The resistance warriors they’d met on this ship were different, hardened and cold and untrusting. They worked as a unit, which spoke to her of years of fighting together, and lines of worry and grief were etched on their faces. Clearly, they had been through just as much as, if not more than her group had been.
Eventually, the door opened, and High Leader Ruith entered.
“We’re out of danger, for now,” he said sharply. “So it’s time to talk.” He came to a halt and his eyes met hers. “We’ve decided to begin with you.”
Fayelle glanced at the others. “Me? But I’m not—”
“Follow me.”
Mordjan tried to step between them so that she couldn’t leave. “Why her? You should be speaking to me.”
Ruith gave him an incredulous look. “You’re lucky we’re talking to any of you.”
Simban grabbed Mordjan’s arm. “Let her go with them.”
“Are you all right with this?” Mordjan asked, reaching for her hand.
“I . . . don’t know,” she stammered. She couldn’t get a read on Ruith, but she didn’t think she was going to be in danger if she talked to him. “I don’t think I have a choice.”
“You don’t,” Ruith answered dryly. One side of his mouth quirked upward, giving her a small amount of reassurance.
Mordjan took two steps forward so he and the leader were eye to eye. “Yes, she does. You’d better not hurt her. We’re cyborgs, and there are four of us. You don’t know how strong we are. Right now, we’re staying in here because we want to.”
Ruith’s eyes narrowed, sizing him up before slowly relaxing a bit. “She will be returned to you in exactly the same condition, cyborg. If she wants to be.”
He turned and strode from the cell, leaving Fayelle to follow.
Fayelle let go of Mordjan’s hand and hurried out after High Leader Ruith before he changed his mind. She honestly didn’t know if Mordjan had other abilities or if he was bluffing, but she didn’t want to give the cyborgs any excuse to use them if they did. She was still hoping the resistance could be a powerful ally for Aurora, and that she could learn about their technology.
The door closed behind her.
“She’d better come back unharmed,” Mordjan shouted through the door.
She heard him kick it soundly.
High Leader Ruith was in front of her, shaking his head and muttering, “Traako, what a temper. He’s in no position to be giving orders.”
“You really should talk to both of us. Mordjan and I are on this mission together.”
“Then you’re lucky we’re the good guys. The Ardaks would have tossed you out the air lock for showing up here with the enemy on your ass.” High Leader Ruith stopped abruptly, and his hard gaze fell on her. “And no, I shouldn’t be talking to him. He’s a cyborg. He has a chip, and can therefore be controlled. You, however, cannot. Unless you want to be.”
“There are no Ardaks here except the ones on our side, right? So, no one can control him. I’m telling you that Mordjan is the one you want to question. He knows much more than I do.”
“What does he know?”
She shrugged. “Everything. I know almost nothing outside Garthurian, the outpost where I came from. It’s Mordjan who found the cure for the Red Death, who has the device, and who is planning the war.”
“Who is he planning it with?”
“King Tordan and the cyborgs, I think.”
“How many cyborgs are there?”
“I don’t really know . . . maybe around a hundred?”
He huffed. “What do you know?”
“Not much,” she admitted miserably. She was only just now realizing how little she knew about the mission she was on. She should have asked Mordjan more questions—should have set aside their differences in the interest of doing her job successfully.
The elf slanted her a look. “He seems a bit protective for simply a mission partner.”
Heat crept up her neck. “He’s just worried—our planet really needs your help.”
“The ARF has larger concerns than one planet.” The high leader ran a hand through his hair. “Jaffete. I don’t have time for this. I need information, and I guess the cyborg is the one who has it.”
He turned and stormed back to the holding room, yanking the door open and pointing inside. “Let’s go, tough guy. No, not everyone. Just you.”
A few seconds later, Mordjan emerged into the hallway and came to a stop next to her.
“Don’t make me regret this,” Ruith said, turning and brushing past them both.
Mordjan nodded slightly for her to go first, and then he followed, a half step behind her. Ruith led them to a small compartment at the end of the hallway, and when the door slid shut behind them, worry sat uncomfortably in Fayelle’s stomach.
“What is this place?” she asked, trying not to ring her hands together.
Ruith raised his eyebrows but said nothing as they began to move.
Mordjan grabbed on to the side of the moving cubicle, and Fayelle clutched at him and the wall at the same time. “What’s happening?”
Mordjan placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Never been in an elevator before.” Ruith shook his head.
“No,” Mordjan grunted as the elevator increased its speed and then wrapped an arm around Fayelle to steady her.
“Are we going into space?” she asked.
He chuckled. “No. Just to another level on the ship. One a lot less comfortable than this one.”
The doors opened again, and they stepped out into a different corridor. But this one had blackened walls and red splatters.
“Is that . . . blood?” she asked hesitantly. Her magic was channeling the recent pain and death that had happened here.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Yes. Welcome to the Ardak Resistance Force. We were just in a war on Velmar and barely escaped with our lives. Our med bays are full of injured soldiers, and we can’t seem to get ahead of the Ardaks.”
“Then wouldn’t it make sense to head to the one place we know the king is headed?”
“And where is that?”
“We already told you. He’s headed to our planet.” The muscles in Mordjan’s jaw clenched as Ruith remained silent and kept walking down the corridor.
“The Ardaks are headed to every damn planet.” High Leader Ruith pressed his palm on a scanner to the left of a door, and it opened. Inside was a room very much like the one they’d just left, with a long table in the center. Saara, IceBlood, and a human she didn’t know were already inside waiting for them.
High Leader Ruith pulled out the chair at the end and gestured for her to take a seat beside him on the right side of the table. Mordjan pulled out a chair on the other side of her.
“I’m Darion,” the human said with a small wave, after she was seated.
Ruith shot Darion a look that clearly told him to stop talking and turned to Mordjan. “What are the two of you doing here?”
“Like we said before, we’re on a mission to find the ARF, seeking help for our planet. Ouirer gave us the device that had the coordinates to find you, and we just followed them.” Fayelle recited the words automatically, trying to cut through her nerves.
“Tell us what happened on your planet,” Darion said. “Beginning with its name.”
“The name of our planet is Aurora, but the elves who inhabit it are from the homeworld, Melamar. We were stranded there when the portals closed and haven’t had contact with any world outside of our own since our portals stopped working. A little over a year ago, the Ardaks invaded.”
“Another outpost?” Ruith shot a dark look at Saara and IceBlood. “How in the hell are the Ardaks finding them all?”
Saara simply shook her head.
Ruith turned back to Fayelle. “What is your magic—what do you do?”
“I do all kinds of magic, but my specialty is earth magic. I was the head healer, and am trying to incorporate technology as well.”
“And how di
d you fall in with a group of cyborgs?”
“The cyborgs, including Mordjan, helped us defeat the Ardaks and brought us back the cure for the Red Death.”
Ruith’s gaze fell on Mordjan, and he raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yes,” Mordjan said in a low voice. “I don’t know what you know of cyborgs, but we aren’t evil. We are from the realm of Siirti, and when the Ardaks invaded Aurora to look for crystals to power their technology, our realm was the one they conquered. There was a huge force for the initial invasion. Thousands, at least,” Mordjan explained. “Once they had captured and enslaved us, most of them left.”
“It’s all right.” The high leader looked at him with something like empathy in his eyes. “I’ve seen it before. They come in, decimate almost everything, and then leave a skeleton force behind. Even if it was only a small force, how did you defeat them?”
Fayelle took a deep breath, choosing her words carefully. “One of the cyborgs fell in love with one of the elven prisoners, and that magic helped him break free of the chip. Then he was able to stop the crystal that was controlling the other cyborgs. The cyborgs and the elves worked together to defeat the Ardaks and drive them from the planet.”
This earned them a surprised look from the leader. “You’re trying to say that love broke the chip’s control over him?”
“Yes,” Fayelle replied.
“You must be mistaken. Perhaps the chip just failed.”
“No, it was definitely love,” Mordjan growled. “Whether you believe it or not. He said that every time he neared her, the chip’s hold grew less.”
“How did you get the cure for the Red Death?”
“We stole one of their ships and went to Baihu to find the cure. While we were en route, we ran into trouble and ended up in an Ardak prison. When we were in there, we met a man named Tristin. He gave us the cure and instructions for how to produce it.”
Chapter Eleven
Mordjan
Ruith shared a glance with Saara. “It can’t be.” He turned back to Mordjan. “You met Tristin?”
“I did,” Mordjan said with certainty. “He introduced himself as Tristin from Andala, and he was with two other men named Casin and Corin.”
Ruith blew out a breath and sat back in his chair, seemingly stunned. “I wondered why Aurora sounded familiar when it isn’t even on our star charts. You are the cyborgs who rescued the Tuorin princes from imprisonment on the Ardak ship ten days ago?”
“Yes,” Mordjan replied. “Although, I didn’t know they were princes at the time. Look, we’re on a tight timeline. When we left Aurora, we had only five days before the Ardaks returned, and we’re losing time right now in travel.”
“You think you’re on a tight timeline?” He pointed to the digital clock on the wall over the door. “We have twenty-one hours and forty-seven minutes to figure out how to defeat the two Ardak ships that tailed us through the wormhole and are behind us. If we don’t, you’ll never see your planet again. And neither will any of us.”
As Mordjan watched, the clock went from twenty-two hours and seventeen minutes to twenty-two hours and sixteen minutes. “If we continue on with you, there’s no way we’ll get back to Aurora in time.”
“I’m sorry, but that option went out the window the minute the Ardaks attacked. Even if I could slow to let you go, I wouldn’t. The Ardaks will target our ship the minute we slow, and they would blow away any smaller craft that tried to leave.”
Mordjan swallowed, finally accepting the idea that they were stuck here until they defeated the Ardaks chasing them.
High Leader Ruith stood and began to pace. “Even if we live through this, five days, a day, or twelve hours—which is probably what you’ll have left if we live through this—is too narrow of a timeline for almost any of our resources to mobilize. We’re fighting this war on over fifty fronts right now, and we aren’t having great results. To top it off, you just lost us what could have been our most valuable weapon.”
“What was it?” Mordjan asked, curious.
Ruith frowned, but told him anyway. “A new, long-range EMP device. It should have worked on a planetwide scale using the planet’s magnetic field, which would have given us a huge advantage against the Ardaks. But of course, we couldn’t test it until our own ships were shielded against it, and the retrofit cost us a couple of days. We’d just finished the shields and were going to finish final checks on the EMP device tomorrow. But now it’s gone. There was no time to retrieve the device when the Ardaks attacked. But at least we have some shields.”
“I’m so sorry,” Fayelle said.
Mordjan knew she probably didn’t know what an EMP was, but clarifying it to her at the moment might undermine her position with the ARF.
“So are we, but it isn’t just that. Now that the Ardaks have it, they could potentially fix it and use it on us.”
The gravity of the situation was not lost on him. “I know you’re fighting the Ardaks on a lot of planets, but Aurora is different. The king himself is going to join the battle. If you want to stop him, Aurora might be the place to do it.”
Ruith leaned forward, looking directly at Fayelle. “Look, we trust you. We want to believe you, and we’d like to catch the king on your planet and be done with this whole war.” Then his eyes went to Mordjan. “But with cyborgs, it gets difficult. The chips make them easy to control, and we’ve seen them do horrible things—torture, maim, kill. And the Ardaks are making them stronger with each iteration.”
Fayelle was quick to defend them. “That may be true for the ones you’ve met, but that isn’t true for the cyborgs from Aurora. I’ve worked with them, and aside from the nightmares and anger, they are all good males, and free of the Ardaks’ control. Most of them aren’t aware of any special powers, or they would have used them against the Ardaks. All I’ve seen is increased speed and strength, some visual enhancements.”
“Have you reviewed the information on the device to see if there were any files on the creation of cyborgs?”
Fayelle’s eyes went to him.
“After we got it from Ouirer, we read as much information as we could, but I’m not sure what exactly what was on it. There are several copies being reviewed back home, though.”
Ruith’s mouth fell open. “You’re saying you were able to copy the device?”
“Yes.” Mordjan frowned. “Is that unusual?”
Ruith’s wrist device beeped, and he stood. “It’s extremely difficult, and we’ve never been able to do it successfully. If you give us the device, we can verify its authenticity. I will let you stay with it while we analyze it so you can also see what’s on it. The last one we recovered was two years ago, and we’ve dissected everything on it. Maybe we’ll find something new on this one.”
Mordjan could feel his body tighten. He didn’t want to give it to them. “Can we have a few minutes, please?”
High Leader Ruith’s wrist device beeped again and he looked down at it before turning to Saara. “Take them back to the holding cell. If they give us the device, let them go with it for processing.” Then he stood and strode out the door.
Second Leader Saara was slower, her expression skeptical.
Fayelle broke the silence. “I apologize that we lost you your most valuable weapon. I wouldn’t like us, either.”
The elf stepped back, crossing her arms and staring at them both. “Look, I don’t hate you, but we’re in the middle of a war, and we don’t have time to take on another planet. We definitely didn’t have time to lose that EMP device. I’ve been working on it for eighteen months, since we found it on the last device.”
So, it had been the elf’s personal pet project. Mordjan could better understand the woman’s anger.
“I can’t apologize enough,” Fayelle said consolingly. “Let us talk to the others and see if they agree to give it to you. Maybe there will be something on it that will help us.”
The elf nodded and dropped her arms, her body less tense as she led them thr
ough the door and turned left down the corridor.
As they entered the elevator once more, Mordjan wondered what the other cyborgs would say about giving the device to the ARF. He didn’t want to give it up, especially since it was their only bargaining chip, but his instincts told him that it could be useful in this war. They also told him that these people would help them if they could.
Although, whether they could, and exactly how much, was debatable.
Chapter Twelve
Fayelle
When they reentered the holding cell, the other cyborgs and Irielle all rose from their seats around the table. She was surprised by how relieved she was to see them safe.
Irielle immediately came over to her, taking her hands and warming them. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath and glanced back at Mordjan. “It was fine.”
“But the ARF is not exactly what we thought it was,” Mordjan admitted. “They are fighting a lot of wars at once, and that has left them spread too thin and under-resourced. The weapon they lost when they abandoned that planet was a planetwide EMP device that worked using the planet’s magnetic field.”
“I’ve read about EMP devices in the Ardak files. I guess that one of them can destroy all of the active electrical devices within range.” Nordan stroked his chin. “You’re saying they had a device that could have knocked out all electronic devices on a whole planet? No wonder they’re upset.”
Simban whistled. “It would have been incredible if it had worked.”
“Right, but it didn’t. There are other complications as well. We can’t drop out of hyperdrive or the two Ardak ships following us will catch up with us. But we’re going to drop out in—” Mordjan checked the digital timer on the wall that was also present in this room “—twenty-one hours and thirty minutes. Ruith was trying to call for help, but I don’t know what will come of it. They are asking for us to give them the device, to see if it has information on it that will help us in this situation or maybe help us win the war.”
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