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  Something in her head told her that she could break through the plexi of the tank if she wanted to. Detailed attack patterns started to fill her mind.

  She floated along with Leko occasionally conversing with her, and she answered back via the data pad.

  While she waited, she learned about the Bride ship and that it was the Lrrko’s last attempt at the desperately needed genes. The crash on Terra was not expected, and the resulting blending with the locals had an astronomical unlikelihood, and yet, here she was generations later.

  Now and then, Lynni caught a look at herself in the lenses of Leko’s cameras. Her hair was completely white now, which she supposed complemented the split of colouration on her body. She wasn’t one person. She was two complete people, split down the centre.

  It was hard to understand, but when her transformation occurred, her vision had improved dramatically. She could now read the monitors and displays on the other side of the room, and as everyone in the space was speaking a language she could understand, she could also read lips.

  Reading lips was a habit she had gotten into at the hospital. While the doctors told her that Ty was doing well, she learned a lot more if she watched them talk to each other. Their body language spoke volumes, and their lips said in private what they would never say to the family. Despite her relatively stable situation, Ty had been dying by inches. She might have had another three years to live, but it would not have been longer.

  Now, Ty was in the arms of her Familiar with a pinup’s figure once again and a healthy glow to her cheeks. The tears that Lynni had shed at the sight had thankfully blended in with the tank fluid.

  The image of the damage Ty had been wearing for the last two years was fading with the smiling memory of her repaired face taking over. The day that Ly had gotten the call was even worse than the day that their parents were killed in a vehicular crash. Tyanni was her older sister by less than a year. They had grown up more like twins than just sisters.

  Now, the resemblance between the sisters was on the genetic level and little more. Lynni was definitely something different now. She hoped that their bond would still be there when they met again on the Lrrko home world.

  “Lynni, are you all right? You look a little... unhappy.”

  She smiled slightly and looked at Leko, typing on her data pad. “I am fine. Well, as fine as I can be. How long has Ty been gone?”

  “Seven days. You are holding up rather well for that. I believe your treatment is nearly complete.”

  “Hooray. I want to take this body for a spin. I have had the urge to punch something a lot more frequently than I used to.” Typing in Lrrko was economical. The phrases were tight around violence. Talking about violent thoughts was easy.

  “I believe they will have you out tomorrow. From that point onward, you will be solely in my care.”

  She nodded. That part was clearly understood. The Lrrko had paid to heal Ty, so Lynni was on board with whatever happened next as long as she could be near her sister.

  Leko would take good care of her. He hadn’t let her down so far.

  The metal hands that hauled her from the tank belonged to her Familiar. He held her while she threw up the fluid that had kept her alive and breathing. Her coughing cleared her lungs, and Leko rubbed her spine to sooth her.

  When she was limp and there was nothing else to come out of her, he lifted her from the platform and carried her to the med table where the team was ready to undo all of the implants they had installed when she went in.

  Leko stood back and watched over her as the doctors buzzed around her, sealing the holes and running scans.

  Her body went from floating in a tank to feeling air blowing across it, and her skin prickled as her new senses came alive.

  She looked at the techs around her and knew how to incapacitate each one of them with just a few flicks of her fingers. The idea freaked her out. She wasn’t violent under normal circumstances, but this was as far from normal as she had ever been. She was two freaking colours for Pete’s sake.

  The doctors worked on her for an hour, and when they were done, Leko held her in the solar shower to get the last of the fluid off her skin.

  He wrapped her in a medical robe and carried her down the hall, passing a few chambers that contained other tanks with other Familiars.

  “So, the other three ladies are still in the tanks?”

  He nodded. “They all had different requirements that needed to be addressed by the medical teams.”

  “Here, I thought I was an easy case.”

  “You were, until you weren’t. You have come through it well, Lynni. Everyone heals at their own pace.”

  He brought her to a set of quarters that had a charging station in it, as well as a wardrobe. He set her on the bed and turned to the wardrobe, selecting a silvery bodysuit that was sleeveless and complete with feet.

  “I will help you into this.”

  Lynni sat up and reached for it. “I can do it.”

  He paused. “You will tire yourself.”

  “I am pretty sure that I can get dressed.”

  She grabbed the clothing and slipped on the legs of the suit and started working them into position. She had them up to mid-thigh when she glared at Leko. “Please help.”

  He didn’t say anything, merely knelt down and put her hands on his shoulders to stabilise her as he lifted her into a standing position. His hands worked quickly, and before she knew it, he was tucking her arms into the armholes and straightening the lines before he sealed the suit.

  “Thank you.”

  “You do not need to thank me; I am here to keep you safe, clothed, rested and fed. When we begin combat training, I will also teach you what you need to know to become a full Lrrko.”

  “I am a Terran.”

  “Not anymore. After that treatment, you have become a Lrrko in physiology. Well, a female Lrrko. We don’t have any of our own anymore.”

  She gave him an arch look. “I am here to tell you that, apparently, is no longer true.”

  He chuckled. It was a strange noise to hear from a robot, and she gave him an arch look. Her stomach rumbled and wrecked her speculation. “Can I eat?”

  He picked her up. “Yes. I will take you to the dining hall and prepare your meal.”

  “You are going to prepare it?”

  “Who knows better what Lrrko can and cannot eat than your Familiar?” His tone made it seem that she was being ridiculous. She settled and let him carry her through the base. She didn’t care how she got to food as long as it showed up in the next half hour.

  Chapter Three

  There were a few other people in the dining area, and several of them stared at her.

  It took her a few minutes to remember the colour differentiation of her face. She blushed and tried to look out at the moonscape.

  She bit her lip and propped her chin on her hand while she watched the huge orb of Earth in the sky. It felt so weird to see it from her current location.

  After ten minutes, Leko returned to her with a tray of food that woke up saliva glands and made her stomach rumble.

  He inclined his head and eased into a crouch next to her.

  “Why don’t you sit in the chair?”

  “It won’t sustain my weight.”

  “Right. What is this?” She pointed to the different dishes, and she waited while he explained the contents of each individual plate.

  “Do they teach you how to cook on Lrrko?”

  “It was part of my preparation for this mission.”

  She nodded. Right. It was probably a programmed series of recipes or something.

  The food was exactly what she wanted. It was primarily vegetable, but there was enough meat in it to satisfy her craving for protein.

  She was a little disgusted that she was exhausted by eating a meal, but Leko caught on, and when she was done, he lifted her up and carried her out of the dining room and back to her quarters.
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  Before she could protest, she had been stripped, placed in a loose shirt and tucked into bed.

  “You will feel better after you have rested and your meal has digested. The doctor will need to look at you one more time before we are free to leave, but then, we can head to Lrrko.”

  “I can hardly wait. I want to see how Tyanni is coming along.” She yawned and snuggled down in bed.

  Leko went to the wall and clipped himself into a charging station; a pale light glowed in one of the lenses of the camera, so she knew he was watching.

  Lynni curled up and went to sleep.

  * * * *

  Leko watched her assume the position that she had been in while she slept in the tank. Apparently, the fetal position was common as a reflex in Terrans. She curled into that position whenever she entered a deep sleep.

  Her senses and reflexes were obvious in the way she moved, and they were entirely Lrrko. She was tracking targets, which was an advanced reflex that took years of training. It was as amusing to watch as it was terrifying. He was responsible for what appeared to be one of the most potentially deadly Lrrko he had ever seen.

  Leko’s clan specialised in the art of assigning jobs within the genetic caste that the child had been designed in. Their population was relatively stable, but the needs of the society changed with the times, and the roles that they needed the young men to fill had to change as well.

  Leko was going to be a Master Selector, but the Selector of his clan offered him as the Familiar when this assignment came up. It wasn’t an assignment so much as a life sentence, but Lynni appeared to be polite and soft spoken.

  How different would she be once she had recovered from her time in the tank?

  * * * *

  Lynni got up and headed to the lav. She stumbled against the wall but made it to the necessary in time.

  It appeared that her body had recovered from the weeks without food, and it was practicing processing her dinner.

  She splashed water on her face and wobbled back to bed. Well, she tried to. She opened the lav door and smacked into Leko so hard that she bounced backward.

  He caught her.

  “You are not to go anywhere without me.”

  She prodded him in his fabric-covered metal chest. “You are not following me into the lav, bathroom or necessary. It doesn’t matter what you call it, I crap alone.”

  If he was living, she was sure that he would have blinked rapidly. “Understood.”

  Lynni thought she could hear a smile in his voice.

  She was sweating and wobbling, but she kept her back straight. “Now, I am returning to bed. You can help me or get out of my way.”

  He made a noise similar to a chuckle and took her by the elbow, supporting her as she made her way back to bed.

  To her surprise, he went to the dispenser and got a container of water for her. “Drink this before you sleep again. Dehydration is dangerous at this stage.”

  She made a face but drank the water.

  The next morning, the doctor gave her a clean bill of health. She was free to travel.

  The huge fist coming at her head was her indication to duck, so she did. Being trained in evading combat was a weird thing to do, but she welcomed it as a way to spend the boring days as they spun through space.

  She grabbed the arm as it shot through where she had been standing, and she used it to swing up until she was sitting on his shoulders with her thighs around his neck. The cameras were wedged against her abdomen.

  He tried to grab her, but she moved to ride his shoulders like a child. He couldn’t pull her off, and he would have to kneel to get rid of her.

  “Well done, Ly. You are definitely mastering the basics.” He stood and walked around the exercise space in the centre of the ship. She hung onto his head and rode along.

  He chuckled. “Are you going to get off?”

  “I am not sure how to manage it.”

  “I am content to wait until you figure it out.”

  “Of course you are. We have been training every day for the last two weeks. Are we there yet?”

  “We should be on approach. How are you feeling about landing on Lrrko?”

  “Pretty good. I know I can take care of myself, thanks to you.” She got a sly expression on her face that he couldn’t see. “Are you looking forward to being in your own body again?”

  The bot under her thighs went completely still. “I don’t know what you are referring to.”

  “You are an actual person in a robot body, somehow.” She braced her hands on his head, pushed up until her body weight was balanced on her palms, and she brought her legs free until she could drop to the ground behind him.

  He was still frozen in place. She came around and waved her hand at the camera. “Hello?”

  He reached out and pulled her to him. “Why would you say that I am not robot?”

  “You make certain noises when you are rubbing me down for the night that sound almost painful. The last time I heard those sounds, the man with me was the one making them.”

  He nodded. “I see. Well, yes. My body is on Lrrko. I will be up and around within a day of our arrival.”

  “So, why the bot?” It seemed perfectly natural to be pinned to him.

  “So that there would not be any suspect activity while you were travelling with me. We also use these bots when we travel to worlds where we cannot breathe. They are the same size as the average Lrrko of the active fighter class, so when we are in our cloaks and uniforms, few—if any—know the difference.”

  “So, the Lrrko are truly a race of assassins?”

  “We prefer to consider us a species who fills a certain need that other societies have. We also do a little retrieval work and hostage rescue.”

  “For a price.”

  “Of course. These shuttles don’t buy themselves.” He chuckled.

  She nodded. “I suppose that the Terrans will get to that point as well. Finding something that the other races want, I mean.”

  “They already have. Once Terra is no longer a protectorate, their population will be hired out across the Alliance and the Imperium.”

  Lynni thought about it and what it would mean in the long term. “I guess that there are those who would never leave home.”

  “And it will be up to them to keep the population up as more and more of them head into the stars.”

  The future of humanity just swam in front of Lynni’s eyes. “That... That is something I can’t even imagine.”

  She was suddenly very afraid for her people.

  He stroked her back but kept his grip on her arm. “Do not worry. Your genes will be in the Lrrko by then, and they will be honour bound to defend their own if any need help.”

  “Oh, good. Well, if other species have the same sort of thing, Terrans might just make it for a few more hundred years.”

  “I am sure that they will be fine.”

  She nodded and sighed. “So...”

  “Yes?”

  “Are we there yet?”

  He let out a sound reminiscent of a sigh, and she grinned.

  He let her go, and they settled in the cockpit, with the surface of Lrrko just hours away.

  Leko sent in clearance codes for a vast number of checkpoints. Lynni guessed that if you engaged in black ops for a living, you might want to make sure that no one unexpected showed up at your home.

  She was just hours from seeing Tyanni again, and she could hardly wait.

  When they were requesting final clearance, she nearly squealed.

  “So, are you ready to meet the Lrrko?”

  She made a face. “I suppose. The true question is are they ready to meet me?”

  He laughed. “I sincerely doubt it.”

  “So, when we land, I have to talk to the elders?”

  “And take a trip to medical for full scans. Splices have only been something whispered about when we talk about the ancients.”


  “So the chimera activity was frequent?”

  “The two genes in one body? No. It was as extraordinary then as it is now. Does it happen much on Terra?”

  “Not particularly. It might be more common than folks think, but until they go in for medical issues and get scans done, no one knows. Just like the Alliance, we don’t individually scan all parts of the body for differing genetic signatures.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “I am guessing that genetic patterns are fairly important on Lrrko.”

  “They are the backbone of our society. We live and die by what they decree for us. Yes, we do full scans.”

  She sighed. “Well, I look forward to meeting you in person and doing what I can to forward your—our species.”

  “I look forward to it as well. Despite the bio-feedback, touching your skin is something I would rather do with my own hands.”

  Shock rippled through Lynni as they passed through the final checkpoint. Why hadn’t she thought that that might be the outcome of having her own Familiar?

  Chapter Four

  As they approached the city, Lynni bit her lip. “So, do you think that Tyanni knows that Brex isn’t a robot?”

  An odd strangled sound came from him. “You can be sure that she is aware by now. I will be regaining my body as quickly as I can, so I am sure that he did the same.”

  “But she won’t know that I know.”

  “No. We are under orders not to disclose it until our females are safe on Lrrko. It was not my fault that you figured it out.”

  “You don’t have the reactions of a robot. Hopefully, the other males are better actors.”

  He glanced toward her, and she knew that if he was in a form with a face she could read, he would be glaring.

  She had a hard time not laughing her butt off, but the excitement of seeing her sister again was building.

  When they made the landing site, she was forced to wait for Leko to make the first move.