He shrugged. “It’s just cosmetic. This is a working space station. Cargo and freight services, passengers, repairs and retrofits, the works. They get an average of over twenty thousand souls a day tramping around here, and that’s not including staff or resort visitors. Some of the passenger tour services use this station and others as stopovers, since they can’t always let passengers debark planetside. So they make good money that way, too, at the resort.”
They had to step to the side to let a hover cart towing a trailer overflowing with cargo crates pass. “See?” Aaron said. “That’s a small cart, and look how big it was. This is a service throughway. The residential and commercial sections are better.” He shrugged. “The theory likely is, if we paint it, it’ll just get scuffed up again.”
Emi still had difficulty processing the vast differences from what she’d just seen in the resort to…this. By comparison, it made the dingy hallway look even worse.
They finally reached the administrative offices. A receptionist there directed them to an office down several hallways.
Emi followed Aaron, who seemed at ease deciphering codes on the walls at each juncture. When he caught her looking up at him, he shrugged. “Been in space a long time, Em. The Merchants use these stations, too. They’re standardized among the different branches.”
They reached their destination and entered. The door silently slid shut behind them.
Another receptionist greeted them with a smile. “Commander Dobros is waiting for you, Captain Lucio.”
“Thanks.”
Emi didn’t miss how he laced his fingers through hers and began stroking her knuckles with his thumb again as he led her into the inner office. And his stress levels had risen off the charts, making his previous state of mind appear nearly catatonic by comparison.
Commander Dobros looked to be in his mid- to late-fifties. He wore a crisp ISNC uniform and an invisible cloak of uncertainty that Emi wasn’t sure how to process. His dull blue eyes, downturned at the corners from years of heavy worries, didn’t match his practiced, efficient smile. “Ah, Captain Lucio. And you must be Dr. Hypatia,” he said to Emi.
“I guess I must,” she muttered, still concerned about Aaron’s high level of anxiety. At a sudden wave of darkness assaulting her empathic senses, her attention sharply shifted from the commander to another male in his office, who stood at their entrance.
Not a human, the F’ahrkay wore a loose-fitting pair of tan trousers and matching tunic. Tall and willowy, standing over seven feet tall, he would dwarf Caph in height, although not in overall beefiness. His blue-tinged skin immediately branded him as nonhuman, while his dark eyes, with irises as black as the pupils, gave him an eerie look.
Emi realized she’d involuntarily tightened her grip on Aaron’s hand.
The strange, dark wave she felt came from the F’ahrkay. She didn’t know how to interpret it, and wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to.
All she knew was she didn’t trust him on sight.
“This is Kayehalau,” Commander Dobros said. “The DSMC ship he’d been assigned to unfortunately developed mechanical issues and was unable to complete its mission in a timely fashion. So he is being temporarily assigned to your vessel—”
“No.” When the two men and the F’ahrkay looked at Emi, her face reddened when she realized she’d said it out loud.
She didn’t know why, but the last thing she wanted or needed was a F’ahrkay on the Bight.
Correction, this F’ahrkay. It wasn’t that he was nonhuman. It was him. Something horribly off and pulling at her empathic senses in a dangerous way.
“Em?”
She looked up into Aaron’s questioning gaze. She clenched her jaw and gave him a tiny shake of her head. He let out a breath and gently squeezed her hand.
Commander Dobros, apparently not used to hearing refusal to orders, cleared his throat and continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “He is to accompany you to your next planetary scan, then you will return to the Martian station where he will debark. He has equipment he needs to test, and the Tamora Bight is the perfect—”
“No.”
Aaron squeezed her hand again, silencing her. She caught his eye and the slight tip of his head and knew his meaning.
Not here, and not now.
Dobros cleared his throat again. “It’s the perfect vessel from which to test his equipment. He is working in conjunction with the DSMC and ISNC. His services are on loan from—”
Unable to take it, Emi dropped Aaron’s hand, turned about-face, and practically bolted from the room.
Aaron followed her as she stood, trembling, in the outer office. She bent over and put her hands on her knees to keep herself from falling over. The way her stomach churned, she wasn’t all too sure she might not toss her breakfast all over the floor.
“Em, what the hell?”Aaron whispered. He wasn’t angry, but he was irritated at her unprofessional behavior in front of a superior officer.
She couldn’t speak. All she could do was stand there and shake her head. She was afraid if she opened her mouth she would definitely hurl.
He let out an aggravated sigh. “Wait here.” Then he returned to the office.
Emi waited until she heard the door shut behind her to try to return to a standing position.
“Dr. Hypatia?”
Emi glanced up at the worried expression of the receptionist.
“Can I get you some water or something?”
The wave of genuine concern she felt from the woman from across the room magically settled her stomach. After a deep breath, she shakily straightened and nodded.
The receptionist hurried out of the office while Emi backed into one of the three chairs along the wall and sat.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
She didn’t know. All she knew was something about that F’ahrkay was more than wrong.
He was dangerous.
Emi still sat and held her paper cup with trembling hands as she slowly sipped the contents when Aaron emerged from the commander’s office ten minutes later. She caught a flutter of aggravation from him before he tamped down on it and concern flowed through him when he looked into her eyes.
He knelt in front of her. “What’s wrong?” he whispered as he rested his hands on her knees.
Chewing on the inside of her lip to keep from bursting into tears, Emily whispered the feelings she’d gotten from the F’ahrkay. “There’s something wrong with him, Aaron. I don’t know what it is, but he can’t come with us. He’s dangerous.”
“Em,” he gently said, “we don’t have a choice.”
“I thought being bonded crew meant we could refuse crew assignments?”
“Permanent crew assignments, yes. This is a temporary one, for one specific purpose. There’s too many alphabet-soup players mixed in on this one. The guy’s father is on the ISTC council.”
She stared at him, shocked. “They’re forcing us to take him?”
He took the cup from her and set it on the floor. Then he took her hands in his, gently massaging them. She tried to draw strength from the love flowing through him. “What’s going on?”
She vehemently shook her head. “I felt it. He’s bad news. There’s something really bad about him.”
“How can you be sure?”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. “How can you ask me that? I’m a trained Class 2 empath!”
He glanced down for a moment as he took a deep breath. She knew that gesture. He was trying to stay calm. He looked back into her eyes again. “You know how you always get the heebie-jeebies with the jump engines, but me and the other guys never feel it?”