She knelt, following him to the metal walkway, her face filled with grief. Tears came from her eyes, tears he never thought he’d see again. “No, no, nonono!” she shrieked in his mind. The sound was more painful than the laser had been.
His whole body was going numb.
“My Aria . . . my heart . . . I love you.”
She cradled his face through the helmet. “But I just found you,” she cried, her tears splashing onto his face. “Everyone leaves me,” she sobbed.
He didn’t know if she even realized what she was saying, the grief was racking her entire body. Guilt overwhelmed him. He was supposed to protect her. After the deaths of their children, he had promised himself that he would never make her cry.
I never wanted to cause you pain.
He knew he was going into shock because his body was becoming numb. His eyes were still open, but he was having trouble processing what was happening. All he could see was her face.
I love you.
Chapter Twelve
Aria
Aria shrieked over their frequency. “Help! I need help!” She tried to control her trembling.
“Where are you?” Mordjan’s reply was quick.
“In the engine room. Take the blue corridor all the way to the end.”
Logically, she didn’t know why she was reacting so strongly to Roihan’s injury. But it had triggered something overwhelming inside her, a pain she hadn’t known she was capable of feeling. She was dizzy, nauseous, with pain beating at the back of her head where the chip was placed.
Somehow, he’d become her one constant in this new world—the one the Ardaks had lied about. The thought of never having his eyes on her again, never seeing the emotion behind them, made her want to die, too.
The emotion was threatening to overrun her processors.
She stared down at him, disbelieving, and suddenly she knew. Her mind might not remember him, but her heart did. This was her husband.
And he had just died to save her from the laser.
She tried to clear her mind, to think.
He was unconscious, but his body was still trying to suck in air through one of his lungs. He wasn’t dead. At least, not yet, so she had a chance to save him.
She grabbed him by the arms and began to drag him from the chamber, her grief giving her superhuman strength.
By the time she got him to the door, Valdjan and Mordjan were there. She ripped off their helmets, and when they took in Roihan’s condition, their faces turned grave.
“Fuck!” Mordjan’s eyes were hard as he looked down at Roihan. “Are you there, man?”
There was no response.
Mordjan slapped him—hard, and Roihan groaned. “Stay with us, man. Don’t close your eyes.”
“Let’s get him to the med bay,” Valdjan said. “Quickly.”
They took Roihan from her, carrying him between them as they all raced through the ship.
She led them down corridor after corridor and up several flights of stairs. Tears streamed down her face, and she brushed them away, trying to think of how to help him. She stopped. “I don’t know how to use the equipment.”
“You don’t?” Mordjan’s lips twisted into a frown.
“No. And the files on cyborgs are all password protected. I haven’t been able to crack it.”
Mordjan stared down at Roihan, who was pale, barely breathing with his other lung. “Then he doesn’t have a chance. We can’t fix him.” He looked up at Valdjan, who shook his head.
Aria shrieked again and sank to her knees, grabbing Roihan’s hand with her own, her heart shattering, her hope dissolving before her. It finally overwhelmed her and she recognized it for what it was. Despair. She’d been trying to push it down, but it bubbled up until it overpowered her. Tears slipped down her cheeks even faster.
She brushed at them with her hand. She could see the wetness, along with dirt and smears of blood. Roihan’s blood. Setting him down gently on the floor, she touched her forehead to his and scanned as fast as she could through every file she had ever uploaded into her own chip.
Then she stopped, her breath stalling in her throat and a tiny spark of hope igniting in her chest.
There was one way, it was reckless and dangerous, but it gave Roihan a chance.
Using the ship’s communications, she broadcast an emergency signal on every channel.
My name is Aria. My husband is dying and needs a medic. If there is anyone out there. . . . please help us.
Chapter Thirteen
Aria
Aria pressed her forehead to the floor, willing the universe to send her a miracle.
Several seconds later, the noise of an incoming call made her jump. She patched the call through to the ship’s speakers.
“This is Commander Fang. Prepare to be boarded.”
A shiver went down her spine.
“Fuck!” Mordjan yelled, his controlled anger starting to slip into uncontrolled territory. “Ardaks? We just can’t get away from these bastards!”
“What the fuck are we going to do?” Valdjan asked.
“Arm ourselves and hide.”
“Good thinking,” Valdjan replied, and they hefted Roihan and began to run for the weapons room.
Aria stared down at Roihan, thinking quickly. His eyes were still open, but she knew he needed a medic, fast.
The Ardaks would probably repair him . . . if she could convince them to.
But how could she convince them?
Her processor ran through scenarios, and only one stood the greatest chance of survival.
“Let’s get to the weapons room,” Mordjan said, hefting Roihan higher. “At least we can take a few with us.”
“Yes,” she agreed quickly. “We’ll need weapons.”
She turned her attention to the ship’s external sensors. There was nothing out there—yet, but by the time they made it to the weapons room, the Ardak ship had already appeared. It was about the same size as theirs. That didn’t comfort her considering their ship could hold a thousand Ardaks.
She was going to hope that this one held far fewer.
Valdjan stopped in his tracks. “Holy shit.”
Mordjan grunted. “Yep. We’re fucked.”
Not yet.
Its tractor beam locked onto them, pulling them in. She turned off the thrusters, letting their ship connect smoothly to the other ship.
She opened a locker and threw each of them a ray gun.
“Where are the explosives?” Valdjan asked. “I’d rather blow myself up than be captured.”
“Over there.” Aria pointed toward the corner.
But I can’t let you do that.
“Which one?” Valdjan asked from the corner.
When Aria didn’t answer, he turned back to her. “Which one?”
“I’m very sorry about this,” she said. Then she shot him in the chest. He fell backward, surprise in his eyes.
Mordjan didn’t even try to arm his weapon. He narrowed his eyes. “I told them we shouldn’t trust you. It was all just an act.” His gaze went to Roihan. “Damned fool—”
She cut him off with a second shot, which seemed to rouse Roihan.
Roihan raised his head. “What the—”
She grimaced. “I thought you were already unconscious.”
He shot her a look of betrayal, and her chest tightened. Then he started to struggle, so she did the only thing she could.
She shot him.
Chapter Fourteen
Roihan
Aria!
Roihan awoke, gasping for breath and grabbing his left shoulder, expecting to find pain. There wasn’t any. He could also breathe. Roihan ran his fingers over his chest and found nothing. Amazed, he checked his skin. There wasn’t even a scar.
What happened?
He remembered the Ardaks and shot straight up, hitting his head on a very clear, extremely hard substance covering him. Pain knifed through his skull, and he fell back onto the . . . mattress, closing his eyes.
He p
arsed through what he could remember. He’d been injured fixing the power to the ship and then an Ardak’s command had come over the speaker.
He shuddered.
And before they had boarded . . . Aria had shot him. As well as Valdjan and Mordjan.
Why would she do that?
His processor didn’t want to accept it, even though that was what happened.
He was still trying to reconcile what happened when the glass began to smoothly recede.
Fetid breath washed over him as a giant paw splayed over his chest, holding him down.
He tried to struggle, but there was a shot of pain through his entire body, and then he couldn’t move.
The Ardak examined his chest. “Vitals fine. This model is as functional as when first formed.”
“Put it in holding with the others.”
The Ardak nodded and lifted Roihan over his shoulder, carrying him out the door and down a corridor that looked suspiciously like the corridor on the ship they’d stolen.
Several minutes later, the Ardak tossed him into a cell. Literally. As he flew through the air, he briefly wondered if he’d be going straight back into the bed covered with glass.
Thankfully, he flew into Valdjan and Mordjan.
“Bastard,” Valdjan said under his breath. He helped Roihan to his feet.
Mordjan moved to the opposite side of the cell as quickly as possible, shooting him a dark look.
“Where were you? Did you see my brother?” Valdjan’s tone was high and thin.
“I’m not sure. Some kind of healing lab. And it happened so quickly I didn’t see anyone except that Ardak. Have you seen Aria?”
“Not since she fucking shot us,” Mordjan growled.
The feeling of betrayal filled him again. A deep pain born of anger and no small amount of grief. Could it be that she hadn’t believed him? He shook his head. He could have sworn that, when he was hit, she had reacted as if she did. It was the response of someone who loved him.
“I don’t know why she did that. It looks bad,” Roihan admitted. “But I’m still alive, and if they somehow fix Simban, then we might actually be ahead of where we were.”
“Except that we’re in a fucking Ardak prison cell. Aboard a fucking Ardak ship.”
Mordjan was clearly not happy.
Roihan was somewhat afraid to use their mental communication in case the Ardaks were watching the frequencies. He lowered his voice. “I understand how you feel.”
Roihan began to examine the metal walls and the metal door the Ardak had tossed him through. “What have you discovered about this place?”
“Not much,” Valdjan admitted. “We’ve only been here two hours.”
“Two hours?” Roihan stared down at his bare chest, stunned. “I don’t even have scars. How did they do that?”
“Who the hell knows what technology they have? They probably stole it from another race. Like the wormholes.”
“Aria said they didn’t steal the wormholes,” he muttered. “Has anyone tried to contact Aria over the frequencies?”
Mordjan snorted, and Valdjan’s brows rose. “Why would we do that?”
“Just in case she wasn’t working with the Ardaks.”
Valdjan’s face drew into a deep frown. “We don’t know if they are monitoring them, but even if they aren’t, her actions seemed pretty clear.”
“What do you remember?”
“She shot us and then she let the Ardaks in. She explained that she had overpowered us and that you two were broken. Said you should be repaired because you were valuable assets. Then she helped them bring us to this cell.”
Roihan’s brows furrowed. So if all that was just an act, his wife was out there with the Ardaks, pretending to be one of their cyborgs. And if it wasn’t an act, contacting her would be suicide.
“All right. Let’s try to figure something out about this place. We need to break free.”
Chapter Fifteen
Aria
Aria took a deep breath and connected to the ship. Since she had boarded, the Ardaks had watched every move she made, and that hadn’t changed. Every Ardak in the lab was watching her, and if she made a wrong move, her life would be forfeit.
She was extremely lucky they were having difficulty with the system interface, allowing her the opportunity to connect.
“Remember,” the captain growled at her, “we just want you to fix the interface and get out.”
“Understood,” she replied in her most even, emotionless voice.
She closed her eyes. She wanted to do this. She needed to. But connecting to the ship’s system was a two-way process. While she could read some of the ship’s “personality,” it could also read some of hers. And she’d never had to practice holding back before.
Don’t panic. This is what I was made for.
She had to get in and fix the interface and make arrangements to free the others and form their escape at the same time.
She was afraid that if the ship knew what she was planning, it would try to stop her like CXV1 had.
But she had to do it.
She tentatively reached out to the ship.
“Who are you?” the AI asked, its voice curious.
“I am Aria.”
While she introduced herself to the ship, keeping it busy, she was already making changes to the system with her other processors. She was lucky that DeathWatch had modified her to perform multiple tasks at once. If he hadn’t, she never would have been able to do it.
She went into the most recent files, searching for the time after General Slash had marched. She wanted to be sure one last time that the Ardaks were the enemy before she betrayed them. Just in case.
There she found that this was one of the ships that had brought the Red Death to Aurora. Their orders were clear: drop the Red Death. Wait six months and then go back and steal whatever crystals they could find. She couldn’t believe that was the plan. That they would drop the Red Death on innocent people just to get some crystals.
Being back aboard an Ardak ship had been difficult for her. She could remember her pride at accomplishing her tasks, being the perfect cyborg.
But after seeing their real plan, she was filled with anger.
It was all a lie. They were never saving planets and sharing their technology.
Closing the files, she shifted her processing power to the mission.
Just before the change of watch tonight, the prison cells would open, and the tractor beam to their ship would shut off. If they were stealthy enough, they might be able to get away without the Ardaks being any wiser for several minutes. Which was all they would need to hide somewhere in space.
She searched the prison cells for her cyborgs and found them. But she found something else, too. Other prisoners simply labeled: Tuorin Rebellion.
She sent the command to free them, too.
A paw on her shoulder made her open her eyes. Three Ardaks were standing just in front of her.
She nodded and squeezed her eyebrows together in concentration as she gestured to the monitor on the far wall. “I’ve almost got it—there. Try that.”
The captain went to the interface and tested it, his face clearing. “Good work, cyborg.” He nodded at the others. “Find other things that need to be fixed. We’ll report that we have her, and she can fix other ships in the area, as well.”
Aria’s heart skipped a beat.
That would mean she would have the chance to find out more information, to sabotage as many as she could before she got caught . . .
“Keep the cyborg here and give it any other mechanics that it can fix.” The captain nodded to the head innovator and left the lab.
As she set to work fixing the pieces that were brought her—parts, weapons, and other miscellaneous devices—she thought about what she should do.
She wanted to escape with Roihan, but she knew Mordjan would be a problem. He clearly thought she had betrayed them, and even she could admit that was what it had looked like.
Two hours before shift change, she had come to a decision.
In two hours, she would set them free.
And then she would let them go.
Chapter Sixteen
Roihan
Roihan wiped the sweat from his eyes. They were against the door of the cell, trying to open it with brute force. It might have been impossible for normal beings, but they weren’t normal.
They were cyborgs.
“All right, one more time. Everyone lift and push.” He ordered.
They lifted and pushed in unison, and the door popped open.
“What the hell?” Mordjan asked, stepping through and looking back at the door.
“Yeah, I didn’t think it was actually going to work.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
But as they ran down the corridor, they realized the other doors were opening, too.
Aria.
He glanced at Mordjan, who grimaced. “All right. If I was wrong about her, I’m sorry.”
Just then, Aria appeared at the end of the corridor. “If you want Simban, follow me.”
“Hell yeah,” Valdjan said, sprinting toward her.
Other prisoners ran past them, some faster than should have been possible.
“Wait,” a voice came from behind them.
Roihan turned to see one of the other prisoners. He was tall, his black hair hanging in elaborate braids, and his eyes glowed purple like an elf’s. There was another next to him with blond hair the same style. “Who are you, my lady? Did you free us?”
“Yes. I’ve unlocked all the doors, and the tractor beams are down. Get to your ships as quickly as you can and depart.”
“Why are you in Ardak airspace?”
“Our planet was hit with the Red Death,” Roihan replied. “We’re going to Baihu for the cure.”
The man paused, his glowing eyes sizing them up. “My name is Tristin. I’m one of the princes of Tuorin. This is Corin. If you’ll help me find my cargo, I have the cure for the Red Death. I’ll give some to you.”
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