodies

Chapter 3

chapter three

raiders in our midst

While Thrash guided the crawler toward our destination, I focused on our surroundings. Miles of lavender sand and newly sprouted trees with blond trunks and teal leaves pulsing with biofluorescence dotted the landscape. Beyond those rose the lumps and bumps of dark purple rocks that eventually led to a small mountain range and the cave which was our destination.

Everything appeared normal, but just because it seemed unlikely the climate control fault was due to raiders, that didn’t mean it couldn’t be. This sector of the planet was almost completely terraformed and habitable. The cleanup team was scheduled to arrive this week to initiate the transition to the final phase of the ETP. Guards would be placed around the equipment until the populate team arrived and permanent installments were erected.

Forty-five minutes into our trip, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat for what had to be the hundredth time. After this morning’s hefty dose of sexy-time pheromones this situation was less than ideal. Thrash was big in both height and breadth. My damn shoulder hummed from where it made constant contact with that man. Trapped in this cockpit designed for two average-sized people—which he was not—and I was ready to wriggle out of my own skin to escape the tiny crawler cabin.

Retirement was on the horizon, so close I could see the circled date on my calendar. Only six days, four shifts left, and after today, none of them would be with Thrash.

The vehicle slowed. I peeled my gaze from the view and glanced at Thrash. His hair was pulled back and tied off at his nape, revealing the stress lines on his face. “What’s wrong?”

He jutted his chin in the direction we were headed. “We’ve got a problem.”

Brows pinched, I squinted into the distance. All I saw was the beautiful terrain of KR-732, nothing alarming. Damn aliens and their enhanced senses.

I punched a button on the crawler’s dash, and my side of the windshield zoomed in like binoculars. A joystick allowed me to pan around the area but with limited functionality.

As the magnified image on the screen slowly rotated to the right, something moved. I shot upright in my seat. Adrenaline twisted the muscles tight along my spine. Just a smudge of pixels, but there shouldn’t be anything in the vicinity to cast a moving shadow.

I was afraid to blink, lest I miss whatever was out there. My eyes began to water. I sat stiff and still in my seat, staring hard at the screen, waiting for the image to pan fully to the right. Pixel by pixel, the screen focused.

Near the mouth of the cave that was our destination, several blurred shapes separated from the stony surface. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered. The pixels continued to smooth and coalesce into something recognizable. Dread bubbled in the pit of my belly. The figures vanished off the edge of the area I’d focused on, but before they vanished, it was apparent they were humanoid.

“Raiders.” I spat the single word like the curse they were.

Thrash made a growly grunt of agreement. The bioluminescent rings in his horns pulsed with the colors of a flame—a bright, rolling gradient of crimson to white gold. Briefly, the interior of the crawler glowed like an inferno.

My heartbeat pulsed in my throat. I swallowed and focused on my breath. Damn it to the nine suns and back, I’d only brought my daggers. They were good weapons, and I was lethal with them, but depending on the size of the crew, they weren’t enough. I looked at Thrash. As usual, he carried no weapon. My nostrils flared with frustration. Was this man anything more than an aromatic aphrodisiac? How did he even end up on this team?

Since he joined, he’d been in dustups with raiders and survived, but I hadn’t witnessed the skirmishes. I had no idea how capable he was in a fight. Sure, he was very large and visually formidable, but his continued existence could be because of his capable crewmates.

In the distance, at least three more blurry figures moved across the screen.

Why couldn’t they come next week? I’d be gone, retired, and drinking too many starfruit daiquiris on the toasty beaches of the first empyrean planet I parked my space cruiser on. Some preferred Goldilocks planets, but I built these perfect worlds, and by the stars, I would live on one. Curse this entire situation to the black hole void.

Two more figures came and went while at least three entered the cave.

“Three raiders just entered the cave,” I said. “I’ve counted at least seven—” A cluster of figures exited the entrance, carrying something enormous and huddled too close together to count their precise numbers. “Scratch that. We’re at more than ten. If we don’t play this right, we might not walk away.”

There was a high probability we were about to follow in the footsteps of all the terraformers who had fallen before us, but if we could stop the raiders before they took all the life-sustaining machinery, we could at least save the colony and all the work we’d accomplished.

“I will handle this. Stay behind me.” His tone was flat and authoritative, as if his words were law.

“The fuck I will.” I swiveled in my seat and blasted a glare at the arrogant alphahole next to me, taking up too much space. My hand slipped from the console joystick and the front screen bounced back to regular viewing distance. “Maybe you don’t know this about me, but there is a reason I’m team lead,” I said, my words clipped. “Through all the jobs I’ve worked—and there have been a lot—I’ve fought off my fair share of raider parties.”

We drove on, inching closer and closer to the raiders. Silence swelled inside the crawler’s stuffy interior.

Thrash glanced in my direction and did a quick second glance, apparently realizing my lack of commentary and my death-glare meant I was waiting for some form of acknowledgment. “I reviewed all the team member’s files before I joined.”

Again, weird, since he was a nobody joining the most decorated terraforming team in the entire ETP, but whatever.

“Then you should know this planet’s distance from anything habitable under jurisdiction of United Federal Interstellar Space has resulted in a higher than usual number of attacks.”

He nodded. “That is the reason I was recruited. Allow me to handle the raiders.”

A whooshing sound swept against my eardrums. My blood boiled through my veins while fire erupted in my chest. “Don’t you worry your pretty little horns. I can take care of myself. Through all the raids we’ve endured on this mission, I hold the highest kill count.” I sneered. “Perhaps you should stay behind me .”

Beneath his forehead plate a deep V formed while iridescent light spiraled up Thrash’s horns. Thin lines of fiery bioluminescence traced the edges of the flexible obsidian scales across his broad chest, arms, and shoulders. “I admire your bravery, but I will not allow you to be harmed.”

“You will not allow me?” My voice went shrill, and I clenched my fists against my thighs. “I had no idea you were so damn sexist.”

“You are my mate. I must protect you.”

“Ugh! Not the mate thing again? If my response to your advances wasn’t already a hard no, it would be now with this ‘stay behind me, little woman’ attitude.”

As he steered us off the main path, he glanced in my direction, giving me a head-to-toe appraisal. His lips flattened, but he nodded. “You’re right. I know you can handle yourself, but it’s damn hard for me to disregard genetic instincts.”

I softened, if only a little, at the apologetic tone and acknowledgment that I didn’t need his protection.

The crawler rolled and bumped over the rocky terrain, shaking like an asteroid buster hard at work breaking up a belt. To avoid unintentionally piercing my tongue, I kept my jaw locked until we reached smoother terrain.

Finally, Thrash navigated the vehicle to a stop behind a rocky outcropping. “This appears to be a sizable group of raiders. Large enough they had the balls to power down the colony support while they worked, knowing it would draw attention.”

Climate control was part of the colony support. The mammoth piece of machinery ran ultra hot. To stay cool, it siphoned icy runoff water from an underground iceberg deep below the cave. Hours were required to fully cool the equipment and drain the water.

I frowned. “Which means they probably have vibration detectors to know when we’re coming.”

“Precisely.” He turned off the crawler and looked at me. “We need to go on foot. I will handle the crew outside.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he held up his hand.

“I will handle the crew outside because I am equipped to take on groups. Of the two of us, you know the machinery better and should get inside and get it back online as soon as possible.”

Mollified, I closed my mouth and nodded. “Agreed.”

It hadn’t escaped my attention he’d pivoted his opinion, allowing me to put myself in harm’s way. Confronting whatever was inside that cave was arguably more dangerous than what he would face outside. Warmth bloomed inside my chest.

Red alert! Red alert! Warning bells pealed in my head. I needed distance between me and this man before he ruined all my plans. As soon as we handled this situation and the machines were back online, I planned to lock myself in my quarters and avoid Thrash like the Sipphian Plague.

The crawler’s doors retracted. I slipped on my helmet and climbed out. The helmet was no longer necessary for atmospheric reasons, but it provided an extra layer of combat protection. I hadn’t expected to need it but was grateful for the last-minute equipment grab.

Thrash rounded the vehicle and stood next to me, far too close for comfort, a look of concern on his face. “Let me go first and draw their attention. I am not minimizing your abilities,” he said before I could object. “We don’t know how long climate control has been down. That endangers habitat stability and everything we have done here. You need space to handle the machinery. A distraction can give you that.”

My hands clenched into fists at my sides. Damn him, he was right. If we had a full team here, we would be splitting up. I needed to get over this thing I had for Thrash that insisted on blocking out all logic. “Agreed. What’s the signal for me to move in?”

He brushed a loose strand of hair peeking out from beneath my helmet behind my shoulder. I didn’t shy away from the contact.

“You will know it when you see it.” He dipped his head and gave me an intense look. “Stay alive, my mate.”

Thrash sprinted into the predawn haze at an almost incomprehensible pace. The shadows quickly claimed his form.

Only after I’d lost sight of him, did it occur to me I hadn’t objected to what he’d called me. Mate .