Explode: Team Supernova (The Great Space Race) Read online

  Between the two and the one, some huge sea-creature must have hit one of the underwater mines. They couldn’t feel or hear anything on the shore, but a geyser of bloodied water and unidentifiable chunks shot in the air. Sparky must have picked up the disruption, because the time between one and teleportation was short. Even with the rushed exit, Tripp saw seabirds gathering in anticipation of the feast before he was sucked into the dizzying oblivion of teleportation.

  *

  They tumbled back onto the ship, filthy and exhausted and drunkenly exuberant in the way people get right before they collapse and sleep for two days, and in Sarr’ma’s case at least, starving—apparently her metabolism expected she’d get a big meal after that kill. “Look what the cat dragged in. Wait, one of you is the cat,” Sparky said drily, then added, “Welcome back.”

  “We did it!” Sarr’ma crowed, then started to fling herself at Tripp to hug him.

  For a fraction of a second she hesitated. They were still in the transporter room, which was on camera. He was probably freaked out by the whole blood ritual, and certainly wondering about the robot. To top it off, she stank. She wasn’t sure her new awareness of him as her mate would let her remember any of these considerations once she touched Tripp. Her body buzzed with erotic energy at the idea of touching him, so it was possible she’d throw anything like sense to the wind and rip off his clothes.

  Then fatigue, excitement, and hormones told her she was being a nashbet.

  Couldn’t have that, could she? The whole point of this journey, other than figuring out long-distance teleportation, was to prove to herself that she wasn’t a nashbet.

  What would her brother do? Her brother would definitely hug the man, do more than hug him if he sensed interest and the moment seemed right, and sort it all out later.

  Besides, if she didn’t hug him and squeal and bounce, she might explode from repressed joygasms. Her ’bot -rigging had worked. They’d killed a huge, dangerous wild beast. And Tripp had guided the ’bot through a minefield without any issues.

  If you couldn’t hug your partner and squee at a time like that, you should turn in your ears and tail and call yourself…oh, not human. Humans knew how to have a good time, even if they were more restrained about it than her people. Blemondian, maybe—all those people did was work, work, hoard money, cheat each other, and work some more.

  All this passed through her head quickly enough that if Tripp noticed any hesitation, he’d write it off to being off-balance from transporting while hungry, dehydrated, and weary.

  “We did it,” she repeated as she flung herself at Tripp. “We did it, we did it, we did it. Thank you!”

  He caught her in mid-leap—as he always had, even before they knew each other. His strong arms closed around her. His instincts already knew they belonged together. He just needed to convince the thinking parts of that.

  Or right now, convince his body of a few more things it ought to be doing.

  She wrapped her legs around his waist, leaned in, tucked her head against his shoulder. She didn’t need to worry about stinking, because he was ripe himself, to a degree it would normally assault her sensitive nose and offend her natural fastidiousness. But underneath the day’s accumulated ickiness, she could smell Tripp, and that made it all right.

  “We sure did. It wasn’t easy, but we beat this challenge—and Altaria. Go Team Supernova!”

  Tripp whispered in her ear. “My room after we clean up. We need to talk off camera.” His breath agitated the fur on the sensitive rim, sending a shiver down her spine. Stars…

  “Got a few things to do other than talk off-camera,” she purred, clinging to him.

  He chuckled, the sound rich and dark, caressing her. “Now you say that, after three weeks avoiding me.”

  “Figured a few things out today. We do need to talk—and then do other things.”

  He set her down gently. Speaking at a more normal volume, he said, “We need to clean up and eat. Then we can celebrate better.”

  “Got any bubbly stashed on board, Sparky?” Sarr’ma asked with a grin. “On second thought, save it for later. If I have booze, I’ll fall right over. But get some of that steak-clone ready for us. It’s not as good as the real thing, but it’s about a million time than a vacpac meal.”

  “Remember,” Sparky reminded them, “Zissel will be linking up for quick interviews after you’re cleaned up.”

  She couldn’t catch what Trip muttered, but she’d bet credits to cricket chips it wasn’t polite.

  Interlude: Unedited Interview with Sarr’ma

  THE ’BOT? I took a few classes because ’bots do a lot of the actual work in low-G builds, and I’d rather program them myself than rely on someone who can’t read a design schematic. I even thought about minoring in robotics for about five minutes but the labs are in the evenings so they cut into your social life and half the instructors are off-worlders from places where they surgically remove your sense of humor at birth. But I still like playing with ’bots and when we saw the parameters for today’s challenge, it looked like one might come in handy. And thank the Great Cat Mother I did because Mrrwr’wrn don’t swim and apparently Tripps don’t either.

  How did I kill the gylax? So that’s what that ugly thing is called! Part instinct, part dumb luck. My species evolved as hunters. In a pinch, instinct kicks in and we turn to our natural weaponry. Nothing on Mrrwr is as big as a gylax, though, except maybe a commuter whoosh-train and you don’t hunt those. Either I did something amazing that will live in legend or I’m the luckiest cat-girl ever. Personally I’m voting for both with a side order of thank-goodness-Tripp’s-a-good-shot. That laserpack is a great toy but it would have helped if I’d had a chance to play with it before something was trying to eat us.

  Tripp? We’re getting the hang of working together, and we’re figuring out each other’s strengths. After today, I think he’ll finally accept I’m an adult.

  (She shrugs)

  It’s a common problem when my species works with humans. We’re smaller than most human adults, and humans keep cats as pets, so they don’t take us seriously until we’re proven ourselves. Today, I did that. That should make Team Supernova work better. I have a big brother. I don’t need Tripp taking on the job. One, it’s annoying and two, he’s way too good looking to be in the surrogate-brother zone.

  Interlude: Unedited Interview with Tripp

  SARR’MA’S LIKE NO one I’ve ever met, and not just because I’d never met someone from her species before. She’s great at flying the ship and working with the nav-sys, and she’s brilliant—who knew you could tweak a maintenance ’bot to do underwater exploration? She’s also insane. That stunt with the gylax could have gotten her killed. I had a blaster, but no, she had to show off. The crazy thing is, it worked.

  (He sighs, then shakes his head)

  Of course, I’m glad she’s my teammate. We’re one of the lead teams, and we wouldn’t be there without her skills. I wish I knew more about her people, her world. If she’s what an interior design student is like on that planet, I’d love to meet one of their soldiers. From a safe distance, though, and only if I knew they were feeling friendly.

  Of course she flirts with me. She flirts with the AI too. I think it’s a cultural thing.

  (Tripp grips the arms of the chair hard enough it looks like either the chair or his hands may break.)

  We’re teammates who are becoming friends. And if we do become anything more than that, Zissel—you will be the last to know.

  (Tripp takes a visible deep breath)

  Sorry. That came out too harsh. You’re just doing your job. But this part of the show is difficult for me. The actual race and the challenges? They’re tough, but I was prepared for that. I forgot about the part where we’re supposed to bare our soul to the entire galaxy. As it turns out, I suck at it.

  You trained to be an investigative journalist? That explains why you’re so persistent and why it doesn’t rattle you when I’m rude, but how the star
s did you end up doing this? Never mind. It’s none of my business. Anyway, you won’t find much to investigate with me. I’m a miner from Nieves. Pretty boring. And right now, pretty hungry. I heard something about steak tonight. I’d like to get to the galley before Sarr’ma eats it all. For a tiny thing, she can pack away an unbelievable amount of protein.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE MEAL TASTED LIKE heaven and like the cheapest mealworm crumble at the same time. On one hand, Sarr’ma wanted the meal to be over so she and Tripp could talk privately—then indulge in naked consenting-adult type activities. On the other hand, clone-steak wasn’t bad if you ignored the fact it was grown in a factory somewhere, the only animal involved some progenitor which, many meat-generations ago, had provided its genome to be replicated. And stars knew Sarr’ma was hungry enough she’d have gotten some pleasure out of unseasoned mealworm crumble, so she was rolling her eyes and groaning with delight over a halfway decent approximation of a steak. She took Tripp’s word that the mashed root vegetables and winged beans had been spruced up so you’d never know they were from a vacpac—they weren’t anything she could eat anyway. She helped herself to a couple of pats of butter. Partly she could use the extra fat; Octiron had done a remarkably good job of meeting her dietary requirements, but she still craved the levels of fat found in fresh, natural meat. But mostly it was an opportunity to lick her fingers, then her lips, and purr, “Butter is delicious!” As she’d hoped, Tripp turned a warmer shade of tan. Stars, he was fun to tease, mate or not. Might be part of the joy of having him for a mate. It would never get old poking a serious guy from a back-system planet.

  They wouldn’t be together long enough for it to get old, not unless one of them gave up everything they knew. She had to remember that. This was something to enjoy as long as it lasted.

  If Tripp was meant to be her mate, they’d squeeze a lifetime of adventure and friendship and sex and loving and probably stupid fights into the time they had. They’d be able to enjoy these things again with other people, once the shock of separation wore off. But they never find the whole package in the same person again, or so the old folks said.

  So seize the night.

  She reached across the table, took his hand. Big, rough, competent…and it felt too good for words, even touching her like this. Why had she insisted on keeping it off the rest of her body when she knew how cosmic it felt there?

  The race. Right.

  Screw that. They were both adults, and they worked well together—they wouldn’t have survived today if they didn’t. They could win the race and still win in the bedroom. She just had to make sure she didn’t let mating hormones push her to do anything too crazy. Fun-crazy, she and the hormones could negotiate. Slitting the throat of something that, dying or not, could still have eaten her in one gulp, and then showering in its stinky blood? No more of that, please.

  “It’s time to go,” Tripp whispered.

  She wanted to grab his hand and run. But they might as well mug for the camera, give Zissel and Gus something to play with so they wouldn’t care about what they were missing. “Come on, Tripp. Comeoncomeoncome.” She stood, bounced in place while tugging on his hand. Okay, she was only playing a little for the camera; mostly she was that eager to get him alone. “We need to work on strategy for the next challenge.”

  She looked up, grinned at the nearest camera-drone. “We know where we’re going, of course—I have a great route already plotted, though Sparky says it may be a smidge risky. Now Tripp and I have to figure out the details.” She tugged on Tripp’s hand again. “Come on, pretty-pretty. I have some terrific ideas. Your job is to make sure they won’t get us killed, because you know me. I kind of forget safety when I get excited.” She grinned at Tripp, then at the camera again, and began to skip away, still holding Tripp’s hand.

  He was more than twice her size and could have stayed put unless she felt like pulling some MMA moves out from under her tail bow, but to her delight he played along, pretending she was dragging him from his chair. “Sarr’ma, there’s dessert…” he wheedled. “We hardly ever get dessert.”

  “If Sparky had gotten us ice cream, I’d stay, but I shouldn’t eat cake anyway. So get it to go and you can have my piece too.” She grabbed his hand between both her own and made a great show of putting her back into it and pulling with all her strength. Tripp pretended to fall off the chair, catching himself before actually hitting the floor. “Sparky, have a ’bot bring both pieces of cake to Tripp’s cabin and leave it outside the door,” Sarr’ma ordered. “We’ll be scheming how to win our next challenge.”

  *

  The door of Tripp’s cabin hadn’t shut yet when Tripp clapped his hands on her shoulders and pulled her close. The rough embrace was both sexual and violent, and the same primal part of Sarr’ma that had wanted to share her kill with him reveled in it. “What the larfing stars were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t about to announce I was dragging you off to have my wicked way with you.” She looked at his face, the mixture of desire and anger, and added as nonchalantly as she could, “That’s the plan, right? We’ll work on the next challenge once our brains aren’t in our pants anymore. Or where the pants would be, in my case.” Great Cat Mother, that was almost as lame as Blemondian flirting—and the visiting students from Blemond sometimes incorporated “efficiency” into their awkward pickup lines.

  Tripp gripped her shoulders harder, almost bruisingly.

  She flehmened the air, drinking in his scent of wet granite and pure maleness. Her nipples hardened. Her cunt clenched.

  If only he’d grip her that fiercely when he wasn’t mad, during sexytimes.…

  Lovely, lewd images filled her mind of all the things they could do if he unleashed the full force of his physical powers on her and she could play rough in turn—not full force, of course, but as close as would be safe with a human lover. He shook her and roared, “That thing could have killed you! Even dying, it was dangerous. I had a blaster, for stars’ sake. You didn’t need to finish it with your claws.”

  There were so many ways she could have responded, with glibness or an apology or simply by kissing him and ending the argument. Instead she spoke without calculation and her answer surprised even her. “I knew it was dangerous and not all that smart. You know how fast I am—I could have dodged it in the state it was in—but it was still risky. I needed to do it, though.”

  His eyes looked smoked over with something—rage, desire, frustration? He smelled like lust, but lust could get mixed up with so many different emotions. “Why? I know you’re not stupid—too brave for your own good, maybe, but that wasn’t brave, just insane. So why did it seem like a good idea?”

  Because apparently I’m in love with you and it’s messing with my brain was the truth, but she couldn’t jump right to that point. Not yet. Maybe never, because despite the pep talk she gave herself earlier, intelligent adults might be able to have sex and work together effectively—but love obviously messed up her brain.

  And the way Tripp was behaving, love, or at least friendship, lust, and concern, were messing with his head too.

  “My species are predators,” she started.

  His death-grip on her shoulders loosened. He was still holding her close enough to drown her in the warmth of his body, let her know that however his conscious mind might feel, his body wanted her. “Carnivores? I know.”

  “Duh—you know what I eat and you saw me having a very special moment with that steak—but specifically predators. The apex predators in all landbound ecosystems on our planet. It isn’t always easy to be civilized when you’re hard-wired to stalk and pounce and rend. We have hypermarkets like everyone else, but even in cities, most families have a leeta-hutch for fresh meat. We teach kittens how to control their prey-drive by showing them what it’s all right to kill because it’s good to eat. The hunt is a huge part of our culture for the same reason.” She smiled the way she would at home, letting her fangs show fully, letting Tripp get a good l
ook at this side of her. “Besides, hunting’s cosmic fun.”

  Tripp swallowed, the bobbing of his laryngeal prominence obvious, but at the same time pulled her closer, pushed a thigh between her all-too-willing legs. “So that was fun today? I was terrified for you…” He looked sexy as starlit lust but also like a parent whose small kitten had done something so stupid it could have been fatal and couldn’t decide whether to hug her, pick her up by the tail and scruff and shake her, or both. (This was a fairly common state for felinoid parents.)

  “I was terrified for us both,” she admitted. There was no point in lying and the truth would calm Tripp. “That thing was huge and I had no idea where its vital organs were, or whether it would start spitting venom or something. That was why I was using the laserpack—which, you were right, is too big for me. But it was also… not exactly fun, but right, like it was what my body was supposed to do. Once I used my claws, it felt even better. I was figuring out the weapon as I went along but I knew how to rip out that thing’s throat. And it felt good. There’s this hormonal cocktail that hits during what our hindbrain perceives as a dangerous hunt. Probably why my brother and his mates are in law enforcement—hunting another sentient is risky and usually forbidden, so that has to be a wild high.” She decided, for now, to leave out the part about sharing the kill with one’s mate. She was still a little squicked by it herself; it was definitely not something to discuss with a non-predator mate until she could do so without sounding squeamish.

  “That’s crazy, but also kind of hot. Not because I ever want to see you covered with green blood again, but because it’s helping me see the real you. You come off as this pretty, bouncy girl—a smart one, sure, but the pretty and bouncy are the first things you let people see.” His voice lowered to an intense, shivering-inducing whisper. “I saw more of who you are today that I ever have, didn’t I? Not only the hunting. Rebuilding that ’bot took serious skill. You’re an insanely smart predator, not a giggly cat-girl.”