The silence in my quarters was the kind that had weight. It pressed in on me, a physical thing that made the recycled air feel thick and hard to breathe. Outpost XB-7 was never loud, but this was different. This was the silence of a tomb.
Ben was dead.
The message had come through the station-wide comm two hours ago. An animal attack. Animal attack. We were a xenobotany research station on a supposedly uninhabited moon. Our only animals were in sealed bio-domes. Ben had been found in Dome-Gamma 4, the one where he was cultivating the pulsating fungal spores. Or what was left of him was found there. The official directive was short and brutal: a predator of unknown origin was loose. Full lockdown. Stay in your quarters until the security team gives the all-clear.
I stared at the schematics on my datapad, but the lines blurred into meaningless squiggles. My mind kept replaying my last conversation with Ben. He’d been excited, talking about a strange new species of bioluminescent moss he’d found growing near a fissure. He’d been a good man. A bit goofy, maybe, but kind. Now he was just… gone. Ripped apart.
My hands trembled. I pushed away from my small work desk and paced the length of my quarters. It took three steps. Three steps from the desk to the nutrient dispenser, three steps back. A metal box. A cage. I caught my reflection in the dark screen of the main monitor. A small, pale woman stared back, her dark brown hair a messy knot on top of her head, loose strands clinging to her sweaty temples. My eyes, usually sharp and curious, were wide with a fear that made them look hollow. I was all sharp angles and wiry muscle, built for long hours hunched over a microscope, not for survival. My nails were bitten short, the beds stained with the dark soil of alien worlds. A scientist. Not a fighter.
A soft chime sounded, and the door to my quarters hissed open.
I froze, my heart kicking against my ribs like a trapped bird. The lockdown was absolute. No one was supposed to be moving through the corridors.
The figure standing in the doorway blocked out the light from the hall. He wasn't a man. He was a mountain.
My throat went dry. I knew what he was. Zoran. A warrior from a species hired out as the most elite—and expensive—mercenaries in the settled systems. I’d seen them on the station’s landing platform, massive figures in black armor that made our own security guys look like children. I’d never seen one up close.
He had to duck his head to clear the frame. He was easily over seven feet tall, maybe more. His skin was the color of wet slate, smooth and seamless over a landscape of muscle that was terrifying in its sheer perfection. He wore a simple black harness over his bare chest and black cargo pants tucked into heavy boots. His arms were as thick as my thighs, his forearms covered in what looked like overlapping plates of bone, darker than the rest of his skin. His hands were huge, ending in thick, black claws that I knew, from the xenobiology database, were usually retracted. They were retracted now, but I could see their blunt, powerful tips.
He stepped inside. The door slid shut behind him, the sound unnervingly final. He didn’t look at me, not directly. His head, framed by short, black, hair-like filaments, scanned the tiny room in a single, efficient sweep. His face was all harsh planes and sharp angles, with a broad nose, a strong jaw, and eyes so dark they looked like holes punched into the void.
Then he turned and took up a position by the door, his back to the cool metal, arms crossed over a chest so broad it seemed impossible. And he was still. Utterly, completely still. He didn't speak. He didn't move. He barely seemed to breathe.
His presence was an invasion. It sucked the air from the room, shrinking the already small space until I felt like the walls were closing in. He was a piece of living, dangerous architecture that had just been installed in my life.
“Who… who are you?” My voice was a pathetic squeak.
He didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on the wall opposite him, but I felt it on me. A heavy, constant pressure against my skin. It was worse than being stared at. It was being… monitored. Catalogued.
The station comm crackled to life on my desk. “Novak, this is Commander Rhys. Confirming your security detail has arrived. His designation is K’alrux. He is not to leave your side until the threat is neutralized. Do not engage him unless necessary. Just let him do his job. Acknowledge.”
My mind raced. My personal bodyguard? Why me? Was I in some specific danger? “Acknowledged,” I managed to say, my eyes still locked on the silent giant by my door. The comm went dead.
K’alrux. The name sounded like rocks grinding together. It suited him.
I tried to go back to work. I sat at my desk and pulled up the spore analysis data again. It was useless. I couldn't focus. All my senses were screaming, attuned to the Zoran warrior who stood less than ten feet away. I could smell him, a strange, clean scent like ozone after a lightning strike and hot metal. I was acutely aware of every tiny sound in the room: the hum of the air recycler, the soft tap of my fingers on the datapad, the frantic thumping of my own heart. And his silence. A silence that was louder than any noise.
He was a predator. My scientist's brain, the one that loved to observe and classify, was running on a different track now. It wasn't cataloging flora; it was assessing a threat. His stillness wasn't passive; it was coiled, a resting state of immense potential energy. One twitch of those massive muscles and he could cross the room and snap my neck before I could draw a breath. And the station had just locked me in a room with him.
For my protection. The irony was so thick I could choke on it.
An hour passed. Two. The silence stretched, pulled taut between us. I drank two packets of water and tried to eat a nutrient bar, but my stomach was a tight knot. I could feel his eyes on my back as I chewed the tasteless paste. Every move I made felt deliberate and clumsy, like I was a specimen under a microscope. I was intensely aware of my body—my soft, human skin, my fragile bones, the way my worn jumpsuit clung to the curve of my ass when I leaned over my desk. I felt small. Breakable.
I needed to change. I'd been wearing the same jumpsuit since my shift started twelve hours ago, and it was gritty with dirt from the bio-dome and smelled of sweat and fear. The thought of stripping down with him in the room sent a jolt of pure panic through me.
The bathroom was a tiny alcove, barely big enough for a sonic shower and a recycler toilet, separated from the main room by a thin metal door. There was no lock. Locks were a waste of resources on a research station built on trust.
My skin prickled. There was no way I could do it. But the feeling of the grimy fabric against my skin was becoming unbearable, a constant reminder of the day’s horror. Ben. The lockdown. The creature in the vents.
Fuck it. I was a scientist on a remote moon. Modesty was a luxury I couldn't afford. Besides, he hadn't even looked at me. He was a statue, a guard. It was his job.
I stood up, my movements stiff. I grabbed a clean, grey jumpsuit from the small storage locker. I didn't look at him, but I felt his head turn, just a fraction of an inch. His attention was a physical touch, a weight on my shoulder.
I slipped into the bathroom and slid the door shut.
The small space felt even more claustrophobic than the main room. I leaned against the door, my forehead pressed to the cool metal. I could feel the vibrations from the station's life support through the floor, a low, steady hum. On the other side of this door was a seven-foot killing machine.
My hands shook as I pulled down the zipper on my dirty jumpsuit. The fabric rasped against my skin. I peeled it off, my body shivering in the cool, recycled air, though I wasn't cold. Goosebumps rose on my arms, along my spine. I stood there for a moment in nothing but a thin sports bra and panties.
My reflection in the small, polished metal panel above the sink was stark. Pale skin, the dark, tight curls of my pubic hair visible through the thin fabric of my underwear, the small, firm swell of my breasts. I looked so… human. So soft and vulnerable. So easy to break.
I knew he could hear everything. The rustle of cloth. The soft pad of my bare feet on the floor. My ragged breathing. Was he listening? Of course he was listening. He was a bodyguard. His job was to be aware of everything.
A strange heat bloomed low in my belly, a confusing mix of terror and something else. Something dark and shameful that I couldn't name. I imagined him out there, standing like a stone sentinel, his dark eyes fixed on this door. Imagined him picturing me on the other side, naked and exposed. The thought should have horrified me. It did. But it also made my nipples pebble into hard points, and a slick wetness gather between my legs.
What the hell was wrong with me? Ben was dead. There was a monster loose on the station. And I was getting turned on by the alien soldier meant to protect me. My mind was breaking.
I quickly pulled on the clean jumpsuit, the rough fabric a welcome abrasion against my overly sensitized skin. I zipped it up, the sound loud in the tiny room. I took a deep breath, trying to shove the strange, unwanted arousal down into a dark corner of my mind. It was a stress response, that's all. A hysterical reaction to extreme fear.
When I slid the door open and stepped back out, he was exactly where I had left him. Unmoving. His gaze was once again fixed on the opposite wall. It was like I had imagined the shift in his attention, the weight of his stare.
But the air had changed. The tension was thicker now, charged with a new, dangerous current. It was no longer just the awareness of a protector and his charge, of a predator and its prey. It was something else. Something elemental.
It was the awareness of a male and a female, trapped in a cage together.
And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone and set my blood on fire, that the monster in the vents wasn't the only predator on this station.
