Chapter 6
SIX
LYRIEN
It was too late.
I'd lost sensation in several of my weapons systems. I’d studied the contaminant in my lab, and what she had brought on board was a new strain, and it had been bioengineered to be attracted to my most efficient weaponry.
I'd already isolated the filaments heading to those systems, and we were defenseless.
I had to be careful to isolate the movement of filaments until full sections had been cleared. Our best chance of salvation was staying hidden until the hunter lost the trail or Maria was able to help heal the damage that had come on board with her.
I had changed trajectory, heading for a densely packed uninhabited system with multiple asteroid-wrecked moons and a thick asteroid field.
I needed as many potential hiding locations as possible to interfere with the tracking signal so that when the trail went dead, the hunter would have to search for us slowly and methodically.
More than anything, we needed time.
An alert grabbed my attention, refocusing on the outside of Maria's bedroom door. There had been a noise, enough to trigger the sensors. I listened for a moment. There it was, a soft moan.
Was she in pain?
Making low sounds to accompany physical distress was common for several species. I reviewed the medical files that I had for her kind. They were a noisy species, and vocalizations could be made for a wide variety of reasons, from celebratory to extreme distress.
She moaned again, and I captured the sound byte and ran a quick analysis through my medical data unit. The likelihood of it being pain signaling came back at around seventy percent.
It wasn't high enough priority to turn on my visual units to check on her.
When I became aware of the contaminant, I paused all construction and rearranging.
It was uncomfortable to keep my filaments from moving freely, but it was essential to limit the spread of the contaminant.
That meant that I'd left my visual units in place, instead of removing them fully, choosing to put them in a dormant state.
She wanted them removed, and even though I wanted to provide the best possible environment for her healing, I wasn't going to endanger myself any more than I already had in bringing her on board in the first place.
I made up my mind to chime her door instead and politely inquire after her condition. If she didn't respond, then I could escalate from there and turn on my visual units to check on her.
But the next sound that escaped her lips derailed that plan in a heartbeat. "Lyrien," she gasped out, calling out my name like a prayer to summon me from the depths of my isolation.
She needed me.
I felt a tremor run through my core, the center of my being, the part of me that I ignored except for the regular maintenance tasks.
I opened my eyes.
Not the visual units embedded in her walls, but the eyes on my core, the place where all my neurofilaments led.
I let out a gasp, my back arching as I tried to sit up, the neurofilaments anchored into my spine preventing me from the movement I'd gone so long without, that I'd become anchored in place, shell locked.
At the sound of my name on her lips, a cry that I understood deep down in the very fabric of the fibers that made up my being, I moved.
Against all logic. I strained.
I tried to move my core to go to her.
But it was impossible.
My eyes focused on the thick overlapping strands of neurofilaments that made up the walls encasing the core of me. It took a moment for me to understand what I was seeing. I'd grown so used to using visual units instead of my own eyes.
There was a small patch of contaminant, just out of reach, here at my core.
I would have to bring her here, where I was most vulnerable, to remove it.
Another moan from Maria echoed through my senses, sending shivers through me as my abdominal muscles clenched on another fruitless effort to lift myself out of the prison of my own body.
I wanted, more than anything, to awaken the visual units in her room and see exactly what she was doing that would cause her to serenade my senses, but I already knew.
I knew it the moment her bare skin stroked my filaments, I knew it in the tremor in her body as I carried her down my corridors, in the flush of desire that made me try to do the impossible and go to her when she summoned me.
But just in case I was wrong...
"Maria," I said, modulating my vocal projection so it sounded like I was speaking through the door. "Are you in distress? Do you need any assistance? Should I come in?"
"No!" she shrieked, the word panicked before she spoke again in a calmer tone. "No, I'm quite alright, thank you for your concern. I didn't mean to... I didn't know I was being loud."
"I will turn down the sensitivity of my audio sensors, but you will have to shout if you are in your room and want my attention," I said.
I hesitated for a moment, then decided it was better to be clear than leave anything unsaid.
"If you call out my name, it will draw my attention even if you don't shout. "
"Lyrien," she said, my name leaving her lips in a breathless rush of air. "I'm sorry for disturbing you."
"Any disturbance where you are healthy and happy is welcome," I said.
I wanted to ask so badly, for my mind to know for certain what my core felt as the truth, but I didn't know what stigmas her species held, what cultural standards held them restrained or freed their adults to explore what love could mean.
Love. The word drifting through my thoughts shocked me like a dose of ice water escaping a containment tank and leaking through my filaments.
This thing between us couldn't turn into love.
I saved her, and she contaminated me.
Anything she could feel on her end would be warped and shifted by obligation and guilt.
How could I fall in love with the instrument of my destruction?
"I really like you, Lyrien," Maria said, her warm words breaking through the ice that had crusted over my thoughts,
"I like you too, Maria," I said, my physical eyes still open, wondering what I would have done if I were able to move the core of my body from this spot and go to her.
The answer to that question scared me and excited me in equal portions.
Because whatever the case, for the first time in a long time, I didn't want to be alone.