Jaxar
Chapter 16

Vanessa:

Two Weeks Later...

Nothing made a person feel quite so useless as clutching a clay pot full of dirt as the ship entered battle.

The alarm sounded. Van stood planted in the corridor as warriors rushed past her, transfixed by the scene out the window. A ship-she didn't recognize the design-fired on another ship. Judging from the size, the ship receiving the blows was a civilian cargo vessel. The ship dealing out the damage had a patchwork look that made her think of junkyards and shady mechanics.

Her mind searched for the correct word. Marauders? Were space pirates a thing?

She should replace a safe spot to wait out the incident, but her feet would not move.

A dozen smaller vessels appeared, presumably Mahdfel fighters launched from the Judgment. Lights flashed. Van shielded her eyes, unsure what she witnessed until the floor gently rocked. They were under fire. The Judgment. A ship the size of a city. The ridiculousness of the situation proved too much to process and she stayed rooted in place, clutching that damned pot.

"What are you doing here?" Jaxar asked. A light touch on her elbow broke her paralysis.

"I don't know where the shelter is," she said.

"Come to Engineering. It is the safest location on the ship."

Safe sounded good. Another flash of light. Silently, she counted. When she reached ten, the floor swayed. Out the window, the Judgment returned fire to the attacking ship.

An eerie internal glow consumed the disabled ship, red and orange fissures opened along the hull moments before the ship exploded.

A wave of light and debris rolled toward them. Alarms wailed. Jaxar pushed her to the ground, covering her body with his. The ship shuddered. Moments later, debris hit the external shielding. What was not burned off by the shields hit the windows, but the glass held.

The whole situation was unreal, like a scripted scene from a film playing out before her. She had been in moments like those in real life, not just witnessed from a safe distance, but she had never experienced the strange sensation of floating out of herself before.

"Are you well? Unharmed?" Jaxar eased off her and pulled her upright.

She nodded, hand on her chest. Her heart raced but not like she was crashing toward a tunnel. "Did we blow up that ship?" That couldn't be right. The Mahdfel saved people. They didn't destroy ships that sent distress calls. "Did we!" "The Warlord did not issue such an order."

"How do you know?" Those people... gone. She felt helpless, like she was a kid again, alone and on a highway.

He tapped his ear. "Audio feed. Now, steady breaths. Do you require a medic? No. I will not risk it." Jaxar slapped at his comm unit on his wrist, calling the medics.

"I'm okay. Feel," she said, pulling his hand to her chest. She wanted him to feel the beating of her heart but she needed to feel him, to remind herself that she was not alone.

He growled, as if displeased at the frantic beating.

Not alone.

"Count with me. One, two, three, and take a breath," she said. Leading by example, she took a deep breath and held it for three beats, then exhaled. Jaxar mimicked her. His agitation appeared to ease as the tightness in her chest dissipated. "Oh, no," she murmured, spying the potted plant. Knocked out of her hands, it rested on its side, the soil half-spilled. Van scooped up the dirt as best as she could with her hands. The leaves did not appear to be crushed. "Esme's gonna be so mad at me if I kill her plant."

"Vanessa. Give me the plant. We'll set it down here and retrieve it after the all-clear," Jaxar said.

"No." Van twisted away. "Esme sent this. If I leave it, someone will knock it over."

"All right. May I carry it?" He cradled the potted plant. "Are you well?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Just stunned, I guess." In the past, when faced with a choice of fight or flight, she had always chosen flight. Running kept her alive, so Van was baffled as to why she couldn't tear her eyes away from the firefight outside the window. Maybe because the marauding ship had to know it couldn't win.

"Why did the pirates make that ship explode?" Under fire from the Judgment, the marauding vessel should have been ramping up to jump into hyperspace and flee, not attacking an unarmed cargo hauler. The cruelty of it made no sense. "Vanessa, please. Come with me to Engineering. You will be safe there."

"I'm fine here." The fight would be over any moment.

"Please. I need you to be safe." He ran a hand up the back of his head, knocking loose the knot again.

"That hair." Van stretched up on her tiptoes and grabbed the loose knot. Without thinking, she gave it a hard tug. Their eyes locked.

Jaxar growled but she knew he wasn't annoyed. Quite the opposite.

A hot blush rose on her cheeks and she cleared her throat. "It's too long. You're just begging for it to get caught in some gears and if you're lucky, it'll only rip out all this pretty hair," she lectured while she worked his hair loose. Rather than admire how the silky strands slid through her fingers, she focused on gathering it back into a knot and fixing it in place with the hair tie.

"As long as you agree that my hair is pretty," he said.

Van rolled her eyes, not rising to the bait. Pretty was not the word to describe the alien man. He was hot as sin, yes, and stubborn and frustrating. He didn't listen more often than not, but he watched her with a careful gaze, like she was the most precious thing in the universe. It was a heady feeling for a girl forgotten by her own father and discarded by her ex.

Powerful. Cherished. Safe.

She liked it, and she suspected that she liked him, too. More than liked him.

Jaxar:

Engineering was the safest location on the ship. Jaxar repeated this fact to himself every time he looked up from his screen to confirm her wellbeing. He assigned Fennec to keep her out of the way and entertained. Even knowing that his eager young minion shadowed her could not assuage the worry in his chest. He found himself needing to verify her safety every few minutes.

Fennec gestured broadly with his hands and Vanessa laughed in response.

Jaxar found himself inexplicably infuriated. Her laughter belonged to him. How dare Fennec charm and amuse her.

Huffing through his nose, he scanned the room to determine how many males paid attention to his mate and not the mission at hand. Too many.

A male, young and with a smooth face, watched the interaction and ignored his instrument panel.

Jaxar threw his tablet stylus at the male, hitting him in the center of his forehead. "Back to work," he snarled. "Everyone needs to work and stop flirting."

Himself included. He ignored the way Vanessa's eyes went wide and the tilt of her head, as if his foul mood did not intimidate her. He should have put her in his office and locked the door. She would not have been pleased, but she would be safe and no other males would look upon her with greedy eyes.

Still. He needed to monitor Fennec. The male's motivations could not be trusted. Only distantly did he acknowledge how he tormented poor old Rohn and his jealousy over Jaxar's friendship with Nakia.

"Are you going to give me a status update or should I polish my horns?" The Warlord's voice snapped at Jaxar through the comm, dragging his attention back. In a crisis situation, the warlord kept the comm channel open for the teams. "The debris is interfering with the scans. We can adjust the arrays but improvement will be minimal until the debris is cleared. I need eyes to search for escape pods," Jaxar said, though he doubted anyone from the destroyed cargo ship had enough time to reach an escape pod.

"Proceed with the adjustments," Paax ordered. "What is the estimated arrival for Mylomon's boarding party?"

"Hard to say. It's slow going with the debris," Rohn answered.

The warlord growled, his displeasure crackling out of every comm unit in the battlecruiser. Every male in the room instinctively stood straighter. "I'm sorry to report that we're unable to sweep the area clean while we're under attack. Have your fighter cover the shuttle and make do." Then, "Have a team search for escape pods."

"Pilots deployed for search and rescue," Rohn said.

"Initial reports suggest that the cargo ship self-destructed," Jaxar added. Readings scrolled by on a screen. That couldn't be correct. "The energy signatures indicated a sudden rush from the main engines, most likely venting a gas that combusted with the atmosphere. There are too many safety protocols to let that happen accidentally. You have to work very hard to blow yourself up in such a manner. Could be a bomb."

"Find me those pods. We need to know why they'd rather blow themselves up than be rescued by us."

"I suspect the answer is the destroyed cargo," Mylomon added. "I suggest we run a search on the vessel's crew, the most recent port of call, and favored routes. This could be an instance of smugglers turning on each other." "Make it happen," the warlord said.

Jaxar had trouble imagining what could be so valuable that lives had to end. Nothing good. Or perhaps nothing they wanted a Mahdfel clan to catch them holding.

Minutes ticked by. The scans located clusters of debris large enough to hide an emergency pod. Debris continued to bounce off the ship's hull.

"What was that?" the warlord snapped.

"Rerouting power to strengthen the shields," Jaxar replied. He motioned to two members of his crew and they sprang into action. "Damage?"

"Minimal, sir." Jaxar recognized the head of security's voice, Seeran.

"The initial blast burned through the shield's reserves, but as long as we're not moving, we have enough to maintain full strength and replenish," Jaxar added. The ship's engines generated considerable energy, but it was not efficiently distributed due to the ship's age.

"Docking with the vessel now," Mylomon said, his voice interrupted by static. Harsh clanging noises, the sound of forced entry, dominated the audio channel.

New information gathered from the team's handheld devices streamed in. Battle made the information a contradictory mess, as the marauders actively tried to block the signal.

"None of this data makes sense," Jaxar muttered. The ship presented as a mishmash of parts and systems patched together, a veritable puzzle and he loved working his way through a problem to replace a solution. "This is a gift. A true mystery. Thank you. I'm having such a good time."

"I dislike how much you are enjoying this," Paax said, his tone annoyed.

Mylomon barked orders to his team. The occasional blaster shot pierced through the sounds of battle. Jaxar gritted his teeth. Using projectile weapons on a space-going vessel was exceeding reckless. A stray spark could cause a fire or puncture a critical safety device. A whole in the hull did not need to be large to cause catastrophic damage.

Fools. Dangerous fools. He wanted to join Mylomon and bash a few heads together and maybe strap them to an oxygen tank and use it as target practice. Maybe.

"We have secured the bridge and Engineering. Life support has been damaged," Mylomon said. "We have injured beings. They are too critical to move."

"On it," Kalen said.

Orders flew across the channel as various teams mobilized. Jaxar organized techs to repair the life support functions while continuing to scan for signs of the emergency pods from the destroyed vessel.

He was not enjoying himself, despite the bravado he showed the warlord. Normally on such missions, he bounced with energy and his crew reflected that sentiment. Engineering buzzed with excitement. Rescue and repair missions were one of the few opportunities to showcase his crew's abilities as they seldom fought in the front lines. While working his way up the ranks, Jaxar had spent many battles dashing with his tools and frantically working while under heavy fire. It was an engineer's rite of passage.

Today, however, a sullen mood affected his crew and he knew it was his fault.

"Right." Jaxar clapped his hands together and every male snapped to attention. "Let's dazzle the warlord and show him what we can do with our brains. Braax, locate the emergency pods. They should be generating a signal or beacon. Narisse, figure out how to clear debris. We don't need to damage Rohn's fragile little ships and we have injured beings to transport. Let's not give the pilots a reason to blame us for their bumpy rides."

He pointed at the males and rattled off assignments. A familiar energy settled over the department.

"We found something," Mylomon said.