“He’s probably connected via the station hub to the central databanks.”
Xan swore softly. “So fucking blind.”
They passed into a room with harsh yellow lighting, and Xan stopped abruptly. “What’s your plan?”
“I’m going to ask the sentry to assist us onto a shuttle.”
“Do not fuck up. He’s stopped us in front of an execution squad, and there’s not a damned thing I can do if he decides we’re bluffing.”
The sentry filled their view screen. She began to sweat again, but Xan was so cool beneath her that, despite his harsh words, she remained calm too.
“Citizen.” The sentry paused while his next orders went through the parsing and translation process. “Dira san tiyastalit.”
Her answers, because she had memorized them in her human brain, came as instantly as natural language. “Proyostolich ‘Take off the suit’ tinan sayanalit?”
“Anan sol.”
She began to struggle. Xan hesitated, and then uncapped the helmet. Cool air bathed her over-heated cheeks and fanned the sweat. Almost immediately, she felt better, more awake, clear-headed.
“Tisanyit doblovay ‘my assistant’ osolovait,” she said as Xan stripped. “Ayana torovisa tiyean.”
Xan stepped free of the suit. His hands rested on her crown, sheltering her brain chip from the wall of sentries at recharging stations in front of them. The first hint of alarm and they would all come to instant wakefulness, the stunners, hole-pistols, and other tools of death hanging from their reinforced metal bodies.
Beyond them, gentle green light shone through the line of windows overlooking the familiar skyline, misting all the way to the horizon. This direction, away from her former house, hid that devastation. Only a few craters showed the targeted assault that had terra-formed the planet during the invasion.
And then it occurred to her that she was resting her cheek against Xan’s shoulder and taking entirely too much comfort from it. She struggled. Xan helped her free of his flight suit, which resealed around only his taut body, and then his arm snaked around her chest and pulled her against him as though he needed her closeness. His palm rested on her forehead.
The sentry asked after her intended stay and her sponsor. She gave appropriate responses, including that her sponsor was His Honorable Lord General Vardis of the export house of the fourth quadrant. “Can you please direct us onto a shuttle to his house?”
“His residence is closed to visitors at this time,” the sentry replied with stiff courtesy.
Well, oh, well. Xan nudged her, his gaze passing over the line of recharging sentries, tensed in readiness.
“May we have appropriate changes of clothing?” she asked. “With sun hoods.”
The sentry clomped away and returned with two unisex traveling robes. She draped the long white fabric over herself and assisted Xan into his robe, tying the belts in the proper fashion for one raised on Outer-Centurian and cinching down the hood. He let her hood rest on top of his hand.
The sentry did not note Xan’s odd behavior. Their data on the Outer-Centurian allowed that some individuals had never been chipped. A human would have at least asked if she were feeling well, but a sentry only reviewed the health broadcast. In absence of such a signal, they behaved at the default that all was well.
“Your destination?” the sentry queried.
She rapidly reviewed her options. Although she really wanted to ask Xan, she couldn’t be certain which language he would know, and the sentry would surely have access to all of the familiar languages and their families via the central databanks anyway. Unusual conversation might not trigger the sentry to stop her, but it would certainly record their conversation, and any review of this unusual circumstance would be flagged.
She longed to join her parents off world, but her chip would be read or she’d have to show papers. She took a deep breath and smiled at the sentry. “Can you please book us onto your most scenic island tour?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Against all calculable odds, Xan’s human managed to save them both from execution with a few flirty phrases and an adorable smile.
The neuter metal sentry queried the database and, in ancient dialect, laboriously accepted Cressida’s fluently communicated embassy authorization and billing codes. Then, while Xan’s hands were still tied up smothering her identification broadcast, he got to enjoy the second unusual experience of Cressida’s sweet hands near his cock as she tied his belt. Once again, a signal flashed to his brain—His—and once again, his immediate reaction was to draw her in and explore that sensation.
But they were still within the lair of the security forces.
Xan kept her possessively close as the sentry escorted them across the transit hub to the private hover yachts. Where they would go after, he didn’t know. But for the moment, the other x-class was instigating a lockdown in the mines, entirely unaware they had passed in the opposite direction in a yellow-splotched theft suit under custody of the very forces attempting so desperately to apprehend them.
All because of his beautiful, capable human.
At the boarding gate, Cressida bid the sentry farewell and led Xan up the velveteen steps onto the luxurious shuttle deck as though she entered it every day of her life. Being a diplomatic escort, she probably did.
Once inside the shuttle, expensive machines broadcast “white noise” silencing everything, and privacy fell upon them like a dampening hush. He released Cressida’s head. Even though her identification chip now started broadcasting, he couldn’t risk the other passengers noticing his odd behavior, no matter how much he wanted to keep her pressed against him.
They followed the other passengers through a darkwood lounge, up a glass-encased ramp, and emerged onto the windy sun deck. A subtle hum shivered through the hull as they exited the transit station and slid noiselessly along the rails arching over the Central City. The other passengers captioned vid-holos of themselves pointing and commenting on the iridescent glass spirals, floating skyscrapers made of a perfect union of rubilum and Nar mikodon. Off of Liberation VI, the sight was afforded only by the richest of private enterprises and empire-building factions.
Xan shrugged his sun hood over his eyes. Overhead, he felt the invisible glints of satellites trained on them, even though their anonymous robes matched the other passengers. When Cressida leaned forward to return a greeting, Xan waited a moment and then deliberately pulled her back.
She relaxed, resting her head against his shoulder, her fragile body pressed against his.
They changed onto the rail for the coast.
Black sands glittered like simple obsidian, the type of rock that the rubilum-producing bacteria enjoyed eating miles below. The ocean spread out, green and foamy, and they sluiced into it, transferring from magnetic rail to a buffer of expressed air. On the far horizon, two of Navidi’s closest moons hovered in the sky, red and yellow. Farther out, Xan’s optic sensors barely detected five more, so tiny they burned like daytime stars above the atmosphere.
Cressida tugged his arm. Her fingers entwined the fabric, a child clinging to a parent. “Dinou anat ailea.”
A full second later, his translation program output, “Everyone walk/movement downstairs.”
He repeated, “Walk/movement,” and followed her.
Down in the lounge, the guests slipped quietly into private booths and disappeared into their own languages, so Cressida selected a dark wood booth and slid across the velveteen seat with Xan. She pressed the center com button and ordered two meals. Shortly, a servo delivered plates mounded with sweet-smelling foods and pitchers of colored drinks. She dug in, not bothered about the hand he continued to leave clamped around her crown.
He contemplated what he wanted to say in Outer-Centurian. When she was halfway through a plate of jiggly yellow fruits and he was starting to get distracted by the way the liquid was clinging to her lips, he gave up on their ruse and switched to Standard. “Aside from individual recorders on the servos, I do
n’t detect a broad-spectrum scanner.”
She hesitated and licked her lips. Aw. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Well, they’re not supposed to spy on customers. This is a private company. I guess it’s reassuring that they’re doing as they promise.” Then her mouth turned sad. “For now.”
She used two long eating sticks to plop a thick bun in her hands. Steam released where it touched her skin, and syrup drizzled out. She danced it between her fingers, nibbling bites.
“You’re hungry,” he noted.
“I didn’t eat for three days.” She licked her fingers. “The last time that happened was when I was coming to Liberation VI, ironically.”
He wanted to keep her talking. “Oh?”
“My parents stuffed me in a tricked-out transit container filled with anything I wanted: the newest games I’d been begging them for, forbidden ‘frivolous’ books and movies, and my favorite foods. When we arrived two weeks later, I couldn’t even look at another chocolate whip or cheesy doodle without feeling the gag reflex. I still can’t.”
She shuddered. “We were too used to living on a nano-enhanced world. It barely matters what you order, because an ice cream cone can become filet mignon just by thinking about it hard. But this time, I didn’t know I would be stuck in the residence for three days awaiting rescue.”
“Sorry,” he said, although he wasn’t sure why.
She fixed on him. Her blue eyes softened. She touched his cheek, below the scar. “Thank you for coming. And for saving me in the transit hub.”
His titanium-reinforced stomach dipped. And his cock twitched. Both new sensations. “Sure.”
“I just wish I could do something.” An old disappointment lingered on her face and tinged her voice with pain. “But it seems like my only talent is sitting around and waiting for someone else to rescue me.”
He choked.
She looked up in surprise. “What?”
“Are fucking kidding me?”
She blinked.
“Was I the only one awake back there?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, in the rough direction of the Central Continent. “Who do you think got us onto this yacht and out of the city just now? Who got us out of the transit hub?”
She frowned and picked up her utensil. “Well, you hid me in the decontam room and snuck me past the whole security force.”
“And then I set off the station alarms.” He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t know what he was getting at. He reached across the table and gripped her thin shoulders. “You saved us.”
Her mouth opened. Heat suffused her cheeks. She licked her lips, and that frown came back as she looked away, deflecting his recognition. “I just knew an error code. Anyone in the diplomatic corps would know the same.”
“And you used it at the right time. You spoke the right language. I was out of options, Cressida.”
At her name, she finally looked at him again. Her eyes were hooded, refusing to believe.
He squeezed her shoulders. “I was out before I picked up the wrong air tank. You’re not just some piece of baggage I threw over my shoulder. You got us out of there alive.”
She sucked in a deep breath, let it out, and pulled back. “Well, I can be useful sometimes.”
He allowed her to go, even though he didn’t feel satisfied with her answer. Not at all.
“Anyway.” She picked up a dish of fermented sour plums, wrinkled her nose, and forced one down with a grimace. She set it aside and wiped her mouth. “Ugh. I forgot how much I hate these, but they are the national dish. I think it’s required that they be consumed at every meal. Will you?”
He scooped up the dish and swallowed the contents without noting much more than the nutritive content. “You are not helpless.”
She laughed. “Not going to let it go, huh?”
He met her gaze steadily until she reddened and looked away.
When she was finally sated, somewhere over the mid-equatorial region, she rewarded him by leaning back into his hand with a sigh. She sipped a fizzy tea as she looked out the window. The clear green sea spread out in all directions, therapeutically calming.
He slid next to her and pressed her head to his shoulder, and after a brief hesitation, she relaxed into the position, her curves squished against his side. She snuggled. “What’s our plan now?”
He could stay like this for another few hundred years. “Rest and recuperate.”
She let out a heavy sigh, as though she, too, could rest here instead. “Thanks to your people, everyone’s looking for us.”
“We need to go where they’re not looking for us.”
“Where’s that?”
“Ideally, off planet.”
“And how are we going to do that?” she asked dryly. “The transit hub is behind us.”
“I don’t suppose you know of another uncertified freighter like the kind that brought you here?”
She bit her lip.
So, then, she had some idea. Interesting.
“If you know, then why were you still hiding under your bed this morning?” he asked.
She jerked away from him. “I didn’t— I mean, I don’t know of one. That’s why.”
“Except for the general’s, I’m guessing.”
She tightened her jaw. “I don’t know of any.”
Well, fine. She was protecting her friend. He dealt with his irritation.
His forehead stung. And his knees squeaked. “We’ll rest somewhere quiet.”
“Where is that?”
“I have no fucking clue.”
She was silent for several minutes. Then, she suddenly leaned forward and pressed the center table com. “Disatalia mearit soorinalo.”
Which his translation finally propped forward as, We intend to disembark.
At double that time, the com queried her intended destination and, when they could not reconcile her request with their itinerary, ordered her to the captain’s quarters. Beside a microscale itinerary map of the rugged, isolated equatorial islands, the human concierge bowed low. A silver microphone attached prominently to his jaw, and he spoke in laborious Outer-Centurian. “Madam, sir, you are not scheduled to disembark on any islands.”
Xan stepped between them.
And then checked himself. The concierge clearly wasn’t a threat. There was no logical reason for Xan to— Ah. According to his reason logs, he didn’t like the fact that the man had put himself closer to Cressida, and whatever his future intentions, Xan erected himself as a barrier to arrest those in the formative stage.
Okay then.
Cressida placed a calming hand on Xan’s arm and spoke the Outer-Centurian he was starting to become familiar with parsing. “Please.”
He eased back.
The man stared at Xan’s injured forehead, eyes wide.
“Excuse,” she told the concierge in accented Standard, as though she truly were a foreigner with bad language skills and no translation chip. “My assist, he is injure from the bomb. It is an unexpect.”
The concierge’s mouth folded into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I apologize on behalf of my countrymen for any inconvenience you may have faced during your visit here.”
“Accept.” She patted Xan’s hand and switched to Outer-Centurian to underscore their ruse. “We will go to the hospital later, yes? Now is time for rest and amusement.”
“Amusement,” he repeated, matching her exact tone and phrasing one octave lower.
She returned to the concierge. “Then, I am guest of this island.” She tapped a native species-restricted nature preserve not far from their current location. “Please and thank you.”
He blinked. “Your name?”
“As guest, Vinitra Asada.”
He stared into space, breathing slowly. He blinked onto Xan. “And this person?”
“No list. He is my assist. After bomb, I am so fright, I am come with assist.”
“He is not on the list.”
“Please?” She smiled hopeful
ly. “It is private. Ask?”
He reviewed his protocols and lifted his hand in farewell. “Thank you very much for your patronage. Convey our respect to Outer-Centurian. We hope to see you again soon.”
“And as well.” She nod-bobbed and led Xan to the boarding ramp.
The yacht altered course, and the restricted nature preserve rapidly grew from a cloudy speck on the green horizon to a towering, windswept tropical island. They stepped from smooth, synthetic wood onto rough, dark sand. Harsh wind whipped Cressida’s brown hair against his fingers. They watched the boat depart, shielding their eyes to the windblown debris, and then turned to face an abandoned paradise.
“Vinitra Asada?” he repeated. “Married name?”
She glanced sideways at him. The expression was undeniably guilty. She pulled free and started toward the impenetrable vegetation. “Let’s get you repaired.”
“On an uninhabited nature preserve?” He strode after her. His palm felt cool and strangely empty. “Where the hell do we do that, a naturalist cabin?”
She didn’t reply.
Vine-encrusted copperwood trees drove out the sun, and unfamiliar cries died on the wind-shaken branches. Although no dangerous creatures lived on this moon, exotic imports escaped, and anything could mutate. He caught up in three strides and passed her. His knee grated.
Just a few short minutes into the interior of the island, they came upon a manor faced in the white stone nestled against a matching cliff. He noted the heavy palm growth and liberal coating of radio-reflective paint on top of sound-muffling shingles. If he wanted to stay hidden, this place was designed for his need.
She arched her brows. “You were saying?”
“That’s one hell of a cabin.”
She smiled and took his hand. “Come on.”
And, guilty or not, he would have followed her to frickin’ space and back without a flight suit if she asked him.
~*~*~*~
Liberation's Kiss: A Science Fiction Romance (Robotics Faction Book 1) Page 6
