by Cynthia Sax
His long lean body shook more and more. The normally cool, unemotional male was breaking apart and it was heart-shattering to watch.
“Can’t say good-bye, not to her, not to my daughter.” Tears coursed down Lanko’s cheeks. “She’s my baby.” He drew his dead child into his arms, pressed her to his chest and rocked. “My baby.”
It was too much, too painful to watch. Allinen quietly left the domicile, returned to the darkened pathway.
Her cyborg wasn’t there. She didn’t detect his presence. But being in that place, where she had once seen him, made her feel less alone.
She hid her face against an exterior wall and cried, drenching the wood with her sorrow, sorrow for Lanko, for Sisko, for Vauva, for all of the families losing loved ones, dealing with illness and death and the destruction of their futures.
Planet rotations ago, she had felt disconnected from her kind. She was one of the unmated. That had seemed like a divider between her and others.
This illness, this epidemic sweeping the settlement, had proven that was a lie she told herself. She was very much connected to the beings around her. Their loss was her loss. Their pain was her pain. Their hopelessness was her hopelessness.
She wept until she had nothing left. Her cheeks dried, that salt-coated skin pulling tight. She leaned against the wall and stared into space, her mind a black void of grief.
Her yearning for her cyborg’s embrace was painfully intense. Deep down inside her, she knew his warmth, his strength, his voice, could heal her, could ease some of her pain.
But he wasn’t near and she had tasks to complete. She rubbed her hands over her face. Her sister needed her.
Squaring her shoulders, she forced herself to return to the domicile, the site of so much sorrow. The only occupant was her sister. Lanko was gone and Vauva’s body was missing.
The space left on the sleeping support, the imprint of her niece’s small form was hurtful to view. Allinen changed the covering cloths, cleaned the soiled fabrics as best as she could, tended to her sister.
Sisko’s light had dimmed even more as though the loss of a physical connection with her daughter’s body had stolen some of the fight in her.
“Don’t you dare give up.” She grasped Sisko’s hands. Her sister’s skin was unnaturally hot. “Your mate needs you.” Lanko wouldn’t survive her sister’s passing. Allinen’s instincts told her that. “He isn’t doing well on his own. His hair is a mess. His garment is horrendously dirty.” She kissed her sister’s knuckles. “He eats very little, hasn’t slept since you lost unconsciousness.”
Her always-needing-to-be-perfect sister would be horrified about Lanko’s present state.
“I need you too. Desperately.” She gazed at Sisko’s face, willing her to recover. “You’re my sister and I love you.”
She pressed her lips against her sister’s forehead. The skin was terrifyingly damp…as Vauva’s skin had been before she died.
“I don’t care what you have to do to get through this.” Allinen covered up her fear with a brusque tone. “If you need to blame me for the illness, for what happened to Vauva, I can take it.” She wiped her sister’s face with a cleaning cloth. “I deserve the blame. I should have watched over your daughter more closely.”
She scowled, thinking of all the things she would have done differently had she known what would happen.
“Hate me.” Having sturdy shoulders and the healing power of her cyborg’s nanocybotics, she could deal with the anger. “Yell at me. Or never speak to me again.” That was more her sister’s style. “If punishing me brings you back to me, I’ll bear whatever reprimand you decide upon.” She squeezed Sisko’s hands. “Just come back. We need you.”
There was no answer from her sister, only the sound of her impaired breathing.
Allinen cleaned Sisko’s face again, tried to relay beverage into her. Much of that dribbled down her sister’s chin.
“A drooling female brings shame to her mate.” She forced that joke.
Their mother’s rules seemed ridiculous now. Lanko would happily accept his mate’s drool if it meant she lived.
Doc would feel the same way about her…she suspected.
She chattered to her sister as she tended to her, sharing stories of their childhood, memories about Vauva, projections of a happy future. Any other outcome wouldn’t provide a reason for Sisko to return.
“You need beverage.” Allinen attempted to relay it again, dripping the liquid between her sister’s parted lips. That flesh was cracked. “You—”
The door blasted open.
“Did it.” Lanko fell to his knees. His body convulsed violently.
Allinen rushed to his side. “You’re ill.” She flung one of his arms over her shoulders and struggled to lift him. “We have to get you to the sleeping support.”
“Let me die here.” He mumbled into the dirt. “My baby is gone.”
She pushed against the ground with her hands and feet, attempting to heft him upward. He didn’t budge.
Her limbs gave out, his weight flattening her. The male was heavier than he looked. Allinen’s lips twisted. She couldn’t move him to the sleeping support without his help.
“Your mate is alive.” She elbowed him in the chest. He grunted and shifted. “If you’re going to act like a coward and give up, at least do that while lying by her side. She needs you.”
“My mate.” He raised his head.
“Yes, your mate.” She gestured at the sleeping support. “She loves you and needs you. Don’t disappoint her.” As she had done so many times.
“Sisko. My love.” Lanko staggered to his feet and Allinen steadied him, her arms and legs straining from the effort. “Have to. See her. One last time.”
“You’ll see her one more time.” Her muscles ached as she directed him toward her unconscious sister.
He leaned more and more on her with each step, Lanko’s energy quickly dissipating. She fought to keep them both upright.
“So. Beautiful.” Lanko fell forward. He had too much momentum. She was unable to stop him.
He landed on top of her sister. The sleeping support dipped under their combined mass.
Allinen winced. Lanko wasn’t a light male. Sisko would hurt from that contact if…when she opened her eyes.
“Yes, your mate is beautiful.” She rolled Lanko off her sister, onto his back.
“Love her.” As he closed his eyes, he reached out and grasped his mate’s hand.
“I know you love her.” Allinen said that softly, her heart aching. “And she loves you.”
And she would soon lose both of them.
She couldn’t deal with that grief alone. “Come back to me, Doc.” She whispered that into the too-quiet chamber.
Exhaustion from hauling Lanko around, from tending to her sister, from the sadness and sorrow and devastation, overcame her. Her shoulders rounded. He ass lowered to the edge of the now crowded sleeping support.
“I need you, mate. Desperately.”
It was too much to handle on her own.
* * *
One moment, she was holding her sister’s hands, begging her to regain consciousness, to fight, to get better, to live.
The next moment, she was in her cyborg’s arms, being spun around the chamber as though they hadn’t any other care in the universe.
“I must be dreaming.” She clung to his shoulders, wishing this was her reality, wishing that the deaths and illness had been the nightmare.
“You’re not dreaming, my female.” Doc smiled down at her. “We might have a repair for your sister.” His beautiful gray eyes glowed with happiness.
“We might have a repair.” It took a moment for that to register in her grief-stricken, sleep-deprived mind. “We might have a repair.”
She gazed up at him, the impact of that becoming clear. A smile stretched her lips. Sisko, Lanko, others might live. She might not lose them.
“Woot!” Allinen flung her hands into the air.
“
Yes, woot!” Doc smacked his lips against hers, that contact too brief for her liking. “There’s an 85.6923 percent probability it will work.”
“That’s good enough for me.” She’d take those probabilities. “We have hope again.”
“We have hope again.” He turned faster and faster, carrying her with him. Her normally serious cyborg was adorably lighthearted and playful, his optimism feeding hers.
She held onto him and laughed, dizzy with relief, giddy with joy. The male she loved would save the sister she loved. There would be no more loss, no additional sorrow.
Her sister, her sister’s mate, countless others, would have a future. The illness wouldn’t be the end of them, of her kind. They would survive.
Her cyborg stopped spinning but didn’t release her. He held her tight against his chest.
She gazed up at him. Paha teeth. She loved him.
He lowered his face, rested his forehead against hers. “There are things we have to discuss.” His expression turned serious. “If this repair works, it will change your sister. She’ll become a modified humanoid. She’ll be faster, stronger, will repair quickly. That will offset the effects of additional solar cycles on her body.”
Allinen understood the impacts of those changes, having faced them when she had joined with him. “She’ll be like me.”
They would have that in common. And her sister would live forever, would always share the universe with her.
“This illness has already changed her.” Allinen told her cyborg. Her sister wouldn’t be the same being after losing a child. The clouds above. She wasn’t the same. Her niece’s death had altered her. Permanently. “At least this change will be positive.”
“Then we’ll try this repair.” Doc’s head dipped.
That wasn’t a question. Her cyborg wouldn’t intentionally disrespect her in that or any way. But she answered anyway. “Then we’ll try this repair.”
He lowered her feet to the dirt floor. “We’ll inject your sister with a portion of this.” He pulled a small container out of a holster on his body armor.
She glanced at her sister and then at her sister’s mate. They lay beside each other. Their hands remained clasped.
“We’ll inject both of them with a portion of it.” That was the right strategy, the one Sisko and Lanko would choose.
“The repair might not work. Or the results could be worse than nothing happening.” Doc frowned. Her mate was in full medic mode—acting cautiously, weighing every eventuality, calculating every outcome. “There’s a 2.6395 percent probability administering this repair could kill them instantly.”
“Then my sister and her mate die together.” Pain wrapped around her heart as she accepted that possible fate. “They would want it that way.”
Doc hesitated and then nodded, his expression solemn. “I would want it that way, too.”
Her cyborg would choose to die with her. She stared up at him. Her sister had grown up with her mate. They had never not had each other. “You’ve known me for mere planet rotations, had a happy lifespan before meeting me.”
“I had a lifespan.” Her male transferred a portion of the unknown concoction into what appeared to be another type of gun. “I hadn’t experienced true happiness until I met you.”
She blinked back emotion, his cool, matter-of-fact tone making his confession even more poignant. It wasn’t his rash, reckless beast uttering those words. It was his healer side. Every statement had been carefully considered.
Her cyborg flicked the barrel of the gun with his fingertips. “The duration of knowing you isn’t an applicable input when deciding whether or not I would choose to die with you.” His gaze met hers. “You’re my mate, Allinen. I could spend one heartbeat with you and I would feel that same way.”
She agreed. The duration wasn’t relevant. “I wouldn’t want to live without you either.” She loved him, didn’t have the courage to share that.
His eyes gleamed. “We’ll inject your sister first.”
We’ll inject. They would do this together.
Allinen slid between her cyborg and her sister, placed her hands on his as he pressed the injection gun against Sisko’s bare arm.
They tapped the trigger together. Then they moved to her sister’s mate, repeated the process with Lanko.
Her sister and her sister’s mate continued to breathe, their chests rising and falling.
“They didn’t die.” Allinen stated that obvious fact.
“They didn’t die.” Doc exchanged the injection gun for a handheld. “The number of nanohumanics are increasing inside them.” He indicated two sets of numbers. They rapidly adjusted upward.
Nanohumanics must be the Khambalian version of nanocybotics. She leaned back, resting against her cyborg and watched the numbers.
The light around her sister and her sister’s mate brightened.
“It’s working.” Allinen shook with excitement.
Doc hooked one of his arms around her, holding her to him.
Lanko’s eyelashes fluttered. Her breath caught. His eyes opened. They were glassy but he was conscious. She exhaled. Conscious was good, very good.
The male turned his head toward her sister and his gaze cleared. “Mate.” His voice was a croak, so very different from his usual melodic tones.
Allinen retrieved a container of beverage, held it to Lanko’s parched lips. Doc helped the male to lift his head.
Her sister’s mate drank and drank and drank, his throat convulsing as he swallowed. When he was done, he lifted one shaky hand and nudged the container away from him.
“I feel…” He curled his fingers and straightened them once more. “Different.”
“You were very ill.” Allinen softened her voice. “But we found a repair.”
Lanko rolled onto his side and gazed at Sisko. “Give it to my mate.” His love for her sister shone from his pale gold eyes.
“We have given the repair to your mate.” Doc shared that information. “She has been ill longer, will take longer to recover.”
“She will recover.” The male glanced at her cyborg. Worry lines were etched around his lips.
That was a question. Her cyborg and his brethren would have asked it.
“Your mate should recover.” Doc nodded.
“Thank the trees around us.” If there had been any doubt left about Lanko’s devotion to her sister, his visible relief would have erased it. “You’ll recover, mate.” He brushed trembling fingertips over Sisko’s cheeks. “You’ll come back to me.”
Lanko wiggled closer to her sister, pressed his body against his mate’s. It felt like a private moment, one Allinen shouldn’t be observing.
“There must be tasks we need to do.” She looked at Doc.
He nodded. “There are many tasks we need to do.”
She helped him monitor the nanohumanics remaining in the original container. They multiplied at a quick rate. If they continued to do that, there would be enough of them to repair every being in the settlement.
Every being remaining.
As Lanko regained his strength, he used a portion of it to care for Sisko, tidying her hair, cleaning her face, dripping beverage between her dry lips.
Allinen resisted the urge to help him. She might be Sisko’s sister, but Lanko was her mate. He wanted, needed, to tend to the female he loved.
He murmured something into Sisko’s ear, caressed her hand.
Her sister’s eyelids twitched.
“She moved.” Allinen met Doc’s gaze.
“She moved.” He confirmed that fact. “She’s recovering.”
Her sister was recovering. She would survive, would live an almost endless lifespan.
Emotion swelled inside Allinen. It built and built and built until she couldn’t contain it.
“We did it.” She flung herself at her cyborg.
Doc caught her, lifted her until her gaze was level with his. “We did it.”
He captured her lips, kissing her with an intensity that mat
ched her relief. She gripped his shoulders and ravished his mouth as enthusiastically.
Her sister and her sister’s mate would live. Her cyborg was with her. No being in the universe was as happy as she was.
Allinen drew her head back and gazed at him, her heart overflowing with emotion. “I love you so much.”
Then she realized what she had said.
Paha teeth. Her timing had been a mistake.
She’d planned to utter those words to his beast first...if at all. His savage side reacted well to outbursts of emotion.
His cool logical medic side would dismiss them as being irrational. And that was the part of him staring back at her right now. His eyes were a pale gray.
She braced herself for rejection.
Chapter Seventeen
The sister and the sister’s mate had been repaired. His female wouldn’t suffer additional emotional damage.
And she had said the humanoid love words to him.
Warmth spread across Doc’s chest. “I love you too, my mate.” He forced himself to remain still, to not react physically.
His beast prowled within him. If he kissed her, deepened their embrace, he’d lose all control and ravish his female, breed with her right there, right then, in front of her loved ones.
That would emotionally damage her and he would never do that.
His pretty little humanoid’s eyes widened. “I must have misheard you. You’re in your medic role. You couldn’t have said what I thought you said.”
She had an exceptional auditory system…for a humanoid. There was a mere 5.6978 percent probability she had misheard him.
But he would repeat the message as often as she needed to hear it. “There is scientific proof the humanoid love emotion exists. I have confirmed that in myself. Hormones and chemicals in my organic brain—”
“Vauva.” His female’s sister bolted upright on the sleeping support.
Confessions of love were temporarily pushed aside. Both Doc and his female moved toward the sister.
“You’ve come back to us.” Allinen’s eyes glistened with unshed tears.
That was happy damage. Doc suppressed his urge to repair it and grasped a handheld. He scanned the sister.
“I need to see my daughter.” The confused female looked around her. “Take me to wherever you’re keeping Vauva.”
