It was exercise time. Sparrow jogged in solitude on her treadmill to disguise the nervousness her frantically beating heart would betray. Her AI constantly scanned her vital signs. Her plan was in the hands of the other tech slaves. They would be implementing it during the exercise period. She hoped that Xavier was out there somewhere and would see their subtle cry for help.
The salt had inspired her. When ignited, copper chloride compounds turned blue, strontium and lithium salts turned red, calcium chloride turned orange, sodium nitrate turned yellow, and barium chloride turned green. With hundreds of filled nanites exploding in the planetoid’s atmosphere, she hoped that Xavier would pick it up on his scans and find her.
Now, she needed to devise a plan to protect him from Bishop and his AI soldiers if he did. Sparrow stopped jogging when the lockdown sirens began to sound. It could only mean one of two things. Either their plan had worked, or they had all been caught. Sparrow didn’t bother to hide her pleased smile. She sat on a bench and waited.
Chapter Nine
“Captain, what the hell is that?” Paco asked. Tiny glowing spots appeared and faded above a small planetoid.
“My bet is it’s a message. Hey, mismatch! We’ve got something up here,” Oona said through communications.
“I know,” Xavier answered in her mind. “Take us down, and be prepared to fight.”
Chills rolled down Oona’s spine. She had seen a lot of disturbing shit, but the hybrid freaked her out.
“That’s sweet, but I’m taken,” Xavier said telepathically.
“Fuck you,” Oona said. Paco grinned and swiveled his chair around to her. He looked down at his crotch and then back up at Oona suggestively. “Not you, asshole,” she said. “Take us down.”
Into communications, Paco announced, “Hang on, folks. We’re in for a ride.” He took them in using evasive actions as planetary defenses targeted the ship. Fortunately, the deadliest of the planetoid’s blaster cannons had been made inoperative by the engineers hoping to be rescued. Still, several blasts rocked the ship.
“Take us in so close that blowing us up would take them out with us!” Oona ordered. Then, she darted down the ladders to the transport bay where she joined Xavier, Glass, and Bo. Each of them wore full battle gear and activated their visual displacement shielding before slipping from the ship and running for the base. “Keep her shields powered, and be ready to go on my mark,” Oona ordered before running after them in a hard, fast sprint.
Xavier fired Sparrow’s dispersal blaster in rapid succession disintegrating two of the AI soldiers that were running him down and threw knives into the eyes of the one behind them. Similar battles occurred around him. Glass had gotten his nickname because he could cut like it. Xavier ducked a severed robot head as it sailed over him. Sirens wailed around the instillation.
Bo attached a magnetic override to the compound’s doors and then added explosive charges. “Clear!” he yelled. A loud burst followed along with a wave of rocks and dirt. When the doors groaned free of a few of their hinges, a deadly display of laser lights greeted them. “Those will slice through anything,” Bo warned.
“Cover me,” Xavier ordered.
Oona was using a blaster cannon to keep the AIs off of them. Xavier concentrated. He searched for a mind he could manipulate into disabling the lasers. All sentients had been confined to their rooms and didn’t have access to interfaces or vid-screens. Any other minds, like Bishop’s, were protected by neural blockers. The bastard had known he would come for Sparrow, and he had prepared. Xavier searched for her and found her mind.
Into her thoughts, he whispered, “I’ve come for you, my love. Any advice on how I can get inside?” Xavier felt Sparrow’s relief and elation through their bond.
“Bishop has a shuttle launch on the roof,” she answered.
“We’re going up,” Xavier said out loud.
He shot a grappling hook up. When it found purchase, he grabbed Bo and let the cord draw them both up. Then, the two of them began blasting the AIs to hold them off of the others until they quickly joined them. Xavier activated a shield to protect the bounty hunters and himself from the drones that surrounded them like a cloud of death.
“Shit! Hurry up!” Oona yelled at Bo while he used his skills to open the door.
The small alcove around the door provided minimal cover. When it clicked open, Oona fired repeatedly into the opening taking out the two AIs standing guard with Sparrow’s other dispersal blaster. Once they were all inside, Bo secured the door behind them to prevent unwanted company from joining them. Then, they split up. Each of them had their own jobs to do.
When the door to her room opened, it was Bishop she saw. “Come along, little bird. It’s time to flee the nest.”
“No, I’m not going with you.” She couldn’t leave now, not when Xavier had come for her.
“You will. You have no choice.” Bishop nodded to the men behind him. “Take her.”
Soldiers crowded into the room and dragged her from it and out into the corridor.
“Xavier! Xavier!” Sparrow screamed.
Bishop stopped walking and turned to her. “Is that what I must do to keep you compliant to my will? Does my little bird need a shiny new toy in her cage to keep her entertained?” He sighed. “Capture the hybrid, and bring him along,” Bishop commanded four of his AI soldiers.
Xavier had watched the exchange through Sparrow’s eyes. When the robots found him, he put up enough of a fight to make it look believable and took out two of the robots before allowing himself to be captured. Into Oona’s mind, he said, “Phase one complete.” He was tossed into a small holding cell on a stealth vessel.
“Xavier!” Sparrow said as she dropped down to her knees beside him.
He ran his fingers through her soft brown curls while gazing into her eyes. “I’ll always come for you. Never doubt that.” Sparrow dropped her eyes from his as despair carried her away. “Hey, none of that. Do you hear me? I know what he told you. You haven’t been alone once since we’ve been apart.” Sparrow looked back up at his white eye and then his black one. “I would love to have a home full of little girls and boys with your curly brown hair. You’re the normal one. I’m the hybrid. Remember?” Sparrow gave him a small smile. “Come here.” Xavier pulled her onto his lap, held her face in his hands, and kissed her soft lips.
“So, you are the one responsible for putting all of these farfetched notions of freedom into my daughter’s head,” Bishop said.
“No, you did that when you murdered Tory Sheridan in front of her.”
Bishop paced in front of the containment shield. “Certainly, a mercenary such as yourself isn’t taking a sanctimonious stance on something so necessary as the elimination of problematic nuisances?”
Xavier smiled at the weapon’s dealer and pressed a trigger hidden in his pocket. The device he had planted on one of the soldiers exploded. Bishop bounced off of the containment shield. Xavier covered Sparrow with his body.
“Can you get that down?” he asked her as he handed her the tools he had hidden in his boot.
Surprised, Sparrow asked, “How did you get these past the guards?”
“Simple. I convinced them that they had already taken them from me.”
Sparrow removed a panel and went about deactivating the shield. Then, Xavier secured Bishop and his guards. After removing Bishop’s neural blocker, he rifled through the man’s mind until he had the name of his buyer. Stepping over the fallen guards, Xavier took the stealth vessel off of autopilot and lowered it back down to the compound’s roof.
“What are we doing?” Sparrow asked.
“Rescue and clean-up.” He dragged Bishop up to his feet, put an arm across his throat, and held him in front of himself, propelling him forward. “Deactivate the AIs, Sparrow.”
“I don’t know how,” she admitted.
Xavier pulled the command codes from Bishop’s mind and gave them to her. While Sparrow worked to shut them down, Xavier used Bishop as a s
hield. The robots had been programmed to protect Bishop and Sparrow, but not anyone else.
“You’ll regret this, mercenary. I had decided to allow Sparrow to keep you. She will mourn your death.”
“You aren’t going to kill me. You’re going to make me your partner. After all, I’m your new son-in-law, pops. Didn’t Sparrow tell you our happy news?”
The yellow eyes of robots all dimmed at once so that only the flashing red emergency lights illuminated the corridor leading from the roof. Along the hall, the AIs began to fall over, crash, and clatter to the floor in a cacophony of sound. A shaved head became visible as Oona kicked deactivated robots out of her way. Areas of her now battle-damaged skin matched the lighting.
“Well, well, well. If it ain’t Bishop. We need to have a chat about my bounty. Me and the crew don’t particularly enjoy getting fucked over.”
“Then, you are going to like what happens next even less,” Bishop calmly replied.
Oona dove to the side as blasts scorched the wall behind where her head had been. Drones dropped from where they had seamlessly blended in with the ceiling. All of their beams then aimed at Sparrow.
Bishop said, “If I don’t enter the safe word into my ship from orbit within the next eight minutes, she dies.” Xavier released his hold on the cyborg. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to leave you here for now, Sparrow. Don’t worry. I’ll find you.” Bishop brushed off the sleeves of his suit and stepped over his AI soldiers before turning his back on them and returning to his vessel. “The drones are motion sensitive. Move and you die. Oh,” Bishop said as he turned back to Xavier. “Son, you are way out of your league.” Then, he was gone.
For what seemed like an eternity, the hall was filled only with the sound of their breathing. Then, a buzzing swirl of sound joined that of their labored breathing. A frisbee-sized disc spun along the corridor above their heads and began emitting a defensive shield between Sparrow, Oona, Xavier, and the deadly drones.
“Hurry! This way!” a male tech slave yelled while motioning for them to follow. Xavier grabbed Sparrow’s hand and ran after Oona. Bo and Glass were evacuating the enslaved men and women. Someone had managed to deactivate the laser grid. “Hurry! Bishop forced me to set the base to destruct. I can’t shut it off!” the man yelled in a panic. He was still wearing his exercise clothes. They all were.
Their feet pummeled the gravely surface as they ran for the bounty hunters’ ship. Davalynn was at the ramp grabbing people and helping them to cram inside of the cargo bay.
“Go! Go! Go!” Oona yelled to Paco.
The ship began lifting up from the surface before the hatch had even fully sealed. Seconds later, they were off of the surface and speeding away from the planetoid. The ship tilted as shockwaves from the exploding base created turbulence.
“Shields holding!” Paco reported.
They all stood silently, uncertain of whether to celebrate their freedom or prepare for death. Most of them simply struggled to catch their breath.
Oona broke the tension. “Hey, kid. You might want to call your captain and let her know that you didn’t fall out of an airlock.”
The teenage boy she addressed asked, “How did you even get inside of the base? I’ve been searching for security weaknesses to exploit for weeks.”
“We didn’t override our way in, kid,” Oona said. She climbed the flex ladder and went to the bridge. “Lay in a course for Luna Eight. We need to put down for repairs,” she ordered Paco. Opening communications, she hailed the one person who infuriated her into flames. When Oona’s call was answered, one look at that person’s face made her fire turn to steam and then into a puddle.
“What happened to you?” Juju asked. She pointed to Oona’s head.
Lifting her left hand to her temple, Oona wiped at blood. “Had a run in with a blue-eyed cyborg. Got your boy back, though.”
That got her attention. Juju leaned forward in her command chair. Her long red hair was in sleek waves that fell almost to the armrests of her chair. “How is the kid?”
“He looks alright. If you want him, come and get him on Luna Eight.” Oona ended the transmission.
“I’ve got this,” Paco said.
Oona nodded. Her pilot and the rest of her crew knew what Juju did to her. Davalynn was seeing to their rescued victims. There were five of them. Currently, they were in the area of the ship that served as their kitchen, dining, and entertainment room. Each of them had a pillow, blanket, and a turn on a secure channel to make contact with whomever they wished. They were grown and could see to themselves. Oona intended to do the same. She went to her quarters, made a quick inspection of her weapons before stowing them, showered, and grabbed her medical kit. Bandage sealant took care of the gash on her head, and a nanite patch took care of her cracked rib. However, it would take some strong drink to banish the pain it had caused her to look into Juju’s green eyes.
Oona eased into a pair of panties and a tank top. Then, she laid down on her bunk and tried to fight her memories. Oona had spent weeks tracking down a man who had beaten a young woman to death while gripped by a jealous rage. The victim’s mother had been the one to offer the bounty. Oona never turned aside such cases, no matter how low the bounty. Her older sister had been beaten and raped. After months of trying to heal from the resultant emotional trauma, her sister had severed her carotid artery while in the shower. Oona had been the one to find her. She hadn’t been able to intimately trust a man since then. She could still hear the man she had hunted down defending his actions.
“She had it coming. She was a lying whore. The bitch’s mother sent you after me? When I get through with you, I’m going after her.” His black mustache had partially hidden his sneer. He felt no remorse for ending the girl’s life or leaving her family to struggle with their senseless loss.
Oona knew he would do it again. She had snapped his neck. She hadn’t even given him time to attack. Juju hadn’t approved of Oona’s vigilante justice, but she hadn’t contradicted her story to the Enforcers. The argument between them that had ensued had been full of passionate anger and tears. Juju feared that Oona was allowing her past to warp and twist her, and she didn’t want to watch the Oona she loved die.
Oona hadn’t known what to do to make it right between them, so she hadn’t done anything. She knew how to hunt down dangerous criminals, the ones who were too much for the Enforcers to handle. She could hold her own in the ring against men twice her size. However, it didn’t matter how tough she was on the outside. All she really wanted was to hold Juju against her and draw comfort from the understanding and love they had once shared. Oona fell asleep to the memory of soft skin beneath her palms.
Sparrow sat on their bunk watching Xavier as he cleaned and secured his weapons. His body armor rustled as he removed it and put it away. Other than dirt and sweat, he didn’t have a scratch on him. Sparrow blushed when he turned his back. Her eyes roamed over the muscles there. He had known about her disorder but had come for her anyway. Xavier wanted her for her and not to make weapons for him.
She had learned that Bishop had adopted her, but after sharing that information, he had planned to let her die in the explosion he had rigged to destroy the base. Why hadn’t the explosion been of a much greater intensity? The aftershock they had felt had been nothing, and the planetoid was still in one piece. She could only assume that Bishop had started moving weapons from the base as soon as she had first escaped. He was covering his tracks. He had blown up the base so there wouldn’t be any genetic material left behind to collaborate the victims’ stories. There wouldn’t be any evidence to substantiate claims for his prosecution or to fine him for restitution to his victims.
The large hand reaching down for hers pulled her from her thoughts. Sparrow looked up at Xavier. He smiled down at her. His beautiful mismatched eyes were the only ones she had ever been able to gaze into. Sparrow drew in a breath as the realization of the magnitude of her emotional response to the man before her materialized into a word.<
br />
“I love you, Xavier.”
He went down on his knees before her. Her admission had left her heart completely unprotected and bare. It was a heart she hadn’t even realized she possessed until she had met him. His lips claimed hers. Xavier’s tongue slid into her mouth, and his fingers slid into her hair. Then, his scent filled her nose and ruined the mood. Xavier ended the kiss and laughed long and deep.
“Come help me shower. Battling robots and weapons dealing cyborgs has given me a case of man stink.”
Sparrow nodded. “I must have been worse when you freed me from my escape pod.” Xavier laced their fingers together and drew her along with him across the hall and into the ship’s communal showers. “It’s males only right now,” Sparrow reminded him as she quoted Oona’s rule.
“I’ll keep them out.”
For the next several minutes, Xavier did with his wife everything he had ever wanted to do with a wet, soapy woman in a shower.
Chapter Ten
When Paco put the bounty ship down on Luna Eight, Oona hired a land port crew to begin repairs to her hull. Juju and her crew had beaten them there. Inside of the land port offices, Oona felt Juju’s eyes on her and turned to find her sitting at a small table near a kiosk. After concluding her business, she walked over to the tall redhead with the rescued hacker following at her heals like a worshipful puppy.
“Are you alright, kid?” Juju asked the teenager.
“Yes, ma’am. I am now.”
“I hope you’ve learned your lesson about wandering off alone,” Juju admonished. “Head on over to the ship. I’ll keep an eye on you. Your quarters are a mess.”
With a grin, he trotted off to Juju’s berth. Once he got there, grizzled bounty hunters patted the kid on the back.
Xavier: An Omnes Videntes Novel Page 7