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

by Wendy Lynn Clark

  He changed his angle as she started to gently fall, and she found herself swung up again, even higher. The cloudburst gathered in her throat; the gold showered her from deep inside, deeper than she had ever experienced. It broke apart into rainbows, crackling into shards, pieces of dreams riding into a gentle sunset.

  And then he tensed, all at once, and gasped in his own aftershocks of pleasure. She stroked his damp back. He rose up on an elbow. His eyes seemed to shift colors and wonder painted his features.

  Languor filled her with delicious exhaustion. “Good?”

  “Incredible.” He nuzzled her cheek, eased his weight off, and nested her into the safe cocoon of his arms. He kissed her forehead and her closed lids and her forehead again, and breathed deep into her hair. “Sleep. I’ll stay with you.”

  “Love you,” she murmured, easing deep into her haze.

  When she opened her eyes again, he was dressed beside her.

  She yawned and stretched. The planetarium still encompassed them, and the headache she’d had since the hospital had returned. She rubbed the pressure. “Going somewhere?”

  “As soon as I know where to point the ship.” He swung his legs off the bed and hopped to the ground. “I’ve got to get supplies and check on our situation.”

  Their situation? She jerked upright. Swift, pounding pain lodged between her eyes. She spoke through it, arresting him. “Where are we?”

  “I told you.” He popped back to her side. Still wearing the blasted, irradiated flight suit, he looked fit and perfect and whole. “The general’s private luxury cruiser.”

  The first place the Faction would look, surely. She grimaced. “I shouldn’t have slept.”

  He shrugged. “You needed it. Besides, this ship’s not immediately traceable to him. It has a general-purpose pass to all of the major systems and enough fuel credits preloaded to give us a hell of a head start.”

  She bit her lip.

  He stroked her cheek. “The Faction didn’t know about this, although it’s possible they’ll figure out our trajectory from our exit. I don’t intend to stick around, but I wanted to make a few inquiries before we settle on a system.”

  She scooted to the bedside and eased herself off. The floor was softly carpeted, and gentle music played through the suite. Her legs wobbled—not, she thought, from her efforts at the hospital, but from the more recent efforts on this very bed. Her thighs literally trembled. After how many orgasms? She wanted to do that again. A perk of being lovers with a machine.

  She found a closet stocked with sparkling travel robes, formal bead-swirled jumpsuits, and gorgeous dresses in her favorite styles. Selecting one took several minutes. “I’ll go with you. You need someone to open doors.”

  His face lit with excitement. Boyish but honest, not a preprogrammed response executed by a marionette. “Watch!” He strode toward the door. It slid open for him. Out in the long hall, the lights adjusted automatically to his presence. “Ta-dah.”

  She followed him tentatively, stretching her thighs and her calves especially. Floor-to-ceiling clear plate revealed the splendor of a much larger universe. The trade hub to which they were docked glimmered in the local sun, and she saw other ships, equally blocky or stacked, strangely un-aerodynamic, because it wasn’t required in space without atmospheric drag.

  Xan pranced past a sports sauna with a full swimming pool, the doors opening as he feinted toward them and closing as he playfully bounced away. “Three-quarters gravity in the sports arenas. Nice or what?”

  “What did you do?” she asked in wonder. “Are you still connected to the Faction?”

  “No way. That’s over.” He made a leap for the ceiling and almost brushed it, leaping higher than most augmented athletes. “But I can find the local networks now the way you might sense a heat source. They’re a sort of wavelike pressure over my fingers and toes.” He leaned toward her and placed a kiss on the spot between her eyes, his own eyes dancing. “Somehow, when I broke free of the Faction’s control the final time, all of my circuits integrated, and I retained network capacity.”

  She had to ask. “Could they reconnect you if they caught you again?”

  “I don’t think so. There was something sort of final about the last time.” He pumped his arms. “Feels pretty great.”

  She followed him to the main airlock, slipping on dock-side boots and pulling on a radiation coat. He tried to stop her again, worried about her head, but she bullied her way out. Even though, once she was out into the noise and advertisements of the station, currency exchanges competing with war reports, trade market stocks, and stim arcades, her desire to stay right beside Xan folded under the increasing pressure of her headache.

  She took a rest on a padded waiting bench. “I’ll be right here.”

  He stroked her cheek. “Then I’ll be right back.”

  “You better.” She smiled through the pain. “I’ll come after you. I’m not as patient as I used to be.”

  He walked backward through the crowd, his eyes on her until the last second, and then he disappeared. On his way to the central hub for information and to select an outbound trajectory.

  She tipped her head against the wall. This time, the pressure didn’t ease. She rubbed the space between her eyes. It would go away soon. Surely.

  A white-coated station medic smiled down on her. “Ah. Bit of a headache?” She set down her travel satchel, rummaged in her medkit, and then handed Cressida a small pill. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you.” She swallowed it dry and felt almost immediately better. “I really needed that.”

  “You look like you took a bit of a knock.”

  Cressida laughed. “You could say that.”

  “So. I saw a young man walk off while looking back at you.” The woman lowered her voice and wiggled her brows conspiratorially. “He certainly seems attentive. Are you and he…?”

  “He’s my husband.”

  The words just popped out, and after a moment’s heated reflection, Cressida decided it was true enough for a stranger. Especially since the stranger oohed appreciatively. No need to explain the details. Definitely no need to explain her quiver at the thought of her future honeymoon.

  “Well, well, well.” The woman gazed after Xan thoughtfully. She brushed her shoulder-length brown hair back from her wide cheekbones. “I bet that was something.”

  They must make quite the pair. Xan, a gorgeous rough soldier, and she, an unemployed diplomatic escort with a head injury. “Hard to believe, right?”

  The medic smiled brightly. “The universe is a big place.” Slyness tugged at her smile. “You never know what will bring people together.”

  “I guess you see a lot of relationships on a transit asteroid.”

  The woman’s smile turned melancholy. “Not as many as I wish. Some people find the freedom of choice to be paralyzing. But I try to give everyone a chance.” She glanced down. “Are you two passing through for pleasure or business?”

  “I’m going to find my family. We’ve been separated by other people’s decisions for too long.”

  Once again, the anonymity of the stranger allowed her to be oddly honest. They had a ship. They had escaped the Faction. If they could do anything and go anywhere, then she only had one last desire.

  The woman nodded. “Good. I’m sure they could use your help.”

  Something about the medic’s tone made Cressida look up sharply. “What?”

  “Can’t everyone use a little help?” The woman simply smiled as though giving a piece of friendly advice. “But seriously. Don’t wait.”

  Apparently the events of the last days had increased her paranoia. She relaxed.

  “I won’t,” she said firmly.

  A refreshments servo answered Cressida’s summons, and she closed her eyes to savor the liquid. For an instant, the cold temperature pierced the lingering pain in Cressida’s head, shooting agony, and then it eased with a fizzy release. Strange, and a little disturbing, but at least the pain finall
y stopped.

  She lifted her head.

  An unknown amount of time had passed. The medic had long since disappeared, and the servo wandered off as well. Perhaps the water on this station was free, because she suddenly realized that she couldn’t have paid.

  Oh, and the bag at her feet—the medic had forgotten it. She rose and slung it over her shoulder to find the helpful woman.

  Xan came up beside her. “You’re looking better.”

  “I’m feeling better.” She fell into stride beside him and offered her hand. He looked at it for a second, beamed like she’d handed him a gift, and twined their fingers, swinging gently. “Did you find out what you needed?”

  “I’ve got a few candidates.” He ticked them off as they approached the external docks. “Laurentian, Ismander, or Hsulia Clusters. They’re easy to reach, we have plenty of fuel to do it, and pre-clearance to leave immediately.”

  “I’d like to catch up with my parents,” she said. “If it’s possible, I’d like for them to know that I’m all right. Then I’ve got a few other places I want to go.”

  A lesser person might have lectured her for selecting the dangerous reassurances of family over anonymous flight. But Xan was not a lesser person. “Ismander or Hsulia then. Either places us on a path to intersect with Randovi. I’m not sure about this luxury liner catching a sub-galactic cruiser; we’ll have to clock their engines when we get closer.”

  She pirouetted in the dock while they waited for the pressures to safely equalize.

  He grinned at her.

  “By the way,” he said as they stepped into their new ship, “I’ve been meaning to ask. Where did you pick up that bag?”

  She clasped the strap. It lay across her back so much like her old travel satchel that she’d forgotten it wasn’t hers. She turned to the door, but it was already closed and cycling through the pressure lock on their side. “Oh, it belongs to the station medic.”

  He tilted his head. “Who?”

  “The medic dropped this bag; she must have forgotten it.”

  His brows pulled together. “This station doesn’t have a medic.”

  “She stopped where I was waiting for you and treated my headache.”

  His eyes widened. He jerked her forward and examined her like a man expecting something to burst out of her skin.

  “Xan,” she protested. The bag slid off her shoulder and dropped to her feet. “Ow.”

  “Sorry.” He gentled his probing fingers, but not the thoroughness of his exam. “I stopped by the station office, but they lost their last doc eighteen months ago, and the new one’s been delayed for six weeks standard in Nova Eilos.”

  A strange sensation crawled down her spine. “Then who gave me the pill?”

  His face paled to dread. “Someone had you swallow a pill?”

  “She was dressed like a medic. And it did help my headache.”

  He pressed his palms to her scalp, threading wide fingers through her hair. “Okay. I’ve been thinking I could suddenly hear your chip, but I doubted myself because what it’s saying is strange.”

  Her heart sank. Barely an hour into freedom and she had already been tagged again. “Strange like what?”

  “You’re not going to believe it.”

  The pressurization cycle finished with a decisive tock, and the main cabin door slid open. He motioned for her to walk through the door first.

  The ship spoke. “Welcome aboard, Cressida Sarit Arch.”

  She whirled to Xan. “How is this possible?”

  He stepped after her. “I don’t—”

  “Welcome aboard, Xan Sarit Arch.”

  He dropped the bag.

  She clutched his shoulder to keep herself upright; he looked like he wanted to reel too. “The medic, I told her you were my husband. And after I took the pill, I felt this shooting pain, and then it went away.”

  “You ran into the rogue.” He cupped her head, searching for the space behind her forehead where her ID chip would rest. Fiercely protective, as though he dared anyone to ever touch her again. “That’s the only explanation.”

  “But why did your identification change?” she demanded.

  “She got to me days ago,” he said, matter-of-fact. “The final program executed just a few minutes ago in the bedroom.”

  “What? Why?”

  “We fully connected.”

  She waited for him to explain.

  Amusement tugged at the corners of his lips. He leaned closer, the hard heat of his body promising all sorts of explanations if she really needed one. “You don’t remember?”

  Oh. Ohhhh.

  He ruffled her head, putting aside the urge to tease her. “I transferred credits into a private account at the station office, and before I’d gotten halfway back to you, a nano-credit had debited from the total.”

  “I purchased a drink,” she said.

  “Which was great, because I thought we’d have to do a manual hookup after the swelling went down. This simplifies things. And as a bonus, no one is looking for Cressida Sarit Arch.” His eyes glowed. “Do you get it? You’re off the Kill List. Your chip ID has been changed.”

  She rubbed her own forehead. Giving up the Antiata name meant leaving her mother’s empire behind. But her father’s name, though less powerful, had its own quirks and opportunities.

  His eyes darkened. “Oh. Your chip ID has changed.”

  “It’s okay,” she assured him. “I changed my mind. It doesn’t matter what name I have. I’m still going to reunite with my family. And”—she smiled shyly—“I am so happy that my new name is shared with you.”

  He seemed to melt.

  “Do you mind?” she asked.

  Xan kissed her forehead. “I’m yours however you want me. As your protector, as your lover, as your guardian, as your husband.”

  She grinned up at him. “As all of the above?”

  He met her lips with a kiss full of promise. “As all of the above.”

  Warm happiness flushed through her.

  The ship completed its decoupling procedures, and they lounged in the luxurious captain’s quarters while Xan input their preferred course. Cressida suddenly bolted upright. “The bag! The medic’s bag—”

  But the one she was holding in her hand was marked with her own family crest.

  Xan looked across the smoky glass deck. “You know we can’t get it back to her.”

  “I don’t think I have to,” she said, slowly opening the drawstring. She removed each object, her heart accelerating as she placed them in a row on the glass: her favorite brushes, a roll of papers protecting the ink block and scraper, a memory stick of her most beloved holos and vids, and a plush sealotter.

  She placed the last on the glass with trembling hands and folded the empty carry sack over her wide captain’s armrest.

  The sealotter was old, tufted from too many childhood squeezes. A small chain rested around its neck, and a holo locket dangled from the oxidized metal. One side displayed her picture, at age twelve, with her eight-year-old sister. The other side was engraved with its name. Double Squeeze.

  “We each had one,” she said distantly, stroking the sealotter’s raspy fur. “My sister lost hers down a hydrovent outside the shuttle port. I gave her mine. She was still carrying it when she went into the hospital to have her ID chip changed. My parents promised it would keep her safe until she regained consciousness. And until we met again.”

  Xan studied the relic of Cressida’s past. “Then I’m guessing you did not have that article in your bag when you packed it on Liberation VI.”

  She shook her head numbly.

  He deleted his previously programmed course. “Where’s your sister now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked up.

  She shook her head again, helpless. “It was considered safer if I didn’t know. In case you were right about it being something in my blood or in my genome, something that could be conducted through family lines. There was always the possib
ility that if something happened to me, she would move onto the Kill List. Or even if something didn’t happen to me. Better that I couldn’t lead them back to her.”

  “Do you parents know her location?”

  She nodded. “But what if we can’t catch them?”

  “I will bend the universe in half to get us there.”

  “What if we’re already too late?”

  “If she’s even half as determined as you are, she’ll make it.”

  She took strength from his strength. “Okay.”

  He blinked as though expecting a longer argument. Her faith lit a fire in him. He spun back to the control panel, changing coordinates with expertise. “So, we’re going to see what this ship can do on our maiden voyage. Your sister will know us by the atmosphere burn on entry. What’s her name?”

  She giggled, her chest light. “Mercury.”

  “Mercury will know us by our tar-black contrail and the crater we smash into her planet with the incredible speed of our rescue. I’ll leave you to explain it was all out of love.”

  “I’ll leave you to explain it to the environmental authorities,” she returned, and he flashed her a calculated grin.

  She settled back while the ship smoothly undocked. Crashing into a planet was such the wrong thing to want. But it was a symbol of her hope. Xan had saved her life, and she had saved his mind. Together they had evaded the Robotics Faction and changed their chip IDs, effectively striking her from the Kill List and him from the disassembly table. Together, they were united with a new name and a new purpose.

  Together, they could do anything.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks so much to my insightful editors Bev Katz Rosenbaum, Amy Knupp of Blue Otter Editing, and the talented ladies of Hot Tree Editing: Kayla Robichaux, Becky Johnson, and Donna Pemberton. You rock!

  My gorgeous cover was designed by Clarissa Yeo of Yocla Designs.

  Thanks to all the people who encouraged me on the way and read this book when it was done! You are the reason I write. Thanks so much for sharing my journey. I hope to see you in the stars!