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“Patrick, I spent a decade alone with the Carta Cartel. And years with my family and the Qeshian Senate before that.” Sazahk unzipped his pack and winced at the smell he unleashed. He’d meant to empty it, he really had, but the task had never risen to the top of his priority stack. “I can handle one overbearing military man with a poor grasp of physics and trajectory mathematics. Please stop moving my clothes about.”
Patrick sheepishly dropped a shirt back to the ground. “I?—”
“What a tight ass!” Bar’in whirled into the room and flopped onto the bed, his back against the pillows. “You know, he’s berating Dom right now about Dom not taking his own safety seriously enough.”
“In his defense, Dom’s one of the most hated men in the sector. It’s a ballsy move to reassign his own bodyguard.” Fal’ran followed him, but, like Patrick, stopped short at the mess.
Tar appeared after Fal’ran, rounding out their little group. But Sazahk’s tiny room had never been intended to hold five people, especially not if three of them were klah’eel and so Tar squeezed into a corner between a wall and Sazahk’s desk.
“Dom’s a big boy.” Bar’in flapped a hand around. “He can take calculated risks. Are you sure you want to go with this guy, Sazahk?”
“Like Dom, I am capable of calculations.” Sazahk’s frustrated purple crept along the back of his hands as he pulled the rest of his clean clothes from his drawers. “And the cost-benefit analysis is crystal clear.”
“Yeah?” Fal’ran raised an eyebrow as he took one of Sazahk’s shirts and folded it neatly.
“Yes.” Sazahk took the shirt back and shook it out, then moved the others out of Fal’ran’s meddling reach. “Cost, I spend every waking hour with a man who doesn’t like or respect me and will no doubt serve almost entirely as an obstacle to my goals. Benefit, I immediately resume the research I have dreamed of conducting my entire life with the goal of finding a permanent home for a newly discovered, uncatalogued sentient species.”
Not to mention earning his pardon, his access to the Archives, and the piece of himself the Senate had taken from him.
“Well, when you put it like that.” Bar’in snorted, then crossed his legs and reached for Sazahk’s clean clothes, but Sazahk shuffled them to the far corner of the bed. He smacked at Tar’s huge paw as well when it went for a precarious pile of reading tablets on the corner of Sazahk’s desk.
Bar’in’s comment might have been sarcastic, but Sazahk’s wasn’t. He didn’t relish the prospect of being leashed to the man who’d grabbed him, yanked him about, ruined his work, then blamed him for it. But he was beyond thrilled at the prospect of a true research trip into Qesha’s Dead Zone. The thought of the discoveries waiting for him just beyond the boundaries of the compound made his blood sing. He had so many questions, so many theories, and finally—finally, after being catastrophically thwarted—he’d get so many answers.
The grumpy human man with the uncommonly symmetrical face would not ruin this for him.
“When you put it like that, I feel compelled to remind you that you’re only cleared to be out there for a maximum of twenty-eight days.” Patrick crossed his arms and Sazahk scowled. In the absence of clear medical guidelines regarding acceptable acute exposure to the Dead Zone, Patrick had decreed no trips could last longer than a month. Sazahk wasn’t particularly inclined to honor the arbitrary rule. If it restricted him once he was out in the Dead Zone, he didn’t plan to obey it.
“Don’t worry, tight ass will probably insist they’re back in twenty.” Bar’in smirked, and Sazahk’s scowl deepened.
“I will not be dragged back eight days early.” Sazahk did not intend to be dragged at all. Being hauled around by the man once had been quite enough.
The scar at the base of his skull throbbed at the memory.
Sazahk returned to his packing and ignored it. The pain was psychosomatic. The nerve endings had healed long ago. Sazahk had done his own probing and experiments in private to prove it to himself. But the moment that vice-like grip had locked around his arm and halted his movement, his old wound had blazed with agony, stoked by the irrational rush of fear. He’d spun around half-expecting to see a scalpel-wielding qeshian doctor. That the face he’d confronted was instead human and handsome hadn’t endeared him to it.
“Hey, you alright?” Fal’ran’s hand on his shoulder turned him to face the big klah’eel. “Did he hurt you?”
Bar’in and Tar stiffened, and Sazahk shook his head quickly.
“No.” Sazahk shrugged off Fal’ran’s hand. “I am perfectly fine and perfectly content with my assigned escort.”
Bar’in’s lips twisted. “Are you?—”
“Do not ask me if I am sure, Bar’in.” Sazahk sent the small klah’eel a glare. He dumped the old contents of his pack out on the floor and stuffed in the clothes gathered at the corner of his bed. “You have already asked me if I am sure. You have all asked me if I am sure. Except for Tar, but he’s probably thought it.” Tar ducked his huge head and Sazahk tsked as he zipped up his bag’s pockets. “I have done my due, mental diligence and I am sure. I will travel into the Dead Zone with Kevin Garin, and I will be fine. Fal’ran, do not organize my medkit.”
Fal’ran raised both hands and backed away from the overstuffed kit sitting on the floor where it had fallen from Sazahk’s bag.
“Alright, everyone, let’s give him some space.” Patrick clapped his hands and gestured for Bar’in to get up from Sazahk’s bed. Sazahk released a sigh and sent Patrick a grateful look, a soft brown tangling over his fingers.
“But he leaves tomorrow morning.” Bar’in pouted, but still dropped his boots to the floor and stood.
“So, you’ll have plenty of time to smother him with your love this evening.” Patrick stepped out the door and beckoned for Bar’in, Fal’ran, and Tar to follow.
Bar’in sucked his teeth, color rising in his cheeks. “Oh, shut up.”
Even after months, Bar’in hated to have the fact that he cared about them verbally acknowledged. It was one of the curious tics of his teammate that Sazahk was still picking apart.
Fal’ran hesitated, glancing between Sazahk’s haphazard pack and his blatantly hazardous floor. “Are you sure you don’t…” Fal’ran trailed off and raised his hands in surrender once again to Sazahk’s glare.
