Page 27 of Alien Attachment
“Second scan complete,” the AI announces before she can respond. “No tracking signatures detected.”
Kaylee’s disbelief hardens into suspicion. “That’s impossible. They found us too easily before.”
“The Nomad’s transponder,” I remind her gently, moving closer to her chair despite my better judgment. Several tendrils immediately extend hopefully before I can stop them. “This vessel has no such identifier.”
She’s quiet for a moment, processing this, but through our bond I feel the pain hitting her anew—we abandoned her ship, her home, the only constant in her nomadic existence. The Nomad wasn’t just a vessel to her; it was sanctuary, freedom, the closest thing to family she’d had in years.
I want to comfort her, to wrap my tendrils around her and absorb her pain into myself. Instead, I maintain my precarious control, allowing her the dignity of her grief while fighting what appears to be a full-scale rebellion among my more tactilely-inclined appendages.
“We need to hide,” she says finally, turning back to the controls. “Somewhere they won’t think to look.”
I step closer, carefully monitoring her reaction through our connection while three different tendrils make determined bids for freedom. “The Cassian Nebula provided effective concealment before.”
“And that’s exactly why we can’t go back there. They’ll expect it.” Her fingers dance across the navigation panel with the efficiency of long practice. “There’s a debris field on the edge of the Veridian System. Mining accident a decade ago. Theradiation plays hell with sensors. We can lose ourselves there for a while.”
Lose ourselves. The phrase echoes in my mind, carrying unintended meaning. We are already lost—cut adrift from her former life, hunted across the stars, bound together by forces neither of us fully understands.
Through our bond, I feel her despair seeping beneath her determination like poison through water. She sees no way out of this, no future beyond running. And I am the reason for it all. My existence has become her prison.
The thought twists inside me like a blade, sharp and unforgiving, even as my rebellious tendrils continue their persistent campaign for greater proximity.
The debris field looms before us like a graveyard of broken dreams—shattered vessels and mining equipment scattered across thousands of kilometers of space. Twisted metal gleams dully in the distant light of Veridian’s sun, casting long shadows that dance across our viewscreen like ghosts.
“Cheerful,” I observe, studying the wreckage while simultaneously preventing two tendrils from investigating the fascinating electromagnetic patterns the debris creates. “Very festive. Perfect for a romantic getaway.”
Kaylee snorts, the sound escaping before she can stop it. “Romance wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“No? Pity. I hear radiation poisoning is very romantic. Nothing says ‘intimate evening’ like slowly dissolving cellular structures.”
This time she actually laughs—a short, sharp sound, but genuine. The vibration of her mirth travels through the ship’s structure and into my tendrils where they’re pressed against various surfaces, creating a resonance that my entire nervous system interprets as profoundly pleasant. Three appendages extend immediately toward the source before I can stop them.
“Sorry,” I mutter, retracting them quickly while trying to ignore the way her laughter continues to echo through my sensory receptors. “Involuntary response to... positive auditory stimuli.”
“Positive auditory stimuli?” She guides us deeper into the field with expert precision, her competence sending another wave of warmth through our bond that does nothing to help my self-control situation. “Is that what we’re calling my laugh?”
“Your laugh is...” I pause, searching for appropriate words while battling increasingly enthusiastic tentacles. “Pleasing. To multiple sensory systems simultaneously.”
“Multiple sensory systems,” she repeats slowly, bringing the ship to rest in the shadow of a massive hull fragment. “How many sensory systems do you have?”
The question carries innocent curiosity, but through our bond I feel something else—a growing awareness of me not just as protector or unwanted passenger, but as a being with complex capabilities she doesn’t fully understand.
“More than you might expect,” I admit carefully. “And significantly more than I can currently control with you this close.”
She turns in her chair to face me fully, and the direct attention sends bioluminescent patterns rippling across my skin like aurora. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I say, as several tendrils extend despite my best efforts, “that proximity to you appears to be causing what my creators would probably classify as ‘unexpected system behaviors.’”
She studies the gentle movement of my appendages with something that might be scientific interest. “They’re reaching for me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I consider how to explain this without terrifying her. “The bond creates... imperatives. Physical as well as emotional. Being near you without contact is...” I search for an appropriate comparison. “Uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable how?”
“Like hunger,” I say finally. “Or thirst. A growing need that becomes more difficult to ignore the longer it remains unsatisfied.”
