The first thing the navigator did was carry out his threat to settle in Sher's cabin. Stretching out on the bunk, he luxuriated in a stretch, loosening his tense muscles, and cast a sideways glance at the doctor.
"Rest?"
"Later - definitely," Sher replied, rummaging in her bag. "Now it's my turn to relieve your tension with a massage, so please clear the field of operations for me by removing your clothes," she smiled, placing a pillow under his chest. In her hand, she held a small bottle that emitted a barely perceptible trail of pleasant aroma from natural massage oil with ethereal notes of herbs and bark.
His work jumpsuit went onto the back of the chair next to the bunk. Before pulling his shirt over his head, Nick hesitated for a second and shrugged slightly, looking a bit guilty. The reason became clear very quickly – white threads of scars ran across the ex-ISB officer's skin.
Sher remembered these scars. And again, as then, in "The Haven," her heart ached painfully at these traces of "thorns from Kashyyyk." She warmed her palms by rubbing them together and generously splashed the slightly astringent, oily liquid from the bottle onto Nick's scarred back. Her palms barely touched his skin, stroking smoothly and gently along his spine. The touches were more like caresses and revealed her tenderness. Gradually, the movements became more intense, circular, but just as monotonous and smooth, her fingers vibrated on his skin, stroking and rubbing...
"Doesn't it hurt you?" she leaned towards his face, her braid hanging down.
"It feels so good," the navigator tried to catch the tip of her braid with his lips, but missed. "Now I'll either snort with pleasure like a Gamorrean, or fall asleep."
"You need to sleep," she smiled tenderly. Her palms continued to rub his back, which again gave way to light stroking. The tart, fresh aroma, the light, gentle touches of her fingertips on her scalp, neck, warm palms touching his arms – from wrists to shoulders and back, the massage of his feet, almost ticklish touches, the smooth caresses of her palms on his legs, the tender stroking of his legs from feet to heart did their job...
Even before she finished, the muscles tensed by strain relaxed, his breathing became deep and even.
Nick was asleep.
Sher carefully covered him with a blanket. Throwing her braid over her shoulder so it wouldn't wake Nick with its touch, she looked at him tenderly. Like in "The Haven," when he slept in the armchair, and she admired him. As before, she expected nothing from him. The main thing was that he was alive, he knew how to smile. And she didn't need anything more. Feeling that if she lingered any longer, she wouldn't be able to leave, Sher carefully slipped out the door, holding it so it closed completely silently.
She still had things to do. Feed and water Mukh, conduct a transcranial stimulation session for Shai. And then... Who knows what will happen next? But for now, she couldn't deny herself the pleasure. If things are bad, if they are good, if you don't know what to do – a shower is always appropriate. To tilt your head back under the pouring streams, to imagine it's rain on Corellia. And the gray-green ocean, rippled by rain, its cold spray, and its ungentle breath... Or is the shower simply not working with heating and drying? Wet hair can be braided, and it can be laid on her head so she doesn't feel it, still damp, touching her back and neck. The situation was worse with the tank top on her wet body, but that would dry too.
A few minutes later, the girl emerged, her head held high with her light, wet braid artfully arranged on the back of her head. The toydarian's cabin still had the same sweetish smell of his body. He grumbled and fussed a bit, but he drank the water, and he didn't finish the fried egg and warm, crumbly porridge. Sher patiently and tenderly listened to Mukh's complaints, took the bioanalyzer readings, and assured him that everything was going well. And she didn't have to lie – Larius and Nick had tried, and regeneration was proceeding at a great speed. It was still too early for breathing exercises to prevent stagnation, so the best thing Mr. Carvo could do was sleep soundly. While Sher searched her medkit for the right capsule, while she hung it on her bracelet like a transparent, golden-hued bead, Mukh once again drifted into his toydarian dreams...
Shai's treatment was also showing progress. At least, that's how it looked externally. The brain alpha-rhythm activation session had been conducted, the special clip electrodes affecting the subcortical structures were carefully removed from the tips of the Arconian's burgundy ears, and physical exercises were demonstrated. After the session, and especially near Bus, who contributed to increasing serotonin concentration no less than the device, Shai would fall asleep. And she would wake up more cheerful than today...
And the doctor returned to Mukh's cabin, crept silently to the armchair, sat down with pleasure, and stretched out her legs. She wanted to sleep, and she was afraid to fall asleep. It seemed almost madness, but she felt that she would wake up in her apartment on Little Coruscant, and there would be no dragon and bird figurines on the table, and no thread with colorful beads on her arm... And she would realize that there was no Mr. Tardi, no Nick, and no bottomless ocean of green eyes into which she had drowned without resistance... There was none... And their dance among the stars had never happened either... And the wonderful Mr. Nemo – the captain and her friend... And "The Lucky Chance"... All just a dream that melted away with a sharp comlink signal and an equally sharp voice from Orri: "Eni! What the Hutt are you not answering?! There's a fight at 'The One-Eyed Gran'! Get there quickly!"
And it's unclear if one can live after that. And if so, how?! And only on her lips would there be a slight bitterness of a name... Viyyar. Nikolaus... And something else there. Loneli... Loneli... Loneli...
...On Sher's knees lay an open tablet with a sketch. A strong-willed, well-sculpted face, not yet fully drawn, with prominent eyes. Also only sketched, but already piercing with a gray-green gaze.
The girl's hand hung down, a piece of graphite lay on the floor. Sleep had finally caught up with her, like a bolt fired by a mercenary's hand catches its victim.
Fears usually materialize. Constantly thinking about the object of fear, savoring the details, imagining the consequences of disaster and your feelings about it – the surest way to invite the misfortunes you feared upon yourself. That's what happened to Sher. No, of course, she didn't end up in another reality, in that parallel world where Eni turned out half an hour earlier, when Mr. Tardi hadn't yet reached the wall to collapse on the concrete road in exhaustion, so she turned into an alley, pulled out her car from hiding, and flew over the street where a gray-haired man was trudging... No, she just dreamed that everything that had happened to her in reality was just a dream...
She woke up from that hopeless longing when there was only a step left to understanding the soul-draining call of the vornskrs, directed into the void.
....In her apartment on the middle levels, it inexplicably smelled of sweet spice. And the room... It wasn't her room...
For a few moments, her consciousness balanced on the thin edge between despair and hope, and then her heart surged within her like a hot spring of happiness – a world without love and friendship was not real.
She slipped out of the cabin, ignoring the tablet lying forlornly in the armchair in the corner. To see Nick... Now, immediately. To feel his warmth, and to forever close the window to that world where everything that happened was just a dream...
She ran into her cabin, agitated, closed the door behind her, hesitated at the threshold, looking at him sleeping.
"I just need to make sure this isn't a dream," she convinced herself.
...Her lips were soft and warm when they touched the lips of the gray-haired navigator... or pilot? What difference did it make...
Nick didn't wake up. This didn't stop him from pulling Sher close, hugging her, burying his nose in her hair, and falling silent again. The girl felt as if a string, stretched to its limit, had slackened somewhere.
The warmth of his embrace, his breath so close... And the beating of his heart... Whose? To hug him, to smile serenely, feeling happiness and protection from all fears, from drafts from parallel worlds, from the almighty Empire, next to Nick... But the bitter taste of irreversible loss, so clearly, so vividly felt by her in that dream, could only be overcome by one thing...
Another... His lips were a breath away, just lift my head a little, and...
"I dreamed I lost you," Nikolaus mumbled in his sleep. "Imagine that..."
On the verge of sleep and wakefulness, much of what troubles us in reality loses its meaning and significance. Much. But not all. The living warmth under my palms cannot lose its meaning. The taste of skin on my lips. The scent of hair...
A tenderness that always hurts. One that, it seems, such a small heart and even the most bottomless soul cannot withstand, cannot contain. A tenderness that makes your eyelashes, lips, heart tremble, that makes you freeze on an inhale...
"We can't get lost," Sher whispered, mixing her breath with the pilot's. "I'll always be by your side. In any worlds, in any dimensions..."
"I will recognize you by the beating of my heart... In any guise..."
How keenly you feel at such moments that they are priceless. Because they are fleeting and fragile. Because everything can end with them. Right now.
There aren't enough words for all the subtlest shades of tenderness and love being experienced. They simply don't exist. Only the hot, tart taste of her kiss on my lips. From the wormwood admixture of steppe grasses. On warm cheeks, a salty trace. From the spray of sea dust. Light strands, slipping fleetingly over his skin, like grass rippling in the sun. The tremor and warmth of touches, the impetuosity of embraces...
After all, her name is Shergi – the name of a hot eastern wind...
After some time, silence reigned in the cabin, broken only by the even breathing of the sleepers. Even in his sleep, Nick did not release Sher from his embrace.
Soft paws of a kusbibanin trotted down the corridor. He paused at the doctor's door, twitched his nose, pricked up his ears, and trotted back – to the mess hall, where Veymi had finally finished her work and was now translating the rest of the recordings.
Besides them, Larius was still awake on the ship. The mercenary sat in a chair, looked at the rainbow of the hypercorridor, and twirled a needle in her fingers.
A few hours later, her attention was drawn to the emergency signal indicator.
The bone needle went into the seam of her sleeve, the mercenary reached for the comlink. The Force whispered that it was now possible...
"Nick? We have an off-nominal situation. Receiving an emergency signal. Coordinates..."
Waking up was desperately undesirable, but service habits took their toll. When his fingers closed on the comlink, which had flown from the table into his palm, the navigator was already dressed and ready to act: the call from the bridge was clearly not for a request to bring hot caf.
Having listened to Larius, Nick briefly said: "I'll be right there," and leaned over Sher, touching her lips with his. "My joy, wake up. Your help may be needed now. Larius picked up a distress signal. I'm going to the bridge."
Whether it was Nick's voice or his lips that snagged her and pulled her out of a deep sleep. She had never slept so soundly, it seemed.
Sher sat up in her bunk, trying to free her face from her disheveled strands.
"What signal?" she asked sleepily, still parting her eyelashes. "Distress?"
Her consciousness finally awakened, and for some reason, it needed the navigator's gaze.
Nick was dressing, pulling on his clothes with quick, confident movements, but his gaze felt it and turned.
"It's an emergency signal," he explained. "Nothing serious. It's just that there might be sick or wounded people there."
And he added worriedly:
"We'll need to replenish our medical supplies on the Tunnel. At this rate, we risk turning into a space hospital..."
It seemed she was finally awake.
"Yes, we're short on medical supplies," Sher confirmed, lowering her eyes. "You can't be in autonomous operation with such a supply," a barely audible sigh was most appropriate. "I was just about to ask Rick to let me handle this on the Tunnel."
She looked around for her clothes and blaster, trying to remember where she had undressed.
"I'll be right there," she said, continuing to braid her braid quickly. "I'll just get dressed and run for my bag. I won't keep you."
Nick hugged her again, ignoring all service instructions, both wholesale and retail, kissed her quickly, and just as quickly rushed out the door, smoothing his short gray hair as he ran.
As the cabin door closed, Sher was still looking after him, smiling secretly at something. It was very important for her to meet his gaze and feel that he... That he cared. But as soon as the door closed, Sher quickly threw off the blanket and jumped up, pulling on her jeans and t-shirt. She attached the blaster to her belt as she moved, simultaneously trying to imagine the scale of the disaster whose signal they had received, and preparing for all possible situations. It could be anything from injuries to a dangerous viral infection. To provide aid to the victims, at all costs. And if necessary, to protect the crew from danger – that was what occupied her thoughts.
The fly met her with a sleepy gaze, creaked, and fell silent, trying not to disturb its sore proboscis. The tablet, bent over a sketch, lay on the chair. It would remain there for the next few hours; it wasn't important now. Sher, giving a cheerful salute to Mr. Karvo, slung her case over her shoulder and rushed into the corridor. She approached the bridge, as she thought, calm and collected. In general, it was so, except for a slight blush on her cheekbones.
It was dim again in the bridge, and stars looked through the transparisteel. The ship had emerged from hyperspace.
A hologram hovered over the panel: three lights, green, red, and purple between them, floated among the scattered stars.
"Larius, you and Bus should better control the hangar and the airlock," the navigator said quietly. "Sher can handle the turret, and there might be casualties in the capsule."
The mercenary left her chair without a word of objection.
The girl was in no hurry to take the seat vacated by Larius, stopping a couple of steps from the pilot.
"Nick," Sher said quietly but firmly. "I have to meet the capsule alone. No one knows what's inside. Those in the capsule might be infected with a deadly virus, among other things. We can't risk the crew."
"Sit down," there was no smile visible behind him, but it could be heard in his voice. "That's why I sent them there. They're protected."
"You mean their giftedness protects them?" it sounded surprised, but without disbelief. It didn't occur to her to question what Nick said. "But how will they determine the degree of danger without an analyzer?" she persisted, even though she took a step towards the chair. "And... And why are you smiling?"
"The Force," Nikolaus explained, for a moment ceasing to monitor the pursuit of the unknown enemy after the capsule. "We sense danger. If there's a virus, they'll be able to isolate the patient even without technical means. The crew won't be harmed."
He smiled again.
"I'm just very glad to see you."
Sher slipped into the chair, thanking the universe that in the dim light of the cockpit, her cheeks, cheekbones, everything, even the tips of her ears, did not flare up. But, having overcome her agitation, she looked at him with radiant eyes, in which all the stars seemed to shimmer and reflect, including supernova flashes.
"We saw each other... recently," she said quietly, smiling with touching shyness, and then quickly added. "Shoot again?"
"I've missed you," now his attention was fixed on the space beyond the cockpit canopy. "We'll have to shoot, I feel them. They wanted to finish off the capsule, now they're hesitating – whether to run away, or..."
The stars overturned – the navigator threw the ship aside, and the fiery trail passed by, significantly weakened and almost safe due to the distance.
"We'll have to shoot," Nick concluded, maneuvering around the capsule so it wouldn't be in the line of fire.
And Sher was already catching the red dot in her inversion sight. The target was still out of range, but the approach should happen quickly enough, and for now, it was important not to let the ship go beyond the grid zone, so as not to pull the trigger without losing a second...