Epilogue Annual Performance Review #2
“These plants,” I manage as his mouth finds my breast, “are still screaming.”
“Let them scream.” His fangs scrape my nipple, gentle enough not to break skin but hard enough to make me arch into him. “They can bear witness to how thoroughly I claim my mate.”
The bond flares bright between us as he positions himself—still in that ridiculous ceremonial armor that makes him look like a warrior-god from some ancient mythology. When he pushes inside me, slow and deliberate and absolutely perfect, I feel it in every nerve ending amplified by our connection.
“Still perfect,” he breathes against my throat. “After a year of having you, and you’re still perfect.”
I want to tell him he’s wrong—that I’m a disaster who panics over paperwork and can’t cook to save my life and spent the first six months of our partnership convinced I was going to get us both killed.
But the words dissolve into a moan as he starts to move, each thrust driving me higher against the wall, each angle calculated to make me forget my own name.
The plants continue their off-key screaming.
The industrial solvent keeps eating through the deck.
Jitters has recovered enough to turn a supportive pink and strategically position himself to block the worst of the smoke.
And through it all, Crash makes love to me with the focused intensity of someone who knows exactly what his mate needs.
“Come for me,” he demands, his thumb finding my clit with devastating precision. “Let me feel you, zihah’tel.”
The bond amplifies everything—his pleasure feeding mine, mine intensifying his, until we’re caught in a feedback loop that has us both crying out.
My orgasm crashes through me like a supernova, and through the bond I feel him follow, his roar vibrating against my claiming marks as he fills me with heat.
For a long moment, we just breathe together in the aftermath, surrounded by chaos and smoke and the lingering smell of industrial solvent.
“So,” I say eventually, tracing the patterns his armor left on my skin. “That was quite an anniversary celebration.”
“It was a catastrophic failure that nearly resulted in chemical burns and electrical fire,” he replies, but he’s smiling.
“Exactly.” I kiss him softly. “Perfect.”
A short time later, we dock at Junction One’s main bay with slightly less ceremony than usual, mainly because we’re running late for our scheduled performance review with Mother Morrison and The Precision still smells like smoke and screaming plants.
“She’s going to know,” Crash mutters as we make our way through the bustling station corridors. He’s changed into his standard OOPS flight suit, but I can still see faint marks on his throat from my enthusiastic appreciation of his anniversary gesture.
“She always knows,” I reply, adjusting my own collar to hide the claiming marks. “That’s why she’s Mother.”
Junction One hasn’t changed much in the year we’ve been running contracts—still the organized chaos of couriers coming and going, cargo being loaded and unloaded, the constant background hum of dozens of species conducting business in a dozen different languages.
But somehow it feels different now. Less intimidating. More like... home base.
“Cross! Maxone!” A familiar voice calls out, and I turn to see Dove Foxton waving from the cargo processing area. She’s got her arms full of manifest datapads and there’s grease on her cheek, but she’s grinning. “Heard you two were coming in for review. Mother been chewing you out yet?”
“Not yet,” I call back. “Give us five minutes.”
Dove laughs. “I’ll set a timer.” She hefts the datapads. “I’m about to head out anyway—agricultural run to Kepler.”
Something about the way she says it makes my inspector instincts flare. “Kepler Station? That’s in the middle of storm season.”
“Yeah, but there’s a window.” She waves one of the datapads. “Tight timing, but the terraforming station needs these supplies before the next cycle hits. Should be in and out before the atmospheric instability kicks in.”
I exchange glances with Crash. We’ve run enough high-risk deliveries to know that “should be” is courier code for “definitely going to get complicated.”
“Dove,” I say carefully, remembering what it was like before I learned to trust my instincts, “those storm windows on Kepler Station are notoriously unpredictable. The meteorological data is often off by hours, sometimes days.”
“I know, I know.” She’s already turning away, clearly eager to get moving. “But the pay is fantastic, and I really need—” She cuts herself off, then forces a smile. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done tighter windows before.”
I sense Crash’s concern matching my own. We’ve seen this before—couriers taking dangerous jobs because they need the credits, ignoring the warning signs because the pay is too good to pass up.
“Just...” I step closer, lowering my voice.
“Be careful, okay? If that window closes while you’re on the surface, you could be stranded for a week or more.
Make sure you have emergency supplies. And the commander running that station—Cetus Levo—he’s supposed to be extremely particular about safety protocols. ”
“Particular,” Dove echoes, her grin turning slightly wicked. “Is that code for ‘insufferable’?”
“It’s code for ‘take him seriously,’” I reply. “Storm seasons on Kepler Station are no joke.”
“Got it. Serious storms, particular commander, don’t get stranded.” She hefts her cargo again. “Thanks for the warning, Cross. See you when I get back!”
She disappears into the crowd, and I can’t shake the feeling that we just watched someone walk into a situation that’s going to change her life.
“She’s going to get stranded,” Crash observes.
“Completely stranded,” I agree.
“With a territorial terraforming commander.”
“Who has a daughter, according to the station files.”
Through our bond, I feel his amusement. “Should we warn her about the bonding risks?”
“She wouldn’t believe us,” I reply, watching Dove’s figure disappear around a corner. “Besides, some things you just have to discover for yourself.”
“Like accidentally bonding with your safety inspector during a firefight?”
“Exactly like that.”
We continue toward Mother Morrison’s office, and I send a silent wish into the universe that Dove Foxton has better luck with her “simple agricultural run” than we did with our “routine safety inspection.”
Somehow, I doubt it.
Mother Morrison’s office looks exactly the same as it did a year ago—organized chaos held together by sheer force of will and approximately forty-seven different monitoring screens.
The woman herself sits behind her desk like a commander reviewing troops, and her expression when we enter is the perfect blend of exasperation and fondness that we’ve come to recognize as approval.
“Well,” she says, gesturing to the chairs across from her. “Sit. Let’s get this over with.”
We sit. Jitters flows up onto the desk, turning a professional blue that means he’s ready for official business.
Over the past year, he’s become our unofficial mascot—and Mother’s surprisingly effective assistant when we’re docked at Junction One.
Right now he’s wearing his communications headset with obvious pride.
Mother pulls up a holographic display, and I see our faces alongside metrics, charts, and what appears to be a truly staggering amount of documentation.
“Cross-Maxone Solutions,” she begins, her tone carrying the weight of formal review. “Annual Performance Assessment, Year One of Operations.” She taps the screen. “Let’s start with the numbers.”
“Delivery Success Rate: Ninety-nine point seven percent.” Her eyebrow rises. “Which would be impressive if not for the fact that the point-three percent represents two separate incidents where cargo was lost due to—” she squints at the screen, “—’romantically motivated navigational decisions.’”
Crash and I exchange glances. “In our defense,” I say carefully, “one of those was when Crash flew through a debris field to get us to an anniversary dinner reservation on time.”
“And the other was when you diverted mid-route to retrieve Crash’s ceremonial armor from a black market dealer,” Mother continues dryly. “Which, according to the report, involved a high-speed chase through three sectors.”
“The armor was important,” Crash says with dignity.
“Clearly.” She swipes to the next screen. “Cargo Bay Damage Incidents: Forty-seven.”
I wince. “That seems... high.”
“It is high, Cross. The previous record was twelve, held by Gorax, who transported volatile chemicals for fifteen years.” Mother’s lips twitch.
“Your incidents include: unauthorized plant cultivation resulting in botanical overgrowth, industrial solvent spills—multiple, I see—holographic projection system failures, and my personal favorite, ‘environmental controls modified for romantic purposes causing temporary atmospheric instability.’”
“That was today,” I admit.
“I know it was today. Your ship is currently venting smoke that smells like burnt sugar and screaming ferns.” She leans back in her chair. “Do you know what I had to tell Station Control when they asked about the unusual emissions?”
“That we’re... enthusiastic?” Crash offers.
“I told them Cross-Maxone Solutions was conducting ‘routine maintenance,’” Mother says. “Which technically isn’t a lie, since apparently maintaining your relationship requires regularly destroying cargo bays.”
I feel Crash fighting laughter along our bond. I maintain a professional expression through sheer willpower.
“Safety Violations,” Mother continues, clearly enjoying herself now.
“Too numerous to list comprehensively, but highlights include: operating vessel while biochemically compromised, unauthorized weapons modifications, exceeding recommended thrust parameters during atmospheric flight, and—this one’s my favorite—’utilizing shipboard AI for relationship advice in violation of equipment usage protocols. ’”
“KiKi volunteered,” I protest.