by Cynthia Sax
“That was surprisingly reckless of you.” She teased.
“We paid for that recklessness.” And it disturbed Vector that she might, some planet rotation, pay for hers. “We crossed a field covered with tiny red insects.” That raised no alarms. Insects often swarmed during battle, disturbed by the vibrations in the ground. “They were Furudian fire burrowers.”
Kasia wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“We hadn’t either.” He and his brethren had lacked that information also. “They’re only found on that planet.” The Furudian fire burrowers required that specific environment to survive. “They’re fast.” And he and his brethren had been arrogant. Cyborgs were built to withstand projectiles. How could a tiny creature harm them? “They swept up my brethren’s forms, consuming everything, skin, flesh, frame, mechanics, circuits.”
His female’s eyes widened. “How did you survive?”
“The first warrior to enter the field was able to transmit before he died.” He owed that warrior his lifespan. “I was the last warrior, heard that warning, was positioned near a tree.” That series of coincidences saved him. “I pulled myself out of the Furudian fire burrowers’ reach and hacked off my feet.”
She touched the circle of scarred flesh around his ankles. How she could bear to touch it, he didn’t know. “You couldn’t save your feet?”
“My soles were already damaged.” He’d been tortured by the Humanoid Alliance, riddled with projectiles during battle, had nearly lost his right arm during one skirmish. Nothing had equaled the agony of the Furudian fire burrower attack. It had felt as through acid was being drilled through the heart of him, a twisting pain he yearned to forget yet accepted he never would. “The insects were too small, too quick, and there were too many of them to remove.”
“I wouldn’t have had the strength to hack off my feet.” His female said, her voice lilting with admiration.
For him. For a male who couldn’t save his brethren, who was defective.
Vector shook his head, trying to clear his processors. “You would have found the strength. The choice was hacking off my feet and staying alive or remaining whole and dying.” He’d acted out of desperation, not bravery. “I stayed in that tree until the swarm passed. Everyone else died.”
He’d watched helpless, unable to do anything, as his brethren, his friends, were consumed by the Furudian fire burrowers, eaten alive. They had reached toward the sky with their hands, sucked under by a writhing mass of red, their screams echoing through the transmission lines, pulling at his soul.
“You couldn’t have saved them.” Kasia pressed her lips to his shoulder, that touch bringing him back to the present. “You barely saved yourself.”
“I could have tried.” He should have done something but even now, he didn’t know how he could have defeated their tiny foes.
“Trying would have been too reckless even for me.” His female gave him a small smile. “The tree must have adapted to its surroundings, formed some sort of natural defense against the Furudian fire burrowers. Those Humanoid Alliance bastards must have been thrilled with the disaster. They had a new weapon with the insects and a new defense against that weapon with the tree.”
“According to their databases, the Humanoid Alliance tested a missile prototype on Furud One less than a planet rotation after the battle.” That had angered Vector also. His brethren had died fighting for terrain the Humanoid Alliance planned to decimate. “Nothing living survived that testing.”
“That’s bad for that planet but good for the universe.” Kasia stroked his arm. “The Humanoid Alliance would have created horrific weapons with those discoveries.”
Vector agreed. They would have done that. “Once the swarm passed, I dropped to the ground.” The impact had been jarring, pain shooting up the bloody stumps he called legs, almost shorting out his processors.
“Had the nanocybotics replaced your feet?” His female rubbed small circles into his knuckles, round and round, the contact soothing him.
“Replacing my feet was outside their abilities.” Nanocybotics couldn’t manufacture entire body parts. “I crawled to the battlefield.”
That journey had seemed endless. His fingers had been worn down to the frame, the silver covered with red, by the time he reached those killing fields.
But he had no other choice. A warrior unable to walk was a dead warrior.
“Bastion was the first dead C Model I encountered on the battlefield.” Vector hadn’t the energy to crawl to another warrior. “I detached his feet, stripped them to the frame, removing the skin and flesh.”
Bastion’s nanocybotics and blood streamed between his fingers. His lifeless eyes stared accusingly at him. ‘What the frag are you doing, V?’ The warrior seemed to be asking.
“I sliced my wounds open, trying to stimulate the nanocybotics.” That pain had been for nothing. It hadn’t worked. “And I attached the feet.”
It was something their Humanoid Alliance handlers would have done, but it had been distasteful, had felt wrong, disrespectful to Bastion.
“He was a friend.” His female deduced.
“We were manufactured in the same batch, had trained together, fought side by side all of our lifespans.” C Models rarely enjoyed flying but they both loved it, would compete to be the warriors at the helm of their shuttle craft. “His death was the reason I was the last warrior to arrive at the field.”
His friend had been hit too hard to repair. Vector had stayed with him until his processors went dark, ensuring he didn’t die alone, and then he had reluctantly left Bastion’s corpse, rejoined the other warriors.
Only to see them also die, eaten alive by insects.
“Bastion was the reason you survived the Furudian fire burrower attack,” Vector’s perceptive female murmured. “Your friend’s last act was to save your life.”
“That is a claim he would have made.” If Bastion had survived, Vector would have been obligated to give him the captain’s chair for that act alone. “After I attached his feet, I had no choice. I had to escape. Being defective, I would have been decommissioned by the Humanoid Alliance.”
“How are you defective? Other warriors have replaced their parts.” His female knocked her foot against one of the feet attached to him. “I’ve heard transmissions confirming that.”
“Those parts were incorporated into their bodies.” No one could detect the repairs. “Their nanocybotics accepted the change.” He gazed down at the feet. “My nanocybotics rejected it.”
“Too much time had passed.”
Vector nodded. He’d waited too long. “These feet will be separate from me forever. They don’t smell like me.” He breathed deeply and wrinkled his nose. “Anyone gazing at them will know I’m not fully functional.”
“You’re fully functional.” She wiggled away from him. Vector resisted the urge to hold her to him. “Put your feet up here.” She patted the surface of the sleeping support.
“They’re not my feet.” Vector complied, swinging to the side, propping the feet upward. “They’ll never be my feet.” He’d be defective his entire lifespan.
“They’re Bastion’s feet.” Kasia grabbed a cleaning cloth. “You’ll always have a part of your friend with you.” She stroked the metal frame, polishing the feet with the fabric square. “Wherever you go, he goes.”
Bastion would have liked that. Vector studied the feet, seeing them in a new light. “Other warriors would view me as being defective.” Even if he grew to accept them, his brethren wouldn’t. “Defective males aren’t captains of warships.” He’d lose the respect of his males.
“Your males don’t follow you because of your feet.” She flicked the cloth to renew it. “They follow you because you have honor, strength, intelligence.” She skimmed the fabric around the scars circling his ankles, the marks denoting the end of him. “You would die for them and they realize that.”
He would die for her. Did she realize that?
Vector watc
hed his female as she cleaned the feet, Bastion’s feet. She didn’t appear at all repulsed by them, touching the metal, showing no hesitation.
Not that his female ever hesitated over anything. His lips twisted. And now his reckless little human knew his secret shame. “No one else knows about this.”
“I won’t tell anyone.” Her gaze met his, her brown eyes reflecting understanding. “I would never hurt you in that way.”
Part of him realized that but he liked hearing the words. Vector’s shoulders lowered. “You were wrong about one thing.”
“Only one?” She laughed, the sound making his insides bubble with joy.
“You were wrong about one thing concerning me.” He amended. “I have very little honor. If I had honor, I would have allowed another male, a whole male, to claim you.”
“You are a whole male.” She tossed the cleaning cloth at him.
He caught it, folded it neatly, set it aside.
“And I don’t want another male.” She pressed Bastion’s feet against her chest. “Your feet make me desire you more, not less.”
Vector gazed at her with disbelief.
“They’re proof you’re a badass,” she clarified. “When you decide to do something, like stay alive, you do it. I can count on that decision.”
“I am a badass.” That was the truth. He could outfight almost any being.
His female’s mirth filled the chamber once more and he wondered how he ever lived without it. “You are.” She playfully pinched one of the silver toes. “After escaping, did you meet up with some of your brethren? Is that how you removed the tracking device from your spine?”
“I didn’t know about the tracking devices.” The cyborg council, trying to prevent mass rebellion, hadn’t shared that information. “I reached the border of cyborg-controlled space before having the tracking devices removed.” Vengeance, the C Model warrior on the council, assisted him, admonishing him for his recklessness. “I could have led the Humanoid Alliance directly to the Homeland, killed every warrior, destroyed everything my brethren had worked to create.” Vector winced. “It was mere luck that they didn’t monitor the tracking devices.”
“I suspect it was more.” Kasia rested her chin on Bastion’s toes. “The Humanoid Alliance commander gave you defective guns, didn’t relay the information you required to defeat the enemy, bombed the planet before investigating what happened to your brethren, didn’t monitor the tracking devices. He wanted you all to die.”
That made no sense. Vector lifted his eyebrows. “He could have simply had us decommissioned.” They would have been stripped for parts.
Decommissioning was a slow and painful death. Any warrior would prefer to die on the battlefield, weapons in his hands, doing what he was manufactured to do—killing the enemy.
“If the commander had authorization to decommission you, he could have done that.” His female hugged Bastion’s feet to her, as though she was attempting to keep Vector safe, protect him from past dangers, that small sign of caring warming his chest. “If he didn’t have the authorization, he would have to make the deaths look accidental. Then he would have a reason to order newer models.”
That was a probable theory. Vector had heard the male speak of the new E Models, envy in his voice.
“Or it was all a coincidence.” His female shrugged. “That happens.”
It happened rarely. Vector pulled her onto his lap, sliding her bare skin over his legs, settling her slight curves against him.
“This is nice.” She sighed happily, snuggling closer to him, her satisfaction mirroring his.
He had found his female. She was beautiful, extremely intelligent, strong, brave. She accepted his mistakes, his defects. Vector curved his fingers over her flat stomach. She could be carrying his offspring at this very moment.
This female was his.
He’d disobey Power, rebel against the council, fight his fellow cyborgs, the remaining Humanoid Alliance forces, and the entire universe to keep her.
Chapter Twelve
Three planet rotations later, Kasia perched on Vector’s lap, sitting across his legs. He was at the helm of the battle station, her command-loving warrior unable to stay away from the bridge.
No one protested his assumed role. Dissent might be the leader of the J Models but Vector was recognized by every warrior on board the battle station as the captain. Her C Model had the experience and skill for flying unmatched by any of the other males.
He steered the battle station toward the location communicated by Commander Smith, toward a sure-to-be-violent rendezvous with the Humanoid Alliance.
They couldn’t yet see the Vault, their target, not with the human eye. A covering of black, sprinkled with a dusting of stars, filled the main viewscreen.
Cyborgs chatted around her, Dissent standing to their right, North standing to their left. J Models were being trained in their newly acquired roles by Vector’s crew. The buzz of conversation hummed around them.
Kasia and Vector were at the center of the activity, seen, part of it. She reveled in that position, happiness bubbling inside her. After solar cycles of watching, not being viewed, listening, not talking, it felt good to be included. It felt right.
Vector felt right. His thighs were hard underneath her ass. One of his arms encircled her waist. His breath blew warm against her temple. His nanocybotics fizzed within her.
They fucked four times a planet rotation yet it wasn’t enough. Kasia wanted him again, always. She wiggled.
Vector drew her back against him, trying to restrain her movements.
She allowed that for one, two, three heartbeats and then swiveled her hips, rubbing her outer thigh over the telling ridge in his body armor.
Vector stiffened. “Control yourself,” he murmured into her ear.
Kasia suspected it wasn’t her restraint he was concerned about. Her captain showed no weakness in front of the other males. She tried to respect that, never pushed him too far.
In public.
In private, she teased him until he broke, until the primitive part of his nature sprang free, until he ravished her until she couldn’t think straight. Kasia’s nipples tightened.
Now was not the time for arousal. Warriors watched them, males she considered to be her friends.
“Entering the Vault will be challenging.” Kasia redirected her attention to the upcoming mission. “The Humanoid Alliance will expect Commander Smith to fly a smaller ship.”
A battle station required a crew and no additional males were authorized to enter Commander Alakai’s escape vessel.
“We have smaller ships in the docking bay.”
Kasia noticed Vector didn’t mention the Freedom. It was a smaller ship but it was also their home.
“The Humanoid Alliance will use all five levels of security.” The conversation with Commander Smith and a lifespan of hiding upon ships told her that. “We have finger and iris scans covered.” She jostled the container holding Commander Smith’s eyeballs and hands. Liquid preserved those pieces of the deceased human. “A quality projection will fool the visual.”
“I have unlimited footage of the human.” Dissent tapped the embedded control panel on the console and a three-dimensional image of Commander Smith appeared on the bridge. His uniform was splattered with blood. Cruelty gleamed in his eyes.
They’d require a less gruesome image of him but Dissent would have plenty of those. The J Model had been observing his enemy for solar cycles.
“I’ve duplicated Commander Smith’s voice.” Kasia had also studied the Humanoid Alliance male, had used his verbal commands to access chambers within the battle station.
“I realized your voice was simulated the moment I heard it.” Vector’s lips flattened. “It won’t fool any system.”
“Fooling you wasn’t my intention.” Kasia rolled her eyes. “I wanted you to realize it wasn’t my real voice.” She had no desire to deceive her proud male more than was necessary.
Vector gazed at he
r for a moment.
“It was a very bad simulation,” he admitted.
“It was too bad for someone with my abilities, you mean.” She winked at him and grinned. “The speech test won’t be an issue.”
“You’ll design the voice simulation program.” Vector granted her that fun task. “Dissent will implement it.”
“What?” Kasia’s smile faded.
“You’re staying on our battle station, far from the Humanoid Alliance vessel,” her bossy cyborg declared.
“I’m part of this mission.” Her spine straightened. She wasn’t missing out on the adventure.
“You’ll be part of the mission. A remote part.”
That wasn’t the same thing. At all.
“If I stay on the battle station, we’ll fail the final test – the lifeform scanners.” Thank the stars Commander Smith had been human or she wouldn’t have any negotiation power. “There has to be a human on board the warship. If there isn’t one, the Humanoid Alliance will become suspicious.”
According to her research, Commander Alakai, the being in charge of the Vault, was a paranoid bastard. She would have to block the cyborgs’ presences or the male might consider them to be a hostile force and blow them out of space.
“The human on board the warship won’t be you.” Vector’s jaw jutted. “It’s too dangerous. You’re too fragile.”
Being tall and strong, she had never been called fragile in her lifespan. “I—”
“Find another way.” His face hardened.
“There isn’t any other way.” The lifeform scanners could be blocked but they couldn’t be fooled into detecting beings who weren’t there. “I have to be on the warship.” She looked at Dissent, hoping he’d support her.
The J Model avoided her gaze, feigning interest in the embedded control panel. He wouldn’t be any assistance.
She was on her own. “You need a human. You need me.”
“I do need you,” Vector admitted. “Which is why you are staying on the battle station, where you’ll be safe.”
