Liberation's Kiss: A Science Fiction Romance (Robotics Faction Book 1)

by Wendy Lynn Clark

He struggled to shrug it off. “Hurry up. The longer we take, the more time they have to position weapons around the exits.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cressida followed the man-shaped android who had promised to keep her alive—and cut her open, the back of her mind whispered—through the dim shaft, her throat clenching with blast powder. Her hands throbbed, rough and scraped, from when he had dragged her across the concrete. She had never been so terrified as that moment, believing herself safe and finally able to relax after three days, suddenly realizing he was a representative of the very faction trying so desperately to kill her.

  What if he figured out why the Robotics Faction wanted her dead and decided it was a legitimate reason? And yet, she still followed behind him, deeper and deeper into the unknown.

  He ducked beneath a pipe, limping badly now. That was partly her fault for making him run. But how could he blame her reaction?

  Only days after her twelfth birthday party, her parents had intercepted the confidential leak. It was like an execution order from God.

  On Dinar IV, the Robotics Faction supplied everything from the nanobots that created the air she breathed to the smart chip that broadcast her health, needs, and preferences to the myriad life support and recreational devices that made life possible and pleasant on airless, irradiated Dinar IV. How could the maker of all things, whose name was branded across every surface she touched and inside even the clothes she wore, want her dead? And how could she argue that there had been a mistake, that whatever she had done, she was sorry? Who could she beg to be removed from a top-secret list no one officially controlled and no one was ever supposed to see?

  Her parents had packed her up in the night and fled, leaving behind everything, even her two siblings. Her older half-brother, Aris, had gone to his father’s more powerful family for protection, but her sweet, younger sister, Mercury, had volunteered for a deadly black market experiment to switch identification chips. If it had been successful, the same surgery could have reunited their family and saved Cressida.

  Mercury had never awoken from the coma.

  Cressida and her parents had resettled as diplomats on Liberation VI, a small mining moon with a pleasant enough living environment that did not require the constant daily intervention of Robotics Faction technology. Most importantly, Liberation VI was disconnected from the galactic networks. Cressida had effectively dropped from sight. She was finally safe.

  Only now that the Nar had invaded and reconnected the moon, her identity had transmitted across those networks. The Robotics Faction had come for her. Just as threatened fourteen years ago.

  This robot, Xan, had already saved her. Several times over.

  And that was why, when he’d rested his wide palms on her head and possibly, just possibly, nuzzled her, reason had rebelled.

  Cressida was tired of being a victim. She was tired of running and hiding. She was tired of dwelling on the continuing fracture of her family, the death threats that denied her parents their well-earned careers, the endless loneliness without her beloved siblings, the quest for perfection she could never achieve.

  Being with a man like Xan would erase all of her thoughts and let her exist. It was why she gave herself to the briefest, wickedest fantasy.

  She wanted his body pressed against her, covering her with his masculine strength. She wanted those strong hands stroking her body and bringing her to life while his powerful thigh hooked over her buttocks, drawing her under his protection. She wanted a hundred forbidden treats—to tease his sensitive lips, to nibble the muscle that clenched in his rough jaw, to lick the Adam’s apple at his neck, to taste his captivating flavor. Need hummed under her skin, demanding attention. She wanted to paint her desires on his naked canvas like an ancient symbol, woman united to man.

  But he wasn’t a man.

  And this time, her parents wouldn’t be here to whisk her to safety.

  She cleared her throat. “Where are we going after we reach the transit hub?”

  “Ideally, off world.” He paused at a crossroads. The way split into four directions, and he glanced briefly down each before turning confidently to the left. “Why didn’t your parents alter your ID chip?”

  “You can’t,” she said.

  “Sure you can.”

  “I mean, you aren’t supposed to. It’s too risky.”

  “It’s about the same as any invasive brain surgery. Go in with a backup.”

  “Any backups were lost on Dinar IV.”

  “No one ‘loses’ a resurrection point.”

  “Explain that to your superiors.”

  He dropped silent.

  That was how her parents knew the confidential leak was true. All citizens on technologically advanced planets received three brain scans in childhood so that if they should die before reaching maturity, the government would fund their resurrection. Shortly after the leak, her resurrection points were all mysteriously erased. The Robotics Faction truly meant Cressida to die.

  “You should have done it here,” he said.

  “Liberation VI has no facilities. They’re so poor by galactic standards that any resurrect would end up indentured. And anyway, the point is that changing your chip ID isn’t allowed. I’d be an illegal.”

  “Better alive on the black market than dead in a state funeral.”

  Her palms sweated. She rubbed them on her travel robe. “What life would I have if everything about me were erased?”

  “You’d have a life,” he said, stopping briefly at a console and keying in numbers.

  Transmission initiated…. Success, the screen read, stamped with two different New Empire bank logos.

  His arms flexed, and the console metal shrieked as it ripped off the wall, showering sparks and dangling wires. He tossed it into a corner and continued walking.

  “We’d waltz you onto the first outbound shuttle. You can’t smuggle an extra ounce on an outbound shuttle without the weight gyros freaking out. Your parents should have thought of that.”

  In actual fact, they had. And that thought had cost her sister. But Cressida had no reason to tell Xan. “So how else am I going to get off world?”

  “I have to think about it,” he said.

  They wound through the heart of the capital city via its underground. Cressida had never walked it before, always chauffeuring intergalactic guests in official state carriages, and although she had thought the transit hub close, her legs ached and mouth gummed by the time they finally climbed into the hub ventilation and reached a drop into the men’s decontam room.

  Xan hung from the ceiling and examined the security cameras. They were coated with old residue. He shook his head at their fortune and lowered her into the empty room.

  If there was one thing a mining station did right, it was clean-up stations. A powder bath dispensed grime-removing silicate, a vacuum wand removed any stray radiation, and stalls showered sterilizing light, bleaching tough stains to the same color as hair, skin, and clothes. She hurried to the silicate bath, eager to scrub herself free of the horrifying grit of the last hour.

  A subtle red tint to the light fixture informed her that she was in the wrong room for her gender.

  Xan swore softly and clamped his hands over her head. The shock of his sudden touch froze her in place. The indicators returned to normal. “We should’ve gone another couple feet. It wouldn’t have done anything if we dropped in the women’s.”

  She struggled to remain calm. Not because she was afraid, but because she desperately wanted to melt into him.

  Press herself to his hard body, wrap her cool hands around his blistering hot back, feel the cords of muscle ripple beneath her hungry fingers….

  No. He was a robot.

  She pulled back and tugged him toward the silicate. God, she could almost taste its sweet cleansing scent.

  With him cupping her forehead, she coated herself in sand, wicking away the destruction of her former home and making her skin shine. She dusted her hair and her travel clothe
s, so dingy only bleach could repair the tarnishes. He studied her impersonally, ensuring that she covered every visible inch, no matter how embarrassing.

  After she finished enough to satisfy him, he lifted his chin. “Do me.”

  Cressida was already doing him in her mind. Wrapping her fantasy in the heat beneath the uniform, the soldier beneath the mission, the earthy rescuer in the shape of this attractive, sexual man. Her fear was that the images in her mind would merge into reality. And she couldn’t allow that to happen.

  She put her hand under the dispenser, received her palm-full of silicate, and swallowed.

  The silver gash gleamed like a metal scar, jaggedly frightening against his otherwise human-seeming face.

  Concentrate on the scar.

  She dipped her fingers in the white sand and carefully brushed it against his cheekbones. They were wide and flat and so warm beneath her fingertips. She brushed sand across his wide forehead and down his long nose, to the sensitive divot above his lips, and across the indent in his chin.

  He focused on her, hot and electrifying, as the dirt adhered and fell away, revealing his clean, masculine beauty.

  A pounding started in her center, just below her chest. Fear, she told herself, and not the memory of how safe she had felt after his kiss. He could break her in half if he wanted to. The gentleness with which he cupped her head was only a mirage. It hid his true danger.

  His skin, ragged at the edges of the cut, wasn’t red. Not like a human’s. But he seemed so human in other ways. She traced the scar softly. “Does it hurt?”

  He licked his lips. “Like hell.”

  “It doesn’t bleed.”

  “Because of the magnetese bonded to my blood cells.”

  The dry edge of metal looked so smooth. Magnetese cost millions of credits per gram. Even rich interstellar crafts only painted a micrometer-thick veneer across the escape pods. Sometimes only across the captain’s escape pod. Her fingertips ghosted across it.

  He stilled beneath her tentative touch, scarcely seeming to breathe, as though afraid of chasing her away. “As soon as I detect a hull breach, a jolt binds the magnetese to the clot.”

  “Useful if you get cut,” she said.

  “It’s so I can still fight even if I get blown out a pressurization hatch,” he said. “I’ve got about fourteen minutes before depressurization fugue causes brain death.”

  “So expensive, for such a short time?”

  “I’m a gold-plated bot.”

  His flippant acknowledgment of his true nature made him even more appealing. She tried to ignore the deeper throb as her hands slid down, embracing the wide span of his neck where it met his broad shoulders and the hot, hard, indelible chest. His tapered waist, perfect for fitting between her thighs. His solid butt tensed beneath the flight suit, his bulging thighs powerful enough to thrust all night. Even his bony ankles, or his broad feet. She finished dusting him and stopped.

  He met her heated cheeks. “You forgot a part.”

  She swallowed. “You can get that.”

  “If I let go, your position is broadcast across the station.”

  She swallowed again.

  “I can’t go out there with a huge dirt patch in such an obvious place.”

  She powdered her hands and patted in a swift, downward motion that only touched the long, hard edge of an arousal she wanted to press herself against. Her breath caught.

  Why was it that the first man she had ever found herself uncontrollably attracted to wasn’t a man at all, but her enemy?

  She swallowed all of her wrong feelings down and quickly dusted off her hands on her own throbbing thighs.

  He was staring at her.

  Heat splotched her chest. “I— What?”

  The gray flared into green, sprinkling desire on her like starlight. His hard lips parted. He was going to kiss her again. And she wanted so much to taste it.

  She gasped and jerked back, her hands pressed to his lips. “No.”

  He nibbled her fingers. Sweet, sensitive bites. “Why not?”

  “Because.” Desire throbbed through her. She wanted him, like she hadn’t wanted anything. “You’re an android.”

  “And?”

  Her mouth opened and closed. “Why do you want to?”

  “That was one hell of a come-on.”

  Coolness seeped into her. “You’re the one who said I missed a spot.”

  “I meant my back.”

  Coolness froze into shock. Her mouth dropped open.

  His lips quirked. “Really? I said you missed a spot and you immediately thought of the four-by-six-inch wedge of my cock and not the four-foot square target across the back of my torso?”

  “I—I—I—” she stammered, quickly filling her palms and throwing her arms around him to dust his back. “I’m very sorry. Excuse me.”

  He grinned, a teasing smile. “Hey, it all had to be done.”

  “Yes. Um.” She patted him. “There.”

  His voice dropped. “Cressida.”

  “Y-yes?”

  He stood, so solid and powerful, in her arms. A true soldier, dedicated to his mission. His voice was gently rough. “Thanks.”

  Her breasts swelled against his hard chest. Too close. She was way too close. But even so, she didn’t move away. “Yeah.”

  He rested one hand on the small of her back and drew her closer.

  Her breath caught. She licked her suddenly dry lips. “What?”

  His eyes glowed. “You’re doing it again.”

  She could fall into those depths. “Doing what?”

  He dropped his head and brushed her parted lips with his.

  Heat flared through her. Even though he was a machine, he tasted like a man. A hard, rough, soldier of a man. She wanted to tangle her hands in his hair and wrap her legs around his body. Delicious need spiraled through her. She wanted to forget the last three days and the last three hours and drown in her feelings. She wanted him to make her lose control.

  But control was all she had.

  She gasped and jerked back. “You’re crazy.”

  His gaze, hot and unfocused, blinked on her ragged breath and nervous straightening of her travel jumpsuit. A knowing smile curved his too-human lips. “Oh yeah?”

  She couldn’t reply.

  His tone turned easy. “Maybe I am. Analysis isn’t my subtype’s strength.” He maneuvered around her and peeked out into the rest of the hub. “And I’m done for any more physical stunts until I get my bolts oiled. Let’s see if we can get some use out of my logic processors before I blow a fuse.”

  ~*~*~*~

  The high-impulse wave traveled across billions of light-years in less time than it took to cross from one neuron to another. The android known as Xelia|Brae awoke.

  Orders poured into her brain. Retrieve a rogue x-class soldier and execute his human target.

  She opened her eyes and stepped out of the storage capsule that had transported her body from its construction origin in the Mainframe Nebula to this remote way-station, an asteroid caught on the gravitational edge of a solar storm slightly closer to the gas giant Navidi and its moons than any other highly classified Faction null-storage site. The capsule beside hers stood empty.

  It had belonged to Xan|Arch.

  She strode down the single corridor, her blood magnetically striving for the magnetic grav-belt beneath the floor and dragging her entire body at near g-force down with it. Only her tendrils of hair floated free of her face, the dead protein unencumbered by the material pulsing through her living pores. Her bones, like all x-classes, were non-magnetic titanium alloy, but the hollows were filled with magnetese-saturated human blood protein. Her pressurization readings were perfect, but she swore it sloshed, just slightly, when she walked.

  The details of the assignment filtered in for analysis and review. One stood out.

  What are the coordinates of Xan|Arch’s body?

  The answer came before she had finished formulating the question: Coordinat
es unknown.

  That was odd. Usually androids that lost all connection waited, paralyzed, at their last connected location. What caused the rogue condition?

  Classified.

  Again, an odd answer. She requested and received satellite footage. On pixels, Xan|Arch scaled a courtyard wall, strode across a garden, and disappeared.

  She zoomed. But no matter how large she blew up the pixels playing across the inside of her retinas, he walked straight into air. The blind spot expanded as more troops entered the area, until the explosion that filled the sky with particulates accomplished the same blinding.

  Yet, her superiors in the Faction knew what had happened within the blind spot. They knew, and refused to tell her.

  It must be irrelevant to her assignment. She shut off any cells that hinted at curiosity and asked another question. Is Xan|Arch visible to eyes-on?

  Unknown.

  So, she was to capture her predecessor without knowing whether she could actually see or sense him, and without knowing what had caused his rogue state.

  Understood.

  She followed Xan|Arch’s ghostly footsteps to the supplies room. The flight suit suctioned to her body, sealing along the seams, controlling her hair. In the armory, she removed the second fully charged shatter-pistol and pressed it to her right hip. She stepped into the drop-ship, closed the hatches, and navigated away from the station.

  A fist-sized rock bumped the hull.

  She paused for a structural analysis, but the thrusters were already engaged, and once burned, fuel would take a hundred years to re-accumulate. Well, if the hull had breached, she would burn up on entry, and the next x-class would be awoken. She pushed open the throttle. The drop-ship bucked and shuddered as its solar thrusters accelerated her up to light speed and dropped her into the Tube.

  The important thing about the Tube wasn’t its concentric rings of accelerators. The important thing was that it was constantly patrolled by maintenance drones annihilating or pushing away anything that threatened to cross. The result was a near perfect vacuum that slid the drop-ship to its first destination like a pebble skipped across hot grease.

  She gathered speed, slingshotting around an uninhabited solar system, and rocketed into another Tube, angling incrementally toward Navidi’s system like a death-comet set on cratering a planet. Her human blood groaned against the perfect container of titanium. She gritted her teeth.