Resurrection Heart
Robotics Faction - Cyborg Mercenaries
Wendy Lynn Clark
Contents
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
About the Author
Robotics Faction Series
Sneak Peek of Liberation Origins
Copyright © 2016 Wendy Lynn Clark
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-943110-02-6
ISBN-13: 9781943110025
ISBN: 978-1-943110-02-5
Created with Vellum
To my wonderful baby Erik, whose presence in this world has changed my life and given my dreams new meaning. I hope you don’t read this until you’re much, much older.
Summary
A mercenary with a chip on her shoulder. A cyborg warrior with an attraction stronger than his emotion-suppressing implants. Trusting in passion is the only way they will survive…
Talia’s a hardened mercenary owned by the Antiata Deterrence Company until she pays off her debt. She has found only one man worthy of her carefully guarded trust: reformed criminal Logen, the sexy gunner in her ragtag unit of misfits. He’ll never return her feelings, but his strong, silent gaze awakens her uncontrollable desire.
Logen’s passion-suppressing implants have been malfunctioning since the moment he laid eyes on the gorgeous, capable spotter. She sees past his ugly scars to the man inside and he wants nothing more than to wrap her sweet, hot body in his protective embrace.
But when he’s falsely accused of murder, Talia and Logen become targets on the run. The mercenaries must fight off robot assassins, hungry wildlife, and a growing mutual attraction that threatens their survival. Caught in the hostile jungles of a steamy alien planet, Talia must decide whom to trust with her life… and possibly her heart.
* * *
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Chapter One
A bare cell in the middle of an alien jungle. Heat, oppressive heat, and humidity so bad it made the walls sweat. The stench of rot and blood.
This was the definition of hell.
Logen Traeger shook the sweat off his bruised, bloodied face. It dripped into black puddles of stale water pooled on the cracked concrete.
He sat, chained to a too-small chair, in the middle of the cell.
Hired gunner of the Antiata Deterrence Corporation, he was currently stationed on a planet too dangerous for humans. His team, the Misfits, and a second mercenary group, Bad Company, had been called in on an escort mission once it became obvious their clients, biologists of the Antiata Commercial Ventures Corporation, couldn’t use their science androids to evaluate the planet’s potential. The androids were favored chew toys of the local dinos. Logen had been stationed here to ensure the same fate didn’t befall the biologists.
They were only a few weeks from finishing the assignment when everything went to hell.
Exhaustion, and beatings, and heat bowed Logen’s head.
Rage kept him awake.
His blackened knuckles formed iron fists. A puffed cheek and split lip joined the lines of a thousand missions scarring his face.
Outside, the alien jungle hovered dangerously close. The scream of a ferocious pterodactyl fought the growl of a poisonous, six-legged snakezoid.
He barely noted them. Deadlier creatures were the ones he couldn’t hear coming.
Such as the sound of footsteps outside his door.
He tensed. The manacles on his wrists clinked.
The footsteps paused outside, and then the door opened to let in the team medic.
His older brother, Daz.
Daz closed the door and rested his broad back against it. “Please confess.”
“Confess what?” Logen’s voice sounded rough from disuse, and he coughed and spit phlegm tinged with blood.
“Confess the truth. Or lies. I don’t care. Just confess.”
“It wasn’t me. It was someone else. Can I go now?”
Daz stared at him.
Yeah. That’s what he thought.
Logen cleared his throat. “What do you want me to say?”
“Who killed your spotter?”
Pain lanced his chest. The sensation quickly went away, deadened by the robotic controls embedded in his brain.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Who else was there at the base?”
“I don’t know.”
“What time did it happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“How was she killed?”
Smart, dangerous, beautiful Talia. With a secret smile, an iron determination, and a heart-shaped ass he wanted parked next to him on every mission. Her dark, trusting eyes saw the real man, and her short, honey-amber hair teased him with desire.
They said he had killed her.
“I don’t know,” he repeated, cold as the rage the cybernetic stents kept sweeping away, leaving a burn like menthol in the emotion’s place.
“You better know something, or you’re going to end up with a court martial.”
“I don’t care.”
Daz folded his arms. He had always figured out Logen’s secrets before. Always had Logen’s back. Always watched out for him, helped him out of scrapes, and patched up his stupid wounds.
But not this time.
“Tell us what actually happened, if you’re innocent.”
The manacles bit into his wrists. “Don’t I look innocent?”
“You look like hell.”
“I’ve felt worse.”
“Shit, Logen.” Daz’s eyes narrowed, glittering anger. “Why don’t you just explain? Your stents screwed up. It’s not your fault.”
The dull silver of the cybernetic stents at his temples was visible even in the shadows. Only prisoners received them. They marked him a convict out on probation. A murderer who’d committed an unforgivable crime, served time in the highest security prison, and who had been released to the mercenaries again only because the stents suppressed his passions.
Or, at least, they were supposed to.
“They’re not broken,” he growled. “They’re working just fine.”
“The longer you draw out this bullshit ‘interrogation,’ the worse it’s going to be. You’re already going back to prison—”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re going in for life.”
“The real murderer’s out—”
“There’s no one!” Daz’s shout echoed off the flat concrete walls. Frustration twisted his features. His chest rose and fell. “Confess now, and maybe they’ll let you have visitors. Maybe even Talia.”
They were resurrecting her right now in Medical. She was alone, weak, and isolated.
Helpless.
“Although, if she decides to drop by and chat with you after she finds out what you did, I hope they’ll allow you to be armed.”
Logen clenched his fists. His guts burned, ice cold, and so did his brain. That’s how hard the stents were working to keep him cool. “Who
’s protecting Talia?”
Daz jutted his chin. “That’s not your concern anymore.”
“Tell me she’s protected.”
“Now there’s your whole damned problem.” Daz threw up his hands. “You’re too interested in her. She’s messed with your head. Women like that are bad for—”
Logen lunged.
Daz jumped out of reach. “Shit!”
The chains held Logen back, their anchors molecularly bonded to the concrete floor. He strained with all his might to break the bonds and clawed at the air.
His brother glared at him. Once, Daz had believed in Logen. No matter how stupid Logen’s actions, Daz had believed in him and respected him. Now, when he was finally trying to be honorable, the last spark of respect in Daz’s eyes died.
“This was your last mission before you paid out. You were about to be a free man. We both were. And then you had to go and fuck it up.”
Logen fell back, gasping, into the chair.
“Why do you always have to fuck it up?” His voice broke.
Logen stared into space, avoiding what he didn’t want to see.
“She’s waking up.” Disgust soured Daz’s tone. “The resurrection succeeded. You have anything you want to say to her at least?”
His resolution hardened as the cool calm flowed back into his body. “Give her my gun.”
“What does a spotter need with a four-hundred-pound wrecking cannon?”
He sealed his mouth. She’d know he was sorry.
Daz swore at him. “You know what? I will give it to her. Because the first thing she’s going to use it on is you.”
* * *
Waking up always hit Talia square on the jaw.
One moment, she was home on her dad’s roll-out couch by the beach. Crashing waves, drifting seagulls, and her little baby brother, only a few years old, clambering up on her squeaky bed and grinning at her sleepy self, filling her with warmth like a shaft of sunlight.
The next, she was in some shit hole on the edge of civilized space running for her life.
Today was worse than usual.
She gripped the bunk with one hand to fight off the disorientation; with the other, she reached under her pillow to collect her gun.
It was missing.
She came full upright, arms out, eyes blinking open.
The room spun furiously. Her stomach revolted and heaved for her throat.
“Oh, welcome b—whoa!”
A man’s hands forced her down on the bed.
Panic jolted her. She gasped, fighting the man off.
The team medic, Daz, appeared in fuzzy triplicate over her head. “Lie still.”
No. She couldn’t be helpless. Talia arched her back and clawed at his face.
“Hey! Don’t move, and don’t do that!”
“What... did you... give me?”
“Nothing yet. You need to stay down until the vertigo wears off. Talia!”
Her muscles jellied. Her arms trembled.
Daz forced her flat on the bed. “Stay still.”
Fresh panic jolted her.
She elbowed Daz in the face.
He stepped back and covered his nose. “Goddamn it, Talia. I hate it when you show up in Medical.”
She bolted upright again, grabbed a penknife off the medical tray, and held it out at the spinning, fuzzy image of him. Easing off the bed backward, she put the bunk as a barrier between them.
“What’s wrong with me?” she demanded.
“I think you broke my nose.”
“Why am I here? What did you do?”
“I was trying to help you. Don’t be so defensive.”
“Then tell me what’s wrong!”
“Chill. Answers are coming. Have a little faith in your team, will you?”
She yanked out her med feed line. Hot blood coursed down her spine.
An alarm wailed.
“Now you’ve done it,” Daz said.
Footsteps approached at a run. First in the doorway was swift Navina, their logistics officer. Her curly, dark hair tangled around her mischievous, pixie-like face.
“You’re awake,” she said, stopping in surprise. “How are you recovering?”
“Recovering?” Talia repeated.
“I’ll be fine, thanks,” Daz interrupted, examining his split upper lip in the mirror. “Oh, you meant Talia? She’s ready to take on the whole jungle, or rearrange my face, as you can see.”
Navina snorted at him. “You should be ashamed of yourself for neglecting your hand-to-hand combat.”
He flicked his fingers. “These hands are delicate surgical instruments.”
“Then you shouldn’t have laid them anywhere near her.” Navina kept a healthy distance.
Their muscular grunt, Iren, arrived in time to hear the last comments. “Dare I ask? Did this guy actually take advantage and try to wake our deadly spotter with a pure kiss?”
“I’m about as pure as a lump of coal is white.”
“Well, it’s nice of you to spread out the abuse. I’m tired of watching your brother take all the punches.”
“Will someone,” she gasped, “tell me what the hell is going on?”
Their acting commander, Vi, moved between the team members like a blade cutting through water. Although much smaller, she wielded her gaze like a dagger.
They all straightened. Even Talia, fighting her nausea, swallowed and shifted on her flat feet. The room spun like a bad shuttle ride. She took a deep breath and forced it to make sense.
Vi turned to Talia. “You got off the bed.”
“I was looking for my weapon.”
She looked pointedly at the penknife clenched in Talia’s hand. “And you found it?”
Talia crawled back onto the bunk. Daz reattached her med feeding line to the hole in the back of her neck. The alarm stopped.
Members of the other mercenary unit stationed with them, Bad Company, poured through the doorway, sweating and out-of-breath, weapons drawn, and suddenly the tiny hospital bay was full of hard bodies and noise. Her fellow Misfits apologized and calmed them down, thanked them for their swift response, and Iren saw them off.
“What the fuck?” Talia demanded. “Am I on suicide watch?”
Vi answered. “You’ve been resurrected.”
Her soul plummeted.
On the one hand, she knew it. She’d been resurrected a few times. Every time she died, she dropped down a level of pay in the mercenaries until she reached rock bottom, Hazard Zero, and thought she couldn’t fall any further. Apparently she was wrong.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Vi asked.
“Stepping into the resurrection ‘snapshot’ unit,” Talia replied woodenly, as she tried to process what it meant. How many extra decades this one had added to her tour. “When was it?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Shit.”
Her team averted their eyes, quietly sympathetic for her loss.
First, it was a loss in pay. Being resurrected was fantastically expensive, and every time she did it on the company dollar, they added it to her bill. The more times she died, the longer it would take her to pay out and become a free woman again.
Second, it was a loss of all the memories she had made from three weeks ago to whenever she had died.
And some of those, she expected, had been pretty damn good.
“How did it happen?” she asked.
“We’re still trying to figure that out. You were at Base Two with Logen. He came back. You didn’t.”
Logen.
His name, like his low and sexy voice, thrummed through her veins to pierce her suddenly thumping heart.
For the first time since the brutal tragedy that had forced her into the mercenaries, she had started to experience the sunlight feeling in her chest once more. Probably she’d experienced it a few more times in those missing weeks.
Logen was the cause.
His powerful thighs clenched like pistons, his biceps bulged at the
kick-shock from the massive guns he wielded, and his frightening lethal grace saved them both from countless no-win-situations.
Although he was built like a god of vengeance, when he dared crack a smile, the sunlight streamed into the granite bunker around her shrapnel-studded heart. The day he stopped double-checking her targets and simply shot what she marked was the day she knew she had passed his test, and she had swelled with pride, because he trusted her.
It helped that his muscular body made her want to crawl onto his lap and lick him from top to bottom. Probably she hadn’t given in to that forbidden temptation in the last three weeks.
Probably.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
“We’re trying to work out exactly what he did to you. I’m sorry, Talia.”
An ugly, slimy fear crawled out of her belly. “Wait. What are you saying?”
Vi’s face said everything.
No.
Logen liked her. They had even kissed. He was different from the rest of them. He was a good man.
Her heart sank into a black sea. Talia had been wrong about a man before. Could she have been wrong again?
Her acting commander thought so. “The one who killed you is Logen.”
Chapter Two
Three weeks earlier...
Logen folded his tall frame into a canvas chair in front of the first, and what would probably be the last, team bonfire.
They scored a night off. While Bad Company conducted the biologists down south for a nocturnal sea trawl, Iren got the bright idea that their team should have a little fun. And for some reason, Vi had smiled and here they all were.
In the middle of an alien jungle, at a gorgeous waterfall, skinny-dipping in a pool so clear a man could see all the way to the bottom.
Well, Iren was skinny-dipping. Daz was fishing down-river, Vi was meditating fully clothed under the churning power of the falls, and Navina was taking holos of herself next to the ugliest creatures he had ever seen. Now she posed with a sack-on-four-legs the biologist called a harmless “ground rooter.”
Resurrection Heart: Robotics Faction - Cyborg Mercenaries Page 1
