He looked offended."Of course.They will be sheltered through the storm.They will be safe."
"And after that?After the storm?"
"Your crew will be alive and well.What happens after that will be up to them."
He gave me that.The acknowledgment that my crew had their own voices, their own choices.
My hand hovered above the console.The planet’s demand pulsed through my feet.
I could not deny the storm.If my crew decided they wanted to leave later, we’d figure it out.What we absolutely didnotneed was a Recon team or salvage crew showing up here to attack Sorik’s people.Destroy the ecosystem.
I activated the ship's communication system and recorded a message."This is Chief Engineer Sloane Carter of theAstraea.I am the only survivor.The planet’s surface is hostile with powerful electromagnetic storms, unpredictable weather, dangerous ground environment.Geological scans show no significant mineral or gemstone deposits.Consider theAstraeaand her crew lost.Official recommendation: do not send further crews.Please release death payments to our beneficiaries and mark all crew lost."I finished with my security code, so they would know the message was authentic and sent it.Deactivated the distress beacon.
Done.
I was such a liar.
The Skybond biology alone represented a discovery of first-contact significance.The biological integration mechanism.The frequency matching.The progressive nervous system adaptation.I looked at my hands where they rested against my thighs.At the luminescence tracking my veins.At the marks blazing on my shoulders.
Lying had been my last act as an employee and contracted agent of theAstraea.From this moment on, I was just Sloane.Mate to Sorik.Daughter of Soltharra.
"What have you done?"Sorik's lips moved over my temple.Soft.Careful.
"Protected you.Protected this place."I kept my eyes on my hands."If they knew a human nervous system could interface with an alien planet's electromagnetic grid?If they found out about the Skybond resonance, how you can share thoughts and emotions?If they knew humans could communicate in any language because the storm translates and interprets instantly?That there’s some sort of psychic connection to the planet and everything on it?No.They can never know.Never."I knew exactly what the military fanatics at NFI would do.They’d send a thousand ships.This valley would be torn apart.Everything destroyed in their endless quest to create better soldiers.Superhumans.Always chasing more psychic abilities.Physical powers.War.Expansion.
Conquest.They were conquerors, not explorers.
"Sloane."
I turned in his arms.Wrapped my arms around his waist.“Is it okay with you if I stay?”
His silver eyes blazed.The marks at his collar pulsed in time with mine.The Skybond ran its warm current between us.
"Thank you for protecting my people."
“I didn’t do it for them.I did it for you.”Might be pathetic to admit that I wasn’t some world-saving, honorable, selfless, noble person.But the truth was, Sorik was all that mattered to me now.Him.My mate.
His hands came up and cupped my face.Both palms, the nerve clusters discharging in slow warm arcs against my cheeks, the Skybond carrying everything he felt directly into my nervous system.Relief.Desire.Love.Acceptance.
His emotions moved through me.All of them.The love so strong my knees nearly buckled.
"The storm is coming."His thumbs traced my cheekbones and small arcs of blue-white electricity followed the movement.My marks blazed at the contact."My people will shelter yours through it.And when it passes?—"
"When it passes," I said, "I'll explain the situation to the crew."My scientist's voice and my heart’s voice in the same sentence, no conflict between them.For the first time in my life."They'll have questions."
"They will," he agreed.
"Some of them may want to leave."
"We will find a way."No doubt in his touch or his voice."We have ships.Ancient, but if your people want to leave, we will find a way that does not place my people in danger."
Behind me, the last vestiges of NFI's corporate architecture was being overwritten by the consciousness inside the crystals — inside the planet.In me.The ship belonged to Soltharra now.No difference between ship and ground and rock and stormglass tree.NFI would never be able to track it again.
The display updated to low-power maintenance mode.Neither of us looked at it.
I put my hands over his where they cradled my face."Tell me about Sol'Virex."
He smiled."Come and see it."