by Susan Hayes
“Is not the cause.” Braxon reiterated.
“You tell them, babe,” Phaedra muttered.
“Babe?” Braxon gave her a look of horror. “I’m no child.”
“It’s a term of affection. I’ll explain, later.”
“No term of affection for me?” Now that he was aware of the cause of her pain, Tyr made sure to speak in her language. There would be no more translation work until they found a way to do it safely.
“Yours is a work in progress.” She gave him a weak smile and then closed her eyes again.
“And yours is now officially Trouble, Kari.” Archer commented, and for a second the older man’s expression softened into one of affection as he looked down at Phaedra. “Take good care of her,” he said and then he was gone, taking an anxious-looking Echo with him.
“Where’s River?” Phaedra asked.
“I’m here,” the cyborg answered in a guarded whisper.
Phae’s eyes opened again and she looked around in confusion. “Where?”
“Under the table, out of sight.”
“Which is probably the best place for you right now. Archer has taken Echo out of the room and away from these fools. You stay with us and we’ll keep you safe,” Braxon said.
The room quieted, and Tyr realized that while he’d been focusing on Phaedra, Corp-Sec officers had arrived and were escorting the other attendees from the room.
As the noise diminished, Phaedra’s color started to return, but when she tried to sit up he tightened his grip, keeping her still. “Lie still, jeza. No moving until your medics say so.”
“Are you bossing me again?”
“Yes.”
She sighed. “I’ll let it go, but only this one time.”
He held her until the medics arrived, and even then he was loathe to let go of her until they insisted. They had her sit up as they scanned her and asked her questions. By then the room was empty and she answered their questions as candidly as she could. The medi-bots were already healing her. Once she stopped taxing herself, the nanotech was able to work fast enough to get ahead of the problem, and an injection of pain-blockers had her looking almost herself again in no time.
“Can I get back to work now?” she asked once they were convinced she was healthy.
“No.” He, Braxon, and the med-tech all said at once.
“You need to rest, ma’am. At least for today. You know better than I do what’s causing these headaches, but if you don’t let your body heal, then it’s going to happen again.”
“I need to be here,” she argued.
“We want you here, but not if it’s going to risk your health. We’re taking you back to the ship.” Tyran helped her get to her feet, then bent and scooped her into his arms before she could take a single step.
“I can walk.”
Braxon growled in frustration. “You could, but you’re not going to. Resting starts now.”
“Now you’re both bossing me around?”
“Yes.” They both answered together.
River uttered a faint laugh. “It’s like they share a brain, at least where you’re concerned. They’re right, Phae. If your, uh, enhancements can’t keep up with the strain, you need to take a break. What if you do permanent damage to yourself?”
“I won’t. I just overdid it this morning.”
“Which is why you won’t be translating at all this afternoon,” Tyr said.
Her green eyes turned stormy. “Who is going to translate for you if I’m not there?”
He lifted her higher into his arms and started for the door. “We’ll manage. Anything we don’t understand we’ll bring to you to review tonight. Nothing is going to be signed today. In fact, given how uneasy everyone seems to be, I doubt we’ll make much progress at all.”
“I hate this. I feel completely useless.”
“You’re not,” he told her. Tyran wanted to tell her that she was the most important thing in the world to him, to them, and they’d rather risk blowing a hundred negotiations than to let anything happen to her. Tonight, the three of them would find a way to either fix the issues with the translation program interface or make do without it.
Chapter Twelve
True to his word, Tyran had carried her back to the Santar without ever letting her feet touch the ground. Thankfully, Archer had instructed their security detail to order a transport to take them most of the way, so the number of beings who saw her carried like a heroine from some over-the-top romance vid was less than it might have been if they’d walked the whole way.
Back at the ship, River had made herself scarce, leaving her alone with her two stubborn lovers. They’d gone to the med-bay first, running another set of scans to confirm there was nothing the med-techs had missed. She’d tried to argue, but there was no deterring them. As annoyed as she was with their attitudes, it was hard to protest when every demand they made was because they cared about her.
Once the scans confirmed that she was fine, Braxon picked her up and carried her to Tyran’s quarters. They stripped her, kissed her, and then tucked her into bed.
“If you need anything, call us,” Braxon repeated for what had to be the fifth time. He was standing beside Tyran, the two of them so close they were almost touching.
She gave an airy wave of her hand. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to take a page out of Tyr’s playbook and make the droids fetch me stuff all afternoon while I lounge around and eat chocolate. That’s what royalty does, right?”
Tyr turned a shimmering silver and flashed her a dangerous smile that showed his fangs. “You will pay for that remark, mahaya. But not until you are recovered.”
“I’m recovered now. Blow off the meeting and I’ll prove it to you.” She patted the bed beside her.
“As appealing as that offer is, you haven’t rested yet. If we join you in that bed, you won’t get any rest for hours,” Tyr pointed out, though the sheen of his skin told her he was tempted to give in.
Not that she wanted them to stay. She had plans for the rest of her day, and they didn’t involve staying in bed. She needed to figure out what was wrong with the translation interface and fix it. Even more pressing, she had to jack-in and start looking into some of the other corporation reps. Some of them had shown a new and alarming level of fear of the two cyborgs present today. How could any of them think that Echo would poison her? Even if they weren’t friends, the killings so far had all been carefully handled. No suspects. No evidence left behind, and all of them had been made to look like accidents. It didn’t make sense to blame Echo.
She made herself stay in bed for ten long minutes after they said goodbye. She even shut her eyes, so if they asked, she could honestly tell them she’d rested. When she felt like enough time had passed, she hopped out of bed again and tossed on her favorite pair of pants and a comfy, too-big shirt. Vardarian clothes were pretty, but they allowed for a lot of drafts and bare skin sticking to the backs of chairs. For what she was about to do, comfort was key.
Her next stop was the med-bay. She needed to take another look at the scans and try to figure out why the interface was triggering her headaches. She had expected them to get better, not worse. If she and the ship’s AI couldn’t figure it out, she’d ask Alyson once she was back from their honeymoon on Vega-Axion station.
“Ship, call up my medical scans and display alongside the data from the translation program interface.” She asked in Vardarian as she entered the med-bay. She’d spent enough time speaking the language that she didn’t need the translator for basic communications.
“Access denied.” The computer replied in Galactic Standard.
“What do you mean, access denied? By who?”
“That question has triggered a recorded message. Do you wish for me to play it?”
She gritted her teeth. “Yes. I do.”
A projection shimmered into existence a few feet ahead of her. Tyr and Braxon’s faces were clearly visible, as were the smug smiles on their too handsome for their own
good faces. “If you are seeing this message, then you’re not in bed, resting like you are supposed to be,” Tyr said.
“To help remind you of what you are supposed to be doing, we have instructed the ship’s AI to restrict your access to the translation program and your medical data for the rest of the day. Go back to bed, Phae. We’ll see you soon.” Braxon finished with a wave, and the projection vanished.
“Well, fraxx. Those two weren’t supposed to get wise to my bad habits that fast.” She sighed and briefly contemplated trying to hack in and override the computer, but it would likely take hours. That was time she could spend doing something else, like trying to find out why the Bellex rep, Nadira Finn, was so terrified of cyborgs. They were a shipbuilding company, and as far as she knew they hadn’t even taken part in the Resource Wars. They made their money selling ships and tech to all sides, then waiting to see who was still standing when it was all over.
She left the med-bay and went back to the Tyr’s quarters. She still thought of them as his, but as she looked around and saw her brush on the dresser, and her clothes hanging in his closet, she had to admit that it wasn’t just his space. It was theirs. Bonded or not, their lives were blending into something new.
“Hey, ship, any other restrictions on my activities?”
“Negative. Is there something you wish to do?”
“Yeah, eat. Send a droid over with a couple of peanut and banana sandwiches, a glass of milk, oh, and a chocolate sundae. Two cherries, lots of fudge sauce.”
“Affirmative. Your meal is being prepared.”
One of the first things she’d done after moving onboard was to provide the ship with food dispenser programs with all her favorite things. While it wasn’t able to replicate everything, there was enough selection to keep her happy, and when she had the time she kept adding more information and providing samples for the system to scan so it could improve. There were definitely some perks to all this new technology.
While she waited for her lunch to arrive, she dropped into one of the chairs by the windows and activated her computer. She’d claimed the sitting area as her make-shift office, and everything she needed to jack-in was laid out and ready for her.
She picked up the data jack and felt the same thrill she had the first time she’d jacked in - a mix of anticipation and adrenaline. Cyberspace was the one place she wasn’t afraid to fly. It was a world without rules, one where even the laws of physics could be broken. It would take her a few hours at least, but by the time Braxon and Tyr returned, she was determined to have at least some idea why the Bellex rep was convinced the cyborgs were dangerous.
“I told you she wasn’t going to stay in bed.” Braxon muttered as he spotted Phaedra reclined in a chair near the viewing area. She was still linked to cyberspace, and judging by the stale remnants of her meal, she’d been in there for hours.
“She is the most stubborn female I’ve ever met. Even my sister doesn’t compare,” Tyr replied, looking down at their mate with a mixture of frustration and affection.
“The day those two meet for the first time, we should probably ensure neither of them is armed.”
“I’m not sure they should ever meet in person. My sister may try to blame her for my decision to leave. She’s never experienced the sharhal. She won’t understand that this wasn’t Phaedra’s doing, it was the will of our ancestors.”
“But we have to go back. The diaspora. The plan…”
“Once we have the planet and permission to colonize, I will contact my sister and tell her everything. As scouts, we already had the authority to negotiate. As a member of the royal family, I have the right to approve such ventures. By the time Neha knows what we’re doing here, it will be too late for her to do anything but agree. If she doesn’t, then I will still declare a diaspora, and any trade agreements we’ve made will belong exclusively to our new colony.”
Braxon hadn’t realized just how carefully Tyran had planned this. Not until now. “That’s brilliant. Neha will never forgive you, though.”
“I think she will, in time. This is for the good of the Empire.”
Braxon laughed. “And it just so happens to be very good for us, too.”
“A happy accident.” Tyr smiled. It was an expression he wore more often these days. “I will miss my mother, though. And Shen.”
“I doubt you’ll miss your mother or your father’s anrik for long. Do you really think she’ll stay on Vardaria and miss the chance to meet our mate? And when there are grandchildren to spoil, I imagine we’ll see her often.”
“True.” Tyran’s answering laughter was enough to rouse Phaedra from her fugue.
“Hey, you two are back early.” She indulged in a bone-cracking stretch before unplugging herself.
“We’re back exactly when we said we’d be. You must have lost track of time.” He frowned. “Did you get any rest at all?”
“A little.”She got to her feet and stretched again. “How did this afternoon go?”
“Slowly. We spent most of it discussing the addition of River and the other survivors to the colony. Some of the corporations are very eager to see the problem resolved. Others are not pleased by the idea at all. I don’t understand it. Even if they fear them, surely settling them on a planet where they’ll spend the rest of their lives as peaceful colonists is of benefit to everyone?” Tyr said.
“I was wondering the same thing.” She tapped the data-port on her neck. “So, I did some digging.”
“And what did you find, my stubborn little jeza?” Braxon asked.
“Not much, yet. I managed to get into a few accounts. Mostly the mid-level reps. I didn’t find anything useful in their backgrounds. What I have noticed is that some of the upper management types have some serious security protecting their data. Like, military level encryptions and coding that I’ve never even seen before.”
“What if you’re caught?” Tyr demanded, a concern that Braxon shared.
“I won’t be. I was careful. Even if the hacks I did today are detected, they’ll never trace it back to me.”
Braxon sighed and reached for her, pleased when she came into his arms without argument. “Is all this truly necessary?”
“Something’s going on. Nadira Finn is terrified of cyborgs, but there’s no reason she should be. As far as I can tell, she’s never even been in the same room with one before today. She’s a minor executive for a company that didn’t even take part in the Resource Wars. When I tried to take a closer look at her, I hit a wall. The same weird code and high security as with some of the others. It doesn’t make sense. She’s a nobody.”
“You’re putting yourself at risk again,” he pointed out.
“Maybe. But if I don’t, who will? They were ready to believe that Echo tried to poison me today with no evidence at all. If that fear is allowed to spread, soon my friends will lose everything they’ve worked for. I want to know why someone’s trying to make that happen.”
He didn’t like it, but he understood her desire to protect her friends. Tyran didn’t look pleased either, but he gave a resigned nod.
“Be careful. Every day seems to bring more complications and dangers.”
“I’m always careful,” she said airily. Then she looked from him to Tyr and spoke again, this time in a more serious tone. “I promise I’ll take every precaution. I didn’t mean to be glib. I just… I’m not used to having someone worry about me the way you two do. I like it, but it’s going to take a little getting used to.”
Tyr leaned in close and whispered just loud enough for Braxon to hear, “We will always worry about you, mahaya. You are the most precious thing in the galaxy to us.”
Tyran didn’t have much of an appetite for their evening meal. He had too much on his mind to eat. Though Phaedra was much better now, he couldn’t forget how pale and fragile she had looked as he held her unconscious body that afternoon. They spoke her language to keep her from accessing the translation program.
“I’ve been thinking about
the problem with the translator program, and I have an idea,” she announced near the end of dinner.
“I’m sure you have several. After all, you had all afternoon to think about it while you were blocked from accessing the med-bay files,” Braxon said.
“And don’t think I’ve forgotten about that, either. You could have just told me to stay in bed and rest.”
“We did. Repeatedly,” Tyr pointed out as he pushed his almost untouched meal aside.
“And we knew you wouldn’t, because that’s not who you are,” Braxon finished.
“How’s your headache? Do you need more pain-blocker before we start looking into this idea of yours?”
“I’m fine.” She paused. “Actually, I’m really fine. No pain at all.”
“Then let’s go to the medical bay and figure out what’s wrong.”
“Great. Once we know it’s working right, we can figure out how to connect you and Braxon, too. It shouldn’t be hard, but if I’m right, we might have to make some changes, first.”
“What kind of changes?” Braxon asked.
“I’ll explain once we’re in the medical bay. I need to look at my scans to confirm something, first.”
They left the remains of their meals for the servo-droids to clean up and proceeded to the medical area. It occurred to Braxon that they’d spent more time in this room in the last six or seven days than they had in all the rest of the time they’d been on this mission. When they got approval for the colony, they’d have to be sure the list of colonists included a fair number of medically-trained beings for both species.
Phae went straight to the center console and placed her hand, the one with the data port, on the surface. After a moment she grunted in frustration and looked back at them. “One of you will need to tell the ship I’m allowed to access my records now. I’m still locked out.”
Tyr chuckled. “One moment.”
“And that’s something else I want to talk about. When do I get to interface with the ship, too?” She arched a bright pink eyebrow at them both.
