Pirate's Gold - S.J. Sanders Page 0,51

justified in losing her shit as she frantically attempted to get that thing off her arm.

Pain pierced her forearm just as Azan shoved her firmly against the wall. The pirate’s scales were dull and pale pink. As one pair of arms held Terri in place, another pair yanked her arm forward, stretching it out. Terri was distantly aware of Veral shoving his way through the gathering crowd, his hard snarls threatening males who had leveled blasters at her. Azan pushed up the flexible sleeve of her armor, and they both gasped in horror as numerous tendrils whipped out from the body of the bio-tech. Blood flowed around its body as its primary legs assisted it as it burrowed into her forearm.

“What in the name of the gods is that!?” Azan shouted. “Cursed shit of all things profane! I am going to try to dig it out.” Yellow eyes met brown, the female’s pinprick pupils dilating with emotion until they were clearly visible black sideways ovals. She yanked out her dagger and placed the tip at the side of the glowing green body. The tendrils were flowing around her forearm, jabbing into her and sinking into her.

“Please…” Terri said. “Get it off of me.”

A spurt of blood appeared at the side of the blade seconds before a dark hand spun out and knocked the dagger away. Azan hissed as the clatter of metal hitting metal echoed through the room.

“Do not,” Veral snarled as his face lowered threateningly. “Can you not see that it has fully attached itself into her arm? It is a symbiont. Bio-tech created by the Elshavan.”

“What is a symbiont?” snarled an Igwin.

“A parasite,” Azan returned, her lip curling at it.

Terri was half amused to note that, for once, an Igwin looked at her warily rather than with the usual carnal hunger. It was a refreshing change. In fact, all the Igwins were drawing away from her. Hysterically, Terri wondered if alien tech suddenly made her foul to them.

Well, good. That was one good thing to come from the crap ton of pain.

“A tech symbiont is different. Its programming drives it to link to a type of being it has been engineered to recognize. The Elshavan, though they have scales, have a softer appearance like my mate. In order to fulfill its purpose, it must do as it is programmed to do. At this point, now that the merger is complete and it has joined to her body, it is nothing more than a tool that she must learn to use. One that cannot be removed without irreversible damage to her body. Tech implants are not to be trifled with except by experts in the field, and only in dire emergencies. Some Argurma weapons operate it in this fashion, though they lack the obvious sophistication of the bio-tech that has bonded to my female. One thing would be noticeably the same, however. It cannot be removed.”

“For what purpose was it created?” Egbor asked as he pushed through the crowd. His pistol was still primed in his hand, but it hung lax at his side rather than pointed at her. “Will it harm us? Or do you think it might be valuable?” Greed lit his eyes as his tongue swept over his lips hungrily.

Terri instinctively wanted to tuck her arm out of sight before he got an idea to attempt to hack it off.

Veral frowned and shook his head. “I do not know if it would have any value since we do not know yet exactly what it does. Even so, given the way that it has bonded to her, if you did remove it, you would end up damaging it in addition to killing her. For anyone else, it is just a bit of metal and biological material. I do not think it will harm anyone in the crew as it is now a part of her. I found a lab, and from what I understand, a scientist designed the tech to protect against something far worse.”

“What can possibly be worse than that?!” a pirate shouted, gesturing to Terri’s exposed arm.

She grimaced. It wasn’t pretty.

Blood still seeped around the green body of the symbiont, though it was slowing as if the thing was working with her nanos to speed up her already accelerated healing. Despite the slowing trickle of blood, the skin was still swollen and flushed a painful red. What was more alarming might have been the weird green fluid that dripped out along with her blood, and