Abel

by Jessie Rose Case

  “If you want off this world, he will take you. All of you. Not just the ones in with Hodges as he was going to do, but everyone here. There are other worlds out there, a Space Station with a standard of life we can only dream of. So, you all have a choice. To stay or go. You have until the ship is ready, to make a decision. Now, the General here will talk about his people to us.” She turned to him and moved back. Abel took the spot.

  “What Coco has told you is true. We are Cyborgs. Created by Earth Corp to fight their Corporation wars. When we were finally free, we realised many of us were lost, damaged or stolen. We look for them throughout the universe to bring them back to us. Your world is one of 6 that we know of, that was seeded by Earth Corp. Sadly, one of those worlds is now dead. Killed by Earth Corps wish to kill us. An experiment they put in place that went badly wrong. Few survived that world and we realised just how much of a danger Earth Corp still is.

  “We came looking for those other worlds. Came here, to see if you were a danger to us and found our brothers coming out of stasis thanks to Coco. They are her soldiers, she rescued them, but they are Cyborg too. We can see you have done well to survive this world, but it is dying. We do not enslave people, we know what that is like. We serve and protect humans, welcome them into our fold. Some of us have mates who are human, families and a future. All of you are welcome to leave this world with us when we go. We have a ship in orbit. The choice is yours. Nominate someone to lead you on this. Hodges and his men no longer hold power here. Should there be problems with that, let my men know. They will be stationed outside.”

  He walked back to stand next to Coco. “How can we trust you?” A male called out.

  “Fair question,” he answered. “We were created for war. Never believed we had any more future, than to die on a battle field somewhere in the universe for Earth Corp. Then we were freed, and everything denied to us was suddenly possible. For generations, we searched the stars for our brothers. Then something truly amazing happened. Our leader met his mate. A human female. She awoke in him something in his DNA that responded. His emotions and sense of being, came alive. It was a revelation to us. It was possible to have a future, to have a family, to be more. A mate is precious to us. To be cared for and cherished. Our sense of needing to protect, those more vulnerable than us, took on a whole new meaning. We only harm those who are a threat to us and them.”

  “And how do we know this protection extends to us?” A female called out.

  Abel smiled. “That is easy. You are human and in need of help. We can offer that help. In exchange, you can choose where you go to live, we will help with that. Take you anywhere along our trade routes or leave you somewhere, where you can travel on from. If you build a new life in the Empire, you will contribute to the economy of the Empire. We win, you win.”

  “If you have a ship in space, why bother with the damaged one?” Another male called out.

  “The ship is a Cyborg ship. We will not leave it. Besides, it belongs to my mate.”

  A young female stepped forward unafraid. “You have a mate?” She asked wide eyed.

  Abel smiled and bent down to her level. “I do little one. You might know her.”

  “Really?” The child asked in wonder.

  Abel nodded. “She’s standing right behind me.”

  ***

  Coco thought Abel had lost his mind. Unable to stand the gawking any longer, she had walked off back to her sleep area, stripped and showered, then changed into clean clothing. What the hell was he talking about? They’d barely spent anytime together. Was he nuts? Did Cyborgs go nuts? What happened when they went nuts? She kept asking herself stupid questions. Coco shook her head trying to clear it. Finally, chuckling came over her net. She slowly turned, finding the General standing behind her. She clicked her box shut.

  “Listening in is rude.” She told him annoyed towel drying her hair. He took a stool and looked over at her. Dam man was still as tall as she was! She threw the towel on a chair and started brushing it out.

  Abel could feel her annoyance across the room. “I’m sorry. I should have spoken to you first.” He told her, “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot with your people.” She seemed to relax a bit at that.

  “Is what you say true?” She whispered not bothering to hide her confusion.

  He nodded, stretching out his legs. “We do not lie Coco.”

  She scrunched up her face. “But your old and seen the universe,” she quipped. Abel raised his eyebrow at her. She swallowed realising she’d just been rude herself. “I didn’t mean that. Sorry. You don’t look old,” she mumbled turning back to brushing her hair, “you look too dam good.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” She could hear the humour in his voice.

  Frustrated she tied up her hair then picked up and threw a shoe into her bag and turned. “I don’t know you. You don’t know me. I don’t see how this,” she shook her hands to him then back to her, “is gonna work. I don’t travel the stars. I don’t fight wars. I’ve got to go to the Space Station for how long I don’t know. There’s just too much unknown and come to think about it, you just showing up when I disengaged the stasis on my guys, is very convenient.” She put a hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes at him.

  Abel rose to his feet slowly. She was challenging him. It sparked all his circuits. Caution, filtered across his mind. He didn’t want to scare her but needed a taste. Walking slowly towards her, he saw the moment she dug in. She wasn’t going to give an inch. He liked that more. His cock, that had been semi hard since first seeing her, was now in full flow. It filled with blood and swelled, his balls tightened as his seed multiplied. Anticipation flooded him.

  “Do you think I’m here to harm you or them?” She shook her head, her scent filling the air. The predator in him wanted to take. He stopped inches from her and raised his hand slowly. She watched every movement he made. He slipped it, along her face and into her hair, pulling the tie from it, watching her hair spill out, then pulled her to him. He ran his nose up the opposite side of her neck and breathed in. The sweet notes of her desire filtering from her skin. Abel licked at it and she shivered. He took the brush from her hand.

  “Turn around I’ll do it.” He let her go, helped her turn around and started brushing out her hair. He brushed for a while, enjoying the feel of her hair through his fingers, marvelling at its feel. “How to you stop it from drying out, from getting knotted?” he asked registering how good it felt.

  God, thought Coco, that felt amazing. Only her mother had ever brushed out her hair. She realised she’d missed it. Missed the contact. The feel of someone else working it out for her. It was an intimate act, grooming someone else. It felt so ….. good. She was lost in the brush strokes until she remembered he’d asked her a question. “I err, found a plant that grows up top. It has a soothing quality on skin and hair. I work it into my soap. It helps to prevent burning.”

  He gathers a bunch of her hair and brought it to his nose, breathing it in. “I like it. You should market it.” He told her, then carried on brushing. Coco thought about that. Would people be willing to buy it? She’d given it away for free to her friends and had a lot of ideas on how to use it. It was a possibility, she realised. “This would be easier if you sat on my lap.” He told her. Coco couldn’t stop the smile that crept across her face. He was persistent. She let the comment go, closing her eyes to the feel on his hand in her hair and the brush strokes. It was hypnotic and alluring. She didn’t want it to stop.

  “Do you know how wonderful you smell to me?” He whispered in her ear. “How amazing it is, that I have been lucky enough to find you? In all the universe, in all the years, you were born in a time, that made this possible, and I was sent here to do a job. The mathematical odds on that happening, is far beyond most people’s intelligence. It is miraculous. A gift from the gods themselves.” He whispered throwing the brush to the bed and slipping both hands around her waist pulling her into him.

  A stranger she hardly knew was ho
lding her. She didn’t feel afraid, quite the opposite. She liked it, liked him, she realised. But was that enough to base a life on, with someone she hardly knew? No it wasn’t, her mind screamed. “How are you so sure? This could be a mistake.” She felt his chin rest on her head.

  “No mistake. I have nano’s in my blood stream. You will have them in yours now too. They do a few jobs, like minor healing, protect my circuits and data chips, they also, filter my blood and recognise what I pick up. They can identify a mate, a unique pairing match and make sure we know it. They balance the logic with the emotion.”

  “What if they’re wrong?” She whispered.

  “They are never wrong Coco. Since the Admiral, our Head of State, recognised his mate, they have been right every time.”

  Coco nodded. “Then I need some time to process this.” She told him. He could taste the honestly in her words.

  “I am driven by my need to join with you.” He told her equally as honest. “I cannot deny that, it has already started to dominate my thought processes. I will try to give you as much time as I can. You can choose to say no Coco but, I warn you, to reject this is a life decision. There will be no going back either way.”

  “I understand.” She nodded. A knock at her door interrupted them. Coco moved out of his embrace and walked to her door. Opening it, she found Dena with her grand-daughter standing on the other side. She was one of the community elders. “Hi Dana, everything ok?” Coco asked her.

  “We voted you in. You’re our spokesperson.” Dena told her. Coco looked on surprised.

  “Me? I’m no politician.” She told her quickly.

  “We don’t need a politician Coco, we need a leader. Your it.” The older woman told her. Coco wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t want another job. “Besides,” Dena went on, “your husband here, will make sure no one fucks with you or us.”

  Coco couldn’t have been more shocked if someone had slapped her. She took an instinctive step back. She wasn’t married, was she? Coco noticed the General came forward. “Agreed,” he told Dena, “tell your people to start packing everything up, you have 24 hrs to get things arranged, then we start moving things to the cave system Coco knows. That will be the holding position, until we can make sure the weather is not going to interfere with our engines. Then I will have my ships come down to pick up groups of 100 at a time. This is going to take a couple of weeks to get you all off with everything you will want to bring. So, you need to arrange the groupings and make sure everything, and everyone is covered. Anything that needs work to take apart, or pack up, you need to start a group on it now. Everything gets labelled. We will transport you, and all with your goods to my ship. We will be towing the one that crashed here.”

  “Some are saying they want to stay.” Clare, Dena’s grand-daughter told them.

  Abel nodded. He’d expected that. “We will be back in six months, if they change their mind, we can take them then.” Both women nodded. He opened his neuro net and called on Chas. He walked into the room. “This is Chas. You will work with him and his men to get things moving.” Both women looked a little afraid. Abel hated to see it on females faces but there were no other options here. These people needed to work with them and this was the only way. Time, would change their fear of them. He noticed the interest on the young females face as she looked at Chas. He knew that would make things easier. The young female likes you. He told Chas over his net. He saw Chas glance at the female. Do you feel the pull?

  No.

  Then you need to be gentle but firm with her if she pursues you.

  Affirmative. Abel had no doubt Chas would be. He was Cyborg, he now knew the difference between human attraction and the DNA pull, his brothers shared experiences would help guide him.

  Abel turned to Coco. “You ready to go? We have much to do to get that ship off the ground.”

  “I need to pack up my stuff.” She told him.

  “I can have one of my people pack everything in this room. Is there anything else?”

  Coco shook her head. “No General. Everything’s here.” Abel watched her look sadly around the room. His chest hurt.

  “Coco, you have to start calling me Abel. It’s my name. I am not ‘the General’ to you anymore.” She nodded absently looking around the room. Abel frowned. It was evident she wasn’t happy to be leaving. That worried him. If she did not understand how dangerous this world was and choose to stay, they were both lost. “We have enough men with us, we can take everything you need now if you wish. My men can carry it.” Coco looked over to him and smiled.

  “I’d like that.” Abel connected his neuro net to his men. Find packing boxes, creates, anything to pack my mate’s belongings in. We are taking them with us now. Find fresh supplies for our people for 4 days.

  Affirmative. Jebb responded.

  Unable to just watch her pain and anxiety, he walked over and embraced her, holding her close to him. Abel breathed in her scent. “My men will be back soon with crates. I’ll help you pack.”

  ***

  Chapter Four

  It hadn’t taken as long as she’d expected to pack her things. The Cyborgs had been careful around her. Made sure her things were packed well, and nothing got broken or missed. But still, within an hour it was done. That had made things worst somehow. Her life and that of both her parents and their parents and their parents before them, having so little to show for their lives. It just seemed so wrong. She must have looked so sad, looking around thinking there should be more, that Abel had asked her to show him the growing fields, to take her mind off it. She knew what he was trying to do and somehow, that meant a lot. She didn’t know how he’d crept into her heart, but she knew that he had.

  She showed him around the community, taking him deeper into the tunnels to where they had used the tunnelling equipment, to dig out large cavern spaces. Using the windows on a pully system, from their original craft, the original colonists had devised a way to let in the sun and air and be able to use the ground water source, to feed the crops. The soil was good. It worked well and they used the waste from the animals as fertiliser. As they needed more crops, they tunnelled out more space. Without the harsh conditions top side, they’d found the ground to be amazingly adaptable for cultivation.

  “This is some achievement Coco you should be proud.”

  “Like I said,” she told him, “necessity is the mother of all invention.”

  She told him of the early colonists. Who soon found they could grow all cereals, vegetables, salads, and fruits they needed, in fact anything that could be grown in the ground and they had seeds for, they’d grown. It was one of their successes. The animal pens had worked well too. They had small stock, pigs, sheep and chickens. It diversified their food sources and added to their clothing. If the weather was good, the pigs and sheep were herded up top, to enjoy the space and exercise. The chickens were crated up and placed in a pen, to pick at the ground and run about. Then they were all packed up again and brought back down. It was hard work on those that did the farming, but it was seen as necessary to keep the livestock healthy. It worked.

  There was nothing much for them to eat up top, but they’d found their version of the circle of life. Crops fed both them and the animals, animal waste in turn, fed the crops. It was the most basic of things. One depended on the other. From it, they were able to make bread and cakes, biscuits, jams and spreads, all manner of things. They had made the best of what they had, in extremely difficult conditions. She was proud of that and she told him. Proud of her family’s contrition to it the colonies survival.

  As they walked through the crops, she realised they would need cutting or up routing, seed stock taken. It would take up most of the time they had, before leaving.

  “We’ll need a lot of people on this, it will all need cutting and going with us.”

  Abel nodded. “I can bring down more men to help.”

  Suddenly the thought of leaving, left a sour taste in her mouth. It felt like giving up somehow
. She knew the planet was dying. They all did. The seasons were becoming harsher by the year. But so many lives had been used up, making it work. It seemed wrong to just let it go.

  ***

  They left the colony soon after. Coco trudged on behind Abel finding it difficult to have any joy in it. They carried fresh supplies to last them for several days at the ship, Abel was already talking about rotating his men in the colony and bring more down, they would bring resources down with them. She wasn’t particularly happy to find out she wouldn’t be piloting the ship after all.

  She’d come around to the idea, believing Bridget wouldn’t let her down. In some way it felt like she was letting Bridget down now and that seemed all kinds of weird. It was dumb and stupid to think like that, but she couldn’t shift the feeling, that after everything that had happened, it was a bit of a let-down.

  She opened her mind and asked to connect with him. She felt the welcoming response in her mind before she heard his words.

  My love, you wish to speak with me?

  Coco couldn’t help but give a resigned sigh. The man didn’t give up.

  Never, his voice fleeted across her mind again. She shook her head.