He sure as hell hadn’t expected thirty-two here.

  “Any ideas why the Kascorix had so many ships here?”

  Chrystal said, “One moment.”

  He picked up his coffee and took a sip. He felt a surge of painful emotions as he thought of Nadia again. Maybe he should just quit coffee. He knew he wouldn’t though, even though he didn’t need caffeine at all with an android body, it was an ingrained habit. One that he’d picked up from his human father in emulation when he was younger.

  His father hadn’t needed coffee anymore at the time either, it was just a habit from being human for over forty years. It was kind of ridiculous when he thought about it, but that wouldn’t stop him from doing it, he loved drinking coffee.

  Only time could heal his wounds anyway, if it wasn’t coffee it would be a million other things that would remind him of Nadia.

  Chrystal sighed, “There are only fifty thousand indigenous and intelligent life forms left on the planet below, the database indicates there should be several million. My guess is they… increased production because they’re nervous about us taking all their food worlds away. Most of those ships were probably here to transport processed meat, the rest were their guard.”

  That wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  Alyndra said, “I’m surprised they didn’t run then, when we showed up.”

  Chrystal nodded, “They probably couldn’t, they just aren’t wired that way, and their A.I. wouldn’t let them run from a fight unless the leadership gave orders anyway. I bet they were hoping to be finished before we got here.”

  They watched the holo-table as the fifty cruisers entered the atmosphere and hovered low to the ground a few miles away from the processing camps. There were twenty-nine on this world and as usual the Mirosians deployed to take all of them at once.

  By now the end was predictable, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the holo-table as they moved in to secure the planet, and release the indigenous population…

  Chapter Twenty

  “We need to discuss plans. The last time I waited until the crap hit the fan before we upgraded, and that almost got us killed. I don’t want to do that again.”

  Granted, he was sort of safe from that, at worst he and Chrystal would lose some of his memories, but Alyndra would be completely gone. Not to mention any Mirosians that were on board.

  They were sitting around the dinner table, Chrystal, Alyndra, Dahlia, and himself. The second world had been much like the first, the local population not extinct, but definitely fewer in number than expected.

  The Canosians refused to fight together, or even let us get near them, which meant getting Alyndra close enough to read them would be impossible. Not without starting a fight at least, which would defeat the purpose of doing it.

  Dahlia asked, “Do you think they’ll betray us?”

  He nodded slowly, “I think they plan to, they just don’t want to fight a war on two fronts. I also think they’re worried about facing the core planets alone and will want us to assist. I have no proof, it’s a gut feeling. But with our technology being more advanced, their obvious tendency to be anti-social with other races, and their refusal to share their cultural database, I think they will attack. Most likely at the end of the battle that finishes the Kascorix.

  “Not sharing their database tells me there’s something in there they don’t want us to see, or they hold no value of us at all. Even putting all of that aside, as soon as we tell them we want to quarantine and not kill the Kascorix they will break with us. It’s beyond obvious they want to destroy every remnant of that race at any cost.”

  Dahlia asked, “So what do you think we should do?”

  He sighed, “On the other hand, I could be reading the situation completely wrong, so outside of being prepared for their attack, and ensuring they don’t follow us home, I’m not sure what more we could or should do. I certainly don’t want to be the ones that fire first. I also don’t want to give them any evidence of our preparations, which means we won’t be upgrading this ship to a super carrier with five hundred cruisers.”

  Dahlia said, “I think I agree with your thoughts. They may be a xenophobic race, everything we’ve seen indicates it, but neither does it prove it.”

  Chrystal said, “I agree as well. What will be the trigger though? What if we say we only want to quarantine the Kascorix, but the Canosians say that’s not acceptable, but don’t attack. Will we start another war to prevent the extinction of our enemies? Or will we just leave?”

  He sighed, “That’s the hardest to figure out. Do we have a responsibility for their lives, if we take away their ability to feed or defend themselves? If we plan to leave, I think we should tell the Canosians before we attack their central planets, if they want to commit genocide let them pay the price without our help.”

  Alyndra said, “It’s a sticky moral issue, with no right answers, all we can do is the best we can. The Esari find the idea of genocide against anyone abhorrent as well, but we would not shed a drop of blood in defense of enemy.”

  Chrystal said, “Alright, so we state our intentions, if they agree we help and quarantine the Kascorix, if they say no…”

  He replied, “We leave, but we’ll send in small ships to watch from a distance. If the Canosians fail, we’ll have to step in and finish the job to quarantine and protect Kascorix from future attacks.”

  Dahlia asked, “And if they agree, and then double cross us at the end and try to destroy the Kascorix, but don’t attack us?”

  He had a bad taste in his mouth, “Then we stop them. We have to assume if they do that, they will eventually attack us too. At that point their word can’t be trusted at all, so far that’s only in doubt.”

  Chrystal said, “They could take us out right now in a straight fight, though we’d probably kill half of them. What’s the plan for that?”

  He hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but he told them his idea, and they all agreed.

  The next few weeks passed quickly with not much changing as they took care of the rest of the food planets. At the end of those three weeks, there were only a handful of food planets left to free.

  The Kascorix hadn’t deviated, and continued to hold back their larger fleets at the home worlds, and didn’t try to reclaim any food worlds. He almost wished they would have sent more out, so they wouldn’t be forced to face so many in the core worlds. According to the database they had, the Kascorix fleet had over ten thousand ships, which if they split evenly among the twenty worlds meant they’d be facing ten to one odds, or a little more than that.

  Of course, that assumed they’d attack with their current fifty cruisers and carrier.

  It seemed absurd to him that they hadn’t ordered the ships out to attack them, but the Kascorix were alien in thought and motivation. Still, it was an odd position to take for such an overly aggressive species. Chrystal believed it was because the government and Kascorix people were in delicate balance, if the fleets left the planets it was quite probable that anarchy would break out.

  He found it difficult to put himself in their shoes, he couldn’t even imagine his friends and allies, true allies, betraying him. Much less his own family and fellow A.I.s.

  The Canosians continued to keep their distance, and allowed them to destroy the Kascorix on the planets and leave a guard ship behind. He didn’t have any further insight into their motivations either, and as the day grew closer when they would inform the Canosians of their intentions to quarantine and not annihilate the Kascorix he grew more nervous.

  He was prepared now if they betrayed him, but he wondered if it wouldn’t just be better to abandon the plan, and leave behind a few small ships to track progress just to make sure the Canosians got it done. It wouldn’t be hard to design and build a stealth ship, a small one that would even minimize energy wake in subspace.

  The main reason he didn’t do that, was that he knew the Canosians would go back to massacring the remaining populations on the food worlds if he did. He just couldn’t step aside and allow that to happen, smart move or not.

  Personally, he still missed Nadia more than he ever dreamed he would. He still believed it was better to love her the short time he had with her, but his imagined pain at their separation was a dim shadow of the truth. He knew if it wasn’t for Chrystal, Alyndra, his family back home, and even his growing friendship with Dahlia he’d have probably fallen into a depression.

  It was just hard to imagine that she was gone from his life for good. Just because he was half A.I. didn’t mean he couldn’t feel denial.

  Chrystal was as ever, the cornerstone of his life, and he loved her very much. It seemed impossible, but their shared feelings of loss brought them even closer together over those weeks.

  Alyndra didn’t show her feelings quite as easily, but they were apparent in her words, and the way she sought his touch more and more. She often held his hand, or rested a hand on his arm whenever possible. She also wasn’t very far from his side, especially with them sharing the same room now.

  He still got alone time with both of them though, most afternoons Chrystal worked on her own projects as a doctor and psychologist to get alone time, and give him time alone with Alyndra for their afternoon game of chess.

  Of course, he got time alone with Chrystal online, for the five or six hours Alyndra continued to sleep after he and Chrystal were done with their required offline time.

  He continued to have coffee every morning, maybe he was a bit of a masochist? Either way, with Chrystal and Alyndra, his life was full, and with the campaign his life had purpose. Not that he wouldn’t be happy with exploring, like he planned, if the universe ever allowed him to do as he wished.

  He’d been rather sheltered at home on Mars, the saying life happens while you’re making plans never really resonated with him until now. He had responsibilities.

  He just hoped he wasn’t dragging his people into another war, but the pessimist in him said it was already too late. One day the Canosians would find themselves in the Milky Way, who knew what would happen then. Regardless, they weren’t the Kascorix, so he had no intention of finding or invading their galaxy. He didn’t imagine they were too different from the other aggressive races in his own galaxy.

  They just didn’t have the Xaran to reign them in.

  It was all guesswork, but that was all he had to work with…

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After another successful morning, they were about to sit down to lunch. There were only a couple of worlds left, and he’d be out of time and need to state his intentions to Shirilla.

  An overlay came up indicating a call was coming in. He hesitated for a moment at the surge of emotions that went through him when he saw who it was. The desire, need, sorrow, and a sick feeling roiled in his gut as he answered. Her tentative smile, and bright green eyes hit him powerfully, and he felt the need to claim her as his. He was shocked at the ferocity of his emotions and tried to push them down.

  She was his, or at least, she should have been. Still, she didn’t do anything wrong, and staying together had been his idea, it wasn’t her fault.

  “Nadia,” he said as evenly as possible, trying to hide both the passionate desire and irrational anger he felt.

  Her face fell a little at his demeanor, and she asked uncertainly, “Can we talk? In person. I’m on Xaran, well, I’m actually on Earth, my android is on Xaran, so close enough.”

  He nodded sharply, “Give me a few minutes.”

  Her tentative smile came back, and he could tell she was nervous as she disconnected the call.

  He said out loud, “Going to Xaran for a bit, Nadia wants to talk.”

  Chrystal asked, “Are you okay?”

  He shrugged, “Not sure. I have the irrational urge to tie her to a bed and fuck her until she says she’s mine again. Obviously, I won’t be doing that.”

  Alyndra tilted her head curiously, “Is that normal? To feel like that for a human?”

  Chrystal nodded, “Normal to feel and suppress for a human male when they lose someone they love, or a mate they see as theirs. He loves her, and his instinct is to take her and protect her, which of course would hurt her. This is one of those cases where instincts should definitely be suppressed.”

  He snorted, “Of course it is. I’ve just never felt anything like it before, so it took my by surprise is all.”

  Chrystal sighed, and touched his arm.

  “You’ve never loved and lost before. You might be able to be friends with her someday, but not anytime soon. But it is normal, most men suck it up, the weak and twisted ones become stalkers and rapists.”

  He grunted.

  “Still, it’s fucked up, I don’t like feeling this way. I wonder what she wants.”

  He also knew having her close, and taking in her scent would make it worse. Still, he wasn’t an animal, and he could suffer it. There was also no way he’d ever be a stalker or rapist, if anything he’d avoided trying to find out anything about Nadia or what she was up to since she’d left. In many ways, he was older than his own father, but sometimes he felt younger than his true age of eighteen. He’d never experienced anything like this before, and he didn’t like what it said about him, natural or not.

  Being the only A.I. with a full range of emotions was both a blessing and a curse.

  Alyndra raised an eyebrow, “Only one way to find out.”

  He snickered, and gave them both a soft kiss.

  “Enjoy lunch ladies, going to lay down for this.”

  He walked to their quarters, laid down on the bed, and logged into his android on Xaran.

  He opened his eyes, and almost sighed in relief when he saw she was in a chair almost all the way across the room. Still, her presence hit him like a punch in the gut.

  “Hey.”

  She bit her bottom lip, and he saw her hands twitch, as if she wanted to reach out to him, then she held her own hand and put them in her lap.

  He wondered why she was so nervous, and what she could possibly want. It was also horribly awkward.

  She blurted, “I fucked up.”

  His eyes narrowed, “What do you mean?”

  She sighed, “I never should have left. I should have figured out a way three weeks ago.”

  He frowned, “What are you saying?”

  She said, “I couldn’t do it. You’re stuck in my mind, I love you Mike, and I couldn’t do it anymore. I… resigned, aborted a mission, and some people are pretty pissed off at me right now. I want to come back, if you’ll have me. I won’t ever leave you again.”

  He ran a quick diagnostic on his audio sensors, surely he’d misheard.

  She wet her lips nervously and fidgeted with her hands.

  “I even got a new job, here.”

  He felt a little hope and smiled, but was still trying to process her words. It was like a dream come true which made it feel surreal.

  He asked, “New job?”

  She nodded, “With your father believe it or not, here. Mostly I’ll be dealing with trade issues with other cultures, something he has no interest in dealing with but that Earth needs, more than Mars does. I can also still feed tidbits back to Australia, but they aren’t my employer anymore. It’s a job where I can use my skills, but where sex would never be an issue, the other races don’t work that way so much.”

  He shook his head, “How did that happen?”

  She blushed, “I called your mom. My first plan was maybe to get a job at Mars, so I could come back to you, but I had no idea what. I don’t think they need anyone with my skills, every A.I. is a translator in and of themselves, and intrigue really doesn’t exist on Mars. That’s really unnatural by the way. Anyway, she got me assigned as your father’s attaché, so it’s official.”

  He shook his head as he realized he’d never said he wanted her back, and she still looked nervous, as if worried he’d deny her. What an asshole, he could figure out the rest of the story later.

  “Come here love, let me hold you.”

  She jumped up and came over, and he grabbed her and pulled her down onto the bed, on top of him, and kissed her passionately. She returned his kiss with an ardor that made him breathless.

  He was caught up in the moment, and felt warm and flush at the pleasure of having her in his arms again, his emotions overwhelmed him. He didn’t even remember them getting undressed as they kissed feverishly and rolled around the bed.

  Then he grunted and moaned in pleasure as he speared her core, and buried himself balls deep in one hard thrust.

  She gasped and arched her back, then rolled them again and took the top. She smiled down at him, and then leaned down as she ground her hips in a tight little circle. Her large DD breasts swayed slightly in front of his eyes.

  “Play with my tits love.”

  He ran his hands up her sides slowly and caressed the sides of her breasts as he raised his head up and took a nipple into his mouth. He sucked gently, and lightly licked her swollen nipple, and then the other as he started to knead her breasts.

  Her soft breathy moans of pleasure was a balm to his soul.

  They shook as he lightly held them, while she started to swivel her hips and ride him hard and fast up and down his long length.

  “God, I missed you Mike,” she breathed as her body trembled and bucked, and she tightened and convulsed around his sensitive flesh. Her warm tight center flooded him with her liquid satin, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her beautiful green eyes, as he looked up into them while teasingly scraping his teeth on her nipple, and lightly twisting the other with thumb and forefinger.

  He also ground up inside of her, and continued to pleasure her through her bliss.

  He felt like his chest might explode, and he didn’t know how his body could contain the powerful emotions he felt in that moment, he never thought to experience this with her again. Was she truly his now, forever?