The alert Doug had received told him that someone on the Icarus was talking about the pirates. Probably a crewman telling jokes in the galley or someone in the corridors talking about a recent news broadcast. But Doug was never one to ignore potentially new information. He looped the flagged feed so Syndicorp’s security team would be none the wiser, then diverted the real-time broadcast to his implant.
And found himself looking into Attie Swan’s quarters.
The only other person he was sworn to protect besides his sister.
She had pale, delicately arched eyebrows, a petite nose, and eyes as blue as the waters on Terenthu. Her lips were full, and she wore no makeup, her porcelain skin naturally flushed along her cheekbones. Something about her touched the last wisps of his humanity, which was the reason he’d promised to watch out for her. Hell, it was the reason he’d helped her sister escape the Icarus in the first place. The siblings’ love for each other was too familiar, too like his own dedication to his twin sister. And he found looking at Attie a soothing pastime.
Extricating her from the internal investigation after her sister’s escape had turned out to be a pleasing challenge. He hadn’t been able to keep her out of the brig entirely, but over the course of a few weeks, he’d subverted orders, altered records, and forged enough transfers to hide her safely among the throng of nondescript humans on the ship. He supposed he should’ve gone a step further and relegated her to duty on some backwater planet. But keeping her close gave him an edge in case anything went awry.
Like now.
Attie was holding Marlis’s service AI.
How the hell had that fallen into her hands? The device was supposed to have been incinerated after being deemed irrecoverable by top Syndicorp tech teams two months ago. He’d remotely accessed its core processors searching for information about the rebels his sister had joined and discovered the AI wasn’t broken after all.
Somehow, Twerp had acquired the nanites—the same nanites running through Doug’s and the other cyborgs’ bodies. Not intelligent in and of themselves, the microscopic bots had a sort of hive mind when gathered in large numbers. They also had a fierce self-preservation protocol that made them difficult to eradicate once they’d integrated with a person’s body. But this was the first time he’d heard of a non-biological host. Dollard would probably give his left nut—both his nuts, actually—to get his hands on this information.
To prevent the AI from ending up in the test lab along with the cyborgs, Doug had tried to alter its programming, which should’ve been easy with the nanite-to-nanite interface. Except instead of complying, Twerp’s nanites fought back. All Doug managed to do was fry the device’s wireless capability before the AI shut him out completely. Even so, since the AI was in the recycling bin awaiting incineration and wasn’t mobile on its own, he’d assumed that had brought an end to the problem.
Now the thing was in Attie’s hands, apparently trying to return to Marlis. If allowed to proceed, it would lead bounty hunters right to the rebels and his sister, Lisa.
Doug had to stop it.
But he couldn’t shut it down remotely. His only option was to physically destroy the device himself.
Problem was, the lab where he lived was a fortress layered with several dampening fields to keep the nanite-infected cyborgs from taking over or getting out. Everything on level three was a highly guarded secret from ninety-nine percent of the crew. If he absolutely needed to, Doug could leave the lab, but then Dollard would learn about his full capabilities and find another way to lock him up. His best option was to have Attie bring the AI to him.
He stopped pacing and turned to stare at the glimmering translucent energy field blocking his cell door. In the harshly lit lab beyond, Dollard spoke with one of his technicians at a stainless steel exam table where Twobit, a fellow cyborg, sat with the metal skeleton of one shoulder exposed beneath a partially regrown skin graft. At the exit stood two trooper guards in full body armor. Ever alert, one of them met his gaze through the field but didn’t acknowledge him—the doctor didn’t like staff getting attached to the test subjects.
He frowned. Slipping Attie in here among Dollard’s elite assistants would be impossible, even for someone like Doug. The doctor’s keen attention to detail meant he likely knew what color underwear the janitorial staff had put on that morning. But there was one roster Doug could add her name to without question—the Consorts. The doctor didn’t view the women he brought in as anything more than playthings. That will do.
Doug began forging the transfer, trying not to imagine Attie in the scanty “uniform” given to the women for the job.
Chapter 2
Attie leaned against the inside of the shower stall, avoiding the steaming spray as she and Twerp spoke in hushed tones. She did not know if the water successfully masked the conversation, but it was the best she could do.
“I only have six days of shore leave. Even if I could use it right away, I can’t simply drop you off somewhere to wait for Marlis,” she whispered close to the AI. “What if she doesn’t get your transmission? Or what if a stranger finds you first?”
“I have considered those alternatives and find the risks acceptable. Your sister has been without my biometric input for fifty-six days, eleven hours, and thirty-two minutes. My calculations—”
The comm buzzed, and Attie nearly jumped out of her skin. “Shit. Quiet now, Twerp.”
Turning off the water, she tucked the AI
