“She’s awake.”

Tessa blinked, struggled with the fog of half-sleep. Above her, something moved, the flash of white, movement of something chrome– and then, within the space of a blink, she was on the floor. Steel frames bent and parted like mist in her wake as she dropped to a crouch on cool deckplating, feet moving, pivoting, jamming her back up against the nearest wall. Lost, stunned, the doctor stared on in mute shock, his mouth hanging open, hand frozen over the ruined berth.

“My god. . .” Someone was saying. “Did you see. . .”

Tessa swallowed, gasped, tried to force her mind toward calm, struggled to get a grip on who she was, where she was. Eyes flicked right to left, vision hazy at the edges, picking up furniture and feet, assessing, assessing. Four people. Four.

One hand splayed out across the floor as she drew her other arm to her chest, gathered up the open fabrics of the hospital gown that hung in place of her uniform and squeezed them in the ball of her fist. She had nothing, nothing– and then one of the leg-pairs she’d caught closed the distance, bending, a familiar face dropping in, smiling softly. A hand reached out timidly, dispelled the initial shock in the space of a moment, a handful of breaths, and left only the tattered edges of fear and confusion to whisper in its wake.

“H–hey.” Phoebe tried a smile, but it faltered as Tessa stared at her, one hand going absently to her lips, touching. “Just. . . just relax, okay?” The younger woman swallowed, put her hand out a little further. “You’re among friends.”

“That’s debatable.” Izzy grumbled, crossed her arms as Phoebe glanced back at her. “What? That thing isn’t who you think it is. It can’t be.”

“Then who is she?” Dimitrov stepped up, cocked his head, almost seemed to study her as she stared back, half hurt, half terrified.

“Physically, she’s Tessa Eisenherz,” The doctor raised his eyebrows, glanced at the silicon sheet in his hand. “Just with a few more miles and a lot more techware in her.”

“Is the techware what allows her to manipulate metal like that?” Phoebe asked, turning back to the doctor.

“God only knows.” He shrugged. “I haven’t seen anything like most of this. It’s beyond me.”

“I’m right here.” Tessa’s voice came hoarse, shaky. Sucking in a broken, frightened breath, she swallowed, hugged her flimsy clothing against her chest. Eyes darted up, locked with Phoebe’s. “Where. . . Where am I?”

“You’re in Medical, L.C. Aboard the Hok.”

The Hok. She swallowed as old memories crashed through her mind, mixed with the currents of newer memories. Eyes flicked up to Dimitrov’s, locked. “Ben. . .”

“There’s something else.” The doctor’s brows knit as he looked at Tessa, met the stare that flicked up to lock with his. “One of the tests I did was a code integrity and telomere length screening, standard procedure on the core worlds to protect the government from infiltration and espionage by clones of politicians and aides with their own agendas.” He let it hang. Tessa bit her lip, stared, the edge of one eye twitching in the pause. “But instead of discovering that this, our older Eisenherz, was a copy as I originally assumed, I found something else, something they both have.”

“You bastard.” Tessa all but growled, fighting to get to her feet, staring at the doctor, hands flexing, teeth bared. Phoebe swallowed, hands going out as she put herself between them, her eyes full of worry, confusion. “You leave her out of this, do you understand me?”

“What is it, Doctor?” Ben crossed his arms.

“Both the major and the lieutenant commander, both Tessa Eisenherzs, are marked. Both of them have DNA coding tagged with crossover-proof ownership idents.” He paused, met Tessa’s eyes solidly. “They’re both GMOs illegally serving with the Navy.”

Phoebe tackled Tessa as the older woman lunged for the doctor, screaming, biting, clawing as the lieutenant struggled to hold her down. In an instant, Izzy and Dimitrov were there, each working to pin the major as she fought them, frothed and spat, screaming, shrieking. “You bastard! You bastard!”

“Careful with her.” The doctor was beside her a second later, slapping a low-dosage cool-down patch against her arm. “There’s something else– She’s pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” Izzy shot back, half losing her grip for an instant, catching Tessa’s arm again and holding her as the patch took hold, killed the major’s anger in cool, carefully measured waves. “Are you sure?” The doctor nodded. “But who–” She glanced back at Tessa, saw the moistness in eyes as tears budded suddenly, grew. Within seconds, Tessa went limp, became weak, collapsed in on herself, teeth coming free of lips, flashing white as they let her go, let her curl up on the floor, lost and broken. “I don’t know yet.” The doctor managed. “We’re still waiting to get back the results on the paternity test.” He swallowed, stood. “Unless she tells us, it could be hours before we know. We’re starting with members of Ultima Thila, but we might not find our match there, and there are a lot of men in the Commonwealth.”

“I couldn’t. . .” Tessa tried, gibbering into her hands. “Izzy, I’m so sorry. After you died, I. . . I. . .”

“Shut up!” The other woman shouted back. “It should have been me! It should have, and you know it! You should have stayed where you came from! You should have stayed out of my life!”

“Izzy. . .” Phoebe tried, reaching out, eyes worried.

“No!” Izzy knocked the other woman’s hands away, stared viciously at the crumpled form laying weak at her feet. “If it wasn’t for this, this thing, Tessa wouldn’t be fighting for her life right now. She wouldn’t be hooked to a fucking army of life support machines. She’d be here.” Izzy growled, brushed a hand quick across moist eyes. “She’d be here.”

“But I. . .” Tessa hesitated, glanced at the doctor with one wet, bloodshot eye. “She. . . I stopped the shards. How could she. . . ? I remember stopping the shards.”

“There’s no question that they were stopped,” the doctor managed. “It’s a matter of when they were stopped.”

“She’s going to be on life support for the rest of her life, thanks to you.” Izzy sneered.

Tessa’s eyes flicked between each gaze as it fixed on her, stared back. Slowly, carefully, she struggled back against the wall, righted herself and hugged her knees against her chest, swallowed. “Can I see her?”

The doctor glanced at Izzy, let his eyes flick back. “Why?”

“I. . .” Think, Tessa. “I’m her next of kin.”

The doctor breathed a long, tired sigh, rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah.” He gestured loosely. “Okay.”

“And. . .” She tried, working her way up the wall, standing, back against cold tile.“Since. . . since privacy is out of the question,” She swallowed past the shakiness, tried to force steel into her voice, shivered a little as it caught in her throat. “Can I at least have my clothes back?”

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