KINSMAN’S OATH By Susan Krinard

“Will you do as I ask, Ronan?”

“I will.”

She gave him a brisk nod and left the cabin. Her scent lingered long after she had gone, and he knew, for all her protests, that she had desired him.

He had told Cynara that va’laik’i might choose their own mates for offspring or pleasure. Cynara’s crew was made up of many unrelated Houses, forming a new House unto itself as happened when a be’laik’in on Walkabout selected as Will and attracted other be’laik’i to her.

If Cynara had little opportunity to mate except among her crew, she might look for partners outside it—even at one ne’lin and forbidden. So he dared to imagine. No discouragement from her could quell such conceits, nor shame. Only the Eightfold Way had the power to make him remember what he was.

He knelt upon the cool deck and closed his eyes, seeking the serenity that would not come.

Damn you, Kord. Cynara slammed her fist against the wall of the lift, cursing her friend in all the creative ways Tyr had taught her.

There was no time to make sense of what had happened with Ronan in his cabin, no time to think through her reaction to his astonishing invitation.

Poseidon. Was it so easy for shaauri to suggest mating with total strangers? What had made her believe that she could create an instant friendship with a man raised by aliens, and that her sexual attraction to him would have no consequences? How much of Ronan was human and how much beyond human understanding?

If not for the urgent message about Kord’s reckless act, she might have learned the hard way. But the crisis only postponed what must eventually be faced.

Now that crisis demanded all her attention. She raced to the bridge and took her chair, staring at the image spread across the screens. Janek stood braced against a deck railing with a look of grim satisfaction on his face. The Pegasus rang with the klaxons of high alert.

“Status,” she snapped.

“A shaauri darter has triggered the torpedoes O’Deira placed outside the wormhole,” Adumbe said, stepping up behind her. “The Pontos was well clear of the explosions, but we estimate that it is only a matter of minutes before the striker follows through.”

“And Kord isn’t going to make it back before our friends arrive.” The rudderless fool, disobeying her orders and taking it upon himself to rig the torpedoes at the risk of his own life. The shuttle was barely a blip on the monitor, much too near where the striker would emerge from the wormhole.

Kord had been wrong, but so was she in assuming that the shaauri wouldn’t pursue Ronan into human space. She bore the blame. If she’d had the sense to question Ronan more thoroughly…

She called engineering. “Chads, what’s the state of the drive?”

“Not ready, Captain,” the older woman’s voice answered, “Give me five minutes.”

“Acknowledged. Montague, lay in a course for VAL03. Toussaint?”

“We have enough firepower to hold off a striker for a short time, Captain D’Accorso-fila,” the Dharman said, “but only as a delaying tactic.”

‘That’s exactly what I had in mind. Stand by.” She turned to Adumbe. “Feasibility of the Pontos riding piggyback on the slingshot field?”

The Nemesian nodded his understanding. “I would estimate the chances of Kord’s survival as even, Captain. In theory, it should be possible, but in practice the field’s boundaries may fluctuate—”

“And dump Kord out. That’s a risk we’ll have to take. Balogh, patch me through to the Pontos… Kord, you’d better be listening. We’ll delay the striker as long as we can, but I won’t risk the ship. There won’t be time for you to dock. You’ll be riding piggyback, and that means you have to get inside our field before we run. Burn out the shuttle’s engines if you have to, but get your fenek back here.”

“Acknowledged, Captain.”

No apology in Kord’s voice, but she hadn’t expected it. She and Taye followed the shuttle’s trajectory as it flew at top speed toward the Pegasus. The mouth of the wormhole burned with sudden light, spewing forth the shaauri striker like the sea birthing a typhoon.