Page 40 of Salvaged By the Alien Pirate

“You might not have a choice,” I whisper, the words bitter on my tongue. “The bond-sickness—”

“Then give me a reason to fight it.” His thumb traces patterns on my wrist that make focusing nearly impossible. “Give us both a reason to stop running.”

I should pull away. Should focus on the mission, on stopping whatever the Eclipse is planning. Every survival instinct I’ve honed screams at me to maintain distance, to protect myself—to protect him—from what’s coming. My enhanced vision automatically begins calculating escape routes, mapping the fastest path to the nearest airlock.

But as I watch him struggle against the fever burning through his veins, something inside me fractures. The walls I’ve built so carefully begin to crack, letting in emotions my implants can’t quite categorize. Because maybe running isn’t the answer anymore. Maybe it never was.

“I’m scared,” I admit, the words barely a whisper. “Not of you. Of this. Of wanting something I might not get to keep.” Myfingers trace one of his tribal markings, feeling how it pulses with fever beneath my touch. “Everyone I care about either leaves or dies. And you’re already burning up because I can’t—”

The words catch in my throat as I watch another tremor wrack his powerful frame. My enhanced vision catalogs his deteriorating condition with clinical precision—temperature climbing, muscle tremors increasing, neural patterns growing more erratic. All because of me. Because I’m too afraid to complete the bond, too damaged to give him what he needs to survive. Each day I hesitate, the bond-sickness burns hotter in his veins, consuming him from the inside out. My indecision is literally killing him, and that knowledge tears at me worse than any Black Eclipse torture ever could.

“I’m killing you,” I whisper, the guilt crushing my chest like a quantum singularity. “Every time I pull away, every time I let my fear win—I’m choosing my comfort over your life. What kind of monster does that make me?” My hands shake as they map the fever-bright patterns on his skin, testament to the price he’s paying for my cowardice. “You deserve someone whole, someone brave enough to love you without reservation. Not... not someone so broken they’d rather watch you suffer than risk their heart.”

His wings snap forward, creating a sanctuary of shadow and warmth that blocks out everything else. “Then we face that fear together,” he says, his voice rough with emotion that bypasses all my defensive protocols. “No guarantees. No certainties. Just us, figuring it out as we go.”

When his lips find mine, it’s not the desperate clash I expected. Instead, it’s achingly gentle, full of all the things neither of us knows how to say. My enhanced senses catalog every detail—the slight tremor in his hands as they cup my face, the way his wings quiver with barely contained need, the taste ofcopper that suggests the fever is wearing him down faster than he admits.

The kiss speaks of everything we can’t put into words—trust earned through shared battles, desire that burns hotter than the bond-sickness in his veins, the weight of past pain and fragile hope for a future I never dared imagine. But as his wings start to curl around us, reality crashes back. We’re in the middle of a critical mission, with enemies potentially watching our every move.

I pull back reluctantly, though everything in me protests the distance. “We can’t,” I whisper, my voice rough with emotion I can’t quite suppress. “Not here. Not now.”

His wings quiver with barely contained need, but he nods, understanding in his crimson eyes. “Later,” he growls, the promise in his voice sending shivers down my spine despite my best efforts to maintain control.

My enhanced vision catalogs his vital signs—fever still burning hot, tribal markings pulsing with intensity that makes my implants stutter in their analysis. The bond-sickness isn’t getting better, and this interrupted intimacy probably isn’t helping. Another thing to feel guilty about. Another way I’m hurting someone I care about.

“Focus on the mission,” I say, as much to myself as to him. “We need to contact McCoy, figure out our next move.”

He straightens, though I can see the effort it costs him. “Always so practical, little hacker,” he teases, but there’s understanding beneath the playful tone. We both know what’s at stake—and that some things, no matter how desperately wanted, have to wait.

Before I can respond, my neural interface chimes with an urgent alert. The decryption program I left running has finally broken through Kira’s last firewall. Data streams across my vision, each revelation worse than the last.

“No,” I breathe, pulling away from Cirdox to access the full feed. “No, no, no.”

“What is it?” He moves with me, wings mantling protectively as he reads over my shoulder. “What did you find?”

“It’s worse than we thought.” My fingers fly across the interface, mapping connections that make my blood run cold. “Kira isn’t just working with the Eclipse. She’s helping them perfect their control over luminore distribution. Creating artificial shortages, targeting specific colonies...” My hands clench into fists. “Damn you, Kira. What happened to protecting people? What happened to exposing corruption?”

The data keeps coming, each new file adding another piece to a puzzle I wish I couldn’t solve. Star charts, shipping manifests, classified STI communications—a web of conspiracy that reaches higher than I ever imagined.

“She’s talking to someone inside the STI,” I continue, my voice tight with barely contained fury. “High level. They’re planning something big. Something that—” I break off as a new file decrypts, its contents making my stomach drop. “No. They wouldn’t.”

“Show me,” Cirdox demands, his fever-bright eyes scanning the display. His wings curl tighter around us, as if he can somehow shield me from the truth we’re uncovering.

“Vulpexia,” I say, the word ashen in my mouth. “They’re going to hit Vulpexia. Use it as a demonstration of what happens to worlds that resist Eclipse control.” My fingers trace projected attack vectors across the star map. “If this works, if they succeed... they won’t just control luminore. They’ll control who lives and who dies across the entire sector.”

A spike of pain lances through my temple as another encrypted message breaks through my firewalls:

GETTING WARMER, VALKYRIE. BUT YOU’RE STILL NOT SEEING THE WHOLE PICTURE.REMEMBER WHAT I TAUGHT YOU—SOMETIMES THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE CODE IS WHAT’S NOT THERE.

“Kira,” I breathe, recognizing her signature. My hands tremble over the keys. “She’s watching. Right now.”

My fingers fly across the interface, tracking signal patterns that make my blood run cold. “McCoy,” I say, initiating an emergency transmission. “I need you online. Now.”

Her face materializes in my enhanced vision almost immediately, expression sharp with concern. “What did you find?”

“Black Eclipse transport, heading into Vulpexian space.” My implants stream tactical data directly to her secure channel. “Small vessel, probably a scout, but the signature...” I pause, double-checking the encryption patterns. “It matches those modified ships we’ve been tracking. The ones carrying tainted luminore.”

McCoy’s eyes narrow as she processes the information. “How certain are you?”

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