by Bianca D’Arc
He couldn’t help it, though. He was attracted to her. More than attracted, if truth be told. He was totally entranced, enchanted and enamored of Roxy. The smart, funny, sexy engineer with the soft heart and easy acceptance of his awakening.
He was about to throw caution to the wind and bend down to kiss her when she shocked him by jumping upward slightly so she could mesh her lips to his. He supported her weight easily, molding her to his form as she joined their lips and initiated the kiss he’d been thirsting for all this time. Since the moment he first saw her, if he was being honest with himself.
While the ship swooped and swayed, the two of them were lost in their own private world. The kiss evolved into a conflagration that burned bright, but only between them. He’d forgotten so much about how it felt to hold a woman in his arms and kiss her. He’d remembered some of his early experiences with the opposite sex, but all those foggy memories were faded with time and distance from the man he’d been then.
He hadn’t been altogether certain—when his feelings for Roxy first began to surface—that he could still function properly as a man. He’d been concerned about holding her too tightly with his cybernetic arms. He’d worried that she’d reject him out of hand because a lot of his parts weren’t original.
All for naught.
Based on her actions, she was just as attracted to him as he was to her. She gave herself completely to the kiss she’d initiated. She’d all but attacked him, unable to deny the passion between them, and he couldn’t be happier…or more turned on.
But when Roxy wrapped both of her legs around his hips and pressed herself to his hard cock, Chiron just about blew a fuse. He groaned and moved both of his hands to cup her luscious ass, holding her to him, grinding against her in the most delicious rhythm as their tongues imitated what he wanted to do to her.
“Damn, Chi, stop transmitting! You’re going to get us all killed!”
That silent transmission from the cyborg who was captaining the ship finally penetrated Chiron’s processors, and he broke the kiss.
“Sorry!” he gasped. “Sorry!” he repeated silently to all of his cyborg brothers. Damn. He hadn’t meant to let any of what transpired between himself and Roxy leak out onto the network that connected all cyborgs. “I didn’t mean for that to happen,” he said both aloud to her and over the network.
She tilted her head as she looked deep into his eyes. Her pupils were wide with desire, her eyes sleepy with passion. Dammit all. She looked so incredibly fuckable, right now. And utterly beautiful to him in every possible way.
“You didn’t?” She sounded puzzled. Then, her eyes narrowed as her expression changed, and a hot flush spread across her cheeks. He’d embarrassed her. Shit.
“No, Rox. No. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time. Since almost the moment we first met, I’ve wondered how it would feel to hold you and kiss you. I just… I didn’t mean for it to happen this way and… I’m ashamed to admit, I lost control, and a little of what we just did leaked out onto the cyborg network.”
“It what? The what?” Now, her face paled as his words penetrated. “You mean you all have some private way of communicating? I’d already guessed that. But they… They saw what we were just doing?”
“No. They can’t see unless I link in my optical systems. I think they just heard some of my baser thoughts about what I wanted to do with you.” If he could still blush, he would have been doing it, now. “It was an unforgivable breach of control, and I’m sorry.”
“You mean they all know we were…um…kissing…and stuff?” Color was starting to return to her cheeks, and the sparkle of humor in her eyes filled him with the beginnings of relief.
“Yeah, it’s the stuff I wanted to do to you that they probably heard. Sorry.”
She lifted one of her hands to cup his cheek and stroke along his jaw. “I think I’d like to hear about some of the stuff you had in mind, Mister Chiron.”
Seriously? His cock was going to explode if she kept talking like that. And that sultry little half smile was definitely going to be his undoing at some point if they continued this budding relationship.
“Chiron,” the voice of his friend and the Toby’s captain for this little jaunt came through his system, “if you could pay attention for a few moments to our life-or-death situation. We’re being hailed by the aliens.”
Fuck. Chiron stiffened and moved away from Roxy as gently as he could. He scanned the network feed and realized the aliens had been watching them for some time. They’d even sent out a small escort of sorts—which could just as easily blow them to kingdom come as talk to them.
“The aliens are hailing us,” he told Roxy, so she’d know he wasn’t ignoring her and that something important was happening.
“Oh, no.”
That was her only comment as she turned immediately back to the engine she’d been repairing and set to work as if her life depended on it. Which it probably did. Not that the engines of this old ship would make much of a difference against the alien warships, but at least it was something constructive.
Chiron followed the action on the bridge over the cyborg network. The captain—a cyborg who had, in fact, been a fleet commander before being injured in battle—was talking with the jit’suku commander, who seemed more curious than angry. They were demanding an image feed, which Captain Medeus had been trying to avoid. Medeus’s face showed more evidence of its mechanical underpinnings than most of the other cyborgs on board. He’d been one of the last to awaken, but he was known as a solid soldier and good comrade. He was also the most qualified of them all to captain a ship in space. Or a fleet, if they’d had one.
Medeus had only been awake for a few months and was still a bit unsteady on his feet, as it were. The memories of his former life as one of the military’s elite warship captains and leader of a fleet of ships were hard to reconcile with his existence since, as merely another cyborg soldier. He remembered the occasional run-ins he’d had with former colleagues and the looks of pity on some of their faces. They’d remembered the man he’d once been.
He hadn’t understood it at the time, but they’d felt sorry for him. A few, though… A few had taken pleasure in seeing him humbled. He wouldn’t soon forget their taunting—which had made little sense at the time, but now stood out in his memory like bright beacons showing him who his enemies in the military establishment truly were. Highly-placed people had wanted him stopped on his rise to the top. His injury had been a blessing to those who had wanted him out of the way.
His reincarnation as a cyborg had been thought nothing more than a strategic move. The military always needed more soldiers on the rim. He couldn’t command anything anymore, but he was still a body that could fight. His enemies hadn’t objected to his cyborginization. He wondered what they’d think if they knew he remembered…everything.
The comm crackled to life again with a renewed demand for visual comm. Gritting his teeth, Medeus ran the odds in his computer-modified brain. It took less than a microsecond.
“Does anyone have better intel on the aliens? Do you think they will object to our appearance and modifications? Will they see us as sentients or as machines?” Medeus posed the question on the cyborg network. No answers were forthcoming.
Finally, it was Chiron who answered him. “I think we have no other choice. Let them know what we are and gauge their reaction. But I would stress that we have women and children aboard. They seem to hold females in special esteem. Perhaps that will help.”
The communication with his cyborg brothers took less than a moment. Having made the decision, Medeus firmed his jaw with determination and nodded to the cyborg sitting at the comm desk. The visual channel was opened.
CHAPTER FIVE
Medeus took a moment to examine the alien. He looked very close to human. Philosophers and scientists had been arguing the probability that another major civilization in the universe could look so incredibly similar when their origin was many light years away in another galaxy enti
rely. Nobody had found an answer for the paradox, but the fact remained. The aliens looked a lot like humans.
What little they’d seen of the alien culture, though, was vastly different. For one thing, nobody had ever seen a jit’suku female. All the warriors humanity had come across so far had been male.
“What are you?” the alien spoke his own language, but the updated translation system recreated a reasonable facsimile of his voice speaking Standard—the language the majority of humanity used throughout the galaxy, though pockets of the base languages remained in various places.
“They call us cyborgs.” Medeus sighed heavily as his brothers advised him to lay it all on the line with the aliens. They would get no mercy from their human fleet. Maybe the aliens would be more compassionate. “But we are men. Soldiers and others who were damaged too badly to continue to live our natural lives. We’ve been altered. Fitted with cybertronic parts. But we remember our pasts, and we have vowed to fulfill our duty, protecting the innocent.”
“If you are soldiers, then you are not so innocent.” The alien commander looked skeptical.
Medeus shook his head. “Not us. The women and children left behind by the fleeing human fleet. They left many to die. We offered them an alternative. They are aboard this ship, and we are taking them to safety. It is to them we owe this duty.”
“We jit’suku understand duty and honor. I would like to see proof of these innocents. Have some of the females step forward so that I may speak with them.”
Medeus frowned but saw no alternative. He looked at Jason and the woman manning the navigation board beside him. She stood at Medeus’s nod and came over to the comm station.
“What the captain says is true, sir,” Billie Latimer, a young navigation student, said quickly, her voice strong but definitely nervous. “The other ships left without us, and there was nothing left to take us away from the station. The cyborgs offered us safe haven and waited for every last one of us to get to the ship. Some of the cyborgs even came to get those of us who needed help—like I did with my little brother. I couldn’t carry him all that way, and all the lifts had been shut down.”
“And yet, our comrades report there are still some humans left on the station,” the alien said, his tone still suspicious.
Billie snorted. “Idiots. Some people are just stubborn and pigheaded. No offense, sir, but given the choice between you and the cyborgs, I decided to take my chances with beings that at least had been born human. Even if they’ve been modified into something…else.” Billie looked uncomfortably around and met Medeus’s eyes. “No offense intended, Captain.”
“None taken,” Medeus assured her, nodding politely. He addressed the alien on the screen. “We did not feel it right to try to compel anyone to come with us against their will.”
The jit’suku warrior sighed, surprising everyone who could see the screen. Then, he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Some of the alien’s mannerisms made him seem almost human.
“Our leader thought the threat of death sufficient to make everyone leave the station,” the alien admitted in what sounded like a tired tone.
It was Billie who answered, letting out a short bark of rueful laughter. “Some folks are just plain stubborn,” she told the being on the screen. “We tried to convince everyone to come, but they were more afraid of the cyborgs than of you.” She paused moment after delivering an eloquent shrug. “You won’t really space them all, will you?”
“That is not for me to decide, thankfully. And even if I knew the answer, I would not tell you. Jit’suku warriors mean what they say. It is important you learn that lesson.”
“Then you will hold to your word to let us leave in peace?” Medeus chimed in, trying to get the conversation back on track. He needed to get some assurances here, if at all possible.
“Is that the fastest your ship can go?” Now the alien sounded impatiently weary.
“We are effecting repairs as we speak. Both drives had been dismounted for repair when we boarded. We are running on one drive, at the moment, with the second unit nearing test status,” Medeus reported.
“You have a drives specialist on board?”
“One of the female refugees. She was already working on this ship when we needed to leave and opted to come with us,” Medeus told the warrior.
“A female?” The alien sounded intrigued. “I would speak with her, as well. I will wait while you arrange it.”
In the engine room, Chiron had been following everything at the speed of thought. He turned to Roxy and found her hip-deep in the second drive unit.
“The jit’suku commander wants to speak to you,” Chiron announced, noting that Roxy didn’t pause in her work, though her shoulders jumped a bit.
“Why?”
“It seems they are feeling us out,” Chiron told her. “The commander already spoke with the female sharing the navigation station. Whatever the reason, if we can keep them talking, that means they’re not firing on us, so I’d suggest you speak with them, and be as nice as you can. We don’t want to piss them off.”
Roxy stuck her head out of the drive unit and rolled her eyes at him. “All right. Put him on the speaker.”
“He wants to see you,” Chiron said, shaking his head.
“Fine. But get a floater cam. I’m not dropping everything just to chat or this will never get fixed.” She ducked back into the drive, and he could hear her swearing under her breath. Maybe that was the way she dealt with stress.
With a quick thought, Chiron tapped into the ship’s systems and ordered one of the floater bots out of storage. It zipped toward him from the corner of the room. Each compartment had a small number of various bots stored in the walls. This unit could perform multiple tasks—the comm node it carried merely one of its secondary functions.
“Floater’s here,” Chiron said aloud for Roxy’s benefit, switching on the feed as she straightened from her work a second time to look at him. Then, she noticed the blinking red light on the little bot floating a few feet from her, where Chiron had ordered it to hover.
“Hello?” she said experimentally.
The little bot began projecting an image of a strange man. Chiron knew the jits looked damned close to human, but they were big mofos. Larger than most human males, though with his cyborg enhancements and natural height, Chiron thought he might be a match for them if he ever came face to face—or fist to fist—with one.
“Female. You are repairing the ship’s drives?” The alien’s tone made it sound as if he doubted she could. Chiron saw Roxy’s chin come up, and he hoped she wouldn’t say something that would make this alien decide to hit the trigger and blow them all out of the sky.
“I am a fully qualified ship’s engineer, mister, and a first-rate drives mechanic. I’ve been repairing drives—and all sorts of other things—for years.” She sounded belligerent, but so far, the alien didn’t seem to be offended. Chiron hoped their luck held. The old ship they were in had no weapons and only one functioning drive at the moment. They were sitting ducks.
The alien seemed to think over his next words. “You went willingly with the cyborgs? There was no duress?”
“None at all. I was happy to go with Chiron. He’s been my next door neighbor since I arrived on the station, and when the rest of those cowards left us behind, I was glad to go with Chiron and his brethren who promised to see us safely away. I trust him.”
She did? Chiron felt a tiny swell of pride fill his heart. Roxy trusted him. Somehow, that felt like…a gift. A precious gift.
“Who is Chiron?” the alien asked.
Knowing he had to act, Chiron stepped into range of the floater’s camera system. “I am Chiron. I lead the cyborgs of Eagles Nest Station.
“You are less altered than the one who captains your ship,” the alien observed.
“We are all slightly different. The replacement parts we got depended on our injuries and the needs of our military at the time.” Chiron didn’t think that
information could hurt them in any way, but he was still being cautious about what he told this alien.
“Did your people consider you more machine than man?” the alien surprised him by asking.
Chiron nodded slowly. “They reclassified us as Artificial Intelligences and stripped away all our rights. In their defense, for the first few years, we were not aware of our previous existences. The alterations our brains needed to handle the new hardware had a deleterious effect on memory and personality. We were more machine than man, at first, and I suppose they thought the condition was permanent.”
“But it’s not,” the alien finished Chiron’s thought.
“It’s not,” Chiron agreed.
What could it matter if the jits knew the big secret? They weren’t on speaking terms with the human military. And if they were about to blow away the Toby, Chiron wanted to make sure the jits knew the cyborgs were sentient beings, not robots. He wasn’t sure why that was so important to him at the moment, but it was. He’d been increasingly irrational—more human—since awakening, and his thoughts didn’t always adhere to strict logic these days.
“My people faced similar issues when we first started using replacement parts, as you put it, but our technology advanced more quickly, it seems, than yours has.” The alien held up his right arm and allowed his camera to show them that his arm was metallic, not flesh. “I was injured in battle some years ago, and this is not my only non-original part. I sympathize with you and your brethren to some extent because of it. I’m inclined to let you pass, but I would like more specifics about your ship’s repairs and expectations of power resumption.”
“I can help you there,” Roxy chimed in.
Chiron was glad she had. He hadn’t been prepared to find any common ground with the alien—especially not something like this. He wasn’t really sure what to say. Thankfully, Roxy occupied the man for several minutes, giving him technical specs for her drive repairs and how long they would take. She was able, after some detailed discussion, to give him an estimate of how long it would take them to be out of the system and far enough from the station to satisfy its new occupants.