She cast a quick glance at her alien. Hel grinned.
None of them had a leg to stand on.
“Do we have a solution?” Halliwell asked.
“Well, we have to form a mission to try to contain the fallout. The Maestra has suggested Riina Katala and Tim.” Doc once again kept her tone carefully neutral.
Dr. Miles Walker was one of theirs and neither Riina or Tim were part of the Expedition. But they had done a mission with the General. He knew them both very well and respected them.
Now the General did look around. Doc warily turned to face him.
“Is Tim out of medical?”
“Yes, and he is finishing up his physical therapy.” Tim, a former robot with a human consciousness, had recently transferred that consciousness back into a body cloned from his own DNA.
She had to give their ship’s captain, CabeX, kudos for forward thinking. Back when the robots had left their human bodies, he’d foreseen a time when they might want to go back to their original forms and saved their DNA.
Not all of them had ended up back in their own cloned bodies, however. Necessity had required different outcomes for some of them. But Tim was back in a version of his own body.
That should have meant an easy integration, but apparently living for years in a robot body required a lot of adjustment when leaving the big, bad robot body behind.
She wasn’t unsympathetic. She’d had to make some big adjustments since coming to the Garradian Galaxy—the biggest one being Helfron Giddioni.
She might still be trying to get used to his name. And having an alien and hostile mother-in-law. And becoming a step-mom to two little Giddionis. And…the nanites living inside her…well, a lot of adjustments to new things.
Hel’s lips quirked up as if he knew what she was thinking. He probably did. They were connected in ways that was yet another of those adjustments.
“Other than Dr. Miles being our guy, what does this have to do with me?” Halliwell rubbed his face.
“The Maestra wanted you to be informed, in case you wanted to embed one of your people in the mission.”
The general sighed again. “I, yes, I do. Let me think about who to send.” He glanced up in time to catch her slight grimace. “Not a diplomat.”
Yes, they both still had issues with diplomats.
“Thank you, sir.” She knew how to look demure when needed and she deployed the look now.
The general snorted. “Dismissed, Doc.”
“Yes, sir.”
It wasn’t an oversight that he never acknowledged Hel unless forced to by circumstances. The general knew how to hold a grudge.
Hel waited until they were safely outside to laugh.
“Do you think he’ll task himself…” Hel began.
“No, he won’t,” Doc told him. “He’ll want to, but he won’t.”
She meshed her fingers with his and saw the heat spark in his eyes. The general and his issues faded from her mind. And Doc was pretty sure they faded from Hel’s too.
Tim followed CabeX into the meeting room. Trac—TrackerY—came in last and stopped near the door. The robotic cyborg couldn’t show unease, but Tim knew Trac well enough to know how much Trac didn’t want to be in this room with them.
Tim hadn’t asked CabeX why he’d detailed Trac to the mission—partly because Tim didn’t know what the mission was. And CabeX always had his reasons for what he did. His crew had learned to just follow orders.
The Garradian Maestra was already in the room. It was not a surprise to see Moose—also a former cyborg—at her back, since they were a couple.
She smiled a greeting, then gave CabeX a puzzled look.
