Cyberella: Preyfinders Universe

CYBERELLA

A Preyfinders Universe story

by
Cari Silverwood

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author

Though a standalone story, Cyberella is set in the preyfinders universe.

You can read the previous books individually or in the Preyfinders Trilogy.

Copyright 2015 Cari Silverwood

www.carisilverwood.net

Editor: Nerine Dorman

All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials.

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Thank you to my regular crew of Carly and Emma for reading this as I wrote it. I could never have finished this without your encouragement. Also a big thanks to Jody Rhoton, MJ, and Ann Grech, another erotic author, for beta reading Cyberella.

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http://www.carisilverwood.net/about-me.html

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“Once upon a time, a girl found herself on an alien planet hiding behind a lump of stone while saying fuck, fuck, fuck, a lot,” Ella whispered, adding another “Fuck,” for good measure.

With one eye, she peeked around the edge of the gray column. From the faint grating noises and the leak of light across the room from the opened door, someone had sneaked into this coldroom full of hanging animal carcasses. The sneaking meant they were looking for her.

Her chest squeezed in tight. Maybe they’d go away.

Now they’d stopped. Were they waiting for her to move?

Her mouth pursed, she stared at the array of weapons on her lap and the floor. She’d gathered them from the rooms she’d passed through while evading everyone. Knife. Long metal rod. Some sort of grey metal and wood gun that might even shoot bullets? It reminded her of flintlock pistols from Earth’s ancient history.

She’d been loping along, dodging fast, and lucky to grab these.

Primitive weapons considering she’d arrived here in a starship. Well, not
here
here, arrived in town. The covered cart they’d used to get here had been drawn by mule cross doggy creatures and had been so un-starshiplike it was laughable.

Hand to her heart, she checked the beat. Not too slow, not too fast. She’d learned not to panic or the stupid emotional bypass the aliens had installed in her would kick in. Dead minutes she’d termed the phase that would hit her. They thought it’d save her angst or something, spare her worrying about whatever shit her tattered mind might drag into the light?

She hated dead time. She always ended up worrying about it more afterward than whatever fear had made it happen in the first place. It wasn’t that she didn’t fear anymore, just that she knew the limits, could feel when she was going over, and she dreaded going too far so much that she’d learned how to stop herself.

Sometimes she reached the very edge of panic before she could claw herself down.

So...
No panic, no panic.

The mantra was effective, even when she was cornered in a shithole about to be... She shuddered. Raped or tortured. If she was lucky, perhaps they’d only make her bake cookies, or play Mahjong, or something.
Hah.

The Lords of Sicar and their Traditional Way meant everyone who came out here to the territories had safety clauses in their contracts. Or so she’d been told.

So what had happened to their guarantees of safe travel?

She held up the gun to her eyes, turned it, seeking a ray of light to illuminate its secrets. Dark in here as well as cold. If she was right, this gun had no safety. You just pulled the trigger.

Her butt was aching from contact with the cold stone. The leather skirt, the corset, and light cotton shirt Duggy had advised her to wear to fit in with the natives was great in the sun. In here, a parka and a campfire would’ve been nice.

Duggy. Where was he, and all the others?

Another noise said her intruder had moved closer. Two columns over. One guy only, though.

She peeked again, spotted a knee and a man looking back, and ducked away.

“I see you, girl.

Ella gulped. Maybe panicking and taking a dead minute would be good?

The problem was, without fear to hold her back, she might stand up and try to shoot her way out of here. That would surely be fatal. Her fingers ached from clutching the gun and she eased off the pressure, flexed them.

“You slide whatever weapons you have out in the open, then step out so I can see you.”

Seriously?

“Why?”

“Why?”

From his voice, he seemed puzzled, and she grinned despite the churning of her stomach.

As well as nausea, her fingers ached, she was shivering from cold, and her left foot was itching – as if to remind her that maybe they’d not fixed
everything
when reconstructing her body.

She exhaled slowly, remembering how she’d just grinned.

Pluses always pluses.

For a few seconds she put her hand in her skirt pocket and held the miniature stuffed koala on her keyring. It was her substitute for a rabbit’s foot. Even if it didn’t work, it still reminded her of home.

How was she getting out of here? She angled back her neck, trying to ignore the animal meat hanging from hooks to the left and right. The smell of blood in here was strong. At least it wasn’t hers.

The windows were tiny, square, and up high. A bird could use those, if they weren’t sealed with glass and barred. The door was alien-guarded by now. This place was a maze and she knew the way out, but it was a long way to the left. Every time she’d tried, someone had been in the way. A bullet in the head was an option some might consider.

No.

The alien hadn’t moved, and she could hear his breathing. He wanted her gun.

“Give me facts. Why should I do that?”

Maybe he hadn’t called in others. She’d heard no other noises out there.

“I saw you brought in, saw you lay out one man with that bronze vase and run off. I’d like to help you.”

What? Her forehead corrugated. “What’s the catch?”

“
Catch
doesn’t translate for me. I don’t know what you mean,” he said quietly. “You give up now, you’ll be fine. Hurt one of these men again and they will punish you, badly. You’re headed for becoming a possession of Lord Kalfa’s. He wants you for some reason. Still, he will punish you. So far, you’re providing amusement.”

While she counted to ten, Ella shut her eyes.

What did he mean by
fine
? A possession was not tolerable. She’d been a possession of sorts already.

“Slide out your weapons.”

“No. We have a clause of safety in our travel documents. You need to enforce that.”

“Null and void. You strayed off the allowed land. You can’t get out of here. I’d help you more if I could but he figures to sell you for a good sum. A hundred thou, I was told.”

She’d known they kept female slaves but this wasn’t
right
.

“Why are you wanting to help me? And how exactly? Aren’t you into the
Way
? Wait. Wait...” She thought a few frantic seconds and pressed her knuckles into her head. Money was no good if she was a slave. “If I gave you money? I have two fifty thou in my account.”

“You have that much and you’re apprenticing to a trader ship? You are crazy.” There came a pause where all she could do was watch dust motes drift in the light rays. “I could buy you off him with that. Do what I tell you and it can be done.”

“I can give it to him myself.”

He laughed. “A female? No. Won’t work.”

“Primitives,” she muttered darkly.

Was this a lie? She couldn’t tell. The law the rest of the ’verse worked on varied from place to place plus it had been ruled invalid on many small planets via negotiated settlements in a thousand native courts. The best lawyer, even if she could contact one, was unlikely to win her freedom.

She had to ask. “How can I trust you?”

Silence, for a long time. Again.

“You can. Decide. I can’t prove myself this way or that.”

He was calm at least. Hadn’t tried to rush at her. Maybe they’d sent him in to talk her down? Again, she had no way of telling.

“You have to let me go, straight away.”

“As soon as is safe. I know these men. The
Way
is important out here. I’ll lose credos if I don’t stay a while. After that, yes, we go back to the city and I release you.”

Credos
? Honor on a points system? That word didn’t translate well. They’d implanted a standard translator program when they’d reversed the...she gulped...and
made
herself not think. Yes. When they’d fixed her.

Talking to his disembodied voice was lending a surreal air to this. Serenity settled over her. This or that. Fate. She’d decided that fate was often the way of the universe. Sometimes you had no say in how things went in the greater scheme of the ’verse.

“Okay. Deal.”

“Payment first.”

Warned by noise, she looked around in time to see the flat rectangle of a comm unit slide her way. Ella picked it up. Unlocked, with a bank transfer screen up and ready. The man was happy skirting traditional rules when it suited him. What would his fellow warriors say if she showed them this?

Fingers poised she said over her shoulder. “One hundred thou.”

“Hell no. One seventy. I get danger money, girl.”

Her nose wrinkled at his
girl
. “One fifty.”

“No deal.”

Fuck.
She often wondered what
Hell
really translated from. The aliens had gods but not the same one the Earth’s Christian Hell was associated with.

“Fine. One seventy.” Maybe a lawyer could screw it out of him after.

When done, she spun the comm back to him.

“Good.” She heard him rise and spotted the length of his shadow spill across the floor beside her. “Weapons, then come out.”

After a few deep breaths and counting to some big number, she scooted the gun and the metal rod toward him, slid her back up the column, and stepped out.

The man emerged from his hiding place – no weapon drawn, just a long knife sheathed at his left hip and a gun holstered at his right. From the unadorned red gun butt, it too was unpowered. Traditional.

He still scared her, maybe even more because of his rough appearance.

Lights flickered on. Those were powered. Their rules of the
Way
were fickle.

Now she could see him properly. Like all the aliens she’d ever met, he was a human with minor embellishments. Apart from the Bak-lal, the universe had stuck with one, fun design.

His hair was sun-bleached blond. When he bent to retrieve her pistol, a few straggly locks swung across his face and she saw most of his hair was cinched at the back. Let loose, it’d be at his shoulders. The man was superbly muscled with bulky shoulders and chest. He wore a loose white shirt and dark leather pants with double leather belts, though one was a weapons belt. His brows and eyes were too golden to seem natural. Most aliens she’d met seemed different in some small way and therefore disturbing. He was also alluring – deadly yet sexy. If this were an everyday situation, she would’ve quietly checked him out, despite knowing he was out of her league.

Once her weapon was tucked into his belt, he examined her again, from her toes to her face, slow and measured. The Sicar tribesmen were always brazen about looking at women. She’d almost become accustomed to the treatment. If they knew what she was, they’d not be so interested.