by Elsa Jade
“Her…” Lindy swiveled to look through the transparent plasteel. “It’s a girl? But…he said it was a Delta, like you.”
Edging up to her, he adjusted the settings on the stasis field, clearing the nutrient fog a bit. “The blank Delta form doesn’t have a gender. Since you and Amber provided the genetic material, she’s all yours.”
Lindy put her hand over the transparent plasteel, staring down at the tawny-pink shape curled within. Delta had seen prenatal yurks all scaly and coiled, and he thought Cosmo wasn’t wrong about them being cute. This unhatched creature was not quite so aesthetically pleasing, and if anything, its vulnerability terrified him.
“She’s so small,” Lindy murmured, echoing his thoughts.
“Well, it wouldn’t look like much in your belly at three days old either,” Cosmo said, in a mildly affronted tone. “It’s not done yet.”
“I want to take her out,” Lindy said.
Delta wasn’t sure if she was ignoring Cosmo or didn’t believe him. “She hasn’t finished developing yet. The technology is made to grow an army quickly, but it’s old and broken. She safer here than almost anywhere else.” Except not being born at all, of course…
Lindy let out a short breath. “Then can we take the whole rig with us?” She gestured at the pyramid. “I don’t know how I’ll explain it to the girls, but—”
“No,” Cosmo interrupted. “It’s linked to the energy source here in the cavern. And once you take it out from underneath this veil, it’s possible the reclamation ship could see it and think it’s another inactivated shroud.” He gave her a cruel little smirk. “Maybe this gives you a reason to fight for us now.”
Delta glowered at this being who was supposed to be his brother and felt more like a monster. “She was already on our side,” he said in a low voice. “Because that is who she is.”
Cosmo snorted. “She’s your keyholder now in all but name. You can’t help but think the best of her.”
Lindy growled in the back of her throat. “He knows I’m unreasonably violent and want to punch you again.”
Cosmo laughed. “Yeah, but he likes that because he is feeling the same way.” He shouldered the blaster. “Leave the hatchling,” he demanded. “We have to find and stop the invaders before we’re all reduced to our component genetics.”
They went through Cosmo’s collection of salvaged equipment from the downed ship. Some of it—like the yurk’s pyramid—Delta identified as purloined from the Fallen A maintenance shed where they’d collected what they found over the decades. But some of it he didn’t recognize at all.
“I kept looking longer than you did,” Cosmo told him. “Chunks of our transport were scattered across multiple counties, and I’ve found pieces of other ships over the years. We’re not the only ones who’ve been lost on this nowhere planet.” He chuckled. “And I’ve borrowed pieces from other visitors when they weren’t looking”
Lindy shook her head. “I assume you mean visitors from outer space.”
“Your Earth is off-limits to most transgalactic stopovers,” Delta told her. “But there are a few organizations allowed access to help maintain your planet’s security until you are judged ready to join the wider universe. There’s an on-planet security force, a resource rights management group, the Intergalactic Dating Agency—”
“Intergalactic dating…” She shook her head. “Amber would say that’s exactly what colonizers do: show up and tell people what to do, take their stuff, and then want to mate with them.”
“How would she feel about the baby?” Delta watched her closely.
She sighed. “I think she would love her. How could she not?”
Delta rather thought that was how Lindy felt as well. But she hadn’t had the choice, because a shroud had taken that from her, just like he’d chosen her for his keyholder.
He found several pieces of under armor that could be condensed enough to fit her frame. “Without the implants and nanites it won’t be as effective as mine,” he warned her. “But it’ll offer some protection.”
“These other E.T. entities you mentioned,” she said as he helped her mold the armor to her body, “would they be willing to help us if this planet is supposed to be off-limits to invading ships?”
“The only thing worse than an unregistered reclamation ship checking a failing stasis signal to scavenge is the illegal cybernetic army emitting the signal,” he told her. “The security forces might be willing to issue a fine to the reclamation ship, but they’d destroy us even more readily than the ones who want to recover and resell us.”
Looking down at the tight black armor plate hugging her curves, she sighed. “I suppose it’s too late to pretend this isn’t happening.” She glanced up at him through her lashes.
He cinched the armor just a bit tighter, as if that would be extra protection. It took all the strength of his vastly fewer nanites to keep himself from brushing back a lock of silver-gold-and-iron hair that fell across her cheek. “If I could wake you with a kiss, I would,” he murmured. “If I asked you to go back to Strix Springs now and stay there until this is over, would you?”
She lifted her chin, that momentary glimpse of flirting shyness gone. “Not a chance.”
Maybe he couldn’t read minds, but he’d known she’d say that. Giving in to the impulse to touch her, he flattened his palm on the armored plate over her breasts. He sent a pulse down his nerves, then had to close his eyes at a wave of dizziness.
“Dammit, Delta. Did you just give me some of your nanites?”
He pried his eyelids apart. The pathways in her armor glimmered just faintly silver. “I haven’t regenerated many, and they won’t last long. You won’t be able to control them as I do, but they’ll give some extra force to the armor.” And he’d be able to find her for as long as the nanites lasted. “I still wish you’d go back to the ranch.”
“Not without Amber’s daughter. Not until she is safe from these raiders.”
He closed his eyes again, just for a moment. Not from weakness this time but from a sudden surge of strength that had nothing to do with his depleted nanites. It had everything to do with the determination in her voice.
“I’ll give her some of mine too.” Cosmo’s gruff offer sounded yanked from somewhere deep in his plasteel implants.
Delta opened his eyes to peer at his matrix-brother. “No,” he said slowly, checking with himself to make sure that his refusal was practical and not just possessive. “She won’t be able to make use of them, and I have so few left it hardly matters if I drain mine. But we need someone at full strength.” He gazed at Cosmo steadily. “And if nothing else, you have that.”
Cosmo met his level stare without a smirk this time. “At least.”
Of course he’d always known that Deltas were the least of the matrix. But since they’d never been activated, it hadn’t been real to him in the way it was now. Realizing that he had so little to offer Lindy and now the baby sent a wave of despair through him colder and more bitter than the worst Montana storm. How could he have believed he’d be of any use to her before, and now that the threat was real and imminent, he had nothing to give her except one-third of a vague version of himself, except even smaller and more helpless.
While she layered her outerwear overtop of the shroud armor and Cosmo finished rifling through his salvage for anything else of use, Delta snuck back for another look at the baby.
It was their Beta, destroyed in the crash landing so long ago, who would’ve been in charge of the creche if any extras had been slated for growth and activation. But Delta had learned enough during the few days when he and Mach had been in charge of the yurk’s failing stasis that he could see Cosmo had the nutrient fog turned up very rich as the Omega rushed the child to hatching.
Delta gentled the mixture. Yes, it would take a little longer for her to be born, but the near full-term baby could use some hardening off, and so could Lindy for that matter. And more practically, they needed time to take care of their extraterr
estrial problem. Their terrestrial ones would have to wait.
The three of them gathered at the pyramid. Lindy didn’t look down again, but she rested her hand on the foggy peak. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Kill the invaders,” Cosmo said.
She rolled her eyes to Delta. “So, what’s the plan?”
“We go to the Intergalactic Dating Agency post in Sunset Falls, just a few hours from here. Even though the outpost was shuttered after the scandal with the stolen Earther brides, they’ll still have the infrastructure for defense and communications. We’ll summon the local security contingent and let them know about the unauthorized incursion.”
Cosmo scowled. “When I said kill the invaders, I meant we would kill the invaders,” he clarified. “We don’t need a dating agency, and we definitely don’t need a transgalactic security force who didn’t even notice the problem. We are the CWBOIs.”
Clenching his jaw, Delta countered, “Mach will agree with me. It’s the only way to make sure Lun-mei and Lindy are safe.”
Lindy shook her head. “But if there’s a chance they might try to take the baby if they realize she’s part shroud, then Cosmo is right. This is something we have to do on our own.” She curled her fingers over his forearm. “It’s Amber’s daughter. I can’t let anything happen to her. Or you.” Abruptly, she pulled back.
His nanites were all but gone, his programming in shambles. The true key to activate him was lost, maybe forever. And yet he felt every part of himself ratchet wider to expand the scope of his service beyond her, to her gone wife and soon-to-be daughter, to Sasha, Taylor, and Roxi serving at her ranch.
All of that was beyond him, more than his lesser skills could reasonably defend, but he wouldn’t let that stop him.
He let out a sharp breath. “We need to get back to the Fallen A and warn Mach. The ship will have a search grid set up from where they took my nanite cloud, and they might feel bold enough in this remote area to leave sensors to keep watch behind them. But they’ll also need to keep a low profile to avoid detection by closed-world planetary services. We need to avoid them and keep them away from any innocents.”
Cosmo grumbled something under his breath but subsided when Lindy slashed a glare his way.
Delta went on. “We need to bring the ship down. We’re lucky they are scavengers and not security, or we’d be worse off. But if any of the crew leave this place, they’ll take word with them that we still exist, unclaimed as far as they know. We’re worth too much and we’re considered too dangerous to leave alone.”
Lindy straightened beside him, her shoulder bumping his arm. “You’re not alone. You have me and the doc.”
“Not much of an army,” Cosmo muttered. “Even with the yurk. Not even if we count the baby.”
“Which we aren’t,” Lindy snapped.
“Should’ve pushed the growth factor harder,” the Omega sighed.
Before Lindy could start the war right here, Delta led them out of the cavern.
He didn’t want to count their army or their chances, not if they were being led by a Delta.
Chapter 9
Lindy rode behind Delta, Cosmo jogging along beside them. If she’d had any lingering doubts the men were aliens, the Omega’s movement and his strides almost as long as the mare’s would’ve convinced her. He ran like a wolf, his attention fixed and his pace unwavering over the patchy snow. Watching him made her feel about as confident as having a semi-tamed wolf would make anyone feel—which was to say not at all.
“You must hate me right now.” Delta’s low voice rumbled through his back to her despite the wind of their hurried passing.
“You didn’t tell me the truth, but I can’t really blame you.” She let out a sigh that gusted away behind them. “I wouldn’t have believed you anyway.”
“But at least if you’d thought I was deranged you wouldn’t have had sex with me, and I wouldn’t have gotten you remotely pregnant.”
She couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “Yeah, I figured at my age a condom would be protection enough.” Her throat tightened at the memory of that little body curved within the foggy pyramid. “You think she’ll be okay?”
“The Delta blanks are very hardy and versatile,” he said, as if he was selling her on a new car. “But your genetic material and your wife’s will have precedence. She’ll be mortal and subject to whatever genetic heritage you gave her and whatever environmental factors she encounters once she hatches.” He hesitated. “After we deal with this little problem of potential alien abduction first.”
“One invading ship against a trio of shrouds? Pfft.” Though she kept her tone light, her grip around his torso was too tight, she knew. “We’ll have this wrapped up by breakfast.”
He tightened his elbows to his sides, clamping her arms even tighter around him. She wasn’t sure if he meant it as a warning or as a thank you. “I’m not at my full capabilities yet. I can’t even run like Cosmo. When things get hot, stay close to him.”
“He doesn’t care what happens to any of us,” she protested.
“But I’m big enough to absorb all the enemy fire,” Cosmo remarked. He didn’t even sound out of breath.
Even when Delta finally loosened his grasp, she kept her arms locked. “Got any tips for me? I’ve never been in a gun battle with aliens before.”
“Me neither,” he said. “Since we were never activated, all I have is theory and training.”
She tamped down a shiver. She wouldn’t be able to blame it on the cold since the armor he’d given her was amazing stuff—lightweight and warm despite the post-midnight chill. “I used to get in bar fights when I was younger,” she mused. Would she someday be telling these stories to her daughter? She shivered again.
Cosmo grunted. “Is that where you learned to punch?”
“Yeah. Back then, some guys thought consent and gender equality meant if a girl said yes to a dance and a beer that equaled yes to everything else.”
“I guess you set them straight,” Delta said. “Er, you know what I mean.”
“Set them on their asses,” she confirmed. “But I’m thinking fisticuffs will not come in handy with this rough crowd.”
“I am going to call my blaster Fisticuffs,” Cosmo reported.
Delta glanced at her over his shoulder, his gray eyes dark in the night. “We’ll meet them with everything we have.”
She wanted to rest her cheek against his back, but the wide brim of her hat kept her sitting up straight. Maybe that was for the best. She and Delta might be on the same world but they weren’t of the same worlds. Being with Amber had let her believe in the rainbow power of love. But in order to exist, didn’t rainbows need an atmosphere and liquid water and single point of light in the visible spectrum? None of that existed in outer space.
They traced a strange arc across her land back toward the Fallen A, following a route that Cosmo had identified as likely not being searched by the scavengers. She wouldn’t have trusted the Omega farther than she could throw him—maybe half a foot?—but when the glow of the yard light appeared across the field, relief sleeted through her. If only the baby was with them.
She had to cut off that thought before she freaked out. A baby. A partly alien baby. Her and Amber’s baby in danger.
She should’ve punched Cosmo a few more times.
Mach Halley was standing on his front porch with a rifle in his hands as they rode up. “Got some strange pings—” He caught sight of Cosmo and looked about as thrilled to see the Omega as she was.
Delta held his hand out to her, letting her slide from the saddle. “We’ve been found.”
As he related the night’s adventures—with intermittent snarky but basically accurate commentary from Cosmo—she glanced around the ranch. Now that she knew the Fallen A belonged to alien cyborgs, the off-kilter design of a house trying and failing to be normal made so much more sense. As these things went.
But she didn’t see any sign of, say, blaster cannons, which was what s
he was really looking for.
Mach was silent through the retelling from his brothers, and at the end, he only pointed at Cosmo. “Untack the mare and turn all the stock out to pasture. Don’t want them getting caught up in this.”
She liked him even better for caring about his animals. “Where’s the doc?”
“Emergency call earlier and she has office hours tomorrow, so she stayed in town. She won’t be back tonight.” He dipped his head for a moment, and Lindy wondered if aliens prayed; it looked like a prayer of thanks anyway. When he lifted his head, his eyes were silver. “When that ship comes down, they’ll wish they’d stayed away.”
She looked up at the dark sky. Some people complained they got dizzy in Big Sky Country, but she’d always loved the wide open space. She’d always felt free—but now she understood the outsiders who complained about the exposure, as if they’d spin off the edge of the world.
Now that she knew something was waiting out in the darkness, she felt the fear viscerally.
She wrenched her eyes down, her gaze automatically seeking Delta’s reassuring bulk. He was too big to fall off into the void.
He had his attention focused across the yard toward the horses Cosmo was releasing into the paddock. “We can’t stay here,” he said, as if he’d heard her fear. “The ship will have the advantage over us.”
“My badlands were more defensible,” she agreed with a sidelong glance at Cosmo. “There’s a reason fugitives and outlaws have used it for centuries.”
Delta paced a short half-circle around her. “We tried to leave that part behind us, but…” He swiveled to face them. “We used to rustle cattle. What if we rustled aliens instead?”
Mach grunted. “What? We want more of them?”
“Collect them all,” Cosmo said with enthusiasm as he ambled back. “And kill them.”
“If we’re going to round them up,” Delta said, “we need to bring them down, get them out of the ship, facing us on our ground. In the badlands, we have a chance.”
Mach nodded slowly. “They won’t be able to fly above the rocky hills, not without getting picked up by planetary security. If they want to hit us fast and hard, they’ll have to do it out of the ship. We can drop the veil on Cosmo’s cavern, and the signal of the pyramid will bring them right in. All that salvage will be too much for them to resist.”
