Ace and Marisol

Marisol Reyes has run the night shift at New Cora Agricultural Station for six years. When the company is sold, she figures she'll be laid off politely within the quarter. Then Ace walks in — eight feet of him, silver-banded and unhurried, sent from a species that outlives humans three to one. He's her new director. His job is to close her department. His species' law says he cannot touch her without losing his commission. Fourteen nights of broken hydroponics later, the paperwork doesn't seem as important as it did. When the shutdown order arrives anyway, Ace has to choose between his commission and her station — and Marisol has a third option that neither the board nor his people ever saw coming.