Gabe acknowledged my request with a nod that seemed forced and mechanical. His eyes swung back and forth just once between Shade and me. A muscle bunched in his jaw. “Yeah. I got it.”
From his tone, I knew he understood more than just my instructions. As much as it kicked me in the heart to disappoint him, I didn’t want any gray areas. I wanted Shade.
I turned away, a thousand memories tugging at my soul. First kiss. First heist. First plans for a future together. First pretty much everything. But things were different now. Time didn’t stand still or go backwards. Neither did people. I’d changed. Hadn’t Gabe? There was no picking up as though nearly a decade hadn’t happened.
I’d wanted only two men in my entire life. Gabe had pursued me, and I’d pursued Shade. I had no doubt I’d still be with Gabe if we hadn’t been separated and caught. Now I was with Shade, who’d chosen me, too. My heart and my body knew that.
Shade’s knuckles brushed mine as we moved away from the rear air lock. “You all right, starshine?”
His softly spoken question spread through me like warm honey, sweet and concerned and just the glue I needed to keep myself together.
I limped a few steps before answering. “I’m glad you’re with me.”
Shade waited until we rounded the corner before sweeping me into his arms and carrying me to the bedroom.
Chapter 18
TESS
We finished lunch together, this time just the crew of the Endeavor. We were a changed landscape that I was finally getting used to. We’d gone from a family of five to a solid crew of seven, and four of us were new here. It had taken a near-deadly mission, but the wariness surrounding Sanaa’s and Gabe’s arrivals felt far away now. Everyone breathed easier. The next steps seemed less…insurmountable.
We’d spent the last few days helping to settle the escaped prisoners on the DT Mooncamps. It took some convincing to get them to stay put while we figured things out, but in the end, they’d agreed that sitting tight for the time being was better than getting recaptured and forced back into being unwilling blood donors. In most cases, parents were already with their children, having gone in for early GIN testing together. That helped, and when Raz separated and distributed the group around his Mooncamps, he kept families and friends together. Eggs went in different baskets, though, even in this case.
Frank and his crew helped Raz more than we did, moving people around in the Unholy Stench and helping clean up unused living spaces and rustle up furniture and other necessary items. All six Mooncamps pulled together to help, and our role tapered off once everything was in motion. We dove into deep planning mode and tried to get the Endeavor up to full power and ready for some big jumps before we had to take her out again. Repeatedly leaping through hyperspace with holes in the hull might be doable, but it wasn’t intelligent, and we worked frantically on repairs when we weren’t working on a plan to break into Starbase 12.
Luckily, I had a strong and handy crew and Raz had a huge supply of space-worthy metal. The day of the massacre, countless ships had taken off from Demeter Terre in a panic, not knowing where to go. Whole families and crews died before they decided, the blood agents already inside them, leaving thousands of ships floating in orbit around their poisoned planet. Demeter Terre still had a ring around it, but it wasn’t dust and gases. It was ghost ships. A reminder of what they’d suffered. With the Mooncampers’ blessing, Raz collected metal from it for repair projects.
We shared a large hangar with the Stench this time, and I hadn’t been able to help observing certain interactions while we banged away at repairs on the Endeavor. The doctor we’d found had slipped seamlessly into the Nightchaser’s life, taking responsibility for things that were spreading Frank too thin. He hadn’t decided yet if he was staying on the Mooncamps or taking up Frank’s spontaneous offer to join the crew of the Stench. It was hard to miss Frank’s hungry glances at the man. Or the way the doctor looked baffled and a little pink but kept walking by Frank, even when he didn’t need to.
I kept hoping he’d trip and fall into Frank’s arms. And that I’d be there to see it.
“Tess?” Shade tilted his head at me in question. I brought my eyes back into focus. Everyone around the kitchen table looked as though they were waiting for me to say something.
“Sorry.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. It wasn’t like me to zone out on an important conversation, although in my defense, we were bordering on Frank-like repetition, even though we were leaving the Stench and her crew out of this.
It was game day in a way, though, wasn’t it? Or at least the kickoff. We were about to find out if my uncle had left me anything useful. We had a solid plan for the Starbase 12 rescues now, but it could still be adjusted. Uncle Nate’s drop point was in Sector 10, on Galligar Prime. Sanaa had finally coughed up the coordinates, and we’d set them before sitting down to lunch.
“You look a galaxy away,” Shade said.
“No, maybe just a few star systems over.” I wrapped my hands around my coffee mug and drank some of Jax’s brew. He made the best coffee, somewhere between eye-popping and smooth enough to swallow without a grimace. The kitchen had turned into planning central lately, and here we were again, most of us with coffees, our empty lunch dishes piled in the middle of the table.
“Let’s recap.” I glanced at Shade, hoping he would do the rundown of the plan for me this time. I was sick of my own voice by now.
Shade drank, too, only his mug was filled with some kind of fruit juice Raz had come up with. My scaredy-cat boyfriend had tried to get me to taste it first, but I’d refused. Shade swallowed with difficulty then set the mug down, sliding it away from him.
I tried not to smile. I’d told him that getting a little extra vitamin C wouldn’t be worth ingesting whatever that fruit drink was.
He cleared his throat. “Even if Daniel Ahern’s contact shuts off the plasma shield alarm on Platform 7, most people can’t just fly onto Starbase 12, hop out, and walk around.” Shade grimaced, which had less to do with the dubious fruit juice than with the fact we all agreed that Daniel Ahern’s “help” was useless. In the end, we’d decided to avoid his upcoming window of opportunity altogether and make our move two days after it. If his plan had leaked, we’d avoid a trap and hopefully lull Dark Watch security into thinking we weren’t coming. If it hadn’t leaked… Well, ours was a better plan anyway.
“We have the lieutenant,” Shade continued. “Mwende has high security clearance and is known, at least to some people, as a close associate of Bridgebane’s.” Shade still seemed a bit salty about never having met Sanaa while he worked for my uncle. He wouldn’t admit it, but I thought it was because he actually liked Bridgebane well enough. Or if not liked, then at least respected. With recent revelations, we were all reluctantly moving in that direction. My uncle had truly impressed me lately, even if I hated some of his actions.