Ghost of a Machine

by Cynthia Sax

  Ghost had silently watched, unable to stop the carnage, his soul hollowed out by guilt. He couldn’t communicate to his brethren what they’d done, couldn’t give them that remorse, that grief. It was his to bear alone, silently.

  The image faded.

  The loop restarted. It always did, the torture never ceasing. The face of the little female filled his thoughts, her chubby cheeks, her brown curly hair, her big brown eyes.

  The pain was endless and unbearable, projectiles piercing his brain, his heart, his soul. Ghost squeezed a handful of guts. Blood dripped on the tiled floor. He needed more beings to kill, more outlets for the agony. That might make the hurting tolerable.

  More beings would arrive. The Humanoid Alliance would retrieve their warship.

  When the males entered the vessel, he would seek vengeance. Every being he killed would be one less being able to harm the females.

  That might ease his guilt, stop the pain.

  Allow him to remain whole.

  Chapter Two

  The first Humanoid Alliance warship had been destroyed. The second Humanoid Alliance warship had stopped firing on them. Lethe Vlahos, the Rebel battle station’s first officer, gripped the armrests of her chair, gazing at the main viewscreen with disbelief.

  The rest of the crew on the bridge cheered.

  She was relieved to be alive also. Ever since she had fourteen solar cycles, she’d been one step away from death. One planet rotation, it would close the gap, catch her.

  It wouldn’t be this planet rotation.

  And it might not be the next if she increased her survival skills. She didn’t have an explanation for the cease-fire and that bothered her.

  Her gaze shifted to her commander. The two warriors, Ace and Thrasher, stood by the older female’s side. Lethe didn’t know who they were either. One planet rotation, they’d appeared on the bridge with the commander. Everywhere she went, they went also.

  Lethe suspected they were partially responsible for the second warship’s silence.

  Its image dominated the main viewscreen. The ship appeared undamaged.

  Her commander spoke with the two warriors by her side, their lips moving, their words inaudible. Lethe swallowed her frustration, the taste bitter in her mouth. She was excluded, had no control over the situation, the next steps.

  Her right hand slipped into the pocket of her ass coverings. Her fingers curled around the hilt of the dagger hidden there.

  It was like she was fourteen again, sitting on the hilltop, watching the Humanoid Alliance ships destroy her settlement and kill her family, unable to do anything, not knowing what would happen next.

  Powerless. Weak.

  “Navigation, hail the second warship,” her commander ordered.

  The navigation officer tapped his fingers against his console and Lethe envied him the action. He was doing something. She was doing nothing.

  “The second warship is not responding, Commander,” he informed her.

  “I’ll force the communication.” Thrasher, one of the warriors, tapped on his control panel.

  Lethe stared at him. He dared to act without the commander’s permission. Not even she, the battle station’s first officer, did that.

  “I authorize that action.” Her commander’s tone communicated her displeasure.

  A chamber was displayed on the main viewscreen. Entrails were draped over multi-level horizontal supports. The walls, ceiling, floor were painted crimson. A naked male crouched on top of a body. He appeared to be transferring the dead being one internal organ at a time to a pile of gore beside him.

  The communications officer bent over, retching into a waste container.

  Lethe merely gasped. She’d seen worse, had lived through that horror. The planet rotations after the Humanoid Alliance attack had revealed how barbaric humans could be.

  She had been one of those primitive beings.

  If anyone on the bridge knew what she’d done to survive, they wouldn’t look at her with respect. They’d view her with disgust, with fear, just as they were viewing the naked male.

  “Stars,” the commander whispered. She also didn’t understand.

  The male’s head turned and Lethe’s stomach clenched. He was a beast, his face broad, his chin square. His shaggy black hair dripped red. His skin was covered with blood.

  But she didn’t fear him. There was pain in his brilliant blue eyes, grief, anger, sorrow. He’d known loss as she had. It had changed him, pushed him to the breaking point.

  It was a place she knew well.

  “Ours,” he rumbled.

  The sound reached deep inside her, gripping her heart, squeezing, squeezing. Her nipples tightened and her pussy grew wet. She wanted him.

  He wanted the commander.

  Even this primitive beast recognized they were two different kinds of female. Lethe was a female males used and discarded. The commander was a female males loved, a female males claimed forever.

  “No, not yours.” Ace, the second warrior, extracted two wicked blades from the sheaths on his chest.

  “You won’t touch her.” Thrasher lowered his form, assuming battle position. “She belongs to us.”

  The two warriors were prepared to fight for the commander.

  Lethe swallowed her envy. No one would ever fight for her. Subconsciously, they somehow knew what she’d done, what she was.

  A female who could be had for a container of liquid.

  Her gaze returned to the male on the warship. He was huge, tall and broad; his muscle, under all that gore and blood, defined; his form solid.

  She doubted even two warriors fighting as one could defeat him.

  “No one is touching anyone.” The commander spaced those words out, emphasizing each one. “And I don’t belong to anyone. I’m your commander.”

  “Ours.” The naked male stalked closer to the viewscreen. “Ours.” He rubbed his fingers over it, smearing blood across the surface. He squinted, his nose almost touching the surface. “Ours.” He wiped his face, removing some of the grime from his skin.

  Revealing gray skin and a model number.

  “He’s a cyborg,” the weapons officer yelled.

  “It’s C345925.” The commander sat with a thump in the captain’s chair.

  “Ours.” The naked male, the cyborg, pushed against the screen.

  Cyborgs. Lethe had heard of them. Everyone on the bridge had. They were the Humanoid Alliance’s perfect killing weapon, half man, half machine, supposedly under their control.

  She stared at the male, her attraction toward the male undiminished. He was no emotionless machine. She saw that in his eyes. And, judging by the carnage, he was under no being’s control.

  The commander was talking with the warriors again, a private aside Lethe wasn’t part of. Every so often, the cyborg would repeat that one word, “ours”, his gaze trained on her superior officer.

  It irked Lethe. She wanted him to verbally claim her, look at her.

  But he wouldn’t. No male ever would.

  The cyborg rubbed his hands over his face. Flesh had been gouged from his cheeks. His silver frame shone, reflecting the light.

  Sympathy overwrote her irritation.

  He must be in so much pain.

  And he was alone. As she was. As she’d been after the Humanoid Alliance attacked. He wasn’t defenseless. An A Class Warship was under his command. And he’d clearly killed everyone on board with his bare hands.

  But he was in a state of shock, had reverted to a savage place where he couldn’t recognize anything or anyone. He required assistance.

  Or time. Time had partially healed Lethe.

  Her commander felt otherwise. Her right hand hovered over the controls.

  That was the missile launch override. The commander was thinking about blowing him up

  Panic surged through Lethe. The male had saved them. He was a living, breathing, feeling being. She opened her mouth to protest.

  The commander’s hand moved away fr
om the controls.

  Lethe exhaled, relieved. She wasn’t certain she could change the commander’s mind. The older female was known for being decisive.

  “Ours,” the cyborg repeated, standing.

  Lethe blinked. Even flaccid, the male was huge, his cock proportional to the rest of his body.

  “This warrior, this cyborg, saved all our lives this planet rotation.” The commander pointed out a fact Lethe already knew. “He brought us one step closer to victory over the Humanoid Alliance, his former masters.” The female locked gazes with Ace. “And he saved my life those many solar cycles ago.” Her gaze moved to Thrasher. “Although, at that time, I didn’t want it to be saved.”

  “Ours.”

  “And now?” Thrasher asked.

  “I’m glad he saved me.” The commander loved the two males. Lethe saw that in her eyes.

  And they loved her in return.

  Because the older female wouldn’t have traded her body to convince the cyborg on the warship to save her. She also wouldn’t have taken a seat meant for a mother and baby.

  The commander was resourceful. She would have found objects to trade and she would have figured out a way to save other beings while saving herself.

  “Ours.”

  Lethe surveyed the cyborg’s big form and her mouth dried with want. She wouldn’t have hesitated to spread her legs for him. Physically, he was everything one could desire in a male.

  Emotionally, he was hurting but he would eventually heal.

  “Is that the only word he knows?” The commander winced.

  Lethe stifled her glare. The male was in shock, in pain. She hadn’t spoken for half a solar cycle after she escaped the surface.

  “Ours.”

  “He’s been severely damaged.” Ace came to the cyborg’s defense. “He’s also violent. He might attack any being who approaches him.”

  He was in agony, Lethe wanted to yell. But to contribute that insight might mean talking about her past and she didn’t want to do that.

  Ever.

  “I see the proof of that.” The commander’s tone was dry. “What do you advise—we leave him on the warship?”

  “Ours.”

  They wanted to abandon him? They would leave the cyborg on the warship as many humans had left her on the planet, uncaring if she, make that he, lived or died?

  “He could regain enough functionality to fly it. Eventually.” Ace sounded doubtful.

  Because he’d never been that severely damaged. Lethe had. She knew the cyborg could recover. Anyone who could survive whatever he’d experienced also had the strength to heal.

  “Eventually.” The commander’s lips twisted. “The Humanoid Alliance could find him before that happened. They’d enslave him, might kill him. The warship would be returned to their fleet.”

  “Ours.”

  “Give me command of the warship.” Lethe suggested, wanting to save the cyborg, save the ship. “I could fly it, Commander.” She could fly anything. She’d ranked at the top of her Rebel training program.

  “Mine,” the cyborg bellowed. “Mine.”

  At the moment, she was his sole chance at survival. Lethe looked at the viewscreen. He gazed at her, only her, his eyes blazing. She would help him heal as others had once helped her.

  “Great.” The commander pinched the bridge of her nose. “He’s learned a new word.”

  “Mine.” The cyborg rushed at the viewscreen. Primitive warrior and advanced technology collided. Lethe winced. Fracture lines feathered from the point of impact. That must have hurt him. “Mine.”

  Thrasher looked at Ace and then at Lethe. “She’s his.”

  “His female.” Ace said that as though it were significant.

  “No.” The commander held up her right index finger. “Don’t start with that ‘my female’ business again. The warrior has clearly lost all control. None of my crew are going near him.”

  “Mine,” the cyborg roared. He was fully erect now.

  Lethe gulped, daunted by his size.

  “Communications, mute him,” the commander barked. “He’s not adding anything useful to the conversation.”

  He might add value. Lethe frowned. And he should have the ability to speak. They were deciding his fate.

  The cyborg continued to attack his viewscreen. The skin on his fists cracked. Cyborgs repaired…healed quickly, she reminded herself. The pain should be temporary.

  “He won’t hurt her.” Thrasher turned to the commander. “We would rather die than hurt the being or beings meant for us.”

  We would rather die. Lethe’s eyes widened. “You’re cyborgs too.”

  She looked at Ace, at Thrasher, and then back at the male on the viewscreen. They were cyborgs and the commander trusted them, cared for them.

  “Yes, they’re cyborgs too.” The commander’s voice rose to encompass all of the bridge. “No one, and I mean, no one, speaks of our alliance with the cyborgs.”

  They had an alliance with the cyborgs. Lethe stared at her, stunned. That was the first she’d heard of any pact.

  Because the commander didn’t trust her. The older female didn’t know about her past, about what she’d done. Lethe had been the perfect officer, the ideal subordinate.

  Yet she hadn’t earned her superior’s confidence. If the commander knew how very flawed she was, Lethe doubted she would have been made first officer.

  Her shoulders slumped.

  “Erase cyborg from your vocabulary,” the commander ordered. “No one on my battle station will speak that word again. It doesn’t appear on communications. It doesn’t get relayed to Rebel Headquarters. The fate of the war and the lives of millions of beings depend on our discretion.”

  That was what Lethe wanted to do—save others.

  Her gaze moved to the cyborg. He slammed against the viewscreen again and again. She yearned to reach out to him, to soothe him, tell him she wouldn’t allow him to be harmed.

  But she was merely a first officer. She hadn’t the authority to make that promise.

  Not yet.

  “I have the best, the brightest, the most loyal crew in space.” The commander continued her rally-the-troops speech. “That’s why we’ve been given this role. Let’s ensure we’re worthy of it.”

  The other officers cheered. They weren’t concerned about the cyborg, about whether or not he’d be granted the permission to live, to heal, to find some sort of happiness.

  If that truly existed for beings such as her, such as him.

  “Ghost is no danger to your first officer.” Ace told the commander. “He is a danger to any other being, human, humanoid or cyborg.”

  Ghost. Lethe repeated in her mind. The cyborg’s name was Ghost.

  It was appropriate. The rest of the beings acted as though they couldn’t see him.

  “It’s an A Class Warship, Commander.” Lethe pointed out. The commander and her fellow rebels might not be concerned about the cyborg but a ship was valuable. It might make a difference to the Rebel cause. “I don’t need a crew. I can fly it alone.”

  She’d be free, in control, able to go wherever she wanted. If the enemy attacked a planet she was on, she wouldn’t need to trade her body for a seat on a ship. She’d have her own vessel, be able to transport others, not asking them for anything in return.

  The commander said nothing.

  “An A Class Warship, Commander.” She repeated it. “You know how rare that is in the Rebel fleet. I would kill for a ship like that.”

  “You might be killed for a ship like that.” The commander blew out her breath. “Warriors.” The males by her side straightened. “You’re certain he won’t harm her?”

  The commander was concerned the cyborg would hurt her. Lethe pressed her lips together. Just moments earlier, they had been staring death in the face. They were in the middle of a war, a war they were losing. They could all die the next planet rotation.

  She almost died at fourteen solar cycles. Lethe would take her chances with the cybo
rg. He was male and she knew what he wanted. She would handle him the same way she handled the captain who had rescued her from Mercury Minor, her home planet.

  Lethe would trade the only thing she had of value.

  Her body.

  At least this male she desired. The captain had been old, flabby, stank of sweat and fermented beverages. She had stared up at the ceiling as he had floundered around on top of her, his breath whistling, his loose flesh smacking against her.

  Her top lip curled. The male before him had been worse. But he’d had a container of beverage and she’d been lightheaded from thirst, the dust from the attacks coating the back of her throat.

  Yes, she knew how to handle males.

  “We’re 93.4% certain.” Ace gave the commander Lethe’s odds of survival.

  She’d take those odds.

  The commander frowned, not as satisfied with his answer. “What happened to ‘A cyborg would never damage his female’?”

  “He’d never damage her physically,” Ace explained. “He could damage her emotionally.”

  Ace worried the cyborg would cause her emotional damage.

  Lethe smothered the urge to laugh, bitterness bubbling up inside her. She’d rummaged through stinking, bloated corpses looking for something to drink, to eat. An angry hurting cyborg couldn’t rattle her.

  “The warrior has coated the entire ship with blood and guts.” The commander shook her head. “That would damage anyone emotionally.”

  “Not me.” Lethe lifted her chin. Nothing had that ability. Not anymore. “It won’t damage me emotionally, especially if I receive an—”

  “An A Class Warship in return.” The commander tilted her head back, stared up at the ceiling. She did that when weighing the pros and cons of an action. “You’re my best officer. You’ve clearly set your mind on this.”

  “I have.” Lethe smiled. The commander would agree to her proposition. The warship and the cyborg would be hers.

  “And you deserve the opportunity.” The pride in the commander’s voice warmed Lethe’s chest. “Congratulations, Captain. You’re in command of an A Class Warship.”

  “Yes,” Lethe shouted, pumping the air with her fists.