Mated By Mutiny – Chapter 3
Eve
Neutral Space Station Gamma-9 glitters outside my viewport like a shard of broken glass. It’s all sterile angles and cold, impersonal light, a monument to the galaxy’s obsession with efficiency over comfort. Automated traffic control guides the Drifter into its assigned berth with unnerving precision. The docking sequence is so smooth, so flawless, it makes my teeth itch. I prefer the bumps and groans of a manual approach, the little imperfections that remind you a living person is at the helm. Here, there’s no room for life. It’s a place for transactions.
I kill the main engines, and the silence that follows is deeper than usual. The familiar hum of my ship is replaced by the faint, ambient thrum of the station, a sound that feels foreign and invasive. Docking bay 7. It’s one of the private, high-security bays on the station’s restricted diplomatic ring. All polished chrome and stark white lighting, scrubbed clean of any personality. My ship, with its scuffed hull plates and patched-up heat shielding, looks like a stray dog that’s wandered into a high-end gene-splicing clinic.
“Right,” I say to the empty bridge. “Showtime.”
I run a hand over my hair, tucking stray strands back into my messy bun. I’ve swapped my grease-stained jumpsuit for a cleaner one, my own small concession to professionalism. It probably won’t matter. To a Xylosian commander, I’m already a mess.
A quick systems check shows the docking clamps are secure and the atmospheric seals are tight. All green. I take a deep breath, the recycled air of my own ship tasting familiar and safe. It’s the last I’ll get for a while.
The airlock hisses open onto the docking ramp, and the station’s air hits me first. Yep. It’s the smell of rules and regulations.
And then I see him.
He’s standing at the base of the ramp, flanked by four other Xylosians in identical, immaculate dark blue and silver uniforms. They’re all tall, but he’s taller. Exactly what I pictured, and somehow worse. Commander Kaelen of House Vorlag is less a person and more a statue carved from judgment. His silvery skin seems to absorb the harsh station lighting, and his posture is so perfectly erect it looks painful. His cobalt blue eyes are fixed on my ship, his expression a flat, analytical mask.
My gut clenches. This isn’t a client meeting. This is an inspection. An audit of my entire existence.
I descend the ramp, my heavy-duty boots clanging on the metal, the sound an ugly intrusion in the bay’s sterile quiet. He doesn’t move. His gaze shifts from my ship to me, and I feel like a faulty component being assessed for replacement. His eyes sweep over me once, a quick, dismissive inventory, before settling on my face. There is no welcome, no greeting. Just… evaluation.
“Captain Eve Rostova,” he says. His voice is a low, calm baritone, completely devoid of inflection. It doesn’t ask, it confirms. “You are punctual. An anomaly among your species, I am told.”
My jaw tightens. Right into it, then. “And you’re a Xylosian. I’m told you guys alphabetize your socks.” I offer him a sharp, humorless smile. “Glad we could both live up to the stereotypes.”
A flicker of something — annoyance? surprise? — crosses his features before it’s suppressed. One of the soldiers behind him shifts his weight, the synth-leather of his uniform creaking. I get my first proper look at him. He’s sharper-featured than the others, his eyes colder, more calculating. There’s a zealous intensity in his stare that makes the hairs on my arms stand up. He looks at me like I’m a contaminant.
“This is Sub-Commander Valerius,” Kaelen states, gesturing slightly toward the hostile one. “He will be overseeing the security detail.”
Valerius gives a nod so curt it’s barely a movement. He doesn’t approve of me, my ship, or the air I’m breathing.
The feeling is mutual.
“We will finalize the contract in the adjacent briefing room,” Kaelen continues, turning precisely on his heel. “My team will conduct a preliminary security sweep of your cargo bay while we conclude our business.”
I plant my feet. “Whoa, hold on. A ‘preliminary sweep’? That wasn’t in the contract. No one sets foot on my ship until the terms are finalized and the datapad is signed.”
Kaelen stops and turns back to me slowly. He’s not angry. He looks… perplexed, as if I’ve just suggested we conduct the briefing in a dead language. “It’s a standard security protocol, Captain. A necessary precaution to ensure the integrity of the transport.”
“It’s a standard military protocol,” I counter, crossing my arms. “This is a civilian vessel, Commander. That means you’re on my turf, and my rules apply. The first rule is, you don’t get to treat my home like one of your sterile battleships. The bay stays sealed.”
Valerius’s glare bores into the side of my head. He’s probably imagining a dozen different ways to vaporize me that are sanctioned by his precious “code.”
But Kaelen’s expression is what holds my attention. He’s processing my defiance like it’s a complex tactical problem. His gaze is intense, analytical. He’s trying to figure out my angles.
Little does he know, I don’t have any. I’m just a stubborn person who’s sick of being pushed around by men in fancy uniforms.
“Your adherence to your own… protocol… is noted,” he says finally, the word ‘protocol’ sounding like an insult. “But it is inefficient. However, a delay of seven standard minutes to finalize the agreement is an acceptable loss of time. The cargo bay will remain sealed until the contract is active. Satisfied?”
“Ecstatic.”
He gestures toward a door off the side of the bay. “The briefing room.”
It’s less a room and more a sterile cube. A polished black table, four chairs, and a single, wall-mounted public information terminal that’s currently cycling through station advertisements. Kaelen takes a seat, his movements economical and precise. Valerius and another guard stand at attention by the door, their presence a silent, suffocating pressure. I take the chair opposite the commander, deliberately slumping into it and propping one boot on my knee. A small, petty act of defiance that makes Valerius’s jaw tick.
Kaelen slides a datapad across the table. “An addendum to the contract. A standard clause for sensitive asset transport. It grants my security team unrestricted access to your ship’s internal sensor logs and security feeds for the duration of the mission.”
I stare at the datapad, then back at him. I bark a short, sharp laugh. “Unrestricted access? Absolutely not. That’s not a standard clause, that’s a complete violation of my operational privacy. You want to know what’s happening on my ship, you ask me.”
“I am not asking, Captain. I am informing you of a mission requirement.”
“And I’m informing you that it’s a dealbreaker.” I push the datapad back toward him. “My ship’s systems are a closed loop. They’re mine. You get access to the cargo bay and a direct comms channel to the bridge. That’s it. That’s the deal.”
“Your refusal is illogical,” he says, his voice still impossibly calm. “Transparency ensures security. Your resistance implies you have something to conceal.”
“It implies I don’t like military spooks putting backdoors in my computer core,” I shoot back, leaning forward. My patience, already thin, is starting to shred. “I’m a pilot, Commander. I fly things from point A to point B. I don’t care what’s in your ‘sensitive diplomatic crate,’ and I don’t want to know. But I will not hand over the keys to my entire life support system just because your honor code has a paranoia clause.”
We’re locked in a standoff, his rigid certainty against my sheer, mule-headed refusal to be bullied. The air in the little room crackles with it. Valerius looks like he’s about to vibrate out of his uniform.
This is it. The moment my stubbornness costs me the one job that can save me. I can see the numbers on the final notice blinking behind my eyes. But I can’t back down. Not on this. Losing control of my ship’s systems is the same as losing the ship.
Just as he opens his mouth to deliver what I’m sure will be the final termination of our agreement, a sound cuts through the tension.
It’s a cheerful, three-note jingle. Bright. Obnoxious. Utterly out of place.
We all turn. The public information terminal on the wall has stopped cycling through ads, and now the screen is a solid, pastel green. In the center, a stylized logo of two interlocking rings pulses gently.
The logo of the Galactic Dating Service.
Oh. Oh no.
Below the rings, large, friendly letters spell out a message that makes the blood in my veins turn to ice.
COMPATIBILITY MATCH DETECTED!
My stomach plummets into my boots. No, no, no. Not now. Not here.
I look across the table.
Not… him?
MATCH SUBJECTS:
Captain Eve Rostova (Human)
Commander Kaelen of House Vorlag (Xylosian)
COMPATIBILITY RATING: 99.9%
STATUS: Perfect Match!
For a solid ten seconds, no one in the room breathes. The only sound is the cheerful, looping jingle from the terminal. My mind goes completely, blessedly blank.
This can’t be happening. It’s a glitch. A prank.
A cosmic joke of such staggering cruelty that it defies all logic.
I tear my eyes away from the screen and look at Kaelen.
His mask of stoic control is gone, and it’s been replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated horror. His cobalt eyes are wide, his jaw is slack, and the silvery skin of his face has taken on a pale, grayish tinge. He looks like he’s just witnessed a star go supernova inside his own head.
Then, just as quickly, the shock is gone, replaced by a cold, simmering fury. He looks at the GDS screen like he wants to personally rip it from the wall and crush it into dust.
Valerius and the other guard are staring, too, their military discipline momentarily forgotten. Valerius’s eyes dart from the screen, to Kaelen, to me, and a look of profound, venomous disgust settles on his face.
That’s… not good.
It’s the look of a true believer whose god has just been caught shoplifting.
I finally find my voice. “That has to be a mistake.” It comes out as a strangled squeak.
“The GDS algorithm is… precise,” Kaelen says, his voice tight, strained. He sounds like he’s forcing the words through a filter of ground glass. “System errors are statistically nonexistent.”
“Well, congratulations, Commander,” I manage, a wave of hysterical laughter bubbling in my chest. “Looks like we’re the one-in-a-trillion statistical impossibility. Because there is no force in this universe, no algorithm, no god of inconvenient matchmaking, that could make us a ‘perfect match.’”
He pushes himself to his feet, turning his back on me to face the offensive green screen. He stares at it, his shoulders rigid with tension. “This… is an unacceptable complication.”
“A complication?” I jump up, my chair scraping loudly against the floor. “A complication is a delayed fuel shipment. This is a five-alarm garbage fire. It’s categorically insane.”
The terminal chimes again, a new line of text appearing below our compatibility rating.
Per GDS Mandate 7.4.3, all designated Perfect Matches are required to engage in a series of compatibility reinforcement interactions. Your first Mandated Interaction Period will be scheduled within one standard cycle. Congratulations!
Congratulations.
They cannot be serious. Is this a joke? I’d ask, but it’s not like I have any friends who would pull a practical joke on me. It’s not like I have any friends, period.
Congratulations. The screen blinks the word at me, a final, cheerful nail in the coffin of my sanity.
“I am on a mission of critical importance to the Xylosian Empire,” Kaelen says, his voice dangerously low. He’s speaking to the screen, not to me. “This… frivolity… will be disregarded.”
“You think you can just disregard the GDS?” I ask, my voice rising. “Have you ever tried? They’re worse than the Vostok Banking Syndicate. They will lock down our comms, override my nav-computer, probably start piping terrible romantic music into the life support. They don’t take no for an answer!”
He turns to face me, and the cold fury in his eyes is startling. “This changes nothing, Captain. The mission proceeds. The GDS is a civilian matter. It will be dealt with after my duties are fulfilled.”
“Civilian matter? It just practically declared you my space-husband.”
“That term is illogical and inaccurate,” he snaps, the first real crack in his composure. “This is a system anomaly. A distraction. And we will ignore it.”
I stare at him, my own horror warring with a dawning, terrible understanding. He’s going to try and pretend this didn’t happen? Yes, he’s going to compartmentalize a 99.9% GDS compatibility rating like it’s a minor fuel leak.
The sheer, breathtaking arrogance of it is almost impressive.
The datapad with his addendum is still on the table between us. My chance to walk away. I should take it. I should run back to my ship, break orbit, and take my chances with the repo men. The GDS can’t follow me forever, and any fate is better than this.
But the blinking red light of the final notice is still there, a ghost in my mind. The debt is real. Losing the Drifter is real. And this job, this horrible, cursed, possibly GDS-infected job, is my only way out.
My shoulders slump, and the fight goes out of me, replaced by a cold, weary resignation. I’m trapped. Not just by my debt, but by the galaxy’s most powerful and intrusive dating service.
I walk back to the table and pick up the datapad, my hand shaking.
“Fine,” I say, my voice flat. “Fine. You want access to my sensor logs? You can have it.” I tap my thumb to the signature panel, authorizing the addendum. My digital signature glows on the screen, a monument to my surrender. “The contract is active.”
I slap the datapad back down on the table. “Now gather your men and your… sensitive diplomatic materials… and get them on my ship. I want to be out of this system before that thing,” I jerk my chin at the GDS screen, “decides to schedule our first ‘date.’”
Kaelen takes the datapad. For a long moment, he just looks at me, his expression unreadable again. The fury is gone, replaced by that same, intense analysis. It’s like he’s seeing me for the first time, not as a messy human or a logistical problem, but as an anomaly that his rigid worldview cannot explain.
“The transfer will commence immediately,” he says, his voice back to its neutral, commanding tone. He turns to Valerius. “Sub-Commander. Begin the transfer.”
Valerius nods, the disgust still plain on his face, and exits the room with the other guard.
We’re left alone. Just me, the commander, and the giant, glowing green announcement of our supposed cosmic destiny. The silence is thick with unspoken horror.
He turns to leave, then pauses at the door. “For the duration of this mission, Captain,” he says, without looking at me, “we will maintain a strictly professional relationship. This… incident… will not be mentioned again. Is that understood?”
“Oh, it’s understood, Commander,” I say to his back. “I understand perfectly.”
He leaves without another word.
I sink back into my chair, my legs suddenly weak. I stare at the GDS screen. 99.9%. Perfect Match. This nightmare job just got infinitely worse. Much worse.
You have been reading Mated By Mutiny...
The Galactic Dating Service ruined my desperate plan with three words: “Perfect Match Detected.”
I needed Commander Kaelen’s transport job to save my ship from repo—enough credits to finally get the debt collectors off my back. He was everything I avoided: honor-bound, disciplined, the kind of Xylosian who probably color-coded his underwear.
A 99.9% compatibility rating was the last thing I needed.
I tried to maintain professional distance. Impossible when he shared family recipes in my tiny galley, when he trusted my piloting through deadly dangers, when he looked at my chaotic life and saw competence instead of failure. The honor-bound commander was nothing like I expected.
But his crew watches our growing connection with cold disapproval.
And now I’m transporting a mysterious prisoner whose secrets could ignite galactic war, falling for an alien who’s making me question everything I believed about independence. I’ve built walls around my heart to survive in this cold galaxy.
He’s making me want to tear them all down.
Mated by Mutiny is a sci-fi romance packed with witty banter, explosive action, and a slow burn that ignites into a supernova. It’s perfect for fans of forced proximity, competence porn, and heroes who fall first—and hard.
