by Cara Bristol
But he hadn’t expected acid. Hadn’t expected to fall in.
She knew now he was a cyborg.
His worst fears had come true. While nanocytes had repaired the physical damage, the horror in her eyes had scored scars he would carry forever.
Maybe if I’d told her I was a cyborg, instead of showing her. His arm represented the least of his physical modifications. He’d also lost both legs, and they, too, had been replaced with cyberendoskeletons. Though still biological, his left arm had been rendered stronger than the norm by his nanocytes.
He’d been able to regenerate a damaged limb. If Pia had touched the pool…Brock shuddered. He had to find her before she encountered some other hazardous natural phenomena. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Penelope! Penelope!”
Silence. Did she not answer out of fear or because she was out of hearing range? Or had she fallen into some danger?
“Penelope!” he bellowed.
Fuck. He jerked his head in frustration and then spotted the footprints in the sand. They disappeared where the beach ended and the woods began, but broken branches marked where she’d crashed through.
Maybe there was hope of finding her. He stuffed the empty canteen into her duffel, slung the bag over his shoulder, and entered the woods. Judging from the turbulence, she’d been running. Fleeing. Afraid. Of him.
She’d headed away from the pool for a couple of kilometers—but, after rounding a small hill, had doubled back. Then had marched in a wide swath around the same smooth tree three times.
Had she been aware she was going in circles?
He raked a tingling, still-regenerating hand through his hair and peeled his eyes for signs she’d broken new ground.
Under a tall tree with radiating limbs, he picked up a fresh trace, several branches bearing new breaks. She’d climbed up to catch her bearings. Had her panic subsided enough for her to realize she had nothing to fear from him? If not, where would she have gone?
He studied the ground. The leaf pack was torn and crumpled more than any place he’d seen. He sank to his haunches. It almost appeared as if there’d been a scuffle. Brock rose and circled the area.
A single narrow path of disrupted leaves led up to the tree; a wider, more chaotic trail swept away from it.
Pia hadn’t been alone or willing when she’d left the area.
Who or what could have taken her? What kind of creature could live on a planet fed by acid? Could it have been another stranded castaway?
“Penelope!” Brock bellowed.
Just because there’d been no sight or sound of animal life, he shouldn’t have assumed none existed. A ship scanning from the sky would not detect their presence unless they were out in the open. How stupid to not realize if they were hidden, others could be also.
His instinct as Pia’s lover urged him to dash down the trail; Cy-Ops training forced him to proceed carefully so he didn’t miss anything.
He tracked the disturbance in the leaf pack, finding heel marks gouged into the fronds, evidence Pia had fought. He found a spot where she’d broken away but had been dragged back.
A glint of gold caught his eye. He kicked aside the leaves to reveal an epaulet with a captain’s insignia.
Epiphany and self-directed anger flooded his body in a heat wave.
Urgak.
How could he have forgotten? The escape pod had been programmed to land on the nearest planet capable of sustaining life—which was DeltaNu9084. Of course, the escape pod would land here.
If Urgak had hurt Pia, he’d never forgive himself.
* * * *
The trail, easy to follow at first, disappeared when the tree species changed, and the fallen leaves compacted and hardened. Brock halted and scanned the area. Urgak and Pia had been heading east, but had they continued that way?
They could have changed direction.
Pia could be dead already.
Don’t think that.
He needed to keep a clear head and not allow anguish to cloud his judgment.
Brock didn’t doubt the Malodonian intended to kill her. Urgak had programmed the shuttle to explode. But the fact that he hadn’t murdered her upon finding her suggested he had something else planned first.
Brock might still be too late to save her. Urgak might have a head start of hours, depending on how long Pia had wandered around in circles.
I’ll tear him apart with my bare hands.
He would devote his life to hunting him down, and, after he killed him, he would go after Lamis-Odg until every one of the bastards was dead.
With no clue, other than the assumption they would continue east, Brock trudged on, sweeping his gaze over the terrain. He’d covered another kilometer of leafy hard pack when his peripheral vision caught a white spot gleaming among the hues of green and brown.
He jogged over for a closer look.
A stone. Like the kind Pia had picked up on the acid pool beach. Whether by accident or intent, she had left him a marker. Brock veered south. In another half kilometer, he spotted another stone. Smart girl.
Just as he found a third one, his cyberhearing picked up voices, one higher frequency, one lower, though too faint to be understood.
A picture of battered, bloodied, crying Pia slammed into his brain. He jerked, going rigid when an electromagnetic transmission streamed through his consciousness, picked up by his wireless receiver implant. His human eyes saw forest, his cybervision saw Pia bound and on her knees.
“M-my n-name is Penelope Isabella A-A-aron.” She was crying so hard she could barely speak. “I am an ambassador to the Association of Planets and the daughter of the former president of Terra United. I have been taken into custody by Lamis-Odg. Shortly, you will witness my ex-execution.”
Landscape blurred as Brock ran. Her words reverberated in his head; her terrorized image reeled through his mind.
“To the members of the AOP, I urge you to heed the warning of my death and cease and desist further cultural desecration. Disband the Association of Planets.” Her voice echoed, and Brock realized he was hearing her twice, through the transmission, and live. She was close!
“If you ignore my words, more of your citizens”—she choked—“more of your citizens will experience my fate. One by one, ten by ten, hundreds by hundreds, they will fall. ”
A hooded man stepped in front of Pia. “We, the righteous nation of Lamis-Odg, have the support of your citizens from the highest level to the lowest. We occupy your home planets and have infiltrated your institutions. We are your government officials, your military commanders, your police, your food producers, your transportation coordinators, your medical professionals, your children’s teachers and caretakers.
“If you do not comply, you will be destroyed.”
He stepped out of camera range, revealing Pia again. Her forced speech must have been completed because she said nothing else. Tears streaked her bloodied, swollen face. The bastard had hurt her.
Urgak returned into the frame, wearing gloves and holding a container of clear liquid.
Chapter Fifteen
Urgak raised the uncapped jug.
“Brock!” Pia dove to the side. Hands and feet bound, she could only writhe. “Brock!”
Urgak clamped a hand around her ankle and yanked her back, scraping her face through the dirt and leaves. She kicked and twisted, but he dragged her in front of the camera lens again.
“Don’t do this! Please, don’t do it. I’ll talk to the AOP. My mother is the former president of Terra.” She hated herself for begging.
He released her to use both hands to raise the jug, and Pia flipped over. Ragged breath tore at her chest. For her to be an example, the galaxy had to witness her torture and death. If she could get to her feet, maybe she could run, knock over and break the transmitter and camera, maybe—
Urgak chanted in an unfamiliar language, the sing-song quality indicating it was a prayer.
She flung herself sideways, but he hauled her into place and kic
ked her until she curled up into a ball. Pain racking her body, she could only stare in terror as he picked up the acid beaker. This is it. This is how I’m going to die.
A blur, like a tornado, streaked from the forest. The container flew from Urgak’s grip and smacked into a tree, splashing its contents onto the trunk and the leaves below.
Urgak hit the ground with a grunt. Bone cracked as Brock snapped his neck. The Malodonian went limp. His face twisted, Brock leapt to his feet and wiped his hands on his pants. Both of them.
Penelope shook, unable to speak. He was okay. She was alive. Urgak was dead.
He helped her to a sitting position. “Are you all right?” He ran his hands over her face, her arms. He broke the bonds that tied her wrists then freed her legs.
“Y-y-yes.” She drew in a shuddering breath.
Brock faced the camera. “Ambassador Penelope Isabella Aaron is on planet DeltaNu9084 in Sector 1011. Send an extraction craft to 51 degrees by 48 degrees.” He switched off the transmitter before helping her to stand.
Crash! Behind them, the acid-splashed tree fell. Around its base the leaves had been eaten away to bare dirt. The half-full jug lay on its side. She shuddered at her near fate then turned her gaze back to Brock. Apologies, gratitude, and questions tangled into a mess in her head.
For a second he appeared anguished, but in a flash his expression went blank. She dropped her gaze to his right hand, rebuilt with muscle and tendon and covered in skin. It looked fresh and new compared to his left. “Your hand…regenerated.”
“Yes.”
“It’s fully functional again?” He’d snapped the Malodonian’s neck with it.
He flexed his fingers. “Yes.”
“You’re a cyborg.”
He stood motionless, his face hard. “Yes.”
“Have you always been a cyborg? I mean, when my mother was Terran president and you were assigned to protect me.”
“No. I was a man then.”
“You’re still a man.” Android, she’d called him. Even worse—Lamis-Odg. She shook her head. “I’m so sorry for what I said to you. I panicked.” What was it about her relationship with this man that caused her to wound him? As a teenager, she’d acted with cold calculation to hurt him. At the pond, in her shock, she’d panicked. How could she have suspected him of maleficence even for a fraction of second? She’d never forgive herself.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
Tears burned her throat. She’d hurt him worse than any acid could have. “Brock—” She reached out, but he turned away.
He tugged off Urgak’s protective gloves and pulled them on. “My nanocytes will repair the damage from a chemical burn, but it still hurts like a motherfucker.” He retrieved the jug of acid and stepped toward Urgak. “I don’t want Lamis-Odg to claim his body and martyr him. You may not want to watch this,” he said.
But she did.
Without splashing, he poured the liquid over the length of the terrorist’s corpse. The acid ate through skin, then muscle, bone, then ground cover, leaving the area as denuded as the gouge and the beach around the pool. All that remained to hint of Urgak’s existence was a barren patch shaped like a Malodonian.
Bile rose in her throat. That’s what Urgak would have done to me. Only I would have been alive as he did it.
Brock threw aside the empty container before stripping off the gloves. “With no insect life on this planet, organic matter is slow to decompose. That’s why there are so many leaves on the ground.”
“But wouldn’t the leaves be like kilometers high or something?”
“Perhaps there are bacteria or other microbes that have adapted to the acid, but the breakdown occurs at a much slower rate.” He stared at the barren outline. “Without a body to parade around, they won’t have proof of his death to draw sympathy to their twisted cause.”
The stakes and dangers had been much higher than she’d ever realized. She’d been stupidly naive to sneak off Terra without a protective detail. She should have trusted her mother’s judgment. Should have had more discernment herself. Once again, she’d acted like a rebellious adolescent. Brock had saved her life. Multiple times.
She remembered how quickly he’d disposed of the microexplosive device. The way he’d carried her and run from the shuttle and the explosion. Prevented a possible fatal injury at the acid pool. Rescued her and stopped the terrorist from torturing her to death.
No ordinary man could have done all that. “H-how long have you been a cyborg?”
“Since about two years after I left the Central Protection Office.” He clenched his right hand into a fist. “The skin, muscle, and tissue of my arm and both my legs are organic, but the bones are a composite metal. Nanocytes in my blood regulate bodily functions and repair damage.”
“That’s how you healed so fast after the fire. And regrew your hand. What else is different?”
He tapped his skull. “I have a microcomputer embedded that operates parallel to my human brain.”
“What does that do?”
“Allows me to process information quickly. Working with the nanocytes, it enhances my senses. I see and hear better than humans.”
A sharp pain stabbed at her heart at his phrasing—like he didn’t consider himself human. She hadn’t helped. She’d called him a machine. So much had been done. So much had been said. Most of it all the wrong things.
“And I can hack into computer networks.”
“That’s how you were able to get the codes to operate the shuttle.”
“Yes.” He tightened his lips. “But I wasn’t fast enough to break the encryption to stop the self-destruct sequence.”
“You still saved our lives.”
He held himself woodenly, his body a solid barrier. But at least he was talking. Sharing the details. She couldn’t let this window of opportunity close. “Are there many cyborgs?”
“More than people realize.” He stared over her shoulder. “It’s a covert program, of course. I couldn’t tell you anything before, but after what you’ve seen today…” He shrugged.
“Do all cyborgs have the same capabilities as you?”
“The microprocessor implant and the nanocytes are what transform a human into a cybernetic organism. All cyborgs share that in common, but the programming differs. The prosthetics vary. Some cyborgs are still flesh and bone. Most weren’t as severely injured as I was.”
“How were you injured?”
“I got caught in a Lamis-Odg bomb blast that killed the rest of my unit. I would have died, except I was rushed to a cybermed facility.”
She’d accused him of working with the terrorists. How hurt he must have been—still was, judging from his wooden posture and delivery. And yet, he’d raced to her defense, continuing to perform his duty.
“I’m so sorry for the things I said. I didn’t mean them. I panicked.”
“It’s over. It doesn’t matter.” He started to stalk off toward the escape pod.
Penelope planted herself in front of him. “Brock…” Talk to me. Don’t shut me out. “What’s going to happen with us?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw, but his eyes were dull, flicking to her face before focusing on some point over her head. “After we landed here, I activated my wireless to send a distress signal. Of course, there was no way to predict who would get the message and who would respond.
“The coordinates I sent out over Urgak’s broadcast will be picked up by IFA, the APO, and the organization I work for, among others. I’ll check out the communication systems of the pod. I think we may be able to contact them directly and avoid a duplication of rescue efforts. We can stay in the pod until an extraction team arrives. There should be a supply of food and water, too.”
She touched his arm, and he flinched. “I meant, what about you and me—after we leave here?”
“I’m a cyborg, Penelope.” He almost always called her Pia; his use of her real name hit her like a cold splash of water. “That you’re now aware o
f it doesn’t change the fact that I have nothing to offer you.”
“I’m not asking for anything.”
“You need a man to come home to at night. Who can be there for you.” He broke her hold on his arm. “I don’t get assigned to difficult missions. I get assigned to impossible ones, where the odds are I won’t come home at all.”
He stalked toward the escape pod. “Besides—you need a human.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Drink?” Carter poured a shot of Cerinian brandy and shoved it across the desk.
Déjà fucking vu all over again. Brock flicked his gaze from the glass to Carter’s face. “Cut the shit and tell me why you called me.”
“I have another assignment.”
“Doing what?”
“Escorting the Terran ambassador from Xenia—”
Brock sprang from the sensa-chair. If it hadn’t been secured to the floor, he would have sent it flying. “Hell, fucking no. Have you lost your mind?”
“To Terra.”
It was punch out his friend slash boss or leave. He flung open the office door.
“It’s not Penelope Aaron,” Carter said.
A burn, worse than the acid that had eaten away his hand, spiked in his chest. Since he and Pia had parted a month ago after extraction from DeltaNu9084, pain gnawed at him during the day and woke him up at night in an ever-present reminder of what had transpired.
He gripped the doorjamb and dragged air into his lungs. “What do you mean, it’s not Pia? Xenia was her assignment.” Brock peered over his shoulder.
“I don’t have the particulars.” Carter shrugged. “Either she chose not to go, or they reassigned her. But I need you to escort the ambassador who did go.”
“Protecting Pia was a favor to former president Aaron. Now you want me to babysit another ambassador? When did Cy-Ops get into the nanny business?”
