Doctoring Fate

SERIES: Outer Limits Quadrant
BOOK: 2 of 3
STANDALONE? Interconnected Standalones with a Series Arc (best read in order)
GENRE: Alien Romance
TROPES: Fish Out of Water, Strong Heroine, Morally Gray Hero, Alien romance, Politician Hero, Doctor Heroine, Stranded, Dinosaur Planet, Language Barriers, Crash Landing, First Contact, Slow Burn Romance, Aliens with Alien Anatomy, Forced Pregnancy, Pet Dragon, Alien Festivals

Aliens desperately want what’s in her blood, and it’s up to him to get it—but all he wants is her heart.

Darcy has wanted to be a doctor for as long as she can remember. Working as a combat medic in the military and eventually entering medical school, it’s right within her grasp—until her exposure to a deadly toxin leaves her bed bound. Her world shrinks to a single room, one forgotten by the military, school, and her family.

Until the day General Amato comes knocking with the deal of a lifetime: the military’s blood nano Vaccine, a cure, in exchange for willing participation on a dangerous mission. They must travel straight into the unknown heart of the wormhole in search of the missing Sasha Robinson.

All goes surprisingly well until she and her team crash land on an alien world hellbent on killing them. Carnivorous flowers, ambulatory trees, fantastic creatures straight out of fairy tales… and two green-scaled lizardmen offering a helping hand?

Maddox is the Raxion planet’s ambassador, and he is given one crucial task: gain the stranded humans’ cooperation at any cost. His people are desperate to uncover the secret of Sasha Robinson’s mysterious blood nanos—what better opportunity than four marooned soldiers?

He’s used to this work, lived and breathed espionage and subterfuge since long ago. And to avoid another Carthas massacre, he is willing to do anything, even woo the beautiful human medic named Darcy.

Show her the local sights, appeal to her sense of adventure, maybe even steal a kiss… Falling in love with her wasn’t intended. And when the Raxion Prime General demands results, it all may come tumbling down.

Doctoring Fate is a gritty action packed sci-fi novel with dark themes, political intrigue, language barriers, alien first contact, crash landings, and a slow burn alien romance. Each book in the Outer Limits Quadrant series follows a different couple but the series is best read in order. A content guide is available on the author's website at www.alexisbosborne.com for readers with sensitivities.

A quick knock on the door startled her from the screen she was reading, her mind no longer absorbing the words as she scanned the same sentence multiple times. She’d gotten lost in another daydream again. Disassociated, as her therapist would say.

But who was at her door? The nurses didn’t bother knocking anymore. They bustled in and out through the door at will, coming into and leaving her narrowed universe as if they owned it more than she did.

Whoever had knocked rapped at the door again. A new doctor? Some bright-eyed specialist fresh out of their residency who was convinced they’d cut their teeth on her case before eventually giving up and referring her onward in this never-ending cycle of hopelessness?

“Come in,” she said, her voice cracking from disuse. Her lips felt dry, so she licked them even though she knew it would only make them worse. But she did it anyway, simply because she could.

The door opened, and General Amato entered, his uniform crisply pressed and his back ramrod straight. Four silver stars decorated each shoulder, the metal gleaming under the harsh overhead light of her hospital room.

General Amato took his hardtop hat off and tucked it into the crook of one arm, inclining his head in a bow of respect. “Miss Miller. How are you?” A false, pleasant smile stretched across his lips.

Staring at the man she hadn’t seen since the settlement all those years ago, she blinked at him and let the silence stretch on until it grew uncomfortable. “Excuse me for not getting up to greet you.”

His gaze flicked down the length of her, as if he could see the withered state of her flaccid legs underneath the mountains of blankets it took to keep her warm. The skin around his hooded eyes tightened.

Turning, he shut the door behind them and entered the room. “You’re probably wondering why I’m here.”

“Yes. Why are you?” she asked, not bothering to keep the ice from her voice. She hadn’t seen him in six years, not since he sat on the witness stand and testified against her. There was no good reason for him to visit her now. She’d won, despite his best efforts to prevent it.

He pointed to a chair as if to ask permission to sit. Darcy arched one brow and stared him down, hoping it made him hesitate. His hand reached for it anyway, and he dragged it beside her bed, the legs scraping against the tile floor.

General Amato sat and settled his hat on his lap. “Six months ago, one of our satellite repair engineers disappeared at the edge of charted space.”

“Space is dangerous.” It wasn’t unheard of for repair engineers to forget to secure their tether during a space walk, or rip a tear in their suit. Injury and death were a common hazard in Starfleet, something she was intimately familiar with.

He nodded. “Yes, but the complete absence of her ship raised eyebrows at command. We ran traces on its black box and could not find any evidence of its existence. Thankfully, she sent a last transmission right before her disappearance.”

The general dug his datapad out of a pocket and tapped the screen. A recording played the engineer’s last words.

“This is Engineering Private Sasha Robinson of Alpha Centauri, Identification number R01M3279. I was sent to deep space quadrant three, sector seventy-six to repair satellite number 1,382. While making repairs, I encountered unexpected space debris, which damaged the ship, and I have just been informed that I am caught in the path of a wormhole. I am sending the coordinates now. I believe that I have been sucked into its path and my ship no longer has enough power to escape its pull. Please tell my brother that he was right… and that I love him. I leave everything I own to him.”

Darcy’s heart clenched in her chest at the sound of the woman’s panicked but resolved voice. Another poor cog chewed up and spat out in Starfleet’s death machine. Shoving the sentimental thought away, she wiped the sympathy from her face and stared at him. “Yes, very sad. But I can’t see what any of this has to do with me.”

Amato’s lips twisted down as he folded his datapad closed and tucked it away. “Four months ago, we received a blip of a transmission. Rogue feedback, we thought. It happens sometimes with the implants and the neural network. Random bits of data come through. Except that one of our crypto linguists heard it and picked up something different. Something new.”

Fatigue washed over her. A glance at the screen showed the time. She was missing nap number four. Their brief conversation was too much, and she was fading quickly. Energy leached from her body, her limbs feeling heavier with each breath. “Get to the point, General.”

His fingers tightened on the brim of his hat, but his face remained neutral. “We received evidence of extraterrestrial life, and we believe Private Robinson may have survived the wormhole that her ship traveled through. At least long enough to make contact and learn some of their language.”

Aliens. She wondered what they looked like. “Congratulations,” she said in a dry voice stuffed with derision. “That’s a career-making find.”

His lips curved up in a sharp smile. “Yes. I hoped that you’d like to make it yours as well.”

Frowning, she stared at him with an open mouth, and then she laughed. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. Tears rolled down her cheeks until the laughter bordered on hysteria. When the manic burst evaporated, it left her feeling lighter than she had in weeks.

“Thank you for thinking of me, General, but I don’t see how I’d have the time. I have so many projects to work on,” she said, not bothering to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

Glancing at her only window, she looked at the pane and watched the projected digital video loop of a forest. A little brown bird built its nest, weaving gathered bits of material together to form its structure. Despite how long the bird worked, the nest never got closer to completion. She’d studied the recording for hours until she’d found the loop. Now that she’d seen it, she couldn’t unsee it.

“They have granted me the authority to administer the Vaccine to you, should you accept the assignment,” he said.

The fatigue washed away, replaced by a strange mixture of hatred and hope that left her breathless. A nano vaccination might restore her. After years of research, she was certain of it. It was the only thing they hadn’t tried.

How ironic that the same people who crippled her, leaving her bedridden, also had the technology to cure her. And yet they hadn’t. The Vaccine was purely for front line soldiers and other necessary staff, and she’d left service years before she started showing symptoms.

Turning her head, she stared at him. “You… want me to go through the wormhole. That’s a suicide mission.”

He made a point of glancing around her hospital room. His eyes skated over the taped-up pictures that her nieces and nephews had drawn for her after the first surgery had failed, over the stuffed animals that crowded the top of the free-standing closet, and the layer of dust that coated all of it.

She bristled, wanting to hide the remnants of her life from him. It wasn’t much, but it was hers, and he didn’t deserve to look at it. Not after he’d sat there on the stand and pontificated on policies and procedures, claiming she’d broken them when she hadn’t.

They’d told her it was safe. They’d fracking lied. She’d paid for it, and then they’d paid her off to rot in a hospital room for the rest of her miserable life.

“You need time to consider it.” He ran a finger along the brim of his hat. “Unfortunately, I can’t offer that to you. I must have your decision, or else I will have to move down the list. You will not speak of this to anyone. Not that they would believe you even if you did.”

She stared at the ceiling, her eyes tracing over the familiar brown water stain that had been there for years. “Why me?”

He sighed. “You were the top of your class in medical school. Your future was promising. What happened to you was… unfortunate. When we started cherry picking the team we are putting together, your name was the first that came to mind. We need a medical professional on board. Surgery pods can’t fix everything.”

No. No, they can’t. The automated surgical repair pods had their uses, but they didn’t replace the hands, experience, and knowledge of a skilled doctor.

The general dragged his eyes away from the faded teddy bear. “If this mission has any chance of success, the crew will need someone who can patch them up and keep them healthy.”

“I’m not a doctor.” She hadn’t made it to her last test before she’d lost the ability to walk. It was the first thing that had gone. Walking. Sitting upright. And then the embarrassing loss of her bowel and bladder control. Regret swirled through her. If she hadn’t left Starfleet… if she’d left earlier… if she’d never joined up at all… She shoved the useless thoughts away. If she let herself spiral down into another depression, she might never claw her way out of that pit again.

“You’re close enough,” Amato said. “And you were a damn fine medic before you left Starfleet for medical school. You can do this.”

She chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “Anyone you put on that team is going to die, but I suppose that wouldn’t keep you awake at night, would it, General?”

“Is that a no, Miss Miller?” he asked, sidestepping her rude observation.

Hunger for a cure, a chance at recovery, gripped her. Even if the risk was enormous. They both knew she’d already agreed when she hadn’t screamed and gotten him removed from her room.

Surely anything, even a terrible death at the hands of murderous aliens or catastrophic life support failure, was better than this slow decay. Death by a thousand paper cuts. What would she sacrifice for the chance to walk again? To eat actual food, instead of being fed through the tube in her stomach? To feel the butterflies of a first date, kiss a man and fall into bed with him? Get married one day and have children. Buy a house with a yard, and get a dog. She couldn’t say no.

“I’ll do it, but that doesn’t mean I forgive you.”

He nodded, as if he’d never expected differently, then tugged his datapad out again and tapped the screen before showing it to her. “Your contract. Typical nondisclosure, waivers stating that Starfleet will not be legally responsible for loss of limb or life. I need a palm print.”

“You’ll have to do it.” Asking him to help her sign her deal with the devil grated on her. She thought she’d long since given up her stubborn need for independence. His presence brought out the worst in her. She hadn’t been this bitter and maudlin in years.

“Of course.” General Amato picked up her flaccid arm and pressed her palm to the screen until it beeped.

Reaching into a different pocket, he pulled out a slim black case and pressed a thumb to a sensor. It opened with a click.

She watched him pull a slim syringe from the foam casing inside. So small for something that contained her future. Her life, swirling in a carrier fluid. The nanos were invisible to the naked eye, but she tried to see them all the same. The syringe’s content was a pale, clear yellow. Viscous, the separated colors swirled back together as he tipped it several times to mix it.

“Is your right thigh okay?” he asked, rising from his chair. He approached her bed and hovered a hand over the edge of her mountain of blankets.

She nodded, her eyes never leaving the syringe in his hand. He took the cap off the needle and pressed the plunger to evacuate the air. A tiny bead of fluid bubbled at the beveled tip.

“It’s fine. I can’t feel my legs, anyway.”

He grunted and tugged the blankets aside, exposing one emaciated leg under the hem of her hospital gown. The needle slid into the top of her thigh and hit bone. His thumb depressed the plunger, and it made a faint whirring sound as the needle drilled into place. She held her breath as she watched him inject her, the plunger moving slowly as it worked to force the fluid into her bone marrow.

When he finished, he slid the needle back out and a bead of blood welled before rolling down her leg. The general flicked the safety cap over the used needle, put it back into its case, and clicked it shut, all of it disappearing back into his pocket.

She watched the mark to see if it was closing faster than usual. If it was, she couldn’t tell. The moment was anticlimactic, and then he flipped her blankets into place, covering her.

“The team is gathering in a month.”

Snorting, she shook her head. “Muscle mass takes months of physical therapy to recover. Not even nanos can speed up the process that fast.”

He hesitated as he tucked his datapad away. “I see. How long will your recovery take?”

“Six months perhaps, if we’re aggressive.” She could do it. She would do it.

General Amato secured his hat back onto his graying, balding head. “I’ll let command know of the delay. We can send you to Holmes Hayes to work with the specialists there.”

Holmes Hayes. It was the best rehabilitation center that money could buy. The offer wasn’t out of kindness, she knew, but so they could monitor her progress. Make sure she wasn’t dragging it out, or didn’t run from her agreement once she got her feet back under her. Not that there was any hiding from Starfleet once they got their tentacles around you. But that didn’t stop people from trying. She was an investment, and they’d want to collect on the debt she now owed them.

A deal with the devil, indeed.

Tipping her head back, she met his eyes and gave him a flat look. “One last thing.”

He dipped his chin toward his chest and stared at her with cold eyes that betrayed nothing of his feelings. Hands clasped at his back, he stood at parade rest. “Yes, Miss Miller?”

“Go frack yourself.”

He blew out a breath and turned to leave. Dress shoes tapped against the tile as he crossed the room. At the door, he paused and glanced over his shoulder. “See you soon, doctor.”

When the latch caught, she blew out the breath she’d held. Her thoughts were racing. What had just happened? What had she done? She’d been out of their reach, and now she was back in the thick of it. Prey tangled in their web again. She probably wouldn’t get a second escape. They owned her now, for good or bad.

Move, she thought down at her body. A finger, a toe, anything. She’d settle for a spastic twitch. Was she different yet? Healed? How long would it take the nanos to patch her disconnected neurons back together?

Be patient, she chastised herself. Recovery was a long process. It wouldn’t happen in a single day, not even with nanos. Her body probably hadn’t fully absorbed the injection yet. It would take time for them to settle into the marrow. To make their home in her femurs, pumping it out little by little as her body made fresh blood until things hit critical mass and then they’d be everywhere, fixing the parts of her that Starfleet had broken.

Turning her attention to the medical study she’d been reading earlier, she focused on the neural link that let her control her datapad. Closing the paper, she went back to the peer-reviewed search engine where she searched for anything she could find on nano-assisted rehabilitation.

She pulled up one article after another, ignoring the nurses as they worked around her. She was turned, cleaned, medicated, and fed, and then she was blissfully alone with her work again. The artificial sun set on her digitized window display, and the overhead lights dimmed as the long-term care ward settled into its nighttime routine.

Glancing at her bedside lamp, she used its built-in eye tracking to turn it on. Sleep could wait. By the stars, she’d had a lifetime of sleep to sustain her.

She read for hours until her eyes were gritty. Pushing through it, she kept going. They drifted shut, her heavy eyelids blinking as she struggled to stay conscious. And then she awoke with a jerk, her large toe twitching against the rough blankets.

Fire licked up her right foot as nerves that hadn’t worked properly in years reconnected. It was agony—it was bliss. The leg that he’d injected was waking up, as if it had gone dormant, like it did when sat on for too long. She focused on that toe, and made it move on purpose this time.

It jerked against the heavy mound of blankets, the overly sensitive skin scraping against rough fibers.

Darcy laughed, the manic sound filling the room. Tears leaked from her eyes as her laughter morphed into sobs. Her breath came in pants as she cried. She didn’t care that she was on the verge of hyperventilating, not when bargained freedom was in her grasp.

Being able to have a life outside of this room was worth whatever price she’d paid for it.

***

One month later

“Let’s take a break before you hurt yourself,” the physical therapist said.

Darcy gritted her teeth and pushed through the pain. Her breath came out in ragged pants. Legs and arms trembling, she didn’t stop. Wouldn’t. She was going to stand today or die trying.

A month had passed, and she was still chairbound, only walking while strapped into the hydrotherapy tank where the water took the strain off her developing leg muscles and the harness kept her from slumping over.

This dependency was unbearable. Now that she had an ounce of freedom, her appetite for it had grown into something monstrous.

A muscle in her jaw twitched, and she wondered how she hadn’t ground her teeth to dust over the weeks. “I can keep going.”

Todd shook his head and buried his fingers in his mop of wavy hair. He took a step back and watched her struggle. They both knew that if he tried to intervene, she’d snap at him and say something she’d regret after. It was better if he let her do it, or fail. She was tired of having to apologize to Todd.

“You know pain is your body’s way of protecting you from yourself, right?” He dropped his hands to fist them on his hips while he watched her. And then he muttered something underneath his breath that sounded like stupid ass.

She ignored him. Todd had been happy with her drive and determination in the beginning, pushing her hard at her request. Now he likely regretted it.

A cramp in her left thigh threatened to take her down and steal her entire day’s progress. Close. So close. She could practically taste it. Once she stood on her own, she’d rest. Her knee nearly buckled. Darcy let out a string of curses and used her arms to steady herself.

After years of being bed bound, she’d forgotten how to walk. Humans were so top heavy. The swinging pendulum of a bipedal gait was awkward. How did people not topple face-forward all the time?

“Almost… got it,” she said between pants.

Her elbow dipped as her arms threatened to give out on her too. He made a movement toward her, but she pinned him into place with a look. It meant nothing if she didn’t do it on her own. It was why she’d refused the exosuit.

She was not bringing that bulky, awkward thing with her. Relying on that piece of tech was a recipe for disaster. What if their ship crashed? If they lost power and she couldn’t charge it? And what if they found the aliens, but were kidnapped and enslaved? No. It was better to not depend on it.

The thought of being stuck in alien-infested territory, but unable to walk or defend herself, made her sweat harder than any grueling physical therapy session.

“I’m going to stand today,” she said. Maybe if she repeated her mantra enough times, it would come true.

Todd shook his head, his corkscrew curls bouncing with the movement. “Doctors are the worst patients.”

Lungs expanding with a deep breath, Darcy shoved against the chair’s arms at the same time that she pushed up from the floor. Instead of fighting the dipping motion of her head, she threw her weight into it before jerking back. She stood.

Todd’s eyes rounded with surprise.

Her left thigh threatened to give out underneath her, but she was standing. She wanted to cry, to scream, to whoop with joy. Instead, she settled on a calm response that belied how much effort she was expending to stand. “I’m not a doctor.” Yet.

Maybe one day, if she survived their suicide mission, she’d finish school and take her boards. But today, she was just happy to stand.

***

Two months later

Darcy wiggled the one-piece swimsuit up her hips and backside, marveling once again at the flat plane of her stomach and the smooth, unmarked skin there. She pressed a finger over the spot where her feeding tube had been. Now there wasn’t even a scar to show that it had ever been there at all. The nanos had healed it, breaking down the scar tissue and replacing it with healthy skin.

Tugging the suit up, she shoved her breasts into the shelf bra and worked her arms into the straps. They were fuller than they’d been two weeks ago, but still deflated compared to how she’d been before the incident.

She was putting on weight and muscle, her figure filling out and changing from bone thin to slender. When she bent at the waist, the skin rolled. She could no longer count every single rib.

Securing the straps on her shoulders, she drank in her reflection. Three months ago, she’d been bedridden. Today, she was going to walk to the heated therapy pool and swim. Turning, she walked away from the locker room’s wall of mirrors and snagged her towel.

The concrete floor was rough under her feet as she went through the door to the therapy rooms and made her way to the pool. Every rough sensation against her uncallused feet soaked into her sensory deprived skin.

She smiled as the smell of the chlorinated water hit her nose. The pool was empty at this hour. All the other patients had gone back to their rooms after dinner. This was Darcy’s favorite time to swim. When there was no one to distract her from the slide of water against her skin. The way her lungs ached as she stayed under the surface until the urge to breathe made her rise and inhale.

Throwing her towel onto a chair, she stepped up to the edge of the pool and brought her arms up, pressing the palms together. She leaped, diving into the water. The pool was shallower than she preferred, forcing her to pull up out of the dive and break the surface.

“You’re supposed to wait for me,” Todd muttered from behind her.

Slicking her wet hair out of her face, she turned in a lazy circle and treaded water.

He was frowning. The usual expression he wore whenever he worked with her. “You know, so you don’t get too tired or hit your head and drown. Also, there’s no diving allowed.”

Todd pointed to one of the many signs posted all around the room. They’d even made a tile on each side of the pool’s lip into the warning. A diver crossed out with a red circle and slash mark. The words no diving were glazed onto it in black block letters.

Darcy shrugged. “Sometimes rules are made to be broken.” She stretched out the stiff muscles in her back.

He slumped into the chair she’d thrown her towel on. “If you die, I’ll get fired.”

Snorting, she shook her head and wafted her open hands over the surface of the pool, making ripples. “No, you wouldn’t. I signed a waiver.” Starfleet would be pissed they’d lost their investment and wasted time, but they wouldn’t retaliate. That would draw attention they didn’t want on this project.

Todd threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Then… I’d be very sad.”

She stared at him, at the breadth of his shoulders and his narrow waist and the way his uniform clung to his arms. His body was built from the physical demands of his work. While he wasn’t overly handsome, his curly hair and wide, earnest smile lent him a boyish charm that would have worked on her when she was younger. Less bitter. He’d have been exactly her type.

Darcy studied him and waited to feel something, anything, but all she felt was the warm water around her and her hair floating on the water’s surface. The ripples she made with her hands lapped at her chin.

“Why would you be sad, Todd?”

He tipped his head down until their gazes locked. “Because I admire you.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Admire me? Why?” That was the last thing she’d expected to hear. Usually, he was cursing her under his breath for being reckless. For not listening to him.

“You’re driven. It’s a pleasant change from having to poke and prod and cajole people into doing their therapy. It makes me remember why I went into this career. You want to get better, and you’re doing it.” His lips curved, and his eyes softened. “Why shouldn’t I admire that?”

“Driven.” She shook her head and turned around so she didn’t have to look at Todd or his pretty boyish smile. “I’m not driven. I’m desperate.” Darcy sank under the water’s surface, letting it fill her ears to drown out his reply.

She stayed there, underwater, until the burning in her lungs couldn’t be ignored, and then she surfaced just long enough to take a few deep breaths before she burst into laps. From one side of the pool to the other, she swam, pushing tired muscles to the point of pain. Whenever she hit the wall, she bent her legs and pushed off in a race to the other side.

While she worked out, she thought of everything that had brought her to this point. Her exposure to Agent X. The unraveling of her nervous system and the subsequent unraveling of her life. Having to leave medical school. The mounting debt that had driven a final wedge between her parents and ended their marriage. The lawsuit. She’d won, but the facilities had taken nearly all the settlement money. Her friends, her family, everyone had moved on with their lives. Meanwhile, she’d been left to rot in a room until the visits stopped all together.

A cramp in her side made her breathing feel tight. It forced her out of her thoughts and drove her back to the steps.

Water sluiced off her body, hitting the rough tile and forming puddles. Todd opened his mouth to speak, but she grabbed her towel off the chair and threw it over her head and shoulders. “See you tomorrow.”

“Right. Go get some rest. You look like you’re not sleeping again.”

Darcy waved behind her as she headed back into the women’s locker room to shower and change.