Events moved fast, even for someone with nano enhancements like her. One moment Lilith feared for Avion’s life, and the next they were running for their lives, heading toward the giant space vessel that would hopefully carry them out of the impending danger zone.

Or at least carry most of them, because not everyone in their group was coming.

Master Z’ would not budge.

As unbending as ever, he stood at the bottom of the gangplank, arms folded over his chest, his mien fearsome and, if she were five again, probably intimidating. As a grown woman, she saw it for what it was: a mask. A stoic mask to hide the emotions he kept buried.

“Why won’t you come with us?”

“My place is here.”

“Here? Here is about to get obliterated.”

He didn’t deny it.

“You’re choosing to die.”

He shrugged, his expression still a nonchalant mask. “Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am weary of running and hiding.”

“I don’t think that’s what’s tiring you. Yes, maybe you’ve been playing hide and seek with the nanos’ ancient enemy for a long time, but what you’re truly hiding from is your emotions. You hide behind the tech and their rules because it’s easier than allowing yourself to truly feel. You’re choosing the easy way out.”

“You think my life is easy?”

“No, but I think you’ve made your life intentionally complicated in order to forget. But did you ever stop to consider that perhaps you made the wrong choice. Now that I’ve made the decision to embrace my emotions, the good and the bad, life no longer seems so bleak. I have purpose.”

“Because you have found someone. I lost my someone, and no amount of feeling will ever bring her back.”

“You say that, and yet you never tried. Never gave yourself a chance to love again.”

“Maybe because I didn’t want to.”

Such a lie. Z’ had never tried out of fear of losing again.

I won’t be a coward like him. There was a poem she’d once read, In Memoriam A.H.H. Lord Tennyson. It had a line she thought most apt: ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Despite the risk she took with her emotions, she chose to love.

Avion approached them and placed a hand on her waist. “We need to go. Long-range sensors are detecting an approaching mass.”

“The enemy comes, and you must hurry.”

“Can we outrun them?” Avion asked.

Z’ shook his head. “No, their technology is vastly superior, but you can jump to another galaxy. Your energy crystals were replaced. You have enough power for several jumps. Enough to muddle your trail, gather your brethren and then scatter yourselves across the universe.”

“Will we ever be able to stop running?” Avion asked.

“So long as the ancient ones are hunting? No. But, if you are clever, and the nanos seem to think you are, then you will have many planetary revolutions, perhaps centuries of them, before they catch up again.”

Xylo stuck his head out of the opening in the ship and bellowed, “Aramus says to get your fat, silicone asses moving. We’ve got incoming.”

“Go. Now. While you have a chance.”

On an impulse, Lilith flung herself at Z’ and wrapped her arms around him. This time, he didn’t hesitate but hugged her back.

He whispered, “I will deny it if ever asked, but perhaps I was wrong to shut my emotions away. Love is worth every moment you can wring from it.”

Then he pushed her away from him in Avion’s direction. “Take her and go. Go and don’t look back.”

Avion snagged her hand and tugged her up the gangplank. At the top, before entering the vessel, she stopped to peer back at Z’.

But he was already gone.

Something they needed to do as soon as possible.

They’d no sooner boarded than the ship’s dock door closed behind them. Underfoot, the metal grate floor shivered, and the air hummed as the powerful engines throbbed.

“Come on. We’d better get to our spots. Kentry says we’ll be cutting the jump close so Aramus wants all hands on deck.”

All decks meant a few key spots. Rosalind, who complained that her new organic eyes weren’t as efficient as her bot ones, MJ, and Xylo were assigned to keep an eye on the engine and power generation room. While their knowledge of the ship’s systems was incomplete, they could still manage basic repairs should damage occur during their mad dash to achieve the right speed and coordinates to facilitate their jump.

Gearing themselves in flight suits, as an added layer of protection against the harshness of space, Seth and Deidre prepared tool kits and downloaded ship schematics in case they needed to perform emergency repairs. Even the tiniest of holes could rip a ship apart if not taken care of.

Aphelion and Avion were tasked with checking over the fighter jets parked in the hangar for combat. They also took stock of the smaller planet-side crafts. If it looked like they might lose the big ship, then they’d split up and hop into the smaller vessels and shoot off in different directions.

Yeah, as if the cyborgs would run. Somehow, Lilith had a hard time picturing it, although as Avion reminded her, “We might like a good fight, but we enjoy living another day to spite our enemy even more.”

Non-soldiers like Laura and Riley had their spots in the medical bay. Being chosen didn’t mean the host bodies might not require a bit of patch and repair. While they waited for injuries, that hopefully no one would suffer, the two women also accessed the computers and sifted for any kind of knowledge they could find on just about everything. Okay, maybe not everything, but they were trying to inhale information as fast as they could process it.

Laura was trying to find reports on just what the nanos were capable of. As Seth had shown them with his plastic scheme, not even the tech understood its full potential. The hive might operate in harmony, and yet, the bots themselves, even if they numbered and replicated infinitum, still had branches of individuality. So what one chosen host learned wasn’t automatically learned by another. And the one thing none of them could be taught was imagination. It took a human brain for that.

Another thing they couldn’t do was just download programming like the military and scientists had done to the cyborgs when they bore the brain computer interfaces. The nanos could absorb at a quick rate, but there was so much to learn, and they ran out of time.

While Laura explored their attributes, Riley spent time examining herself and the fetus she carried.

If I were religious I might call it a miracle.

The first human and cyborg child. Lilith had no knowledge of what would happen to a fetus born of an unenhanced being and a former abomination. Would the child show traces of tech? Should they expose Riley and her unborn infant to the unattached bots they’d taken from the pool and see if it granted them protection?

And more importantly, what would they call the first mixed child?

“Cyman?” Seth suggested. And yes, Lilith giggled at the name.

Especially when Aramus said, “Cyman says eat my fist.”

Mirth aside, the pregnancy proved fascinating, even if it raised so many questions. No one knew the answers, and the one person who might have helped them understand had stayed behind.

To die.

Goodbye, Z’. Lilith didn’t allow herself to spare too much sadness for him. Z’ had made his choice. Just like she’d made hers. She’d chosen her friends—and love.

As for her position during their race to escape? Her place was on the command deck.

Aramus might sit in the control seat and bark orders—lots of them since their mind-to-mind cyborg ability had melted away with their wireless capability—but she was the one with the most knowledge about the ship’s abilities. Aramus was counting on her to help him use the vessel’s many hidden attributes to aid them in their escape.

Lilith’s task, other than info, was to protect them. This wasn’t a fight they could win with guns.

In this, Z’ was right.

“Kentry, how fucking long until we reach those coordinates?”

“Seven seconds less than the last time you asked,” Kentry snarled. The usually composed male tapped furiously at his screens, his brow creased with intense concentration.

At his side, Anastasia sat before her own flashing console, an earpiece in her left ear. Her eyes stared off, unseeing as she concentrated on catching any signs of space chatter.

So far nothing.

There was a moment of stunned silence when the enemy appeared on the edge of their screen, a huge mass of moving darkness, except it wasn’t darkness so much as numbers.

Even the usually loquacious and jokester Seth seemed subdued by the army arrayed against them.

Kentry couldn’t help but stutter as he announced them. “Counting over a thousand ships, mostly small and rapid scouts, but there are a few bigger ones in there and one fucking planet-sized thing that makes our vessel look like a baby.”

“And they are moving fast,” Anastasia added, eyes riveted to the screen.

“Fast enough that we might not outrun them. My guess is we should expect their faster attack vessels to reach us while we’re still a few minutes out from our target,” Kentry grimly announced.

“We’ll have to fight,” Adam concurred from his spot at the weapons console.

“But not with the small ships. This baby has got an impressive array of outer hull cannons. We’re going to have to use them. And with that said, Avion and Seth”—Aramus bellowed loud into the embedded microphone that would relay his orders—“get your asses to battle stations. Deidre and Aphelion, make sure you’re ready to run. I need you to manually seal off any leaking sections that don’t respond to electronic command.”

Wouldn’t it figure a pilot would question. “Guns again? But I thought you wanted us ready to fly.” Avion didn’t quite whine, but he didn’t quite manage to miss plaintive.

“No one is going out there. Not unless you want to end up as space jam.”

“Sounds messy.”

“It is. I need you all on guns and shields. Our only hope is to outrun the majority of the fleet, destroy any fast fliers, and hopefully have this big beauty hold together long enough for us to make a jump.”

“Hope? Forget hope,” Seth said. “We don’t need hope. We’re cyborgs. And we don’t play to lose.”

But they did cut things close.

While they couldn’t feel the pull as their vessel hurtled faster and faster to the needed jump coordinates, Lilith kept track of the numbers. Crazy speed. Whee! It just wasn’t fast enough for the enemy scouts.

A few of them zeroed in on them, not many compared to those ringing the planet they’d left, but enough to cause serious concern.

And provide loads of entertainment.

“Wooo. That’s four for me, sukkah!” Adam crowed.

“Brags the guy who’s been able to play video games the last few years. I might be rusty, but I’d say my three isn’t shabby.”

“Bow in awe of my skills,” Seth interjected. “Two for the price of one.”

Indeed, in true cyborg fashion, machine parts or not, the men turned the situation into a competition. But no matter the joking and rivalry, they were quite deadly and focused. They made the most of the ship’s weaponry, ensuring all their shots counted.

It didn’t mean they escaped unscathed. The ship was much too big for Lilith to hope to fully shield. However, by letting herself partially merge with the computer—she let her droid nanos travel its electrical paths and subroutines—she could better control the shielding on the outside. Made of energy, it proved challenging to direct because of the way the barrier thickened in areas most at risk of a strike. But it kept them safe.

Until the really big ship caught up to them.

“Holy fuck. What is that thing?” Aramus shouted.

“Really bad,” Lilith said. Not a necessary statement. Everyone could tell this wasn’t good especially since…

“We are still three minutes from our jump point, but that ship is less than two minutes until they’re in firing range.”

Their attention on the big ship was disrupted. A bright flash lit their screen. Lilith couldn’t help but blink her lids shut. When she opened them, she could see particles rocketing past them as a new minefield was born. A delayed wave of shock swept through space, rattling their massive ship.

“What the hell was that?” Aramus shouted.

That was a planet blowing up. E’dann was no more. Z’ and his pool of tech were gone.

Even crazier, the ancient enemy had wiped hundreds of their own out with the explosion. Derelict ships littered space, along with the newly minted asteroid belt.

A foe with no care for its own would show no mercy to them.

But Aramus chose to ignore that with his next request. “Anastasia, I don’t suppose they’d answer a hail or a plea for surrender?”

“We can’t give ourselves up,” Lilith cried.

“No kidding, Goldilocks. I am just seeing if we can try and buy some time.”

“I’ve been trying to connect with them,” Anastasia relayed. “But while the phone keeps ringing, they’re not answering.”

“Fuck.” Aramus drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair, his brow furrowed as he sought a way out of their dilemma.

“I’ll take your fuck and multiple it by a holy,” Kentry replied.

“Don’t tell me there’s more bad news.”

“Depends on your definition of bad news. There’s some kind of massive cannon on the front of their ship that is powering up. According to my analysis, unless we find a way to increase our shield by like a thousand percent, we’re space dust.”

“Freaky girl, can you increase the shield on the ass end of our ship?”

“I’ll do what I can,” Lilith said.

“You don’t have enough internal energy for that,” Anastasia pointed out. “You’ll just burn yourself out trying. Maybe we have time to jump before their weapon is fully powered.”

Aramus slumped. “We don’t.” And they all knew it.

They needed more time. She needed to get them more time.

“I can do this.” Lilith closed her eyes and reached out to the shields once more. It took only a nudge to focus the shields behind them. All of the force field. She didn’t yet add her own kinetic energy to the mix. She’d save that for the last possible second so she could pour as much of herself as she could into it.

Not too much of yourself, vixen. Too much and you might get lost.

But if I don’t, she replied, then it won’t matter.

Funny how she and Avion retained their mental link. She wished she knew why, or how. What made him special? Is it love that lets our minds speak?

Arms wrapped around her. “Then we’ll become lost together,” he whispered.

Kentry announced, “Thirty seconds until the jump, but they’re done charging.”

“They’ve fired,” Aramus said, followed by the expected, “Fuck. Prepare for impact.”

Lilith concentrated, urging all her nanos to help her. We need your aid if you want to survive.

Survive. There was a word they didn’t argue with even if their very acknowledgement of it meant the bots were more emotionally driven than even they expected. Funny how the instinct for survival trumped all.

Avion and Lilith poured all they had into maintaining the shield, and while it shuddered under the initial impact, it held.

However, the laser burst, a power unlike anything, kept pushing. Their shield wobbled. The ship shuddered.

“I can’t hold it,” she cried. “I can’t—”

She’d forgotten she wasn’t alone. Avion was the first to siphon his essence into maintaining their shield. More energy poured into the barrier, as more hums of minds joined. One by one, all the chosen on board, except for Kentry, who kept counting down to death or salvation, became part of the group, pushing back against the laser that would disintegrate them.

Would it be enough? Their collective strength peaked and then wobbled. Lilith sagged in Avion’s grasp, and a few of the voices dropped out, their biological hosts tapped out.

It proved enough though. The bright destroyer light blinked off just as Kentry shouted, “Brace yourselves!”