by Cynthia Sax
“It’s part of a disciplinary action against her. Her violation wasn’t stated. And Second Buoir is her home planet.” The J Model transmitted the human female’s specs. “It was recently taken back from the Humanoid Alliance.”
Humans punished cyborgs by dissecting them, by killing them in the harshest way possible. They punished their own kind by sending them to their home planets.
Vengeance studied the female’s image. He had expected to see the round face, unblemished skin, smiling lips of her kind. Humans liked softness in females.
This female was anything but yielding. She had a defined chin, firm flat lips, numerous scars. One scar streaked down her forehead, somehow missed her eye, then carved her cheek in two. Another scar lined her jaw. Her nose had bumps, as though it had been broken and not reset properly.
He liked those irregularities in her countenance. A bit too much.
His gaze dwelled on her eyes. They blazed with raw, unfiltered anger, the emotion in them taking his breath away. What could have made the human female that furious?
Why did he care? He shook himself, returned to his perusal of her, his enemy.
The human female’s hair was long and twined into numerous small braids, the brown strands matching her eyes. Her skin was tanned, not golden as some were but a lighter shade of brown. She would blend into the shadows.
If it weren’t for her size.
He scanned her measurements. She was tall and broad and heavy…for a human. The female, this Astrid Ragnhild being, would tower over many of the human males.
She wouldn’t tower over him. Vengeance drew himself upright. He was a C Model, one of the largest cyborgs still in existence. She was small by comparison.
According to the databases, the female had joined the Rebel forces after her planet had been invaded. One of two survivors, she had been fighting since that planet rotation, a member of several elite ground teams.
Fighting face-to-face appealed to him also. As did the look of the human female.
She appeared strong, fierce, able to hold her own.
Picturing her with one hand curved around the hilt of a sword and the other wrapped around his cock, he hardened, his organics betraying him.
Fortunately, he was a cyborg, half machine. His processors recognized her for what she was—bait.
The humans had chosen her because of her façade, because her physical appearance would arouse him, would corrupt his databases with visions of savage breedings, allowing her to influence him, control him with his desire.
“She won’t tempt me.” He wasn’t that easily fooled.
“She scares me a little,” Death’s human female whispered. “They call her the Buoir Berserker, say she hacks apart the corpses of her fallen comrades.”
Damaging the already dead was more futile than scary. The female, this Astrid creature, was human. He would retrieve her easily.
But he would wear his body armor and bring his weapons. If it was a trap, he’d be prepared, would fight his way to victory.
Vengeance’s circuits surged, that challenge exciting him. “I’ll leave this planet rotation.” He removed more of his weapons from the display on the wall. “If Power asks you where I am, don’t answer him.” Cyborgs couldn’t lie, but they didn’t have to answer every question posed to them. “I’ll return with the female within four planet rotations.”
Death lifted his eyebrows. “She’s a former warrior. Do you require assistance?”
Death’s human female elbowed the warrior in the stomach, shaking her head vigorously.
“We can’t accompany you.” Death looked at her. “We aren’t authorized to leave the Homeland, but we can arrange for another warrior to escort you.”
“You’re asking if I require an escort?” Vengeance snorted. “I’m a C Model. She’s a human female. I can handle her.”
Death’s human female turned her head and stared at him. “She won’t be the one handled.” Her lips twitched. “She’s going to hand you your ass on a serving container.”
Her doubt irked Vengeance. The humans had always underestimated cyborgs, viewing them as processor-less machines, never thinking they’d rebel.
Vengeance and his brothers had proven their enemy wrong. He would prove Death’s human female wrong also.
“I’ll leave my transmission lines open if you should need me.” Death guided his human female out of the chamber.
“I won’t need you.” Vengeance was certain about that.
By this time next planet rotation, Astrid Ragnhild would be captured. Ten planet rotations of resisting her and their bond should be sufficient to prove his point.
They would then expel all humans from the Homeland.
His brethren would be protected.
Chapter Two
Astrid Ragnhild whacked the chisel with the mallet, chipping away at the rock facing. She switched hands, hit the chisel again, one of her goals to maintain strength and versatility in both arms.
It was a cool planet rotation on Second Buoir and she was clad in an armless leather chest covering and a skin-tight leather ass covering, but sweat dripped down her spine, streaming between her ass cheeks.
Carving names of the fallen into the stone required exertion…especially as she was the only warrior left to complete the task. Her gaze traveled along the surface. She had carved every name she could remember, hundreds of them.
The possibility she’d forgotten some members of her community pained her.
She traced Siv’s name, navigating the gouge in the last letter. Emotion had overcome her and her chisel had slipped.
Her sister had been so young, had barely four solar cycles when the Humanoid Alliance arrived. Siv had run out to face the enemy, a dagger clutched in her chubby fingers, and the cyborgs had blasted her little body with multiple projectiles, killing her instantly.
Her mother, father, four brothers had died slower, putting up more of a fight against their enemy. Theirs had been a clan of warriors, chosen by the gods to defend Second Buoir, and Astrid had battled beside her kinfolk.
Not the warrior she now was, she’d failed them. A projectile had clipped her skull. She lost consciousness, woke in one of the caves.
Knut had dragged her there. The male hid in the woods during the fight, looked for survivors when the cyborgs returned to their ships.
His name wasn’t carved in the rock. Unable to deal with his cowardice, he killed himself shortly after the Rebels saved them.
Her name would never be carved in the rock either. She was the last of her clan. There was no one left to undertake that duty.
Except for the predators shrieking in the distance and the ghosts of her loved ones, she was alone on her home planet. The Rebels had banished her to Second Buoir, sentencing her to a peaceful existence, one she hated with every cell in her warrior soul.
Her crime? She’d blown up a cyborg ship, planet rotations after the Rebels had declared the warriors to be their allies.
Cyborgs would never be Astrid’s allies. They had slaughtered every being she had ever loved, killing the elderly, children, babies.
Siv.
Once the cyborgs showed the Rebels their true natures, and she was certain they would, she would hunt them down and end their lifespans, one by one.
While she waited, she would defend her home planet. She tossed her tools into her pack, swung it over one shoulder, and strode through the forest, keeping to the path, her steps soundless, her gaze wary.
Wires stretched from tree to tree, connected to explosives. She’d gradually encircled her domicile with more and more defenses, expanding the area she protected. The sky above her was monitored by systems that couldn’t be hacked.
The cyborgs would never surprise her again. If they returned, she’d be ready for them.
She’d kill every last warrior.
Astrid reached a fork in the path. One path led to a river suitable for bathing. She could clean the sweat off her body, cool her heated skin, soak her tired muscl
es.
The other path led to the domicile. She could practice shooting before swimming, hone her skills even more. A warrior could never be too skilled.
Her form screamed a protest as she headed toward her domicile. Training was a necessity. Her lips twisted. Especially as she no longer faced the rigors of battle.
Fuck. She missed it. Not the killing. She could live without that. But she craved the challenge of combat, looking an opponent in the eye and trying to outsmart him, outmaneuver him.
The only opponents she had on Second Buoir were the predators. She kicked a stone. It skittered along the pathway.
Time to arrange another hunt. It might alleviate the mind-numbing boredom and would be the kind thing to do.
A predator screamed. The creatures had eliminated their prey and were starving. They ventured closer and closer to—
The private viewscreen clipped to Astrid’s pack flashed red. Shit. Her heart pounded. A ship was approaching the planet.
She pelted toward her domicile, pumping her arms to move faster. The structure doubled as her command post, had been constructed by the Humanoid Alliance after they destroyed the other structures on the planet, wiping all traces of her clan’s existence from the surface.
Upon being banished to Second Buoir, she called in favors from some of her Rebel buddies and had reactivated the Humanoid Alliance’s missile defense systems, linking the weapons so they could be controlled by one being.
Astrid rushed through the doors, their locks programmed to recognize her face, and claimed a chair in front of a large viewscreen. The visual was of a two-being ship, formerly owned by the Humanoid Alliance.
That meant nothing. Many of the Rebel ships had been sourced from the enemy.
“A.I., hail the incoming ship.” She panted as she gave her system that instruction.
“Hailing the incoming ship.” The robotic voice informed her.
Moments passed. Sweat beaded on Astrid’s forehead.
“They are not responding to the hail, warrior.”
Either the ship’s communications were damaged, or the enemy was attacking. “A.I., perform a lifeform scan on the incoming ship.”
“Performing a lifeform scan on the incoming ship.” The system repeated her command. “There is one lifeform on board.”
“Lifeform type?” Astrid’s heart raced.
“Cyborg.”
“Shit.” The brutes were coming back. “A.I., activate all weapons systems. Target the incoming ship. Shoot once targeted, resources unlimited.”
A stockpile of missiles would be useless to her if she didn’t defeat the enemy. She’d utilize every weapon at her disposal.
Astrid switched one of the missile launchers to manual, lined up on the ship, pressed the trigger. The ship swerved. She repeated the process, missed again.
“You’re too slow, human.” A deep voice filled the chamber. The cyborg must have hacked into her communications system. That was one of the drawbacks of hailing a ship first, instead of immediately shooting it down. “You don’t have the speed to hit my ship.”
Astrid’s nipples tightened and her pussy grew wet. Not because of his low rumble. Battle always turned her on. “You don’t know what I’m capable of doing, cyborg.” She coordinated her weapons, blasting him with missiles.
The ship spun, somehow avoiding every strike. That shouldn’t have been possible. Her jaw dropped. The cyborg was good. She hammered him with more missiles.
He laughed, that throaty sound making her womb clench around nothing. “You can’t defeat me.”
She should say nothing. The less the enemy knew, the greater advantage she had. But his arrogance provoked her. “That’s what thousands of your predecessors thought. They’re now dead.”
“I’ve killed millions of your kind.” The ship fired back. One of her missile launchers exploded.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “Children and babies don’t count.” Astrid shot where she thought he might move, clipped the side of his ship. “Ha. Too slow, my ass.”
He took out three of her missile launchers in rapid succession, as though punishing her for that one successful strike. “Your ass will be captured by the end of the planet rotation.”
Was captured code for dead? Cyborgs killed indiscriminately. That’s what they did. They didn’t care if their target was defenseless, an innocent. Cyborgs had no honor.
This one wouldn’t kill her. “I plan to flatten your ass. There’s a market in this sector for scrap metal.” She wouldn’t give him a warrior’s send-off.
Her clan had been denied that honor by his kind. The terrain of Second Buoir was unscannable, so she’d searched on foot for her loved ones’ remains. She’d found some, including what was left of one of her brothers, and had performed the ceremony for those beings, but she hadn’t located the rest of her family’s corpses.
Those beings continued to be cursed, forced to wander the planet as spirits. When she killed the cyborg, he would join them, give her family an enemy to battle, some small form of retribution.
“Are all humans as delusional as you are?” Laughter lilted the cyborg’s voice. “You’ll never flatten my ass.”
“Are all cyborgs as chatty as you are?” She enjoyed their conversation. That was only because she’d been alone for far too long. She shook her head, trying to focus. He was the enemy. She couldn’t forget that. “Your sweet words won’t earn you any mercy from me, warrior.”
“You’re the being requiring mercy.” He scoffed. “Your shooting has slowed even more, human. I didn’t predict that was possible.”
“Predict this.” She shot at the ship.
“I predicted it easily. Is your feeble human brain overwhelmed?” He shot back. “Cyborgs have processors. We can multitask.”
They exchanged fire and taunts. The cyborg was mobile. Her missile launchers were in fixed locations. One by one, he blew them up.
Shit. She grabbed her weapons pack and a private viewscreen, and sprinted out of her domicile into the surrounding woods, staying on the pathways. Any intelligent invader would target the structure first. She couldn’t stay inside it.
“You have no more missile launchers, human.” The ship hovered above the planet, the sun’s rays glinting off its metal panels. “Are you ready to surrender?”
“I’m a warrior from the Buoir clan.” She moved toward her ship. The single-being vessel was parked on the landing stone. “We never surrender.”
“And where is your clan now?” The cyborg mocked her loss.
“Fuck you.” Anger coiled inside her, burning away any softer feelings she might have foolishly felt for him, her rage fed by grief and sorrow. “They died with honor, a concept you could never understand.”
Her enemy snorted. “Humans know nothing about honor.”
“Come down to the surface and fight me like a warrior, cyborg, and I’ll teach you about honor.” She bristled, her fingers folding into tight fists. “Or are you scared of one human female?”
“You might scare other humans, but you don’t scare me.”
How did he know she scared other humans? Astrid scowled at the enemy’s ship. She was a warrior. Her role was to kill the enemy as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Blood was spilled, along with some guts. That was battle.
Some human males didn’t understand that. They had been forced into battle by their enemies, hadn’t been born to that lifestyle as she had.
Those males couldn’t handle her style of warfare. That wasn’t her problem.
She spotted her ship. It remained parked, undamaged.
Should she run to the vessel, attempt a liftoff? By battling the cyborg in the air, she might draw him away from her domicile, save the structure.
She resisted that temptation.
“Actions speak louder than words.” She deliberately taunted the cyborg. “You remain in the air, hiding on your ship.”
If he landed his ship, the battle would be waged on her turf. No one knew the planet like she did, and she had
prepared for this attack, had her defenses in place.
“I’m not hiding.” The cyborg growled.
The ship lowered. The fool was landing. Astrid positioned herself a prudent distance away from the flat stone. She flopped down on the ground, placed her private viewscreen before her, opened her pack.
Weapons, as many as she could carry, were strapped to her body, guns in holsters, daggers in sheaths, mini-explosives in pockets. She donned her long-range goggles, watched the enemy’s descent.
He was a cocky ass, landing his ship right next to hers. Did he believe that would protect his vessel?
It wouldn’t.
She noted, with pride, the missing panels on the right side of the ship. That was her handiwork. She’d created that damage.
Soon she would create more. Astrid tapped on her private viewscreen, readying the next stage of her assault.
Then she adjusted her goggles, enlarging her view of the ship’s doors. They opened. A ramp extended. Sunlight reflected off the barrel of a long gun.
“Where are you hiding, human?” The muzzle of the gun rotated until it pointed directly at her. The enemy had located her.
“I’m not hiding, cyborg.” She should tap the viewscreen now. With one press of the trigger, he could end her lifespan.
But she was curious, wanted to view her enemy’s face, determine if the rest of him was as sexy as his voice.
The cyborg must have seen she didn’t hold a weapon. His big black boots appeared.
They were attached to huge legs encased in black body armor, decorated with daggers and guns. Narrow hips, defined abs, a massive chest, and even broader shoulders emerged.
His face came into view and Astrid sucked in her breath.
His skin was gray, his eyes a blazing blue, his hair the blackest black, no sheen in it to catch the light. Her opponent was a C Model, an early cyborg, larger, stronger than the later versions. She’d fought some of them in the past. They were primal on the battlefield, big brutes with a zeal for killing.
The warrior was handsome. That was a given. All cyborgs were physically attractive, their good looks another weapon they wielded. This one’s chin was square, his profile primitive, his forehead high. He radiated power, savage strength, every part of him tight and muscular, designed to end lifespans.