Chapter 10 Organized Chaos #2
“What? That IS what she said. She said ‘let’s get in the shaft.’ I’m recording dialogue for accuracy.”
Cetus enters the crawlspace first, folding his massive frame into the opening with a grace that shouldn’t be possible for someone his size. I follow, pulling myself in after him.
It’s immediately too warm. The processing systems radiate heat through the shaft walls, and the space smells like metal and recycled air and him—that clean, ozone-sharp scent that apparently lives in my brain’s pleasure center now.
The work lamps cast amber light that makes his markings glow like circuitry.
We’re on hands and knees, moving through the shaft in single file, and the view from my position is—
Okay, yes. I’m staring at his back. At the way his work shirt pulls tight across his shoulders when he moves.
At the teal skin visible above his collar, marked with those lightning-trace patterns that brighten with every motion.
And I’m not going to think about his hands, large and careful with claws sheathed, braced against the metal floor ahead of me.
“The junction is ahead,” he says, and his voice reverberates through the confined space in ways that do unreasonable things to my nervous system.
“Great. Wonderful. Let’s calibrate some sensors.”
We reach the wider section—wider being relative, because it’s still a space designed for one person maximum, and there are two of us, and one of us is enormous. The sensor housing sits in an alcove that requires reaching across the shaft, which means one person needs to brace while the other works.
“I’ll hold the housing steady,” Cetus says. “You’ll need to—”
“Reach across you. Yeah, I see the layout.”
He positions himself against the far wall, knees bent, arms extended to grip the sensor housing. I have to crawl over his legs to access the calibration port, which puts my body between his thighs and my face approximately six inches from his chest.
The misbuttoned chest. With the strip of teal skin. Where yellow markings are currently pulsing a frequency I can feel in my teeth.
“Calibration tool,” I say, holding out my hand.
He passes it to me. Our fingers brush. The contact sends a jolt through me that has nothing to do with static discharge and everything to do with the way his claws extend a fraction of an inch before he forces them to retract.
“Dove.” His voice is barely a whisper, rough and layered with harmonics. “Your hand is shaking.”
“Adrenaline. Early morning. Too much coffee.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“And you’re generating enough heat to throw off the calibration readings, so either cool your biology down or I’m going to get inaccurate baseline data.”
A low sound rumbles through his chest. Not quite a laugh. The vibration transfers through the metal floor, through my knees, up through my entire body.
“I’ll attempt to regulate,” he says, but his markings pulse brighter.
I lean across him to access the port, and my hip presses against the inside of his thigh. He freezes. Predator-still—every muscle locked, every breath controlled, his entire body radiating a tension so fierce I can almost taste it.
“The coupling is corroded.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “I need to clean the contacts before recalibrating. Hand me the—”
He’s already passing the contact cleaner. Without me finishing the sentence. Because he’s been working alongside me for days now and anticipates my needs before I voice them.
That shouldn’t be as hot as it is.
“Thank you.” I apply the cleaner, hyper-aware of every point of contact between us. My hip against his thigh. My shoulder pressing his chest when I lean forward. The warmth of his breath stirring my hair.
“You’re very efficient,” he says quietly.
“I’m a courier. Efficiency is—”
“Not what I meant.” He pauses. “Watching you work is... I find it difficult to concentrate on holding the housing when you’re this close and this competent.”
I almost drop the calibration tool. “Did you just say my competence is distracting?”
“Extremely.”
“Cetus, that’s—”
“Accurate. Every time you identify a problem and solve it within seconds, my cognitive function degrades measurably. Pickles has the data.”
“I do indeed,” Pickles confirms from the diagnostic pad clipped to my belt. “The Terraforming Specialist’s prefrontal cortex activity decreases by twenty-three percent when you demonstrate technical proficiency, Captain. Conversely, his limbic system activity increases by—”
“That’s enough, Pickles,” Cetus says.
“—forty-one percent. Which is the region associated with desire, reward-seeking, and mate selection. I thought you’d want to know.”
The crawlspace is very small. And very warm. And Cetus’s markings are blazing gold barely a handspan from my face, pulsing in a rhythm that matches my heartbeat so precisely it might as well be a second pulse inside my chest.
“Let’s finish the calibration,” I manage.
“Yes. Professional focus.”
“Exactly.”
Neither of us moves for three full seconds.
Then I force my hands steady and complete the calibration sequence, entering values into Pickles’s diagnostic pad while pressed against a six-foot-eight alien whose biological response to my competence is literally glowing through his shirt.
“How are we scoring in there?” Tavia’s voice echoes down the shaft, tinny and delighted. “Pickles says Papa’s heart rate is really high. Are you doing cardio?”
“Sensor calibration,” I call back. “Very strenuous.”
“Collaborative efficiency rating: nine point four,” she announces. “You lost points because Papa keeps forgetting to breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Pickles says you stopped three times in the last two minutes.”
“Moving on to the next sensor,” I say firmly, extracting myself from between his legs with as much dignity as a woman can muster when her entire body is flushed and her courier-grade composure has been thoroughly compromised.
We work through the remaining sensors in a state of agonizing professional proximity.
Every brush of contact is electric. Every time I reach past him and our bodies align, his markings brighten and my breath catches and Tavia records the data with the enthusiasm of a scientist documenting a breakthrough experiment.
By the time we crawl out of the shaft, I’m sweating and tense and absolutely not thinking about the way his thigh muscles shifted under my hip.
“Final score: nine point seven,” Tavia announces, beaming. “That’s the highest collaborative score I’ve ever given!”
“It’s the only collaborative score you’ve ever given,” Cetus points out, running a hand through his hair. The gold along his neck hasn’t dimmed.
“Which makes it a record! I’m putting it on the fridge.”
The next eight hours pass in organized chaos.
Cetus handles physical prep—bilingual signage, system checks, the evacuation drill I time with military precision while Tavia adds sound effects for imaginary hull breaches.
We work around each other in patterns that feel rehearsed, his hand finding the small of my back when we pass in corridors, my excuses to stand close enough that his warmth sinks through my clothes.
At lunch, I steal a vegetable stick from his plate without thinking—casual intimacy that should feel strange with someone I’ve known for days and instead feels like breathing.
His hand catches mine as I reach for a second one. Not stopping me. Holding. His thumb traces once across my knuckles—slow, deliberate, claws retracted so all I feel is warm, slightly rough skin.
“Help yourself,” he says, voice low.
I pull my hand back with a pulse rate that could power the atmospheric processors.
“You’re both doing the thing again,” Tavia observes without looking up from her portrait of Pickles with muscles. “The thing where you touch each other and then pretend you didn’t. I’m putting it in my observation log.”
“You can’t redact science, Dove,” she adds before I can respond.
Late afternoon. Tavia’s in her quarters for mandatory rest, and Pickles drops the news.
“The Blackstar collectors have obtained legal seizure authorization from a Commerce Authority magistrate. The warrant covers both the outstanding debt balance and the associated registered vessel—the Rolling Pin. Additionally, the authorization includes a personnel detention clause.”
The files slip from my hands. Scatter across the floor.
“Personnel detention,” I repeat.
“They intend to take both you and your ship into custody for debt processing. The authorization is broadly written—it would permit physical restraint during transport.”
The room tilts.
“Dove.” Cetus is beside me. When did he move? His hand wraps around my arm—steadying, grounding, his grip careful with claws sheathed. “Breathe.”
“They’re going to take me.” The words come out small. Nothing like the competent, organized professional who’s been commanding his station all day. “Not just the money—me. They’re going to—”
“They’re not going to do anything.” His other hand finds my face, tilting it up to meet his eyes. Yellow and fierce and absolutely certain. “Listen to me. They are not taking you.”
“The authorization—”
“Is issued by a magistrate who will be under investigation within forty-eight hours once the Commerce Authority raid begins. Any actions taken under that authorization will be scrutinized and likely reversed.”
“But if they get here before—”
“They won’t. The PDC team arrives first. And even if the timing shifts, I have contingencies.” His thumb brushes my cheekbone. The same gesture from last night, tender and possessive and claiming. “I’ve been planning for this.”
“What contingencies?” My hands fist in his shirt. I can feel his heartbeat through the fabric—faster than his calm voice suggests. “Cetus, what haven’t you told me?”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Three days ago, I transferred seventy-three thousand credits to a secured OOPS escrow account.”
The number hangs in the air. Seventy-three thousand. My entire debt.
“You—what?”