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As he worked, she marveled at the stream of technical jargon flowing from both the voice in her head and the alien medic. It was like listening to two quantum physicists debate in a language she’d never heard before. Yet somehow, buried beneath the confusion and fear, she felt a spark of recognition as if some part of her understood what they were saying.
He turned back to her, firing off a rapid series of questions. “Height? Weight? Any known allergies or pre-existing conditions I should be aware of?”
The voice answered each query promptly, also offering suggestions for drug compounds to counteract the effects of whatever the humans had given her. She felt like a passenger in her own body, watching the exchange with a mix of awe and unease.
As the big alien worked, he slipped in other questions.
“Who am I speaking with?” he asked, his tone casual but his eyes sharp. “You’re not Jane. Are you?”
“J10-10M3E onboard,” the voice replied through her lips.
The alien’s hands stilled for a moment.
“Onboard?” he asked, his brows furrowed in concentration. “I’ve read that somewhere before.”
Then his eyes lit up. Lifting his head, he called out to someone Jesh couldn’t see. “Rann, can you get me Zero from the Warborne on the comm, please?”
Who was Zero and what were the Warborne? She wanted to ask, but she was a captive in her own body. Exhaustion pulledat her, dragging her down into darkness. She fought against it, struggling to keep her eyes open, but it was a losing battle.
Time skipped, the world fading in and out like a badly tuned radio. Voices drifted around her, muffled and indistinct. She caught fragments of conversation—worried tones, and technical terms she didn’t understand—but underlying it all was the big alien’s comforting scent. It was okay. She could rest. She was safe.
Then, a familiar voice cut through the fog, and her brain latched on to it. “Let me see her.”
She forced her eyes open, struggling to focus. The big alien was still there, angling a screen toward her. On it, she saw a face that sent a jolt of recognition through her system.
A man with short dark hair and darker eyes that seemed to look right through her. A face she knew…
“Dael,” she murmured, the word barely more than a whisper of sound, and then the darkness claimed her.
8
Covak’s heart thundered in his chest as Jane’s eyes fluttered closed, her body going limp in his arms. The lights of the medical bay cast harsh shadows across her face. She was pale, too pale.
“No,” he growled. “Not now. Not when I’ve just found you.”
He pressed his fingers against the smooth curve of her throat, desperately searching for a pulse. Each species was slightly different, so he had to search, and those seconds stretched into an eternity. Then, as he moved his fingers, he finally felt it… just down and slightly to the left of where a Latharian pulse would be.
Relief washed over him like a tidal wave at the steady, strong pulse. Her dark hair splayed across the sheet on the diagnostic bed, standing out against the clinical white beneath her.
He half-turned to the screen where Zero watched them with concern.
“She called you Dael,” he said, his voice rough. “Why?”
Confusion filled Zero’s eyes as he shook his head. “No idea. It doesn’t ring any bells.”
Covak tensed, his muscles tight with frustration. “But she clearly knew you. Are you certain you don’t recognize her?”
Zero shook his head again, his gaze fixed on Jane’s unconscious form. “There’s something… familiar about her. But I can’t place it. It’s like trying to grasp smoke.”
He ran a hand through his hair, his mind racing.
“I think there’s someone—or something—else in her head. An AI, maybe. It called itself J10-10M3E. Said something about an onboard. That’s why I called you.”
Zero’s eyes widened. “An onboard computer,” he murmured. “I have one too, melded to my biological brain. But it’s never spoken independently. It’s more like… a constant stream of data in the back of my mind.”
Suddenly, Zero’s expression shifted to one of alarm. “Wait…. Does theLady’s Dreamhave an auto-diagnostic medical bed?”
“Yeah, why?”
