by Cara Bristol
We stumbled to the bed where I pulled Starr into the crook of my body. Our spent passion scented the air. I covered her breast with my hand and nuzzled her neck.
Starr exhaled a contented sigh. “I give in to you too easily and too fast.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I replied.
She giggled. “I’m sure you don’t.” Then her mood sobered. She twisted in my arms and stroked my horns, sending a heated sensation clear down to my toes. The love in her soft blue eyes made my throat catch. “I would give you everything I have. You’re my mate.”
I remembered my anticipation the day she arrived. Though she hadn’t been what I’d expected, we’d been meant for each other. Despite our rocky meeting, we’d bonded at the start. I could not imagine mating with anyone but Starr. “And you’re mine. Forever and always.”
Epilogue
Starr
Two solar rotations later
“How do I look?” Darq adjusted his kel for the third time.
Torg shrugged. “The same as always.”
I shot him a censuring look and reassured Darq. “Very handsome.” Seated on a high-backed divan, I shifted position and stretched out my legs. Getting comfortable was hard these days, but the baby would be born soon.
“You don’t think I should wear Terran garments?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. The women are coming to meet an alien man. They’ll expect you to look as Dakonian as possible. Brush your hair back. Show off your horns. They’ll love that.”
Darq peered into the mirror I’d received in the last shipment of supplies and finger-combed his hair.
“Perfect.” I flashed a thumbs-up.
“I shouldn’t take the snow skimmer, then.”
Dakonians no longer had to trek on foot—not since Andrea and I had renegotiated the exchange program. We had Enoki inform Earth that since they’d seen fit to allow a dangerous criminal to be sent to Dakon, the shipment of illuvian ore would halt unless certain conditions were met. First, they had to stop sending convicts and open the program to all women. Second. A little reconstruction was in order. They had to bring the planet up to the present age. In the past year, fleets of ships had delivered supplies. But no women until today. It had taken time to retool the recruitment procedure.
This new group of women would arrive on a much different Dakon than the one Andrea, Tessa, and I had landed on. I still missed the woman I’d thought Tessa was. In the lodge when we’d announced Loka had been killed, for the briefest second, I imagined I’d seen a glint of regret in her eyes, but I knew better. There was only cold and darkness. You couldn’t assassinate as many people as she had and retain your humanity. Murder killed both victim and perpetrator. The former lost his life, the latter his soul. Two years had passed since our arrival, and I’d taken to thinking of Tessa as two people because it was easier that way. There’d been our bubbly, cheerful shipmate, and there’d been the cold-eyed killer—who’d gone back to Terra to be convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
I’d learned from Maridelle, with whom I had frequent vid contact, that in its own inept way, my former government had attempted to protect me. The hit had been ordered long before I left Terra. The murder charges and subsequent trial had been a farce, concocted by my government so they could send me out of reach of the Carmichaels.
We all knew how that had worked out.
The one hundred women soon to arrive had been vetted stringently. I’d written the screening procedures myself, and Andrea had hacked into the exchange program’s recruitment protocols and planted them. One of the new arrivals would be Darq’s mate. He’d drawn a chit.
“She’ll prefer to ride by skimmer,” I advised him. “Your female is coming for a Dakonian man, not a two tripta hike in the snow.”
“Oh.”
“Everything will be fine. You’ll do great.”
“Go already!” Torg yelled.
“Torg!”
“No, he’s right.” Darq straightened. “I will see you later. When I return, it will be with my mate.” He hurried from the cave.
“You were rather rude,” I chided Torg. “He’s nervous about the meeting—as I’m sure you were.”
“Maybe a little,” he admitted. “But I wanted to be alone with you and Starlet.” He rubbed my swollen belly.
I, and many of the first arrivals—including Andrea—had proven definitively that Dakonians and Terrans were compatible and could reproduce. Andrea’s baby would be born a month after ours. With as often as Torg and I had sex, I would have been pregnant a lot sooner, except for the contraceptive implant. Something else my former government had failed to plan for. More than three-quarters of the first arrivals were on birth control. After promising compatible, fertile mates, Earth had sent a group of women who couldn’t bear children—at least not for a while. Without the tool to remove the implant, we had to wait for its efficacy to wear off. Andrea and I leveraged that little oversight in our negotiations, too.
“We can’t call our daughter Starlet.” We’d had many discussions but had not yet arrived at an agreement.
“Why not? Your name is Starr; she’ll be our little star.”
“No.” I shook my head.
“We could call her Icha, then,” he said with a straight face.
I punched his arm lightly. “Don’t you even—”
He laughed, and I did, too. My nemesis no longer represented a threat to me or anyone else. I learned that Tessa had told Icha of my conviction so word would spread, Torg’s tribe would expel me, and I’d be forced out into the open. Time had taken care of Icha. She’d lost power as more and more couples gave birth to babies and program opponents decided they preferred a full-time Terran female over a once-in-a-while kel-warmer troublemaker.
I teased Torg, but he would get his way. The name Starlet had grown on me, and anything that made my mate happy, made me happy. I was pleased to have a healthy baby—and a real medical center nearby for the birth of my first child.
One whole shipment of insulated pre-fab housing panels had been used to construct a medical center. Another shipment had provided bio scanners, robo operators, osteoknitters, and other medical devices. Earth physicians and medical technicians provided consultation and training for the Dakonian healers.
I intended to have a home cave birth with Stovak attending, but having the medical center on standby and the skimmer to get there reassured me. It was at the med facility we’d learned the sex of our child. We’d considered waiting to find out in the time-honored manner, but since females were so important to the future, we decided we wanted to know.
Torg’s expression turned serious. “Do you mind still living in the cave?”
Many Dakonians had moved into the pre-fab housing units. They were well insulated against draft and dampness and came with all the conveniences and comforts.
“No, it’s your home. Our home,” I amended. And it had been modified quite a bit. A composite material had been laid over the dirt floor. Space heaters fueled by energy packs warmed the chambers, although we supplemented with wood for atmosphere. I’d gotten used to having a roaring fire. Somewhere on Terra—maybe an antique shop—several woodstoves had been located and shipped to us. We built our fires in those, eliminating the smoke and soot. I owed Andrea for that one. She could find anything. She could locate a single tick in a herd of kel. If kel got ticks; I suspected it was too cold. One day, the Terrans would wake up to discover that half of everything they owned had been mysteriously transported to Dakon.
“Do you mind the way the cave has changed?” I asked him. It didn’t look Dakonian anymore.
I’d furnished it as a Terran home with sofas, a huge massaging hover bed, lamps, artwork, and a full kitchen complete with a flash cooker, although I did none of the cooking. Torg and Darq took care of that. But hey, I wanted to make their lives easier.
“No.” He squeezed my hand. “I’m humbled by what you�
�ve done for us. I did not think I would see this kind of progress in my lifetime. Before you came, we faced extinction. You, Andrea, and the other females gave us more than we could have dreamed of.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “Enoki has decided we should search for others, to see if descendants of asteroid survivors live on the other side of Dakon. Before, the warm season didn’t last long enough for us to go on foot, but now we can travel in the vehicles. A team has volunteered to go.”
“That’s great news.” I knew Torg and his brethren longed to reunite all their people.
He hugged me close to his warm body and rubbed my tummy. “We’re going to call our daughter Starlet, right?”
“We’ll see.” I settled my head on his shoulder, reached up, and caressed his horns. He growled, and I giggled.
Starlet, I can’t wait for you to meet your Daddy. I cuddled next to my alien mate and sighed with contentment.
The End
Read an excerpt from
CLAIMED BY THE CYBORG
Chapter One
March gripped the nav stick of the ZX7M and hailed Xenia’s control center. “This is Marchand Fellows of Moonbeam Remanufacturing requesting permission to dock at the imperial palace, manifest delta charley echo nine nine five.”
“Manifest confirmed. Permission granted,” came the reply. “What is your ETA?”
“Estimated time of arrival is twenty minutes,” the ZX7M’s computer answered for him.
“Is this your first visit to Xenia?” Flight Control asked.
“Yes.” He had tried for years to get entry credentials, but permission had been denied. Only recently had the Xenian emperor begun to admit a few offworlders. The upcoming imperial wedding would be the first time a large number of aliens set foot on the planet. If all went well, perhaps restrictions would be lifted.
“Set docking coordinates to zero three, seven three.”
“Roger that,” he said, closing the comm link, and releasing his breath in a shaky whoosh.
What if he succeeded in locating Jules? What would he say? Funny meeting you again. Long time no see. How’s life? Why the hell did you leave without a good-bye?
Nanos put a brake on his racing pulse, but memories of the woman who’d burned a hole in his heart spun in his head faster than the energy coil in the ship’s engine.
He told himself he needed to be realistic. Not get his hopes up. If he hadn’t located Jules in five years of searching, the odds of finding her now were slim. He didn’t even know her parents’ names. With so little to go on, he couldn’t approach Xenian authorities, and since the planet had been closed to outsiders, he hadn’t been able to canvass her home world himself. Still, his exhaustive database search should have turned up something.
He’d been ready to concede defeat when his boss at the spacecraft factory had offered him a chance to deliver the luxury ship to the emperor of Xenia.
When Jules first disappeared, he’d been frantic, fearing something terrible had befallen her. But, as time had passed and no reports of tragedies involving her had surfaced, he had been forced to assume her disappearance had been a voluntary act. She didn’t want to be found. Still, the need to confirm she was okay had persisted.
Liar.
He wanted answers. Why had she left without explanation or a hint of her intentions? Was it something about him that had caused her to run? Had she cared for him at all?
He wished he had more time, but his limited visa granted him only enough to conduct his business, so he’d have to make the most of those few hours. It was probably a futile endeavor anyway. Factoring in population and the shortness of his visit, his cyborg brain calculated the odds of locating her at one-tenth of one percent.
Then again, he’d faced worse odds as a field agent for Cyber Operations. I shouldn’t give up hope before I even get started.
March keyed in the landing coordinates provided by the control center and switched operation to the computer. He could pilot a ship blindfolded through an asteroid belt backward, but Emperor Dusan expected and had paid for a ship that could pilot itself, so having the ZX7M fly in and dock under her own power would demonstrate her capabilities. An entire fleet of the ships was in production at Moonbeam.
Xenia appeared, a huge pink orb, its color arising from an atmospheric gas that turned rosy when shot with starlight. He’d heard that at dusk, pink shifted to lavender and then darkened to purple. The spacecraft entered the troposphere and then leveled out, zooming over the ocean. Land appeared as fields of persimmon and periwinkle, and in the distance, the gray swath of a runway.
Adjusting coordinates, the craft lined up with the landing strip. It touched down without a bump and taxied toward the hangar at the imperial compound. After cutting the engines, the computer opened the hatch.
A man and woman in identical crisp dark-purple uniforms stood at attention outside. Terrans had a name for the color—the microprocessor in March’s brain pulled the information from his database. Eggplant. A species of nightshade with edible fruit indigenous to Earth. Xenians knew nothing about eggplants and called the color huber, and only those connected to the emperor wore it.
So they were guards, albeit unarmed. The pacifist Xenians had done away with warfare and weaponry a millennium ago. Perhaps their defenselessness was what made them so wary of outsiders.
“Welcome,” the woman said. “Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“Very nice,” he replied.
“Glad to hear it. If you’re ready, we’ll escort you to the palace.”
“Great. Thank you.” March descended the few steps to the dock.
“You did not come with baggage?” the male guard asked.
He lugged plenty of baggage, but not of the suitcase variety. He shook his head. “I won’t be here long.” Only for a pit stop to deliver the ship and steal what time he could before he notified his boss to pick him up.
“So you’re not here for the imperial bonding?”
“No, just delivering the wedding gi—ship.” Maybe the gift was a secret. Wouldn’t it be his luck to cause a political incident by spoiling Dusan’s surprise wedding gift to his daughter and her consort-to-be. Dale Homme, Moonbeam’s owner, and Carter both would have his head. His boss wanted to maintain smooth working relations with his biggest customer, and Cyber Operations director Carter Aymes had been finagling for a Cy-Ops outpost. Located midway between Terra and Lamis-Odg, Xenia was prime galactic real estate. Everyone wanted a piece of it: Cyber Operations, the Association of Planets, the Terran government, and the Lamis-Odg terrorists.
Pacifist, but also isolationist and fiercely protective of its culture, the planet had avoided galactic interaction until AOP Ambassador Penelope Aaron had convinced the emperor to join the alliance. Carter hadn’t been so lucky with his negotiations. Though civil and hospitable, Emperor Dusan had refused to allow any alien bases on native soil. However, the Cy-Ops director had high hopes—and the man pursued his goals with relentless dedication.
March had been on the receiving end of Carter’s ambitions. The director had been working on him to re-up with Cy-Ops, but he had held firm, occasionally tossing Carter a bone by accepting a freelance assignment.
“Come this way, please,” the female guard said. “The PeeVee is waiting.”
Most personal vehicles held a single row of passenger seating behind a front cab. Twice as long as a normal PeeVee, this one’s back passenger area held two banks of seats with spacious room in between to stretch one’s legs. From its gleaming exterior to its padded interior, the vehicle proclaimed luxury and wealth.
The male guard got in the cab; the female joined March in the back, sitting opposite him. “Computer, take us to the imperial palace,” the male ordered.
“Acknowledged. Prepare for departure,” the PeeVee responded.
As smooth as a ZX7M, the vehicle launched, skimming over rooftops. With a bird’s-eye view, March admired the order and cleanliness of the imperial shuttleport. From the databa
nks in his cyborg brain, he knew the public transport depots were equally maintained.
Squat arboreal plants, their version of trees, in jewel tones of green, plum, rose, and azure, dotted the landscape. A herd of feathered antelope grazing in a field of purple grasses stampeded as the PeeVee buzzed overhead. Pink-tinged water tumbled in meandering streams. The planet looked as Jules had described it—colorful, vibrant, exotic.
She had said the urban areas were as pristine as the rural ones since great attention had been paid to develop and preserve garden areas. There were no concrete jungles. Had Jules lived in the country or the city? Had she returned home at all? He didn’t know.
“Your planet is very beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you.” The guard’s smile radiated pride. “Our emperors have been great stewards. We did not do as so many others did and develop our technology at the expense of our natural resources. How can you survive if you pollute and destroy your home?”
“Problematic,” he agreed. Terra had followed that route for centuries until the planet governance united under one president who had reversed the course. Much of Mother Earth had healed herself, but some injuries ran too deep to repair. Like some betrayals. I never should have come here. What is the point? Obviously, she doesn’t want to be found.
“I suppose if one ruins one’s planet, one could find a new one,” she suggested.
“Some people have tried.” Some races did abandon their polluted worlds and venture into the galaxy for a new homeland. However, planets most hospitable to life were already inhabited—and indigenous populations didn’t always welcome interlopers. One branch of the AOP devoted itself to resettlement assistance.
