by Mina Carter
Grenades peppered the ground about them. They had to move, but Lyssa just looked at the man by her side. He was an Empath, one of the fleet’s bulldogs. Normally they didn’t go anywhere without a protective retinue and seventeen layers of cotton wool. She’d never heard of one putting themselves in danger. Most screamed and bitched if they got so much as a splinter.
Yet her Empath was on the front line with her, trading shots with an enemy they hadn’t expected, and still found time to flirt with her.
“Does Reilly know you’re operational?” she asked suddenly, ignoring the fire fight around them.
“Huh, what? Fuck no. He’d have kittens. Why?”
His answer was somewhat distracted as he took out a small group who were trying to flank them on the left. Something warm blossomed behind her breastbone at his words, but she didn’t have time to dwell on them. Rolling up onto a knee, she put down a vicious volley to cover their movement. “Come on, we gotta move…
“BUG–OUT, RETREAT!”
She gave the order to the rest of the section to disengage and hotfoot it out of there. Sometimes winning was about picking your battles and there was no way they were winning this one. Whoever this was had superior numbers and the same level of technology as the Arcadian group, despite the fact this planet was only had a grade–five tech level.
“Trees on the left, make for the gap.” She nodded with her head toward the nearest tree line. “Run like hell until you reach it, then lay down cover fire for me. On my mark, three…two…mark!”
JJ was on his feet and running without needing to be prompted. Even though she’d have liked to admire the fine ass showcased in his combat pants, she had to keep her mind on the job.
“Ohh no you don’t.”
Coldly she cut down any of the enemy who were stupid enough to try to take a shot at the running Empath. No one was shooting at her man…not whilst she had breath left in her body. He reached the tree line, sliding into cover with a move very like the one he’d seen her use earlier. A second later his rifle spat out deadly bursts, spraying the area the enemy had taken cover in with a blanket of bullets.
She didn’t waste time thinking. Taking to her feet, she sprinted across the open ground. There was always a chance someone would manage to roll out of cover long enough to get a shot off at her. Once that happened… Well, no one could outrun a bullet.
Lyssa thundered toward the tree line, neatly hopping over JJ as she went. Heading deeper into the forest would put their enemy off following them in. Two people were more mobile and easier to hide than a full section.
“Move your ass!” she yelled over her shoulder, but a quick glance revealed she didn’t need to worry. JJ rolled to his feet with the grace of a leopard and was running almost before she’d finished shouting. They dodged and weaved through the woodland, not slowing their pace even when the trees got denser. Gunfire followed them, bullets slamming into bark around them as they rebounded off the tree–trunks.
Ten minutes later, they both leant against the trunk of a large tree, breathing heavily after a hard chase through the woods.
“You think they’re gone?”
Lyssa tried to be lady–like as she gulped air and failed miserably. Gods, she was getting slower. Either that or their pursuers had been cyborgs. They just hadn’t let up. They’d hounded the two Arcadian crewmembers, trying to herd them toward god knew what.
Leaning her head back, she listened hard. She closed her eyes and let everything else fall away. There was no one who did stillness like a Telatian. It was the snake influence. Originally human colonists, no one…not even the Telatians themselves, knew how their DNA had been altered. It was as if the planet itself had changed them so they could survive.
She dropped through layers of consciousness, opening the senses that weren’t human. Hearing bolstered something else and her mind expanded. She felt the tree they were leaning against, the ground under her feet and the man next to her.
A small rumble of pleasure rolled through her as her instincts wanted her to linger on him. Who was she kidding? All she wanted to do was wrap herself around the warmth of his body and stay there forever.
With determination, she pushed on, moved her thoughts away from him and started searching. Perhaps because her race—no longer considered human because of the DNA shift they’d suffered—came from an arid, desert planet, her abilities were all focused around finding water. Not much help in a leafy, green, well–watered forest…except most humanoids were ninety–percent water.
Her mind wandered outward. She ignored the cluster of small animals under a bush a couple of trees to the left and the trickle of a stream just beyond them. She wasn’t looking for cool water or the small concentrations the mother animal and her young created. She was after something bigger. Hotter.
Her mind collided with a source of water and she stilled. Waving her hand, she warned JJ to be quiet. She probed the source carefully. Humanoid, it was a couple of hundred meters or so away, just sitting there. Like it was watching them. Waiting.
“What?” JJ’s voice breathed across her neck. She shook her lips a little, her eyes still closed as she tried to work out more about what they were dealing with. It was no good. There was nothing for it. She was going to have to probe the water within it. Taking a deep breath, she reached out mentally and slid past the being’s skin and into the blood.
A second later she re–emerged, gasping and feeling like she was burning up. “Cyborg!”
“Crap.”
JJ stiffened at the mere mention of the inhuman killers. Originally a super–soldier project, some of them had escaped, liberated the others and since then they’d harassed civilization. They were a right royal pain in the fleet’s ass.
“Back there, two hundred meters.” Lyssa whispered back, her skin pale under her cam paint. “It’s just sitting there. Not moving. Not sure it’s even breathing.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t have to be. They’ve got expanded functions for hostile environments. Show me where?”
Holding his hand out, he waited for her to take it with baited breath. As tests went, this was the big one. Talking increased the likelihood the thing would hear them and realize they were onto it, so it made sense for him to pick the information directly from her mind. Because she was part–Telatian though, she would have to drop all her mental shields and actively allow him in. Once those guards were down he could rifle through her mind at will.
She looked at him. For a second JJ saw the battle raging, reflected in the turmoil in her amber eyes. She nodded and slid her fingers into his. Relief shot through him and he released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. If she’d refused, even with so much at stake, then he would have known there was no point harboring any hopes for their on–going relationship. Even now he worried the only reason she was letting him in was because of the mission.
Putting that aside, he smiled his thanks and slipped past her lowered guards and into her mind. He’d never linked with even a part–Telatian before and the difference between Lyssa’s mind and a pure–blooded human mind was marked. Where in a human there was fuzziness and random chaos chasing over the surface level, Lyssa’s mind was calm and focused.
Fascinated, JJ took a second to look about, telling himself that he had to be comfortable with how her mind was set up before he started to probe her memories. Her primary thoughts were concentrated on the cyborg watching them and getting back to the ship in one piece. Just under them, in separate little areas but all running concurrently, were more thoughts. Concerns about her team, suspicions about the cyborg team that had attacked them and thoughts of her growing feelings for him.
She had feelings for him! Even though he desperately wanted too, JJ respected her privacy and the trust she’d placed in him by allowing him unfettered access to her mind. Pulling back, he concentrated on the main thought thread and picked up the memories of her last couple of minutes.
Fascinating. She seemed to be able to seek out
any source of water, including that contained in any vessel, such as a body. The fleet had long tried to work out how the Telatian abilities worked, but had never been able to get one to co–operate on this level. It would make a fascinating paper and might just secure his name in the… JJ cut off that thought and concentrated.
He watched as she tested the creature’s blood, feeling the fire and tasting the metallic tang just as she did. Cyborg, definitely cyborg. What class though, he wasn’t sure. Hopefully something like a Leo or a Sagittarius. Even though they were bigger and more violent, they didn’t have the sophisticated mental firewalls of the smaller Cancer class. A super–computer on legs, there was no way he could take one down.
Marshalling his thoughts, he projected a plan to Lyssa, feeding it directly into her mind. Her eyes widened. Obviously it was the first time she’d received any information telepathically. An absurd sense of male triumph filled JJ. She was older than he was, so he hadn’t been her first lover. At least he could be her first in this. The first to initiate her into mental contact. Her mind was certainly set up for direct communication…so neat and controlled.
The thought of bedding her whilst linked hit him. Of course, influencing a human during sex by feeding information into their chaotic brains was a common method employed by Empaths. But a true link was a meld of both minds, with both partners feeding equally to the other.
It was a practice whispered about in the Empath halls…something almost forbidden. JJ had only experienced it twice, with others of his kind. He hadn’t found a non–Empath capable of the link. Until now.
“When you’re ready, Kitten,” he breathed, brushing a kiss against her forehead and levering himself to his feet without a sound. Either this was going to be the most foolhardy thing he’d ever done and would get him killed or he’d be hailed as a hero. He really, really hoped it was going to be the latter.
6
He was nuts. Cute, but fucking nuts. Lyssa shook her head as JJ slid from behind the tree and disappeared into the undergrowth. Only an insane Empath would come up with a plan to take on a rogue cyborg. Usually the only plan that worked against a cyborg was running like hell.
Deliberately she took deep breaths and slowed her breathing. If she was going to pull this off and give JJ the chance he needed, then she had to be calm and centered. Calm and centered? Her inner voice mocked. You’re going up against a homicidal part–man, part–machine designed to kill and you want calm and centered? Get real, girl!
Lyssa gritted her teeth and put those thoughts out of her head. She was a marine. Marines always got the job done, no matter what it was. So she was taking orders from a commander, if that’s even what JJ actually was, but it made no difference. There was no way they were getting back to the ship with that thing on their tail, which meant the new mission was getting rid of their little cyborg friend.
Body humming with determination and her mind on nothing but what she had to do, Lyssa slipped from cover with less than her usual finesse. Every third footstep was a little heavier than normal and she cracked a couple of twigs for good measure as she circled the opposite way to JJ.
She felt, rather than saw, the thing’s attention shift onto her. An itch developed between her shoulder blades as she crept forward and all her instincts screamed at her to run, get out of there. She hadn’t survived so many years in the field by being stupid, and this plan was so bloody stupid, it was insane.
You distract its attention long enough for me to get close. I’ll put it out mentally.
She shook her head to herself again and padded closer. Flitting from cover to cover, she worked her way toward the cyborg as though she didn’t know it was there. In truth, if she didn’t have the extra abilities of her father’s race, then she wouldn’t have. And if she didn’t have the backup of an insane Empath who was about to fry the cyborg’s brain, she wouldn’t have gotten even this close.
She moved another couple of meters closer and her heart rate doubled. Stopping as though she’d heard something, Lyssa concentrated on calming it. She didn’t need the fight or flight reaction to kick in too soon. Too early and her non–human physiology would purge the adrenalin from her system just as she needed it.
Twenty meters out she stopped. Her legs felt like jelly and her breath escaped her lips on short pants. In the war she’d fought both with and against cyborgs. Pisces classes usually, as they were the foot soldiers of the cyborg divisions. The other classes were more specialist; heavy-trooper’s right through to tactical super–computers designed to coordinate the battle efforts of hundreds of the things through direct link.
Come on JJ, do your thing, she urged mentally as she scanned the area around her with her rifle in high aim. Slightly out of cover, she was in the cyborg’s line of sight. It hadn’t taken a shot at her yet, but then she hadn’t expected it to. For some reason it seemed to be trying to take her and JJ alive.
And she intended to find out why.
Lyssa was doing a bang up job. JJ smiled and slipped out of cover behind the cyborg. It was a Leo class. That was both good and bad. Good because it wouldn’t have the sophisticated mental and bio–cybernetic firewalls of the Cancer class. Bad because, if it came down to a physical tussle, the thing could easily snap JJ in two.
His shields locked down tight, JJ padded toward his prey. People often thought that an Empath’s abilities were all about getting into other people’s brains and messing with their thoughts and feelings. That wasn’t true, not always anyway.
Empaths had other abilities, ones they didn’t like to talk about and that were different from one to another. JJ’s was the ability to conceal everything about himself so completely that he could stand on the crowded civilian deck of any station or ship and be completely unnoticed. People would walk around him, look through him, everything but realize he was right there in front of them. It was as if their brains didn’t recognize him as there, even though their eyes could see him plainly.
His eyes trained on the broad expanse of the cyborg’s back, JJ moved closer. He was attuned to any hint of movement. As long as it kept looking toward Lyssa he had a chance. If it turned around…the non–organic computer buried in its brain couldn’t be fooled by his mental trick and would raise all kinds of alarms. If that happened, then he was screwed unless Lyssa could get to him in time.
Another step closer and JJ broke out in a cold sweat. He’d never trusted someone as much as he trusted Lyssa in this instant. The realization floored him. An Empath’s life was often a lonely one filled with political manipulation and trying to play your superiors to get the assignments you wanted. A game he used to relish, but now, abruptly, wanted no part of.
He took the last step and reached out. His hand latched onto the side of the cyborg’s neck and he drove his probe into its mind like a steel spike. Quick and deadly. Jumping in surprise, it started to turn, but JJ had already fed the universal deactivation code directly into its on–board implant. It shut down as though the plug had been pulled, falling into a heap…a rather large heap…at his feet.
Breathing heavily, he looked up as Lyssa crashed through the undergrowth to his side. Her amber gaze swept over the unconscious cyborg for an instant and back to him. Something inside him grew and blossomed as she swept a concerned look over him as though checking he was okay. She cared, she really cared. All of a sudden, the future looked bright.
“He’s out. It’ll take his on–board at least an hour to reboot after that shutdown code. You want to call the Arcadia to come and get us or should I?”
Even as he spoke, JJ sat down heavily and leaned back against the nearest tree trunk in exhaustion. Driving through a mind like that to deliver information rather than tweak memories and emotions that were already there was draining.
“I’ll try. Comms were down…” Lyssa nodded and tapped the comm–unit in her ear, then paused as she got an open signal. “That’s odd, they were down. Arcadia…this is Ryland. Three for immediate pick up at my location. Bring class four restra
ints. We have a guest.”
“You got one? Excellent, we’ll send the CFS Valkyrie in to pick it up for onward transport to the medical test facility at Bornas. It’s been a while since we got hold of a Leo, I want to see what kind of mods they’ve been making. Good work, Commander.”
On the screen in front of JJ, Admiral Reilly’s face was wreathed in smiles. JJ didn’t blame him. They’d bagged a Leo class cyborg, one the medical team on the arcadia had already established was a gen–one. Which meant it had extensively hacked and modified its base systems. The Combined Fleet medical staff had never figured out how they’d managed it and, thanks to him and Lyssa, they had some evidence to pick apart and test to find out how.
His expression didn’t alter and he inclined his head in acknowledgement of the admiral’s praise. It never did to let the powers that be know how you were feeling. About anything. There was a pause, then Reilly spoke again.
“And your other assignment? General Ryland…” He trailed off at the expressionless look JJ gave him. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the Admiral actually winced.
“The General is a hard woman and, as you know, part Telatian.” JJ’s voice was flat and hard. Despite his orders and his loyalty to the fleet there was no way he was handing anyone control over the woman he loved. JJ took a moment to savor that realization again, hugging the feeling to his heart and basking in the warmth it produced. “I’m an Empath, not a miracle worker.”
“You haven’t been able to seduce her. I figured as much. She’s an odd one.” Reilly nodded and sighed heavily. “Okay, you’re released from assignment. I understand you put in for a month’s leave recently, so I’ve approved that. Report to star–base seventeen when your leave is up. Reilly out.”
“Understood. Thank you, sir.” JJ nodded again, but the scene in front of him was already blank. Levering himself out of his chair, he walked through into the bedroom. He needed to pack, but instead he started to strip en–route to the shower. Perhaps under the influence of the warm water, he’d figure out a way to stay on the Arcadia.
