“Knighton.” The voice came from far away, as if she was stuck at the bottom of a well and could hear someone calling for her. A hand shook her. She managed to open her eyes, the light sending a searing pain streaking across her head. Her eyelids felt so heavy. So heavy. Thirst consumed her. And she thought she heard a whimper of sound. Was that her? She couldn’t care.
“Knighton.” More words were said but she couldn’t make them out. She needed to sleep. If they would just let her sleep perhaps everything would stop hurting. Everything hurt, everywhere. Especially her joints.
She remembered the crewmen and attempted to open her eyes again. She attempted to get up, but discovered her limbs were not disposed to obey her. Her heartbeat had slowed to thirty beats per minute, which served to maintain her life at sustenance levels. With mounting alarm, she realized her nanites were silent, dormant in her sluggish blood. Her body was too depleted to be of any use anymore, so the nanites had shutdown and became free-floating entities in her bloodstream.
Her nanites were designed to be recognized as normal cells by the body, so they didn’t raise any biological alarms and result in being rejected.
But none of that mattered if they had nothing to work with. This exact scenario, though, was precisely why she had insisted to Ross that she be the one on point. Sleep. It was too hard to think.
“Knighton!” Something shifted her beneath her legs and then beneath her back. Murmurs floated around her head. She couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes and check who it was accompanying the bright lights that bled through her eyelids, but she didn’t need to.
She knew the timbre of that voice like she knew her own.
>Ross! she mentally exclaimed in gratitude and relief. He was finally here. She had been waiting so long. Her interior clock had stopped keeping track. She didn’t know how many hours it was. She couldn’t hear him before, but now, here he was again and her relief was immeasurable.
The cold shock of nanites seeping into her body forced her eyes to fly open, catching and holding on the ice cool cobalt ones that watched her. Ross. She didn’t have enough water for tears, but her gratitude at the relief he provided with his nanites left her breathless.
Eloise, Ross’s voice whispered over their shared mental link. The shock in his voice was palpable. What have you done?
>Did they all survive? She asked, gasping, her eyes fixed on him in silent communication as her body curved in on itself, racked with pain even while her nanites, like a woken swarm, began courting Ross’s nanites and absorbing as much energy from them as possible before they returned to him.
Yes. Sleep now. He released another flood of nanites in her system, each of them carrying extra loads of water, fat, starch, and protein molecules. Eloise closed her eyes, relieved not to have to process the additional inputs sight required and allowed her body to float away, utterly dependent on the nanites aiding her major organs.
“Will she survive?” she heard Antoin ask.
“After a stint in a bio bed, yes,” Ross said. “You head up to the surface. Everyone work on getting up there and then send the gurney back down here and I’ll get her up.”
“She looks really bad. Maybe she should go first?” Loso asked.
“No, she’d want y’all cared for first,” Ross said.
“I don’t know what tech she added to her suit, but it must really take it out of her. If I had known, I wouldn’t have…” Gussel said.
“She would die for one of you,” Ross said.
“Considering her condition, I have to assume she almost did,” Loso said.
>What… what are they talking about? Eloise managed to ask Ross over their link.
Nothing important. Sleep.
She allowed herself to drift away again and then, right before she surrendered completely to the darkness, the words streaked through her mind and she was too tired to think about whether she should think them to Ross: >Don’t go.
The above excerpt is from my latest work, The Quick and the Dead, coming out soon. It’s currently available for pre-order. Blurb below:
A Mining Disaster
A Rescue Triumph
A Strange Ally
Illegal psyborg, Ross, is hiding in plain sight with the newest addition to his ship's crew, fellow psyborg, enigmatic scientist, and accused terrorist, Eloise Knighton. He's gained more friends, but they need allies if they are going to win the race to find and protect her sister and mother from the massive corporations that seek them. They have eluridite ore to mine and sell, a microferry lab to create, and a whole new paradigm of communication and cognition to explore - at least until Eloise manages to put their entire relationship at risk.
In the mean time, Ash, Eloise's twin sister, is finding herself mired in more adventure than she ever bargained for when she throws the Maverovna's lot in with a handsome, convicted terrorist. He might be the son and heir of the wealthiest man in the Sol system, but he also happens to happily represent the single, greatest entity standing against a corrupt UCF congress and the technocrats they support.
Hinterspace: In the largely lawless region between the belts, the ruthless are happy to take advantage.
If you haven’t checked out Hinterspace 1, Privateer, feel free to pick up a copy for $.99 or free on Kindle Unlimited: