Free Wounds, Book 1 by Ilsa J. Bick Page B

she said. Her voice quavered, and she swallowed. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, Elizabeth Lense, that you are lying, and I do not believe your story.” His voice was mild, not accusatory—more…intrigued. “I have eyes—my own, fortunately—and your skin, the color in your cheeks and lips…you’re lying.”
    She wasn’t as shocked as she thought she’d be. After all, it was one of those things a person would have to be brain-dead to miss. Standard Starfleet-speak, though, Prime Directive junk: lie your head off and hope no one catches on that you aren’t just a teensy bit different than, say, oh, that guy over there with five tentacles and seven eyes. “Okay,” she said. “And?”
    “ And , if that’s so, then you don’t understand this. You don’t understand me or my people, or what we’re up against. So I will explain. We Jabari fight the Kornaks because they are machines.”
    “What do you mean, machines?”
    “Living machines. They add prosthetics when their limbs wither, or replace their organs with those they’ve harvested in transplant or with a mechanical equivalent. Our planet hasn’t been very good to us, or maybe it’s the other way around. Our air’s bad; the water’s polluted; there’s residual radioactivity in some areas.” He shrugged. “It’s our life here. Mara and I, the rest of us, we don’t want to be machines. We don’t think the Kornaks should force their will on the planet or its people, especially not when a prosthetic is a reward for how loyal you’ve been, or what you haven’t consumed.”
    The scars on Mara’s neck, those people missing hands, legs…they’ve either removed their prostheses or declined them outright. “Why not?” Lense asked, genuinely mystified. “If you’ll live better and longer lives, isn’t that worth the trade-off?”
    “No. Because if I accept that more and more of me isn’t flesh and blood, then I give up what it is to be a man.” Saad’s eyes lingered on hers. “And, above all, I’m a man, Elizabeth Lense. I have lived and I will die as one.”
    She stared back, and the insight was like the quick flash of a shooting star: A little like the Borg, but without the collective . Her eyes searched Saad’s face, its clean lines and strong bones. No scars at all, and that struck her as odd, though perhaps his scars were hidden by clothing. But she liked what she saw, and it had been a long time since she’d seen a man she hadn’t dismissed out of hand.
    And then, on the heels of that thought, she remembered what Julian had said: I am a person, and I have feelings to hurt…
    “And me?” she asked. She looked away and hoped that Saad hadn’t noticed that shame, not embarrassment, burned her cheeks. “What about me?”
    “You are a free woman, Elizabeth Lense. You may live and die as one.”
    “But only if I stay here.” She glanced at him askance. “Right? Otherwise, I’ll die free, only a lot sooner.” When he nodded, she said, “So I can be your medic, or you’ll kill me. Not much of a choice.”
    “No, but it is a choice. Whichever you take, however, one thing is certain.”
    “And what’s that?”
    “Either way,” he said, “there is no going back.”
    Chapter
12
    T wo hours later, after the patient had been stabilized and a corporal had wheeled the gurney out of the ER for an isolation unit in the ICU, Blate came and stood over Kahayn and Arin, who were seated at a workstation, busily entering their notes and data into the official computer record. Arin saw him coming first, casually stabbed a control that blanked the 3-D VR, and gave Kahayn a gentle nudge with his elbow.
    “Yes, Blate?” Kahayn sighed, pushed wisps of brown hair from her eyes, looked up. “What now?”
    “Don’t think that your heroics here will preclude a full account of your conduct. I intend to make my report, and I will most specifically make note of your carelessness.” The security director’s right eye skidded left, then