Excerpt: Biotech Pirates

Korin is getting closer.
Alara doesn’t want Dr. Zhen caught, no matter how much she should want that. No matter how much she hates the pirates who did this to her. She looks at his intelligent eyes, somehow she knows that Dr. Zhen isn’t a part of that. He trusts her, she knows what to do.
Love. Ooze! This is a test of love. She can recognize that from her mother. If anything she learned from Leia, was the difficulty of love.
The Defenders are almost here. They are landing. Their feet are running this way.
She doesn’t want to do it. She loves her mother too much. It is her last connection to Leia.
But Leia loved selflessly. Leia would understand this, even if Alara doesn't quite. But she has to get the bangklaw, something inside of her says this is important to catching the pirate who did this to her. Alara nods. She hands over Leia’s bangklaw to Tair. “I darle my cah to you.”
He takes it, surprise in his eyes. “I will treasure this.” He mutters, even as he looks at his, in her hands, with longing.
“I will treasure this,” she whispers, even as Tair and Dr. Zhen are rushing past her to whatever door they used to get here, on the bottom level of the death spire. They seem to disappear through a tiny glass trapdoor in the corner of the alcove. She sees them grav away just as the Defenders arrive.
Korin and others are surrounding her. They just missed Dr. Zhen and Tair.
Korin has a wild glint in her eyes, and her sword is drawn. “Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Dr. Zhen.” She bites off the words.
“I don’t know.” She thinks to the circlet. She pulls it out of her sleeve. It is no longer glowing, no longer hot, no longer activated. “What does this do?”
Korin looks at the circlet. “A warning device, a sharing device. It tells us if a marked pirate is close to a Defender, so we can come to the rescue.” She takes it from Alara and smashes it onto Alara’s head. “You wear this every day. Every moment.” It is so bent that it doesn’t sit quite straight. “What in the piracy did you do to it? We could have been here sooner if you hadn’t bent it all out of kilter! Not to mention that the signal is stronger if you are wearing it.” Her eyes narrow and Alara drops Tair’s bangklaw surreptitiously into her sleeve.
“I wasn’t near any pirates.” Alara is glad that the robot doesn’t have emotions now, for it makes it very easy to lie.
Korin mutters, “What triggered it, if not for Dr. Zhen?”
Alara shrugs. “I didn’t know that I had a tracking program. I thought I was an adult.”
Korin sheathes her blade. “You are a Defender. We are a team, you know. Or you should, if you ever came to lessons.” She draws in the other Defenders who stand behind her, looming and looking dangerous.
“Let’s go back to the spire.” She glares at Alara. “All of us.”
Alara nods, and lets her tentacles unfurl. She hopes that Tair can’t see that.
She knows that she should be focusing on the tracking program, the lesson of love from Dr. Zhen, but the thought that goes over and over across her mind, the thought that she savors is that Tair believes that she is a real woman. And now she had his bangklaw.
He’ll have to come back into her life now.
She won’t think of the difficulties that might entail.