She recognized them immediately.
The one in the center flew directly down the center of the field, targeting Ardaks and obliterating them with cannons, shooting blue light. There were a few seconds between shots as he targeted the next set, but he was relentless.
Ardaks shot back at him, the burst from their ray guns bouncing off his exoarmor. He ignored them, continuing to fly and cut a path through the Ardaks. He was clearing the way for the others who were all landing in the thick of the battle.
She watched, stunned as the four cyborgs strode across the battlefield as if it were nothing. Each one of them barely flinching as they shot blast after blast at the Ardaks. Soon, there was a group of resistance soldiers following behind them, watching their backs and fending off any attacks that tried to sneak up on them.
For one moment, Mordjan’s gaze crossed the field, and she could have sworn it landed on her.
He’s come for me.
She’d imagined what it might look like when their upgrades were fully functional, but her imagination had never come close to this. Wings sprouted from Mordjan’s back, and when the Ardaks tried to shoot them or cut them with their swords, an energy shield around them flashed blue.
They killed hundreds in a few short minutes.
A yowling call went out over the plain, and the Ardaks began to retreat back to their ships, leaving the dead in their wake.
They are retreating!
Mordjan looked in all directions before cutting right and flying directly to her.
After he landed without so much as disturbing the dirt beneath his feet, he flipped up his visor and his piercing gaze blazed down at her.
When their eyes met, her magic roared to life. It burst through her, tingling through every part of her body and almost knocking her off her feet.
It wasn’t supposed to happen unless they touched, but somehow, she could feel their connection just through the power of his gaze.
Metal-covered arms came down, one hand wrapping around her gently and the other sliding beneath her so she was sitting in the palm of his hand.
He lifted her to him, and when they were eye to eye, she found her throat sealed tight. She could see the grief on his face. “I could have lost you.”
“I thought I’d already lost you.”
“You were always in my heart.” She swore she could feel the burst of love coming from his chest, almost like magic.
She laid her hands against the cool metal chest of his suit. “How are you doing this?”
“I made my choice. I cannot be a warrior without you.” He swallowed. “You are my hope.”
She closed her eyes, reveling in the magic for a moment. “You’re my mate again.”
“I was always your mate. And you were always my hope. Yet I cannot put my personal desires before my duty to my people or the people of Aurora. Will you be content with that?”
Somehow, him making the choice made it easy for her to make hers. “Our duty is to Aurora.”
His other hand came up to caress her face with one finger. “When I heard of the scale of the battle here, and that there were no more reinforcements, I was . . . afraid.”
She knew how much the admission must have cost him. “I, also, had my doubts today,” she admitted, surveying the battlefield below out of the corner of her eye. “But it was your technology that saved us.” She tried to smile, but he didn’t laugh.
“That’s not true. This force inside us, this power, whether we call it energy or magic, gives us the tools. But what controls it, what directs it, is us. We decide who we are. We decide what we do, and we decide who we love.” His gaze was fierce, his voice powerful. “I had technology, you had magic. But, in the end, it was love. If we let love be the greatest force in the universe, then love is what will give us hope. Then it doesn’t matter if we use technology or magic, the outcome is always greater. Technology, magic, love—they all brought me to you.”
There was a deep hunger in his eyes, and he drew her close, crushing her to his chest. He smelled like metal, and his skin burned hotter than she’d ever felt, but it was the fierce love in his eyes that brought tears to hers.
When he angled his face down and his lips touched hers, she knew he loved her.
Cries began to spread across the field as the men rallied in victory.
“It’s time to go home,” Mordjan murmured into her hair.
“Agreed,” she said, laying her head against his chest.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Mordjan
Mordjan surveyed the battlefield, taking in the bodies of the dead and the destruction that seemed absolute. It would take them years to rebuild.
Several of the medics and healers decided to stay with the supplies and continue patching up the wounded, but Second Medic Zaleria and Fayelle were coming back with him.
His first priority was to find out why Simban had reacted badly to the cannon. Then they had to finish upgrading the cyborgs, which was something they could do while they made their way back to Aurora. He felt the muscles in his chest constrict at the thought that the Ardaks were going to attack in less than two hours—and they weren’t going to be there. But they were all alive—and they were taking back a greater power than when they had left to fight the Ardaks. If Tordan could just hold on, just survive, they would be back in less than a day.
Mordjan hoped Ruith wouldn’t be too angry once he realized that he had saved the medics and proven the exoarmor in battle. Maybe the high leader would let him ask one or more of the others to come with him, back to Aurora for the attack.
As they crossed the field to his ship, one of the humans approached him. He was older and looked almost haggard. It was obvious the battle had taken its toll on him. “Mordjan?”
“Yes?”
“My name is General Foxsoon. On behalf of the people of Belavia, I want to thank you for saving us.”
“It was our duty,” Mordjan replied.
The man held out his hand, so Mordjan gripped his arm in a warrior clasp.
The man shook it awkwardly. “I understand there are other planets under attack. Once we’ve cleaned up here, I’d like to send some soldiers to help you wherever they are needed. As long as the Ardaks don’t come back, of course.”
Mordjan paused. He’d never considered that the people of Belavia would want to send soldiers to help in return. “Do you have any you’d want to send now? My own planet will be attacked shortly, and we could use whoever you’re willing to spare.”
The general’s tired gaze perused the field. “Give me fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you, General Foxsoon. You don’t know what this means to me.”
The general shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. You just saved us all. It would be a travesty not to help you in return. I’ll have the men meet you at your ship in fifteen.”
Mordjan sent Simban to prepare the ship for takeoff, and he and the others began rounding up Ardak weapons. They piled the ray guns and swords they could find into empty crates and then loaded them onto the ship.
True to his word, in fifteen minutes there were at least a hundred men ready to board the ship. They had their own weapons—human weapons, but many of them had followed Mordjan’s and Simban’s lead and grabbed ray guns and swords from the fallen Ardaks.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. “Please enter the bay, and follow Chihon to the front of the craft.”
Chihon waved so everyone knew who Mordjan was talking about, and the men filed in silently, some shaking his hand, all obviously exhausted. No matter how battle-worn they looked, each was a high caliber of soldier and walked with his shoulders straight and his head held high. The humans were physically smaller than his people, but they were muscular and wiry, and he’d seen them move quickly enough in the battle here.
When the last was on the ship and Simban had secured the last crate, Mordjan pressed the control to close the door.
“Let’s go home.”
The End
Or is it?
Mordjan and Fayelle are together forever, but how long will that be?
For our heroes to succeed, several more pieces need to fall into place.
The elves need the use of their crystals, the cyborgs need to finish their upgrades,
and all of Aurora is looking for a miracle . . .
The Ardaks have not been quiet—and if you want to see what they’ve been up to,
steel yourself and read what happens next . . .
Epilogue
Mordjan
The ship lifted off, still within the atmosphere of the planet, Simban performing final checks before they went back through the wormhole to the rebel ship.
Mordjan contacted Ruith over the com, broadcasting it through the control room so everyone could hear it. “We did it, Ruith. We’re coming back, and we’re bringing a hundred hungry and weary soldiers with us for the battle on Aurora.”
“What?” he cried. “I can’t believe it! I was wrong, and I’m sorry,” Ruith replied. “Never mind, I’m not sorry, I’m ecstatic. But about that battle on Aurora, before you left I’d been coming to find you because we found information on that Ardak ship that changes things.”
“What information?”
“You’d told me that Simban said the Ardaks were coming ten days from when he found this information – so at this point, you had only five days left. But the number we saw on there was jangxi, not jangshi.”
“And that would mean the days would multiply by three!” Mordjan exclaimed, looking across the control room at Simban.
The other man’s expression grew embarrassed. “It is possible I read it wrong.”
“That would be easy enough to do,” Ruith said kindly. “It’s only off by one letter.”
And Simban’s chip hadn’t been working at full capacity, but Mordjan didn’t feel like sharing that with the resistance. Let the past stay in the past.
“So at this point, rather than the Ardaks attacking today, by my calculations, you actually have twenty-two days left. Although I have to warn you, from what we’ve seen, they tend to attack early.”
That didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they still had time to get back before the attack. Hope rose in his chest. They had more time to prepare and upgrade the cyborgs, who would be able to fight unlike anything he’d ever seen, and a hundred extra warriors.
And he had Fayelle beside him, who had accomplished her own mission of learning about the integration of magic and technology through the fires of firsthand experience. Her golden eyes were looking at him as though she still couldn’t believe he was there, and he couldn’t wait to get her alone again to prove that he really was her mate once more.
They strode to the enormous window at the front of the ship, taking one last look at Belavia below. As they stood there, the largest Ardak ship he’d ever seen came into the atmosphere and hovered just above the battlefield.
“Ardak ship ahead, everyone hold on,” Simban said over the ship’s coms.
The Ardak ship ignored them and, as they watched, a red light came down from the ship and covered the entire landmass.
Then everything in the light seemed to explode, turning to fine dust. People, weapons, buildings, and even the nearby mountain evaporated in the blink of an eye, leaving the atmosphere of the planet flickering with flame in front of them.
“Get us out of here!” Mordjan ordered Simban, watching the flames come toward the ship.
There was a stunned silence as Simban kicked the ship’s thrusters into reverse. The Ardak ship turned to face them and Mordjan turned up the engines to full power.
“Now!” he shouted over the frequency, and Simban spun the ship as they reversed so they shot off in the opposite direction.
“Hang on.” Simban directed their ship through the wormhole, and they emerged on the other side, heading for the resistance ship.
“Do you think they’ll follow us?”
“I sure as hell hope not,” Mordjan said. “One blast from that thing . . .”
Then all they heard were screams as the men finally processed what they had seen. Battle-hardened warriors fell to their knees in grief, crying for their loved ones.
Fayelle’s face streamed with tears, and he pulled her into his arms and held her steady as she swayed on her feet.
“What the fuck was that?” Simban shouted, so distraught he obviously forgot to use their frequency.
“A direct energy weapon,” Jovjan informed them. “I’ve never seen one used before.”
“Shall we go back and see if we can help them?” Mordjan asked.
Jovjan shook his head sadly. “Our ship wouldn’t take the heat from the atmosphere, and I don’t want to risk running into that ship if it’s still there. Let’s reconvene with the resistance and then we can send ships back when it’s safe.”
“All that work. And we’d saved them,” Fayelle whispered against his chest.
“We couldn’t have stopped that,” he told her. “Nothing could have stopped that.”
With their upgrades, he’d been so certain that they would have the upper hand. So certain that if they had more cyborgs, they would be able to fight the Ardaks on an even playing field.
But after seeing that weapon, he realized that once again, the Ardaks were one step ahead.
He held Fayelle close, listening to her sob into his chest and thinking about what Valdjan had told him about how the Ardaks used to be.
At this point, it didn’t matter how they were or whose fault it was.
The Ardaks had to be stopped.
They aren’t going to win, sweetheart, I promise you that.
They might have begun this war, but we cyborgs are going to finish it.
Did you enjoy Mordjan: Cyborg Warriors Book 5? Please feel free to leave a review here so others can discover this work.
And you can preorder Durstin: Cyborg Warriors Book 6 here.
Author’s Note
Thank you so much for taking the time to read Mordjan. He’s been one of my favorite characters since the beginning of the series. I feel that more than anyone, he felt the most personal and professional failure during the invasion.
His story, and Fayelle’s, are the illustration that it isn’t how many times we fall, but how many times we get back up that matters. And although their battle isn’t over yet, I feel confident that they are both in a better place to pursue it.
As always, I hope that you loved reading this book as much as I loved writing it.
All the best,
Immortal Angel
About the Author
Immortal Angel’s first true love was Han Solo – of course, that was before she discovered she wasn’t really a princess. But from that heartbreaking realization came a lifetime love of reading and watching science fiction, fantasy and romance. Once she began to write, those translated into epic adventures that cross time and space, with a little romance thrown in for good measure!
Immortal Angel loves to hear from her readers, and of course, she wants to hear from you! Feel free to contact her by any of the methods below:
E-mail: [email protected]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/immortalangelwrites/
Website: http://www.immortal-angel.com
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