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Engineering Fate

Engineering Fate

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SERIES: Outer Limits Quadrant
BOOK: 1 of 3
STANDALONE? Interconnected Standalones with a Series Arc (best read in order)
GENRE: Alien Romance
TROPES: Fish Out of Water, Strong Heroine, Cinnamon Roll Hero, Alien romance, One Cave, Undercover Cop, Engineer Heroine, Outcast from Society, Overprotective Family, Stranded, Dinosaur Planet, Pirates, Language Barriers, Crash Landing, First Contact, Slow Burn Romance, Aliens with Alien Anatomy

She’s been captured, stuck in a poacher’s cage, and slated for sale, but these aliens don't know who they're messing with.

Sasha Robinson is a low-level engineer in Earth’s Starfleet, sent to repair satellites alone in deep space. When her little ship is sucked into a wormhole, on the other side is a new and unfamiliar galaxy—and a smuggling operation that salvages her ship and tosses her into a cage. Captured by alien bird men, cat men, and lizard men who can’t understand her, Sasha’s only hope is escape. And when a cat man approaches her cage door… 

Ardalon Bavara is a Kursh Peacekeeper, working undercover in an illegal animal trafficking operation. When the crew he’s infiltrated pick up a strange new sentient lifeform—one that seems to be trying to communicate with him—his plans are instantly turned upside-down. He’s determined to help the hairless creature and still bring down the smugglers in the process. But can he do it and still protect the alluring new captive?

Chaos erupts as Sasha makes a break for it, and she and Ardalon must work together to survive and complete his mission. Navigating the perils of new planets, Sasha soon discovers that the smugglers may have been the least of her worries…

Can a low-level engineer swept away into a completely new galaxy navigate the political intrigue surrounding three alien species on the brink of war? 

Engineering 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.

Struggling to get the rusted bolt off the thing that looked more like space junk than the satellite it was supposed to be, Sasha spat out a stream of curses under her breath as she worked at her miserable job.

Explore the mysteries of space! Have adventures and see new planets! 

It was all a bunch of lies, a marketing ploy to convince desperate third-level nobodies to sign their lives away for a little bit of hazard pay. Money they’d probably never have the opportunity to spend before dying a miserable death alone out in the cold recesses of space.

“If the pirates don’t kill you first, then the boredom will,” she muttered to herself.

There wasn’t any takeout, or shopping, and there definitely weren’t any new holofilms half a lightyear deep into space. It was just you and your thoughts hurtling through the big, deep black.

“At least I don’t have to pretend to like my coworkers,” she joked, glancing over toward the console with its slowly blinking lights.

Since I don’t have any.

Joanna, her plasticine clock that was shaped like a flower, wiggled back and forth in perfect timing, saying nothing. Not that Sasha expected her to. Joana was just an inanimate object, and even though she’d been alone in deep space for three standard months and twelve days, she wasn’t that crazy.

Not yet, anyway.

The wrench slipped, smacking into her other hand hard enough to bruise. It clanged against the rusty, greased up bit of machinery that she was trying, and probably failing, to fix.

“Aww, shit,” she sighed as she fanagled the wrench back into place and kept working on the stupid bolt that was sorely testing her patience. The cold vacuum of space had frozen the joint as it decayed. The satellite was a total piece of crap, and it probably should have been junked a while ago.

Why the frack they want me to come all the way out here to fix it is just absolutely beyond me. They should just forget it even exists.

Static crackled, and a vaguely female monotone voice filled the repair pod. “Proximity alert. Evasive maneuvers will initiate in ten seconds,” the disembodied voice warned.

Her wrench slipped again and fell down into a crevice deep within the broken piece of satellite. 

Crap. That’s the best wrench I have.

“Override!” she yelled up to her ship’s white ceiling in frustration as she wiped the sweat off her brow and sat back on her heels.

Stupid glitchy navigation software. I’d just pilot the damn thing myself if the ship’s console wasn’t also a total piece of space junk. I hate relying on AI systems. Now how am I going to get that wrench out of there?

“Override denied. Evasive maneuvers beginning in five…  four…  three… ” the software chirped.

Surging to her feet and rushing to the solitary porthole window, Sasha peered outside her tiny viewing pane. Deep black space with just a few twinkling stars spread out before her. She could see the bulk of the busted satellite that she’d been sent out to repair off to her right. Everything was just as she left it when she’d hauled the smaller, more delicate broken pieces inside for the more complicated repairs. The bits she wouldn’t have been able to fit her space suit gloved hand through to repair the corroded, broken down bits.

There wasn’t any hazardous space debris in sight. Glancing at the console, she saw it looked fine. There weren’t any flashing warning lights on the radar to indicate wherever this nonexistent space debris was supposedly coming from.

“Disengage evasive maneuvers. Override code is Mercury in Retrograde,” Sasha ordered.

“Override denied,” the AI responded in its monotone voice.

Her ship jostled and shook, nearly throwing her to the floor. 

Frack, that’s not good.

“Evasive maneuvers initiating,” the navigation system announced. 

Sasha had just enough time to throw herself into the pilot’s chair and strap in before her deep space explorer pod took a hard left and all the loose bits of machinery that she’d been working on slid, scraping gouges in the floor.

Double frack.

“Detailed report of the threat!” she barked as she started mashing buttons on the console. 

Side-eyeing the navigation, she frowned as her ship moved of its own accord. Balling up her fist, she hit the proximity indicator warning screen hard, ignoring the dull throb in her hand. The dim display lit up with a brilliant green glow as dozens of dots appeared all around the white center dot that indicated her ship. As the display came to life, it showed that she was surrounded with lots of bright green dots that were moving fast.

Of course I’ve been sent into deep space with faulty tech. Cheap bastards.

Something struck the pod full force on one side, and her teeth gnashed, her hair slapping her in the face, as everything went ricocheting in the opposite direction. 

“Multiple moving objects noted with forty percent in a direct path toward impact. Object size ranges from approximately one to twenty meters in size.”

Looking down at the indicator screen, she studied it. 

It’s not a ship. That would be red. So it’s got to be either space debris or a meteor shower.

Except that this quadrant didn’t have any active meteor showers. They’d passed this way some time ago, damaging the satellite that she’d been sent out to repair. The dots were moving fast, but as she studied them, she began to pick out a pattern.

They’re not moving randomly.

The pod lurched again as the AI system tried to avoid getting hit, mostly succeeding. She was jerked in every direction as the navigation system tried to maneuver the ship out of the path of danger. Except there didn’t seem to be a clear path in sight, and Sasha watched as more and more green dots lit up the navigation screen. Dozens soon became hundreds.

“Divert all nonessential power to shields,” she commanded as she reached up and grabbed a spare life support helmet disc from the rack, slipping it into a pocket on the breast of her space suit.

“Diverting all nonessential resources. Shield power restored to seventy-eight percent. Fuel cell at sixty percent capacity,” it answered.

The ship rumbled as the artificial gravity system turned off, the engine diverting that power away. Sasha swatted strands of floating hair out of her eyes as she tightened her harness.

Looking up at the small viewing pane, she was able to just barely see a little of what was happening out there. 

I’m not going crazy. Everything is moving in one direction. But it’s not like any meteor field that I’ve ever seen. It’s too… directional. Intentional.

“Kill the interior lights and turn on the exterior flood lights,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Exterior flood lights will reduce the fuel cell by eight percent. Please confirm,” it argued back.

“Just do it,” she snapped. Sasha glanced down at her little plasticine bobbing flower clock. “It’s not looking good, kid,” she told her clock. Joana was silent, as always. 

The lights went out one by one, and by the time she looked back up toward the porthole, the exterior lights were on and she could finally see what was assaulting her ship. Space junk. Broken pieces of machinery from satellites or spaceships, rocks, and trash. Deep space was full of that sort of stuff. Things broke down or got expelled and there was hardly anyone to care if it ever got cleaned up again.

Her eyes strained to make out what was ahead of her, but it was still too dark to make it out. 

That’s…  strange. The flood lights should be doing a pretty bang-up job of lighting up my little corner of space.

“Report on the exterior conditions!” Sasha ordered.

The flood lights dimmed as the AI moved power around to do a quick scan and survey. “Shields at forty-two percent. Fuel cell at thirty-nine percent capacity. Size of moving objects ranges from one to one hundred meters.”

Bile rose in her throat, her head spinning as the pod careened left and right as it alternated between dodging blows and taking hits it couldn’t avoid. She swallowed her sickness down, taking a deep breath through her nostrils and blowing it out through her mouth to calm her nerves. Her heart was racing in her chest.

This is so not good that I’m officially calling it royally fracked.

“Extinguish the exterior lights. Report on the large object located at three degrees starboard,” she said.

The flood lights dimmed and then extinguished, yet there wasn’t any answer from the AI system. The ship jerked forward like a dog on a leash as it collided with larger chunks of space debris. Her heart sank into the pit of her stomach as she realized that this might be it for her. If she was in her actual ship and not just the small explorer, she might have had a real chance, but her tiny single-occupant repair ship couldn’t stand up to this minefield. In this ship, her flying skills were nearly useless, and it just drove home how much she hated autopilot. If she was gonna go down, she’d rather go down by her own instead of being at the mercy of some computer code made up of a bunch of ones and zeros.

“Report on the large unidentified object at three degrees starboard,” she repeated the command, her voice bordering on a scream. If the unidentified object was even in that direction, now. Who could tell after all of that jostling? There wasn’t any up or down in space, and with most of the lights out, except for the faint glow of the ship’s amber emergency lights, it was almost impossible to see anything at all.

“Apologies for the delay, Captain. My processes are slowed by the drain of resources. The anomaly at three degrees has been identified as an Einstein Rosen bridge,” the computer answered.

Her eyes widened as she sucked in a breath. “Are you kidding me?” she yelled. “When were you planning to tell me that we’re headed straight into a damn wormhole?”

The pod rumbled, an ominous sound, as debris continued to crash into it. Sasha, sitting in her little tin can, felt like just another bit of space junk that was about to get sucked into almost certain death.

“Ship, turn on interior lights. Record this message,” she said.

The viewing screen clouded over as the captain’s log camera turned on. “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.” 

Raising her hand in the air, she swiped it to the side to cut the recording.

“Would you like me to delete or send that message, Captain?” the AI asked.

The ship rumbled, the sound of metal groaning as its framing flexed and shifted, feeling like it was about to be shaken apart at any moment if just one more rock jostled it the wrong way.

“Send the message,” she croaked out past the lump in her throat. Unshed tears burned her eyes, and she had to bite her lip to stop its wobbling.

“Message sent. Your video will be delivered in approximately six point two standard months,” it confirmed.

Six standard months. I’ll probably be long dead by the time they get it. Stop crying, dammit. There’s no use in crying. What’s done is done, and tears never solve anything.

“Computer, turn off all lights and nonessentials. Divert engine power to shields, override code mayday. We’re going along for the ride,” she told it.

The lights of the console blinked out along with all interior and exterior lights, and then she was alone in a dark tin can hurtling through a sea of rocks toward a vacuum of death. 

My brother was right. I am an idiot for signing up for a deep space solo mission. The hazard pay really wasn’t worth it.

“Computer, report on the ship’s function,” she whispered into the dark, afraid of the answer but still needing to know.

The navigation system glitched for a few harrowing seconds before it answered, “Shields are at sixty-one percent. Fuel is at thirty percent.”

Letting out a shaky breath, Sasha tried her best to stay calm, to focus on her breathing and slow it down, ignoring the hammering of her heart in her chest. 

Her mouth ran dry, her next words taking extra focus to bite out. “Reduce life support by half and divert the energy to shields. Override code mayday.”

“Affirmative. My analysis shows that ship oxygen levels are at thirty percent and should support life for approximately four standard hours at the current rate of consumption.”

The jostling slowed as the shields gained energy, buffering the hits from the space debris that was getting sucked in with her.

She didn’t know if it would matter in the end, but it was the only thing that she could think to do. They hadn’t exactly taught them about wormhole survival at the academy, not even when she’d been on the military side of things.

She didn’t know if there was an end to this thing, or what might be on the other side of it, but on the slim chance that she survived this, she wanted to end up in one piece instead of cut out of her dinky little ship, floating in the frozen vacuum of space.

Besides, there’s always more oxygen in the cabin than the computer says.

Closing her eyes against the dark, a shiver ran through her as the cabin slowly grew colder. Minutes passed, or maybe hours. There was no way to know how much time had passed when the lights began to flicker on and off.

“Computer, explain,” she ordered.

Static and white noise filled the room as the navigation system failed to answer her. As unsettling as the AI system’s canned responses were, its absence was even eerier.

Her stomach rose into her chest, and it felt like she was falling, even though there was no such thing as falling in space. You needed an atmosphere, artificial or real, for gravity.

The pressure in the cabin increased, her body pressing uncomfortably hard against the seat. Her head felt like it was being squashed by giant, invisible hands. Her body felt heavy and dense, her head too heavy for her neck despite the zero-g inside the ship.

Unaware of passing out at some point, Sasha awoke, her neck sore and her mouth tasting like copper and salt. Tonguing her lip, she found small indentations where she’d bitten through until it bled. It was already beginning to heal, the small crescent marks filling in as she explored them to see how deep they were, grimacing at the taste.

Streaks of light exploded around her, lighting up the inside of the pod with a gentle golden glow. Her hair settled around her shoulders as gravity came back into play. Glancing around, she took stock of herself and her ship.

I’m alive. Holy shit.

There were pinging sounds as floating things dropped out of the air and hit the floor. Sasha had just enough time to look up in surprise as her wrench fell right toward her head.

Frack me.

***

Getting knocked unconscious was nothing like they portrayed in the holofilms. There wasn’t any fade to black, vision tunneling, or dreams. It wasn’t like sleeping at all. She was conscious from one moment to the next with zero lapse in time. It was as if she’d blinked and found herself in different circumstances with no accounting for the time in between. 

One moment she’d been sitting strapped into the chair of her ship as she hurtled uncontrollably through a wormhole, and the next she was staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. 

Sasha had a giant splitting headache that was wrecking her joy at discovering that she wasn’t dead yet. She tried to sit up to look around, but the movement made her head swim until she felt like she was going to throw up.

Pressing a shaking hand to her abdomen, she explored her body, but she couldn’t feel anything wrong. Her joints were protesting from lying in an awkward position for what felt like hours, and her head was pounding, but her body felt fine when she touched it. Nothing was broken or malformed. Or, if it had been, her body had already been healed.

It stinks in here.

Gagging on the stench that permeated all around her, saliva flooded her mouth, and all she could focus on was breathing through the nausea until it passed.

I probably have a pretty bad concussion. Shit. Ugh, it smells like a farm in here.

Her eyes were half closed of their own volition before she jolted back awake, unaware that her consciousness had dipped. She summoned up her last dregs of willpower to force them back open.

The ceiling looked like it had been white at some point in its miserable existence before it was covered with a thick layer of grime. More importantly, that ceiling wasn’t hers. She didn’t recognize it at all.

I’m not on my ship, and this place smells like the exact opposite of a medical bay. Where the frack am I?

Musk and excrement stung her eyes until they watered. She closed them hard for a count of five, then opened them and inched her pounding head to the side to look around. Black spots danced in her vision, but she tried to look past it to survey her surroundings.

Metal. That was all she could see as her eyes adjusted to the low, ambient lighting. But it wasn’t sheets of metal that she was looking at, it was bars. Cautious, so she didn’t get dizzy and make herself throw up, she turned her head to the other side and saw more of the same. Beyond the confines of the metal bars her eyes adjusted to the dark and took in the rest of the room.

Cages. Rows and rows of them lined up side by side and stacked one on top of the other. The room was filled, and each cage was crowded with animals and filth inside. Dark shapes huddled in the shadows of their prisons, filth-covered bedding spilling out onto the floor through their bars.

I’m in a cage.

Animals shifted, the sounds of them rustling around in their cages filling the room. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she studied her surroundings, her gaze skipping from cage to cage as she took in the strange shapes that her mind didn’t want to process. 

They were beyond different or unusual; they were alien.

Great. This is just great. I’m probably the first person to ever travel through a wormhole, survive, and make an encounter with extraterrestrials from another dimension…  universe…  whatever…  and I end up in a cage.

Focusing on her breathing, the dizziness passed just enough that she was able to sit up against the bars. There was only about an inch or two of room between the top of her head and the cage. It wasn’t designed for humans or anything much larger than her, and she couldn’t do much more than crouch, sit with her legs extended, or lie down in the fetal position.

The black spots in her vision passed as she drew her legs up under her and took a better look around the cramped room. Cages lined every wall except for what she assumed was the door. Across the way, she saw fanged beasts that paced and stared at her with hungry golden eyes.

There was one animal in particular that appeared very interested in her. It looked vaguely like a spotted dog with its big, boxy head and ears, but it had a stripe of coarse, tufted fur that ran down the length of its back to a long, thin, tail that looked more cat-like along with its feline face.

Its oversized fangs poking out of its lips were horrifying, like some paleolithic nightmare creature. The animal paced, scanning the room until its eyes landed on her more often than she was comfortable with as it surveyed the other cages and their inhabitants. Sasha stared it down until it lost interest in her, settling down into a corner of its large cage.

Rule number two of academy training: don’t back down from enemies who are sizing you up.

Smaller cages lined her area of the room, most of which had multiple animals inside of them. The cage that was right next to hers had little furry things with long thin tails and big eyes. Their hands and feet were shaped for grasping in a way that made them look like they lived in trees, but they looked more like a cross between a squirrel and a fox than a monkey. Huddled together in a corner of their cage, they stared at her with wary golden eyes.

Some sort of bird squawked, ruffling its inky black feathers as it readjusted its grip on its perch. Brilliant yellow eyes swiveled and trained on her as she shifted. There was a cunning intelligence behind them. From what she could see, she’d been placed on the prey side of the room if her nearby companions were anything like the animals she was used to. With a glance back over at the predator side of the room, she was grateful that she hadn’t been placed next to that hungry-looking prehistoric cat-dog thing.

A reptilian creature with four eyes blinked at her, its long red tongue flicking through the air. Scenting her. The sight of it made her shudder.

The whole experience felt surreal, and she would have thought it was all a dream if her head didn’t hurt so badly and her mouth didn’t feel like it was filled with fuzzy scum and the rusty tang of blood. Her jaw was sore, and her cheek felt raw as if she’d bitten it at some point. It must be a deep wound to be taking so long to heal.

Shifting her attention to what looked like the door of the cage, she reached a hand through the bars. If there was a door, then there had to be a latch and hinges. Her fingers explored the cool metal until she found something smooth that felt like a keypad. Its texture was rougher than the metal of the bars, but there wasn’t any keyhole opening that she could find.

With a beep, a door materialized in the wall in front of her. Sasha withdrew her hand back into her cage while she looked. Holding her breath with anticipation, she watched as two aliens walked into the room.

They were so strange-looking that she didn’t even know where to start. The first one carried a clipboard and was wearing brightly colored clothing, but that was as humanoid as he was. Covered in a fine down of feathers tapering to larger feathers that decorated its arms and legs, its mouth was protruding and beaklike with eyes placed on the sides of its head.

The alien was writing something down as it scanned the room and Sasha saw that the hand that held the pen only had three talon-like fingers on it. Her eyes skimmed down past the clipboard and she noticed that it wasn’t wearing shoes. Instead, the alien had bare bird-like feet with wicked claws that clicked as it walked around the room scanning the cages, jotting down notes.

Looking past the bird alien to the other one behind him, she saw that this one was staring straight at her. The second alien had to be a different species altogether, because this one couldn’t be anymore different than the first. It was taller, for starters, with a body that was long and lean and covered in a short layer of tawny-colored fur instead of feathers. Its nose was wide and blunt, and its eyes were a startling, brilliant shade of gold that were slitted with oval pupils.

Small cat-like ears poked through its hair, the sight of them filling her with the immediate urge to play with them. Her fingers itched to touch them, to run down their rim and watch them twitch.

Long brown hair that had been rolled and matted into dreads, decorated with little silver beads came down to its shoulders. This alien, at least, was wearing boots. Although its hands were hidden from view, tucked away inside of pant pockets. As her eyes traveled down his body, she got more than an eyeful.

Okay, he’s a guy for sure… Those are some really tight leather pants, and holy hell, that’s a really impressive bulge.

His tunic was leather too giving him a vaguely renaissance looking appearance. More surprising was the lack of a gun strapped to his belt. He looked like the cross between a pirate and a bandit.

“Ehve seeyea?” cat guy said, looking at the bird guy.

Her translator chip was unable to make out a single word. There was a growl to his voice that slurred the words together in a strange cadence. The bird alien’s feathers ruffled in every direction as it dragged its pen along the clipboard, its writing intensifying into an angry scrawl.

“Yek ji karsaziya wee nay,” it chirped back at the cat alien.

Sasha wanted to shout, “Hello! I think you’ve made a huge mistake because I’m a person, not an animal, and can you kindly let me out of this cage now, please?” but she wasn’t sure if that would make a difference. 

They pulled me out of my ship and stuck me in a cage.

They had to know she was a person, not an animal. Mouth gone dry, she forgot how to speak for a moment as the weight of everything that happened settled on her. Running a hand down herself, she found that everything was still in place.

They must have seen my ship if they extracted me from it somehow. There’s no way they found me floating in space, still alive. They can definitely see that I’m wearing manufactured clothing.

Choking down the urge to panic, she thought.

Okay. First things first, I have to make them acknowledge that I am a person, not an exotic pet.

“My name is Sasha,” she said.

It was always polite to lead an introduction with your name.

I mean, they never trained us on first encounters with new alien species at the Academy, but that’s probably what they would have suggested if they did.

The aliens both turned to look at her like she was a dog that had just solved a math problem. Cat guy’s eyes sharpened as he gave her a piercing look while the bird alien looked hopping mad with fluffed-up neck feathers.

“My name is Sasha, Sasha Robinson,” she repeated.

Meandering over to her cage, cat guy pressed his face right up to my bars like a little kid who wanted a better look at the puppy in the pet store. She cringed away from him until her back hit the opposite side of the bars. Their eyes met, and she held his gaze. It was part curiosity and part instinct on her end. You weren’t supposed to take your eyes off a predator that was looking at you. While Sasha didn’t see any weapons on this guy, that didn’t mean that he didn’t have any on him or that he wasn’t dangerous without one. He was an alien. She didn’t know anything about him, or his kind.

He could melt me with his mind, for all I know.

“Dipeyivin,” he said in his rumbly speech as he continued to stare her down.

“Sasha,” she replied, pressing a hand to her chest, not knowing how else to communicate with this alien except in this stunted type of speech.

“Neheq be,” bird guy squawked as he stepped forward, looking even more irritable, although it was difficult to tell because its face wasn’t very expressive. The bird alien reached a three-fingered hand out, rattling the bars of her cage. “Ew tenea heywanek e.”

The jostling movement made her concussed head pound even harder. Wincing, she shot the bird a dirty glare.

“My name is Sasha, and I am a person, you fracking asshole,” she seethed through gritted teeth.

Bird guy pulled away from the cage with a squeak as if he was surprised at her anger. 

I’ve been sucked through a wormhole, and my ship has probably been destroyed beyond repair. I have no way home, I’ve been concussed with my own damn wrench, and now I’m stuck in a cage like a dog.

It had been a really shitty day.

“Ez nizanim ew ew te hez dikim,” the cat guy smirked at his companion as the bird guy scribbled furiously on his clipboard.

“Ez li vir ceebuu,” bird guy chirps back in a shrill voice as he headed to the doorway in a huff.

Cat guy lingered behind for a moment, continuing to look at her. Sasha held his gaze and stared him down while she pretended that she wasn’t huddled in the corner of a cage on an alien spaceship.

Eventually, cat guy turned and left as nonchalantly as he’d arrived and the door shut behind them, leaving her alone with the other poor caged animals.

Tears started to prick at her eyes again, and she gnashed her teeth to stop the tears from falling. It was no use, however, and holding them back proved impossible. With an uncontrollable whimper, the floodgates opened, and Sasha collapsed into a heap on the floor of her cage and sobbed.

SERIES: Outer Limits Quadrant
BOOK: 1 of 3
STANDALONE? Interconnected Standalones with a Series Arc (best read in order)
GENRE: Alien Romance
TROPES: Fish Out of Water, Strong Heroine, Cinnamon Roll Hero, Alien romance, One Cave, Undercover Cop, Engineer Heroine, Outcast from Society, Overprotective Family, Stranded, Dinosaur Planet, Pirates, Language Barriers, Crash Landing, First Contact, Slow Burn Romance, Aliens with Alien Anatomy

She’s been captured, stuck in a poacher’s cage, and slated for sale, but these aliens don't know who they're messing with.

Sasha Robinson is a low-level engineer in Earth’s Starfleet, sent to repair satellites alone in deep space. When her little ship is sucked into a wormhole, on the other side is a new and unfamiliar galaxy—and a smuggling operation that salvages her ship and tosses her into a cage. Captured by alien bird men, cat men, and lizard men who can’t understand her, Sasha’s only hope is escape. And when a cat man approaches her cage door… 

Ardalon Bavara is a Kursh Peacekeeper, working undercover in an illegal animal trafficking operation. When the crew he’s infiltrated pick up a strange new sentient lifeform—one that seems to be trying to communicate with him—his plans are instantly turned upside-down. He’s determined to help the hairless creature and still bring down the smugglers in the process. But can he do it and still protect the alluring new captive?

Chaos erupts as Sasha makes a break for it, and she and Ardalon must work together to survive and complete his mission. Navigating the perils of new planets, Sasha soon discovers that the smugglers may have been the least of her worries…

Can a low-level engineer swept away into a completely new galaxy navigate the political intrigue surrounding three alien species on the brink of war? 

Engineering 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.

Struggling to get the rusted bolt off the thing that looked more like space junk than the satellite it was supposed to be, Sasha spat out a stream of curses under her breath as she worked at her miserable job.

Explore the mysteries of space! Have adventures and see new planets! 

It was all a bunch of lies, a marketing ploy to convince desperate third-level nobodies to sign their lives away for a little bit of hazard pay. Money they’d probably never have the opportunity to spend before dying a miserable death alone out in the cold recesses of space.

“If the pirates don’t kill you first, then the boredom will,” she muttered to herself.

There wasn’t any takeout, or shopping, and there definitely weren’t any new holofilms half a lightyear deep into space. It was just you and your thoughts hurtling through the big, deep black.

“At least I don’t have to pretend to like my coworkers,” she joked, glancing over toward the console with its slowly blinking lights.

Since I don’t have any.

Joanna, her plasticine clock that was shaped like a flower, wiggled back and forth in perfect timing, saying nothing. Not that Sasha expected her to. Joana was just an inanimate object, and even though she’d been alone in deep space for three standard months and twelve days, she wasn’t that crazy.

Not yet, anyway.

The wrench slipped, smacking into her other hand hard enough to bruise. It clanged against the rusty, greased up bit of machinery that she was trying, and probably failing, to fix.

“Aww, shit,” she sighed as she fanagled the wrench back into place and kept working on the stupid bolt that was sorely testing her patience. The cold vacuum of space had frozen the joint as it decayed. The satellite was a total piece of crap, and it probably should have been junked a while ago.

Why the frack they want me to come all the way out here to fix it is just absolutely beyond me. They should just forget it even exists.

Static crackled, and a vaguely female monotone voice filled the repair pod. “Proximity alert. Evasive maneuvers will initiate in ten seconds,” the disembodied voice warned.

Her wrench slipped again and fell down into a crevice deep within the broken piece of satellite. 

Crap. That’s the best wrench I have.

“Override!” she yelled up to her ship’s white ceiling in frustration as she wiped the sweat off her brow and sat back on her heels.

Stupid glitchy navigation software. I’d just pilot the damn thing myself if the ship’s console wasn’t also a total piece of space junk. I hate relying on AI systems. Now how am I going to get that wrench out of there?

“Override denied. Evasive maneuvers beginning in five…  four…  three… ” the software chirped.

Surging to her feet and rushing to the solitary porthole window, Sasha peered outside her tiny viewing pane. Deep black space with just a few twinkling stars spread out before her. She could see the bulk of the busted satellite that she’d been sent out to repair off to her right. Everything was just as she left it when she’d hauled the smaller, more delicate broken pieces inside for the more complicated repairs. The bits she wouldn’t have been able to fit her space suit gloved hand through to repair the corroded, broken down bits.

There wasn’t any hazardous space debris in sight. Glancing at the console, she saw it looked fine. There weren’t any flashing warning lights on the radar to indicate wherever this nonexistent space debris was supposedly coming from.

“Disengage evasive maneuvers. Override code is Mercury in Retrograde,” Sasha ordered.

“Override denied,” the AI responded in its monotone voice.

Her ship jostled and shook, nearly throwing her to the floor. 

Frack, that’s not good.

“Evasive maneuvers initiating,” the navigation system announced. 

Sasha had just enough time to throw herself into the pilot’s chair and strap in before her deep space explorer pod took a hard left and all the loose bits of machinery that she’d been working on slid, scraping gouges in the floor.

Double frack.

“Detailed report of the threat!” she barked as she started mashing buttons on the console. 

Side-eyeing the navigation, she frowned as her ship moved of its own accord. Balling up her fist, she hit the proximity indicator warning screen hard, ignoring the dull throb in her hand. The dim display lit up with a brilliant green glow as dozens of dots appeared all around the white center dot that indicated her ship. As the display came to life, it showed that she was surrounded with lots of bright green dots that were moving fast.

Of course I’ve been sent into deep space with faulty tech. Cheap bastards.

Something struck the pod full force on one side, and her teeth gnashed, her hair slapping her in the face, as everything went ricocheting in the opposite direction. 

“Multiple moving objects noted with forty percent in a direct path toward impact. Object size ranges from approximately one to twenty meters in size.”

Looking down at the indicator screen, she studied it. 

It’s not a ship. That would be red. So it’s got to be either space debris or a meteor shower.

Except that this quadrant didn’t have any active meteor showers. They’d passed this way some time ago, damaging the satellite that she’d been sent out to repair. The dots were moving fast, but as she studied them, she began to pick out a pattern.

They’re not moving randomly.

The pod lurched again as the AI system tried to avoid getting hit, mostly succeeding. She was jerked in every direction as the navigation system tried to maneuver the ship out of the path of danger. Except there didn’t seem to be a clear path in sight, and Sasha watched as more and more green dots lit up the navigation screen. Dozens soon became hundreds.

“Divert all nonessential power to shields,” she commanded as she reached up and grabbed a spare life support helmet disc from the rack, slipping it into a pocket on the breast of her space suit.

“Diverting all nonessential resources. Shield power restored to seventy-eight percent. Fuel cell at sixty percent capacity,” it answered.

The ship rumbled as the artificial gravity system turned off, the engine diverting that power away. Sasha swatted strands of floating hair out of her eyes as she tightened her harness.

Looking up at the small viewing pane, she was able to just barely see a little of what was happening out there. 

I’m not going crazy. Everything is moving in one direction. But it’s not like any meteor field that I’ve ever seen. It’s too… directional. Intentional.

“Kill the interior lights and turn on the exterior flood lights,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Exterior flood lights will reduce the fuel cell by eight percent. Please confirm,” it argued back.

“Just do it,” she snapped. Sasha glanced down at her little plasticine bobbing flower clock. “It’s not looking good, kid,” she told her clock. Joana was silent, as always. 

The lights went out one by one, and by the time she looked back up toward the porthole, the exterior lights were on and she could finally see what was assaulting her ship. Space junk. Broken pieces of machinery from satellites or spaceships, rocks, and trash. Deep space was full of that sort of stuff. Things broke down or got expelled and there was hardly anyone to care if it ever got cleaned up again.

Her eyes strained to make out what was ahead of her, but it was still too dark to make it out. 

That’s…  strange. The flood lights should be doing a pretty bang-up job of lighting up my little corner of space.

“Report on the exterior conditions!” Sasha ordered.

The flood lights dimmed as the AI moved power around to do a quick scan and survey. “Shields at forty-two percent. Fuel cell at thirty-nine percent capacity. Size of moving objects ranges from one to one hundred meters.”

Bile rose in her throat, her head spinning as the pod careened left and right as it alternated between dodging blows and taking hits it couldn’t avoid. She swallowed her sickness down, taking a deep breath through her nostrils and blowing it out through her mouth to calm her nerves. Her heart was racing in her chest.

This is so not good that I’m officially calling it royally fracked.

“Extinguish the exterior lights. Report on the large object located at three degrees starboard,” she said.

The flood lights dimmed and then extinguished, yet there wasn’t any answer from the AI system. The ship jerked forward like a dog on a leash as it collided with larger chunks of space debris. Her heart sank into the pit of her stomach as she realized that this might be it for her. If she was in her actual ship and not just the small explorer, she might have had a real chance, but her tiny single-occupant repair ship couldn’t stand up to this minefield. In this ship, her flying skills were nearly useless, and it just drove home how much she hated autopilot. If she was gonna go down, she’d rather go down by her own instead of being at the mercy of some computer code made up of a bunch of ones and zeros.

“Report on the large unidentified object at three degrees starboard,” she repeated the command, her voice bordering on a scream. If the unidentified object was even in that direction, now. Who could tell after all of that jostling? There wasn’t any up or down in space, and with most of the lights out, except for the faint glow of the ship’s amber emergency lights, it was almost impossible to see anything at all.

“Apologies for the delay, Captain. My processes are slowed by the drain of resources. The anomaly at three degrees has been identified as an Einstein Rosen bridge,” the computer answered.

Her eyes widened as she sucked in a breath. “Are you kidding me?” she yelled. “When were you planning to tell me that we’re headed straight into a damn wormhole?”

The pod rumbled, an ominous sound, as debris continued to crash into it. Sasha, sitting in her little tin can, felt like just another bit of space junk that was about to get sucked into almost certain death.

“Ship, turn on interior lights. Record this message,” she said.

The viewing screen clouded over as the captain’s log camera turned on. “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.” 

Raising her hand in the air, she swiped it to the side to cut the recording.

“Would you like me to delete or send that message, Captain?” the AI asked.

The ship rumbled, the sound of metal groaning as its framing flexed and shifted, feeling like it was about to be shaken apart at any moment if just one more rock jostled it the wrong way.

“Send the message,” she croaked out past the lump in her throat. Unshed tears burned her eyes, and she had to bite her lip to stop its wobbling.

“Message sent. Your video will be delivered in approximately six point two standard months,” it confirmed.

Six standard months. I’ll probably be long dead by the time they get it. Stop crying, dammit. There’s no use in crying. What’s done is done, and tears never solve anything.

“Computer, turn off all lights and nonessentials. Divert engine power to shields, override code mayday. We’re going along for the ride,” she told it.

The lights of the console blinked out along with all interior and exterior lights, and then she was alone in a dark tin can hurtling through a sea of rocks toward a vacuum of death. 

My brother was right. I am an idiot for signing up for a deep space solo mission. The hazard pay really wasn’t worth it.

“Computer, report on the ship’s function,” she whispered into the dark, afraid of the answer but still needing to know.

The navigation system glitched for a few harrowing seconds before it answered, “Shields are at sixty-one percent. Fuel is at thirty percent.”

Letting out a shaky breath, Sasha tried her best to stay calm, to focus on her breathing and slow it down, ignoring the hammering of her heart in her chest. 

Her mouth ran dry, her next words taking extra focus to bite out. “Reduce life support by half and divert the energy to shields. Override code mayday.”

“Affirmative. My analysis shows that ship oxygen levels are at thirty percent and should support life for approximately four standard hours at the current rate of consumption.”

The jostling slowed as the shields gained energy, buffering the hits from the space debris that was getting sucked in with her.

She didn’t know if it would matter in the end, but it was the only thing that she could think to do. They hadn’t exactly taught them about wormhole survival at the academy, not even when she’d been on the military side of things.

She didn’t know if there was an end to this thing, or what might be on the other side of it, but on the slim chance that she survived this, she wanted to end up in one piece instead of cut out of her dinky little ship, floating in the frozen vacuum of space.

Besides, there’s always more oxygen in the cabin than the computer says.

Closing her eyes against the dark, a shiver ran through her as the cabin slowly grew colder. Minutes passed, or maybe hours. There was no way to know how much time had passed when the lights began to flicker on and off.

“Computer, explain,” she ordered.

Static and white noise filled the room as the navigation system failed to answer her. As unsettling as the AI system’s canned responses were, its absence was even eerier.

Her stomach rose into her chest, and it felt like she was falling, even though there was no such thing as falling in space. You needed an atmosphere, artificial or real, for gravity.

The pressure in the cabin increased, her body pressing uncomfortably hard against the seat. Her head felt like it was being squashed by giant, invisible hands. Her body felt heavy and dense, her head too heavy for her neck despite the zero-g inside the ship.

Unaware of passing out at some point, Sasha awoke, her neck sore and her mouth tasting like copper and salt. Tonguing her lip, she found small indentations where she’d bitten through until it bled. It was already beginning to heal, the small crescent marks filling in as she explored them to see how deep they were, grimacing at the taste.

Streaks of light exploded around her, lighting up the inside of the pod with a gentle golden glow. Her hair settled around her shoulders as gravity came back into play. Glancing around, she took stock of herself and her ship.

I’m alive. Holy shit.

There were pinging sounds as floating things dropped out of the air and hit the floor. Sasha had just enough time to look up in surprise as her wrench fell right toward her head.

Frack me.

***

Getting knocked unconscious was nothing like they portrayed in the holofilms. There wasn’t any fade to black, vision tunneling, or dreams. It wasn’t like sleeping at all. She was conscious from one moment to the next with zero lapse in time. It was as if she’d blinked and found herself in different circumstances with no accounting for the time in between. 

One moment she’d been sitting strapped into the chair of her ship as she hurtled uncontrollably through a wormhole, and the next she was staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. 

Sasha had a giant splitting headache that was wrecking her joy at discovering that she wasn’t dead yet. She tried to sit up to look around, but the movement made her head swim until she felt like she was going to throw up.

Pressing a shaking hand to her abdomen, she explored her body, but she couldn’t feel anything wrong. Her joints were protesting from lying in an awkward position for what felt like hours, and her head was pounding, but her body felt fine when she touched it. Nothing was broken or malformed. Or, if it had been, her body had already been healed.

It stinks in here.

Gagging on the stench that permeated all around her, saliva flooded her mouth, and all she could focus on was breathing through the nausea until it passed.

I probably have a pretty bad concussion. Shit. Ugh, it smells like a farm in here.

Her eyes were half closed of their own volition before she jolted back awake, unaware that her consciousness had dipped. She summoned up her last dregs of willpower to force them back open.

The ceiling looked like it had been white at some point in its miserable existence before it was covered with a thick layer of grime. More importantly, that ceiling wasn’t hers. She didn’t recognize it at all.

I’m not on my ship, and this place smells like the exact opposite of a medical bay. Where the frack am I?

Musk and excrement stung her eyes until they watered. She closed them hard for a count of five, then opened them and inched her pounding head to the side to look around. Black spots danced in her vision, but she tried to look past it to survey her surroundings.

Metal. That was all she could see as her eyes adjusted to the low, ambient lighting. But it wasn’t sheets of metal that she was looking at, it was bars. Cautious, so she didn’t get dizzy and make herself throw up, she turned her head to the other side and saw more of the same. Beyond the confines of the metal bars her eyes adjusted to the dark and took in the rest of the room.

Cages. Rows and rows of them lined up side by side and stacked one on top of the other. The room was filled, and each cage was crowded with animals and filth inside. Dark shapes huddled in the shadows of their prisons, filth-covered bedding spilling out onto the floor through their bars.

I’m in a cage.

Animals shifted, the sounds of them rustling around in their cages filling the room. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she studied her surroundings, her gaze skipping from cage to cage as she took in the strange shapes that her mind didn’t want to process. 

They were beyond different or unusual; they were alien.

Great. This is just great. I’m probably the first person to ever travel through a wormhole, survive, and make an encounter with extraterrestrials from another dimension…  universe…  whatever…  and I end up in a cage.

Focusing on her breathing, the dizziness passed just enough that she was able to sit up against the bars. There was only about an inch or two of room between the top of her head and the cage. It wasn’t designed for humans or anything much larger than her, and she couldn’t do much more than crouch, sit with her legs extended, or lie down in the fetal position.

The black spots in her vision passed as she drew her legs up under her and took a better look around the cramped room. Cages lined every wall except for what she assumed was the door. Across the way, she saw fanged beasts that paced and stared at her with hungry golden eyes.

There was one animal in particular that appeared very interested in her. It looked vaguely like a spotted dog with its big, boxy head and ears, but it had a stripe of coarse, tufted fur that ran down the length of its back to a long, thin, tail that looked more cat-like along with its feline face.

Its oversized fangs poking out of its lips were horrifying, like some paleolithic nightmare creature. The animal paced, scanning the room until its eyes landed on her more often than she was comfortable with as it surveyed the other cages and their inhabitants. Sasha stared it down until it lost interest in her, settling down into a corner of its large cage.

Rule number two of academy training: don’t back down from enemies who are sizing you up.

Smaller cages lined her area of the room, most of which had multiple animals inside of them. The cage that was right next to hers had little furry things with long thin tails and big eyes. Their hands and feet were shaped for grasping in a way that made them look like they lived in trees, but they looked more like a cross between a squirrel and a fox than a monkey. Huddled together in a corner of their cage, they stared at her with wary golden eyes.

Some sort of bird squawked, ruffling its inky black feathers as it readjusted its grip on its perch. Brilliant yellow eyes swiveled and trained on her as she shifted. There was a cunning intelligence behind them. From what she could see, she’d been placed on the prey side of the room if her nearby companions were anything like the animals she was used to. With a glance back over at the predator side of the room, she was grateful that she hadn’t been placed next to that hungry-looking prehistoric cat-dog thing.

A reptilian creature with four eyes blinked at her, its long red tongue flicking through the air. Scenting her. The sight of it made her shudder.

The whole experience felt surreal, and she would have thought it was all a dream if her head didn’t hurt so badly and her mouth didn’t feel like it was filled with fuzzy scum and the rusty tang of blood. Her jaw was sore, and her cheek felt raw as if she’d bitten it at some point. It must be a deep wound to be taking so long to heal.

Shifting her attention to what looked like the door of the cage, she reached a hand through the bars. If there was a door, then there had to be a latch and hinges. Her fingers explored the cool metal until she found something smooth that felt like a keypad. Its texture was rougher than the metal of the bars, but there wasn’t any keyhole opening that she could find.

With a beep, a door materialized in the wall in front of her. Sasha withdrew her hand back into her cage while she looked. Holding her breath with anticipation, she watched as two aliens walked into the room.

They were so strange-looking that she didn’t even know where to start. The first one carried a clipboard and was wearing brightly colored clothing, but that was as humanoid as he was. Covered in a fine down of feathers tapering to larger feathers that decorated its arms and legs, its mouth was protruding and beaklike with eyes placed on the sides of its head.

The alien was writing something down as it scanned the room and Sasha saw that the hand that held the pen only had three talon-like fingers on it. Her eyes skimmed down past the clipboard and she noticed that it wasn’t wearing shoes. Instead, the alien had bare bird-like feet with wicked claws that clicked as it walked around the room scanning the cages, jotting down notes.

Looking past the bird alien to the other one behind him, she saw that this one was staring straight at her. The second alien had to be a different species altogether, because this one couldn’t be anymore different than the first. It was taller, for starters, with a body that was long and lean and covered in a short layer of tawny-colored fur instead of feathers. Its nose was wide and blunt, and its eyes were a startling, brilliant shade of gold that were slitted with oval pupils.

Small cat-like ears poked through its hair, the sight of them filling her with the immediate urge to play with them. Her fingers itched to touch them, to run down their rim and watch them twitch.

Long brown hair that had been rolled and matted into dreads, decorated with little silver beads came down to its shoulders. This alien, at least, was wearing boots. Although its hands were hidden from view, tucked away inside of pant pockets. As her eyes traveled down his body, she got more than an eyeful.

Okay, he’s a guy for sure… Those are some really tight leather pants, and holy hell, that’s a really impressive bulge.

His tunic was leather too giving him a vaguely renaissance looking appearance. More surprising was the lack of a gun strapped to his belt. He looked like the cross between a pirate and a bandit.

“Ehve seeyea?” cat guy said, looking at the bird guy.

Her translator chip was unable to make out a single word. There was a growl to his voice that slurred the words together in a strange cadence. The bird alien’s feathers ruffled in every direction as it dragged its pen along the clipboard, its writing intensifying into an angry scrawl.

“Yek ji karsaziya wee nay,” it chirped back at the cat alien.

Sasha wanted to shout, “Hello! I think you’ve made a huge mistake because I’m a person, not an animal, and can you kindly let me out of this cage now, please?” but she wasn’t sure if that would make a difference. 

They pulled me out of my ship and stuck me in a cage.

They had to know she was a person, not an animal. Mouth gone dry, she forgot how to speak for a moment as the weight of everything that happened settled on her. Running a hand down herself, she found that everything was still in place.

They must have seen my ship if they extracted me from it somehow. There’s no way they found me floating in space, still alive. They can definitely see that I’m wearing manufactured clothing.

Choking down the urge to panic, she thought.

Okay. First things first, I have to make them acknowledge that I am a person, not an exotic pet.

“My name is Sasha,” she said.

It was always polite to lead an introduction with your name.

I mean, they never trained us on first encounters with new alien species at the Academy, but that’s probably what they would have suggested if they did.

The aliens both turned to look at her like she was a dog that had just solved a math problem. Cat guy’s eyes sharpened as he gave her a piercing look while the bird alien looked hopping mad with fluffed-up neck feathers.

“My name is Sasha, Sasha Robinson,” she repeated.

Meandering over to her cage, cat guy pressed his face right up to my bars like a little kid who wanted a better look at the puppy in the pet store. She cringed away from him until her back hit the opposite side of the bars. Their eyes met, and she held his gaze. It was part curiosity and part instinct on her end. You weren’t supposed to take your eyes off a predator that was looking at you. While Sasha didn’t see any weapons on this guy, that didn’t mean that he didn’t have any on him or that he wasn’t dangerous without one. He was an alien. She didn’t know anything about him, or his kind.

He could melt me with his mind, for all I know.

“Dipeyivin,” he said in his rumbly speech as he continued to stare her down.

“Sasha,” she replied, pressing a hand to her chest, not knowing how else to communicate with this alien except in this stunted type of speech.

“Neheq be,” bird guy squawked as he stepped forward, looking even more irritable, although it was difficult to tell because its face wasn’t very expressive. The bird alien reached a three-fingered hand out, rattling the bars of her cage. “Ew tenea heywanek e.”

The jostling movement made her concussed head pound even harder. Wincing, she shot the bird a dirty glare.

“My name is Sasha, and I am a person, you fracking asshole,” she seethed through gritted teeth.

Bird guy pulled away from the cage with a squeak as if he was surprised at her anger. 

I’ve been sucked through a wormhole, and my ship has probably been destroyed beyond repair. I have no way home, I’ve been concussed with my own damn wrench, and now I’m stuck in a cage like a dog.

It had been a really shitty day.

“Ez nizanim ew ew te hez dikim,” the cat guy smirked at his companion as the bird guy scribbled furiously on his clipboard.

“Ez li vir ceebuu,” bird guy chirps back in a shrill voice as he headed to the doorway in a huff.

Cat guy lingered behind for a moment, continuing to look at her. Sasha held his gaze and stared him down while she pretended that she wasn’t huddled in the corner of a cage on an alien spaceship.

Eventually, cat guy turned and left as nonchalantly as he’d arrived and the door shut behind them, leaving her alone with the other poor caged animals.

Tears started to prick at her eyes again, and she gnashed her teeth to stop the tears from falling. It was no use, however, and holding them back proved impossible. With an uncontrollable whimper, the floodgates opened, and Sasha collapsed into a heap on the floor of her cage and sobbed.

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