Alien AI's Marine (Warriors of the Lathar Book 14) Read online

  Becoming aware of eyes on her, she turned to find the grim-looking B’Kaar second in command walking beside her.

  “You are different from the other females. Why?” he demanded in a low, dangerous-sounding growl.

  Her heart skipped a beat and her throat closed over. He knew. She didn’t know what had given her away but somehow, he knew. She tensed up, expecting him to grab her and haul her off.

  “Of course she’s different,” Jay cut in smoothly, pulling her across in front of him so she was on the other side to the heavily bearded B’Kaar. The hulking form of his kasivar clumped along behind him. If he got her into that… she’d never get out.

  “We’re all different,” her human marine’s voice was sharp. “Because we’re all different ethnicities.”

  Berr’s eyebrows snapped together. “What does that mean?”

  “Our ancestors were from different regions of Earth,” Jay explained. “That’s why we all look slightly different.”

  Berr nodded and she breathed a sigh of relief as he seemed to accept the explanation. Then he spoke again.

  “She’s tiny. Is she even fully grown?”

  “What the fuck, dude? You can’t ask that!”

  Indra’s voice was strident and a second later both women were in front of her, forming a wall between her and the heavily muscled B’Kaar warrior. Immediately he backed off a step, hands raised in surrender and a surprised look on his face at the ferocity suddenly displayed by the human females.

  Keris hid her smile. Sometimes the Lathar really had no idea what they were messing with. Nyek hadn’t been joking when he’d told Risyn that human females were unlike the Latharian females the current generation barely remembered. Human females were unpredictable and dangerous when their loved ones were threatened. And, it seemed, they also operated in packs... something Berr B’Kaar obviously hadn’t expected if his expression was anything to go by.

  “Sorry, my ladies,” he said quickly, looking from one woman to the other in quick glances, as though he didn’t want to let either out of his sight in case they suddenly became the tripled-headed liiraas snake from legend and bit him in the ass.

  “I was just curious. Is she a runt or somethin’? Will she need special medical care?”

  Unlike Risyn, Berr’s accent was thicker, a lot less cultured and much more provincial. It sounded familiar to her. In the midst of her panic, she wondered if he was from the Argarath Sector. She and Rynn had been there a few years ago when he’d been assigned to neutralize a problematic bloodline. Rather than simply wipe them out and lose good warriors from the empire, Rynn had spent time undercover in the area and discovered where the dissent had originated. Two surgical strikes later and he’d sorted the problem with no one being any the wiser. Such was the effectiveness of the Emperor’s shadow. But she didn’t recall the B’Kaar having a foothold in that region.

  Indra’s voice was stone cold when she replied. “That doesn’t make it any better. It makes it worse. No, she is not a runt. She’s merely petite, as are a lot of human women.”

  Petite. Huh. She had a name for her diminutive body type now. Keris filed the human word away in her memory.

  “And a lot of human males... men, I mean, like petite women,” Jay cut in, smiling down at her with a look that made her stomach flutter and a strange, heavy heat settle between her legs. She knew he was playing the role of her mate, but a little part of her wanted to know if he really liked her petite type or whether he was just saying it. She wanted him to say it and mean it.

  Berr nodded, looking past her two human protectors to Keris and giving a bow. “I apologize, my lady, if’n I upset ya or offered insult.’ Twas not my intent.”

  She gave him a regal inclination of her head, copying Indra’s earlier gesture. “Thank you. Apology accepted.”

  Jay squeezed her side, an approving smile on his face, and they walked in silence the rest of the way to the command center.

  “This is...” Risyn paused to study the panels and consoles. “Surprisingly sophisticated for such an old base.”

  For a moment Keris expected Miisan to materialize and ring a peal over the B’Kaar’s head for his backhanded compliment, but the AI remained silent. She didn’t blame her. None of their kind would willingly tangle with the B’Kaar. Not without several backups and at least one offsite redundancy. They were known to take AIs offline and hook themselves into the system instead.

  She shuddered at the idea of a biological brain taking that kind of load, but it didn’t seem to bother the B’Kaar. At Risyn’s nod, they fanned out, their kasivars following them, already pulling input cables from their thigh pockets to start jacking in.

  “Plugin, integrate,” the B’Kaar in the middle of the room ordered, the light of battle in his strange eyes. “Then uplink and disseminate information. I want this base’s secrets. All of them.”

  8

  “That was… intense,” Jay shuddered as the door slid shut behind them, enclosing them in the safety of Indra and Nyek’s quarters.

  He snorted to himself at that idea. They’d been escorted here from the command desk by two fully suited B’Kaar warriors who were even now stationed out in the corridor.

  “Where does that asshole Risyn get off?” Indra all but exploded, stalking forward. She was practically vibrating with fury. “For our own protection? Did he miss we’ve managed to survive on this rustbucket base for a week on our own?”

  Jay rubbed at the heavy stubble on his chin. It didn’t take a genius to work out that they were prisoners, but what surprised him was that they were being allowed to mix rather than being kept in their separate rooms. That wasn’t wise. There was a chance they would form a team, and he didn’t think that cold, calculating leader of theirs left anything to chance. Which meant there was another objective.

  “Do you think they—”

  He turned on Indra as she began to speak, her gaze on Keris, and dragged his finger across his throat in a swift movement. Her eyes widened as she cut her sentence off abruptly. Pointing to his ear, he motioned upward and around them. Given the limited intelligence they had, there was a good possibility the B’Kaar were listening.

  Ushering them forward, he herded them all into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Finger over his lips to keep them all quiet, he opened the taps on the basin and turned the shower on.

  Then he nodded. “Okay, we should be good now.”

  Seren raised an eyebrow. “Would you like to explain what’s going on? Or is this some weird human custom? I have to tell you, I’m happy to spar with you, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  Jay snorted. “Sorry, handsome, my tastes run to petite brunettes, and whatever else you might be, no one can describe you as petite. You’re a sodding mountain.”

  Nyek leaned back against the counter, arms folded over his chest and his dark gaze on Jay. “I would like to know why we’re all crowded in here as well. If this is some human harem thing, Indra and I will be declining.” He went to push off the counter. “We should barricade the door in case the B’Kaar decide on a frontal assault.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, will you get your minds out of the fucking gutter!” Jay exclaimed in exasperation. “And stop thinking like warriors for a second. Would you? You need to think like spies.”

  Both Lathar looked at him like he had two heads. “Why? We’re warriors.”

  “Fuck’s sake, someone save me from thick-headed aliens.” He tipped his head back and rubbed his hands over his face. “Okay, we need to adapt and overcome. Read me?”

  “It’s not their fault. The Lathar specialize,” Keris said quietly. “They were born and bred to be warriors, not spies. The nearest they know of is the emperor’s shadows. Assassination and spying are what shadows are trained for.”

  He blinked for a moment and then nodded and offered her a small smile. He was going to have to treat them as recruits then.

  “Okay. So, this is a different type of warfare we’re looking at,” he explain
ed, making sure to keep his voice low. “The B’Kaar are keeping us prisoner, but not separately. Which means they’re watching us… listening in on us.” He shot a look at Keris. “At least, I’m assuming they can do that?”

  She nodded. “Easily. It was a smart move bringing us in here. The running water will disrupt surveillance devices in the main room. There are none in here.”

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked, grim-faced.

  She nodded. “It was the one thing Rynn did when he started to monitor a location. He always added surveillance in the washrooms.”

  “Who is Rynn?” Nyek demanded. “And why is he watching males during their ablutions? That is… not honorable.”

  “Rynn is the emperor’s shadow,” Keris snapped, turning on Nyek with surprising viciousness. She advanced on the bigger Lathar, poking him hard in the chest. “And his honor is without question. Understand me?”

  Jay hid his amusement as the big Lathar looked down at the tiny woman like he’d just been savaged by a puppy.

  “Of course, my lady. My apologies,” he said with a stiff-necked bow. “I am merely a lowly warrior, with no insight into how the shadows work. Their honor is, of course, the emperor’s command.”

  “Good,” she huffed and gave him another glare for good measure before returning to Jay’s side. His lips quirked at the look on her delicate little heart-shaped face. Damn, she was gorgeous when she was mad.

  “Okay, back to the matter in hand. They can’t hear us in here. They are listening to us, so they think we’re going to let something slip. But,” he added with a grin. “they’re keeping us together, which means they’ve all but discounted us as a threat.”

  “So they should.” Seren’s voice was unimpressed. “We are alone, cut off without reinforcements in the middle of a larger, opposing force.”

  “You’re thinking like a warrior again,” Gracie commented, her grin beginning to match Jay’s. “Okay, big guy. Adapt and overcome… what did you have in mind?”

  “First we need to secure our position here.” He turned to Keris. “They’re listening and we can’t all crowd in here every time we want to talk. Is there any way we can interfere with the surveillance devices?”

  She paused, her lips pursed. His gaze dropped to them and he had to ignore the shiver of heat that rolled through him. If they were anywhere else, he’d back her up against that damn door and find out if they were as sweet as they looked.

  “Not here, no. But if I can access a command console somewhere…”

  Nyek moved, drawing attention to himself. “I have an idea. Seren and I could—”

  “If your suggestion in any way includes an assault on any part of the base as a distraction, you and I are going to be having words,” Indra cut him off with an amused look.

  The Lathar’s lips compressed into a thin line, and then he looked around the small group. “Does anyone else have any ideas?”

  “Okay.” Jay decided to take over before Indra stabbed her husband right there in front of them to save the B’Kaar the effort. “We’ll find a way for Keris to access a command console somewhere. Until then, we do not say anything out there. Understand?”

  He glared at everyone until they all nodded, and a small sigh of relief rolled through him. At least they could keep Keris safe for a little while longer. He looked at her.

  “We need… I need info on the B’Kaar. What the fuck is that glowing shit on their skin?”

  “It’s called ke’lath,” she replied, arms folded in front of her chest. “A network of implanted neural circuitry. It lets the B’Kaar interface directly with their suits.”

  He nodded. “That’s how they can make them walk about even when they’re not in them?”

  “Exactly,” Nyek replied in Keris’s place. “It’s what makes them so feared on the battlefield. They can double their numbers with a thought and then triple them if they mobilize combat avatars as well.”

  “Well, fuck me sideways,” Jay breathed.

  Nyek’s expression was flat. “That is neither anatomically possible nor appealing.”

  The room went silent, everyone looking at the Lathar in shock.

  “Did… Mr. Stick-up-his-ass just make a joke?” Jay asked Keris.

  Her lips quirked, as did the rest of the groups. “Yes. Yes, I do believe he did.”

  Seren reached out and clapped the other warrior on the back. “Well done! Good to know you are actually, you know, Lathar!”

  Gracie shook her head, meeting Jay’s eyes. “That’s so weird to hear. Lathar instead of human.”

  “Tell me about it.” He chuckled. “Right, ladies, game faces on. Let’s get out there and show these assholes who they’re dealing with.”

  “Did he just call us females?” Nyek asked Seren as they all trooped out of the bathroom.

  “Yeah, it’s a human thing. Don’t worry about it.”

  9

  All she had to do was hack into the system and hide their activity from the B’Kaar. Simple.

  Keris paused for a second as they walked into one of the big storage hangars on the base and were confronted with row on row of crates stacked to the ceiling a couple of stories above, shrouded in shadow.

  The clump-clump-clump of the B’Kaar behind them made her flinch.

  “This is never going to work,” Keris murmured, sticking close to Jay as they started to walk down the center aisle. The B’Kaar didn’t follow them. Instead, he took a position by the doors they’d entered through, watching them as they walked away. The skin between her shoulders itched like she had a target painted there.

  “Just keep walking,” Jay whispered, squeezing her hand in reassurance. “We’re just doing what we’ve been doing all week.”

  She hadn’t been here all that time, not really, so she just nodded. While she’d been uploading to her new body, the rest had been hard at work checking the base’s stores and trying to bring the inactive areas online. Tags on the crates they passed indicated that half this hangar had already been checked, which worked for them. All they needed to do was get close to the command console near the back of the large room without arousing suspicion.

  “I know it’s boring, my love,” he continued, his voice louder for the benefit of the B’Kaar warrior behind them. “But I’m utterly useless with anything that remotely looks like a power tool, so we’re stuck with sorting and counting.”

  They’d been escorted everywhere since the B’Kaar had arrived, even watched in the corridor between their quarters, although she had no idea what the armored warriors thought they’d do in there. There were no access points to the system and no corridors anywhere else. They couldn’t do anything, but the B’Kaar watched them anyway. Talk about paranoid.

  The personal revelation, especially one that hinted at a weakness in that manner, got her attention. He was so careful to be all macho and more... Lathar than the Lathar when he was around the others, so his admission now took her a little by surprise.

  “You are?” she asked, both curious about him and wanting to extend the conversation to soothe her nerves.

  “You’d better believe it. Growing up back home I wasn’t allowed to help my dad with any DIY. I was useless at it.”

  There was something about the way he said it and his expression that was that little bit off. Most biologicals wouldn’t have noticed it, but she wasn’t an ordinary biological. It seemed that this organic brain worked in a similar manner to her AI one, in a roundabout way. When she didn’t think about it too much, some things were just there. Like the ability to analyze his micro-expressions and realize something was wrong. The only thing stopping her from working out exactly what was her lack of knowledge about humanity.

  She tilted her head and looked at him curiously.

  “You’re lying. I don’t know why but you are. Is DIY so important to—” She cut herself off. The B’Kaar at the door was too far away now to pick up what they were saying, but that didn’t mean one of the others wasn’t monitoring them through th
e internal sensors in here.

  “Terrans do love their DIY,” he picked up with a little smile. “Something you Dalkarians will never understand. That and your coffee is utter shite.”

  She gasped, hand over her heart dramatically as she played along. “You call our coffee bad? How dare you, sir!”

  Their chuckles filled the air around them, rebounding off the stacked crates on either side of them as they reached the last, uncounted section of the hangar. She squeezed his hand in silent thanks for covering for her.

  But while she might have been grateful for that, she wasn’t about to let him off the hook. It wasn’t that easy. It wasn’t the fact that he’d lied to her, but that the lie was so slick and practiced that she suspected it was one he told a lot.

  “Jay?”

  He slid her a sideways glance and she saw the look there. The tiny warning. He didn’t want her to ask. She was right. Something else was going on there.

  “Why did you lie?”

  He sighed and stopped, pulling her into his arms as he leaned back against a crate. This was part of their cover, them being a mated pair, but even so she couldn’t help the tiny shiver of... something that rolled through her. She knew it was just an act, so she shouldn’t feel anything. Should she? But, to her embarrassment, she couldn’t help it.

  Heat flushed her cheeks. She was a terrible spy. They had one job... act like a couple until their B’Kaar watchdog got bored and moved on. Then they could head for the command console at the back of the hangar. All she had to do was hack into the system and hide their activity from the B’Kaar.

  “Jay?” she prompted when he didn’t answer her.

  He ran a hand through his hair, sending the short spikes into disarray. His blue-green eyes with their strange rounded pupils were haunted.

  “I never did any DIY,” he admitted. “Like ever. Or threw a ball with my dad, or any of the usual things. My father... let’s just say he wasn’t around a lot.”

  “Oh.” Now she felt awful for pushing. “Gracie said she was from a single-parent family as well. Apparently her father left just after she was born...”