by Mina Carter
The heat and tightness in her chest made her gasp this time, her heart thundering. It happened whenever she thought about Jay with another female. Curious.
She pondered on it as she put the other clothes and shoes on, smoothing her tunic over her hips as she emerged from behind the divider. Her knees felt weak and her stomach jumped as she looked over at Jay, waiting to see his reaction.
And… he wasn’t even looking at her.
Deflated, she sighed and walked over.
“What are you reading?” she asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“I think it’s a Latharian legend,” he frowned at the page. “But I can’t make heads nor tails of it.”
She leaned over him, reaching for the pad. “I’m not surprised. This isn’t standard Latharian. It’s one of the ancient texts. It’s not been a spoken language for about a thousand years.”
“Really?” he asked, his voice low and croaky. He cleared his throat before he carried on. “I just thought it was me. Miisan installed a new translation matrix, an experimental one, to let me read and write Latharian. I was hoping looking at the language might kick start it.”
“Hmmm…” she commented, scanning the text. “Unlikely with this. It’s not in the current language codex. And this is an obscure legend anyway. It’s probably not even been translated into the modern dialects.”
“You can read it?” he twisted a little to look up at her.
Leaning over him as she was, she couldn’t help but register his scent as it wrapped around her. The crisp spicy-green aroma of the cleansing gel in the shower warmed by his skin and something else. She couldn’t identify it, but she itched to get closer… to bury her nose in the curve of his neck and fill her lungs. Draw him in.
“Yes.” She nodded. “I am… was programmed with every Latharian language and dialect from the S’inaar period to present day.”
“Really?” He arched an eyebrow. “You managed to retain all that knowledge during the switch?”
Before she could answer, a deep growl cut her off. Jumping, she spun around, rubbing her aching stomach as she looked for the source of the noise. It sounded low and organic, like an animal. Perhaps something had gotten in there with them.
“Jay, get behind me,” she ordered sharply, hand out protectively as she scanned for all the places a creature could hide.
Many dangers were inherent in space travel and not all species needed oxygen to survive. Unfortunately, most of those were highly predatory and lethal to both Lathar and humanity alike. More so to the humans aboard the base, who hadn’t been trained since childhood for such threats.
“I am behind you,” he chuckled. “Although I’m not entirely sure why.”
She didn’t look at him, tension holding her body taut with her arms extended to deploy countermeasures to whatever was in here with them. Perhaps she could get him into the bathroom… one way in and out was easier for her to defend.
“You’re there so I can protect you!” she snapped. Sometimes his joking manner frustrated her. Didn’t he know how much danger he could be in?
The growl came again. It was right on top of them… or underneath. With a small gasp, she jumped back, only to collide with Jay. Immediately strong arms wrapped around her, holding her close to his bigger, heavily muscled body.
She tried to struggle free. “Let go! There’s something in here with us. I need to protect you!”
“With what exactly?” he murmured by her ear. “And from what?”
The growl came again, and his large hand spread over her mid-section. Over where the growl was coming from. She sagged against him as two realizations hit. One, she was biological now. She had nothing, not even a welding array, to protect her human with and two, the horrendous growl was coming from her.
“From that?” He chuckled by her ear. “That’s a beast that’s easily slayed, sweet stuff… you’re just hungry.”
“Hungry?”
Her hand stole over his, covering it where it lay on her stomach over the ache she’d been ignoring. She’d figured it was just one of those biological existential sensations that made no sense.
“I’m hungry? As in I need to eat something?” He’d offered to get her something to eat last night but she’d refused, not seeing why she’d needed fuel in such a brand-new body. Surely it would take a day or two for the reserves to deplete. Now? Her stomach growled again, signaling its approval at the idea of food. Of eating.
“Yes, sweetheart.” Amusement still colored his voice. “You need to eat something… and it is about breakfast time.”
“This is a very limiting design,” she grumbled, a sharp pang of disappointment running through her as he let her go. “It should be capable of storing a couple of days of fuel at least. My worker body could go weeks on a charge.”
“Them’s the breaks, kiddo,” he said with a wide smile as he ushered her to the door. “Let’s go feed that growling beastie. Shall we?”
6
Jay had slept with many women in his time. Not that he was a player, far from it. The life he led as a Frontier Marine was a tough one though. Even before they’d discovered the existence of the Lathar, there had been other threats, inter-systems wars, and skirmishes with both pirates and colony scavengers.
Life on the frontier was hard, and it made for hard people. Combine that with the brutality required to survive in some parts, and it ensured that every member of the Alliance Marine Corps was eager to find whatever comfort and diversion they could on RnR. He’d often spent his downtime with either a lady who had a thing about marines or a fellow marine. However, he’d never slept with anyone in his unit or chain of command. That wasn’t professional, and he’d seen it go to shit before.
But, as lovely as all his previous lovers had been, none of them had affected him the way holding Keris all night had. The trust she’d shown him, letting him hold her close when she was at her most vulnerable, had rocked him to the core. He wasn’t even sure she’d been fully aware when she’d sought him out. But she had sought him, and that was all that mattered. He’d barely slept a wink, hyperaware of every slight sound she made. Each little sigh and each soft snore were more cute than annoying.
Somehow, despite his lack of sleep, he was wide awake and alert as they made their way to the communal galley, or dining hall, in the middle of the VIP deck. It hadn’t taken them long after arriving to find it, driven by hunger and necessity. Even though the base had been abandoned for years, the freeze-dried rations were all still good. Miisan had assured them that the foil packets would survive anything up to a nuclear bombardment, which had both impressed him at their resilience and mildly concerned him for his gut health.
“Hey, sleeping beauty. How was the shower?” Gracie called out, a smile on her face as Jay and Keris walked into the hall.
Everyone else was already there, including Nyek, whose glare this morning was focused on his breakfast. It had taken Indra a couple of days and many threats to get the formerly religious nutjob to eat with them in the morning instead of punishing himself with fasting and prayer. A couple of days of good… well, a couple of days of nutrition had had a marked effect and the alien no longer looked quite so gaunt.
“It was good, thank you,” Keris replied with a smile as they took their places at the table. “Thank you for the clothes. They fit perfectly.”
“You’re more than welcome, sweetie. Figured you needed more to wear than Jay’s shirts.”
“Hey! What’s wrong with my shirts?” Jay demanded, hiding his grin as he dropped into the chair opposite Seren. The warrior sat with a plate in front of him. It was piled high with—
“Are those pancakes?” Jay asked, his stomach growling at him like a feral beast. He caught Keris’s eye and winked, causing her to giggle.
“They are indeed,” Gracie replied, putting a large plate piled with pancakes in the middle of the table. “Dig in.”
“Are they good?” Keris leaned in to ask, her eyes wide on the fluffy pancakes. The others al
l waited, smiles written on their faces as Jay reached out and put two on Keris’s plate.
“They are.”
They looked and smelled just like pancakes back home. He had to give it to the Lathar and their bugs. They made excellent food… apart from cheese. They hadn’t gotten that right, at all. Perhaps Miisan could print a cow or something in that fancy-dancy printer thing and they could get some milk…
“Try them with some chocolate sauce,” Gracie suggested, sliding a jug over. “Seren made it, and it’s amazing.”
“Yeah? Sounds good.”
Jay poured a small puddle of it on the side of Keris’s plate and handed her the fork. Her eyes were wide as she sectioned off a little piece. When she wasn’t thinking about it, her fine motor skills were flawless. Only when she thought too much did she become a bit clumsy. Right now, she was focused on the food, balancing the fork of pancake carefully and dipping it in the chocolate sauce.
Her concentration was absolute as she brought it to her lips and popped it into her mouth. Her lips closed around it and she moaned. Jay almost came there and then at the orgasmic look on her face.
“Oh my… planets. Is this what food tastes like?” she asked after chewing and swallowing.
“Yes… well some,” he admitted. “You really don’t want to eat in the AMC mess, though. Sometimes mess grub is shocking. I wouldn’t feed it to my bloody dog.”
She shoveled another mouthful in as the others filled their plates and looked at him. “You have a pet?”
“Once. Back when I was a kid,” he grinned as he smothered his pancake in chocolate sauce. He flicked a look at Seren. “Do I want to know what’s in this?”
“Bugs,” the warrior replied, his expression innocent.
“Yeah, thought so.”
He smiled and dug into his breakfast. It was a little lighter than a regular pancake, with less substance. That wasn’t surprising with alien ingredients. They weren’t likely to be the same as they had been at home but even so, for a moment, he was transported to being five again, sitting in the kitchen with the housekeeper eating pancakes while his parents were away. They were always away. He’d been at military school before he’d realized other families spent Christmas together.
“These are good, Gracie,” Indra said, sectioning her pancake into small bites before spearing a square covered in chocolate. “I didn’t know you could cook.”
The brunette smiled as she took her seat and reached for the last couple of pancakes. “Yeah, well… I didn’t want to deprive you all of Jay’s bug pasta.”
He flicked her the bird, and the humans at the table all chuckled and then lapsed into companionable silence as they ate. Jay watched Keris make inroads into the mountain of pancakes on her plate. She had a good appetite, that was for sure. The warmth of approval spread through him. She was new to this real body thing, and she needed a lot of energy.
Miisan sparked into existence by the tablet, but rather than the enigmatic smile she usually wore, her face was set into grim lines.
“I hate to interrupt your meal, but we have a problem. My long-range sensors just picked up a ship inbound. It’s B’Kaar.”
Before any of them could ask anything else, the AI winked out, leaving a space where she’d been. Keris stared at it, a strange sensation rolling through her. Locked in place, her heart began to pound, and suddenly she struggled to pull air into her lungs.
That alone was enough to cause panic. It should have had her scuttling back off to the medical bay, worried about cellular degeneration and a whole host of other things that could go wrong with a biological body.
But it didn’t.
Instead, she was locked into place, her sole focus rotating around one word—a name that AIs like her feared above all else.
B’Kaar.
“B’Kaar? Who is that?” Jay demanded to empty air, trying to get Miisan’s attention.
His face had tightened into what she’d named his “professional” expression—when he dropped the laughing and joking and the warrior beneath came out. Seren wore an almost identical one and not for the first time did she wonder just how much Latharian DNA still existed in the human genome.
“And how far away are we talking? Miisan? Who the hell are these B’Kaar?”
The advanced AI didn’t respond, the air so quiet and dull it was like she’d never been active.
“They specialize in cyberwarfare,” Seren supplied, his expression filled with surprise. “But this is a remote system. Not anywhere near their normal haunts. What are they doing out here away from civilization?”
“Cyberwarfare?” Jay asked, his voice sharp. “You mean they’re hackers? Oh, come on, we can easily beat that! Hell, you guys are practically full battalions by yourself,” he said, indicating the two Lathar. “Either that or we’ll just sic Indra on them.”
The human female paused in the middle of cutting her pancake up. The scarred symbol on her face, a sign that she came from one of the more dangerous elements of human society, seemed to catch the light. She smiled, the expression somewhat ominous.
“Absolutely not,” Nyek snapped, glaring at Jay. “My female will not put herself in harm’s way.”
“Your wife is right here,” Indra replied smartly, arching an eyebrow at her mate before smiling at Jay. “And she will do what’s needed.”
“Hell yeah!” Jay leaned over to high-five the human woman. “We can take care of a bunch of gamer nerds, no problem!”
Nyek’s eyebrow winged up. “Gamer nerds? Humans are a lot tougher than we expected if you talk about taking on the B’Kaar so lightly.”
“Frontier marine, baby. Best of the best.” Jay grinned, half turning to catch her eye. As soon as he saw her face, he froze, his expression sobering.
“Hey, sweetheart, you doin’ okay there?”
She managed to shake her head and in the next moment she was in his arms, burrowing against his broad chest.
“Hey, hey, I got you. What’s wrong?” he murmured, the deep voice rumbling through his chest and against her ear. She closed her eyes. Whenever she was near him, she felt safe, and she’d never needed that more than she did now.
“The B’Kaar…” she whispered, her hand curled around his heavily muscled upper arm. Sitting in his lap, he dwarfed her, something she was still getting used to after so many weeks in a metal body. “If they find out what I am… They’ll—”
Her throat closed over, trapping the words inside, and she shook her head.
“They’ll what, sweetheart?” he asked, his big hand stroking over her back soothingly.
“She’s an AI in a biological body.” Nyek’s answer was blunt. “Best guess is that they’ll want to dissect her to see how she works.”
“Nyek!” Indra’s gasp echoed that from Gracie as Jay stiffened.
“What? I’m right.”
“Yeah, but you can’t say things like that! Not in front of Keris!”
“No,” she murmured. “He’s right. The B’Kaar hate AIs anyway. If they find out who… what I am, then—”
She couldn’t say it, a tremble she couldn’t shut down running through her weak and fragile form. Why had she uploaded to this body? It was defenseless and unarmored. At least in her metal form she would have had a chance at fighting them, or she could have uploaded herself to the base mainframe and hidden somewhere. Some secondary relay or datastore maybe… something she could pack and compress her base code into and look like a maintenance subroutine or something else benign.
But now… like this? She didn’t stand a chance. She didn’t even know how to fight.
“It’s okay, love,” Jay murmured, holding her close. “They won’t hurt you. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
He dropped a kiss on top of her head and then looked up. “Miisan, how long do we have until the B’ket or whatever they are arrive?”
Silence stretched out in the room. Jay growled in irritation.
“Miisan, dammit, you fucking answer me or I’ll find your contr
ol box and rip it out of the fucking wall!”
“She doesn’t have one,” Keris replied automatically. “Once she unpacked, she would have integrated herself into the base systems. It’s a failsafe. It means there’s no central location to damage and take the system offline.”
Jay looked at her. “So you mean we’d have to blow this whole damn place up to kill her?”
She nodded. “And since we need it to survive…”
Jay hissed. “That sneaky fucking AI.”
“Okay,” Gracie said from the other side of the table. “We have hostiles inbound who absolutely cannot find out what Keris is. We need a plan. How about… Keris is a colonist we found on an abandoned shuttle after we received a distress signal?”
“No.” Jay shook his head. “Too many variables. Like, what is a human ship doing this far out? How did it get here? Where is it now? They’ll see right through it.”
He didn’t stop stroking her back and Keris leaned against him. She should add something meaningful to the discussion, but she couldn’t form a thought beyond panic that the B’Kaar were here and what they were likely to do to her.
“Jay,” she murmured, looking up to find she instantly had all his attention. “Something’s wrong…”
“What is it, sweetheart? Do you hurt somewhere?”
She shook her head, worrying at her lower lip with her teeth. What was wrong?
“No, nothing hurts. But… Why can’t I think?” she whispered. “I can do this… problem solving, I mean. But all I can think about is the B’Kaar. That they-they… that they’ll…”
Understanding dawned in his eyes and he pulled her closer to press a soft kiss against her forehead. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re scared. That’s all.”
“This is normal?” she asked, stunned. How did they cope, feeling like this and having it disrupt their cognitive ability?
“Perfectly, yeah. As you get more used to it, you can learn to control it.”
