Molten

  Melting metal is far easier than dealing with a man who sends electricity through her body with the slightest touch.

  A talent for heat sends Nanette to the Volunteers, and the power of her fire assigns her to a Guardian Base. Assigned to repair the damage left behind after the Guardians did their work, Nanette dives into her new position with enthusiasm until her new work puts her in the path of one of those heroes.

  Rand is stunned when he meets the new Terran. She is nothing like the women of her species that he has met before. Her scent is neutral, but her expression tells him that he is not the only one with an interest in interspecies relations. He just has to find an excuse to see her again. Perhaps he should break something?

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Molten

  Copyright © 2014 Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-0090-3

  Cover art by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

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  Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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  Molten

  Terran Times Second Wave

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Nanette worked on the gate she was welding and put the finishing touches on the last joint. She removed her mask and turned off the torch.

  “Are you done yet?” Toby Grandix called out.

  “Just finishing up.” She made a show of filing some of the joints, but they didn’t need it. The molten metal was her element. Control of it was never an issue.

  She wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. She couldn’t tell anyone about her affinity for heat and metal and so mimicking being sweaty was important.

  “You know, you took too much time on that side of the gate.” Toby crept up next to her and scowled at her work.

  Nanette pointed at the wall. “I did both sides. It is finished. You can have it powder coated tomorrow.”

  “What about the Walker repair?”

  “The leaves are back in place, and I have reinforced them for the next time their teen climbs over at two in the morning.” Nanette looked at her workstation. “I guess I am done.”

  Toby twisted his lips. “What about the Palmer job?”

  “Not mine to work on. That was Andrew’s screw up on the original work. He has to fix it as per the contract. You know that.”

  She didn’t tell him that she had already reinforced and repaired the damage to the fire screen. He was stalling.

  Nanette headed for the sink and scrubbed her hands before grabbing a clean shop towel and scrubbing her face and neck. “I am leaving, Toby. You had a chance and you blew it. At least have the guts to accept it.”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “You are seriously leaving this world because I refused to make you an equal partner?”

  “No, I am leaving because you offered the partnership to Andrew his first week here, and I have been here for three years.”

  Toby blustered, “But you had no experience with this kind of welding when you arrived.”

  “And yet, I still did better work than Andrew did with his so-called five years of experience. It doesn’t matter. I am going and you are going to have to live with your skewed judgement.” She nodded and slipped her bag over her shoulder. She held out her hand. “My final paycheque?”

  He hesitated then he deflated and slunk to his desk. He signed off on her pay and handed her the cheque with a grimace. “Thanks for working the full two weeks. It helped.”

  She took the slip of paper and checked the dates and signature. “Thanks for the job. It helped me work some things out.”

  Toby nodded. “When do you leave?”

  “Monday. Just enough time to cash this, send my furniture to a charity and forward the money there as well.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Where I am going, I don’t need money. It will be donated to a natural-disaster fund and do some good for folk displaced by volcanic activity.”

  “Why did you demand your pay then?”

  She grinned. “Because I worked for two weeks and you are not going to benefit from my labour more than you already do. Have a nice life, Toby. I certainly intend to.”

  Nanette Trews left the shop with a swing in her step and her shoulders back. She headed to the bank before it occurred to him to put a stop payment on the cheque. It was her money and not his, and he was lucky that she wasn’t going to make him pay in any other way.

  * * * *

  “You are here today as volunteers from Earth. Your aptitudes have been confirmed and each of you has had a job placement take place already. We are here to train you, to make you the best you can be and to bring out any hidden talents. Ask us questions and you may be surprised by the answers.” The soft-blue woman spoke with an amused smile and sparkling gold eyes.

  “You will be given your class lists or assigned to your tutors. Pass your hand over this scanner and it will direct you down the correct hall. Simply follow the colour displayed and you will be led to your destination. The rest will begin as soon as you find your class or tutor.”

  Nanette looked around at the other dozen Volunteers. No one moved.

  With a shrug, Nanette stepped forward and pressed her palm to the scanner the greeter had pointed out.

  The red pulse flared and a beam of light streaked off to the left. The greeter smiled. “Welcome, Nanette Trews. Your tutor awaits.”

  “Thank you.” Nanette turned and headed down the hall, following the red light. The new moon base was bright and cheery with many panels facing the sky and the moonscape.

  If she had time at a later date, she would explore all the different views, but for today, she was looking for her tutor.

  The light path took her through the base and into a huge hangar where blocks of stone were centrally located next to a peculiarly banal desk. At the desk, a man with stone-grey skin was filling out some kind of document.

  She cleared her throat, and he looked up and smiled with a bright grin. His eyes were a piercing neon yellow and his teeth were sharp and jagged.

  “Ah, Ms. Trews. It is good to see you. Please, come here and take in the language program that has been created for you.” His voice was a deep rumble of gravel on gravel.

  It was something that she had gotten in her briefing with the recruiter. She would be given the languages she needed to get along in the worlds outside of her current experience. The light flash came out of the tablet, and she staggered back a few steps. “Ow.”

  Her tutor chuckled. “Welcome to the Terran Moon Base. I am your tutor, Remak of the Kanniot.”

  His words were strange and there was a lag in her understanding, but she began to catch on as she concentrated. “Thank you for the welcome, Tutor Remak.”

  “Just R
emak. Do you know where you are being sent?”

  “It was mentioned that I would be doing some kind of repair work after heroes have destroyed buildings and such. I am only good at melting metal though, so I don’t know how much use I will be.”

  He gave her another frightening grin. “That is what I am here for.”

  She inclined her head and shifted her bag on her shoulder. “When do we start?”

  He stood up and kept rising until all seven feet of him was towering above her. “We begin now.”

  Seven weeks of training with Remak and she could melt and thin stone down into a wall where there had been nothing but a hole. She could craft metal into thin sheets to repair a vessel and use her skills for heating objects to repair any immobile object. Her skill lay in turning solid mineral into liquid that could be manipulated.

  “Well, you seem to have a firm grasp of finding the melting point of anything we throw at you. Your assignment awaits.” Remak grinned at her.

  Nanette sat and read the specs for where she was going. “You have to be kidding me.”

  “We are not kidding. They have two Terrans on their world already; apparently, they are trying to collect the whole set.” He winked.

  She read and reread all the information they had for her and exhaled heavily. “Well, this is unexpected.”

  “How so? You knew you were going to be support on a Guardian-occupied world.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t realize that I would be forced to wear a bodysuit every time I went anywhere. Is my body chemistry really so offensive?”

  Remak laughed, and he poured tea from the set he kept on his desk at all times. Tea was ubiquitous when he was around.

  “It is not the offense; it is the draw of your blood. Both races that make up the W’lyn had a fascination for your species. It made the Vimpyr stronger and quelled the Admaryn hunger. To the blended species, you will smell like the most perfect mate they have ever been near. If you don’t keep your scent confined and neutralized, they will be goaded into a frenzy.”

  She made a face and looked down at her plain bodysuit. “So, I am stuck with this?”

  “You will be given a few more stylish suits to wear. I understand that it is important to you.” He winked.

  “It isn’t that; I just like to be a little girly when I am off duty.”

  “Then, have them design clothing you can wear over a nude suit.”

  She chuckled. “Thanks for thinking of my fashion sense.”

  He toasted her with his teacup. “You are my pupil; I live to make sure you are well prepared for whatever comes your way.”

  She smirked. “Are all of your people so thoughtful?”

  “No, I am the heart of gold in the body of stone. One of a kind.” Remak smiled.

  His skill with stone was genetic, but his flair for manipulating it was pure talent and separated him from the rest of his people, just as her talent did for her.

  “Of that I have no doubt.” She laughed and enjoyed tea with her tutor for one last time. It was a memory that she would treasure.

  “Can you visit W’lyn?”

  He grinned. “If I can, I shall, just to check up on my favourite student.”

  “I am currently your only student.”

  “And therefore my favourite.” Remak smiled.

  Their banter had covered seven languages as a matter of daily practice. The more she used alien languages, the easier they became, so their conversations rotated through the different dialects at Remak’s cue.

  “I will miss this.” She gestured to the practice room and the tea.

  “You will get plenty of practice on W’lyn. Disaster cleanup is a noble profession. You will be a one-woman crew for now, but there will be another who follows that can and will assist you with your issues. We just can’t get her ready in time. She just started her training, but she will follow you as quickly as she can.”

  The prospect of company made her smile. She would not be housed with the Guardians; they were a separate entity from what she was about to embark on. Her skills would necessitate that she be called upon after they were. She needed her own dispatch centre and her own vehicles. She was about to become a one-woman industry.

  Chapter Two

  The bodysuits of W’lyn were actually comfortable. Nanette settled into her new quarters and waved off her armoured escort. The dispatch centre was ready for her first call and her cloud rider was waiting for her.

  The legal matters had been attended to. She had full self-defence dispensation and the equivalency of a citizen for as long as she remained on W’lyn.

  Alone with no one to speak to, she had the ultimate in compensation. A garden, rocks to play with and a workshop to do whatever she pleased.

  Nanette’s small home was on the edge of a mountain range, and she could see an incredible vista around her.

  She stepped out onto her patio and looked out at the view. The moons were rising as the sun faded, and she had to smile. She was not on Earth anymore.

  It took three days before she got her first repair call. The Guardians had mixed things up with some folk in mech suits. They had been near a sculptural garden and damaged a few of the displays. It was time for Nanette to go and meet the city people that she had only seen from a distance on her first day.

  Using the instructions she had been given, she put the coordinates into her small vehicle, and she straddled the scooter-like construct before taking off. The cloud runner steered itself up and out over the water, heading for her assignment.

  She had a contact image and tried to calm her sweating palms. Focus. She was here to fix what she could and return to her new home.

  The site was obvious as she approached it. There was rubble, dented vehicles and scorch marks on the ground.

  She took over control and found a position to park that kept her out of the way. She headed for the peacekeepers and cleared her throat.

  “Who are you?”

  She took a deep breath. “I am the stone and metal repair specialist looking for the local representative. I believe his name is Ahken.”

  The peacekeepers looked her over and took in her bodysuit, the pallor of her skin and the badge attached to her neckline. That was what caused the man to point to a conservatively dressed man who was speaking with a fellow in a tight suit that outlined every inch of his musculature.

  His hair was metallic gold, and Nanette admired it as she approached.

  Ahken turned toward her with an expression of relief. “Oh, the repair specialist.”

  Nanette inclined her head. “As you say. What do you wish me to reconstruct?”

  The other man turned, and his eyes widened in surprise. “A Terran?”

  She nodded.

  He extended his hand. “My name is Rand. I am one of the Guardians of W’lyn.”

  She took his hand and watched his eyes flicker in surprise again.

  “You are very warm.”

  Nanette pulled her hand from his. “Occupational hazard.”

  She watched him flare his nostrils and he looked confused.

  “You don’t smell like a Terran.”

  “I have been tutored to avoid distracting interactions with the W’lyn.” She smiled. “Please excuse me.”

  She returned her attention to Ahken. “If you would take me to the items you wish repaired?”

  He nodded, “Of course. Please excuse me, Rand. I will be with you momentarily.”

  Ahken showed her the blocky statuary that had taken damage. She smiled when she recognized one of the metal compositions as the primary material she had been studying on her journey out.

  “May I get started?”

  “Please. Call me if you need me.” He winked and strode away.

  She nodded, but her mind was already on her project. A large corner had been knocked off the obelisk-like object, and she located it without any difficulty. She thanked the combination of her skills and her genes when she lif
ted the chunk of metal and tested the fit. It was a solid connection, but some of that metal would be lost when she melted it.

  She set the metal down and returned to her vehicle, rummaging in the packs for welding rods that would match the statue.

  Ahken and Rand watched her resume her work on the statue. She could feel their gazes on her.

  She settled the piece within easy reach, heated the main block with one hand while melting a chunk of the welding rod in her hand. When they were both soft, she slapped the rod to the molten metal and then kept it hot while warming the broken piece. When everything was ready, she grabbed the chunk and lifted it into place, holding it while the metals mixed, swirled and began to cool. Patience was key at the setting stage. If she didn’t give it the time it needed, she wouldn’t get a good seal.

  Instinct told her when the initial setting was good and there was a hairline crack that was still visible. Now was the fun part.

  Humming, she got her water bottles, more welding rods and she climbed up on the main part of the statue and started to work.

  Making the metal a soft, pliable consistency let her place it precisely into the crack, and her hand smoothed it into a seamless bond. A splash of water shocked the metal into rigidity, and she kept working until the top joint was invisible.

  Nanette smiled and enjoyed climbing all over the piece until the only telltale sign of the damage was the brighter line of the repair. In time, it would disappear.

  When she looked out over the battle-scarred area, she could not see any other hard object damage. She went in search of Ahken.

  He was standing and speaking to volunteers and peacekeepers, directing the cleanup efforts.

  When he turned to her, she smiled. “Was there anything else?”

  He shook his head. “No, only the replica of the founder ship. Thank you. Do you mind if I come with you to take a look?”