Captured by the Cyborg (18 page)

“Oh, no you don’t. You’re not getting off the ship and you’re not taking my pod either.” Dale’s fingers flew over the computer screen, trying every code his microprocessor could come up with, but the system was frozen.

Emergency bay access had been stymied by a computer sensate. But Alonio faced a challenge, too. Did he recognize the Lamis-Odg origin of the escape module and realize the password was written in the Odgidian language? Battle of the hackers. Whoever gained entry first would win.

Illumina touched his elbow. Damnable woman. She didn’t listen very well. “Let me,” she said. She nudged him aside, palmed the screen, and closed her eyes. A moment later, she sucked in breath. “Clever.”

That didn’t sound good. “What is?”

“He’s inserted a mutation code to alter the password when you apply the PIN.”

“When did he do that?”

“About three minutes ago. Basically, he’s locked down the system.”

“Can you free it?” Dale didn’t take his eyes off Alonio.

“I’m working on it.”

It killed him to stand and wait, but her hacking skills exceeded his. She was their best chance to open the emergency bay.
Hurry, Illumina, hurry.

He couldn’t hear through the reinforced walls, but there was no misunderstanding the triumphant fist pump. A second later, the pod hatch sprang open.

“He did it.” The bastard would escape.

The Faria straightened, turned around, and made eye contract. Smirking, he saluted then stepped toward the open hatch.

This is only the battle, not the war.
But failure burned in Dale’s gut.

Illumina pressed her lips together. “It’s not over yet. I’ll bet he forgot one set of passwords.” She palmed the screen; her forehead furrowed in concentration. “Computer!” She inhaled. “Open emergency bay shuttle launch door.”

Alonio’s eyes bulged and his mouth yawned in a silent scream as the ship’s external wall slid open. The escape pod, tethered by a lock-down, remained in place, but the vacuum of space sucked Alonio into the blackness. His body inflated like a giant winged balloon as blood gasses bubbled underneath his skin. He flailed arms, legs, and wings in a desperate, futile attempt to fight his way back to the ship. Though Illumina couldn’t see the effects of the extreme cold, with his cybervision, Dale could. Mouth, eyes, and nose—the watery parts of his body—froze over. Within moments, his skin turned blue, and frantic movements slowed. In 13.2 seconds, struggle ceased altogether. His heart no longer able to pump, Alonio went limp as he passed out from the lack of oxygen.

He drifted away to meet death. Dale opened a line to Cy-Ops, cancelled the extraction, and requested recovery of the body.

Illumina closed and re-pressurized the bay. Her lips quivered. She burst into sobs.

Dale enfolded her in his arms and rocked.

Killing someone was never easy. Not even when the bastard deserved it.

Two weeks later

Dale folded his hands behind his head as Illumina disrobed. Health, well-being, and luminosity had returned since her abduction a fortnight ago. Even the night terrors had abated. The artificial light of Deceptio’s underground habitat bounced off spiky, silvery hair already growing out.

Her smile was pure seduction. “Like what you see?”

“You know I do.” His erection tented the thin spread tucked beneath his armpits. She approached the bed, and he tossed back the covers so she could join him.

She eased onto the mattress and faced him. Arms and legs entwined in a comfortable tangle. Her thigh slid between his legs; his arm found its place beneath her head.

Despite Alonio’s demise and her physical recovery, the score had yet to be evened. Dale did not consider the matter finished. There could be no forgiveness for the Faria’s crimes. He was dead, but Illumina had not received justice, and he ached to give it to her. He often replayed the final scene, wished he had been the one to open the hatch and shoot Alonio’s body into space. Wished he’d been able to drag the still-alive, bloated Faria back in, rip off his wings, and eject him again. Death had come too quickly. Illumina’s cuts and bruises had healed, her hair was regenerating, but the loss of her wings remained permanent and painful. Unless…

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Are you reading my mind again?” He had to be careful.

“No. It’s written all over your face.” She touched between his brows. “You get an intense look when you think of him.”

“Sorry.” He kissed her. He focused on how her sweet breath mingled with his, her face so smooth against his cheek, the bold way she kissed.

“That’s better,” she murmured and squeezed his erection. Soft fingers fondled with a firm touch the way he liked. Her thumb swiped over the head.

He groaned in submission to her caresses, his body strung between relaxation and tension. With every stroke, every caress, his desire ratcheted higher and higher, organic cells and robotic nanocytes vibrating with need and demand, buzzing in harmony. His emotional human and his analytical cyborg were never more integrated than when he was with her. She loved him as he was. Understood him. Accepted him. She’d given him a soft place to fall, a place he hadn’t known he’d been searching for. With her at his side, in his bed, he found completeness.

His one wish was to give to her what she had given him.

He’d gotten the go-ahead this morning. The one time he’d broached the subject of cybermed pain management, she’d refused to discuss it. So he had to keep his secret until he could
show
her in hopes that seeing would convince her. Since the rescue, their mental bond had strengthened. Telepathy occurred with ease, and, during intimate encounters, almost automatically. So he’d locked his plan behind a firewall and hoped it held.

He never wanted her to think he required more of her than what she was. He loved her scars and all, but he ached for her loss, her pain. She could be prickly, sensitive, so he had to show her before he could tell her. Even then she might reject the idea.

The proposal didn’t come with guarantees, only a gamble, and he had no wish to reopen painful, old wounds. Brock had sent him updates on Carter’s recovery, and the idea, first rejected as impossible, then as too risky, had grown into something possible. Maybe…

He wrestled with doubt on an hourly basis. What if it failed?

Holy fuck, what if it succeeded?

She’s going to find out, if you don’t stop thinking about it.

Putting his thoughts on hold was easy enough to do when she closed her fingers around his shaft, lighting a hot fuse that traveled into his abdomen and set him on fire. A sure grip, a firm squeeze, a long slide, and
Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Jesus
. He stopped her before he tumbled over the brink. He cupped her breasts and thumbed nipples already hardened for his touch, massaged her clit, and combed his fingers gently through her hair, even more sensitive during regeneration.

Her soft moans excited him as her touch had done.

Illumina signaled her readiness by grabbing his shoulders to pull him on top. He resisted, trying to maneuver her onto him. Good-naturedly they wrestled.

“We’ve done it this way before,” she argued.

Once. But
her
pain caused him discomfort. “It’s not good for your back.” Nor did he care to risk injuring the remnants of her wings at this critical juncture.

“My back may never improve beyond what it is. Are we never going to have sex that way?”

“Never is a long time.” He won the tussle and pulled her on top of him.

She tsked. “Next time…” She lowered herself onto his cock and began to rock.

He groaned. “I’ll look forward to it.” He palmed her breasts and thrust his pelvis, meeting her stroke for stroke. Pleasure shot through his body in an undulating wave, driving him to the edge again. She neared her own climax, her head flung back, her face contorted in a rapturous grimace, ripples in her pussy tightening around his dick. Shuddering, they climbed the heights of ecstasy.

Next time we do it my way.
He heard her voice in his head.

She was persistent. Her stubbornness didn’t surprise him. Tenacity had kept her alive when she had nothing else to protect her. Maybe next time indeed. He’d been smart to erect the firewall.

While passion subsided to a warm throb, he held her, caressing her back, her skin slickened by perspiration.

“Are you packed and ready to go?” he asked.

She nodded, her head bumping his chin. “We’ll be gone a couple of days or so?”

“Or so.” At least a month. He’d debated how much to tell her; after all, she had the highest stake, but he felt in his gut it would take more than words to persuade her.

“I’m so thankful Sonny and Carter survived. I’d never be able to forgive myself if they’d died because of me.”

“It wasn’t your fault. I called them in, and everyone in Cy-Ops accepts the risks,
especially
Carter.”

“He couldn’t have known about Charlie.”

“No. If anyone should have, I should have.” He’d been a cyberoperative for goodness sake. If he’d investigated more thoroughly, he probably would have learned about the gambling addiction and recognized the security risk from the start. People with vices or vulnerabilities were easily exploited.

By that reasoning, he never should have hired Illumina. She’d been the biggest risk of all.

Not hiring her would have been the biggest mistake of his life.

“Desperate people do desperate things,” she said.

“Yes.” In truth, there’d been no malicious intent to Charlie’s betrayal, only a desire to repay a perceived debt. He believed his assistant when he claimed not to have known what Alonio, an AOP ambassador, had intended. Still, Charlie should have known
better
.

While his assistant had broken no planetary laws, only Moonbeam procedure, his actions had nearly killed three people, two of them with Cyber Operations. Cy-Ops would neither forgive nor forget.

“How long do you think Cy-Ops will keep Charlie?” Illumina asked. Under the circumstances, past and future, she had a need-to-know about the clandestine organization, so he’d come clean. She’d guessed everything except the name of the outfit, anyway. His Faria was smart.

“Carter will decide when he’s back at the helm.”

“I’m so glad I have the chance to thank him for everything he tried to do for me. How much longer will he be at Cybermed?”

“Probably another month. The surgery to replace his lost limbs and to implant the microprocessor is the quickest part. Working out the synchronicity between his human brain and the processor takes a bit.” It wasn’t like rolling an android off the assembly line.

He sought her gaze. “Cyborgs are still human,” he said. “Or Faria, or Lamis-Odg, or whatever race they were before the computer and mechanical mods.”

She scowled as if he’d implied she was cyberphobe. “I know that.”

That’s what he counted on.

Three weeks later

Late in the evening, the workout/training area of the Cybermed facility was deserted except for one man on the running machine.

“He’s bigger than he used to be,” Illumina murmured as they watched Carter push his biomimetic legs to the limit. Although he’d lost only one leg to the saber, Carter had opted to replace both with cyber prosthetics to maximize function and strength. The Cy-Ops director had been a tall man, but now, like his cyborg brothers, under the influence of nanocytes, he’d added bulk. Deltoids and pecs bulged; abs rippled.

“Faster, too.” Dale clocked him at ninety-six kilometers per hour, the equivalent speed of a cheetah, the fastest Terran land mammal.

“I can hear you,” Carter called with only a slight pant.

“His hearing’s improved, too,” he whispered. She giggled.

“Computer, decelerate and halt running machine,” Carter ordered.

When the deck rolled to a final stop, he leaped off, snagged a towel then strode toward them. “Taking off tomorrow?” He wiped his face.

“At the break of dawn.”

“Back in a couple of months, right?”

“That’s a fair estimate. After I finalize the contract with Xenia, recruit and train a shop overseer and a replacement for March, we’ll report to Cy-Ops for active duty.” It hadn’t taken much arm-twisting on Carter’s part to get Dale—and March, too—to re-up.

No job could replace the pulse-throbbing, heart-racing missions, but he hadn’t re-enlisted for the adrenalin rush. All across the galaxy, people met life-threatening situations like Illumina’s. Somebody had to fight for them. He could be that somebody—as long as he didn’t have a personal stake in the outcome. He never again wanted to confront a situation where the life of someone he loved was in jeopardy. “When are you heading back to HQ?” Dale asked.

“Day after tomorrow.” Carter chuckled. “If I don’t show up, Brock will dispatch a team to drag me in. He says if he has to spend one more day behind the console he’ll go batshit crazy.

“While you’re recruiting for your replacement on Deceptio, I’ll be searching for an assistant to manage the day-to-day stuff so I can get out in the field.” He twisted his mouth. “I’ll be the most knowledgeable but inexperienced rookie field agent Cy-Ops has ever had.”

“You’ll handle it. Your Intel background gives you a huge advantage. That’s more than any of us had when we started,” Dale said. “All you have to do is adapt to new and improved parts, which it appears like you’re doing.” He jerked his head at the running machine. “You looked good out there.”

“It’s amazing, really. I don’t feel that different as a cyborg. Maybe fitter and healthier and more rested.” He flexed his biomimetic arm. Synthetic arteries and veins delivered blood to and from regenerated skin and muscle, supported and strengthened by a titanium humerus, ulna, radius, carpus, metacarpus, and phalanges. “It still surprises me when I lift something that only a power-model droid can lift.”

“I know the feeling,” Illumina said, and stretched her composite wings to their full extension. With a slight motion she lifted up into the air and hovered then lowered herself to the ground. Her face glowed with happiness, framed by waist-skimming silvery hair. Under the influence of nanocytes, her hair had grown to its full length in record time. “I never thought I’d be able to fly again.” As if they’d always been a part of her, she fluttered her wings then folded them close to her body. The transition had been a breeze for her.