by Cynthia Sax
Leaving Rage with the kid and, judging by the young cyborg’s expression, too many questions. He braced himself, resigned to answering them.
“Do you think your female will like me?” Gap kicked a gun handle.
“You won’t touch her.”
“I don’t want to touch her.” He wrinkled his nose. “She smells like you. But if she liked me, she might help me find my own human female, a being who would care for me as she cares for you.”
“That level of caring is rare,” Rage admitted. “Take off your armor. I’ll remove your tracking devices.”
Gap unfastened his arm coverings. “That caring might be easier to find with her assistance. She understands other human females, beings such as herself.”
Rage opened his thigh compartment, removed the pain inhibitor, medical tape and laser scalpel Joan had stored there. “Human females aren’t allowed in the Homeland.” He sprayed the pain inhibitor over the cyborg’s wrists.
“My female could be stored with yours.”
Rage hadn’t yet decided where to store his little human. He’d research planets near the Homeland during their voyage, find a safe, secure location for her. “Do you feel this?” He pinched Gap’s skin, mimicking Joan’s process.
“No.” The kid stared down at his wrist. “It’s possible to take away the pain like that?”
He grunted and made an incision. It took him several moments to find the tracking device. The wound healed. Rage didn’t have a cleaning cloth so he stuck the bloody mini machine to Gap’s wrist and layered medical tape over top of it. He smeared more blood over the surface to disguise the cut.
Joan would shriek with horror if he returned from deployment looking like that. Rage doubted that the kid’s handler would notice.
He turned his attention to Gap’s other wrist, following the same procedure.
“It’s a long voyage to the Homeland.” The kid chattered more than his little engineer. “Your female might run out of upgrades to perform on your mechanics and require another cyborg to make faster, stronger.” He flexed his lean muscles. “I could be that cyborg. I want to be at the top of my ability range when I meet my female. She’ll know then that I can protect her as well as you protect your Joan.”
He was doing a poor job of protecting his Joan at the moment. Rage’s lips flattened into a grim white line. She was on a battle station, surrounded by males who wished to harm her.
He removed the second tracking device, taped it to the cyborg’s skin.
Crash returned. He avoided their gaze.
That wasn’t like him.
“What is it?” Rage demanded. “You have some new intelligence. Share it with us.”
“You’ll be angry and we can do nothing about it now. Getting us all killed won’t help her.”
Won’t help her. His female was in danger. “They plan to attack her during this deployment.” He set the laser scalpel aside, unable to use it. He couldn’t be gentle right now, not even with the kid.
Crash nodded. “They won’t kill her. They believe you’ll complete that task for them.”
The humans thought he was a brutal machine. He curled his thick fingers into fists. “I’d never hurt her.”
“I know that and you know that. They don’t.” His friend’s voice softened. “She’ll survive, Rage, if you react logically. Keep your processors functioning, ignore their taunts, and stick to the plan.”
“I’m to do nothing?” His knuckles cracked. “I’m to stay here and allow them to abuse my female, to hurt her, violate her?”
That would dim the light in her eyes, damage her spirit, destroy their relationship. Knowing he failed her, she would never look at him the same way, with trust, confidence, caring. Fraggin’ hell, he wouldn’t look at himself the same way. He’d be less of a cyborg.
“You have no choice. You have to complete this deployment.”
That was easy for his friend to say. “Would you complete the deployment if she was your female?” He picked up a damaged gun and threw it against a boulder, shattering it.
“If she was my female, I’d want her to live.” Crash looked as angry as Rage felt. “I’d put my fury, my fear, my pride aside and do whatever I had to do to ensure that happened.”
Rage glowered at him.
“Return early and they’ll kill you.” His friend hammered him with logic. “Attack your guard before he and the others have been disarmed and they’ll kill you. Disobey their commands and they’ll kill you.”
“Death doesn’t frighten me.” Joan being harmed did.
“It should frighten you because your death translates into hers.” Crash looked at him, sympathy reflecting in his dead black eyes. “As long as you remain alive, she does also.”
What his friend said was rational. Rage could try to fix any damage the humans caused. He couldn’t bring Joan back to life.
He knew that, deep in his processors, and, if he were a more evolved E model cyborg like Crash, he might remain on this fraggin’ hole of a planet, might allow his female to be hurt, abused.
But he was a C model, primitive and protective, and he’d safeguard her or die trying.
“I’ll use another cyborg’s ship.” He put on his armor, his movements sharp and jerky. “If they blow that up, they won’t know who died. You’ll have the opportunity to save Joan.”
“Rage—”
“I’m doing this.” He traded his guns for weapons once belonging to the Mantidae. The humans could remotely lock the guns they supplied, preventing them from being fired within the battle station. “I won’t allow her to be harmed.”
“I won’t allow you to get yourself killed.” Crash raised his gun, switched the setting to stun, and aimed it at him.
Rage wasn’t concerned. His fight-avoiding friend wouldn’t shoot him. “Whatever happens, I have no regrets.” He strode in the direction of Intrepid’s ship. That cyborg would help him. “She’s worth the risk.”
“You are too.”
A burst of energy smacked Rage in the back of the skull. It would have pushed him forward, except his feet were stuck to the ground. He couldn’t move his legs, arms, mouth. He was frozen in place.
His blasted friend had shot him.
Chapter Eleven
Joan darted across the brightly lit hallways, moving from alcove to alcove. The cyborgs remaining on the battle station should now be able to communicate. She had destroyed the blocking mechanisms, sacrificing five of Rage’s daggers. He wouldn’t need them. Her heart was heavy. He wouldn’t be returning.
She’d also planted mini bombs in the service tunnels at the far side of the station, setting the timers to a planet rotation from now. Those would create a diversion to ease the cyborgs’ escape.
Her next project was to hack into the access panel to their chambers, allowing them to leave. That required her personal viewscreen, which she’d left in Rage’s chambers. Retrieving it was risky. The males planning to attack her could be waiting in the vicinity.
But she had to attempt it.
Hearing voices, she waited in the shadows. A group of three engineers passed, laughing and weaving a little. They must have started the repositioning celebrations early. Their cyborgs must have already been cleaned and repaired, needing no more servicing for the next couple of planet rotations.
She’d never clean Rage again. Joan pushed back her sorrow and sprinted to the next alcove. Back and forth, back and forth, she went, until she reached the door to their chambers.
The hallway was empty. The door didn’t appear to have been tampered with. She looked to the right and to the left, ran across the public space and smacked the access panel with her right palm.
The door slid open. She stepped inside and froze in place.
Some being had been there. Her heart pounded. The thick inner door had been pried open and was now held in place by twisted pieces of metal. Lights flashed off and on. The corners of the chambers were shrouded in darkness. Panels hung off the walls. Pieces of mechanics
were scattered over the floor.
Joan peered into the chambers. She didn’t spot any beings, didn’t hear anything other than the sizzle and pop of the broken lights. The vandals could have trashed the space and then left or they could be hidden inside, waiting for her.
She took one step closer to the inner door. Her viewscreen was on the floor. She leaned into the space. It looked to be undamaged. The intruders wouldn’t have been able to access the information on it. Only her palm print would unlock that data.
She could dash into the chambers, grab the device and leave. Joan nibbled on her bottom lip. Her body wasn’t built for speed but she might be successful.
She bent her knees, coiling her muscles more and more. She could do this. She could. She sprang forward, ran as fast as she could across the chamber, reached for the viewscreen, turned and—
“Going somewhere, Tits?” Plank stepped out of the darkness, his form filling the doorway, blocking her escape.
One male she could handle. Joan looked around her for a weapon. She grasped the barrel of a long gun Rage had been fixing. But Plank never went anywhere without backup. “Let me pass.”
“Is that what you said to the experts at the Academy?” Dumb and Dumber revealed themselves. “We wondered how you graduated.”
It would be three against one. None of them appeared armed, their hands free. They thought they could overpower her.
And they might be able to. Joan waved the long metal barrel, keeping them at a distance. If they synchronized their attacks, she wouldn’t survive.
“I’ve been waiting for this, Tits.” Boyd surfaced from his hiding place and Joan’s odds worsened substantially. Plank, Dumb and Dumber were engineers, more academic than muscular. Boyd was a guard, trained for combat. “It’s payback time.” He touched his nose, the nose she broke.
“Not yet.” Plank glanced to his left. “Olsen, do you have a gift for Tits?”
“I do.” Her former friend limped into the light, his face hard and his eyes cold. He held an injector gun loaded with a tube of prolonger in his right hand.
Fear skittered down Joan’s spine. The rectal wipes planned to torture her, to keep her conscious while they violated her, while they took her apart piece by piece. She’d feel everything, every humiliation, every wound, unable to escape it.
She couldn’t avoid death. Five to one were odds even she couldn’t overcome. Suicide wasn’t an option. She’d discovered during the agri lot attack that her sense of self-preservation wouldn’t allow her to take that step.
She could evade the injector gun, could slip into blackness once the pain became too much to handle. Joan turned, keeping track of all five men while concentrating on her former friend. “You don’t want to do this, Denny. Taking this step will change you, forever. Planet rotations from now, you’ll continue to regret it.”
Indecision flickered in his eyes. “You caused this, Tits.” The nickname sounded harsher on Denny’s lips. “You’re a stupid female trying to fill a position that rightfully belongs to a male.”
“And you’re no male.” Plank’s gaze dropped to her breasts and she stepped backward, away from him. “We’ll drive that point home soon.”
“We’ll drive more than the point home.” Dumb pushed his hips forward. His flight suit was tented around his hard cock.
“You know you’ll like it.” Dumber, his sidekick, sniggered. “Cyborg slut.”
Denny sidled closer to her, his expression grim. Joan tightened her grip on the long gun barrel. Sweat trickled down her spine.
He lunged forward. She swung. He dodged the blow, bouncing backward.
“Scared, Olsen?” Plank mocked him. “Do you need help handling a female?”
The males laughed, their lack of respect for Denny palpable. If he weren’t trying to hurt her, Joan would have felt sympathy for her former friend. He always wanted to belong and he never would, not in this group. He wasn’t as brutal and callous as the others were.
“Want me to hold her?” Boyd cracked his knuckles.
“Fuck you.” Denny jutted his jaw. “I’ve got this.”
His insistence on defeating her without help gave Joan a chance. She faced him, twirling the gun barrel, watching his hands. He hadn’t lived through alien attacks, hadn’t fought for his life, wasn’t as strong or as cunning as she was. But he was as desperate and that made him dangerous. She wouldn’t underestimate his abilities.
Joan crouched. Denny rushed forward. She aimed at the injector gun. He twisted his body and she missed his hand, whacking his shoulder instead.
Denny grabbed the barrel and yanked her toward him. She wrenched her makeshift weapon away from him and jumped backward, maintaining the gap. The males hooted and hollered, insulting both of them. Joan ignored the noise, concentrating on her opponent, on her former friend.
Sweat covered his skin, wet his red hair. His hands shook. They circled each other, looking for weaknesses. He limped, the wound she gave him the previous planet rotation obviously still paining him. She could—
He attacked again, charging toward her, his body angled to protect the injector gun. That left his thigh open. Grasping the long gun barrel with both palms, using all of her strength, Joan struck him hard.
Metal smacked against cloth-covered skin. Denny shrieked, instinctively bending over, reaching for his leg. Joan batted the injector gun out of his hands. The tube shattered against a wall panel. Yellow prolonger fluid splattered over the gray surface.
She didn’t wait for Denny to recover, striking him again, the long gun barrel connecting with his thick skull. There was a crack and he fell to the floor, twitching.
“You idiot.” Plank displayed no sympathy for the engineer, his so-called friend. “You had one job to do and you fucked it up.” He kicked Denny. Dumb and Dumber joined in.
Joan ran toward the exit.
“Not so fast, Tits.” Boyd stepped in front of the door. She couldn’t, wouldn’t stop, frantic to leave. He drew one of his fists back and punched her in the face.
Pain shot over her nose, across her cheekbones. She staggered backward, barely keeping upright. Blood gushed from her nostrils.
“That’s payback for the cheap shot you took in the docking bay.” He advanced. “You should have been nicer to me.”
“I should have hit you harder.” Joan retreated, clinging to the long gun barrel, her only weapon. Rage’s nanocybotics bubbled over her nose, hastily repairing the damage, easing some of the hurt. “C899321 deserves your respect. He’s twice the male you’ll ever be.”
“I’m not a dimwitted machine. I’m all man.” Boyd’s eyes glittered. “You’ll discover that when I fuck that fat ass of yours.”
“The Commander requested first rights to her ass.” Plank smirked as he imparted that sickening news. “And he wants her to be conscious while he fucks her. Find another tube of prolonger before you hit her again.”
Dumb and Dumber rummaged through the wall panels. They wouldn’t find any tubes stored there. Joan had discarded all of them, seeing no use for a prolonger on a battle station, not wanting her successor to use them on Rage.
She had to escape before Plank, the group’s leader, realized there were no replacements. Joan glanced at Boyd. He was the only barrier between her and freedom. He’d been instructed not to hit her and he arrogantly wasn’t wearing his body armor.
She might be able to defeat him.
“No one is fucking my ass.” She leveled fast, hard blows down on him, not allowing him an opportunity to grasp the long gun barrel.
“If I can’t retaliate.” Boyd raised his arms, protecting his face, as she beat him. “At least get the cursed female off me.”
“Do that yourself.” Plank made no attempt to help him. “What kind of guard can’t defend himself?”
“I can defend myself.” Boyd tried to grab the long gun barrel.
Joan moved out of his reach. If he removed her weapon, she was dead. She couldn’t defeat him in hand-to-hand combat. He was stron
ger. His arms were longer.
“Come here, you bitch.” Boyd lurched forward. She smacked his hand. Bones crunched and he howled.
Hope lifted Joan’s spirits and revived her tired muscles. All she had to do was break his other hand and she’d be free. She’d live for another planet rotation, perhaps longer. More cyborgs could escape, join Rage.
Shit. She’d missed him.
She swiped the blood away from her lips and surveyed Boyd. He held his broken hand. The pain might make him lightheaded, stupid.
Joan swung the long gun barrel. Her aim was off. The metal connected with his biceps, bounced off his muscle.
Boyd’s eyes grew wild. “Fuck not hitting her.” He lurched toward her and slammed his fists against her shoulders, knocking her right arm out of its socket and her onto her ass.
She gasped, the agony excruciating. The long gun barrel clattered to the floor. She couldn’t grip it, her arm unusable, her fingers not functioning. Joan rolled. Before she could grasp the long gun barrel with her left hand, Boyd kicked her in the stomach.
Joan wheezed, spitting blood, its metallic taste filling her mouth. She tried again, reaching for the piece of metal. Boyd stomped on her hand, crushing her bones under the heel of his boot.
She screamed, unable to silently take the torture. The sound reverberated in the chambers and drew the attention of the others.
“Boyd, you idiot.” Plank shoved at the much larger guard’s chest. Boyd didn’t move, his crazed gaze locked on Joan. “The Commander said—”
“She’s conscious.” Boyd spat. Hot wet saliva splashed against her cheek. “The prolonger will still work.” He kicked her again, the bones in her left shin cracking under the assault. “What does it matter if we rough her up before or after she’s injected?”
“Do what you want, but you’re taking full responsibility if she loses consciousness.” Plank backed away from them. “You’ll be reprimanded, not me.”
The words echoed as if spoken at a distance. Blackness narrowed Joan’s field of vision. Boyd was right. As long as she remained at all conscious, the prolonger would do its job, prevent her from slipping into the soothing darkness.