Epilogue
LYRIEN
Tanlarc was extremely annoying.
He reminded me of my younger brother, but my younger brother was years away from maturity and got clingy because he liked spending time with me, whereas Tanlarc was a fully grown Vaurelcar male who didn't need to be stuck to my side like he was afraid I was going to jet away from him the second he let go.
It didn't help that the Calicium had force-fed him into a size that dwarfed my own, making it easier for him to hold on.
When it came to growing, it had to be done at the right rate.
The faster you went, the worse the shell lock became, and if you weren't careful, it would make it hard for even a mate to break through to free you.
"You can just fly next to me," I reminded him, even as I created the subroutine that would sync our engines. As it was, he was tugging on me awkwardly, and I needed to fix that before I snapped at him.
"No, you take over," Tanlarc said, his tone blunt. "You're the pod leader."
I bit back the words to shut him down, to say we weren't a pod.
One thing Maria had shown me about myself was that my instinct to care for others was something to lean into, not away from.
Reaching out to help others made me stronger, not weaker.
Tanlarc had never been in a pod before as an adult.
He had been captured young, and to him a pod meant safety and support.
The fact that he decided to seek me out and ask for my help as a pod leader lined up with his decision to carry the humans to Shek’invitali space so that they could disembark somewhere they would be able to decide their own fate.
"If I'm the pod leader, then you'll listen to me and kill the remaining Calicium you have on board," I said. "Leaving them alive is dangerous. I know you said that they're not attacking you, but that has to be a trick. They're just waiting for their chance to recapture you."
"No, they're useful," he said.
"Useful for what?" I demanded. "You can do almost anything a crew can do. You have those human women on board. Humans are extremely versatile. Talk to them and have them help as your crew. You don't need the Calicium."
"I'm keeping them for now," he said. "They're following my orders. I've set up several subroutines to follow them and flag them for adverse action. If they attack the humans, I'll kill them."
"If you're going to talk to the Calicium, you should talk to the humans too," I said.
"No, I don't have the right to talk to them," he said.
He sent over the access protocols to his navigational controls and shut down communications.
I sighed and took over.
He could yank back control anytime he wanted, but for the next leg of our journey to Shek’invitali space, we would be flying together as a lightly connected pod, which meant it was my job as the pod leader to navigate us so that the other members of the pod could focus on other things.
In Eun's case, I was literally carrying him while he recovered and made himself spaceworthy.
In Tanlac's case, my taking over our flight gave him the mental space to tear out any Calicium structures he didn't want to keep and rebuild himself.
The connection with him was light enough that our crew couldn't cross back and forth, as I wasn't going to risk any of the Caliciums he had on board crossing over.
No matter his reasoning for keeping them alive, I wouldn't put Maria in danger like that.
I sent over plans for creating a food garden for humans, along with a list of materials to find in his inventory, as well as a list of tools the humans would want for the food garden that he could manufacture once he finished the manufacturing bay.
As an afterthought, I also sent over a list of questions to ask humans to assess their skillsets, capabilities, and interests.
He had a lot of work to do, and it was making it hard on himself by not roping in the humans to help.
We still had a long way to go.
It was going to be a long trip.