Page 2 of Myra’s Monster (Romance Among the Stars #3)

2

MONSTER

O ut here on the frozen edge of interstellar space, nothing happens fast. Eons passed without change, and I slumbered in my cocoon, barely aware of time passing.

Over the long centuries, Home pulled herself back together. Scavenging material from drifting space dust was a slow process and gathering energy to do anything with it even slower. The race between the self-repair systems and entropy was a long one, and no winner had emerged yet.

Unexpectedly, something changed. Light! A feast of energy, pumped in at a rate Home had almost forgotten was possible. Thirsty, she drank in more than the distant starlight would provide in a century. Systems that hadn’t seen activity in thousands of years sprang to life, spending carefully hoarded materials in a flurry of activity, and I drifted toward consciousness.

Waking up hurt. Of course it did—waking from longsleep always did. The ship’s umbilicals pumped me full of life, my veins expanding as fluid filled through them for the first time in far too long. I shifted, testing my body and finding it ready for action. My limbs moved at my command, my claws slid out of their sheaths, and I breathed again.

Thin air, carrying a scent of rot, filled my lungs. Something else, too, a smell I did not recognize. The reason Home woke me.

Intruders.