Operation: Marauder
Chapter 20

While Maliki and Zoey went to the engine room, Knox and Cas left to tidy up things that had fallen over during the attack.

Jack cleared his throat once he and Rowan were alone. “She wasn’t too much trouble for you, was she?” he asked him. “I know Zoey can be a handful sometimes, especially when she doesn’t get her way.”

“Trouble?” He thought about nearly getting caught having her draped over the table at his mercy then shook his head. “None at all.”

Jack smiled and patted his shoulder. “Thanks, man. I really appreciate you backing off. Zoey needs stability in her life, someone who can always be around for her, and as much as I try to be there, the job doesn’t give much leeway. You understand.”

Rowan did but didn’t want to. All he wanted was her. He didn’t want to think about anything else. When his Fever was over, he was sure he’d think more rationally and care more about his promise to Jack.

“I’m going to check on Mave,” he said abruptly. He didn’t feel guilty now, but he was sure he’d feel it later and he didn’t want to be around Jack, look at him in the eye, when he did. He took pride in being an honourable male and today he had faltered.

Thankfully, there were plenty of other things that required his attention, so he didn’t have to think about it. The Laxes may have stopped firing, but that didn’t mean they had stopped searching for Zoey. With Earth undiscovered, humans were rare, a commodity. They wouldn’t let her slip through their fingers easily.

Mave had his feet kicked back on the console, swiping through documents on his tablet. He glanced over his shoulder at Rowan, grunted a greeting, then turned back to his tablet. “Where’s my co-pilot?”

“Helping Maliki fix the ship. It appears you have some competition.”

Another grunt. “I found her first.”

"I found her first,” Rowan reminded him, slapping his feet off the console. He plopped down in the co-pilot’s chair with a long groan. As thankful he was for his crew being so welcoming towards her, he missed when she had been his little secret. Now he had to share. He was never good at that. “Where are the Laxes?”

Mave handed him the tablet. “They’re circling the planet. They really don’t want to let her go.”

“She’s human, new to the Federation. They’d get a lot of money out of her.” The thought of Zoey being sold off to some labor worker--or worse, a sex trader--and lost forever to him didn’t sit well with him. “Any chance of them replaceing us again?”

“Unless Maliki fucks up in the back, no. Cloaking is still going strong.” He reached over to scroll to the next page on the tablet and pointed at the slowly but steadily decreasing bar. “There is a matter of fuel. . . We can do two rotations then we have to head back or we’re going to run out before we can reach Earth.”

Rowan nodded, confident Maliki could get it done within the time frame but made a mental note to visit him later and light a fire under his ass. Just in case. “How are we for rations?” With one extra person on board, Rowan wasn’t looking forward to dealing with that headache. It was hard enough to get Knox to eat only the rations provided. . . To cut back on his rations. . . there will be claws and blood.

Mave cracked a laugh at the worried look etched into his features. “That’s the only thing we don’t have to worry about. I packed some extras for Zoey. We’ll run out of fuel long before we run out of food.”

Well, at least Mave thought that far ahead.

“Everything is in Maliki’s hands now, Captain. Get some rest while you can. You look beat.”

He felt beat. It had been a long day and if everyone was safe, Rowan might take him up on his offer.

He stood, clasping his pilot’s shoulder. “Call me if anything changes.”

“Will do.”

Maliki grunted as he tried to squeeze between two pipes. It wasn’t happening. Sighing, he turned to Zoey, taking inventory of her small frame. “I have appeared to have gained some weight since I’ve last done this.” When he said weight, she was sure he meant muscle; she doubted there was an ounce of fat on him. “You’ll fit.”

She sighed. This was the third time he had handed the task over to her because he couldn’t reach, squeeze, or contort his way through the messy belly of the ship. Once she was in whatever position he needed her to be in, he talked her through the process. There were a lot of words she didn’t understand, but when he started describing the parts she needed to fix instead of using their names, her mechanic instincts kicked in. All she was missing was her music. You’d think in such an advanced piece of machinery they would think to add a stereo or at least some way for music to play on the speakers. Apparently not.

She squeezed between the pipes, replaceing a nice nook to wedge herself into as she described the mess before her. He handed her a screwdriver and gave her step by step instructions; though, she was able to predict what he was going to ask of her just by looking at it.

As soon as she connected the wires, the lights turned back on. Maliki whooped in excitement. He checked the diagnostics on his tablet and gestured to a single flashing red dot deeper into the ship; considering they had started with four, Zoey took that as a good sign and followed him along the catwalk.

“So. . .” she started awkwardly, not even really sure why she was asking Maliki. She should have asked Cassian while they had been alone. “Rowan mentioned he was in Fever. . .”

Maliki smirked, being smart and keeping his eyes forward. The lights had come on, but since they were in the guts of the ship--and it was apparently night time--the light settings were on low to give it a nighttime feel. She could barely see, but Maliki seemed surefooted, whether because his eyesight was better than hers or he knew his ship that well. “Did he, now?”

Why did he have to sound so cheeky? It made her feel like a fourteen year old talking about sex and trying not to giggle at the word penis.

Clearing her throat, she pushed forward. “He said all males of your species get it once a year and makes you. . . well, very horny. Is that true?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. Okay, he was so not helping with this. She was trying to understand what Rowan was going through, what she was going through.

“What about women?” Please say it was normal for her to be so irrational and throw sensibility out the window to give in to her desires. She normally wasn’t like this, but Rowan brought something out of her and she wasn’t sure if she should be afraid of it.

Maliki cocked an eyebrow of inquiry at her. “Our females? No, they don’t go into Fever. They do replace a male in Fever the hottest thing in the galaxy, though.”

“Really?” She felt herself relax a tad. It wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, then. He could be releasing a pheromone or something.

“Yeah. In our Fever, we only want sex. Some of us take a few females at once, some don’t take any at all--though, that is mostly due to the circumstances they surround themselves in at the time, such as being on a mission that is too dangerous for us to give in to our desires. Some are already dating someone and spend the week with her. It’s a huge turn on for females because while we’re in Fever we’ll take whatever we can get as much as we can get it. But to choose to stay with one female? It shows how much you care about her, even if she doesn’t end up being your mate.”

Zoey scratched her head, trying to wrap her head around this strange custom. Men in heat. Polygamy relationships. It just sounded like excuses to cheat to her--and she had her fair share of being cheated on. She didn’t want to do it again if she could help it. “How would this woman you spend the week with not be your mate?”

“A mate for us is the equivalent of a spouse for you, except its permanent and neither mate gets a choice in it. We still don’t understand it ourselves. There’s a gene or pheromone, something, in both parties that makes them compatible to be lifetime partners, and we can only know who our mate is once we’ve had sex with them.”

“And that’s why you go into this Fever. Your body is essentially telling you to look for your mate.”

He beamed. “Hey, you catch on pretty quick. It took Jack a hot minute to figure this out.”

“So, Rowan is in this Fever right now and I’m the only woman on this ship, so he can’t help but want to get into my pants.” He was trapped in here with her. She was a big juicy steak dangling right in front of him.

“I think today’s his last day. He’ll be back to his old self in the morning. You’ll be safe then.”

“But I feel safe now.” That’s what she didn’t get. If this urge was so irresistible, how had he managed to resist it for so long? There were plenty of women on the base. He hadn’t wanted to scare her, because she didn’t know he was an Arthonian until earlier today, but surely everyone on base knew what he was, what he was capable of, what he was going through. He could have any one of them.

Maliki stopped in front of a ladder that angled upward; if Zoey was going to guess where this went, it would be the thrusters near the back of the ship. The purple guys had knocked those out first so she couldn’t do precise maneuvers.

“You’re safe due to his sheer will for you to feel safe,” he said, tucking the tablet into his jacket. “I gotta say, I’ll give him credit. I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off any of the females on base, let alone you, being so near you and all. Your scent must drive him up the fucking wall. It’s a wonder we’re not dead.”

Her eyes bugged. ”Dead?”

Maliki began the climb up the ladder, ignoring the squeak in her tone. “Oh, yeah. He’s been so pissy, if one of us looked at him wrong he’d start shit. He’s a bit calmer now that you’re around, though.”

She followed him up the ladder. “Shouldn’t I be making it worse?” Just when she thought she was understanding this Fever, he threw a curve ball at her.

He paused and glanced down at her. He hadn’t really thought about it until she brought it up. “Actually, yeah. When we ran into you two, I half expected him to put up a fight when Jack split you up.” He stared at her, clearly thinking, but what it was about, it was beyond her. “Huh,” he finally said and it was all he had to say. He continued up the ladder.

“What do you mean, huh?” she demanded, rushing to keep up with him. She silently cursed his tall frame.

“Hush. If we gossip all day we’ll never get any work done.”

She wanted to say that they had made an impressive amount of progress and their discussion was hardly gossip, but he was already off the ladder and buried within the pipes and cables. She wished she never asked him anything because now she was left with even more questions than when she had started.