by Mina Carter
“Are all Lathar from the same planet?” she countered. “You told me that those S’Vaan men were different to you. Was that wrong?”
“Draanth no, we’re nothing like them!” he replied quickly, ire in his pale eyes. She hid her smile, realizing that for all his apparent invulnerability, the B’Kaar leader did have a few buttons she could push.
“Okay. Same with us. Anyway… we were attacked. They… they…” she stuttered to a stop, closing her eyes and swallowing. “They killed everyone else and took me.”
“It’s okay. You’re safe,” Risyn murmured. “They can’t hurt you anymore.”
She opened her eyes to look at him and nodded, visibly getting herself together. In reality, she was analyzing him as much as he was analyzing her.
“Then what happened?” he asked, voice low and gentle.
“They took me to their ship… They… oh god—” She dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap, fiddling with the edge of the tunic she wore.
“You don’t need to go into detail, my lady. Just… were there other fem—women there?”
She took and deep breath and shook her head. “No. Not until Indra and Gracie arrived. I was so relieved to see them,” she admitted, a catch in her voice. “And I feel bad for that because of what those men were going to do to them…”
“You are not to blame,” he said quickly, his voice hard. “Never think that. The fault lies solely with those draanthing fanatics.”
She smiled up at him through watery eyes. Amazing how easily this body cried now. But these tears didn’t have the crushing weight and pain of the ones she’d shed for Jay earlier.
“Then what happened?” Risyn asked.
“Jay rescued me,” she whispered. “With those two aliens, Indra’s husband and the other one. They brought us back here.”
Risyn nodded. “So since then there has only been the six of you? The three human women, one human male and two Lathar males? No one else?”
She shook her head, eyes wide. “Why? Should there have been?”
“No, not at all.” Risyn leaned back in his chair again. “We’re just looking for something, that’s all. An AI.”
She blinked, using the slow sweep of her lashes to conceal her expression. They were after Miisan, not her. “An AI? Do you mean like the computer? Nyek said he’d been trying to bring it online but it’s damaged.”
“No. Not quite like the computer but it doesn’t matter.” The B’Kaar stood again, staying on his side of the desk as the door behind her opened. “Thank you, Lady Kelly. You’ve been most helpful. You may go.”
The humans were lying. He was sure of it. But about what, he didn’t know.
Risyn B’Kaar leaned back in his chair and studied the human male opposite him. Major Jay Stephens was… not as he’d expected.
Where the females had gone through stages of defiance, challenge and fear, all of which he could easily read and decipher, the male was a different matter.
Far from the weak-spined creatures they’d been told human males were, Stephens was tall and heavily muscled with a dangerous aura that wouldn’t be out of place on any Lathar. He didn’t move or act like a warrior though. A subtle difference that was enough to throw off Risyn’s readings of him.
“So, you’re telling me that the three of you boarded the S’Vaan vessel and took on an entire clan of purists to rescue your females? Without backup?”
Jay shrugged one shoulder, leaning back in the chair opposite Risyn.
“Being honest, I didn’t do much. Seren and Nyek took point and that paladin…” the human whistled. “Covered in blood, head to toe. I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley, if you know what I mean.”
Risyn raised an eyebrow, declining to comment on the odd statement. He had no idea why a meeting’s location or time of day would make a difference to the commander’s combat ability, but it seemed significant to the human in front of him. Two of the women had made similar comments, so he assumed it was something cultural.
“You all traveled to the enemy ship together? And returned together?”
“We did.” Jay nodded, expression open and honest. Anyone would believe him.
Risyn did not.
The human was lying. And he was doing it so well it was almost imperceptible. Behind all the smiling exterior and smooth answers that matched the answers his compatriots had given there was a wall.
It was like a glass slope behind the human’s eyes that Risyn couldn’t penetrate. Not that he was telepathic, that was one trait the Lathar had never been able to tease out of their genetics, but his sensors were so sensitive that sometimes he might as well have been. Not with the human, though, and it set him on edge.
“So three warriors and three human females?” Risyn tilted his head slightly. “That is a large number of passengers for a shuttle that size.”
Jay smiled. “We did kinda have to get cozy. To be honest, I was out of it mostly on the way back. Took a hit to the head early on so I could have seen pink elephants with laser guns out there and I wouldn’t have known the difference.”
Risyn had no idea what a pink elephant was. The word didn’t seem to have a direct translation from Terran in his matrix. It must be some kind of ferocious predator from Earth.
With a rumble in the back of his throat, he settled in his seat, watching the human with an assessing eye. “So you weren’t aware of everything that went on during the rescue.”
The male grinned and spread his hands. “You got me, boss. Mostly I was making sure Kelly was okay, you know… gotta keep my eye on the important stuff.”
“Ahh… yes, impressing the female. Lady Kelly is very beautiful,” Risyn admitted. “You are a lucky male.”
Jay grinned. “Thank you, and don’t I know it. I have no idea why she chose me, but she did, so… I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Finally they were back on familiar ground. The alarm he’d been feeling and the suspicion of duplicity was merely the human hiding the fact he wasn’t as capable a warrior as he’d made out to his female.
“During your time here, did you see or hear anything that might indicate the presence of an AI on the base?” he asked, cutting to the chase.
Now he had ascertained that Stephens’ main focus was his little mate, Risyn had no qualms focusing on the B’Kaar’s primary objective here—the Miisan-level AI.
Just the thought of the thing sent a shudder down his spine. AIs, especially advanced-level ones, were dangerous.
Like a lot of B’Kaar clans, he’d lost family during the AI Cascade incident. Formerly his clan had worked with the emperor’s sister, Princess Miisan, herself in developing them. There was the hope that the empire could use them in heavy combat or against enemies like the Krin, where a biological warrior was at high risk. But it wasn’t to be. A test model had suffered a complete neurological breakdown as soon as its creators had uploaded it to a physical body. The death toll had been staggering. The B’Kaar had almost been eradicated, his father among the dead. It had taken him most of his life to gain control of the clan back for his bloodline.
And to find out one of them was still out there, not just a Miisan-level AI, but one of the test models… Risyn shook his head and smiled at the human. It was a good job they’d been in this area of space and just so happened to be listening in on communications between this little group and their home ship. Otherwise they might have missed it.
“An AI?” Jay frowned, looking confused. “Like one of those computer things? No, mate, we’ve barely managed to keep the main computer online long for anything other than basic life support.”
“Yes. A computer thing.” Seriously, how had humans managed to even get into space? Risyn bit back his sigh and nodded. “We got the message that you’d been sent to recover an advanced level AI.”
Jay blinked and his expression cleared a little. “Oh, that? Yeah, we were supposed to fetch a black box from some crashed ship, but according to Nyek, the thing was damaged.”
>
“A black box? The AI housing is silver,” Risyn corrected. Humans, so imprecise. “But you are correct. The housing you’re talking about is empty. My warriors are analyzing it to see if we can pick up some trace nano-code.”
The human looked baffled so he broke it down a little more. “As with biological life, if we pass through a room, we leave traces… shed skin cells, and trace amounts of DNA. With good enough sensors those can be tracked. It’s the same with an AI or a cyberwarrior in any system. As you travel through it, you rub against other coding and subroutines, shedding tiny particles of data. We should be able to track it if the AI has moved through the base’s systems and then figure out where it’s hiding. Don’t worry,” he smiled in reassurance. “It can’t hide for long. If it’s here, we will find it.”
11
“You just got back from speaking to the grand-high big-knob B’Kaar?”
Indra dropped down onto the couch next to Keris, curled up in the corner with a mug of what Gracie called “hot chocolate” in her hands.
“That guy is intense. Isn’t he?”
Keris nodded and wiped her top lip with her finger, clearing off the chocolatey froth.
“He is. But I didn’t check his genitals so I don’t know if his testicles are large or not. And I’ve never seen any anyway, so I wouldn’t be able to ascertain size.”
Indra blinked. “Oh, gurl… I didn’t mean… wait, what? You’ve never seen a guy’s balls?”
She blew across the top of her drink before taking a sip so she didn’t burn her lip again. That was one advantage of a biological body. Pain was an excellent learning aid.
“No,” she shook her head, sliding Indra a sideways glance. “Well, not for real. But that’s not surprising since I’ve only been… physical for a couple of days. Before? I didn’t pay much attention.”
“Well, shit.” Indra flopped back on the couch. “How the fuck have you been bunking with Jay for so long, and you haven’t seen his junk yet?”
Heat crawled over Keris’s cheeks like a vetallisan spider and she concentrated on her drink.
“I never looked… not really. And he changes in the facilities most of the time. I think he might be shy.”
She’d seen his bare backside once when she’d come out of a shutdown cycle and found him changing in front of her. He hadn’t been aware she was online, though, so she hadn’t dared move.
Indra looked at Gracie as the other woman took a seat on the low table in front of them. Both burst out laughing.
“Honey,” Gracie reached out to pat her knee. “Jay’s a marine. They have shyness surgically removed in bootcamp. If he’s changing in the bathroom, it isn’t because he’s shy.”
Keris thought about that, taking another sip of the rich, sweet fluid in her mug. If she concentrated, she could break down the constituent parts and figure out the ratios… which was her brain misdirecting her from the conversation.
She looked up at her friends. They were her friends. They’d accepted her readily no matter what body she wore.
“Maybe… not long after we first met, I turned around to give him privacy when he was changing.”
“There you go!” Indra waved her arm dramatically. “The poor boy thinks you’re shy!”
“Why?” She shook her head. “No, it can’t be that. I asked him if he liked looking at my body when I got this one,” she dropped her voice a little, even though she knew the sensors in this room were offline. “He went all red…like he was hot.”
Indra sniggered. “I’ll bet that’s not all. Bet some things got hard as well. Hun, you’re a total babe.”
“We slept together. That’s what humans do. Isn’t it?” Keris asked, her cheeks still burning. “We’ve talked about sex and kissed.”
Gracie focused on Keris. “But that’s it? He’s not made a move on you?”
She shook her head. “He said we had to stop kissing.”
“Well hell... that’s no good,” Gracie huffed in disappointment. “Lover boy needs to step up to the plate. Never thought I’d say that about a marine.”
Keris looked at her with interest. “You have experience with marines?”
The human woman snorted. “Yeah, I’ve had a few run-ins with them. Some are assholes but some are decent. Never met one that’s shy, though.”
“Hey, get you, dark horse,” Indra chuckled, sitting up.
“Come on, tell all... What?” she asked, catching Keris’s look. “Just because I’m married doesn’t mean I can’t think about the menu.” She winked. “No one tell Nyek.”
“I won’t.” She didn’t need to promise. There was no way, given his beliefs and views on her, that she and the former paladin would ever have the kind of relationship where they could discuss procreation.
“So, Jay’s kissed you?”
The question was from Gracie but both women turned to look at her. It was like being stared at by a pair of keelas without the danger of being eaten alive. Keris wasn’t naive enough to think they weren’t dangerous, though. Not with that look in their eyes.
“I’m not going to get out of this. Am I?” she asked, looking between the two of them.
They gave matching smiles and looked even more like a pair of keelas.
“Not a chance.”
“Uh-uh. Spill, girl. Now.”
She sighed and wrapped her fingers around her mug. “Okay, well... we were in that storage hangar. B-seven-four-nine after the junc—”
“Never mind about the deck layout,” Indra butted in. “Get to the kissy part, stat.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re impatient?” Gracie asked, laughing when Indra extended the middle finger of the hand nearest to her.
Keris had been around humans long enough to know it was a similar gesture to a Lathar flicking out their last two fingers. A combined draanth you and draanth off all in one.
“Shut up and let our girl talk,” Indra hushed Gracie up, looking at Keris expectantly. “Hangar. Kiss. Now.”
Keris chuckled. “Okay, we were playing being a couple—”
“Girl... you two cats are a couple.”
She shook her head, ignoring Indra’s comment to carry on.
“He kissed me. Against the crates. It was—” She broke off, not sure how to explain the overwhelming jumble of need and sensation she’d experienced in his arms.
Both women chuckled.
“Your brain stopped working?” Gracie asked. “Damn he must be good.”
“Yeah... but then he stopped.” Keris’s good mood faded as the fears and worries that had been niggling at her since the hangar assaulted her all at once.
“He just stopped?” Indra asked, quizzically. “Didn’t say anything else?”
“What did he do then?” Indra demanded.
The heat on Keris’s cheeks was at least reactor going critical level now. “He said something about having to stop and the first time should be special with a bed and candles. But... what if he was just saying that so we’d stop?” She nibbled at her lower lip. “What if I’m not real enough?”
Both women’s smiles faded and Gracie reached for her hands, taking the mug off of her and putting it down before taking both of Keris’s hands in hers.
“You are plenty real enough, sweetheart. We’ve both seen the way he looks at you. There’s no way he thinks of you as anything other than real.”
“Really? How does he look at me?”
Indra chuckled. “It’s a cross between outright terror and wanting to nail you against the nearest wall.”
“Nail?” She blinked as her translation matrix skipped on the word. But it didn’t make sense. “I don’t think he means me physical harm.”
“Fuck. He wants to fuck you.”
“Oh.” Her lips formed a little circle as both women chuckled softly.
“So... he said special. Candles and a bed?” Gracie pressed. “He’s got it bad then. That’s romance right there, rather than just wanting to fuck,” she said, casting a sharp look at Indra.
“Romance? That’s good, right?” she asked, hating that she sounded so needy. “Humans are so confusing.”
Indra grinned, blowing across the top of the hot chocolate. “Ain’t no arguments here. Especially human men. But then, they always did say men are from Mars and women are from Venus.”
Keris blinked at the odd statement and looked instead at Gracie for clarification. The taller woman smiled.
“Men are simple to work out. Kiss him and tell him you’re in charge now. He’s a soldier so he should follow orders if you take command.”
“And touch his dick. Mostly touch his dick. They like that,” Indra commented, moaning in appreciation at the hot chocolate. “Shit, this stuff is good.”
Keris had a smile on her face when she left Gracie’s quarters.
“Girl talk” with the human women had been just what she needed, their concern for her leaving her with a warm, fuzzy feeling in the center of her chest. She’d never had that.
Even though she’d been with Rynn since he was a child and they’d grown up together, even though he called her his sister, that had been different. He cared for her, that much she knew, but the way he treated her was different.
She wasn’t sure whether that was because he was Lathar and the two women were human, or whether he saw her as less because she wasn’t… hadn’t been… biological. The same old niggles came back to haunt her. Was she real enough now? Or would she always be seen as less because of her origins?
Turning, she went to walk down the corridor, only to pull up sharply when a shadow at the end moved.
“Oh my godd… god!” she gasped, hand over her heart as Berr, the big B’Kaar second in command, emerged from the shadows. “You scared me!”
“Apologies, my lady,” he rumbled as he approached. His suit was nowhere to be seen, but his ke’lath glowed slightly under his skin, indicating his link to the armored suit or the base’s mainframe was active. She didn’t know which. Probably both. B’Kaar didn’t like to be disconnected. Said it made them weaker.
Still, she shrank back a little. Even without the kasivar exosuit he made her nervous, the darkness of his eyes and the black slashes of his eyebrows making his hard features even more intimidating. Seeing her small movement, he raised his hands to show he meant no harm.
