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  Ashlin felt a strange tingling in her limbs and she clutched at Rumble's arm. She turned to ask him what was going on and the next thing she knew, her head was spinning and they were outside an orbital station.

  Rumble was monitoring her vital signs and scowling. His face cleared when she met his gaze. "What was that?"

  "An extended jump. Moira didn't think to warn me and completely forgot that you wouldn't have experience with jumps."

  "I am sorry!" The feminine voice from the pilot's seat was remorseful.

  Ashlin tried to sit up, but Rumble held her down with one hand. "Stay put while we dock with the Station. Your vitals are still a little wild for my taste."

  She scowled. "What are you, a doctor?"

  He grinned. "Something like that. I am a genetic researcher."

  "Oh."

  His hand was warm but firm on her collarbone. "Indeed. I have enough medical training to know that something is wrong with you and enough sensitivity to your body that confirms what the sensors are saying."

  While her mind was content with staying put, her body was struggling. She continued to gasp and twist while he held her down until more strange faces came into her field of vision and whisked her away into a medical centre.

  Her body continued to twist and shift as it struggled. "What is going on?"

  An Azon doctor stood with Rumble and they watched both her and the displays in turn. They conferred while a woman came to Ashlin's side and held her hand. The brief contact sent a long shudder through her.

  "Hey, Ashlin. I am Kaylee. How are you doing?"

  "Not too well. What is going on?"

  Kaylee looked to the Azon and he nodded. "Well, from what the sensors are showing us, your body is developing a third alternate form. The first jump started the process and the second one gave you the power boost your body needed to write a new body pattern. It is apparently trying to decide what to do."

  Another long shudder ran through Ashlin and Rumble took her other hand.

  "Rumble, how long do you think this will take?" She spoke through clenched teeth as her body arched on the medical bed.

  "We are home now, you can call me Ecros." He smoothed her hair from her face and she grunted as wave after wave of power started to wash over her.

  Kaylee and Ecros kept their grips on her hands, holding her down and soothing her as her body ripped through its transformation.

  "How long ago did your first change come upon you, Ashlin?" Ecros's voice was low in her ear.

  "When I was just a child. It came on gradually, each part growing in as it was needed. The last thing to come was the tail." She hissed more than spoke the words, but he nodded in understanding.

  "So, the eyes, the claws, even the ears came in as needed?"

  "Yes." The hiss was unstoppable.

  Kaylee asked, "This is very important. When were you last in a shuttle?"

  Her vision was spiking everyone with bright halos, but she managed to focus. "I was ten or eleven. We went to visit the orbital station and visit some of my aunts and uncles."

  "Did anything happen?"

  "No. I was just very happy to be back at home afterward. I didn't feel right in space."

  "Okay, that is good to know." Kaylee smiled at her. It was a strained smile, but the emotion behind it was genuine.

  As Ashlin focussed on the people around her, they all took on colours. Most in her vicinity showed traces of orange and brilliant yellow. Signs of alarm. Ecros had a swirling pattern within him that was unique to him. It was some of the pale lavender worry that the others had slivers of, but a deep red-amethyst spun inside him every time he looked at her.

  She tried to look at her hands and body, but they held her down. Kaylee changed her emotions until she formed an ocean blue. Calm was now radiating from her and she nodded to Ecros to step back.

  They released her limbs and Ashlin sat up, looking down at her body. Her legs felt rigid, but she could flex her feet. There were angles under the uniform, running down her limbs, but when she reached to touch her legs a startled squeak came from her throat. "What the hell?"

  She held up her hands and their hard translucence with stars under her skin flexed as she opened and closed her hands. "What the hell?"

  Ashlin could hear the machines bleeping and chirping in the background. Her heart wasn't pounding in her chest, she was simply alive.

  The Azon physician turned toward her. "Your metamorphosis is complete. How are you feeling?"

  She could still see all of the emotions in the people around her, but now, they had faces to go with the swirls of colour. "Fine. Different. I am still having aftershocks of power or something, but I feel better."

  Touching her face was the next step and her fingers and cheeks registered the pressure, but the texture of her flesh was gone. "It is like pushing against hardened gel."

  The doctor nodded and lifted a small implement, bringing it down sharply on her leg. It sliced through the body suit and shattered against her skin. "Your skin is a little harder than it used to be. Apparently, your body was only susceptible to space once and then it created a form to deal with the environment."

  "I was in a shuttle."

  "Your senses expanded beyond the shuttle and when they struck space, they came up with a plan of defence. It may be a response to your recent injury, but we really don't know. You are the first Endin-Wyoran blend that we have ever seen."

  She raised one finger and frowned at the hard translucency of her digit. "I am the only one of my kind that there will ever be. Endins and Wyorans aren't supposed to be compatible. And as for that. I am a throwback, not a blend."

  The doctor smiled kindly. "Understood. I am Doc or Dirven if you prefer. We have placed a call to Morganti to get a custom suit for you that will shift when you do."

  "Um, when did you do that?" She rubbed at the camouflage but stopped when it started to shred under her touch.

  Ecros smiled and laid a hand on her shoulder. She could smell the blood on his hand and realized that both he and Kaylee had been cut when her hands shifted.

  He answered her. "I asked Might to call when I noticed that the bodysuit you were given did not allow for your tail. Fixer does most of the customization and when we can't go to her, she comes to us."

  Kaylee cleared her throat. "Would you like to see what you look like?"

  Ashlin brightened, "Sure."

  Doc used a few keystrokes to bring up a hologram a few feet away from the medical bed. A woman in a body suit that matched Ashlin's was hovering there, rotating slowly.

  "Wow." Ashlin swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stared. The figure was made of starlight and space. She could make out her own features and pointed ears, but all of her colouring was off and there was a transparency to her flesh that made it look as if the stars were suspended under her skin. "This is the most camouflage I have ever worn. Can we run some tests on this shape before I go back to normal?"

  Doc looked surprised and Ecros frowned. "What do you mean?"

  She grinned. "I am guessing that I can now survive in little to no atmospheric environment. As soon as my body is settled, it will resume my normal physical condition if I remember correctly."

  Kaylee seemed curious and her body seemed to fade in place. "How long do you have until you settle?"

  "Hours, minutes? I never timed it. If I am still in a situation where I need the change, it will stay active. I was once stuck up a tree for three hours." She grinned and imagined that in her current state, it was slightly off-putting. She touched her teeth and found them sharp.

  "What a lovely smile you have." Ecros grinned.

  Kaylee giggled. "You have been in the fairy tales again, Ecros."

  He grinned and crossed his arms. "I like the ones with the shifters."

  Kaylee's body became more solid and she frowned. "Red Riding Hood did not involve a shifter."

  He snorted, "Then how did the wolf manage to get dressed and talk?"

  Ashlin was confused. "
Can we just run the tests and you can argue later? I don't know how to trigger this condition yet so will need a little practice at it."

  Doc nodded. "Come this way. We have a stress chamber that should enable us to remove the atmosphere and see what you can do aside from shredding your clothing."

  She hopped off the table, held up her hand to forestall any assistance and took a few steps. Her body was so sharp that she shredded the uniform under her feet as she moved. "I hope that the uniform specialist gets here soon, or I will be translucent and naked."

  Ecros grinned. "I wouldn't mind."

  She gave him a look that promised him pain. "I could hug you and turn you into raw meat, Rumble. Don't tease."

  Doc coughed and turned his head while Kaylee walked ahead of them and drifted through the heavy plexi of the chamber and waved at her.

  "Did she just…"

  "Yes, she is also known as Haunt, our base commander. She experienced an incident on this base and now she can walk through walls." Ecros murmured it in her ear.

  Doc snorted. "Walls, showers. No place is safe from the experience of Haunt. She can even drift out into space if she isn't careful."

  Ashlin was staring at Kaylee as she lifted her middle finger toward Doc. She stepped to one side and opened a speaker. "You love it and you know it. Stop playing coy."

  Doc grinned and opened the door to the chamber. "Yes, love. Anything you say, love."

  Ashlin blinked as she realized that they were a couple. An odd couple to be sure but a couple nonetheless.

  The image in her mind of being in a shower while Haunt came in startled her into laughter. She finally got the joke.

  She entered the chamber and nodded to Kaylee. Doc's voice came through the systems and he told her. "I will gradually evacuate the environment and when you are completely on your own, we will give you three minutes before we turn the systems back on. Will that be enough time?"

  She walked to the internal speaker. "Will that be enough for you to run the scans?"

  "More than enough."

  "Then get your mate out of here and start sucking." She sniggered at the expression on his face, but Kaylee drifted out of the chamber and was soon facing her from the other side of the plexi, grinning with both thumbs up.

  Chapter Five

  Ashlin felt the change in her body as the atmospheric pressure eased. Her skin became smoother, harder and less sharp. She knew that she was only breathing to speak, so she simply stopped trying to suck air in to propel sound she did not need.

  She paced, flipped in place a few times and then stood, watching the digital display of air pressure until there was no effect on her at all. Ecros held up three fingers and after she had done a lap or two of light jogging around the room, he held up two, so she began to run while not breathing with any detectable heartbeat.

  When she had first gained her hunting form, it had come in stages, but this one had come upon her in a rush and it was a lot to get used to.

  The temperature display indicated that she should be frozen solid, but she was able to continue with her sprints, flips and twists.

  At the point at which Ecros lowered his final finger, she twisted, touching her toes and lunged. She had full dexterity and mobility though she still didn't need to breathe. Whatever force was keeping her alive had transformed her into a being that could survive the rigors of space.

  Kaylee gave her two thumbs up once again as she stilled and tried not to trash her uniform any more than necessary. The fans kicked on and an atmospheric blend streamed into the room while the temperature came up to normal.

  The moment it was habitable, Haunt floated through and grinned at her. "That was amazing. My specialty is in inter-dimensional transport, but I still know an impressive adaptation when I see one."

  Ashlin took in a few heavy breaths, filling her lungs and enabling her speech. "I didn't feel a damned thing. I wonder what my time limit would be in that situation."

  As she relaxed, she felt her skin become more sensitive to heat and touch. Kaylee stared at her in amazement and blinked. "Well, I am glad we did that early. You seem to have resumed your more normal appearance."

  She looked down at her hands and exhaled in relief. "Thank goodness. I like the new skin, but this outfit isn't up to it."

  Kaylee chuckled and put an arm around her shoulders. "Come on. We will get you another suit and then have some dinner. If you are anything like the other shifters I have known, meals are an important occurrence."

  Ecros smiled at them. "I will meet you lovely ladies in the dining hall."

  Doc was staring at the stats scrolling over his display. Kaylee shoved him. "Time for you to eat as well, smartass."

  He muttered, "Yes, dear," but kept working on his data.

  Kaylee left Ashlin for a moment and stepped between Doc and his data. She leaned forward and whispered into his ear, her hands sliding over his chest and arms.

  The scent of overheated Azon reached Ashlin just as Doc reached for Haunt. She slipped through his hands and waved at Ashlin to follow her.

  Bemused, she followed the base commander and only once turned back to see the frustrated spouse putting his data away.

  Out in the hall, Kaylee resumed her tangibility. "I hate to do that to him, but he has to eat. He would be nothing but grumpy and bones if I didn't nag him."

  "You have a good relationship with him?"

  "Not like the other Guardsmen teams, but we do fine. Dirven and I met years ago at a conference. We were both studying the same types of phenomenon but were on slightly different approaches. When I was assigned to Station 13, I managed to prove my theory, but it rendered me intangible and I floated in the station for months. He was the scientist sent to see why all the staff evacuated under the theory that the station was haunted.

  "He knew that it was the last place I was seen and what my research was all about. After I informed him that I was still on the station in the most direct way I knew how…" Kaylee's grin took on a lascivious ting. "He helped complete my project and my body was reconstituted. Apparently, my molecules like to frolic, so I can still move around and through objects."

  "So, that is why you are called Haunt."

  "Yup. I was informed that you are Hunter."

  "Apparently." She mimicked Kaylee's speech pattern.

  "Here we go. We have a quartermaster and he should be able to help you with an interim uniform." Kaylee went with her into a room marked Quartermaster.

  "Strobe, this is Rumble's new partner. She doesn't have a custom fit yet, so could you find something in her size?" Kaylee startled the man from his reading. He blinked rapidly and his eyes glowed for a moment before they resumed a normal deep blue colour.

  "Pleased to meet you, Strobe. I am Ashlin or Hunter." She shrugged and smiled.

  He stared at her and nodded, leaving the room for a storeroom behind them.

  "Don't mind him, he is waiting for his own partner and can be a little surly."

  "Did his eyes…"

  "Yes. His talent is an ocular light display. He also has excellent spatial awareness and took your measurements with his eyes."

  The object of their discussion returned with several folded uniforms in his hand as well as a pair of boots.

  "Here you are, Hunter. Welcome to the Sector Guard." His smile was polite, but there was a pang of loneliness behind it. She knew that smile, had seen it in the mirror for years.

  "Thank you. I would enjoy it more if I knew what the hell was going on." She winked at him and he blinked rapidly.

  He laughed in surprise and grinned. "I know that feeling well indeed. Welcome to the team." He extended his hand and she took it in the common gesture of friendship.

  Kaylee looked from one of them to the other and sighed. "Thank you, Strobe."

  Ashlin grinned and showed her sharp teeth. "Thank you, Strobe. I have to tell you, I am dying for some food."

  He released her hand with a jolt and returned to his desk.

  Shrugging to Kay
lee, "Where can I change?"

  The base commander smiled and led the way down the hall. "You and Ecros have adjoining rooms. It will give you some time alone between assignments if you want it. We also have full access to every communications system known to the Alliance. You are welcome to call home as much as you wish."

  "Moira and her spouse, they are not Guardsmen?"

  "No, they are our test pilots. Their favourite ship is the Guardian Echo, so Fixer let them keep the original. They work for us when needed and do some emergency retrievals when they are in the area."

  "So, there are a lot of couples in the Guard." She was hinting at what she wanted answered, but Endins didn't ask questions about relationships.

  Kaylee gave her a peculiar look. "No one explained this?"

  "Nope."

  She sighed and pointed at some doors. "Those are your quarters. Let me give you a quick orientation."

  Inside the door was a room that took Ashlin's breath away. There was a lovely bed with soft gold sheets and a deep bronze comforter. A desk, the open door to a private lav and a small entertainment unit.

  "Station 13 was originally designed as a research station, but I had it retrofitted to create a more pleasant space." Kaylee took a seat in the lounge area and smiled. "Now, time for the facts of life of the Sector Guard."

  Ashlin stripped off her shredded bodysuit and took one of the new, clean uniforms in her hands. "You can talk. Oh, I should have asked if your people have nudity taboos."

  "They do, I don't. Medical training does wonders for the prude in you. Anyway, as I was saying. When most folks see their first Guardsman, it is usually a set of two. One male, one female."

  The suit was unrelieved black, but it felt nice and snug without being confining. It closed up with only a little pressure and as Ashlin twisted, it stayed sealed and in place. She sat to tug on her boots. "So, recruitment occurs in teams?"

  "No, recruitment is opportunistic, but the most stable teams are one male and one female, a mated pair."

  Finally, all of the couples she had seen, including the dragon and his female, came to her in a rush. "Oh. Oh!"