Lord Regret's Price: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 3 Read Online Free Page B

that MIGS was violating the Queen’s orders—was still alive. She risked pushing with a question. “Were you there when the attack came?”
    The alien let out a low, vibrating hiss that sent shards of ice slicing down Charlotte’s spine. “Yes.”
    “Please, tell me what happened. I need a first-person account.”
    “Our technicians think they somehow uploaded a virus to our main system that infected our replicators. The virus…” The alien narrowed her eyes, hesitating, as if reluctant to say anything more.
    “Please, I must know,” Charlotte whispered furiously. “I’m one of the few people who might be able to help.”
    “Help?” The alien made a rough sound that might have been a laugh. “How can you help when our planet has been nearly destroyed? When only a handful of us survive intact? Our people have been enslaved and none of you care. Our planet has been raped for the great Britannia’s coffers. Our children…” She made another raw growl of pain. “We’ve been irreparably changed.”
    “The virus leaped from the computer systems to your people.”
    The alien stiffened, lifting her head and staring out over the crowd. “Such a thing should not be possible, but yes, that’s what we suspect. An inorganic virus that invaded organic tissue and began…mutating.”
    Nausea made Charlotte’s stomach pitch. Her fingertips burned with cold. Or maybe she was simply losing feeling in her hand that was still clutched in the alien’s iron grip. My nanobots. Dear God. What have I done? I knew MIGS had taken my research and twisted it. I knew… But hearing it is so much worse than I imagined. They saved my life and Sig’s, but killed millions more.
    The alien lowered her head to whisper directly against Charlotte’s ear. “What no one outside Razar knows is that we could transform before. Now that transformation is worse.”
    “What do you mean?”
    The alien gripped her forearm, squeezing so hard Charlotte involuntarily gasped. Nails lengthened, pricking through the sleeve of her gown. Impossibly long nails…no, claws. Stunned, she leaned down, eyes locked on the alien’s arm. Something moved beneath the swamp-colored skin. Glittering scales?
    “The virus magnifies the transformation, taking away our choice, our honor, our very identity. Your Queen has created a race of monsters. Monsters who will devour the flesh from her bones and her scientists if given the chance.”
    Charlotte could only draw shallow, rapid breaths, fighting to keep her feet. Her knees weakened, her head dangerously foggy. She knew Sig had been changed, but those changes had been improvements. He was better, faster, stronger.
    Not a monster.
    “I…I must…help you.”
    “It’s too late. The virus has infected every Razari, whether they were on the planet or not. It spread from computer to computer, ship to ship, male to female to child. Once they start, the mutations are impossible to stop. Our best scientists have tried.”
    Despite her horror, Charlotte’s mind buzzed with possibilities. The nanobots in Sig had been amplifying his abilities to make him better. What if that was all the Razari virus was doing? Highlighting their existing ability to transform—making them more powerful? “Have they tried reprogramming the virus?”
    The alien narrowed slitted eyes, her breath a low hiss. “How?”
    Claws dug into her arm, nearly breaking the skin, but she didn’t react. I can’t show any weakness. No hesitation. No fear. “I think I could do it.”
    “There are rumors that have reached even Razar that the Queen’s Physician was responsible for the technology that destroyed us.”
    Charlotte held her breath for a count of ten and slowly released it in a controlled exhale that revealed nothing. Hopefully her face remained as blank. “I heard the good doctor was assassinated.”
    The alien nodded and even managed a smile, although the curve of her lips didn’t indicate friendship, but rather what Charlotte feared