Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
LYRIEN
"Why didn't you have me work on your weapon systems first?
" Maria asked me as she worked on the neurofilaments that controlled the pitch of the long-distance cannon.
It was a huge job that had taken us fifteen of her sleep cycles, though it could have been done sooner if I hadn't taken so many breaks to fuck her senseless.
Even now, as she worked, bent over, I could see the small dribble of my seed oozing out of her.
I longed to seat myself back in her to push it back into place, but she had made it clear we had to get a certain amount of work done before she'd let me have her again.
"The contaminant is designed to target weapons and defense systems," I said.
"If I had you clear this area first, any other spots would have been drawn to the energy signatures and contaminated everything in their path to recontaminate them while you were working on the rest of me.
Standard procedure is to clear the targeted systems last."
"Even so, wouldn't having your weapons working be more of a priority than having me swim around in a pool?" she asked. "If you had let me know that something this important was damaged, I wouldn't have wanted to take so much downtime."
"The best way to win a fight is to avoid it in the first place and focus on the long game," I said.
"I'd much rather hide than risk having my birds be collateral damage.
They don't like the restraints I have to hold them in to keep them safe from battle maneuvering, and with my stealth systems intact and the sheer number of potential hiding places in this system, there is a good chance the hunter has arrived and moved on already, unable to find us and worried that we are slipping further and further away as they dawdled searching individual pockets.
Having you work at a breakneck pace and burn yourself out would have weakened us more than taking the time to rest and do things right. "
"You don't know for sure if the hunter has even arrived in this system?" she asked, the surprise in her voice.
"We are hidden," I said. "Any attempt of mine to monitor or scan this system would be detectable. We are not going to make the slightest peep until I am certain we are ready to run or fight at my highest capability."
"We should secure the birds in advance of that," she said. "I know it will stress them out, but it is important not to have to worry about them in case it comes down to a fight."
I really didn't want to fight. Being willing and able to engage in violence was a completely different thing from being eager to do so.
Even a pacifist has the capability to fire a weapon, especially with a clear awareness of the evil that awaits them.
I would use my weapons to defend myself and my love without hesitation.
Even so, the fact that the first thing my love thought about was protecting my aviary made me happy.
"Yes," I agreed. "It would be safer for them to come out of hiding at top speed and make a run for it."
"Do hunters generally use the same kinds of ships?" Maria asked, jumping straight into her next question.
"Yes, they have standardized configurations," I said.
"Do you have blueprints for that?" she asked.
"Why?" I responded, curious as to where she was going.
"You said that your weapons systems are top of the line," she said.
"If they are that good, and you know enough about what the hunters ship might be, then we can put together a plan for if they're waiting out there for us.
Instead of just running, we should come out swinging and then run.
Maybe we can disable their systems like they tried to disable ours. "
I loved that she said ours.
Even though everything was a part of me, built out of my body, the fact that she claimed ownership of me the way she did, tickled me almost as much as the feeling of her bare feet when she walked along my metal-stripped corridors.
With her permission, I began changing the hallways and corridors in most of the spaces she inhabited to expose them to neurofilaments, so I could feel her everywhere she went, rather than having metal separating us.
Her bedroom, we left the way it was, a haven where my presence and attention weren't allowed except by express invitation.
When we next docked at a space station, I planned to acquire the materials I needed to turn her bedroom into a full-functioning shuttle with its own environmental system, multiple suites for any children, and navigational controls for the unlikely event that I would want to use it as an escape vessel.
It wasn't likely that we would ever need it, but like my investment in my weapons system, it was important to spend time planning for the worst-case scenario so I could spend the rest of my life enjoying the peace.
Even so, that word ours settled in the back of my mind, rolling over and over again in a soft murmur as we worked to finish up the last of the sections that would allow us to break free from hiding.
"Maria," I asked. "Do you know the average synaptic latency for your species?"
"The what?" she asked, pausing in her work to look over at me.
She was so soft, so delicate, with flat teeth and no claws. There was nothing about her that suggested that her species came from a planet with extreme predation. She looked as if her species evolved with minimal threats, but even so, that word ours kept tumbling around.
"For species that have more difficult survival environments when evolving, they can develop neurological bypasses in moments that require fast reaction times to avoid danger," I said.
"I know that for humans, when we feel in danger, our bodies release adrenaline, which causes extreme selective attention," she said.
"It forces the brain to filter out background noise and allows us to use our entire neural bandwidth to deal with the situation.
It also increases the efficiency of the neuromuscular junction, where nerve meets muscle, and makes our physical reactions faster and more forceful.
We also record memories at a higher density in that state, leading to a perceptual speed, an illusion that we have more time to make a decision even if our physical reactions are only a little bit faster. "
What she was describing was shocking, something only found in warrior races that came from, and concern washed through me.
"Maria," I said. "I know it is a lot to ask, but can I run some tests on you?"
She took a deep breath.
"I trust you," she said. "You may."
It took some time to finish up, and while she was resting, I set up the tests. They were simple things, non-invasive, just to test the speed of her reflexes and how they changed over time. Though she was nervous at first, once we got through them all, she was smiling.
"That was fun," she said, her tone light and happy. "That was more like playing a bunch of different video games than a test."
My emotions were more mixed. On one hand, that hunch had led to a conclusion that would help us.
On the other hand, the test results were problematic.
Her species looked so soft and gentle that it wasn't surprising the scientists hadn't considered testing the speed of her reflexes.
At some point, someone would think to do that.
Maria couldn't be the only test subject out there.
Eventually, the Calicium would find out.
I didn't want to frighten her with something I couldn't control, but at the same time, holding information like that from her would be a serious breach of trust, especially after all we'd been through together.
"Maria," I said. "If the Calicium learn about your species' superior synaptic latency, your planets will be targeted for invasion."
"Maybe that is why the information packet on my species doesn't include the location of my homeworld?
" she pointed out. Her mind jumped to the obvious conclusion right away.
"Whatever the case, we can't do anything about it while we're hiding here.
We need to get into a safe space and find out what is going on.
We've spent too much time here. How soon will you be ready to go? How many sections do we have left?"
"None," I told her.
"Then let's go," she said.