There was no denying it now. I was drawn to this woman, and sooner or later I’d give in. I’d almost kissed her. I’d wanted to, damn it! She’d begged me with her eyes to kiss her, and I’d fought my body to deny her.

This was so screwed up.

I glanced down at the wrist comm, now securely fastened to my wrist. I should have been relieved that she’d handed it over. I should have been making plans on how to use it to our best advantage.

All I could do was think of Adi, eyes wide and lips soft, begging me to kiss her.

I scrubbed my face and tried my damnedest not to stare too hard at her perfectly round butt before me.

The sound of Johnson reassuring Armstrong met our ears making all lascivious thoughts move to the background. No more sounds of battle had followed since the green glow went out and the ladder in that tunnel had disappeared. And thankfully arti-grav had been reestablished. I thought perhaps that might be what Price was doing with our engineers; using them to fix things. And now he had a shit-ton of crap to fix.

It didn’t make me feel any better.

“There you are,” Johnson said as we approached the hatch to the computer core. He sounded relieved, and it wasn’t because we were in one piece, I thought.

Armstrong looked bad, and it had taken us a long time to find an alternate route here. Adi seemed to know the tunnels well, far better than any civilian had a right to. But twice, where she’d thought ladders should be, they had not been.

Aquila had taken a serious hit somewhere that had affected the gel walls.

It was a worry that just felt like one more on top of so many.

“We’ll get you seen to, Armstrong,” I said, pushing past them both and swiping the wrist comm at the hatch.

Johnson met my eyes when I pulled back to let them past. His gaze flicked down to my wrist and then back up; eyebrows arched. I gave him a small nod of my head but said nothing. I still wasn’t sure what to make of Adi’s sacrifice.

Lieutenant Wilson was on the other side of the hatch and came to help Armstrong out of the tube immediately.

“Sir,” he said to me. “We’ve got trouble.”

I slipped out of the hole in the gel wall behind a teeth-gritted Armstrong and stared at Wilson. More trouble? Great.

“What is it?”

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Aquila sung through the computer core gel walls.

“Oh, shit,” Johnson muttered from behind me.

“He’s been calling for you ever since the ship took those hits,” Wilson said.

“He wasn’t out in the tunnels,” I observed, warily looking at the red glowing gel walls and floors and ceiling.

“Yeah, well,” Wilson muttered, “he sure as hell has been bugging us.”

“I know you’re in there, Hugo,” Aquila said. “Won’t you come out to play?”

“He’s been asking for me specifically?” I whispered.

“Yep,” Wilson said, looking uneasy.

Shit.

López appeared then, her two officers in Nova watch with her. She took one look at Armstrong and got to work with the medscanner. An injection of pain meds soon followed. Armstrong took the first deep breath he’d managed since the midshipman’s quarters.

“Rough trip, sir?” the commander asked.

“You could say that,” I offered, thinking of the crewman lying dead on her cabin floor and wondering who else had been killed because we’d been there. “The crew’s out,” I added. “Locked down too tightly with threats of reprisal. We lost two just by being there.”

“Damn it,” López muttered, pulling back from Armstrong. She nodded to her two officers to help the lieutenant back to the pit.

“You can’t hide from me, Hugo,” Aquila said in his sing-song voice. It sounded like he was everywhere and nowhere. He’d always been able to speak through the gel walls, but somehow he was making it sound far creepier than it ever had before.

And the fact that he was doing so in the computer core, a section of the ship that had been off-limits to all but Adi until recently, didn’t sit well.

I looked at López. She gave me a look back that said she’d been thinking the same things too.

“Have you tried talking to him?” I asked.

She nodded. “He hasn’t answered. Maybe he can only talk and can’t hear us?”

I looked around at the glowing red walls. My eyes landed on Adi. She was watching us silently with big eyes and hunched shoulders. Did she know something I didn’t? Was this all part of the plan?

Or was it simply a coincidence; a byproduct of the hits Aquila had just taken, and Adi simply thought the AI sounded nightmarish?

“Adi?” I said.

Her eyes met mine, and she shook her head. It was a frantic head shake as if she wanted to vehemently deny something. “That’s not Aquila,” she said.

“Adriana,” Aquila promptly sang. “There you are, you naughty little girl. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“So much for not hearing anything, then,” López muttered.

Adi looked stricken. She kept shaking her head, her eyes the size of saucers.

“Stop it,” she whispered.

“Why won’t you come home, Adriana? We do so miss you.”

Adi took a step back as if simply moving away from the gel walls would keep her safe. She must have thought the same thing because she looked down at the floor and then quickly up at the ceiling. All of it was red and glowing. All of it was Aquila. I’d seen Aquila change a gel-wall to suit different purposes in the past. He used to deliver our pressed uniforms through them into our quarters. He’d mould the floor if someone tripped and cushion their fall for them.

At any stage now, he could grab Adi and take her to her father.

I stepped closer to her. She stepped into my extended arm without hesitation. It didn’t matter that the AI hadn’t done any of those things. The thought that he could frightened her. It damn near paralysed me.

Trust or no trust, this woman needed protection. The level of fear she showed could not be feigned. I had to believe that. Because my body believed it. With every part of my being, I wanted to keep this woman safe. Even though my head kept telling me to keep my distance, my body said to hell with that and pulled her closer.

López looked at me with exasperation, but thankfully didn’t make a fuss. I was sure the commander would keep a close eye on Adi and on how Price’s daughter was making me act, though. But for now, I wanted Adi safe, and I’d accept whatever dubious looks my officers gave me to achieve that.

I turned and started walking toward the pit, with Adi securely tucked under my arm. López and Johnson followed. Wilson stayed behind by the hatch, glaring at the glowing red walls. His plasma rifle was held loosely in his hands, but the muzzle was pointed at the gel coating, his eyes narrowed.

Ratbag came scurrying out of the pit to greet us, yipping excitedly. Adi relaxed slightly into my side at the sight of her pet.

And then Aquila said, “If you don’t come out to play, Hugo, I might have to start breaking my toys. And they are such fragile beings.”

“He did not…” López started just as Adi covered her ears with her hands and Ratbag let out a whine, scampering between our legs.

“Can the melodramatics!” I shouted. “I’m here. You’ve found me. Now, what the hell do you want?”

“Ah,” Aquila said as if sighing with pleasure. “There you are, Hugo. I’ve been so looking forward to this.”