She was taut, strung like a bow. Waiting to be released.
She was a warrior. Talis knew it like she knew how to find her own nose.
And she was still naked.
“Thank you,” the woman said. Her voice was dusk and smoke. The purr of a cat, the wind in tacking sails. The feel of rum hitting your belly.
She reached out to cup Talis’s face between her hands. Standing up on tiptoes, she touched her forehead to Talis’s own.
There was a snap of electricity that passed between them, then the woman stepped back and waited. Her arms held relaxed at her sides, her back straight and proud. There was no awkwardness to the pose, no impatience. She just waited.
“Cap!” Tisker hissed. His eyes were wide as saucers.
“Did you feel that?” Talis rubbed at her forehead, which still tingled. The feeling went deeper than her skin.
“Feel what? I saw that. Really something. But maybe we should go.” His gaze darted to the door, as if expecting a troop of Yu’Nyun to rush in.
The woman watched her, silhouetted against the darkness of the empty crate. The other four crates remained closed and silent, their control pedestals dark. No rings, but their count made the clear intention to claim them all. Alien technology, interfaced with Pre-Cataclysm amulets.
“The aliens made you?” Talis spoke as the thought occurred to her. It didn’t even feel like her own idea.
“This body,” the woman replied. Talis thought she heard the hint of offended pride. “The mind is my own.”
“Maybe you can help us find the engine,” Talis said.
The woman made no response but walked swiftly past Talis and out through the automated doors.
Talis and Tisker exchanged a look.
“This day did not need to get any more interesting than it already was,” Talis muttered, and motioned for Tisker to follow her out.
Chapter 29
At least a dozen aliens appeared around the corridor, armed. Spotting Talis and Tisker first, they brought their rifles to bear on them.
The woman slinking along the bulkhead was upon the aliens before they saw her. She stepped into the center of the corridor and placed her palms on the chests of the first two. Bowed her head, appeared to be concentrating, maybe praying. Then they simply fell away.
Not down. Away. Their bodies were no more. Something splashed on the floor at her feet.
The Yu’Nyun crew stopped their advance, aimed their rifles at the stranger instead, but hesitated. They looked to each other. The one in front, nearest the woman, said something in Yu’keem.
The strange woman reached a hand toward the speaker, palm out, parallel to xist chest, and replied with a single word, spoken clearly in the alien language.
As a group, the aliens moved back a step. Whatever she was, they were afraid of her. Afraid to fire at her. Small red lights on the sides of their rifles went dark and they lowered the weapons.
The stranger advanced on the Yu’Nyun, one step at a time. They gave up ground, moving backward to match each step of the woman’s. They held their rifles down, but ready. They didn’t turn, didn’t fully retreat.
“Come on,” said Tisker, giving Talis a brief clap on her upper arm to get her going.
As the stranger pushed back the Yu’Nyun wall, Talis and Tisker moved along behind.
More aliens approached ahead, and Talis heard the newcomers rasping and grating, speaking to the first group.
“What are they saying?” Talis felt exposed as she called out, as though she was safely hidden so long as she remained quiet. But the aliens could see her as well as she could see them. Only the presence of the woman who was neither Yu’Nyun nor Peridot native kept almost a dozen alien rifles from unloading at Talis and Tisker.
The woman looked back over her shoulder, a predatory smile curving on her lips.
“Not to destroy me.”
Then she increased her pace, strolling confidently toward the aliens as though she was walking through a garden.
The aliens watched her, carefully retreating one step at a time. As though she were a lit fuse on a full powder keg.
If only, Talis thought. This standoff was costing them time, making every minute more dangerous. She recalled how the woman had disintegrated the first aliens they met in the corridor and silently wished she would just do that with the whole crowd.
And then she did. She darted into the group with sudden, surprising speed, bare hands out. A lethal touch on each one, and after a moment she stood alone in a puddle of dark blue.
Talis looked down at the ring on her finger. It had spun to sit sideways, and she had to keep her hand balled into a fist to prevent it from sliding off.
Ahead, the stranger waited for them by the open door of a lift.
“Scrimshaw better survive to explain where in all five spinning hells she came from,” Tisker said, eyeing the woman warily as he passed her to enter the lift’s chamber.
She stepped in with them and the door closed. The intense blue of her eyes flickered, dark for a moment, then the lift began to move. She addressed Talis but answered Tisker’s question.
“This body is a simula. An object is assigned as the mechanism by which the simula identifies its affiliations. In this case the ring was the source of the simula’s programming, but its forces have been transferred to this vessel and the object is now empty. The mechanism could have been any object that could be conveniently carried. Assigning it as the ring was convenient and appeared to have symbolic significance.” The woman tilted her head. “That is the basis of this device’s operation. However, I am more than the sum of that explanation.”
“Well,” said Talis, feeling her eyebrows up as high as they’d go. “There you go, Tisker.”
“Right, then.” Tisker gave the woman a considering glance, removed his jacket, and offered it to her. “You got a name?”
The woman stared at his jacket, her
