Chapter 1
Riina Katala stood in the shadows watching Tim—formerly an OmnitronW robot—talking to his physical therapist.
She didn’t remember what she’d thought he’d look like. The reality had wiped away all expectations and left her…winded…every time she saw him.
It was disconcerting.
From imposing and towering lethal metal to this.
Oh, he had retained his lethal aura, and he still exuded extreme competence. But now it was all packaged into tall, broad, muscled, and human. So potently human.
Had she known he had been this good-looking would she have encouraged him to return to his cloned human body? And how had he left this behind? Hadn’t he realized…but of course, it hadn’t mattered. He’d been a slave of the Q’uy.
It wasn’t as if he’d had a choice. But, as she often heard the Earth humans say, “Dang, he was pretty.”
They’d been friends almost from their first meeting. They had done multiple diplomatic missions together, including the very dangerous one with General Halliwell.
Despite his lethal appearance, she’d felt completely safe with him.
What did she feel now?
Not something that felt safe, that was for sure.
Why did her heart hammer in her chest when she saw him? Why did her face feel hot, and her hands feel cold?
She needed to figure this out before they came face-to-face again. Before they had to leave for their next mission.
She’d dreamt about him last night. She’d been in the hangar bay waiting for him, just like so many times before. The door had slid back and he’d stepped through it. Not the robot. The man.
Their eyes—his human eye—had found her and she’d rocked back on her heels. There’d been a question in there, and he’d held out his hand to her. She’d walked to him, surprised to find she could move. Surprised at how eager she’d been to take his outstretched hand.
His so very human hand had closed around hers and she’d been flooded with a feeling that felt so right that tears had pricked her dream eyes.
She’d woken up shaken and disoriented to find herself alone. She’d flexed the hand he’d held, still feeling the tingle in her skin from the dream contact.
She had thrown back her coverings and gone to get water to drink. It had helped. A little. She’d leaned her head against the cold wall, trying to regain her composure.
Riina was a scientist and she’d always prided herself on her command of her emotions—both before their long sleep and now in this unsettling future she’d landed in.
She liked Tim, the cyborg. Her mind and his had…meshed. They’d made a good team. He could both think logically and break things when things needed to be broken. A smile had flickered on her lips at this thought. She had been mildly infected with the way the people of the Earth Expedition talked.
She should have realized she might have caught other things from them. They were a people who were unabashed about who they were and what they felt a situation required. Their belief in themselves extended from breaking things to, well, romance.
She was sincerely happy for those of her kind who had found happiness with those from the Earth Expedition and others of the former cyborgs.
She just didn’t know how to reconcile who she’d believed she was and this…
surge of emotion that had been infiltrating her mind even before Tim made the decision to migrate from mostly robotic cyborg to mostly human cyborg.
And then there was the other factor.
Tim.
What did he think? What did he feel?
Just because she’d lost her mind, didn’t mean he had. Just because he met her halfway in her dreams didn’t mean he would when he was released from medical and cleared to return to duty.
Duty.
What did duty dictate for either of them?
She wasn’t new to fear. Fear had sent them into their long sleep. But this fear, which was obviously less life threatening, felt worse than that fear.
Why?
Tim lifted a towel to his glistening face and rubbed it, his body turning in her direction. She stepped back quickly, then slipped away, afraid of what she’d see in his eyes when he saw her.
And afraid of what she wouldn’t see.
“We have a problem,” Delilah “Doc” Clementyne avoided looking at General Halliwell as she began the process of delivering this new round of bad news. She couldn’t even play the good news, bad news card. So far, there was no good news card in her deck.
In the wall’s reflection, she saw him turn around. And she heard his sigh.
“What now?”
“Do you remember that geologist the Garradians borrowed?”
There was a short silence. He was pretending to think, but she knew he didn’t need to. He had every person’s name they’d loaned to the Garradians on mental speed dial.
“Dr. Walker.” Another pause. “Dr. Miles Walker. What did he do? Oh wait. Let me guess. He made first contact.”
“It was probably a given,” Doc said. It was an unexpected that she’d pretty much expected. So technically, not unexpected. “There seems to be a woman in the mix.”
She knew the general wanted to rant about it, but it was difficult for him. He’d gone on a mission and come back involved with an alien. It was also almost a given that anyone who went out on an expedition came back in love with an alien.
She cast a quick glance at her alien. Hel grinned.
None of them had a leg to stand on.
“Do we have a solution?” Halliwell asked.
“Well, we have to form a mission to try to contain the fallout. The Maestra has suggested Riina Katala and Tim.” Doc once again kept her tone carefully neutral.
Dr. Miles Walker was one of theirs and neither Riina or Tim were part of the Expedition. But they had done a mission with the General. He knew them both very well and respected them.
Now the General did look around. Doc warily turned to face him.
“Is Tim out of medical?”
“Yes, and he is finishing up his physical therapy.” Tim, a former robot with a human consciousness, had recently transferred that consciousness back into a body cloned from his own DNA.
She had to give their ship’s captain, CabeX, kudos for forward thinking. Back when the robots had left their human bodies, he’d foreseen a time when they might want to go back to their original forms and saved their DNA.
Not all of them had ended up back in their own cloned bodies, however. Necessity had required different outcomes for some of them. But Tim was back in a version of his own body.
That should have meant an easy integration, but apparently living for years in a robot body required a lot of adjustment when leaving the big, bad robot body behind.
She wasn’t unsympathetic. She’d had to make some big adjustments since coming to the Garradian Galaxy—the biggest one being Helfron Giddioni.
She might still be trying to get used to his name. And having an alien and hostile mother-in-law. And becoming a step-mom to two little Giddionis. And…the nanites living inside her…well, a lot of adjustments to new things.
Hel’s lips quirked up as if he knew what she was thinking. He probably did. They were connected in ways that was yet another of those adjustments.
“Other than Dr. Miles being our guy, what does this have to do with me?” Halliwell rubbed his face.
“The Maestra wanted you to be informed, in case you wanted to embed one of your people in the mission.”
The general sighed again. “I, yes, I do. Let me think about who to send.” He glanced up in time to catch her slight grimace. “Not a diplomat.”
Yes, they both still had issues with diplomats.
“Thank you, sir.” She knew how to look demure when needed and she deployed the look now.
The general snorted. “Dismissed, Doc.”
“Yes, sir.”
It wasn’t an oversight that he never acknowledged Hel unless forced to by circumstances. The general knew how to hold a grudge.
Hel waited until they were safely outside to laugh.
“Do you think he’ll task himself…” Hel began.
“No, he won’t,” Doc told him. “He’ll want to, but he won’t.”
She meshed her fingers with his and saw the heat spark in his eyes. The general and his issues faded from her mind. And Doc was pretty sure they faded from Hel’s too.
Tim followed CabeX into the meeting room. Trac—TrackerY—came in last and stopped near the door. The robotic cyborg couldn’t show unease, but Tim knew Trac well enough to know how much Trac didn’t want to be in this room with them.
Tim hadn’t asked CabeX why he’d detailed Trac to the mission—partly because Tim didn’t know what the mission was. And CabeX always had his reasons for what he did. His crew had learned to just follow orders.
The Garradian Maestra was already in the room. It was not a surprise to see Moose—also a former cyborg—at her back, since they were a couple.
She smiled a greeting, then gave CabeX a puzzled look.
“I don’t believe I’ve met…” she didn’t finish the sentence, just indicated Trac with a wave of her hand.
It was true that as cybernetic robots, the Najer crew weren’t that different in appearance—to others—at first. But each of them had been specific models with special functions, over and above their basic intimidation factors.
And as these people came to know them, they’d gradually been able to discern the differences in their various models.
And now only two of them remained in robot form, so it should be a lot easier. But it was also true that Trac didn’t get out a lot. Tim wasn’t sure he’d been off the ship at all since they started working with the Expedition and the Garradians.
“This is TrackerY,” CabeX said. “Trac,” he added.
“Trac. Pleased to meet you.” She still looked puzzled.
Trac inclined his head, his hands folded across his massive, metal chest.
“Ma’am,” he said. His voice was the most robotic of the crew’s.
Tim had always figured it was a personal choice.
“He doesn’t leave the Najer that often,” CabeX said.
“Okay.” The Maestra blinked a couple of times, gave a slight head shake, then gestured for them to take seats.
All of them but Trac did. He stayed near the door as the Maestra began to explain the problem unfolding on Arroxan Prime.
Tim might be surprised he was being tasked with the mission. It sounded like a diplomatic problem. None of the crew off the Najer were particularly good at that. Breaking things. Shooting things. Hacking into things. Yes. Talking nice? No.
“Who else is on the mission?” Tim finally asked. Surely someone from the Earth Expedition was going, since it was their guy in trouble. Or possibly in trouble. They didn’t seem quite sure about that yet.
A list appeared on a screen in front of them. The only name Tim saw was Riina Katala. His newly human body reacted strongly, his heartbeat speeding up. And other parts felt strange and alien. Riina.
He hadn’t seen her since he’d gone into medical for his consciousness transfer. He’d half hoped she’d come to see him, been mostly relieved she hadn’t. He hadn’t liked feeling so much less as he fought to recover from the transfer and accustom himself to a mostly human body.
He didn’t know how to feel or act around her from inside this body.
He might be glad the choice had been removed. Now he’d have to see her.
“I’m conflicted about sending one person so obviously alien,” the Maestra admitted, her glance flicking to Tim.
He did have obvious cybernetics. Like some of the others, he’d been reluctant to completely live without cybernetics.
“They don’t have…” CabeX stopped as if unsure how to phrase the question.
Tim couldn’t help him out.
“From what we can tell, no, but we’re going in as alien anyway. And there is a bigger problem than just accidental first contact,” she admitted.
A report popped up on his personal screen. It took him longer to absorb it than he was used to, but he still looked up before CabeX.
CabeX had gone fully human.
“Interesting,” he said.
“Can I bring my my Skitterfin?” Trac asked. “My pet.”
They all turned to look at him.
Trac had a pet?
Tim looked at CabeX who gave a shrug.
“Sure.”
CabeX didn’t sound sure, but if it got Trac out and about…
“Sure,” Tim echoed. What was a skitterfin?