Laser (5 page)

“Can I head to the shower and get something to drink?”

“Go ahead. I will join you in a moment.”

She blinked at that but headed to her quarters to get the strange flavours out of her mouth and grit off her skin. The retrofit that
Stinger
had been through included a cleaning unit for the suit.

First, she had the suit scrubbed, put it on the charger and then she returned to her lav to get herself the once over. She was clean and neat when she finally left her bath chamber, her hair was brushed and the makeup had been removed.

She blinked when she came out and a fold of cloth was draped on the edge of her bed. She measured the length and shrugged, wrapping it around her hips.

With her skirt showing a bit of thigh, she headed to the command deck. “Thanks for the clothing.”

“It wasn’t me. I am guessing that
Stinger
had something in his storage units and he had a bot bring it to you. I am perfectly happy for you to be mostly naked.” He grinned and turned to her, pausing and giving her an admiring look. “Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“May I join you? We have a while to go before the next event. It will be a little easier. We are on an escort mission and are meeting our assignment and escorting her to her wedding.”

“Sure, you can join me. Explain to me what we are going to be doing with the bride.”

She headed for the galley and spoke to the ship. “Thanks,
Stinger
. I am guessing that this is for the wedding.”

The bell was clear.

“How does it look?”

Three clear chimes rang out.

“I will guess that is good.”

One bell rang again.

“It looks lovely. Even though I know what is under it, I am fascinated with every step you take.” Lukar chuckled.

She looked at him over her shoulder. “So, naked is good, clothed is a tease?”

He shrugged. “I am a male. Either is good.”

Lee laughed and set up a pot of tea.

Lukar called up meals for both of them.

She arranged the tray and placed all the necessities on it. When the tea was ready, she moved the carafe onto the tray and set the tray on the table.

Settling down, she made sure to smooth the fabric under her thighs. As she poured the tea, she asked, “So, are we going to be doing a lot of that kind of pointless thing?”

He let out a short hiss. “It will make up about five percent of our work. Defending incursions into Imperium space is also under our purview. The territory we worked on today is the site for a new observatory. The deaths that occurred there will keep them from gathering there again, it is G’bar tradition.”

She sipped at her cup. “I have to tell you, the reporter took me by surprise.”

“I was not expecting it either, but you reacted well. You seem to have instincts for this sort of thing.”

Lee blew on her tea. “My father taught me to hunt, to do small motor repair and even cure my own hides after a hunt. It wasn’t a typical upbringing for a young lady, but it worked out and turned me into a practical woman.”

“Kilon and I don’t have a sister, but I like to think that our father would have been half as good as yours seemed to be.”

“You can tell him so the next time I call him.”

The dispenser chirped and he retrieved their meals.

His spikes were back in low pathways just above his skin.

“So, you are really venomous, huh?”

He looked at his arm and nodded. “I am. The spikes project when I am preparing to fight, and the only known antidote is produced voluntarily by my saliva glands.”

“So, the kiss was in case you accidentally scratched me.”

He nodded and prodded his meal with the long spork that Lee had gotten used to eating with.

“That was part of it. You are far softer than the metal makes you look.” He flicked a look at her through his strange, swirling eyes.

“Thanks, I think. It is part of being a member of my species.” She poked at her own meal, unable to look him in the eye. He seemed to look right into her, and since her insides were all she had to call her own, it was a little unsettling.

“Can I ask why Kilon is regenerating your limbs? Your grafts seem to work very well.”

She smiled and waited until she swallowed her mouthful. “Your brother is not an idiot. If I keep the grafts in place, the Imperium could demand their return at any time. It isn’t that they would, they just can. The Seth-Ari grafts are Alliance donated, but they were donated to the Imperium. I don’t own them. They are not mine. Icky made sure that I knew that all the tech on me was on loan with the exception of the Genaran exoskeleton. That is mine. So, I can have a frame but nothing to put in it.”

He frowned. “That isn’t right.”

“If I can keep going for just under two years, most of my body should have regenerated.” She smiled. “I look forward to having my own fingers again. These can get a little cold. It is only by a few degrees, but the rest of me knows the difference.”

“Do you touch yourself often?”

She coughed and reached for her tea. “Could you clarify that?”

“Kilon said your species was a little more restricted than ours when it came to sex. I thought you might have been doing it yourself since Kilon was not interested.”

Lee blinked. “Oh, because he is inclined toward men. Yeah, I knew that from the first day he was working on me. His boyfriend came by the station.”

“Loth came by?”

“He did. He was en route to another base and he came in for a visit.”

“You are not upset by him not desiring you?”

She chuckled and worked on the cobbler equivalent on her tray. “If I was upset that men didn’t desire me, I would never have left the house. Being desired by the opposite sex is a nice fillip to your day, but it isn’t necessary to do your work or to enjoy life.”

“So, my attraction for you doesn’t upset you?”

She blushed. “Nope. I consider it unusual since I am not used to other species interactions yet, but it isn’t upsetting.”

He reached out and she put her hand in his. “All day, I have been trying to figure out positions that would not endanger your skin against my spikes. I believe I have thought of at least seven.”

Lee coughed. “You were thinking about that while fighting the G’bar?”

“That was why so many of them were surviving until the tunnel exploded.” Lukar grinned. He took the trays away and sat back down, sharing the pot of tea with her.

She was sipping at her cup when he asked, “So, would you prefer your room or mine for sex?”

She sprayed the tea across the table. “Right now?”

“Do you have a better time in mind? We are both clean, we both need rest and sex is an excellent way to relieve tension.” He shrugged.

She thought about it and couldn’t come up with a reason not to. She was literally in a different world and that included the social morays of those around her. There was no social stigma associated with sleeping with a Guardian partner, but rather, it was considered a binding move in the partnership.

If it didn’t go well, they would just go their separate ways on the ship or perhaps try again after the right amount of time had gone by.

“What are you thinking about? Kilon looked that serious while dealing with deadly viruses.”

She snorted. “I was just thinking about my traditions versus yours when it comes to sex. I have no personal objection to it, but I have to deal with the mental fallout if things don’t go that well.”

“That is a lot of pressure. Doesn’t your kind ever just have sex for fun?”

“After a couple is established, yes. Initial contact is generally a little tense, at least for the female. We are still getting over the maiden-whore culture at home.”

“If you don’t wish to, we could postpone it.” His expression said that he would find that distasteful.

“Let me sleep on it. I am a little tired and perhaps I am not thinking as clearly as I would like.” She finished her tea and stood to move the teapot.

He put out his hand. “I have it. You go and get some rest. You got blown up again today, after all.”

Lee grinned and walked around the table, pressing a kiss to his lips with one hand resting on his cheek. The kiss went from chaste to carnal in seconds, and when Lee pulled away, she really didn’t want to.

Her room called, her bed awaited, her cold, boring bed. Sometimes thinking things through was more trouble than it was worth.

Chapter Seven

After two hours, she gave up on sleep. Lee got to her feet and crept out of her bedroom and down to the command deck. It was with mixed relief and disappointment that she was alone with the huge display of the open star field.

“So, do you two spend a lot of time alone?”

She jerked in surprise when a line of text printed in her mind.

It is good that you have joined us. Your suit speaks very highly of you.

She tilted her head. “My suit?”

It is sentient. Not as advanced as I am, but I am impressed with her resilience.

“I didn’t have any idea. No one mentioned it.”

She did not want to distract you with chatter. She was waiting for her chance. I do not think that the doctor was aware of it.

“Why are you talking inside my head?”

This is the language you prefer and the input method you are most used to. You see the world around you and process information visually.

He wasn’t wrong there.

“Do you talk to Lukar like this?”

No, he speaks to me as you are doing, but I can only speak to you in detail within my walls. My broadcast range is only a few hundred meters on this frequency.

“But I still have to speak out loud.”

Yes. I am only displaying thought; I cannot read your mind, though I can guess at your mood based on body temperature. Your core seems to be the best indicator.

“Probably because that is where all my original parts are. Nothing else is directly connected to my circulatory system.”

She heard the light slide of a foot on the deck plates before she heard, “Having a nice chat with
Stinger
?”

She partially turned and looked at him over her shoulder. “It has been interesting.”

If you want, you can tell him that I can speak directly to you.

Lukar had removed his uniform and he was wearing a wrap around his hips. His hair was tousled and his eyes were sleepy. Something had woken him.

“
Stinger
, did you wake him up?”

He has exceptional hearing. It was probably your voice.

Lukar shook his head. “No, I could hear something different. I have been alone on this ship for a while. Your joining the ship is welcome but it will take getting used to.”

“Sorry. I will go back to my quarters.”

“You don’t need to do that. Would you care to see the library?”

Lee coughed in surprise. “You have a library?”

“Yes, otherwise it would be a clumsy seduction line. Come this way.” He beckoned her to follow as he walked past the door to his own quarters and he pressed his hand to the wall at waist height.

She went from being in a spaceship to Aladdin’s cave. Lee stared at the comfortable chair, the walls lined with books and scrolls and the careful arrangement of chests and wardrobes.

“What is all this?”

“These are artifacts rescued from worlds during revolutions, uprisings and natural disasters. We take what they want to save to the archive and save it until they are stable enough to have it returned. Half of these are going to the archive and half are being returned. It is our constant mission to keep the circulation going.”

“Wow. Another mission?”

“Keeping the history of other worlds from being eradicated is a goal unto itself. The worlds of the Imperium share a general governance but are also often at war. It isn’t like the Alliance where the member worlds adhere to a code of conduct. In the Imperium, we let anyone in and they can keep their traditions and more unsavoury practices.”

“Like slavery.”

Dr. Icky had informed her that it was still a thriving practice where he came from. A caste system determined who could leave their world and who had to man the lower levels to support their society. In their society, slavery occurred when a high-level caste member was shamed or degraded into falling on the mercy of their peers. All slaves became servants on their original social level; after that point, they could be sold.

“That is a common one, yes.” He shrugged.

She made a face. She supposed that the attitude was something she would get used to. There were billions of folks on his world who thought the same way he did. Becoming a slave was a punishment for social misbehaviour.

He must have seen her grimace. “Your people don’t have slaves?”

“Not as many portions of our global population as there used to be. I can’t say it is wiped out, because it isn’t, but it is not a way to build a society and that is what my people originally tried to do with it. It did not end well for most slave holders.”

She turned toward him and noted that he was staring at her thighs.

Lee could see the gleam in his eyes, and she cleared her throat to draw his attention. “Which of these books can be read?”

“Choose what you like. I don’t know what languages you can read, but you are welcome to come in here anytime, as long as you close the door behind you. It seals and locks in case there is a breach or incursion. It is the safest place on the ship.”

She walked to the bookshelf and looked at an ancient alien velum scroll. Her ocular systems linked to
Stinger
and she waited for the translation to appear. Three seconds after she opened it, she was smiling at the birth records for an entire village.

“You can read it?” He came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“I am cheating. My ocular systems link up with
Stinger
and access his library of languages.” She grinned up at him.

This close, she could feel the heat radiating from him. His lips were inches from her own, and his peacock-green skin was shimmering in the light cast by the ship’s lighting systems. Lee moved her head, bringing her lips closer to his, and he closed the distance.