Salvage H/H first appearance

I am working on my next Diaspora Worlds book, SALVAGE, in which a salvage pilot rescues a group of stranded cyborgs, abandoned after a lost battle.

The Hero and Heroine were both introduced in the book ALIEN BLOOD--*Free Today!*

Alien Blood is the story of two contestants on a galactic wilderness planet show--interrupted by an invasion. In the book they rescue two survivors. One of those is the transport pilot Dooley, who is quite charming and makes Our Hero, the perfect Puregen, jealous! I enjoyed the character Dooley and knew back then that he would have his own romance. He's scrappy.

2ln appears in Alien Blood as a cyborg, a very small cyborg.She and Dooley have amoment, though as a cyborg she is not aware. But Dooley never forgets her.

Excerpt:(Warning, nudity)

Lorl had food and was settled for the night. Dooley left her and hopped on the little float. He wanted to give Kellac and Gema some alone time, he could read the signals, so he drove around for some time. The empty corridors were boring but he had some nervous energy to burn off.   It was crazy, he knew it. But he intended 2ln to be on the transport when they left.

Earlier in the day as he had inspected the weapons the cyborgs showed him, he saw 2ln enter a door down the hall from the armory. Dooley walked in and heard water running, faintly.  He moved silently. Was there someone here? He came to a row of cots, each holding a cyborg he recognized. They were asleep and hooked via tubes to a machine. Maintenance, some type of nutrition, maybe. He knew nothing about cyborgs except they had their real brains fried so they could be ever obedient.

He followed the sound of water and walked into a shower.

2ln was bent over scrubbing her feet. She was nude except for cyborg appliances, computerized metallic plates. There was one on the side of her abdomen. There was another plate on her upper thigh, and her arm com was embedded. She’d removed her head piece, showing her bare skull, with small metallic touch points embedded to connect her head gear. Everything else was bare.

Slim, with high pink tipped breasts. Sculpted, every delicate muscle defined. Long legs and high arched feet. Calloused, rough toes. A dancer’s body.

Dooley knew dancers. His family made their livelihood with a traveling entertainment show. They traveled from planet to planet putting on musicals. He’d seen dancer’s bodies all his life. 2ln stood straight, water pouring onto her back. She looked at him and he could swear she looked… vulnerable. But how could she, she was a metal head?

“May I be of service?”

Star gods, she could. Those metal plates didn’t bother him at all—

He cleared his throat. He was not raping some poor brain dead girl, no matter how gorgeous her body was.

“No, 2ln. Continue with your shower. I was just inspecting the floor.”

He had never considered about what the cyborg bodies were like under those heavy suits. They seemed sexless. Now he realized the thick shiny material flattened out and disguised any shape underneath. They had to have gender, and some were female.

He sure hadn’t expected a body like that under the cyborg uniform.

“Are there specs on cyborgs on the com?”

“Yes sir. I can send you the link.”

“Very good. Carry on.” He needed to get out of there before he did something disgusting. What a body, so fine. Those big pink nipples, resting high, just right for his mouth…

On impulse Dooley gave a command. “Pistolet! Chase’!”

2LN froze. Her eyes blinked twice, and then her lithe body, no longer disguised under the thick armor, moved gracefully into the dance moves. She landed lightly on her feet and stood unmoving, awaiting orders.

Dooley walked toward her. “You remember. You were a dancer, once.” They’re not supposed to remember anything of their former life. Essentially brain dead. Yet she moved with the practiced ease of years of formal dance training.

She blinked again. “How may I assist you, sir?”