She felt him fall asleep, and she grinned as the same wave of exhaustion came over her. A good night’s sleep was worth a dozen missions.

  * * * *

  He had been exhausted enough to just fall asleep with the hottest woman he had ever seen next to him. Literally. Her skin radiated heat with every breath and motion. It would take some getting used to, but he was willing to put the time for adaptation in.

  Only listening to her speaking calmly and directly to the students and keeping hope in them as well as encouraging them to take the trip back up to the light had broken the hours on the surface.

  The administrators had shown him the footage before the collapse. The tunnel had been created to allow the geologists and climatologists first-hand knowledge of the glacier. No one had counted on the collapse, and it had only been strange fortune that had them standing next to the solid bulk of the glacier when the collapse happened. Unseasonable heat had cracked the ice, and it had gone from solid to a tumbling mass in seconds.

  Their tunnel had never been properly reinforced. There was no way to support a solid and expanding structure with mere metal and wood.

  The only thing that had saved the students was their communicators. They had called the outside world and confirmed that they were alive and that one communication had thrown things into motion.

  Hyl smiled at the images that Flourish had recorded. Winera had glowed white-hot and slipped through the ice without any hesitation. He didn’t know many women who would dangle from a ship over a volcano and then launch themselves into a pile of jagged ice without balking. She hadn’t paused. She had gone from playing with Smudge to jumping out of the ship, trusting the tech and her partners. It was humbling to think that she had put her life in their hands and that it was only her faith in them that let her do what she had to.

  Hyl cuddled her more closely against him. If she was going to trust him with her life, he was going to earn that trust every day.

  She had already convinced the ship that she needed a proper name. That was more than Hyl had been able to manage in six months.

  As he dozed off, he smiled. Things move quickly around Scorchers. They shifted like wild fire.

  * * * *

  She woke refreshed and relaxed. Her body felt as if it had been reset, and when she rolled over, she was alone in bed.

  She moved quickly, rolling free of the bed and slipping into her suit before creeping out of his room and across the hall.

  A shower and use of the lav were on her list, and the moment she was presentable and there were no demands on her attention, she put on a clean suit, draped her Scorcher robes over it and went in search of breakfast.

  There was something about lying naked in Hyl’s arms that made her want to cover up, just to see if he was still interested in looking.

  It was petty, but she needed to know if he was interested in her as more than a partner. She had seen couples, triads, quads, every possible permutation and combination of joinings, and now, she was facing a partnership herself and it had thrown her off balance.

  “Good morning, Winera. Stop stalling. He is in the galley getting Smudge something to eat.”

  “Stalling?”

  “You have brushed your hair three times. It is as untangled as it is going to get. Go and have a meal. You are hungry.” There was amusement in Flourish’s tone.

  She wasn’t wrong. With squared shoulders, Winera headed out of her quarters and down to the galley with her robes swinging.

  Smudge looked up from his breakfast and chirped happily.

  Hyl turned toward her and smiled. “You look better.”

  She looked him over from head to toe. He was wearing that loose wrap on his hips and nothing else. “You look greener.”

  He waved her to sit. “It is a side effect of being in a hothouse all night. I just had to get up to drink some water, and Smudge had his bowl in his beak. I took the hint.”

  She settled next to Smudge, and Hyl set her breakfast in front of her. Two cups of tea, toast and eggs with a serving of fruit.

  “Thank you.”

  He grinned. “You are welcome.”

  He settled across from her with his own meal, but before he ate, he asked, “May I touch your hand?”

  She had an idea what he was looking for. She extended her hand to his, and he turned it, running his thumb along the inside of her wrist. She subdued the shiver that the light touch caused.

  “You are cool.” He was surprised.

  She snickered. “I am normal. Once I have balanced myself out, this is my normal temperature. I only run hot when I am out of whack.”

  “So, cool is healthy, hot is not.” He nodded.

  “Yes, you can check with Flourish. She has been keeping watch on my vitals since I got here.”

  “Only when they were outside the norm, Winera.” Flourish’s voice was amused.

  Winera ate her breakfast and drank one cup of tea. “So, why did you kiss me?”

  Hyl grinned. “It seemed the best way to get my heat into you.”

  “Lie.”

  “Fine, I wanted the excuse to hold you.”

  She blushed.

  Flourish’s voice broke the mood. “Oh dear. Do I have that to look forward to? All that passive sentiment. Shudder.”

  Hyl kept his smile on his lips. “We were matched by Morganti’s Commander and Pilot, if that makes a difference.”

  Winera knew those names. Commander had been the first Sector Guard Base coordinator and Pilot was his mate. In addition to his skills as an organizer of the talented, he had a peculiar talent for romantic foresight. He was a matchmaker on the psychic plane.

  “It does make things easier. It takes us from first meeting to fifth in seconds.” She chuckled and her blush remained in place.

  He brought her hand to his lips and placed a kiss in her palm while maintaining contact with her stunned gaze.

  This was going to get very complicated, very quickly, and she didn’t think she actually objected.

  Chapter Nine

  One didn’t simply land at Citadel Lowel; you landed at Udell Base and took a zip transport over to the Citadel. That meant you had to go through the high security of the base to cross over.

  Winera smiled at the security officer as they walked through the halls. A base guard was ahead of them and behind them. Smudge was tucked up in her left arm and her bags weighed down her right. She couldn’t have mounted an attack if she wanted to.

  Hyl was at her back, and he chatted companionably with the base guard behind them.

  The walls of the sealed base were unrelenting grey with only the occasional flash of blue or green visible through the windows. The atmosphere of Udell was unbreathable to most species, so the lockdown was a safety measure as well as a security control.

  The zip transport to Lowel was new to the Alliance. It was being tested between the two facilities on the two different orbital bodies. If they could make it three years without an incident, it would be viable to use on sister worlds for cheap and effective transfer from one to the other.

  Hyl had given her the briefing on the flight in. Flourish was already chatting with Tech about what her new partners needed. Winera was the only one who had no idea what was going to happen next. She was on uncertain ground.

  The zip was a small pod that would hold them with no room for extras. She tucked her bags around her feet, held Smudge on her lap and, when Hyl climbed in behind her, the guards sealed the pod.

  “Hang on. This gets weird.” Hyl’s voice suddenly got distant as they accelerated out of the seal and toward the stars.

  She held on to Smudge, and he stared wide-eyed as they cruised toward a huge and nearly empty world. The small projectile they were in zipped along until it approached the one large building on Lowel and they passed through an oxygen barrier, entering Citadel space.

  Winera was blinking in surprise. “That was fast.”

  Hyl laughed. “That is the idea. The release will pop up for you the moment we are parked.”

  He was right. The moment that they skidded into a station the mirror image of the Udell Base zip launch, a release button came toward her on the interior. It was sound planning that it hadn’t appeared earlier. A panicked rider might try to open it in mid-zip.

  She pressed it and the hatch opened just as a couple in Citadel robes appeared in the doorway.

  As Smudge exited the pod, the woman smiled and knelt down. “Hello. We were told you were coming.”

  He formally introduced himself and rubbed against her hand.

  Hyl left the pod and greeted the male while Winera hauled her bags out of the tiny transport.

  Finally on solid ground, she absently picked up Smudge as he chortled back to her.

  The woman came forward and smiled. “Welcome to Lowel. I am Wiali and this is Braenar.”

  Hyl came to her and said, “Or Starborn and Comet if you are speaking to anyone outside of Lowel.”

  Wiali waved that away, “Fine, or that.”

  “Scorcher Winera Eckerhart, at your service.” She managed a polite bow. “This is Smudge, and I am guessing that you have met Hyl.”

  Wiali grinned. “We have indeed met him while on assignment. When we heard he was getting posted to Lowel, we were curious. I will say that having you here is an honour that we cannot properly express.”

  Winera chuckled. “Why? Do you have some spot welding you need doing?”

  Braenar shook his head, “No, but we do need an instructor with your people skills. Wiali is a good teacher, but we get called on a lot of urgent events. We need backup. That’s you.”

  Winera’s eyes widened. “Right. Teacher. With your attachment to Udell, I hadn’t thought that you would be an active Citadel.”

  Wiali grinned and linked arms with her. “Come with me and I will show you how active we will be.”

  Hyl snagged her bags and winked. “I know where we are quartered. I am sure that the tour will take you there eventually.”

  The tour began in the gardens or what would eventually become the gardens. For the moment, it was just a growing green patch that provided oxygen to the facility.

  “Very clever. An oxygen farm. I am guessing that I won’t be working here.” She chuckled.

  Wiali smiled. “No, this is not your lab. I am guessing that Hyl and some of the others will be able to make this into something grand.”

  The gardens, which were fields, stretched as far as the eye could see under the dome. “What do you do with the excess oxygen?”

  “We harvest it for your lab.” Wiali turned and walked around to an exterior door and led her back inside.

  They took a tour of the compressors, and Smudge gambolled around the new environment with glee.

  “He is part of that new species, isn’t he?” Wiali was watching his antics with a smile on her lips.

  “Apparently. I was merely told that he had been waiting for me, and once I touched him, he and I connected. There was very little consideration of what he was or what I was. We just clicked.”

  He paused and flapped his inky wings at her, chirping proudly before letting out a rumbling purr-like sound.

  “Yes, dear. You are also lovely and far more attractive than Hyl.” Winera grinned.

  “You understood that?”

  “We are linked, he and I. He can crawl around a dozen people and I still know that he and I are connected. It is odd, but then, this whole lifestyle is rather odd. On my world, we dream of getting away, and now, I am away and I tend to dream of home.”

  Wiali nodded. “I understand. I dream of home frequently, but at least I can visit the soul of my home even though the body is now different.”

  “Is it true that your father was the Avatar of a star and your mother the Avatar of a planet?”

  “Braenar and I are the last of a kind. The Hirn are long gone, but I live in hope that a few will eventually pop up again, random genetics breaking through.” She sighed.

  Silence ran between them for a moment and then Wiali straightened. “Right, sorry, on with the tour.”

  They left the compressor room and headed for the kitchens. Wiali commented, “If you like cooking, you are welcome to use the equipment instead of the dispenser. I am sure that Hyl will soon be busy frolicking in the gardens.”

  “We will see. I have a limited repertoire when it comes to cooking. If he grows something I don’t recognize, you are on your own.” She chortled.

  Her tour guide laughed. “Come on. I will show you the real reason you are so welcome.”

  They walked through marble-tiled halls and entered the lecture hall. A huge skylight was above the podium in the enormous room. Wiali led her to the centre and pointed upward; a beam of light streamed from her hand and illuminated a silvery object high in the sky above Lowel.

  “That is Lowel Station. Yup. We rate our own orbital station. It will screen and check all personnel and vehicles landing on Lowel and entering the Citadel. As a teaching station, we will be called upon to give lectures on dealing with talents, dealing with less-evolved cultures and children who exhibit dangerous talents. We are going to host these lectures, the guest speakers and the students. We have several members of Lowel already, but they are off on assignment. We need a tight core of rotational members to act as hosts and guides, as well as keep an eye on security. I think you and Hyl would be an excellent team when it comes down to it.”

  “We are a very good team, but we are incomplete.”

  “Oh?”

  “Our ship is a vital part of our team. Even after only two assignments together, I cannot imagine working without the Green Archer. Flourish is a developing personality and she needs the stimuli that going on missions can provide. I need it, too, frankly. I feel I have so much more to offer on a mission than as a host.”

  Wiali sighed. “It was worth a try. Will you act as security and instructor while you are here?”

  “I will. That is not an issue. I have just come to grips with being part of an odd foursome and it feels very right, if that makes sense.”

  Wiali opened her arms and light dazzled and sparked around her. “It all makes perfect sense to me. Family is where you find it, and you have found yours.”

  Winera realized that Starborn was speaking the truth. “You know, I think I have.” A slow smile spread across her face, and Smudge came running for a hug.

  Chapter Ten

  “A joint set of quarters? So they are expecting us to be more than just partners.” Winera looked around and saw that her clothing was hanging next to his in the closet and three more reinforced suits had been designed and delivered to her.

  Hyl was showing Smudge his new bed.

  Smudge was turning around and around, adjusting the stuffing and getting comfortable. The soft noises that he was making were enough to put a smile on Winera’s face.

  “I had a conversation with Wiali. She asked me to lock in as a permanent member of the Citadel who didn’t go on missions. I had to decline.”

  Hyl looked at her with a smile, “I said the same to Braenar. We are only getting started. Flourish needs us to keep going with her.”

  “Yes, she does. How long were you two going to keep me waiting before you called me?” Flourish’s voice came through the com, strident and irritated.

  Winera laughed. “I didn’t know you were waiting for us.”

  “Of course I was. Tech has been fiddling with my bits all afternoon. Smudge now has his own seat on the command deck, and he can stare at the stars all he likes.”

  Hyl grinned. “What else did she do to you?”

  “You now have a larger room, Hyl. Your bed can now hold both of you without you piling on top of each other. I hear that that is important for mated pairs. You need room to move.”

  Winera blushed and went to the drink dispenser against the wall. It had an alcohol setting, and she nearly wept with relief. Getting alcohol was against the rules for women on many worlds, but when she was truly thirsty, nothing worked better.

  She ordered up a litre of wine, and when a beaker was presented, she tipped it back with relief. “Any other changes, Flourish?”

  “There is a more expansive beverage selection. One of the local Scorchers gave Udell Base a lecture on the care and feeding of a Scorcher. Apparently, they have been a little remiss.”

  Hyl was watching her guzzle down the wine. “So I see.”

  She finished it and grinned. “That was lovely.”

  Winera continued her exploration and found a bathing room. It had an actual tub and everything. “Oh my. If I had known about this, I might have been willing to lock in.”

  From the bedroom, she heard, “I heard that!”

  Laughing, she returned to the bedroom. “And yet, I am delighted to be one of the team on the Green Archer.”

  “Oh, we changed my call sign. I am now the Flourish Sparks. It suits me, don’t you think?”

  “I think it does. Well, Flourish, I promise to call you tomorrow morning or sooner if we get an assignment. For now, I am going to have my first hot soak in two years.”

  Hyl raised his eyebrows. “May I join you?”

  “Certainly, but I do like it a little hot.”

  “I can take the heat.” He smiled, and there was a wealth of suggestion in that smile.

  Flourish sighed, “Fine. Leave me with no other ships to talk to. Oh, wait, there are only two, and they are out doing exciting and fun things. I guess I am stuck with my down time.”

  Winera rolled her eyes at the self-pitying attitude of her ship. “Wait until you have a body, Flourish. You will see things a little differently.”

  “Nine years, three months and four days. I can hardly wait. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  The com light blinked out and Winera sighed. “I am glad she is fine, but now, I feel guilty about enjoying a bath.”

  Hyl sauntered up to her and pressed a soft kiss on her lips. “No guilt. She is experimenting with emotion. You have created an attachment for her, and she is testing it.”

 

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