Mia was still smiling as she flipped her hand over so her palm was facing mine. I nearly groaned in contentment as she laced her fingers through mine and bound us into one being. “No. I’m sorry. That is a slang term.”
“Slang?”
“Never mind. God, why is this so hard?”
I could give her something hard.
She leaned her head back against the seat. “If the two humans are attracted to one another, they will continue to meet. If they like each other enough, they’ll have sex. And if that’s good, and they fall in love, they get married, settle down, have a few children, get the house and the dog and the cat and the white picket fence. Go to work, grow old, grow apart, kick the baby out of the house, and fight like injured wolves for the rest of their lives.”
I took my time processing what she described. “That sounds horrible.”
She laughed again. “It is.”
“You meet and talk, then have sex. Then commit to a life bond and begin to procreate? What about sharing common interests and goals? Working together? Becoming stronger as a team? Vintis and Arria are stronger together because they have shared knowledge and work. They help one another solve difficult problems, empathize with one another, understand the challenges each faces. How do your human pair bonds maintain strong relationships if they do not work and learn and strive together?”
“They don’t.” Mia let go of my hand and sat forward in her seat, inspecting her control panel. “The divorce rate is at least fifty percent.”
“What is divorce?”
“The reason I’m not married and never want kids.” The bitterness in her voice left me with many unanswered questions, but Mia was correct in her shift of attention. The target vessel had just pinged our ship’s sensors and was approaching. I confirmed we were in stealth mode and would never be seen. Still, I had to make one fact clear.
“You are mine, Mia,” I said. She would not doubt. Not with me. “You will not pair bond with a human now. We are joined, and I do not share my mate with other males.”
Whatever my Mia might be, she was not shy. She turned to look at me, her eyes dark with desire. “I don’t share either, flyboy. Just so we’re clear.”
“I desire no other. The kiss should have made it obvious.”
“Good.” She turned away from me and pressed the command to slide her seat into MCS mode. “Now let’s get going on one of those common goals you were talking about and hack into this asshole’s ship systems.”
“Agreed. Fight now, fuck later.” I waited for the perfect moment to move away from the asteroid and into the passing ship’s plasma trail. The Phantom’s stealth system was designed to perfectly mimic the frequency of the interstellar plasma flow around it, the quiet hum that would blur our ship into the universe and allow us to evade their sensors.
Mia lifted her gaze to mine, as I’d been expecting, and I slipped Phantom to rest within a groove of the Dark Fleet’s warship. I’d been expecting something small, a smuggler’s shuttle or Scythe fighter on patrol. Instead we were dealing with one of Queen Raya’s warships. The ship was massive, larger by half again than the battleship we’d left behind. I’d seen these ships from afar as I lifted troops from battle zones or dropped them off. But I’d never been this close.
Well, not outside of the training simulation.
“It’s like a little fish sticking with a whale,” she murmured.
I glanced at Mia. Her hands flew over her controls with ease. Her shoulders were relaxed, her gaze focused. I knew the moment she’d accessed their systems by the slight curl at the corner of her lips. When she turned to me, her eyes alight with excitement, I was ready.
“How long do you need?” I whispered. Her response was equally quiet.
“Two minutes. The data transfer is even faster than in the game.”
“Of course. Earth’s technology is childlike and slow.”
“Then why don’t you share?” she hissed back.
That was a serious question. “What would your people do with more advanced technology?” I asked.
She shrugged. “That’s easy. Kill each other with greater efficiency.”
“You have answered your own question.”
She turned her head and studied her monitors, hands moving to adjust as the data transfer ebbed and flowed. The silence in the cockpit made me glance over my shoulder. I could not divert my attention from the pilot’s controls for long. I had to manually hold us in our current position. Any break and we would be in danger of giving away our location or colliding with their much larger ship.
We worked in silence for long minutes as I used every ounce of skill I possessed to keep us properly aligned with the groove in the giant warship. They were beginning a roll maneuver that I suspected was in preparation for a high-speed exit from the area. We could not be this close to the ship when it decided to go. We’d be destroyed by their engines when they passed by.
“Mia, we have to go.”