Chapter Two
IZU
I selected a dark, civilian jacket to dull the obviousness of my station livery, and as a concession to civilian protocol, left the majority of my defensive kit in a locker.
The Hangar was a Level Four establishment, in the sense that it catered to officers and specialists who could afford imported ingredients.
The air inside carried notes of caramelized sugar, reduced wine sauces, and the subtle perfume of rare herbs cultivated in the station’s hydroponic gardens.
My enteric nervous system catalogued each aroma with precision, identifying the molecular signatures of at least three different planetary cuisines being prepared behind the polished bar.
Sadie entered in a body sheath of some obsidian textile that caught the blue cast of the bar’s lighting and spun it up the length of her.
I understood suddenly why humans described attraction as a punch to the sternum.
It was—improbable. She was smaller even than I’d remembered, but the dress made her seem...
elongated, a blade wrapped in satin. I tried not to stare and failed; her anatomy was a technical marvel of asymmetry and curve, shoulders squared and arms bare in defiance of the environmental chill.
The satin clung just above the knees, where her stance shifted minutely as she scanned the room.
I had anticipated visual impact. I had not anticipated visceral disturbance. My secondary hearts ticked up a half-beat.
She made her way to the booth, and I suppressed the urge to stand again. It would have rendered me absurd. Still, my hands pressed to the table edge, knuckles blanching.
“You clean up nice,” she said. The words were light, but not unserious.
I nodded, intending to reciprocate, but it lodged somewhere raw in my throat.
I had devoted study hours to the construction of human flattery—there were sixteen templates depending on context, but in the moment, the correct phrase escaped me.
I tried to triangulate between her iridescent blue accent stripe, the exposed throat, the dress’s cunning architecture, and the suggestion of warmth beneath the fabric.
My mind compiled the variables, and when I spoke, the output was dissonant: “Your garment projects kinetic symmetry. It is… delightfully destabilizing.”
She snorted, which I took for approval, and her mouth split into a wide, invitation-shaped smile. “You know, most guys just say nice dress.”
I allowed myself the liberty of a second observation, more measured. “You have reconfigured the dress code with impressive advantage.”
“See, now you’re just flattering me,” she said. She glanced up at me, lips pursed, and the way she leaned against the table made it clear she’d made the first move and was curious how I’d answer.
I let my eyes wander, a long-enough pass over her arms and face that it could be mistaken for cultural scrutiny, not just need.
She gestured for the bartender’s attention, then rolled a credit between her knuckles.
I tracked the motion, watching how her nerves played out in kinetic details.
I inclined my head to the amber bottle she ordered.
“We do not ferment,” I said, “but chemical simulation is part of our recreation training. I am curious to observe an authentic effect.”
She grinned, then pitched her voice lower. “I’ll order you something non-lethal.” She eyed me sidelong.
“Non-lethal is an improvement over my introduction to your medical wing,” I said, and her tongue darted over her lower lip. I wasn’t sure if she realized, but it drew my focus. I resisted the urge to mirror the gesture.
The bartender set down two glasses, one for each of us. The vapor rising from the surface was sweet and stung faintly—a floral, citrusy note, familiar from the station airscrub. I raised it, analyzed, and held her gaze as I sipped.
She watched me, probably expecting a reaction, so I broke protocol and let my tongue trace the rim of the glass before swallowing.
It was tart, sharp, not entirely unpleasant, but the ethyl initiated a heat crawl from my chest outward, a slow detonation of sensory mapping.
The taste was like the chemical equivalent of Sadie Mercer—unexpected, slightly dangerous, undeniably persistent.
She grinned at the way I tested the drink.
“See? Not even a grimace. You’re already picking up the customs.” She slid her own glass closer.
The liquid worked at my insides with a quickening tempo.
The edges of the light around Sadie refracted, brighter and more acute, as if the photons were emboldened by the ethanol.
Speech was slower, or maybe the world was less urgent to finish her sentences.
My muscles arranged themselves into what the Bozad called “combat relaxation”—all of the tension, none of the animosity.
My tongue, usually so governed, grew experimental.
Sadie set her glass down too loudly and leaned closer until the scent of her skin merged with the chemical top note of the drink.
“Is it hitting you yet?” she asked. “You look… mellow. For you.”
I evaluated the lexical gap between mellow and inebriated. I approximated, “The psychoactives have a pronounced but not disagreeable effect. I was prepared for far less coherence.” But the vowels slurred together, and I was aware, dimly, that my mouth had less oversight.
She grinned, teeth even and white, and I realized she was watching for cracks in my composure—curiosity without mockery.
“You Bozad have an off switch for that intensity, or is it always stuck on max?”
I recalibrated, trying for humor. “It is a design feature, not a bug.”
Her laughter was a full-body thing, shoulders shaking beneath.
We sat in a booth in a back corner, away from the worst of the ambient bellowing and blinking wall screens.
A surface-level privacy, plausible deniability for two off-duty nothings.
Sadie moved like she’d been here a thousand times, running her fingertips absently along the synth-wood, thumb tapping at a rough spot as if playing an invisible instrument.
I sat facing her, hands folded in my lap, determined not to betray nervous energy with any overly Bozad posture or fidget. It was futile.
“So, Karel,” she said, letting her glass rest against her bottom lip, “what do Bozad operatives do when you’re off the clock? Please say it involves some kind of bloodsport.”
I considered the question. “Most of us prefer athletic contests or philosophical debate,” I answered, “though some indulge in simulated combat rituals. Those are generally reserved for morale-building. Or as a means of selecting leadership in high-density deployments.”
Sadie grinned, tipping her glass so the pale blue liquor threatened to escape. “So if I wanted to be your boss, I’d have to physically pin you to the floor in front of witnesses.”
“It is… more complex. The contest includes a recitation of binding doctrine followed by a test of endurance,” I said, uncertain if this would amuse or appall her.
“Sounds like the dirtiest job interview I’ve ever heard,” she fired back, eyes daring me to keep up.
I grew aware of a magnetic charge between us, every word we didn’t say thickening the air. She watched me over her glass, and I caught the flick of her eyes to my hands, my mouth, and back again. Perhaps the drink made me reckless.
I set my glass down, steady, and asked, “Are you interested in practical demonstration? Or is this only hypothesis for you?”
She snorted, but her cheeks were warm now, the color rising up her neck. “Depends. Is the demonstration consensual, or do I have to recite the doctrine first?”
“Recitation is for public record. In private, evidence suffices.”
Sadie slid from the booth so quick, the laminate table shivered. Instead of heading for the bar exit, she angled closer, close enough our knees brushed.
“Lead the way, then,” she said, eyes dark and wide.
I paid the tab with a flick of my datacard, left a regulator-grade tip, and pushed into the corridor.
The Hangar emptied into the upper ring’s half-lit walk, where sodium lamps rendered light into the blue-marbled pattern of the concourse floor, and Sadie matched my stride as we walked.
Not the measured gait of two species keeping diplomatic distance, but the reckless, too-close walk of two bodies caught in the gravitational pull of their own orbit.
The silence was not empty. I could feel her thoughts oscillate between apprehension and anticipation, the way small prey animals freeze before making the leap, and I realized this must be harder for her—the human, the lone outlier—to cross the line between professional and whatever this was.
I tracked our route with optics running at half power, paying more attention to the way her arm would occasionally drift into mine. It was not an accident.
I angled us away from crew corridors and toward the guest areas, taking the circular ramp instead of the more public lift.
She followed silently, but I felt her watching the set of my shoulders, the tilt of my head.
The moment we passed the security checkpoint into the guest suite node, her posture changed.
She straightened, just enough to be a second species.
I noted it with pleasure. This was the mutual acknowledgement that we were now explicitly off duty.
I keyed us through the entry, a low-lit habitat cube augmented for Bozad physiology—the temperature shift, the abrupt rise in humidity as the door slid shut behind us. I adjusted the environmental controls for human comfort with a flick of my wrist, then closed the distance between us.
In one fluid motion, I had Sadie pinned against the bulkhead, her breath catching audibly as my larger frame pressed against hers.
The scent of her skin—that intoxicating human warmth—flooded my Bozad senses, triggering an immediate physiological response.
Her laugh vibrated against my chest as her leg rose to hook around mine, her heel dragging a deliberate path up my calf.
I braced one blue palm against the wall, caging her smaller form, while my other hand found the curve of her hip, thumb tracing the seam of her dress where it clung to her alien anatomy.
When she yanked me closer, the force nearly unbalanced my seven-foot frame, and she leveraged the momentum to tangle her fingers into my hair—drawing my face down until our mouths met with the violence of an airlock seal.
Her human lips were soft, her tongue more textured than I’d imagined.
The rush of it, the tang of citrus and salt on her mouth, broke through my Bozad restraint.
I pressed her to the wall with my hip, pinning her there, and let the need surge through my hands.
I had never experienced such pleasure from the mere contact of mouths—this human ritual was intoxicating beyond any simulation.
One palm ghosted up her ribcage, fingers spreading to map every unfamiliar curve, while the other stayed at her jaw, guiding her angle, controlling our collision of species.
She bit my lower lip, then pulled back to gasp. “You’re stronger than you look.” Her voice was ragged and a little awed; I delighted in the sound, the honesty of it.
I swallowed her next words with another kiss—less neat, more desperate, the kind of kiss that tilted her head back and exposed her throat. Her heartbeat was wild under my hand. I traced the tight line of her collarbone with my teeth, testing how hard she would let me bite before she pulled away.
She didn’t. If anything, her grip redoubled.