Chapter 3
The Morning After
Cetus
I wake before dawn—standard routine—except this morning I’m aware that she’s twenty meters away, probably sleeping in my borrowed shirt, her hair spreading across my guest quarters pillows.
Stop.
I force myself to the lab, reviewing atmospheric data that shows the storm intensifying. Extended timeline. Uncertain duration.
The terraformer in me knows this is manageable. Work the problem in front of you. Adapt.
Except the problem in front of me is a curvy courier who makes my daughter laugh and my control disintegrate and my carefully ordered life feel less like survival and more like actually living.
When the coffee maker timer activates, I’m already moving toward the kitchen before conscious thought completes.
She’s at the viewport when I arrive.
Wearing my shirt.
I knew she would be—it’s practical, she’s borrowing station clothes while hers cycle through cleaning. This is not new information.
Except somehow between last night and this morning, my brain has decided that seeing her in my clothes is significant. The shirt is too large, sliding off one shoulder to reveal the curve of her neck and collarbone. Her hair is damp from the shower, curling slightly as it dries.
She’s not beautiful. She’s... mathematically pleasing. Aesthetically optimal for human parameters.
This is worse. I’ve made it worse.
Heat floods my shoulders before I can control it.
“You’re up early,” I manage.
She turns, and her eyes widen slightly when she sees me. Her gaze tracks down my chest—I’m in sleep clothes still, having come straight from quarters to lab to kitchen—before snapping back up with visible effort.
“Couldn’t sleep.” Her voice is slightly breathless. “I’m not used to staying still this long.”
And suddenly last night’s domestic warmth transforms into something else entirely. Something charged and dangerous and absolutely inappropriate.
The kitchen feels smaller than its actual dimensions.
“The constant motion serves a purpose?” I move to the coffee preparation station, grateful for a task that doesn’t involve staring at how she looks in my clothes.
“Keeps me ahead of my problems.” She wraps her arms around herself, and the gesture makes the oversized shirt pull tighter. “Plus I’m used to ship berths. Your guest quarters are too comfortable. Confusing.”
“I can adjust the environmental settings to be less comfortable if that would help.”
She laughs, warm and genuine. “You’d actually do that, wouldn’t you?”
“Guest comfort is important.”
“Even if comfort involves being slightly uncomfortable?”
“Apparently.”
I’m smiling. When did I start smiling so easily?
I prepare coffee with methodical precision—water temperature, grounds measurement, timing. When I hand her a cup, it’s exactly how she mentioned liking it last night.
She notices immediately, her fingers brushing mine as she takes the cup. “You remembered.”
The contact sends electricity racing up my arm. My claws extend slightly before I force them to retract.
“I pay attention to details. It’s required for terraforming.” The words come out more intense than intended.
“Right. Professional attention to detail.” She holds my gaze, and her expression says she knows exactly how unprofessional my attention has become. “Thank you, Cetus.”
The way she says my name—soft, warm—makes me run hot enough to be uncomfortable.
This is a problem.
“Captain!” Her comm unit crackles to life, and we both flinch at the interruption. “Good morning! I have completed overnight diagnostics and have several items requiring your attention.”
Dove sighs. “Morning, Pickles.”
“Good morning, Terraforming Specialist Storm,” the AI continues with formal precision. “Your station’s atmospheric monitoring systems are impressively sophisticated. I took the liberty of integrating some of my sensor data with your network. I hope this is acceptable.”
I blink, forcing my attention away from how Dove looks in my shirt and toward the more immediate concern of unauthorized system access. “You integrated with my systems without authorization?”
“Pickles doesn’t ask permission,” Dove says. “He apologizes later. Usually.”
“I am a military-grade AI core,” Pickles says with audible dignity. “Integration is literally my function. Also, I’ve detected several efficiency improvements in your environmental controls that I’d be pleased to implement, should you grant authorization.”
Despite myself, I’m intrigued. “What kind of improvements?”
“Primarily thermal regulation optimization and predictive maintenance protocols. Your current systems are adequate, but I calculate a 23% efficiency increase with my modifications.”
“Adequate?”
“I meant no offense, Terraforming Specialist. Your systems are well-maintained for a single-operator facility with limited resources.”
“That’s Pickles for ‘I’m impressed but I’ll never admit it,’” Dove translates, and I notice she’s moved closer. Close enough that I can smell vanilla and clean skin.
Heat spreads along my neck and shoulders. This is becoming embarrassing.
“Your AI is distinctive.”
“He’s a menace. I salvaged him from a derelict military vessel. Spent three weeks putting him back together.”
“She named me Pickles because I’m ‘salty, sour, and got pulled out of a really bad situation to be preserved,’” the AI adds. “I am still processing whether this constitutes affection or insult.”
“Both,” Dove and I say simultaneously.
Our eyes meet. Shared humor, unexpected connection, heat.
The kind of moment that feels dangerously like compatibility.
“I have also taken the liberty of analyzing station biometric data,” Pickles continues, oblivious to—or deliberately ignoring—the charged atmosphere. “Terraforming Specialist Storm, your cardiovascular rhythm increases by 23% when Captain Foxton enters a room. This is statistically significant.”
I’m going to dismantle that AI with my bare hands.
“PICKLES,” Dove says, color rising in her cheeks.
“I am merely providing relevant data. Also, Captain, your respiratory pattern becomes irregular when the Terraforming Specialist is in close proximity. I calculate this indicates—”
“That’s enough tactical intelligence for this morning,” Dove interrupts hastily. “Maybe focus on those system efficiency improvements instead.”
“As you wish, Captain. Though I feel compelled to note that ignoring relevant biometric data is statistically correlated with—”
“Pickles.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Your AI is troublesome,” I say, mostly to avoid addressing the biometric observations that are absolutely, mortifyingly accurate.
“He’s protective. In his own weird way.” Dove takes a sip of her coffee, and I’m staring at her lips against the cup rim before I can stop myself.
This is getting worse by the minute.
“the small person is awake,” Pickles announces. “Her biometrics suggest excitement. I calculate a 91% probability she’s planning matchmaking activities.”
“See?” Dove says. “Now your daughter’s going to be best friends with a sarcastic military AI who has no concept of boundaries.”
“I resent that characterization,” Pickles protests. “I have excellent boundaries. I simply choose when to observe them.”
Before I can formulate a response, Tavia’s voice carries from her room.
“Is Dove awake? Can I talk to Pickles? Papa, are you making that face again?”
“What face?” I call back.
“The face you make when you’re thinking about things you don’t want to admit you’re thinking about!”
My daughter is entirely too perceptive.
“I should go see what she needs,” I say, grateful for an excuse to extract myself from this kitchen where the atmospheric composition has become approximately 40% sexual tension and 60% complicated feelings.
“And I should probably check on my ship,” Dove says, but she’s smiling in a way that suggests she knows exactly why I’m fleeing.
“Yes. Efficient use of time.”
“Very efficient.”
Neither of us moves.
“Cetus?” she says softly.
“Yes?”
“Your markings are doing something really beautiful right now. What does that pattern mean?”
Increased cognitive focus, I should say. Atmospheric electromagnetic interference. Environmental factors.
“I’m not certain,” I say instead, which is a lie. I know exactly what this pattern means—it’s the one Lividians display when we’re attracted to someone, when proximity makes us want to close distance rather than maintain it, when every territorial instinct is quietly insisting mine.
“Well, whatever it is, it’s very nice to look at.” She sets down her coffee cup, and her hand lingers near mine on the counter. Not touching, but close enough that I can feel warmth radiating from her skin. “See you in a bit?”
“Yes. The sensor repair. We should address that.”
“Looking forward to it.”
She leaves the kitchen, trailing vanilla scent and unconscious chaos.
I stand alone, patterns blazing along my skin, temperature approximately fifteen degrees above optimal, my carefully maintained control fracturing like degraded hull plating.
“For the record, Terraforming Specialist,” Pickles’s voice emerges from the comm system with suspicious smugness, “I calculate a 97% probability that you’re experiencing what humans call ‘being in trouble.’”
“I’m aware.”
“Excellent. Self-awareness is the first step toward accepting the inevitable.”
“What inevitable?”
“Captain Foxton has been trying to outrun attachment for nine years. You’ve been hiding in atmospheric data for three. I calculate you’re both failing spectacularly at your respective defense mechanisms.”
“You’re an AI. You don’t understand relationship dynamics.”
“I don’t need to understand the mechanics to analyze the data, Terraforming Specialist. And the data suggests you’re approximately four days away from a significant emotional development.”
I close the comm channel before he can continue his analysis.
Four days away from significant emotional development.
Ridiculous. I’m a professional. I maintain control.