Tech Tack Read Online Free

name?”
    Lyon paused before he answered, and then, he gave her a sidelong look. “Urikara Lenz.”
    Her great grandmother, thought long dead, was floating in a tank and crafting maps for spacecraft to jump from one system to the other. Ainora felt positively tiny in comparison.
     

Chapter Four
     
     
    Ainora wanted to speak to her great grandmother to find out if it was truly the woman that her grandfather spoke of with such fond memories. He had been a child during the purge. His talent had not arisen and his family had hidden in the mountains while the Kozue and government teams scoured for them.
    Urikara had run out to misdirect them, and it must have worked, because seven days later, she was gone without a trace and the purge was over.
    She both hoped that it was and hoped that it wasn’t the woman of her bloodline. If she had truly been on her own all these years and on life support, it would be horrible to imagine the long life in confinement.
    Ainora followed the directions that Lyon had given her and got the food dispenser to disgorge something suitable for her. She had been ordered to stay with purple-outlined images so that was what she did.
    The food was bland, but her body accepted it eagerly. So, she was off Resicor, and now, she was going to be sent from assignment to assignment without her consent once again, just like at home. Well, maybe the uniform would be better.
    She got to her feet and tucked away the dishes in the assigned slots. With her mind numb, she resumed her place in the flight deck and watched the stars as they shifted their positions relative to the ship.
    “How long until we reach Morganti?” She smiled at Lyon.
    His deep mahogany skin had a reddish tint, which made his dark hair and the silver streaks more startling. His nose was flattish and his brows were thick and black. All in all, she should have been petrified, but she had practiced keeping her emotions down for so long, it was second nature.
    “Six hours and one more jump. How are you feeling?”
    “Fine. How are you feeling? I imagine you are overdue for sleep.”
    “I can stay awake for days at a time if need be. It is one of the things that makes me an excellent bodyguard.” He grinned and his hair lifted a little.
    She continued to look at him until he turned with a raised brow. “You are staring.”
    She blushed. “Sorry. I have never met anyone with mood hair before.”
    “Yours is doing a pretty good job of being an indicator of your state. I am guessing that blue means you are calm?”
    She snickered. “I am always calm when someone isn’t flinging darts at me. Do those things come out of your skin?”
    He extended his arm and flexed. A series of darts rose out of his skin down toward his hand. “I fire them by moving the muscles of my forearm. Once I have extruded them, a small pocket of muscles at their base prepares to fire.”
    She swallowed. “Are they all designed to sedate?”
    He grinned. “Yes. That is how my species developed. It is a hunting technique as far as our historians can tell.”
    “What is your species called?”
    “Uradu. Well, the part of me that has spikes. My mother’s people are Wyoran. She was on a trade mission to Kobal, the Uradu home world, and she left with me in her belly. Once he knew I existed, my father insisted on his rights and they negotiated their union on Kobal.”
    “So, you are a blend of two species?” She blinked as she came to grips with that. It was the most interesting thing she had heard since learning about Urikara.
    “I am. The people of Resicor…right, you don’t blend with other species. Well, that is one thing you will have to get used to. There are literally hundreds of species in the Citadel and Sector Guard and more are added every day.”
    “I am looking forward to it.”
    “That is good. Do you want to start reading up on the species? There is a data pad around here somewhere.”
    “If it is no trouble. You don’t have to entertain me. I