Resurrection Heart: Robotics Faction - Cyborg Mercenaries

by Clark, Wendy Lynn

  That monitor, and the sentries posted outside her room, and Daz snoring loudly on the pallet next to her, kept her from crawling out of bed, storming down the hall to the old converted samples shed, and carving her revenge out of Logen with her penknife.

  The last guy she had made the mistake of trusting had slammed her head into a counter because he didn’t like the way she looked at the person who took the orders for their meal.

  She thought Logen was different.

  She thought she was different.

  In the grim morning, she passed her reflexes check and asked permission to leave the sick room.

  Vi rested her sinuous body against a shelf. “And go where?”

  “Around.”

  Her serious gaze lingered, burning Talia’s brain like acid. Her gaze had a sharp sort of danger, like coiled smoke, and a hard heat that matched her throaty voice and unsettled all who looked too long upon her.

  “I want to check on a few things,” Talia said. “Such as how I died. And whether I fought back.”

  “You can’t interview Logen in this condition.”

  “I’ll review the evidence.”

  “We already reviewed the satellite footage of your final night.”

  “Oh yeah?” A dense, teeming jungle was too thick to penetrate with a distant satellite. “Exactly what didn’t you see?”

  “We didn’t see another hover bubble traveling to Base Two. The following day, well past when he should have reported in, we found Logen walking out in the jungle, alone.”

  A long walk? The similarities chilled her. She had just told Logen about her last boyfriend. Had she given him the idea?

  “We scanned all of Base Two. Your blood was found only on his hands.”

  So, then, he hadn’t killed her inside the base. He must have killed her in the jungle and cleaned up his suit, but missed his hands. “You didn’t find my body? No trace?”

  “We don’t even know where it happened.”

  All the more reason for Talia to take over. “Let me talk to him.”

  “When you feel stronger.”

  “I’m strong now.”

  Vi licked her lips. “I know you two were close. It will be hard to see the truth.”

  “He’s already a criminal. And have you seen his perfect kills?”

  Vi studied her.

  She hated it. She wasn’t a woman to be pitied. She would fight.

  “I’m a spotter. Let me do my job.” She scooted to the edge of the bed. “I promise I’ll be back by bedtime.”

  Her legs hung like dead weights off the edge. She tried to bend her right knee. Without the panicked adrenaline, her leg didn’t even twitch.

  Vi smiled tiredly. “You’re not going to see Logen until you can move your legs.”

  “I can help with that,” Daz said, entering behind Navina.

  Half the team had been just outside, listening in to every word.

  He dragged an exoskeleton. “Try this.”

  “She’s just woken up,” Navina argued, pulling against him. “What’s another week?”

  “In another week, we’ll all be out of here and Logen will be on his way to the slammer.”

  “Maybe you can worry about what’s best for your patient.”

  Daz unfolded the legs. “She can handle one conversation.”

  Vi’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t let your relationship cloud your professional opinion.”

  He shot her a bitter gaze, as though he knew something about her clouded professional judgment that none of the rest of them did.

  Vi shut up.

  “Here. Let’s do this.” Daz offered Talia his shoulder to help her ease into the exoskeleton.

  Talia ignored him and swung out of the bed lethargically. The resurrection created her whole body in a pristine adult state, but the muscle-training programs never had long enough to rebuild her strength.

  She slid out of the bed and into a heap on the floor.

  Fuck.

  Sweat beaded up on her brow. Her stomach churned. She gasped for breath.

  Daz leaned over her. “Sure you don’t need a hand?”

  She hated him. She hated all of them. She hated the weakness in herself.

  Daz would leave her on the floor if she didn’t ask for help. Actually, that was something she liked about him. He never pitied her, and he never tried to do something for her against her will. The others had had to learn.

  Well, not Logen. She never minded his help. He never made a big production of it either, just doing what needed to be done and moving on.

  Out of all of the mercenaries, out of all her teammates, why was he the one?

  She lifted one shaky arm to Daz.

  “Up we go.” He set his feet and flexed, groaning as he lifted her. She was a big-boned woman, and he had none of his brother’s impressive mass. He inherited wiry strength rather than bulk.

  When her feet rested on the exoskeleton soles, the calf and thigh bands tightened, encasing her in a thick wrap around her butt, cinching her waist. It interfaced with nerves in her spine.

  She straightened.

  The exoskeleton tightened to her frame with a quiet whoosh.

  “See? She can walk.” Daz let go and stepped back. “Take a few steps.”

  The room wobbled. Blackness teased her vision. She lost her balance and nearly toppled.

  Vi and Navina watched her, stone-faced with concern.

  “On second thought, I’ll get a hover disk.” He left.

  Talia wobbled and caught the bed to arrest her collapse.

  “Okay, look.” Vi stopped them with her gaze. “We’re already down half the team. I’m not prolonging your outage due to idiocy. You can see Logen when you can damn well walk there.”

  Fury boiled in her belly. “I have the right—”

  “Until then, you can review the evidence.” Vi lifted one brow, demanding obedience. “And that will be good enough.”

  Fine. For the moment, it sufficed.

  She fought the light-headedness. “When can I get my gun?”

  “When you pass your physical and your marksmanship exam. Until then, I don’t want you running around Base with a weapon.”

  She reached for the penknife on the bunk.

  “Any weapon. You’re going to fall over and stab a Good Samaritan. Leave the surgical implement here.”

  Talia lifted the penknife to the shelf over her bunk, secretly rolling it to the seam of the wall so she would have it at hand.

  Daz returned with a hover disk that fastened to the back of the exoskeleton. It lifted her off the ground a few inches. She had to hold her posture stiff to keep her heels from catching on the ground. If she couldn’t remain upright, Vi decreed she had to get back in bed, so she gritted her teeth, swallowed back her awful nausea, and floated after her team through the base.

  It looked different than she remembered.

  The halls, once jammed full of biology samples and equipment, were now lined with crates stamped with owner marks. The mess hall, once decorated with maps of the various swamps and things that bit people there, was now bare and contained only a few tables and the food reprocessor. And the biologist wing of the base, once filled with noise and excitement, was now quiet with the solemn scurry of final adjustments, species that had to be bagged, and furious packing.

  Mercs from Bad Company nodded to her as they passed, laden with shuttle-loads of equipment, and the biologists met her with concern and well wishes.

  Civilians. She wanted their freedom so bad it tasted bitter on her tongue.

  Vi glanced up at her after her response abruptly ended the conversation, and yet another biologist blushed and headed away. “You could thank them gracefully. They worried about you.”

  “I didn’t ask them to.”

  Vi raised her brows, but said nothing.

  The officer conference room was a closet-sized hole tucked in the back corner of the base, behind the Bad Company CO’s private office, and it smelled like old socks. A few scree
ns and chairs were set up, and the ubiquitous open windows were blocked by polarizing glass. The comm to the orbiting main ship Upstairs hissed gently between updates.

  She joined Chaelee, cheerful spotter for Bad Company. Everyone quickly grew bored by the technical discussion, and left the two spotters to pore over their area of expertise.

  “The interview holos are here,” Chaelee said, sitting with her in front of the communications consoles.

  Her unusual porcelain skin was pure white and, behind her magnification oculars, her startling gray eyes were rimmed in dark lashes and framed by darker brows.

  She brought up the list of dated interviews on one main screen and handed Talia a pair of spotter’s oculars. “The reconstruction based on Logen’s original, undocumented testimony is here, and his declassified files are here. We’ve also got the satellite images, although of course those are useless.”

  Talia affixed the oculars to her nose so the clear lenses covered her eyes. “You’ve seen all these?”

  “About ten times. I’m ninety percent certain you were eaten by a warm-blooded reptile.”

  Ugh. Some memories she was glad to have lost. “And the satellite images are useless?”

  “Of course. It’s a dense jungle!”

  Talia immediately liked Chaelee. They hadn’t had a chance to work together much because they were usually split with different groups of biologists. “That’s what I thought.”

  “People are too reliant on satellites, when a hundred things could make them go wrong. In a jungle like this, I could pace a hover bubble back and forth between the bases and you couldn’t see a thing.”

  The woman turned to Talia brightly. “Oh, by the way, I heard you have a little brother like me.”

  Talia’s heart squeezed. “Who did you hear that from?”

  “Iren.”

  Of course. The blabbermouth.

  “I never got to meet mine,” Chaelee said. “My mom was pregnant when I went in. How about you?”

  “He was five.”

  “How sweet!” Chaelee clasped her hands to her chest. “I bet he was wonderful.”

  Talia swallowed the welling of emotion. “Yeah. He was.”

  “Is that why your parents couldn’t afford to buy your resurrection?”

  “My dad was on his two-decade paternity leave and my mom invested everything in a new business.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Talia shrugged. Everyone had a sob story. Nobody volunteered.

  “I talked my parents out of spending the money on me,” Chaelee said, immediately proving her wrong. “And, considering how things turned out, it’s a good thing.”

  Aside from her cheerfulness, Chaelee was notable for having died over three hundred times; many of those were from friendly fire. Talia had died five times now and was angry for having to pay the resurrections off. Chaelee wouldn’t pay out until after the heat death of several suns.

  “It shouldn’t be so expensive,” Talia said supportively.

  “At least it’s an option. I feel so bad for people who can’t be resurrected. You just die. Forever. Resurrection is really a miracle of the modern age, don’t you think?”

  Enough.

  “If I was eaten,” Talia changed the subject back to the main topic, “then could it have been an accident and not anyone’s fault?”

  Chaelee’s dark brows immediately sobered. “I wish. But three weeks ago, we were still running the force shield over Base Two. It was damn near impregnable. If something got you, either one of you let it in, or something convinced you to go out.”

  Such as running for her life from a homicidal partner.

  “It’s too bad,” Chaelee continued. “You’re already down several team members, right? Now you’re down a Gun. If the Misfits get disbanded, you should put in a transfer to Bad Company.”

  “You don’t need another Spot.”

  “You’re pretty dangerous,” Chaelee indicated the stylus Talia had stolen from the room and secreted in her hospital suit, “so you could probably be a Grunt.”

  How flattering. But she’d never had to prove herself in actual hand-to-hand combat, and had no interest in trying. “The Misfits aren’t getting disbanded.”

  “Oh, I heard you might be. Vi’s only your second, right? Where’s your CO?”

  “Sirus is on leave.”

  “For this whole assignment?”

  “For the past fourteen years.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Are you sure he didn’t desert? That’s a hell of a long vacation.”

  Talia hugged her elbows. Once, she’d opened up to Sirus. We all go home. He’d said it over and over, and he was the first one to have complete faith she would pay out, despite being in Hazard Zero. He’d been the only one to see beyond her tough exterior to her inner fears, and he’d actually started her on hand-to-hand combat training, to help her get over them. If he’d stayed on, maybe she could have finally conquered her ghosts.

  Maybe she wouldn’t have let herself get killed by another goddamned man.

  She didn’t want to think about past betrayals. “Let’s start.”

  They watched Logen’s first interview holo. With her oculars pointing out all the micro expressions and hidden emotions, she struggled to focus on the landscape of the human face.

  Not on the man whose undeniable presence made her heart thump, her hairs shiver, and her legs squeeze together. Even though she knew what he was, her body couldn’t help itself. She’d craved a taste of him for so long.

  That was probably how he drew her in.

  After half an hour, Talia had to turn the holo off. “Logen doesn’t say anything.”

  Chaelee bit her lip. “No. Not at all.”

  Her oculars picked out no emotion on Logen, hidden or otherwise. The whole time, the rock-hard gunner sat there, staring at the Bad Company CO, who railed and accused him and threatened violence. Then he stared at Vi, equally powerful, equally silent. And then he stared at Daz, and Iren, and even Navina.

  Then the Bad Company CO returned and started interrogating with his fists.

  “He says he’s innocent, but he won’t say anything that happened that night.”

  What the fuck, Logen?

  “He never says anything that proves he knows too much, either,” the eternal optimist said.

  That was also true.

  Talia rubbed her aching forehead.

  Chaelee shrugged. “But anyway, there’s nothing here. I’m sorry.”

  Except the key to everything. Talia removed her oculars and rose with the hover disk.

  “Heading back to your room?” Chaelee asked.

  “Eventually. Where’s Logen?”

  “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you that.”

  Fine. She would find him herself.

  Chaelee stopped her with a grin. “Of course, I could just happen to be walking in a direction that might pass by where he’s being held. Up for a walk?”

  She gripped her exoskeleton. “Lead the way.”

  Chaelee stopped by the reprocessor for coffee, chatted with her teammates, and eased Talia’s way through the base. She was so friendly and engaging. Talia found herself relaxing. Most of the mercenaries in Hazard Zero carried a hell of a lot of baggage down to the bottom with them. Being with Chaelee reminded Talia of her civilian life, and she craved spending just a little more time with the woman. From the gathering of followers who happened to be in the same area as Chaelee, obviously she wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

  “I’m glad we finally got to spend time like this,” Chaelee said. “Sorry it happened under these circumstances.”

  “Me too.”

  They reached the end of the long, central hall running north and south through the base. Chaelee stopped her at the southernmost door.

  She suddenly clasped Talia’s hands, surprising her. “You’ll have to tell me more about your little brother. Come over to my bunk when you get out of Medical. We’ll trade stories.”

  “Sure.”


  Chaelee grinned like sunshine. Her touch was gentle and heartfelt. “Good luck with your gunner.” She threw open the door.

  Vi, Navina, and Daz stood on the other side.

  “Going somewhere?” Vi asked.

  Chaelee blinked rapidly as she struggled to come up with a plausible story. Vi obviously frightened her, and her white cheeks reddened. “Well. We, uh, Talia and I wanted to walk, mmm, for exercise.”

  Vi raised a brow.

  Chaelee swallowed. “Uh... so...”

  “I’m speaking to Logen.”

  Everyone looked at Talia.

  Navina shook her head, concern on her pixie face. “We asked him every question. So many times. He ignores us all.”

  “He won’t ignore me.”

  Talia faced the remnants of her team, gearing up for a fight.

  Vi cut her off. “You’re still upright. You want to see your own murderer? Let’s go.”

  Chapter Four

  They exited the main building and crossed the compound.

  Her feet ghosted above the bare dirt. Overhead, the bluish bubble of the force shield repelled wildlife, but was porous enough to let through misty rain and even falling leaves from the thick green canopy.

  The main building was shaped like a half circle around the shuttle landing field. The officers’ quarters stood at one tip, while the building curved around sick bay and the dorms in the middle, and reached the fragmented outbuildings at the bottom tip.

  The comm tower stretched up to the trees and shaded over the whole compound.

  Iren was hanging around outside one of the storage sheds, tossing a fist-sized rock up in the air and catching it. He saw them and dropped the rock. “Shit. You’ll have to wait a minute.”

  Talia swallowed her nausea.

  Iren squinted at her. “You okay? You look awful.”

  She nodded.

  He shook his shaggy head. He was new, but already knew better than to push. “Try to get him to confess. As quickly as possible. For me, please.”

  A scream ripped through the building.

  It jolted Talia and stuck her with pins and needles. Where the hell was her weapon? She flexed for it.

  No one else reacted.

  “What the hell’s going on in there?” she demanded.