The smile slipped away. “Absolutely not.”
I wanted to pout. “Why not?”
He laughed but answered my question. “Blowing up any of these stable clusters could send a fragment to Velerion and cause a massive impact.”
My eyes widened at the thought. “That would be bad.”
He laughed louder. “Yes, bonded one, that would be bad.”
I shrugged that off. “Okay, so we don’t want to cause Armageddon. How am I supposed to practice?”
He raised a dark brow and studied me. “Do you need practice?”
Damn it. That was the million-dollar question. “No. My accuracy rating is over ninety-eight percent in the ga—I mean training.”
“We should return to base,” he replied. “You are running on excitement. When you crash, you’ll want nothing more than warm food and a soft bed.”
“And you.” The words were out of my mouth before I even thought to sensor them. I bit my lip and blushed.
The laughter faded from his eyes as we looked at one another over the control console that separated our two pilot seats. His eyes narrowed. Heated. “That can be arranged, my Jamie.”
A warning beacon sounded, the cockpit’s interior color switching to red. The sound was familiar, but I had no idea about the red light. Or the fact that it made everything seem urgent and tense.
“Fuck,” Alex swore under his breath.
My heart skipped a beat because that was extreme.
“This is Outpost Gamma 4. We are under attack. Repeat, this is Outpost Gamma 4, and we are under attack.”