Chapter 1
T’ara
I’d forgotten what it was like to feel safe. Sector 4 was relatively peaceful five years ago, but that’s not why. The reason is simpler, and he’s dozing off on top of me. Again.
I brushed his antenna lightly. A small wave of satisfaction greeted me through the feedback loop. He enjoyed my touch against his antenna. I always hated having mine touched — the sensation was too much, a sensitivity I’d never been able to train away. I lowered my hand. If I woke him he’d want to go again, and after three weeks of this and his new changes, I welcomed the break.
He nuzzled deeper into my chest, bearing more of his weight down. I didn’t resist it. I was trapped for the next hour regardless — since his change, only one of us hibernated after. We’d worked out most of the variables. Still hadn’t mastered the simplest rule: don’t let Zeke finish on top. My current predicament.
―――
We’d been practicing before this. That was what we called it.
Telekinesis wasn’t an ability I’d been born with — among my people it was rare, undocumented in pinks entirely — and yet somewhere in the weeks since the bonding it had begun to surface in both of us. Different for each. That was the part I hadn’t anticipated.
He was worse at it than I was. Considerably. The first time he’d attempted to move an object across the room he’d sent it through the wall instead. I’d managed to lift and set down a water canister on my third attempt. He’d watched with an expression I recognized from the spider caves — the one he wore when something had beaten him and he was filing it away to dissect later. Jaw tight. Pride quiet.
I understood the feeling.
He was better at the link than I was. Had been since nearly the beginning. I’d been born with telepathy, trained in its use, disciplined against it for most of my adult life — and this human who’d never touched a mind before mine had outpaced me in weeks. The precision of him. The delicacy. The way he reached without grabbing, listened without pressing. Skills that took my people years of formal training, assembled by him from instinct and proximity.
It had unsettled me more than I’d admitted. Still did.
So we traded. I worked his telekinesis. He worked my precision with the link. The bond made it possible to share the experience directly — my instinct for moving objects flowing into his attempts, his intuition for the link sharpening mine. Two abilities split between us unevenly, each of us slower where the other was fast.
The canister, I’d said that morning, before the practicing became something else.
His focus gathered. I could feel its texture through the link — less like a blade and more like a hand closing slowly around something it didn’t want to damage. Curiosity instead of force. I’d taught him that. He’d resisted it for two days before the scanner finally lifted clean and he’d felt the difference himself.
The canister shifted. Held. Set itself down.
Better, I sent.
Better. Last week it was adequate. I’m ascending.
Don’t be smug.
I’m not smug. I’m curious.
His antenna — still finding their angle, prone to drooping when his concentration lapsed, named individually as if they were their own people — brushed the side of my face. I hadn’t moved away. That was when the practicing had stopped being practicing.
Hence my current predicament.
―――
I didn’t enjoy the quiet. Too much time to think of what comes next, every outcome worse than the last. The food supply was getting low with no way to restock. The life support was never designed for two over this duration. If only we’d had more time to fix Zeke’s ship before Pryon’s forces made it impossible.
The Ky’reen said we had no choice. I still didn’t trust that small devil. The ancient teachings were wrong. They had to be. It had chosen Zeke as a candidate for ruler and then myself. We are no rulers. I know that better than I can put into words.
Ever since the bonding. I feel him so cleanly.
The bonding. A decision made on pure emotion. My greatest happiness and my deepest regret. I’ve doomed us both.
I felt Zeke’s mind stir, reaching for mine. The loop informed me I was feeling distressed. I forced the thought away the only way I knew how — I peered into his memories. His motion pictures. He had a love for westerns. I didn’t share it — outlaws and rogues causing trouble for good people for no reason other than greed. I much preferred the cartoons. My favorite, his rendition of Teen Titans, which he’d altered so that we were part of the cast. I felt myself begin to calm as the memory came to life, projecting like video behind my eyes.
Seeing myself in the show always felt surreal. I was glowing somehow. My character was bossy, sometimes rude, impatient — but fiercely protective, especially of Zeke’s. He wasn’t much of a fighter, but when it came to it he’d lay down his life for the team. In this episode we’d gotten stranded on a hostile planet, just the two of us. At first he stood behind me — or rather I tried to force him to stand beside me, and each time I did he proved why he belonged there. The episode ended with us reuniting with our friends on a perfectly safe ship. No one coming to take me away. Just on to the next adventure.
The memory faded the way they always did. Like something that knew it was borrowed.
Thank you, I sent through the link. I knew he was awake. I’d been feeling his emotions for a while.
It’s what I do.
He was feeling smug. The satisfaction he derived from pleasing me was baffling — and I hated that I couldn’t hide how good it made me feel that he wanted my happiness above his own.
“You absolute enigma. If you’re awake, get off of me.”
“It’s so much warmer in here though.”
“Zeke.”
He removed himself.
―――
The docking alert fired before he’d finished standing.
Three short tones. Proximity sensor. Something close and closing.
Neither of us moved for a moment. The alert cycled again with the indifference of a machine that didn’t understand what it was interrupting.
I crossed to the viewport.
A mid-range cargo vessel. Civilian registry. No military markings, the hull worn in the way of ships that worked for a living. A passing ship on the right frequency at the right moment.
Not the fleet.
The relief was embarrassing. I filed it before it crossed the link fully. Not fast enough.
Hey. His hand on my shoulder. We knew this was coming.
“I know.”
I looked at his face. The eyes that used to be dark, now threaded with the same depth as my own. The antenna, crooked on the left, named separately, as if they were their own people. The steadiness of a man who had decided panic was a luxury and stopped buying it.
My bond. My consequence. My choice.
Hail them.
He moved to the console. I kept my eyes on the ship and my hand on the crystal blade at my hip. His blade. Mine now.
“This is Zeke Newton, requesting emergency assistance. Two aboard, supplies critical. Anybody out there?”
Static. Then a voice. Cautious the way people get cautious when they find something adrift and aren’t sure yet if it’s a problem or an opportunity.
“Copy that. What’s your situation?”
Zeke looked at me. I looked at him.
“Our situation,” he said, eyes on me, “is complicated. But we’re alive. That’s the part that matters.”
I turned back to the viewport.
Alive. For now that would have to be enough.
