by Kit Tunstall
Carrie let her voice soften. “I understand. I can’t imagine being in your position, and I couldn’t imagine being in the cyborgs’ until a few days ago. This was all bewildering to me. I went from crocheting in my living room to being embroiled in a cyborg-human war.”
“It’s my fault,” said the older woman.
“That isn’t true, abuelita,” said a man who was probably two decades younger than her, and likely around sixty.
“Indirectly, I am. Henry—that was my husband, and the leader of the program that decided to unleash the weapon that would destroy the ionic bonds and hopefully wipe out the cyborgs, though they knew it would also kill humans—asked if I thought we were doing the right thing. I was trying to be a good wife and supportive, and I thought I was acting in humanity’s best interest when I encouraged him to do what had to be done. Of course, I made sure my family was safe first.” Bitterness tinged her words. “So please don’t let me stop your attempts at making peace, Gwen.”
“It certainly won’t, Elena, but you’re being too hard on yourself. Ultimately, you weren’t the one who made the call, and I doubt Carrie is going to let your initial lack of welcome frighten her away.”
Carrie took another step to stand in line right beside Gwen. “No, I won’t. It’s far too important to form an alliance and make this work. We all need peace, and we need to bring an end to the synthetics.”
“We can’t afford not to make peace,” said Gwen. “We’ve lost too many people. Most of the able-bodied adults are gone, and even more of the men. We’ve all lost someone. I lost Stephen…” Her voice broke on the word for a moment before she cleared her throat. “Britta and Pollux lost their father. We all have similar stories, and I’m sure the cyborgs have their own. We can’t let anything jeopardize an alliance, and it has to start with a cease-fire.”
Carrie opened her mouth to agree, but was prevented from doing so by the sudden discharge of a plasma weapon. It just barely missed her, and she cried out. Ducking down instinctively, she looked around for the source of whomever had attacked her.
She fully expected it to be one of the humans, so it was like a punch in the solar plexus when she saw MX409 suddenly looming over her as the humans scattered out of his way. His weapon was centered directly on her, and a brief glance at his face revealed he was fully committed to firing and ending her life.
Later, Carrie couldn’t be certain if Elena had deliberately drawn MX’s fire, or if it had been an accident. Either way, when she stumbled and crashed into Carrie, it sent her flying, and MX’s weapon struck the old woman instead. Carrie cried out, but she was the only one, since Elena immediately fell silent and dropped to the ground with a strange, innate gracefulness. She scrambled closer to the elderly lady, still wary of the weapon MX409 held, and soon realized there was no need to feel for a pulse. There was a huge hole in the woman’s chest and abdomen.
Tears scalded her eyes as she glared up at MX. “Why did you do that? She was just an old woman.”
“She’s a human and plotting against us, just like you.”
She was certain he was going to try to kill her again, and she searched frantically for a means of escape. It came in a surprising form as Britta held up a small handheld device and pointed it at MX. He started twitching, and the luminescent quality of his veins flickered for a moment. He dropped his weapon and looked confused. “What’s happening?”
Carrie didn’t bother waiting around to explain it to him. She was just guessing, but assumed the child had used the pulser on him. Since he didn’t have a cybernetic brain, it hadn’t been enough to short-circuit his system, but it had disrupted the ionic bond between his human and mechanical parts long enough to incapacitate him briefly.
She wasn’t certain to where she was running, but she had to get away from him, so she surrendered to the urge. Carrie ran a few feet before slamming into something hard and solid, which stole her breath.
It took her a long moment to regain her equilibrium and realize the thing she’d run into was actually Davis. Looking at his expression, along with the set of his shoulders and the way he crossed his arms over his chest, she guessed he was an angry Davis. She licked her lips. “Davis, is everything all right?”
He let out a small breath that sounded ragged a second before hauling her into his arms. “It is now. We’ve come to rescue you from the humans.”
She shook her head, frantically pushing against his chest so she could see his face. “There’s no need to rescue me from them. They’re on our side. MX409 is the one you need to deal with. He tried to kill me because he thought I had betrayed you, and he ended up killing an old woman instead.”
Davis’s eyes widened, and he seemed to be considering her words for a moment. While he considered, she looked over his shoulder by stretching on her tiptoes and peering off to the side, unsurprised to find at least a dozen cyborgs behind him. “Were you mounting a rescue party?”
He nodded just once. “Everyone who’s here is strictly volunteer, but you should know I had to restrict the number of people who could come. Practically the whole base volunteered.”
That warmed her, and she snuggled closer to him for a brief moment before reality intruded in the form of a crying child.
Abruptly recalling the circumstances, and where they were, Carrie turned away from him, though he didn’t allow her to leave his side. Three cyborgs now surrounded MX, who had collapsed to the floor and looked like he was still shaken. The crying came from Pollux, who was snuggled tightly against Gwen. She wasn’t certain which issue was the source of his tears, but imagined it was a combination of all factors—MX trying to kill her and succeeding in killing Elena, the incursion by the cyborgs, and the resulting chaos.
“Gwen wants a cease-fire.”
Davis stirred slightly behind her. “Who’s Gwen?”
She pointed to the leader of the enclave, who was currently holding both her children and rocking them in a maternal fashion that sent a pang of longing through Carrie that she couldn’t deny. “That’s Gwen. She leads the enclave. She said the synthetics are out to destroy the humans too. It would be in our best interest to make peace.”
He nodded, his body softening slightly behind her as both of his arms slipped around her waist. “That sounds like a sensible idea.”
“What about Max…MX?”
“He’ll go in the brig for now until he can explain his actions. Then we’ll decide how to proceed.”
She let out a shaky breath and melted completely against him. “I was certain he was going to kill me, and I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” She turned around slowly in his arms, twining hers around his shoulders and uncaring that they had an audience of human and cyborgs. “I love you, Davis. I guess Freydon Rote was right. I am your mate.”
He grinned at her. “He was one hundred percent right about that, and he was right about something else too.”
She arched a brow. “What’s that?”
“You have brought an end to the war with the humans. We aren’t done fighting, but the conflict with the humans appears to be over, and they’ll be our allies.”
As his words permeated her brain, she let out a small sigh of contentment. She hadn’t been a fool to believe in Rote’s words after all. The route to this point had been complex, with a series of twists and turns she hadn’t expected, but she had fulfilled her destiny and was right where she belonged—in her mate’s arms, on a bleak world, more than four hundred years in her future. Right then, it was the most amazing place to be, and she whispered a silent thanks to Freydon Rote as Davis bent his head to kiss her.
Epilogue
Freydon Rote beamed as he reviewed the footage of the cyborg general and his mate sharing a kiss. He quickly added notations to the file, smiling the entire time. Theirs had been another successful match, though he hadn’t expected anything less. In all his years as an agent, he’d never made a bad match.
As an added bonus, matching up Carrie and DVS84 would lead to more matche
s among their groups. He would still need to check in with them and make notations, but unless something truly unexpected happened, he had no plans or need to interact with them again.
As always, that left him with a slight ache of melancholy, but it was quickly eclipsed by the pleasure in another match well-made. He would observe their progress and their future, and the futures of the community around them, and that would be the limit of his interaction. It was the bittersweet role of a Celestial Mates agent, and he took pride in his role.
Before closing the file for the time being on Carrie and DVS84, he quickly reviewed the timeline ahead of them, opening new files for matings yet to come. Though he knew the outcome, he still anticipated observing the events as they aligned to bring together more couples among the cyborgs and humans. With a long sigh of satisfaction, he saved his work and logged out of the system, done for another day, but nowhere close to finished making matches for lonely souls among the galaxies.
******
Bonus Excerpt
Wrong Place, Right Mate (Celestial Mates series)
Dr. Ellie Wright was so busy consulting the pictures from the satellite survey that she barely noticed when the ship switched over to autopilot to begin the landing sequence. It was only at the first jostle that she looked up. She frowned in confusion at the sight of small asteroids between her and the planet. When the Hub sent out the satellite after discovering the planet just a couple of weeks ago, she didn’t recall seeing any asteroids in the photos.
Still, to be sure, she double-checked. It seemed unlikely that the satellite would have passed at exactly the right time to miss the entire field of small asteroids, but it was feasible. Most bounced harmlessly off the hull of the ship, so she tried not to be concerned.
As the ship piloted her into the atmosphere, her confusion deepened. She hadn’t expected a violent hue to the atmosphere, and once again she consulted her photographs and other data from the satellite. The Hub had sent it out before sending the first manned explorer shuttle as a safety precaution. The data wasn’t matching up with what she was seeing.
She gasped when she brought up the view screen, activating the external cameras. It was a rocky, mountainous terrain, which didn’t mesh with images provided by the Hub. They showed planet 428Z as relatively flat, with only two small continents surrounded by liquid that had remained unknown, but was speculated to be liquid ammonia. Those were the details she was supposed to discover on her trip to assess the planet.
There had clearly been a glitch somewhere. Either the satellite had photographed the wrong planet, or she’d been provided the wrong images. She wasn’t the only exo-geologist doing surveys on recently discovered planets. At any given time, there were likely to be at least five active missions in this solar system, where their Hub had been assigned.
With a curse, she flicked on her ansible and pulled up the Hub, immediately connecting to the communications officer. Dahlia Grey’s frazzled face was a familiar sight, and even though she was frustrated at receiving the wrong data, she didn’t want to unnecessarily burden Dahlia. With that in mind, and a sympathetic smile, she said, “I have the wrong data. I think someone else received the packet for 428Z.”
Dahlia closed her eyes for a moment, seeming to be counting, at least judging by the way her lips moved, as though it could summon her some patience. When she opened her eyes again, she looked angry. “There’s something going on with the computer systems. Again. You’re not the first person I’ve heard this from today.”
“I imagine one of them has my data, and I have their planet.” She tilted her head slightly. “Should I come back to the Hub?”
Dahlia shrugged. “It makes sense to me, since you’re all flying blind, but Commander Thorson decided not to waste the resources and time it has taken each of you to reach your planet. He is authorizing you to explore as intended.”
Ellie nibbled on her lower lip. “Without any pre-survey data? I don’t know what I’m getting into here. I’m walking in blind.”
Dahlia was clearly sympathetic, and her tone of frustration must have been directed toward the commander. “I’m aware, Dr. Wright, and like I said…” She trailed off with a shrug, make it clear she couldn’t override the commander.
Understanding that, Ellie nodded. She was partially relieved not to have to turn around after almost two days in ionospace, but the idea of entering the mission blindly, without any idea of the planet’s layout, was nerve-racking. “Could you put me in touch with the other pilot? Maybe we can figure out whose data belongs to whom. We could transmit it through you—”
Before Ellie could finish the words, the klaxon screamed in her head as the ship alerted her that they were in close proximity to a large outcropping of rock. “What am I supposed to do about it?” she asked in frustration, though the ship wouldn’t answer. “You’re the one steering us.”
When she got back to the Hub, she was going to put in a long list of complaints and suggestions for improvement, starting with the ability to allow pilots to override the ships during landing. They could take the helm during empty space, while traveling through ionospace, but the powers in charge had deemed it unwise to allow humans the ability to pilot themselves while landing.
That was all well and good if she had the right coordinates programmed into her computer in the shuttle, but the ship was going on data provided for planet 428Z, not this unknown place. Apparently, no one had focused on programming enough to make the ship aware of when it was acting on faulty data.
That shouldn’t surprise her, she thought with a sour twist of her lips, as she fastened the straps on her seat, unsure what kind of landing to expect. When GeoCorp had gotten the contract from the government, they had thrown together everything as hastily as possible, likely having exaggerated the extent of their progress when submitting their bid for mapping the recently available, yet still unknown, areas where humans could finally reach after a breakthrough in space travel technology. She was under no illusion that GeoCorp had gotten the contract because they were the most qualified. They had flat-out been the cheapest, and they had been willing to cut corners.
Ellie had known that when she’d signed on with the company, but she hadn’t let it stop her. She was finally within reach of achieving her career goal of being an actual exo-geologist, rather than the theoretical exo-geologists who guessed on the nature of the composition of different planets based on data provided from their interstellar probes. When her mentor had recommended her for the program, she’d jumped at the opportunity.
Now, she was rethinking that position as the shuttle shuddered after impacting with the rocky outcropping. The lights flickered and dimmed before the auxiliary power kicked in, and she was relieved to note the shields had held.
It was a rough and rocky landing, especially since she couldn’t do anything to get the shuttle to recognize their path wasn’t clear, and she certainly couldn’t override the redundancies that kept her locked out of the landing process. Oh, she was definitely going to have a laundry list of suggestions when she got back to the Hub.
If she got back, she forced herself to amend when the shuttle finally halted with a shuddering jolt that clacked her teeth together. Miraculously, three of the four external cameras somehow had survived the entry and the collisions, and she had a view of three-fourths of the area around her. She drew in a shuddering breath when she realized the shuttle had stopped inches away from the edge of a cliff. A shard of rock acted as a landing brake, but if it hadn’t held, the shuttle would have gone over the edge and into whatever waited below.
Cursing GeoCorp, and her own shortsightedness at overlooking the risks in favor of getting into space, she carefully eased from the seat. She moved with exaggerated caution in the shuttle, though she doubted it was really necessary. Even if the rock broke now, the shuttle was stable, its landing gear having anchored into the rocky material at least a foot deep. It was simply her own perception, and the reality of how close she had come to the edge of the cliff,
that made her move so gingerly.
The ship continued its annoying klaxon until she found the system to shut it off. After that, she pulled up damage reports, eyes widening at the long list of repairs required before the ship could return her to the Hub. She had no communications of any kind, but she was able to activate the distress beacon, which should send out a signal to the Hub.
The ship was designed with self-repairing systems, and she activated as many of those as she could, though she was certain some of the repairs would be beyond self-maintenance. Hopefully, none of those repairs would keep her grounded on this planet permanently, with GeoCorp her only hope of rescue.
After that, there wasn’t much she could do on the shuttle. She could either sit there and wait for rescue, or she could explore the planet around her. At least she didn’t have to worry about it not being able to sustain life with her environmental suit. Since the mix-up had simply been exo-geologists receiving the wrong planet data, someone had at least remotely surveyed this planet, and they had interpreted the data and come to the conclusion it was safe enough to explore, at least with caution.
Taking her time, she slid on the E-suit, marveling at how comfortable it was even though she had worn it several times on previous group missions and during simulations. This was her first solo mission, and this E-suit fit as well as the last one she’d worn. It conformed to her body, and the ambient oxygen and temperature were calibrated to be the most comfortable. There were tubes she could select to receive nourishment or water, and if she happened to need an extra burst of oxygen, there was even a tube for that. The E-suit took care of everything, and she tried not to think too much about all the details that involved. It was better to leave some parts a mystery.
After donning her pack, and gathering up the toolkit full of her instruments, she went to the airlock, waiting for the ship to seal before opening the outer airlock and stepping outside.