by Mina Carter
“Never talk to the doc like that ever again.” Harper’s growl was low and malevolent as he stepped forward, a big metal arm holding Drew back from tearing the major apart. He stomped across the deck plating to stand in front of Lewis, looking down at the smaller man. Of all of them, Josh Harper—85—was the most recognizable cyborg with visible implants and mounting points that made him look like a tank… and he’d been a big bastard to start with.
Lewis paled as Harper glared down at him, his ocular implant creating a blue glow over the guy’s face. Rich held back his chuckle. Harper had done that on purpose. There was no need for that light to be active at all.
“I’ll escort the lady back to her father,” he growled, turning his head mechanically—again, on purpose, since they’d all attained more natural human movements after the doc had worked on them—to look at Kyrin. “That okay, little lady?” he asked, displaying a surprising amount of courtesy, which was very uncharacteristic for the big cyborg. He bent and held out his left, metal arm to Kyrin.
“Perfectly,” she said primly. “Thank you so much, Mr. Harper.”
She walked forward and placed her hand on 85’s arm without hesitation, head held high, as though he’d done nothing more than offer to escort her into tea for a high society function.
“You’re very welcome,” the cyborg replied, much to the surprise of the units around them.
Hey, 80 quipped. It’s a day of firsts. Rich’s gone and done metal porn and Harper found his manners. Where were they, man? Stuffed under your bunk?
Harper didn’t turn as he led Kyrin into the shuttle. He simply lifted his other arm and flicked the bird over his shoulder.
Rich wasn’t looking at him, though. Instead, his gaze was on the tiny figure of the woman next to Harper as she stepped into the shuttle with all the grace and composure of a princess.
Go get ‘em, girl, he thought, pride filling him at her manner. She was tough. She’d get over this. Bounce back.
Forget him.
It was for the best, he decided. They had no life together. He was metal. She wasn’t. She’d do better back amongst her own kind. A heavy weight settled over his shoulders as the marines filed back inside the shuttle and the gangplank retracted.
He didn’t wait for the airlock to cycle or the thing to lift off. His heart tight in his chest, he turned and walked away.
Chapter Eleven
Kyrin looked back as long as she could but then the metal hatch to the airlock banged shut behind them and Rich was gone.
Probably forever, she thought, feeling sad. And we were just getting to know each other…
She thought of that last kiss they’d shared…how warm his mouth was on hers…how safe she felt in his arms…
Stop thinking of him. There’s no point, she told herself fiercely. He’s gone now—out of your life. And it’s probably better for both of you. Now you can get back to your regular life as an IPKA officer and forget all the craziness that happened.
Except she couldn’t forget. Something about Rich was just unforgettable.
“You all right, little lady?” rumbled the big cyborg beside her as the shuttle that had docked with Rich’s cruiser took off, headed for her father’s ship.
Kyrin looked up at him. Unit 85—Harper—was noticeably more metallic and scary looking than Rich. Yet she felt an affinity with him that she didn’t share with the marines her father had sent to get her—especially Major Lewis, who was a complete asshole.
When Doctor Chambers had been treating her cuts and abrasions and generally getting her cleaned up before bed, she’d given Kyrin a run-down on the different cyborgs that composed the rogue unit. They seemed more human to her now than the cold-faced soldiers tasked with dragging her back to her father.
Kyrin wondered why that was. Maybe it was because they were both different—somehow more than they had been before. The cyborgs had been changed on the outside from the ordeal they had been through while Kyrin had been changed within during her time in the halls of the Breeding Compound.
I’m not the same, she thought. I never will be. She felt she had nothing in common with anyone here but the big cyborg. The two of them were standing a little away from the marines and Lewis—almost as though they’d isolated themselves from the “normal” people on purpose.
“I’m okay,” she said quietly. “Thanks for asking.”
“You don’t seem okay.” Harper looked at her sympathetically. “Is there anything you want me to do for you? Anything you want me to say? I know your father can be a real hard-ass—at least that’s his rep.”
Kyrin was touched by the big cyborg’s offer.
“Thanks, but I don’t know if talking to my father would do any good. As an admiral, he’s pretty used to being obeyed.” She sighed. “And I’m not exactly the obedient type—although I am better than my little sister, Abby. Now she’s a real hell raiser.”
“Oh yeah?” Harper sounded interested. “How so?”
“She’s a reporter for the Mars Times and she will do anything, and I mean anything to get her story. Dad hated it when I joined IPKA because he would always rather blow someone out of the sky than negotiate with them. He thinks peace talks are a waste of time. But he really went ballistic when Abby started going undercover for her weekly column. She’s been just about everywhere and done everything you can imagine. Once she even pretended to be a miner on Excelsior Six to expose the corruption and poor working conditions in the heliox mines. She was trapped in a cave-in—nearly died.” Kyrin shook her head. “But she got out alive—somehow she always does.”
“Wow—sounds like your little sis is hard-core.” Harper looked reluctantly admiring.
“She is.” Kyrin sighed. “If you had to guess which one of us would get mixed up with a horrible cult like the Tr’Lows, I wouldn’t be the one you’d pick.”
“I’d like to meet her sometime,” Harper rumbled. “She sounds fearless—which is about the only kind of girl who wouldn’t run screaming when they saw someone like me.” He nodded down at his metal exterior and Kyrin had to admit he did look intimidating.
“I didn’t run screaming from Rich,” she pointed out. “In fact I…I wish…”
“Wish what?” Harper asked softly.
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Kyrin shook her head and pulled her white synthi-cotton robe closer around herself. She wished she’d at least had time to get dressed—although dressed in what? She’d had nothing but the dirty silver novice robe to her name when Rich had brought her aboard the cyborgs’ cruiser, and she never wanted to see that thing again.
“Seems like maybe it does matter,” Harper murmured. “What is it? Something you want to say to Rich?”
Just then the shuttle docked at her father’s ship with a resounding metal clunk and Kyrin knew her time was up.
“Just tell him…tell him I’ll never forget him,” she said. Tears filled her eyes and she tried to blink them away. “Tell him I…”
But then words failed her. Tell him I love him hovered on her lips, but that was crazy. Wasn’t it? She barely knew the big cyborg. Despite all they’d been through together, there was no way she could have fallen in love with him…was there?
“Tell him I’ll miss him,” she said at last. And then the dull silver door slid open and her father was waiting on the other side of it, a stern look on his patrician features. “Goodbye,” she added, reaching up to take Harper’s hand. It was metal but it had a living warmth to it which reminded her of Rich. “Thank you for everything and please tell Doctor Chambers I’m so grateful for her kindness and care. I didn’t get a chance to thank her before I left.”
“I’ll be sure to pass on your messages,” Harper rumbled. “But here, in case you need to reach us—”
“Kyrin, get away from that thing!” Her father’s voice cut like a whip, interrupting their good-byes. He strode angrily into the shuttle as the marines stepped hastily to one side or the other, trying to get out of their CO’s way.
“What?” Kyrin turned, her small human hand still held in Harper’s big metal one. “Father, why—”
“I said get away from it!” Her father grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her back, as though she were three years old and he’d caught her playing with a dangerous animal.
“Hey!” Kyrin gasped, bewildered by his abrupt actions. There was something in her hand—something Harper had somehow slipped to her? She wasn’t sure but she had the sense to crumple it in her fist and keep the hand behind her back.
“That’s pretty rude behavior, Pierce,” Harper rumbled menacingly. He was head and shoulders taller than her father and he suddenly looked about a hundred times more threatening than he had just a moment before. “The little lady was just saying good-bye and passing on some thanks for the way we treated her. Something you might think about yourself, considering one of my unit just rescued your daughter from a fucking cult.”
“I paid my debt to you lot,” Pierce spat. “You got your cruiser—fully outfitted, just as you specified. And I got my daughter back. There’s no debt left between us.”
“Not even the debt of courtesy?” Harper frowned. “I guess what we always said in the Corps was true—the top brass is the opposite of a latrine—shit rises to the top instead of sinking to the bottom where it belongs.”
“Why you…” Admiral Pierce’s face turned beet red. “If you were still under my command, I’d have you court-martialed for those words!”
“Too bad I’m not then,” Harper growled. “Guess you’ll have to satisfy yourself with throwing me a few hard looks.”
The admiral looked like he wanted to respond but didn’t know how. Probably because he wasn’t used to anyone speaking to him like this. His own men always cowered in fear of him because of his rank, but clearly the braid on his uniform cut zero ice with the hulking cyborg.
Apparently realizing that, Pierce took a firmer grip on Kyrin’s arm and marched her out of the shuttle without another word. She had barely time enough to wave at Harper one last time before the metal door clanged shut and the shuttle decoupled from the ship, heading back to drop the cyborg on his own cruiser.
“Ow—ouch, Father—you’re hurting me!” Kyrin gasped, trying to wrench her arm from her father’s tight grip.
“What is wrong with you?” he demanded, dropping her arm and glaring at her. “Why would you talk to one of those…those things?”
“One of ‘those things’ rescued me from the Tr’Lows,” Kyrin exclaimed. “Don’t pretend you don’t know that—Rich told me you sent him.”
“Rich, is it?” Her father looked, if possible, even more pissed off.
“Richard Hardgraves—the man you sent to rescue me at the risk of his own life?” Kyrin snapped. “You know him as well as I do.”
“I know he was given strict orders not to touch you—just to bring you back.” Her father looked angry enough to spit nails. “He’d better have followed the first part of those orders better than he followed the second half.”
Kyrin felt as though he’d punched her in the stomach.
“Father, what are you implying?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” He looked angrier than ever—his whole face going red. “The main thing is you’re home now and that’s where you’re staying.”
“What?” Kyrin frowned. “What are you talking about? I appreciate you sending Rich to rescue me but now that I’m free, I’ll go back to my career at IPKA.”
Her father shook his head.
“I sent in your resignation. IPKA was never a good fit for you anyway. You’ll stay on my ship with me from now on.”
“You sent in a resignation?” Kyrin could hardly believe it. “You can’t do that! Father, I’m a grown woman! I have my own life and I love my career at IPKA.”
“They couldn’t keep you safe. They didn’t even try. Their ships don’t even have weapons!” her father snapped.
“They don’t need weapons because everyone in the galaxy respects them,” Kyrin protested.
“Right. Everyone respects them until they don’t anymore—and then look what happens.” Her father waved a hand in her general direction. “Just look at you, Kyrin. You look like you’ve been through hell. You think that would have happened if you were traveling on a battle-class cruiser with a compliment of Ion cannons and a Teutonic shield array?”
“No, but then it wouldn’t have been a peace ship.” Kyrin sighed, realizing it was foolish to try and fight with her father about this. It was the same old argument they’d had when she’d first joined IPKA. She hadn’t been able to change her father’s mind then and she wouldn’t now either. “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll stay with you for a few days to recuperate but then I really have to get back to work. Just let me make a call to IPKA headquarters so I can get reinstated.”
“That’s not going to happen, young lady.” Her father spoke in the same autocratic tone he’d used when she was a teenager and wanted to go to a party he didn’t approve of. “You’re not going back to that spineless organization that couldn’t even protect you. Not now and not ever.”
Kyrin wanted to fight some more but she was suddenly tired…so damn tired. She could understand her father’s feelings—at least in part. He had probably thought she was dead for a time—killed like all the others aboard her ill-fated ship. And to find out she was in the clutches of the Tr’Low cult could hardly have been much better news.
He’s overwrought—still upset and angry that something happened to me outside of his control, she thought. I’ll deal with this later when I have more energy. When I’m not so horribly tired.
“All right,” she said wearily. “I’ll stay with you for now. Is there someplace I can lie down? You pretty much got me up in the middle of the night and I’m dead on my feet.”
Her father’s angry face softened somewhat.
“I’ve already got a room ready for you, sweetie,” he said, his voice losing a little of its gruffness. “It’s in the officers’ wing, just down the hallway from my own quarters. I’ll have one of the men escort you there.”
“Thanks…Dad.” She didn’t call him that much—things had been formal and cold between them for years—ever since she’d joined IPKA.
Which I’m going back to the minute I get the chance, Kyrin told herself. But again, there was no point saying so out loud and antagonizing her father.
“Get some rest.” He looked at her critically. “You look like you could use it.”
“Thanks, I will.” She nodded at him and he nodded back but there was no contact between them. He hadn’t hugged her since she was a little girl. But then, it wasn’t his hug Kyrin was longing for.
Oh Rich, she thought as she followed the marine her father assigned her down the long, curving metal corridor of the battle cruiser. I miss you so much already. I wish I could hear your voice just one more time…
Chapter Twelve
Something was wrong with her. Kyrin was sure of it. Every morning she got up and ate breakfast at 0700 in the officer’s mess hall along with her father. And every morning at exactly 0800, it came right back up. It happened every single day like clockwork no matter what she ate or drank and it was making her miserable.
She thought about not eating at all but she seemed to have suddenly developed a ravenous appetite. She got so hungry if she hadn’t eaten in a while she felt like she was going to faint. It got so bad she took to carrying snacks around with her wherever she went, just in case an attack of the crazy-hungries, as she was beginning to think of these strange appetites, hit her.
Not that she ever went far. She was confined to her father’s ship and not allowed any access to communications devices. At first she felt too sick and tired and sad to care much about it but bit by bit she grew stronger. And as her strength grew, so did her sense of outrage. Though her father wouldn’t admit it, she was now just as much a prisoner with him as she ever had been in the Breeding Compound.
I have to get out of here, she thought desperately,
one morning about two months after she’d first come aboard her father’s cruiser. I have to get out of here before…
She didn’t want to let herself finish that thought because the end of it was scary—very damn scary.
Hey, Kyrin, how long has it been since you last had a period? whispered a mean little voice in her head. Two months at least, right? Hmm…two months since the Breeding Ceremony with Rich and you’re throwing up every morning and your cycle still isn’t back on track. I wonder what that could mean?
Shut up! Kyrin told the voice fiercely. Doc Chambers said I would experience nausea for a while—it’s a side effect of the breeding drugs they pumped into me. And that’s probably why my period isn’t coming either—my cycle got all screwed up when they gave me the fertility medicine. And I’m hungry all the time because I’m so stressed out. Which is also why I’ve put on a bit of weight…and why my nipples are so tender…and why…
Shit. There was no way around it. She was probably pregnant.
I need some help—some advice. Someone I can talk to, Kyrin admitted to herself. But who?
She would have tried getting access to a communications device somehow to call her little sister. She’d managed to speak to her once since coming aboard and had told her briefly of everything that had happened in the Breeding Compound. But now Abby was off somewhere going undercover as a backup singer to a popular galaxy-wide mega star who was rumored to be abusive to her underlings. She wouldn’t be available for ages and Kyrin needed help now.
But who could she call? Someone sympathetic…someone who could offer medical advice. There was no way she could ask for help of any of the doctors or nurses aboard her father’s ship. All of them were men for one thing and for another, they all reported directly to the admiral. Her secret wouldn’t last a minute.
Suddenly she had an idea…
“A call to your doctor, you say?” The male nurse frowned uncertainly as Kyrin sat primly on the exam table, trying to look meek and mild.
