Her Cyborg Champion

by Susan Hayes

  Edge put a hand on his arm. “I know. I want to go after them, too. But the council isn’t ready to take that step.” He glared at Denz. “I was outvoted.”

  “The prince’s advisor was right. If we react with violence, the rest of the galaxy is going to take it as proof that they were right about you and the other cyborgs. That you’re too dangerous to be allowed off-world. We need more information before we escalate.”

  “Yardan isn’t just an advisor. He’s Tyran’s fraxxing spymaster,” Edge spat out the last word with disdain. “If he had his way, we’d just collect information forever and never do a damned thing with it.”

  “I’m not a soldier, but I know that to win battles, you need good intel,” Denz pointed out.

  “Intel needs to be shared to be useful. That Vardarian guards it like a gharshtu protecting its nest.” Edge nodded toward the scaley, three-meter-tall carnivores on the other side of the fence.

  “He’s as much a member of this community as we are. I trust him,” Denz said firmly.

  “Does Shadow agree with your assessment?” Edge shot back.

  “She does. And you need to stop thinking like that. My mahaya may be a cyborg, but she’s a citizen of Haven, just like everyone else. There are no sides, here, Edge.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  This was an old argument that wasn’t going to be resolved any time soon. Striker stopped listening. He had more important things to think about—like Maggie’s safety.

  “Things to do. Keep me informed,” he sent to Edge. Then he waved to Denz and took off at a flat run. Maggie needed to know what had happened and why she wasn’t going anywhere near the woods for the next few days.

  Maggie heard Striker get dressed to go running, but apart from a vague wave and a mumbled goodbye, she hadn’t stirred an inch from her warm cocoon of blankets. She needed more sleep if she was going to keep up to her lover’s near insatiable appetites, at least until she’d been on Liberty long enough to qualify for her nanotech injection. Good food and a safe place to sleep had already done wonders to improve her health and fitness. It was hard to imagine feeling any better than she did right now.

  The main source of her happiness wasn’t the riches of this place, though. It was Striker. He had a playful side she’d never imagined, and the last few days had been filled with more laughter than any other time she could remember. She was truly happy, and that knowledge fed a growing sense of guilt and worry. Jade was still missing, and so far no one had been able to find the slightest trace of her in the real or digital world. The two of them had done this before, disappearing and then reconnecting once it was safe, but it had never taken this long.

  Then there was Maggie’s other fear. Things with Striker were too good. In her experience, every moment of joy came with an equal amount of pain, and she worried that the bill would come due soon.

  “Don’t borrow trouble,” she muttered to herself as she grudgingly got out of bed. There was no point in trying to get back to sleep once her mind started churning. She might as well find some caffeine and get an early start to the day.

  The door chimed before she even made it to the kitchen.

  “Morning people are the worst. Doesn’t anyone sleep in around here?” Maggie looked down at herself and sighed. She was wearing one of Striker’s shirts, mismatched socks, and her hair was an uncombed mess. But given it wasn’t dawn yet, whoever was at the door could deal with her appearance or come back later. Much later.

  “Who is it and why are you awake?” she asked as she approached the door.

  “It’s Skye.”

  “Did you bring coffee?”

  She heard a soft laugh on the other side of the door. “No. But I needed to see you.” There was a hushed urgency to Skye’s words that made the hair on the back of Maggie’s neck rise.

  She opened the door with a touch of her hand and was nearly trampled by Skye as she rushed inside. Shadow followed at a more sedate pace, looking slightly bemused.

  “You’re okay!” Skye grabbed Maggie in a hug so fierce her ribs creaked.

  “I am. Or I will be once I have a hot coffee in my hand. What the fraxx is going on?”

  “Skye was worried about you,” Shadow said, looking around the almost-empty room. “Not much for décor. Is he?”

  “It’s a work in progress.” Maggie untangled herself from Skye. “Why are you worried?”

  “Striker beat up someone and then carried you out of the Bar None, and you haven’t come to classes since,” Skye said.

  So that was it. “Caffeine. I am not having this conversation until I have caffeine.”

  “And maybe some pants,” Shadow suggested. “You dress. I’m on coffee duty.”

  “Pants are not required before sunrise, but if you’re making me coffee? I’ll make an exception this one time.”

  She kept Striker’s shirt on but added a pair of pants and ran a comb through her hair before rejoining the others. Shadow handed her a mug and then looked at the two chairs. “I guess we’re doing this standing.”

  “Sorry. Striker isn’t one for having visitors over. You two sit, I’ll stand.”

  Once they were settled, Maggie started talking. “I know I haven’t been to my classes, but I did send messages telling you I’d be back next week. Things are…” she waved a hand. “In flux.”

  “But you’re okay? You’re not hurt?”

  “Striker wouldn’t hurt me. If you thought he might, you would have said something before now. I’ve just been busy. I’ve got shifts at the bar, and Striker’s been training me to protect myself, which involves a lot of hitting things with a stick.”

  “But he took you…” Skye groaned and closed her eyes. “I thought I might have been wrong about him.”

  “Which is why you showed up now, when he’s out running with his friends.” Maggie looked at Shadow. “Including one of your mates. Does Denz know you’re here?”

  “No. But Kade does. I’m just here in case Skye was right. I’m glad she wasn’t. I like Striker.”

  “So do I.” Maggie turned to her friend. “Skye, Striker didn’t beat up anyone. Thrash groped me. Striker reacted badly. No one got hurt. He carried me off, but once we were outside, he asked my permission to take me to his place, and he even gave me his shirt so I wouldn’t get cold on the way.”

  Skye exhaled. “Okay. Good. I just… You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “Actually, I do. He told me. Remember? They made him fight his friends. His family. He had to kill his own batch-siblings because that’s what they promised to do for each other. I know who gave him that scar on his throat.”

  “Oh.”

  Shadow frowned. “I think I’m missing part of this story. Skye, you said he killed your batch-brothers. You never mentioned he did the same to his own.”

  “You had batch-siblings?” Maggie asked. “I thought you were created after the war?”

  “I was. But yes, I had four brothers. They were…” Skye shook her head. “They weren’t like me. They were dangerous. Violent. Experimental military models.”

  “And they made them fight each other.” Maggie moved to Skye’s side and placed a hand on her arm. “And when they went up against Striker, they died. I’m so sorry, Skye.”

  “They weren’t right. I knew that. They were unstable and violent, but they were still my brothers. And Striker killed them.”

  “No,” Shadow said, her voice soft. “He freed them the only way he could.”

  Maggie nodded. “That’s what he told me. That’s what his siblings promised each other. If one of them was experimented on, changed, or suffering, they wanted the others to end it for them.” Maggie’s heart broke at the thought of all the pain and torment her friends had lived through. “I wish…”

  “Nope. Don’t go there. There’s nothing you could have done. We were all stuck in our own corporate hells. You, me, Skye, Striker. We couldn’t save each other. We barely managed to save ourselves. Now we’re together? We’ll take
care of each other.”

  “Agreed. But next time you think I need taking care of, try sending a message instead of showing up at the crack of dawn.” Maggie took another long sip of her coffee and grinned. “You’re always welcome, you know.”

  “This isn’t your place, though. Will Striker want us here?” Skye asked.

  “It might be. My place, I mean. We’ve been talking, and it seems silly for me to go to all the work of moving into my own place when I’m not even using my habi-pod right now. So for now, I think this might be where I’m living. When… if things change, I could still have my own place. Right?”

  Both women nodded.

  “Of course. It’s yours for the asking,” Shadow said.

  “Thank you. That means a lot.” That was good news. It meant she could enjoy her time with Striker and still have a safe place to land when it was over. That’s what Haven had become for her—a safe place, full of friends who cared enough to check on her. She felt a stab of guilt. She had all this because they’d manipulated the system. Who was supposed to be here instead of her? For a moment she thought about confessing, but fear kept her silent. She couldn’t go back to Earth. Not now she’d had a taste of free air and discovered what it meant to be happy. She still believed Jade had found that insurance policy she’d been looking for. Maggie had no idea what it was, but it had to be the reason Jade had gone missing.

  She rubbed her wrist. Was that what Jade had sent to her implant before she disappeared? It made sense, but why would Jade send her something when she was the only person in the galaxy who knew how to decrypt it?

  If she didn’t find Jade soon, she’d have to figure out another way to get to that information. If Phaedra did it and the data revealed what Maggie had done, that would be the end of her life here on Haven. Striker might be able to do it, but if he knew, he’d never forgive her. Though maybe he cared about her enough to keep her secret. Maybe.

  She still had a little time left before she had to make that choice. She’d just have to take what happiness she could find and pay the price for it later.

  11

  Striker came home to find Maggie putting several mugs away. He’d already done enough talking for the day, so he accessed the nearest device and broadcast his voice. “Please tell me you didn’t have three mugs of coffee already this morning.”

  “Nope. It was ja’kreesh,” she announced without looking at him.

  “Holy fraxx. Tell me you’re kidding. If you’re not, I’m taking you to the healer right now.”

  “I’m joking! I had visitors already this morning. You just missed them.”

  “Visitors? Here? Who?”

  “Yes. Yes. And to answer your last question, it was Skye and Shadow.”

  “Why so early?”

  “Skye wanted to make sure I wasn’t being held captive by some big, scary cyborg badass.”

  “Skye is starting to annoy me. Edge was asking about you today, too. On her behalf.”

  Maggie turned to face him. She was wearing his shirt, and he felt a surge of satisfaction at seeing her in it. She was in his home, wearing his things.

  “I think she’ll stop now. I’ve assured her that you’re just a big teddy bear and no threat to anything but my need to get eight hours of sleep a night.”

  He blinked. “You need eight hours? A night? Why didn’t you tell me? And I am not a fraxxing teddy bear!”

  “Oh. Right. Big, scary badass cyborg. Grr.” She flexed her fingers into claws and made a slashing motion at the air. “I forgot.”

  “Brat.” He folded her into his arms as she laughed and gripped the front of his shirt, pulling him down for a kiss.

  Just the feel of her body pressed to his was enough to make him hard. He backed her up against the counter, letting her feel the effect she had on him.

  “So… breakfast later?”

  “Later,” he agreed. “We’ve got all day.”

  “No, we don’t. We’ve got traps to check. Remember? And training,” she said.

  “Train, yes. Traps, no. There’s a security issue. They want everyone to stay close to town for the next while.”

  She tensed. “What happened? Skye and Shadow didn’t say anything to me. Is it serious?”

  “Remember when your positioning software crapped out and stranded you in the woods? Turns out, that was the start of a cascade failure. Those satellites are also part of the defense grid. They’ve all gone offline.”

  “System failure or outside interference?” There was an edge to her question but nothing more. Pride filled him. His woman wasn’t one for needless panic or fear. She saw the potential problem and cut straight to the most important question.

  “They’re assuming it was outside interference. A team is working to get things back online again, and the Vardarians have placed every ship they’ve got into a defensive position around the planet.”

  “How long?”

  “Longer than anyone would like,” he admitted. In the month since the defense grid had been activated, he’d stopped worrying so much about outside threats. They all had. In hindsight, that was a mistake.

  “So, no traps today.” Maggie sighed in disappointment.

  “Not for you. I’ll have to go out later and check them. It won’t take long.”

  “So, I have to stay here, but you’re going back into the woods? How is that fair?”

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m a badass cyborg. Remember?”

  “I wanna be a badass, too.”

  “You will be. In fact, I have something that will help with that. Come.”

  She snickered. “I’m certainly hoping so.”

  Her words set his blood burning. “Soon.”

  First, he’d give her his gift and then they were going back to bed. If he tired her out, she’d sleep until he came back. If she really needed eight hours of rest a night… she had some catching up to do.

  “Sit.” He pointed to their bed. This was the one room where he always used his own voice. He wasn’t sure when he’d made that decision, but it felt right.

  Maggie perched on the lower corner of the bed, her feet dangling several inches off the floor. “Sitting.”

  “So, the trick to getting you to listen to me is to offer you presents?” He tapped the wall and a storage compartment slid out. He pulled out the kes’tarv he’d had made for her and turned to offer it to her. “This is yours.”

  “Is that what I think it is?” Maggie let out a squeal of joy and bounded off the bed. He expected her to take the weapon, but she ignored it and threw her arms around him, instead. “Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “No. I mean it. Thank you. This is…” she looked up at him with shining eyes. “You really trust me with my own kes’tarv?”

  “I do. And this isn’t just a melee weapon.” He offered it to her again.

  “Holy fraxx. Is this like yours?” She took it and spun it in one hand.

  “It is. So try not to blast a hole in anything during training.”

  She whooped and hugged him again. “I am going to be the baddest of badasses now.” She stuck out her tongue at him. “For a human, anyway.”

  “You don’t need to be, you know.”

  “Human?” she asked, confused.

  “A badass. That’s my job. You can just be yourself.” He didn’t want her to change into someone like him. She was fierce, funny, and full of life and joy. Despite everything she’d been through, she hadn’t let anything dim her light.

  She laughed. “I’m not sure who I am anymore. I know who I used to be…” Her smile vanished and her fingers tightened around the shaft of the weapon until her knuckles showed white. “Magpie.”

  “Isn’t that a bird?”

  “It was. They’re extinct now. The story goes they used to steal shiny things to decorate their nests.” Tension crackled off of her and she seemed to brace herself before speaking again. “I did that. I stole things. Not a lot, and never from anyone who couldn’t afford it
, but…”

  “You were trying to survive.” He gathered her back into his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin and holding her tightly. He knew what she was feeling—the guilt and recrimination. He also knew she’d forgiven him for far worse.

  “I know. But I…”

  “You did what you had to. We all did. I don’t know who you were, Maggie Piper. I’ve never met this Magpie person. The woman I know danced in the sunlight within seconds of setting foot on this planet. She prepared for an uncertain future by repurposing other beings’ trash, and she doesn’t let anyone tell her where she can and cannot go, even when it’s for her own safety.”

  “You saw me dancing? I don’t remember you being there.”

  “I was in the woods. Watching.”

  “I should have known.” She relaxed and looked up with a smile. “You’ve been watching over me since the day I got here.”

  “I guess I have. You good with that?”

  “Very.” She stretched up to kiss his chin. “How’s your throat?”

  Why would she ask about that? It took him a moment to switch mental gears. He’d spoken a lot in the last few minutes. And that wasn’t the first time he’d spoken today. “It’s fine. Good, actually.”

  “No pain?”

  He took a moment to assess and was surprised to note there was no discomfort. “No.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I’d hate to think that what we’re about to do would cause you any pain.”

  “What are we doing now?”

  She pulled away from him, backing up until she reached the wall on her side of the bed. Without a word, she set down her new kes’tarv and then started to undress.

  “I want to hear you groaning my name before you leave me here all alone with nothing to do but play with my new toy.” She was teasing him, her voice sultry, her movements slow and sensual.