by Susan Hayes
“You could say that,” Toro muttered as he took a seat. “How much do you know about the Resource Wars?”
“Twenty or so corporations started fighting it out for control of the resources in this part of the galaxy. When they couldn’t recruit enough soldiers, they decided to make them instead.” Zura gestured to the four cyborgs around her. “You guys are the result. By the time the war ended, there were only a few corporations left. Some of the remaining ones amalgamated, and now those few have enough power to be considered a ruling force on par with the galactic and planetary governments.”
“Gold star, gorgeous.” Luke leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“I still don’t understand what the war has to do with why Cyn is gone, though,” she said.
“Toro and I were created by a different corporation than your husbands. There was a time we were enemies. We were even on the same planet once.”
“Oh no. Tell me you weren’t on Dartha?” Luke asked.
Zura frowned. “Isn’t that the system where Dana…Veth. What are the chances?”
“I’m a professional gambler, and I can’t begin to calculate the odds, but I can tell you I would have never taken that bet. And I would have lost.” He sighed. “We lost anyway. When Cynder found out, she lost it. I understand why, but I thought we’d have a chance to talk to her today. We found a way to prove we weren’t anywhere near the location where Dana died.” He needed them to know they hadn’t been responsible. Hell, they hadn’t been on the same continent at the time.
“Only she left before you could tell her.” Zura sighed.
“Where did she go?” Toro asked.
Kit drummed his fingers against his thigh. “She wouldn’t tell us. At the time, I wondered why, but now I get it. She knew you two would go looking for her. We can’t tell you what we don’t know.”
They looked at each other in silence for a long stretch as they all tried to think of a way to fix this. Finally, Zura broke the peace. “I don’t know where she went, but if she left the station, then she had to book transport, right?”
“You think she’d go with the easiest option?” Luke asked. Jaeger felt like he was missing something.
“What’s the easiest option?”
“Phyl. Captain Phylomenia Harrington is a cargo jockey like I was, and an old friend. If Cyn was going to call anyone to get her out of here in a hurry, I bet she went to Phyl. Hang on, I’ll contact her.”
Zura rose from the couch and left the room to make her call, leaving the four men alone.
“Gigan-Corp, huh?” Luke asked.
“Afraid so. And you were with Vega-Axion. It feels like another life, you know?” Jaeger said.
“It was another life. None of us had any choice. Cyn knows that. She’ll come around.”
“She has to,” Toro said. “She’s the only woman I’ve ever imagined a future with. If she won’t forgive us…”
“Roses,” Luke said.
“Huh?” Toro replied.
“You’re going to need a lot of flowers. Chocolates couldn’t hurt either.” Luke continued.
“A bottle of wine, maybe?” Kit added.
Luke shook his head. “Not wine. Whiskey. The good stuff. I’ll grab a bottle out of the private reserve before you go after her. Don’t let her throw it at you, it’s fraxxing expensive.”
“You’re going to help us?” Jaeger asked. They could use all the help they could get, but he wasn’t sure Cynder would appreciate her family lending them a hand. After all, right now she thought of he and Toro as the enemy.
“You clearly need it. She’s been happy with the two of you, so yeah. We’ll help. She helped push us into going after Zura, so we’d just be returning the favor.”
“Any other advice before we go after her. I mean, assuming we can find her. The Drift is a big damned place.”
“It’s a big place, and she’s on the other side of it. At least that’s where she’s headed. I was right; she called Phyl and booked transport with her. Your runaway girlfriend is on the Beacon.”
Toro brightened. “You think she’s our girlfriend?”
Zura arched a brow. “Don’t you?”
“Well, we don’t use that word, but uh…yeah,” Toro said.
Zura stared at them. “You don’t use what word? Girlfriend? Is there some sort of cyborg malfunction where none of you are capable of normal dating? It took these two months to get around to asking me out, and the first time they did, Kit wandered off in the middle of it to break up a fight. Now, you’re telling me you’ve never even called Cynder, the woman you’ve been falling asleep beside every night for weeks, your girlfriend?”
“Well. No. We all agreed to take things one day at a time. It was Cyn’s idea.” Hearing it said aloud, he had to admit it didn’t sound as logical as it had in his head. One more thing they would be apologizing for. At this rate, he was going to need to make a damned list.
Zura snorted. “Of course it was. But you went along with it. When you catch up to her, you might want to talk about that.” She glanced at Luke. “Better make it two bottles of the good stuff.”
“Whatever it takes,” Jaeger said. He meant every word, too. He wasn’t letting Cynder walk away from them. He couldn’t. She was the one bright star in his dark sky, and if he lost her, he would be adrift in the dark again, and so would she.
“Good answer. She’s on her way to the Torex mining platform. Phyl didn’t know where she planned on going once she got there, but she’s going to try and find out. I’ve already called Royan and told him to start pre-flight procedures on the Sun Sprite. He’ll be ready to take off in an hour. Best you get ready.” Zura eyed them both. “Maybe start with a shower.”
A wave of gratitude washed over Jaeger. “You’re going to have your brother ferry us across the Drift on his ship? Just like that?”
“Of course. Cynder’s my sister, and you’re our friends. Go get her and don’t rush back. Royan can come back for you whenever you’re ready. If he’s on a run, I’ll get one of the other pilots to pick you up. The advantage of having a shipping company is there’s always a ride available when I need one.”
Toro got to his feet and walked over to Zura. “Thank you,” he said and wrapped her in his arms for a well-earned hug.
Three seconds later, both Kit and Luke were on their feet. “You’re welcome,” Luke said. “Now, let go of our woman and go find your own.”
Zura laughed, hugged Toro back, and then grinned at Jaeger. “Get going before these two forget the rule about fighting in our home.”
Jaeger rose and clapped Toro on the shoulder. “Let’s go, T. Thank you all so much. We’ve been more or less on our own since the day we were freed. It’s been a long time since we’ve had friends we could count on. Thank you. One day, I hope we can repay the favor.”
“We’ll talk about it once you’re all back here,” Kit said.
Jaeger wasn’t sure what Kit meant, but right now, he had other things to worry about. Like tracking down Cynder and convincing her to give what they had a second chance. It was time to put it all on the line and go all in.
* * * *
Cynder had wandered the length and breadth of the Beacon half a dozen times and still couldn’t settle in. She wanted to pretend it was because the ship’s worn corridors and battered walls reminded her of the years she had spent being shipped from one battleground to another, or that it was the Beacon’s lighter-than-usual gravity that had her agitated, but she knew better. Leaving the station, her club, and her family wasn’t sitting right, and neither was the way she left things with Toro and Jaeger.
It was done, though, and there was no turning back. She would take a few days off to relax, get her emotional baggage squared away, and then return home. Maybe by then Toro and Jaeger would have moved on, or at least accepted that things between them were done and over with.
And while I’m at it, why not wish for a diamond mine or a pony? If she thought they would give up on her so easily, she wouldn’t
be heading for the far side of the Drift right now.
She made another circuit of the corridors, eventually winding up back at the door to the cockpit.
“You going to pace the whole trip, or are you ready to sit your ass down and tell me why I’m awake at this unholy hour of the morning?” Phyl called out from beyond the doorway.
“I thought you cargo jockeys didn’t care if it was morning or night?” she said, stepping into the ship’s control room.
“Who told you that? No, don’t tell me; let me guess. It had to be Royan.”
“Good guess. How’d you know?”
Phyl chuckled, flipped a switch on her console, and then turned in her chair to face Cynder. “He’s too young to feel the effects of his hard-and-fast lifestyle, and he’s as cocky as his fraxxing father.”
Captain Phylomenia Harrington was one of Cynder’s favorite people. She hadn’t been out on the Drift long, but there was something about the older woman’s frank manner and hard-ass attitude that Cyn clicked with right away.
“I thought you liked cocky men? You dated Royan and Zura’s dad off and on for years, didn’t you?” she asked, aware she was waltzing into a minefield. Still, she would far prefer to talk about Phyl’s romantic past than her own.
“If the sex is good enough, a woman can overlook any number of character flaws…for a while. I was with Russ Watson for years, and believe me, it wasn’t because I liked cocky, arrogant, stubborn men.” Phyl pointed to an empty seat. “Since you’re bolting like a scalded peskin, can I assume the sex wasn’t good enough to keep you with your stubborn twosome?”
So much for avoidance.
“It was fun while it lasted, but I’m not looking for anything long-term.”
Phyl arched one dark brow. “Uh huh. Sweetie, I’ve been playing poker longer than you’ve been breathing. Please consider that before you try feeding me another line of bullshit.”
“Bull what?”
“Bullshit. Cow crap. Or as my great grandfather used to love to call it, codswallop. No, I don’t know what the fraxx that is, but it rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it?”
Phyl stretched out her long legs and fixed Cynder with a gaze that made her feel about three feet high. She briefly wondered if this was it would have been like to have a mother.
“No bullshit?” Cyn asked.
“Why bother? I’m not going to judge you, and whatever you tell me stays on this ship.”
“I found out they fought for one of our enemies during the wars. The ones that killed my sister.”
“You mean those two pretty boy toys of yours killed her themselves?” Phyl asked then shook her head. “They can’t have, or you’d have torn their hearts out and fed ‘em to them.”
“No, but they were on the side as the ones who did. They were even on the planet when it happened.”
“Huh,” was all Phyl said.
“What?” Cynder was starting to feel grateful she had come to consciousness as an adult with most of her knowledge and behavior already encoded. If this was what having a mother felt like, she might have gotten off lucky.
“I never took you for one of those. That’s all.”
She blew out a breath before asking the question she already knew she wasn’t going to like the answer to. “One of what?”
“A runner. When things get bad, people either run and hide, or they fight. I thought you’d be a fighter.”
“I’m not running,” Cyn replied through gritted teeth, not ready to admit to herself that Phyl might be right.
“And there goes my bullshit detector again.”
Her hand slammed down on the arm of her chair hard enough to make the entire thing shake. “I’m not running. I’m putting some distance between us until things cool off. If I were running, I wouldn’t be planning on going back.”
“You don’t actually think a few days apart is going to change anything, do you? I’ve seen the way those two look at you. If I could bottle that kind of attraction, I’d be living on a private planet somewhere instead of being an intergalactic delivery driver.”
“They were the enemy,” she repeated, but she wasn’t even sure she believed it herself.
“From what I understand, you were all pawns in someone else’s power struggle. You’ve said so yourself. There’s another reason you’re out here. Do you even know what it is?”
“It’s them.”
“No, it’s not. Re’veth, you’re almost as stubborn as Russ was. You sure you’re not related to the Watson family?” She snorted. “I guess we better hope not since your brothers are married to Zura. That would be…awkward.”
“A little, yeah.” She took a deep breath. “Do you ever regret not having kids, Phyl?”
The expressions that crossed the older woman’s face were priceless. Shock, confusion, and bewilderment slammed into each other like ships on a slow-motion collision course.
When the answer came, it wasn’t what she expected.
“I did have a daughter. Zura. She wasn’t mine by blood, but that didn’t stop me from loving her. I should never have let her drift out of my life. That’s my one regret. I let my issues with her dad get in the way of having a relationship with her. If I had been around, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten involved with that bastard Vin. He beat her so badly she woke up in a medical center, and I didn’t even know about it. I let her down.”
“But you didn’t have any children of your own.” It wasn’t the gentlest way to say what she meant, but she wanted to understand. More than that, she needed to.
“Is that what this is about? You can’t have kids?”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out. They were all locked behind the lump in her throat. She tried again. “I. No. It doesn’t look like I can. The corporations did something. They broke me. More than just me, actually. Three of us so far. So you see, I’m broken, and they deserve better than that.”
“You’re no more broken than anyone else in this screwed up universe. Even if you were, that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve some happiness. If you found it, hang on tight. It doesn’t come around often. Trust me on that one.”
“You make it sound simple.”
Phyl barked with laughter. “Simple? Fraxx no. Life is never simple if you’re doing it right. It’s messy and painful and stupidly complicated. The only things you’ll have when it’s over are fond memories and bitter regrets. The question you need to answer is what you want this chapter of your life to be. Memory or regret?”
“Is this what you did for Zura? Did you just parent me?” she asked before she even knew she was going to say.
Grinning now, Phyl nodded. “I do believe I did. Your first time?”
“It was. Frankly, I’m not sure I liked it. You’re either really good at this or you really suck at it. Either way, I guess I have a lot to think about, huh?” Cynder’s head was spinning, and she had a queasy feeling in her stomach. The same sensation she used to get after running headlong into a battle without thinking. Back then it would have been Dana giving her grief afterward for reacting instead of thinking things through.
A pang of grief hit her out of the blue. I miss you, sis.
Phyl got to her feet and opened her arms. “Hugs are also part of the parental nagging package.”
She snickered and moved close enough to give the older woman a hard hug, and she didn’t let go until the tightness in her chest eased up a little. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Anytime you need a kick in the ass, you can always come to me. I like to feel needed. You and your brothers have made me feel welcome at the Nova. It’s nice. Like I’ve got a home of sorts, you know?”
“Of course you’re welcome. You’re our friend. Hell, after this, I might promote you to our official den mother. I think we could use one.”
“I’m happy to help. You can pay me back with free drinks. Deal?”
“Deal.” Cynder released her hold on Phyl and took a step back. “Thanks again.”
“Anytime. Am I st
ill taking you to Torex?”
Cyn thought about it briefly, then nodded. “Yeah. I’ve already made a reservation for the night, might as well use it. I still need some time to work this out.”
“At least, you’re thinking now and not running. I’d say that’s a damned good start.”
Cyn reclaimed her seat. She had a lot of thinking left to do about what she wanted and how she was going to get it. For the last three years, her entire focus had been the club. Now the club was going strong, maybe it was time to find something new to focus on, like herself.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Toro was familiar with the Torex mining platform. He and Jaeger had spent a few weeks here when they first arrived on the Drift. It was one of the biggest stations, as well as one of the most active, out here. Most of the other stations adopted a twenty-four-hour day/night routine, but not Torex. Things never slowed down much here. There were always ships coming in with fresh loads of ore to be processed and offloaded. Shifts ran around the clock to keep up with demand and so did everything else.
The lower concourse was full of people, some of them working, most of them looking for distractions and entertainments of all varieties. Loud music blared from the bars and clubs, and brightly lit signs strobed in eye-piercing colors. The air was thick with the aroma of a dozen different restaurants and food carts; the strange combination of odors unified by the underlying scent of stale booze and hot grease. The constant assault on their cybernetically enhanced senses had been one of the biggest reasons he and Jaeger hadn’t stayed on the platform for long.
“Do you remember where we’re going, or do I need to call up a map?” he asked Jaeger.
“According to Phyl, she booked a room at the Corona hotel in sector seven.” He looked around and then pointed to a junction coming up on their left. “That way.”
