by Viola Grace
Lucky blushed and got back into her suit. “Thanks for the confirmation. I was afraid to check.”
“No problem. Checking personal parts is part of my job description. I don’t work with a lot of women, so you stand out.” Stitch cleared her throat. “Any particular reason that you want working equipment?”
“Well, Solouk has made an offer, and he and the other Alguth are far more attractive to me right now than the men who kept me from getting proper adaptation.”
“You don’t have to take a lover.”
Lucky snorted. “But I want to. I want to feel normal for a few minutes every now and then. I don’t believe that the Alguth will judge me harshly.”
Stitch chuckled. “You have it right there. Make sure your birth control is still functioning. That is a situation you don’t wish to court. The last thing that we need is for our best aerial fighters getting pregnant.”
“You know about that?”
“Yes. I have had a few long conversations with Liakon. As has Alphy. We made sure that they were safe for you before we assigned them to you as guardians.”
“Why did you?”
“You needed guards that wouldn’t remind you of Khiron Station.”
Lucky paused as she fastened her suit. Her mind flashed to a memory of Harkon. “Right. Smart.”
She made sure she was dressed again and ignored the sensation of the suit getting intimate with her. She stepped around the screen and looked at her friend. “Am I back to normal?”
“Yup. Even your voice.”
“Excellent.” She stretched.
“So, you are avoiding your office?”
“Yes. I did a lot of custom tattoos yesterday and turned two Alguth into war machines.”
Stitch raised her brows. “What?”
“I bulked them up and enhanced their wings as well as giving them full-body camo. They should be fierce looking during combat.”
Stitch grinned.
“I have been experimenting with retractable colouration. They can switch from their battle camo to normal in about twenty seconds. Their wings are great.”
“Yeah, it was a bit of a shock when we realized what had been carved out of their backs.” Stitch shook her head.
“Was it weird running into an alien race, face to face?” Lucky put her hands on her hips and twisted from side to side.
“It was. The body was thrashing around in the tube, and a look at the scans told me that there was no primer in his system. Once we had that sorted, it was easy enough to get the bodies healed. The wings came later.” Stitch grinned. “It was fun when they declared me their queen. It drove Niko nuts.”
“I kinda like it.”
Stitch laughed. “They are kind, attentive, and they have no home. They were sent out to defend their queen’s territory, and they didn’t come back in one piece. Their people need a whole body to procreate.”
“Right. So, you know it is the dudes that carry the babies, right?”
“Yeah. The guys described it in detail when I wanted to know about their sexual culture.” Stitch grinned. “Niko insisted on sitting in for that meeting.”
Lucky laughed. “I can imagine.”
Solouk came into the lab, and he looked at them. “Are you ready to resume your work?”
She sighed. “Right. The tattoos. Sure. Let’s head out.”
Solouk chuckled. “You will soon be through with the authorized clientele, and you can resume your private projects.”
She blinked and then realized he only knew that she had mentioned it previously. She asked Stitch, “Can you requisition me some clothes for that new client?”
Stitch blinked and grinned. “I can, and I will. It should be sent to your office by the afternoon. I think the scans in this room should be good enough for measurements.”
“Thank you. Alphy is going to send me some more nanites for anything that comes up, so I should be set.”
Stitch hugged her quickly. “I am so glad that we got to you before the Splice did.”
“You and me, both.” Lucky murmured it against her friend’s ear.
When they eased apart, they both smiled, and Lucky left with Solouk.
“So, what is causing the fluctuations in your life signal?”
She chuckled. “I keep getting in and out of my suit.”
“Is that safe?”
“It is necessary.” She smiled as they walked. “If it helps, Stitch has informed me that my sexual organs are fine. All in working order.”
Solouk’s body language suddenly became a lot more alert and attentive to her. “Are you willing to take a lover?”
“Perhaps. I think I might want to wait until we get out of the zone around Khiron Station.”
“The personnel transfer will be done tomorrow. Once they are on board and sorted into a variety of duty stations, we will continue on to find one of your other friends.”
Lucky blinked. “Have you heard which one we are looking for?”
“No. Just that it is one of the three women who are still missing from your original accident.”
She nodded. “Right. I will have to ask Alphy. She is going to be steering, after all.”
“A wise choice. I am only gaining the information through the crewmen who are bringing the equipment over from the station.”
Lucky sighed. “I thought they were not too fond of the Alguth.”
“Some of them admire our wings and the blades we can use. Most of those who appreciate us saw us in action on the Splice ships.”
“That would do it.” Lucky moved aside and let a crewman pass.
He nodded respectfully and turned sideways to give her the maximum amount of space. “Captain.”
She nodded and moved close to Solouk for the extra space. She would rather be close to him than the strange crewman. It was a pattern that they repeated over and over as they walked back to her office.
“So, how have your private experiments gone?”
“They are in a holding pattern. I have gone as far as I can without some extra nanites.”
“Are they being provided?”
“They are.” Lucky nodded. “Right. Enough of that. I am going to focus on the duties of the day. I prepped a lot of tattoos last night, and it is now time to plug them in.”
The line began to form as they approached her office. She looked at Solouk. “You told them, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “I told Liakon. He spread the message that we were on the way.”
“Fun. Okay, the patches are ready to generate.” She smiled. “This should go pretty quick.”
Solouk organized the men in line and gave her a list of the names in order. Things went along with remarkable speed. Two hours after she started, the last of the men left her office, and she leaned back with her hand to her forehead. “That was a bit of a rush.”
Solouk smiled. “It was. Five more Alguth have been authorized for enhancements. All have been authorized for body camo.”
“Is that what you are calling it?”
“It is as good a description as any. You will have to see it when we are in flight practice.”
Lucky blinked. “Can I see it? I mean, I would like to get a visual of the wings in action.”
“Sure. I will contact Aluak, and we can engage in a demonstration.”
She stretched up and down, side to side. Something in her structure was changing. She thought she might just be getting some added muscle to her torso and arms.
He nodded. “He will meet us in the oxygen centre. We will give a demonstration.”
“Good. I am rather excited to see the marks in action.”
They left her office, and he spoke softly to her in Alguth. “Do you worry that the men will want camouflage of their own?”
“The humans?”
“Yes.”
“No. They have no idea that the camo is not natural to the Alguth. As long as your people hold to that fiction, I will be able to continue to give them the markings, and if I can see
you in action, I might be able to offer a few alterations to the pattern.”
“You would deceive your own people?”
“In a heartbeat. With the right requisition, Cracker could install live weapons in the body of a cyborg.”
Solouk blinked. “Weapons inside the body?”
“Correct. We don’t generally use them anymore. They have an effect on the human mind, but they were in common use during the first generations of reclaimed fighters.”
“What generation are we?”
“Seventh. The nanites are constant, but their programming is evolving and changing. That is why I enlisted. I am good with the machine languages.”
“And other languages. You have caught on to Alguth exceedingly well.”
“Thank you.” She chuckled, and the words flowed easily from her lips. The Alguth language was more of a song and fewer words. There was a mental component that involved focusing on your topic, and the words were built around it. You couldn’t speak Alguth without holding a mental image.
They completed the walk to the forest, and she looked up to see the open area above her alternately filled and emptied of Alguth.
“How many of you are there on the ship?”
“After the last rescue and retrieval, eighty warriors.”
She looked up at the span above the trees, and she smiled. “I am glad that your people have made it this far.”
He nodded and morphed into his camo. “So are we. The trial begins now.”
Chapter Eleven
Watching Aluak and Solouk in the sky above her gave her the data she needed. Lucky calculated minor changes in the pattern for future alterations, and she watched as their increased speed and neutral colours blended with the stars above. It became more and more difficult to see them against the background as they picked up speed.
Lucky stared upward, and when a deep voice spoke next to her, she didn’t jump. “Are you going to do that to all of them?”
She glanced at Niko. “Only if they want it. I think it will make them far more functional as fighters.”
“You don’t think it will make their returning to their own people difficult?” Niko murmured it softly.
“No. It is reversible. I can change them back to a physical semblance of normal if they want it.”
“You can?”
She smiled and said softly, “I can.” She watched as the pale, shadowy blurs moved faster until she couldn’t make them out at all.
“You aren’t worried they are dangerous?”
“No more dangerous than the rest of the crewmen here. At least, they are less dangerous to me than the majority of men here are.”
Niko paused and then said, “You are protected.”
“Yeah, I was protected when Harkon took me. It didn’t do me any good then.”
“You were perfectly safe.”
She shivered. “I was talking about Khiron Station. Those men were duty bound to protect me, and I still found surveillance footage of Harkon groping me in my sleep. They let him. I brought the security footage to the attention of the base commander, and he simply put a second guard on me. That guard watched while Harkon acted out his little perversions.”
Niko paused. “I didn’t know that.”
“I will send you the files. I couldn’t do anything about it then, but I can now. I am no longer helpless.” She flexed her fingers around her tablet.
“Stitch assures me that your contributions are vital.”
“She should know. She used to tell me what a body needed to do, and I would make the nanites build that capability. Now, she still designs the bodies, but I have a bit more input in the initial install phase. It makes a difference for those recovering.”
“Nice change of topic.”
Lucky chuckled. “Same topic, different angle. Stitch can balance you, but I can make all the muscles work with nanites and the tissue graft together. I tell the nanites what kind of muscle mass they need for the Alguth to take flight. I do the calculations to determine how strong they need to be to carry another being.”
She glanced at Niko. “For your men, I keep the memory of moving muscle, and I give it to the nanites. I tell them how far they can push before the tissue they are next to it gives way.”
“Isn’t that basic programming?”
“We aren’t dealing with factory nanites anymore. We are generations away from the ones in use when the war began. These are faster, stronger, and they are reacting to knit tissue and protect our genes with the transformation to acid when separated. It goes against the machine’s nature to destroy itself, but it will if it is programmed to.” Lucky smiled slightly.
“So, it is you who created our current nanite system.”
“When I was at the Adaptation Base. It was the bit of programming that got the attention of the commanders, and from there, it was a short bit of basic training before I was in a shuttle and heading out to a warship.”
“How did you get into nanites?”
She chuckled. “My grandfather was a hobbyist. He also did clandestine repairs on folks with implants in our neighbourhood. He taught me to control the little bots and to make sure that they never left their new host vulnerable.”
“He was an old-style programmer?”
“Yeah. Not everyone stopped using nanites. Those who had accidentally lost a limb still needed repair and updates. Those who used the bots to keep themselves young needed the same. They all came to us one by one, usually after dark.” She smiled. “It was rough on the schedule, but they needed what they needed.”
Niko blinked. “You are a black-market programmer?”
She inclined her head. “If that is what you like to call it. I went to enlist the moment that I could. My parents were not happy. They wanted me to stay with the corporation and keep shuffling documents in analytics.”
“What about your grandfather?”
Lucky blinked. “He died in the first Splice attack. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they cut him in half.”
Niko jolted. “He was at the first landing?”
She nodded slowly. “So was I. I have seen the Splice, I know what they can do, and I also knew that no fighter who stayed out here was going to remain in one piece for long. I submitted my initial nanite program to Earth Control and enlisted shortly after when they told me that no one else could figure it out.”
Lucky looked upward at the Alguth playing blurry tag. “I had a scar, you know. It went from my left shoulder, across my abdomen, to my right hip. The Splice cut me open right next to my grandfather’s body. I survived, and they called me lucky. I kept that name.”
Niko blinked. “I didn’t know. They said no one survived that first incursion.”
“Yeah. It was considered better that the handful of survivors not have notoriety. They were trying to keep the population from panicking, but then, the second attack came, and the panic started anyway.”
Niko nodded. “I still remember those early days. They had advertising ready to go for enlistment, and I am only just realizing why right now.”
“Yeah, and the Alguth had no warning. No global communications. They were the ideal prey, and they have wings. It is something that we haven’t seen in the Splice before.”
“I haven’t seen them implementing it. Any clues?”
“Sure. The Alguth look human-ish, but they are lightweight and extremely strong. Now that they have the capability to carry a passenger, they are going to be a lot more comfortable in combat situations. They have the chance to save others as well as themselves. It means a lot to them.”
Niko nodded. “And not feeling helpless means a lot to you.”
“Now, you are getting it.” She waved at Solouk, and he streaked down toward her with a rapid descent that made her nervous.
He landed neatly in front of her and changed his colouration back to normal. His grin was filled with enthusiasm. “The markings work as we suspected they would.”
She cocked her head. “I have a f
ew alterations that I would like to make to confuse the eye a little more if that is all right with you.”
He bowed. “As my Queen wishes. Would you care for a flight?”
She glanced at Niko. “I think our conversation ran its course. I would love to have dinner with you and Stitch sometime.”
He smiled. “I believe I would enjoy that. There are parcels for you at the security office, by the way. Some are internal, some have come in the courier pods from outside the ship.”
“Courier pods?”
“Yeah, we don’t know how they find us, but they always have presents for you, ladies.”
Lucky giggled and covered her mouth with her hand. So, Lacey was out there and still sending care packages, just as she had when they were under deadlines or had just gotten a wave of wounded.
She nodded and turned to Solouk with a smile. “I would love a flight.”
He didn’t hesitate. He lifted her in his arms, and his wings hummed to life as he lifted them upward. He moved them slowly through the air above the trees, and the other Alguth flew around them in slow patterns as Solouk did a careful tour of the oxygen factory with her in his arms.
“Are you afraid of heights?” Solouk asked softly in Alguth.
“No. Not when I am not falling.” She smiled at him.
“You and Niko were having quite the conversation. Will Stitch mind?”
“No. She is well aware of my preferences, and it does not extend to crewmen on this vessel.” Lucky looked away and out at the lush vegetation of the highest oxygen-producing plants that the Earth could offer.
“I am guessing that you are referring to the human members of the crew?” Solouk’s fingers flexed slightly around her ribs and thigh.
“I am.”
“Ah. May I offer myself to help ease you into comfort with your repaired body?”
She giggled and looked into his rainbow eyes. “That is a very polite proposition.”
“You can dismiss me with a whisper, so manners matter.”
Lucky leaned her head against his shoulder. “We will settle things once your people all have the adjustments that they need and the alterations that they want.”
“They will be lined up outside your office at first rising tomorrow, and every day after until we get them processed.” Solouk’s voice was grim.