Page 17 of Alien Mercenary’s Wife (Lathar Mercenaries: Warborne #7)

T he tiny guest quarters felt cramped with evidence spread everywhere, but Reese didn't mind the clutter. Arranging documents across the small desk and onto the bunk, she created a paper battlefield representing months of careful investigation. Medical records, financial statements, internal correspondence… each piece of paper was courtesy of the Eris and the Sprite’s ability to recover all her data from one of her data caches.

The door chimed softly. "Come in," she called, not looking up from a medical report.

"Brought reinforcements," Eris announced, stepping through the doorway with a steaming mug in each hand. The rich aroma of real coffee filled the small space. "Figured you could use the caffeine."

Reese accepted the mug gratefully, wrapping her hands around the ceramic warmth. "Thanks. Though I'm starting to think I could organize this evidence in my sleep."

"That's what happens when you've been living with it for months." Eris settled on the edge of the bunk, careful not to disturb the carefully arranged documents. She looked around the room, one eyebrow quirking up. "Jesus, Captain. How much do you have here?"

"Enough to prove they knew." Reese sipped her coffee, closing her eyes for a moment as she savored the bitter brew. "The question is whether it'll be enough to convince a judge."

Eris picked up a medical report, her expression darkening as she read. "These symptoms... they're exactly what I had. Before Tal fixed me. The implants are the same batch as mine."

"Your implants were the same batch number?"

"Same manufacturer, same batch." She nodded. "KTV-3099 to KTV-4092 series. Mine were KTV-4021."

“Are you sure?” If Eris had been successfully treated, then there was hope. Dangerous, treacherous hope, but definitely hope.

Eris nodded, still looking through the documents. "Mind if I call my husband? He’s amazing at this kind of tech analysis."

"Your husband?" Reese had met T'Raal, Red, and the medic. According to T'Raal, the ship carried seventeen crew members, but she'd seen only a fraction of them.

"Yeah.” Eris’s smile was fond and soft. “What Zero and his brother and sister don’t know about neural interface technology isn’t worth knowing.

" Eris was already keying in the connection on her wrist comp, looking up to catch Reese’s eye.

"They've got personal reasons to hate the companies that make this shit. "

"Zero?"

"Yeah, well… his real name is Dael, but we all call him Zero. He’s a cyborg, not from this galaxy… or reality, I’m not sure which. It’s complicated."

The comm unit chimed as the connection established.

A man appeared on the small screen—broad-shouldered and heavily muscled, with dark close-cropped hair and stubble shadowing a strong jaw.

Dark eyes held intelligence and something harder, more dangerous.

But it was the black metal arm she caught a glimpse of that made her attention sharpen.

It looked like part of a seamlessly integrated bio-organic system that made her own crude exo-leg look primitive by comparison.

"Hey, beautiful," he said to Eris as a greeting. "How's our newest crew member settling in?"

"Still getting used to the idea that people actually want to help her." Eris angled the comm unit so both women were visible. "Zero, meet Captain Reese Payne. Reese, this is Zero… my husband."

Zero's smile transformed his serious features. "An honor to meet Tank's former captain. What can I do for you?"

"Neural interface analysis," she said, getting straight to business. "I need to prove these implants were defective by design, not accident."

" Scorperio units?" Zero's expression sharpened.

Eris leaned forward. "Zero, what happened to your sister? The medical company that held her… did you find out if that was connected to Nexus Dynamics?"

"Yeah, and to Anselm Corporation," he said, the words sharp with venom. "They held Jesh in a false reality facility, conducted medical experiments, stripped her cybernetic neural pathways."

Reese felt the blood drain from her face. "Anselm. I've seen that name in the financial records. They're connected to CosGen Biotech."

"Which owns controlling interest in Nexus Dynamics," Zero confirmed grimly. "Same people who made your defective implants, Captain. They ran an experimentation program under medical research cover on my sister, then systematically eliminated witnesses who threatened their operations."

The pieces clicked together with sickening clarity. "That's how they keep getting away with it. They're not just a medical device company—they're part of something much bigger."

"Yup. Government connections, unlimited funding, that kind of shit." Zero's fingers drummed against his console. "But they're not invincible. No one is."

"Right." Eris stood, stretching muscles cramped from sitting on the narrow bunk. "Zero, can you cross-reference her medical data with what you've got on Anselm's operations?"

"Already on it. I'll have a preliminary analysis within the hour." Zero's face grew serious again. "This is much bigger than a simple corporate cover-up now that we know Anselm's involved. But you're safe here with us."

"Understood." Reese met his gaze through the comm unit's small screen. "And Zero? Thank you. For the help, for the information. For caring about strangers."

"We're not strangers anymore." His smile was genuine, carrying none of the sharp edges from earlier. "We're family. That's how this works."

"I'll let you get back to work," Eris said, though her voice carried the reluctance of someone who'd rather keep talking to her husband. "Love you."

"Love you too, beautiful. Stay safe." Zero's expression softened as he looked at his wife. "And take care of her."

"Always do." Eris's smile was private and intimate. "Talk to you tonight?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

The connection ended, leaving Reese alone with Eris and realizing she was no longer fighting her battles alone.

"He's nice," she said finally. "Your husband."

"The best." Eris's smile was soft, private. "Smart enough to keep me alive, stubborn enough to put up with my attitude."

"How long have you been married?" It was strange to think of Eris as married, and to an alien cyborg, not less. At least she assumed Zero was an alien. He had to be… humanity didn’t have the kind of tech that had created that arm.

"Not long. Everything happened fast after I joined the crew." Eris settled back against the bulkhead, more relaxed now that the serious business was finished. "What about you? Anyone waiting back home?"

"No." The answer came automatically. "Hard to maintain relationships when your body's falling apart and you're fighting corporate lawyers."

"Fair point." Eris was quiet for a moment. "The crew's good people, though. Different from military units. More like... family."

The opening was subtle, but Reese recognized it. "T'Raal seems... competent."

"Competent." Eris's eyebrow arched. "That's one way to put it."

"What would you call him?"

"Honorable. The kind of leader who'll go to war for his people." Eris paused, as if she were choosing her words carefully. "Also stubborn as hell and way too protective for his own good."

"Protective how?"

"You'll see." Eris's grin held mischief. "Let's just say he takes the safety of his crew very seriously. Sometimes too seriously."

Reese absorbed this information, filing it away with her other observations about the man who'd carried her to safety and cooked her breakfast like it was the most natural thing in the galaxy.

"The crew... they all seem very loyal to him."

"With good reason. T'Raal's the kind of captain who'll put his life on the line for any of us. Hell, he already has, more times than I can count." Eris grew more serious. "But he's also got secrets. We all do, I suppose, but his run deeper than most."

"What kind of secrets?"

Eris shrugged. "T'Raal's got connections, and a background he doesn't talk about. All I know for sure is that he's dangerous enough that other mercenary units give us a very wide berth."

"He seems very..." Reese searched for the right word. "Focused."

"That's one way to put it." Eris's grin held mischief and affection in equal measure. "And… he cooked you breakfast. T'Raal doesn't cook for anyone. Ever."

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked.

"Because you're one of us now, whether you realize it or not." Eris's voice carried absolute certainty.

"I should get back to the evidence," she said, needing distance from the dangerous warmth spreading through her chest.

“No worries, I have bridge duty anyway. Catch you on the flipside, captain.”

"Eris," she called as the other woman reached the door. "You can call me Reese. The rank... it doesn't mean much anymore."

Eris paused, her hand on the door control.

"That's going to take some getting used to." She smiled. "But I'll work on it."

T'Raal stopped outside the training room, frowning at the quiet.

Where was the usual crash of bodies hitting mats?

The sharp crack of weapons meeting shields?

Red and Tank's aggressive banter as they worked through combat drills?

Instead, all he heard was soft grunts of exertion, fabric whispering against padding, and what sounded like Tal's voice.

Through the door's narrow viewport, he saw Reese lying on one of the exercise mats, her face tight with concentration as she worked through what looked like basic strengthening exercises.

Tal knelt beside her, guiding her left leg through careful range-of-motion movements that made the neural stimulator's small patch visible against her spine.

He should have kept walking. Should have left them to their work and continued with his own tasks. Did he? No. Instead, he stood in the corridor like some adolescent watching his first glimpse of female skin.

Draanth . He was losing his mind.