by Naomi Lucas
Ashes and Metal
Cyborg Shifters Book Five
By Naomi Lucas
Copyright © 2018 by Naomi Lucas
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from the author.
Any references to names, places, locales, and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Cover Art by Cameron Kamenicky
Editor: Lindsay York at LY Publishing Services
Editor: Tiffany Freund
Stranded in the Stars
Last Call
Collector of Souls
Star Navigator
Cyborg Shifters
Wild Blood
Storm Surge
Shark Bite
Mutt
Ashes and Metal
Valos of Sonhadra
Radiant
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Epilogue Chapter One
Epilogue: Chapter Two
Author’s note
Chaos Croc
No one messed with Gunner. No one.
He was the Jackal, living chaos, the infamous Cyborg banned from civilized society. He was also the only Monster Hunter for the EPED who took the hard jobs, the under-the-table work. Jobs that often left a trail of blood and bones in their wake. When a pirate commandeers his ship, Gunner takes it upon himself to exact a revenge that will ignite a wildfire of rage, death, and torment upon those who made the mistake of taking what was rightfully his.
Elodie has spent most of her life pretending to be a boy to remain alongside her father in space. He’s the only family she has left. When the ship they worked on is attacked, she’s taken prisoner. Every day, she feared that her secret would be discovered—that she’s a woman alone amongst men. When a strange man is dragged into the cell next to hers, she realizes she was living on borrowed time.
He stared at her as if he knew her secret...
Chapter One
ELODIE LIFTED HER HEAD off her knees when the doors split open across the way. Bright light from the hallway flooded her vision and she flinched as it pushed back the gloom of the brig.
“Ely, wake up.”
“I’m awake,” she whispered, throat tight. Trying to blink away the forced dilation of her eyes, she glanced from her dad to the men now entering.
Their eyes roved across all the cells, hers included. Her captors’ dark gazes looking for something—something she refused to give—and she shriveled into herself.
“They may be recruiting again,” he muttered, hopeful.
“Shhh...” someone shushed from down the line.
Ely scooted closer to her father. He was being held in the cell next to hers, closer to the entryway door.
“Dad. Don’t,” she pleaded for the hundredth time. “Please...”
His face hardened and his lips flattened into a straight line. It was the only reaction she got from him now when it came to the pirates that held them.
Several weeks before, their mining ship had been attacked suddenly and without cause by a fleet they couldn’t withstand. In a matter of hours her life had gone from monotony to hell.
“They killed your friends,” Elodie reminded him. “They nearly killed us.”
But he wasn’t having any of it. Her words entered one ear and flew out the other, and even with her cheek pressed up against her knee, she could see how ineffective her pleas were.
I’m not ready to say goodbye.
She never would be. Even when she thought she was, when the time came, she always chickened out and stayed. Because she knew once her father, Chesnik, left her, or when she left him, that would be it. The likelihood of ever seeing each other again was unlikely. Her dad had been a worker-bee his entire life, moving them from one ship to the next, taking her with him wherever he went, no matter how dangerous it was for her.
When she was old enough to cut ties and find her own way, she chose to stay with him.
Days turned into weeks, weeks into entire jobs, and jobs turned into years, and here she was. She had followed him straight into the slaving units of a pirate ship.
And now he was leaving her.
“Please... Dad...”
“Don’t you fucking start! Man the fuck up, boy,” he spat.
“I have manned up,” Elodie hissed. “This has nothing to do with me—”
“It has everything to do with you.”
She stiffened and made sure the guards weren’t paying attention. “Risking yourself to join them isn’t something we agreed on. Just,” she took a heavy breath, hoping it would calm her nerves, “think about what you’re doing. You have no idea what happens once you leave this room. No one has returned from recruitment. No one has come back.”
“That’s because they’re not dumb enough to put recent prisoners in charge of the flesh stock.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Kallan sneered on the other side of her. “You keep talking and you’re gonna get us all killed.”
Her dad scooted away, distancing himself. From her. Elodie knew why he was doing it. He was trying to protect her by sacrificing himself. He was guarding her secret. She understood his reasoning, but that didn’t stop it from hurting.
He was making a big mistake and she couldn’t convince him. She had tried to since he first brought up joining the pirate’s crew. Helplessness wasn’t something she often felt, but at the moment, the sensation drowned her.
If she only had more time to convince him, they could come up with a better plan. Elodie eyed the locking mechanisms on her cell.
The guards did a full walkthrough of the brig, eyeing her and everyone else like choice pieces of meat.
They didn’t bring the evening meal, which meant they weren’t getting one that night. She tried not to focus on the gnawing pit in her stomach as she followed the pirates’ movements back and forth.
Everyone had gone quiet, waiting, wondering what would happen, knowing collectively that they wouldn’t be fed. Another twelve hours or more would go by before they had a chance at another meal—if they didn’t reach wherever the hell they were going to first.
One of the men turned away from the other and grinned, lifting an electrical rod from his belt to slap in his hand.
Despite the calm facade Elodie was so desperately trying to broadcast, she could feel herself sinking, her veneer cracking. She was on the verge of tears, but even crying would do little to alleviate the ache weighing her down.
Men don’t cry. Goodbyes are nothing.
“Well, pussies and gentlemen, we have two openings in our crew. Had some men who went and got themselves killed. Any takers?”
The question was loaded.
This wasn’t the first time she and the others had gone through a recruitment. Someone would die or get bludgeoned to an inch of their life. It happened every time.<
br />
When no one initially spoke, she chanced a look at her dad, hopeful that he would reconsider. But he stood when he caught her eye.
Hope was such a fleeting thing.
“I’ll take one of those slots. Anything has to be better than dying without dinner,” he announced.
Elodie looked at the man in the cell directly across from her, past him, and to the wall. She focused on it as if it would save her life. The guards walked through her line of sight but they passed as shadows, obscured and out of focus.
“We have a taker!” the man with the electrical rod bellowed. Her periphery blurred, the edges growing fuzzy, until there was nothing left but her—her and grey wall. “Ding ding ding ding!” The rod slammed into the metal bars with each syllable.
She heard her dad’s grunt and the shuffle of his feet, undeterred and unwary, followed by the hum of the lock on his cell as it opened.
The sounds filled her ears, her mind, prying with sharpened claws to lift her head up and force her to watch the events taking place.
The word goodbye pounded through her skull over and over, monotone and depressing.
How could you?
Her throat constricted. The betrayal was hard for her to stomach.
“What’s your skills, old man?” one of the guards asked.
“Systems, mechanics, the upkeep of the bowels when called for, and resource mining on occasion. I know a half dozen different rig setups and have practice welding in an exosuit.”
You can also speak several languages, tell a good story, and give a decent hug.
“Ah, space fodder, you’re space fucking fodder. That’s okay, it’s okay. Too bad you ain’t a doctor,” Rod-man muttered.
“Or a woman,” said the other.
“I’ll go where you need me,” Chesnik finished, undisturbed.
“You hear that all! He’ll go where he’s needed! Who else wants to join the crew today? Last chance, fuckers.”
The electric rod slammed into the bars again, louder and harder than before. Elodie’s grey wall slipped out of her vision completely as she was jerked back into reality. She lifted her eyes to see her dad shifting glances her way.
His cell door closed with a bang, and for the first time in weeks, it was empty.
“One more, fuckers, who’s it gonna be?” Rod-man ran his eyes over her and moved onto the other prisoners in the cells beyond. His footsteps trailed away and his voice faded as he continued down the line.
For a moment, it was only her, Chesnik, and the quiet guard that held a gun to Chesnik’s side. She sized them up.
The tension between them was stifling, overpowering. A feral spark lit within her that demanded she volunteer too, to derail whatever suicidal plan her dad made and get the guards to open up her cell just so she could attack them, knowing it would cost her her life.
I love you. She mouthed the phrase, pouring her heart into it.
He frowned and looked away. Elodie couldn’t. She kept her eyes on him and tried her best to memorize every little detail about him.
But all she saw was her dad in the rest-cycle dimmed lights, wearing dirt-stained clothes that hung limp around his frame, with deepening wrinkles around his mouth, and a slight hunch that bent his once upright figure.
When did he become so frail?
Her heart dropped into her stomach and she pulled her legs more firmly into her chest. The booming sound of the cattle prod slamming against metal bars was the musical accompaniment to her misery. Soon, the sounds of grunts and hollers joined the chorus as a man was beaten to a pulp.
“I’ll join the crew,” an unfamiliar voice spoke out, but Rod-man was already dragging another prisoner behind him.
Three takers... Elodie stuck her neck out to get a better view, moving her feet under her.
The guard thrust the other prisoner at her dad before sourcing out the third voice, but Chesnik didn’t catch the man, instead letting him stumble and drop to his knees.
The opening of a third cell door sounded.
“You want in on the crew, do you?” the guard asked.
“Yeah. I do. Had to think on it but then I remembered how fucking hungry I am.”
“We have two spots and three takers. How hungry are you, dumbass? Because we all want to know. What would you do for what you want right now?”
Elodie crawled forward, unable to help herself. The third man stood level with the guard. Idiot. He’s got a damned electrical weapon.
“Pretty fucking hungry. Enough to tell you I’m worth more than both those two combined. Enough to be done sitting in a cell all day rotting.”
She snuck a glance to her dad and wished she hadn’t, seeing creases of worry appear on his brow. Her head snapped back as a sizzling screeching noise filled the space, followed by howls and seizing. She knew that sound but it always startled her: when a cattle prod was used on a human.
“That didn’t answer my fucking question! What would you do for it?” Rod-man bellowed. The prisoner dropped to his knees as the guard thrust the weapon into his thigh. He fell the rest of the way to the floor with a groaning thud, writhing like a fish.
The smell of burnt flesh and roasted meat, ashen cloth, and fried hair assaulted her nose. She pressed her palms into her stomach to stop the gag from coming forth, knowing the bile wouldn’t be able to wash the taste of it out of her mouth. She buried her nose into her shoulder, sickened.
“Get up!” he screamed. “You still fucking hungry!? Then get the fuck up!”
Elodie cringed and scurried back to the wall as the prisoner was hauled from his cell and past her own. She clutched her nose as the limp, partially cooked thigh dragged across the floor, attached to a screeching man.
“Please, stooop! Pleasse. I’ll do anything, anything. I’ll prove my loyalty, just please ssstoooop!”
The second taker had risen to his feet, holding his limp arm. What had been an initiation bludgeon now only looked like a bad bruise compared to taker number three and his burning skin.
“Well, Trainet, we got ourselves space fodder, a security nerd, and a gimp with a cooked leg.” Rod-man lifted the crying man up and looked him in the eye. “What makes you better than the two who don’t need immediate medical care?”
“C-c-cryp—”
“You’re a what, a c-c-c-crybaby?”
“Nooo, a c-cryptocurrency investor,” his voice hitched.
Rod-man dropped the crying man and turned to the one named Trainet. “Kill him.”
“No! WAIT! I have money,” the man begged, sobbing, “A lot of m-money!” Trainet stepped around the others and pointed his gun to the prisoner’s temple. He scooted back, Trainet followed. Taunting.
Elodie pushed herself as far up into the corner of her cell as she could go as the men neared her cage.
No one made a sound. Not one of the dozen or so prisoners dared. Someone was going to die, and no one wanted it to be them.
“Waait, I have an idea.” Rod-man sidled up to the guard holding the gun, leaned down, and grabbed the sputtering prisoner again by his scruff, dragging him back to where her dad and the other man stood. “What’s your name?”
“J-Jacob.”
“Well, Jacob, it’s your lucky day. You’ve got a spot.”
Elodie crawled back toward the front, gripping the bars in her hands as her eyes widened in horror. No.
“Thank you...”
“But you have to kill one of these two.” Rod-man nodded. Trainet handed Jacob the gun.
She watched everything in slow motion and vaguely out of focus, as Jacob lifted the firearm, limbs shaking, and pointed it at her dad, toward the other man, and back at her dad. Her mouth opened in a silent scream but the only noise to be heard was the click of the gun and the burst of a bullet.
NO!
A body hit the floor, smoking.
Elodie caught Chesnik’s eyes over the twitching corpse between them as it sank in that her father still lived. They stared at each other for what seemed like a gut-wrenc
hing eternity until time resumed its normal flow.
“Throw Jacob back in his cell with the body. If he’s still sane in the morning after a night next to the dead, we won’t have to recruit again.”
Goodbye. Chesnik mouthed the final word.
Elodie couldn’t form the word back.
Twenty minutes was all it took for them to separate.
Elodie rested her brow against the cold bars and listened to Jacob sob in the distance.
AT SOME POINT SHE HAD crawled to the back of her cell. The lights overhead remained low, timed to the ship’s preconfigured cycle, as an indication of night. It was the only way to tell time, but her suspicions grew as the quiet around her deepened.
The longest night of my life.
Elodie didn’t even try to sleep, knowing from her racing heart that she’d never be able to anyway. Staring into the empty cell next to hers, she hoped that her dad would magically reappear, that he hadn’t left her to rot in the brig alone.
Chesnik was the only family she had and the only one who knew who she really was. Deep space and long voyages—some privately funded and some government-sanctioned expeditions—were no place for a woman. But deep space was exactly where she was and where she had been her whole life. Having played the part since she was eight, being a man was second-nature to her. At the time that decision was made, she’d been too young to understand how selfish of her dad it was. Not until after he’d sheared off her long blond hair.
It was either stay on Earth and make a life amongst the dirt-chrome cities and the wastes or retain some sense of freedom out in space for him. As a boy, and then a man.
She rested her head back against the wall, peering at the long strip of light overhead.
“He ain’t coming back.”
The voice startled her and she looked to her left at Kallan. He’d been here long before she was thrown in next to him, and he was still here now.
Elodie rubbed her face, hoping to smudge grime further over her features, and pushed her head inward slightly to round out the excess skin on her jaw and cheeks. There wasn’t much left to work with; weeks of sparse rations had taken a toll on her. The thought sent her stomach into a rumble.