Chapter 6
Maya
The room in Ledos’ Sola was nothing like what I’d expected. Given the purple velvet couches and gold-threaded tapestries I’d seen in his and Rayna’s sitting room, I’d braced myself for an assault of opulent excess. Instead, I found myself in a space that felt like a peaceful retreat.
“Rayna must have put this together,” Rykar said quietly as we stood in the doorway, our few belongings in hand. “Thank goodness for that. Guests could use somewhere calming to recover from Ledos’…dramatic decorating choices.”
I laughed, but I could see what he meant.
The walls were a soft cream color that seemed to glow with gentle bioluminescence, and the furniture was done in earth tones that reminded me of my favorite coffee shop back in Seattle.
Two comfortable beds sat on opposite sides of the spacious room, separated by a sitting area with overstuffed chairs and a low table.
Plants cascaded from floating shelves, their leaves a soothing green that made the air feel fresher.
Soft rugs covered the organic curves of the floor, and everything had rounded edges that invited you to relax.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, and meant it. After days in the medical bay, this felt like coming home to a place I’d never been.
Rykar set my bag near one of the beds, careful not to presume which one I’d prefer. “The Sola maintains the temperature and humidity automatically. The walls can provide more light if you need it for reading, and the plants help filter the air.”
I noticed he spoke about practical things when he was nervous, giving me information to fill the silence. It was endearing, this careful distance he maintained even as we were forced into such close proximity.
“Which bed is yours?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Whichever one you don’t want.”
“Where do you usually sleep?” I asked. “When you’re not flying supply missions.”
“I’m always flying supply missions, so I sleep on my ship.” He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture I was beginning to recognize as his way of dealing with uncomfortable topics. “I have a room somewhere in this Sola, but I haven’t gone to it in so long, I couldn’t even tell you where it is.”
“That’s sad,” I said, drifting toward the bed closer to the window, which wasn’t really a window but a section of wall that had gone transparent to show the view outside.
From here, I could see the crystalline formations in the distance, still glowing with that otherworldly light that meant the ancient Sola was awake and waiting.
“But at least you know there’s always a home for you here, if you want it. ”
He shrugged one wide shoulder as he put his bag on the other bed. “My ship is my home.”
That was stated with a firmness I didn’t feel like arguing with. It wasn’t my business, anyway. “I should warn you,” I said as I began unpacking my few personal items, “my team is going to want to examine you.”
Rykar paused in the act of opening his bag on the other bed. “Examine me how?”
There was no point in sugarcoating it. “Like a specimen. Cleo’s going to want to scan you for energy readings, and Zara’s going to bombard you with questions about atmospheric changes.
They’re scientists, Rykar. They see a transport pilot who’s somehow shielding me from alien psychic overload, and they’re going to want to understand how. ”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
I looked at him over my shoulder, amused. “They’re also going to treat you like you’re dating me and decide whether you’re good enough.”
His skin shifted to a faint pink, and I bit back a smile. “We’re not dating,” he replied.
“I know that. You know that. But Cleo and Zara have been my closest friends for three years, and they’re very protective. Just…be prepared.”
As if summoned by our conversation, the door chimed with the soft musical note that indicated visitors. I opened it to find Cleo and Zara standing in the corridor. Cleo carried a case of scanning equipment and Zara practically vibrated with excitement.
“Maya!” Zara rushed forward to hug me, her blond hair escaping from its ponytail as usual. “How are you feeling? Are the psychic connections still stable? I’ve been monitoring the atmospheric readings, and there are some fascinating patterns emerging that suggest—”
“Breathe, Zara,” Cleo interrupted with her usual practical tone. She was already scanning the room with her keen gaze, taking in the domestic arrangement with raised eyebrows. “Separate beds. Good. We were worried about…complications.”
“Complications?” Rykar asked, looking confused.
“Never mind,” I said quickly. “Rykar, these are my colleagues. Dr. Cleo Vasquez, seismic engineering specialist, and Dr. Zara Rivers, atmospheric systems analyst. Cleo, Zara, this is Rykar.”
Cleo stepped forward and looked him up and down with the same clinical assessment she usually reserved for rock formations. “So you’re the one keeping our Maya alive.”
“She’s doing a fine job of it herself,” Rykar said, his discomfort evident in the way he held his shoulders.
“She always has,” Zara chimed in, pulling out a handheld scanner and pointing it at him.
“But this is an extraordinary situation, for sure.” She cocked her head and looked up briefly from her scanner to squint at him.
“Geez, you’re easy to look at.” As if my mortification couldn’t get worse, she looked at me.
“Right, Maya? If you’ve got to be stuck close to someone, you could have done worse.
” She didn’t wait for a reply before swinging back to Rykar, who just stood there blinking at her.
Zara just…went on. “Involuntary psychic connections are so much more interesting than deliberate ones. Can you feel the Sola right now? Are there any physical sensations? Tingling, pressure, temperature changes?”
Rykar shot me a look that clearly said, you didn’t warn me it would be this bad, and I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing.
“Um, pressure, I suppose. Like someone tapping on the inside of my skull.”
“Fascinating!” Zara made notes on her tablet. “And how long have you been experiencing this tapping? Does it correlate with Maya’s proximity to you?”
“Zara,” Cleo said sharply. “Let the man sit down before you start the interrogation.”
Rykar obediently settled into one of the chairs, looking like he was facing a tribunal. Cleo unpacked her equipment with efficient movements, setting up devices I recognized from our geological surveys.
“Now then,” Cleo said, activating a handheld scanner that hummed quietly as she ran it over Rykar’s head and shoulders. “Maya tells us you’re a transport pilot.”
“That’s right.”
“Good steady work. Dangerous though, especially with pirates and raiders in some sectors.” She paused in her scanning to study the readout. “How long have you been doing it?”
“About ten cycles.”
“Ever been married?”
“Cleo!” I protested, but she ignored me.
“No,” Rykar answered, looking resigned to his fate.
“Long-term relationships?”
“Not…not really.”
Zara looked up from her atmospheric readings. “Why not? You seem nice enough, and as I mentioned, hot. A little brooding, maybe, but Maya likes the brooding type.”
“I do not have a type,” I said firmly.
“Remember Dr. Harrison from the lunar station? Definitely brooding. And, ugh, I won’t mention Thomas—”
“Good,” I cut in. “Can we please focus on the science?” I requested, my face burning with embarrassment.
Cleo’s grin was barely constrained. “The science is very interesting. Rykar, you’re showing energy patterns I’ve never seen before. There’s definitely something flowing through you—some kind of conduit effect.”
“Is that bad?” Rykar asked.
“Not bad, just unusual. It’s like you’re a living filter, processing energy that would otherwise overwhelm Maya’s nervous system.” Cleo made more notes. “How do you feel about that responsibility?”
“Cleo,” I warned.
“What? It’s a legitimate question. The man is literally keeping you alive, Maya. I want to know if he’s reliable.”
Rykar’s brows drew together and dropped low. “I don’t want her hurt because of me. Or because of this situation I apparently can’t control. I’ll do everything I can to keep Maya safe. And alive.”
Something in his tone made both Cleo and Zara stop their teasing. Zara set down her scanner and looked at him with genuine concern.
“Hey, we’re sorry. We’re just worried about our friend. This whole situation is pretty terrifying from our perspective.”
“I understand,” Rykar said quietly. “It’s terrifying from mine too.”
“Well then,” Cleo said briskly, packing away her equipment. “I guess we’d better figure out how to fix it.”
Over the next two days, the three of us worked on designing an experiment that might give us some relief.
Rykar gave us space. He wasn’t a scientist and aside from needing him for occasional readings, or to come close to me when the Sola sent her chaotic energy to us, he put himself in a chair and read books on a data pad.
Zara wasn’t wrong—Rykar was “hot,” and even more so when he was engrossed in a book.
I had a hard time not sneaking glances at him, brow slightly furrowed as he swiped through the pages.
As for the research we were doing, the theory was sound: if we could create a separate energy pathway using our remaining scanning equipment, we might be able to redirect the Sola’s psychic pressure away from me and into a controlled system that could handle the load.
And we got a little help, too. Two of the women who were mated to Destran lords offered to assist. Jetta, Savair’s mate, was a biologist, and she found all this as interesting as Cleo and Zara did.
She was fun and easy to spend time with, although she did split her time as she had two children to look after when they weren’t in school or when Savair had duties to attend to.
Wyn stopped in every day, multiple times a day, to check on Rykar and me, and to check about the safety of what we were planning.
But really, no one knew quite what to expect.
Nothing like what we were planning had ever been done before.
“Think of it like a lightning rod,” Zara explained as she calibrated the atmospheric sensors we’d repurposed for psychic energy detection. “Instead of the lightning striking the house—that being you, Maya—we give it a more attractive target.”
“Hopefully more attractive.” Jetta’s arms were crossed. “Bait and switch doesn’t always work.”
“I know,” Zara said. “The question is always whether the Sola will accept the redirect,” she added, adjusting a setting on our makeshift psychic dampener.
“From what we’ve observed,” Cleo said, “she seems pretty determined to maintain contact with both of you. But you say she isn’t exactly lucid, so maybe she can be confused enough to take it.”
“Even if it’s temporary,” Jetta added. “That would give us more time to figure out how to get Rykar to bond with her.”
Rykar’s mouth tightened every time someone mentioned bonding with the Sola, but he said nothing.
Either he’d accepted that he’d have to try to do it, or just didn’t have the will to argue about it anymore, I didn’t know.
And at night, when we chatted a little before falling asleep in our separate beds, I was too tired to press him on the heavy topics.
But it was finally time to actually run the experiment.
We’d done what we could with our theory and were ready to give our work a try.
We’d tested individual components over the past few days, making small adjustments and monitoring my vital signs.
I sat in a chair in the seating area, surrounded by humming devices and one of the glowing crystals we’d salvaged from my original equipment.
Rykar stood nearby, arms crossed and scowling.
He was told that his job during this was to “intervene” if things went wrong, but no one could quite explain what “intervene” entailed.
So he stood there looking, okay, yes, brooding.
“Everyone ready?” Cleo asked.
I nodded, though my stomach churned with anxiety. This could go well. Or it could go very, very badly. “Let’s do this.”