Break the Mold Read online

Lucky smiled. “Ah. That is an easy one.”

  “Good. I will see you shortly when my people are squared away.”

  She smiled as he used human vernacular. “I look forward to it.”

  The other Alguth entered her office, and he took a post near the door. He nodded at her. “Programmer, I am at your service.”

  She nodded and smiled. “Thank you. You can let the first client in.”

  He beckoned to the first warrior, and she turned in her chair. “What would you like me to do for you?”

  He handed her a chip. “Can you make this design on my shoulder?”

  She slid the chip into her tablet and nodded. “Battle of Keygora Wasteland. Certainly. Have a seat on the bench there.” The twisted knots of the pattern was easy enough to scan. His record indicated that he had indeed served on board a vessel at the wasteland, so she set the program to create the design over his mix of nanite and human skin. He had had his arm carved off by the Splice, as well as his liver and one leg below the knee. As it went, he had gotten off easily.

  Lucky settled in for a long day of designing and implementing tattoos. She was designing one overhaul every ten minutes, and some of the guys were getting creative with their placement. Aluak moved in close for those, just to keep things on a professional level.

  When she finished for the day and sent the remaining hopefuls away until the following morning, she kept their artwork and their identifiers, preparing the markings for the following morning.

  Aluak asked her, “How do you change the colours?”

  “A pigment pack in the supplementary injection. I could change the colour of their entire body with that little jab. They don’t even feel it.”

  He nodded. “So, you could change the markings on an Alguth as well?”

  “Certainly. You would have to draw it out for me, but it could definitely be done, and it isn’t permanent. It is as long lasting as the program that makes it.” Lucky smiled. “I make them last.”

  “What happens if there is any electronic interference?”

  “Our nanites are programmed to remain static. They cycle on and off in a rapid pulse until the interference is gone.”

  “So, you have thought of the Splice working with a magnetic pulse.”

  “We have. There is shielding on all of the nanites and their systems, and they have a backup power source. Us. The living tissue. It powers the nanites in an emergency.”

  “So, you have thought of that as well.”

  “Not me. This was designed over a century ago. Our world had a lot of interference on a multitude of frequencies. The original designs included all that shielding.”

  “We never dreamed of a species such as you.” Aluak chuckled.

  “We didn’t imagine you either. We were focused on our own war. It didn’t really occur to us that there would be other species involved.”

  She stood up and stretched. “Time for a proper meal, I think.”

  Solouk arrived and smiled. “That is my cue.”

  Aluak groaned. “But I am hungry.”

  She nodded. “Then, you should come with for dinner or brunch or lunch or whatever this is. I am hungry, and having two guards around is better than one.”

  She grabbed her tablet and walked out of the office door with two bemused, winged guards behind her.

  Aluak cleared his throat. “I would like to speak to you about enhancing my wings.”

  Lucky glanced back at him. “It’s a good thing that we are going to be having lunch then. You can tell me what you want over some nice tea and a hot meal.”

  Chapter Nine

  She took Aluak back to her office and worked on the changes that he wanted. The saw blades were easy, as were the strengthened wings. When it came down to the pattern he wanted in the scales of his wings, that is where things got challenging.

  It was the most fun with a design that she had seen since she started working on personal decoration. There were stripes that would form hypnotically blurry lines when he flew and skulls on each of the four wings. He was working out a pattern to take on the appearance of a war machine. He requested a band across his forehead and a line that ran down his nose and across his cheeks.

  She worked late into the night, and Solouk assisted her with the finer points of Alguth physiology, but when she was done, she had created a six-and-a-half-foot human-shaped hornet with rainbow eyes.

  Aluak looked at his reflection in the window of her office. “Is it reversible?”

  She blinked blearily. “Try it.”

  He closed his eyes, and the colour drained from his body. When he opened them, he grinned, and then, the dark marks returned. “Excellent.”

  Solouk chuckled. “You know that I want the same.”

  She yawned. “You can put your request and the pattern into a file. I will get to it in the morning.”

  “That is fine. You can rest now. The remainder of the Khiron Station personnel is on their way to the ship, so you are going to continue to be under guard while they are vetted for motivation and mental state.”

  Lucky winced. “Right. I will stay here then. Those guys are creepy. I think the light from the local sun drives them mad.”

  “Alphy and Stitch have asked us to keep them away from you. They are allowed custom programming by authorization of the command’s and ship’s captains respectively. They are not to be altered in any way without that authorization.”

  She smiled and got to her feet, wobbling to her chamber and easing the door closed. “Night. See you in the morning.”

  She heard them speaking in Alguth, and she made a note to get their language when she worked on Solouk. She hated not knowing something when the information was being held out in front of her. She just had to reach out and grab it.

  She put the small monitor pods on Solouk and smiled. “This is just to get a look at what your brain is doing while I work.”

  “Why didn’t you put these on Aluak?”

  “I didn’t think of it. I was a little preoccupied yesterday.”

  She kept him talking while she applied the pigmentation patch. It took nearly an hour to complete the full-body change, even though only part of it would be visible when he was clothed. Seeing him naked and draped over her workbench was definitely fascinating.

  “Is there any particular reason that I am unclothed?”

  Lucky smiled and met his curious gaze. “The first thing is that I wanted to look over the alterations as they take place. The second is that I thought I could get away with it.”

  He grinned. “If you wish to see me naked, you have only to ask. Do you wish to take me as a lover, Queen Lucky?”

  She blinked rapidly. “I don’t even know if I gave myself exterior sexual organs.”

  Solouk chuckled. “I am happy to engage in an exam if it would help you to figure it out.”

  She blushed. “Yes, I suppose I am going to have to get out of this suit eventually. I will try to figure it out on my own, and if I need help, I will ask Stitch.”

  “My offer stands. I am eager to learn the differences between human and Alguth females.”

  “Aren’t all your women queens?”

  “No, an Alguth queen is a commander. She controls and directs the males around her.” Solouk chuckled. “They control the sciences and defense of their zones.”

  “Zones?”

  “Energized domes that contain their populations. The queen gives her eggs to her favoured males, and they bring the children to term.” He smiled.

  “That is... different.”

  “Different than humans. Different than the Earth Corps. It is what we do and have always done. One of our researchers has been looking into it, and there are a few species on your world that have a similar situation.”

  “Oh. How long do your queens live?”

  He shrugged. “Two hundred years or so, as long as they haven’t been injured. They pass their genes to the next generation, choose their successor, or the strongest of the under females steps up and t
akes the position of queen, undergoing hormone therapies to wake her egg production.”

  Lucky stared at him. “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  Lucky whistled softly. “That is going to take a bit of research.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I can answer any questions about Alguth biology that you have. It’s my specialty.” He grinned.

  “The base structure of your pattern is in. Do you want your skin in greys and black, or greys and browns?”

  “Grey and brown.” He smiled. “It is harder to fix on us when the patterns mimic those in nature.”

  “Ah. And that is what the skull patterns are for.”

  He laughed. “No, those are to disturb our enemies.”

  “Got it.” She winked and kept him talking while the pigments swept across his body.

  When he was in the same situation as Aluak, she had him stand, and she checked the placement of the dark marks around his eyes, the bands along his hairline and moving across his body.

  His penis, if she could call it that, was coloured to blend in with the rest of him. It still had bands, but they were a more subtle shading.

  She looked up at him. “Now, try and flicker the colouring.”

  He nodded and focused, closing his eyes and going back to his light golden skin tone.

  He opened his eyes and looked at his limbs. “Excellent.”

  “You will be able to change your colouration at will, within your natural tone and the designed pattern.” Lucky straightened and removed the two monitor pods from his temples.

  “If you want to know about our language, you could just ask me. I can give it to you.”

  She looked at the monitor pods. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that we have means of communicating that go beyond the verbal. That is how we learned your language to begin with.”

  Lucky cocked her head. “How long would it take?”

  He leaned in and kissed her, and when shock flicked through her body, she felt the cool touch of his mind on hers.

  Images of an alien world filled her mind, streams of words that she wasn’t sure how to pronounce sank into her thought processes. She learned about their urge to please their queen and the courses that they went through to learn it. Their greatest goal was to be a breeder to their queen. Their bodies had flat plates that expanded and contracted under the skin to accommodate and protect the new life.

  She snapped into her body and opened her eyes, pushing on Solouk’s shoulders. He obediently stepped back.

  “What was that?” Her voice sounded strange to her ears.

  “It was merely an understanding of the Alguth. You can now speak as we speak, and you understand why we do what we do. To have found a species with dominant females in power was a boon that has eased our transition.”

  “We are not dominant.”

  He laughed. “You have not looked around much. Stitch has the men of her station firmly under her control, Alphy has command of this warship, and you control the bodies of us all. I have heard Stitch and Alphy discussing the others who were lost and scattered. Your gathering is having a ripple effect throughout your people, and it is saving the lives of mine.”

  “I am sure your people will survive without us.”

  He shook his head. “We won’t. Our people have no surface-to-air weaponry aside from our personnel. They scooped us up and chopped us into pieces, stealing our wings and leaving us to die in the cells.”

  “I haven’t seen or heard of any flying Splice.”

  He snorted. “They give our wings to the smaller of their kind, but they can’t get the wings to give them lift. They use them like blades.”

  “Ah. Right. Why are we conversing in Alguth?”

  “Because we can? Don’t worry. I will not tell any of the men that you can understand us.” He smiled. “May I put my clothing on now?”

  She blushed. “Right. Yes, of course.”

  He leaned on the bench and put his clothing on again. She observed him closely and noted that he didn’t have external testicles.

  She went through the memories of Alguth biology, and she found out that the males kept their testicles internal. When they had sex with the queen to her satisfaction, she offered her egg, and they would fertilize it internally. The honour of delivering a new warrior or worker to the Alguth queen was one that every fighter dreamed of.

  Solouk fastened the neck strap of his suit, and he fluttered his wings, going from camouflage to normal and back again.

  She chuckled. “It isn’t a toy.”

  “And yet, it’s fun.”

  Lucky snorted. “Glad you are enjoying it.”

  “Thank you. I am very happy with it. I will be even more delighted if you go to bed.”

  She chuckled. “That is my next stop.”

  Lucky headed into the back room with her mind focused on her private project. She attached one of the monitor tabs to her temple and settled into her bed. Maybe she would dream the program she needed.

  Her plan was nearly ready, she just needed an extra dose of nanites, and she could pull it off. After that, it was just a matter of working it into her system. How tricky could that possibly be?

  Lucky felt heavy when she woke. Her body moved slowly, and when she got to her feet, she swayed. Blinking, she ran a hand through her hair and paused. Her hair was short.

  She stepped toward her mirror and stopped short. Her suit had peeled open, and it was probably a good thing. There was no way that the fully grown man suit that she was wearing could have been contained by the pressure fabric.

  “This isn’t possible.” She tried to be shocked, but the masculine face she was wearing grinned. It was perfect, and exactly as she had imagined, right down to the tattoos she could see in a collar marking across her chest and shoulders.

  She had done it. Complete camouflage. With a little bit of work, she got out of her suit and looked her body over. When she got down to the groin, she had left things vague. There was still a bulge, but no details.

  She turned and admired the body design from all angles. When she was finished checking herself out, she took a deep breath and disengaged the program. Her feminine form appeared as the nanites moved across her skin and packed onto her abdomen, arms, and face. She yanked herself back into her compression suit. Giggles burst out now and then. She had written her code in her sleep, and her nanites had heard it.

  When everything was back in place, she walked to her outer office, and Solouk was waiting there, pointing at his inner wrist. “What just happened?”

  She blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “Your suit sent me an alarm. You went dead for a moment, and it was upset.”

  She snorted. “The alarm might have been... alarming, but there are no issues surrounding it. It was off, now it is on again. I wanted to check my appearance while naked.”

  “Did you find out if you built your own external sexual organs in?”

  She blinked a few times. “I was so surprised by how I looked, I didn’t think to check.”

  “What is different?”

  “My body is silver for the first point. I knew it would be, but it is still a bit of a shock.”

  Solouk grinned. “My offer to assist your exploration is still open.”

  She gave him a dark look and said, “Is it time for breakfast?”

  He smiled and offered her his arm. “If you are hungry, it is time to eat.”

  Chapter Ten

  The secret was just too much fun to keep. Lucky grabbed Stitch in her lab and whispered, “I have something to show you.”

  “What?”

  “You stay here. I have to get out of this suit first. I have warned Solouk, so he won’t be bursting in here.” Inwardly giddy, Lucky went behind a screen, stripped out of the support suit, waiting for it to retract its connected systems before she stepped out of it.

  Lucky triggered the transformation, and the nanites flowed and wrapped around her. Her height increased, and she looked aro
und from her new vantage point before she stepped out from behind the screen to find Stitch looking down at her tablet.

  A short sharp whistle caused Stitch to jerk her head up, and her mouth opened a moment later. “How the hell...”

  Lucky grinned. “It is weird, isn’t it? But very handy.”

  “That is... amazing. Can I touch it?”

  Stitch touched her shoulder, cheek, and pecs. “It feels solid. Do you get a strength increase with it?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to do more than trigger and reverse it. I thought I would need extra nanites, but the ones that I have rebuilding me are enough to make the outer shell. I don’t know if the muscles can do anything other than look pretty.”

  “The tattoo is a nice touch.”

  “I thought so. It is a design that I created for the explosion of Adaptation Base.”

  Stitch blinked. “It’s lovely. I want one.”

  Lucky chuckled. “Wait, what does my voice sound like?”

  “It still sounds like you. You might want to modulate it.”

  Five minutes went by while Lucky worked on her vocal cords, and when she finally had a voice that Stitch claimed to suit the body, she saved the specs.

  “Okay. Now I would believe you are a neutered member of society. Why no junk?”

  Lucky looked down. “My brain got a little vague at that point. It isn’t really necessary as combat suits have accommodations for bodily functions.”

  “True. Just avoid the locker room. As for testing your body, I will ask Alphy to see if there is an exercise facility that you can use to work on your muscles.”

  “Thanks. Should I get back into my normal body?”

  “Please. We can move you more easily as you than as a strange crewman with no history.”

  Lucky walked back behind the curtain and resumed her normal body. “Stitch, can I ask you something personal?”

  “If it is about Niko and me, we like it up against the wall.”

  Lucky paused and poked her head around the screen. “No, I need to find out if I included personal parts with my body.”