Syn-En: Registration (2 page)

Nell had never needed the technology. The Amarook’s leader had forged a mental bond with Bei’s wife, because of their shared experiences at the hands of the Skaperians. Sometimes it was useful.

Elvis’s nostrils flared. “Your mate is in heat, Nell.”

And sometimes the bond was damned annoying. Bei accessed power controls. Maybe he could shunt a small charge to Elvis’s seat. Not to hurt the feather-faced mammal, just to get him out of the chair. Then Bei could shut the door and get a little alone time with his wife.

She flushed and pressed her face against Bei’s neck. “Human males don’t go into heat.”

Elvis sniffed the air again. His eyes narrowed and his ears twitched. “
You
are in heat.”

Bei’s fingers clenched. Nell wanted to conceive on this trip? He double-checked the artificial gravity setting as he seemed to float. His child. His and Nell’s. Unique in the universe. No way would he impregnate his wife on the bridge.

This deserved a bed. Their bed.

“Elvis.” Nell shuddered on Bei’s lap. “You know I’m on birth control.”

Birth control. She didn’t want his child. Bei’s oxygen levels depleted until he reset his breathing relays.

Red tinged Elvis’s muzzle. “No baby? But why? There are so few of you humans. And you are an extraordinary human.”

She blew the hair out of her eyes, but she was looking at Bei when she answered. “Doc says there’s still traces of Skaperian DNA in my egg basket. So until the Easter Bunny delivers a new batch of colored eggs, we’re waiting until I get a clean, Human-only bill of health.”

Ah, he should have known she had a good reason. Bei kissed his wife’s nose then her cheek. His lips registered the dampness and salt on her skin. Only five months had passed since she’d awoken from her long slumber.

She still had nightmares from the ordeal and slept in his lap instead of alone in their bed. Even if he only needed two hours of sleep, he stayed beside her.

Even now, his sensors detected her elevated heart rate and excess adrenalin in her bloodstream.

“You’re safe.” He tucked her head under his chin. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Not ever again.

“Neither will I.” Elvis sunk deep into his chair, wrapped his bushy black tail around his behind and glared at the bank of ports. “We shall raise a strong, fierce daughter to gut all of humanity’s enemies.”

Whoa. Bei had forgotten the Amarooks were a bloodthirsty lot. “My child——”

Elvis held up his two hands. “Of course, a boy will be trained in the arts if you so wish it.”

And sexist, too. Bei set his hand over Nell’s flat stomach. “My child will be what he or she wants to be.”

“Training should begin as soon as possible.” Elvis shook his head. “It is bad enough that it takes many
years
for your species to be coordinated enough to wield a weapon without self-injury.”

Holding his wife tight, Bei rose from his seat. Now his species wasn’t good enough for the feather-headed mammal? “You—”

“This is a moot discussion.” Clinging to his shoulders, Nell stood on tiptoe on the floor. “It’ll be several more months before I’ll be ready to even try for a baby, and Bei and I still have to negotiate terms.”

Negotiate? As one of the first Syn-Ens to have their forced sterility reversed, he was more than ready to go.

Nell set her finger over his lips before he could answer. “We’re going to have to figure out how to balance your role as leader of the new Skaperian-Amarook-Human alliance and change poopy diapers, ‘cuz there’s no way I’m raising the kiddies while you go off living the Star Trek dream.”

“What?” Bei ran her words through his com subroutine and still couldn’t make sense of it.

“We eat the poop of our young.” Elvis rolled out of the chair. His nails clicked against the metal deck and his pink tongue lolled out of his head. “And clean them too.”

Nell wrinkled her nose. “That’s disgusting.”

Elvis arched one feathered eyebrow. “It is most informative regarding the pups’ nutrition and health status.”

An ache stretched across Bei’s forehead. He accessed his memory banks, tried to find a logical pathway in the conversation. And failed. The base of his neck tingled. Well, no wonder. They were fighting half verbally and the rest telepathically.

Releasing Bei, Nell shook her finger at Elvis. “Don’t even think about eating my baby’s poop.”

Elvis’s tail wagged and his furry lips tilted into a smile. “As her Godparent, I will—”

The Amarook yelped and clutched his head.

Go Nell! Hit the smart-ass canine where it hurts——his ego.

Nell paled and grabbed Bei’s arm. “There’s something…”

Her eyes rolled back in her head and her legs folded.

Bei scooped her up and activated medical protocols. Elevated heart rate. Rising blood pressure. Brain waves off the charts. He speared the feather-head with a glare. “What did you do?”

Elvis whimpered and collapsed. “Attack. Under.”

The Amarook’s communication medallion winked from his chest.

Images and emotions exploded inside Bei’s head. Ugly arthropod-like ETs in black. Beautiful willowy ETs in shades of green.

And fear.

Lots of fear.

Bei’s mouth soured; his stomach clenched. The enemy was nearby. At the speed of a thought, he activated the alarm. Blood red light strobed the small bridge.

On the level below, Rome and Keyes jacked into the Combat Information Center. Their pixelated avatars joined him in cyberspace.

“I’ve got a ship off the starboard bow.” Keyes stuck her hands into the data-stream and pulled out what she needed. “Comparing identity against the Skaperian’s database.”

Rome’s digital blond hair stood on end as he combed through other data packets. “They’re building up power in their fore engines.”

“Shields at max. Energy weapons charging.” Although the connection to the CIC dimmed Bei’s vision, he could still see Elvis collapsed on the deck and Nell in his arms.

Both were stirring.

He had to get them out of here. One hit and the thin hull could rupture, yet he couldn’t leave his tether to the helm. Couldn’t afford to lose a nanosecond of response time. “Let me know if I can fire, Rome.”

Nell shook her head and blinked. “I’ll get to the safe room.”

Bei tightened his grip.

Setting her palm against his skin, she kissed his cheek. “You’ll do better without me distracting you.”

No! The last time they’d been separated, she’d been kidnapped by aliens and he’d been ordered to kill her. He activated his tactical programming and the emotional maelstrom inside him calmed. He set her on her feet. She would be safe on the ship. This wasn’t like last time.

“Don’t do anything suicidal.” Holding onto Elvis’s scruff, she staggered to the door.

“Shit!” Rome’s anger crackled in lightning bolts around his avatar. “It’s a weapon. They’re firing!”

A digital image of the two ships wavered in the Combat Information Center. Light shot from the enemy’s saucer-shaped craft.

At Bei’s command, the
Icarus
unleashed his first salvo. In the space between heartbeats, he waited to see the impact before making adjustments to insure the kill shot.

The energy weapon hit.

The
Icarus
bucked beneath his feet.

Then the EMP pulse blasted the hull.

It slammed into his circuits. Red alerts blazed to life. Pathways caught fire. Bei’s body convulsed before his consciousness gave up the fight.

He forced a total shut down, just as fatal errors initiated.

Chapter 2

Nell Stafford blinked awake. This wasn’t the safe room. She hadn’t made it before the crazy in her head had caused her to pass out. So where was she? Her breathing echoed off the metal plate in front of her. Laying in the fetal position, she was smooshed in the crawlspace.

The pulse of the engines rolled under her. Something warm and furry stretched above her.

Elvis. The Amarook had shifted so his crystalline fur concealed them both. He sent images of fire, attacking bears and knife-wielding maniacs into her head.

Her blood pounded and her mouth dried. What was coming? She sent a giant question mark back to the Amarook.

Shifting his weight, he returned a picture of a giant humanoid with a smooth head, spherical eyes, and its four arms and two legs broken into segments——like a scorpion minus the stinging tail. If scorpions stood six-foot tall, moved like humans and were really, really pissed off.

Nell managed to avoid wetting herself as the claws at the ends of the creature’s four arms ripped a Skaperian limb from limb before pinching off the head and tossing it like a basketball through the air. O-kay. She didn’t want to meet Scorpio on a bad day.

Footsteps clomped along the deck.

She bit her knee to keep from screaming. Not Bei’s measured steps, Keyes’s ballerina-light stride or Rome’s tantrum-esque stomp. This was someone new. Someone who had boarded the ship from space. Soon her husband and his men would begin to fight back, kick the bad guy’s butts. Nell curled into a tighter ball.

Any time now.

Elvis sent her pictures of Rome and Keyes’ unconscious bodies in the crew compartment.

The base of Nell’s skull tingled. Holy cow. An electromagnetic pulse had overloaded their cerebral interface. That’s why she passed out. Bei! She had to protect her husband. She tried to uncurl.

The Amarook dug his claws into her arm and back. He unearthed the memory of Nell teaching her German shepherd to stay and replayed it.

She stiffened as the day unspooled inside her head. She hated it when the Amarooks used her own memories. It was so…so invasive. Worse, she didn’t know how to protect herself.

And the Amarooks knew it.

Which meant this was bad. Very bad, indeed.

“I’m certain the scan showed four humans on board.” The male voice was pleasant, almost lyrical.

Every muscle in Elvis’s body tensed.

Nell imagined his fangs bared and a growl swirled through her head. Was this Scorpio? He didn’t sound so bad. In fact, she might like to meet him.

Elvis’s denial imprinted on her psyche. He sent another image: lanky and well-groomed, this humanoid looked like a lime-green elf.

“The three we have claimed barely qualify as human.” The other male’s voice rumbled like a distant avalanche.

Nell stiffened. She had half a mind to tell Scorpio that the Syn-En were human. Thankfully, the other half of her mind was still functioning. Bei wouldn’t be happy if she got herself caught. Again. And quite frankly, she never was the Daphne of Scooby-Doo fame type.

She preferred smart, resourceful Velma.

What would Velma do? Nell had no bumbling bait or any spare tires to lasso the villains. And she very much doubted they hid human faces behind alien masks.

The footsteps pounded closer. 

Oh, God, they were entering the engine room. Could they see her wedged in the crawlspace?

Elvis patted her back with his extra set of hands.

Right. As long as he covered her, she was as invisible as he was. If she survived this, he was getting a treat. She sent him an image of his favorite food——severed chickcharney heads and feet.

A drop of drool plopped onto her sleeve.

“Yes, humans have changed.” The lime elf hummed. “We shall be able to make use of them.”

The guy sounded so nice. Why was he with Scorpio? Maybe if she talked to him…

Her cerebral interface crackled.

What in the world? What was with the self-induced shock therapy? Maybe there was a charge build-up in the deck.

Bei often discharged static electricity into the helm.

Nell raised her head a little, enough to see between the grills of the deck. Elvis’s fur fractured the world like a cracked mirror. The fusion reactor appeared in a thousand pie wedges instead of one large cylinder. 

The deck bowed under Scorpio’s weight. “The species should not have been allowed to be alone for so long.”

She clamped her mouth shut to keep from crying out. Scorpio could give her nightmares.

The elf practically danced over the floor. “They were nearly wiped out by the Surlat strain. Even the Founding Five are not immune to the Erwar Ecoprovisions.”

“We should not be bound by anything. If it wasn’t for us, there would be no Erwar anything.” Scorpio stopped right over her.

Nell pressed against the floor. The man had spikes on his boots, for pity’s sake.

A tremble rolled through Elvis. Her protector would go for Scorpio’s throat if they were discovered.

Great! That left the elfin-magic for her. Somehow she doubted her self-defense classes from over a century ago would help her.

“If it wasn’t for the Founding Five, Erwar would not be in the shape it is.” The Elf shrugged then paused by the safe room door. Sapphire light shone from his palm and illuminated the biometric box. The door slid open.

Oh, my. It was a good thing she and Elvis hadn’t been able to make it to the safe room. They would have been discovered for sure.

“Satisfied?” Scorpio creaked when he crossed his arms over his chest.

Elf checked his nails. “Just being thorough. I knew that if there was another human aboard, they wouldn’t be able to resist my voice.”

“You mean the chemicals you pump out through your glands.” Scorpio grunted.

Chemicals? Nell clamped her lips together. More like pheromones to make her compliant, bend to his will. Had her cerebral implant shocked her to dispel her body’s reaction to the Elfy boy’s scent?

Elf smiled.

The images of hundreds of perfectly even teeth sowed ice crystals in Nell’s veins. Appearances be damned, he was more dangerous than all of Scorpio’s encased muscles.

And he had her husband.

She boxed up her fear and slapped a ‘Do not open until Christmas’ sticker on it. Once the bad guys were away, she’d contact the Syn-En Fleet and rescue Bei, Rome and Keyes.

It was her only option.

Scorpio ran one claw along the side on the reactor. “What shall we do with the ship?”

“We can’t take it with us. Our workers still talk of being rescued. If word ever got out that humanity had made it two light years from Erwar, production would be disrupted.”