Cyberella: Preyfinders Universe (6 page)

Torgeir towed the stretcher over beside the bed then carefully lifted her and shifted her over. Her small moans made him shush her while he stroked her forehead. He covered her with the bedsheet, after one last heartfelt study, then brought over a chair. This way he could sit beside her without accidentally hurting her.

All those bruises made him want to make them go away. The captain was lucky he was dead.

Strange, perhaps, how proprietary he felt looking at her. He’d wondered why he’d been so anxious, watching the battle play out, waiting for her to be rescued. Now he knew. His feelings and thoughts had crystallized. He wanted Ella to be his. How long that would hold true for, he didn’t know. He’d never bondmated and expected he never would, since he’d left Sicar. This would just be an infatuation. Surely it would.

After a while, he rested his head in his hands and thought about the plan he’d made. It could work, as long as she was well enough. The one certainty from this was that she was coming with him. For now, she was registered as his slave and he was going to use that as leverage.

Dirty tactics. He didn’t care.

Torgeir stood and looked at her. The mess she’d gotten into when left by herself. One day, she’d thank him.

The police cruiser was packed with wounded and prisoners and needed to return to Sicar before going on patrol again. The
Finatar
was a floating wreck until it was towed away, dismantled, or repaired. This close to a wormhole and this far from the nearest solar system, no one was going to try salvaging it, for a week or more, except him.

All he needed to figure out if this would work, was the agreement of the captain, the damage specs, and a ride over to the wreck.

The captain was preoccupied when he walked in.

The police cruiser had halted almost alongside the slowly tumbling
Finatar
. Every few seconds, on the control room’s holoscreen, the side with the breach from the missile rolled into view. Twisted metal decorated the edges and small debris floated loose. There was still one body out there.

“Lord Rakkel? What can I do for you? I hear your slave has been slightly injured. But not ravaged?”

“Yes. And no, not ravaged.” He’d have put any ravager out through an airlock, without opening it. “Sir, I would like to claim salvage on the
Finatar
.”

“You would?” One brow rose, then he turned and brought up a small screen in mid-air, swiping to bring up the dead ship’s stats. “I’m told it would be best repaired at a shipyard. It could take days here.” He eyed Torgeir. “If you can do it, I’d be grateful. It’d remove one piece of debris from near this wormhole.”

“May I?” He pointed and the captain dragged the screen closer to Torgeir. It was worse than he’d hoped. The hull breach had taken out control system conduits too, and the fuel system would need rerouting and so much new piping that he knew it wasn’t going to be available on any old trader unless she was carrying the stuff as cargo. And the cargo was...

He was actually hoping all his needs for repairs would be in the manifesto? It was not, but an idea bloomed.

“Sir.” He pointedly eyed the captain. “There’s too much damage and inadequate parts. However, if you did happen to have these.” He tapped the screen. “In your storage, as well as an engineer I could borrow for say, five hours?”

The captain’s face turned to stone and his mouth firmed.

Torgeir hurried on.

“I believe that, legally, a police operation cannot claim salvage although the ship’s cargo can be confiscated as lost property and if not claimed for a year, it can then be sold to support the Police Guild.”

“Hmmm?” The captain inclined his head, a little.

He took that as a good sign. “I have been thinking that donating half of my salvaged cargo to the Guild would be a gesture of thanks. That way, it would be in the Guild’s possession, immediately.”

“I see.” He tapped off the holoscreen and a small smile spread. “I’m glad you’re on the right side of the law, Lord Rakkel. Make that three quarters of the cargo and I will give you the suggested supplies
and
you can have the engineer for six hours maximum. I’m now meeting a hospital ship halfway to Sicar anyway and that delay will still allow us to be there at the right time.”

“Thank you, captain.”

“And I thank you, lord.”

He left Ella behind for the medics to supervise, with Mimi hibernating, or something, at the foot of her bed. For a MeMoMe, Mimi was behaving oddly. None of them had ever left Sicar. Once the ship was in better condition and safe, he’d bring Ella over, asleep still, or not.

Mimi too.
Frack
. A chill ran through him. He hoped she’d not go super heavy and knock a hole in the ship.

Dresdek was suitably impressed, saying in an aside, as they stepped from the
Finatar
’s airlock, “Am I right in thinking you’ve just bribed a police captain?”

The engineer, wearing his helmetless spacesuit, as they were, was already striding down the corridor, pushing the hover trolley of supplies with his detached helmet perched on top. He was out of earshot. A repair bot hummed along in his wake.

Torgeir murmured, “I think I did. Did you see Ella?”

“Yes. Poor girl. Lucky we caught up to them. I’ll do a search of their computers and AI to see if they recorded the buyer.”

“Good. It should be there. The police have cloned those memories already. You know, when she’s asleep, she looks a lot sweeter than when awake.”

“What? Ella? She’s hooked you, that much?” Dresdek chuckled.

“No. You haven’t seen her awake.”

“Uh-huh. And now I’m really wanting to get your sanity checked. Why in hell did we rescue her if she’s as nasty as that?”

He grinned. “Because I like a challenge?”

Then it hit him. How true that was. Ella was never going to be easy to get into his bed. She wouldn’t fall in, like some. He might have to drag her in, with her squealing and making all those other noises women made when turned on and having fun pretending not to be.

Uh. Yeahhh.
That was hoping. He imagined her chained to the bedpost, kneeling, with his collar on her neck.

His cock was climbing as if to remind him it was there.

“A challenge?” Dresdek scoffed and hefted the unzipped bag he carried up to ear level, jiggled it. “We need to do
this
, you know.” Things tinkled onto the floor.

“Yes. Start thinking pipes and ship systems, not girls. Sexy or not...” He broke into a jog. “The open-to-space area is sealed and the doors are locked down. Don’t try to open them!”

In the past, whenever he was told he couldn’t have something, he always wanted it more. Ella was that.

“I won’t. Hey! Wait.” Dresdek stopped and squirmed his neck about, looking uncomfortable. “Something fell into my suit. Where are we going when we get this heap of kak working?”

“Riptide. The planet Riptide.”

“Oh kakkity. You could have said. That place is so bad my grandmother would run the other way.”

He turned to walk backward and yell at Dresdek. “You don’t have a grandmother!”

“Because she ran!”

Torgeir laughed. “Besides, we both know anywhere you go in the ’verse turns bad.”

The lights flickered, dimmed, and went out.

Before he could find a torch, two red eyes lit up down the corridor, bright enough to reflect off the walls. For a second Torgeir was sure his heart had stopped, then he recalled Dresdek’s retinal modification.

“Scared you? Can see now, though, can’t you?” Dresdek caught up, his red eyes weirdly bobbing in the darkness. “This, lord, is me being bad. Let’s go get those pipes and turn the lights back on.”

Torgeir grabbed a chair and seated himself beside Ella’s bed while Dresdek leaned against the nearest wall. She was still mostly away in dreamland, though the twenty-four hours was nearly up. The
Finatar
’s little medical bot thought she was fine and healing well.

The warp drive had worried him. Missile damage and repairs in space weren’t the best mix. It had gone well though. They’d zipped through the wormhole and arrived in the Riptide solar system without a hiccup of any sort. Mimi had vanished but, being her, she was probably camouflaged and stuck to a ceiling somewhere. The ship was big, the hiding places many.

Now they had a week before landfall at Riptide itself. They had to nurse the pulse drives due to some unrepaired problems. With only two crew, they had to go slow anyway. He had time to think ahead.

He took Ella’s hand and held it lightly. The sheet had drifted down a little and the swell of her breasts showed above her top. Dressing her had been an exercise in restraint. The little bot hadn’t been capable, unfortunately, or fortunately.

While asleep she was vulnerable. While awake too. He had no doubt that Ella was as incapable of fending for herself as a newborn baby.

She might agree to him helping her. She might not.

Yes, and that clinched it. He dug in his pocket and pulled out the fist-sized, slave stamp encryptor, slipped his fingers into the central hole made for gripping it. He’d charged it earlier. Lucky he’d kept the thing. When he pressed the power switch, the ready light blinked on.

Dresdek’s voice was a rumble. “I know what that is. Why? I thought you were all into the no slavery and let everyone be free?”

“After the trouble she got into?”

“And that will solve it? Making her a true slave?”

“I’m not. It’s insurance only. Think of it as backup.”

“You know I’m not that into women unless they’re under me in bed. But...I thought you were in love or something? You do that, she isn’t going to love you. She’s going to want to smash something over your head, if you don’t get her under control. And controlling someone that deeply, without them wanting it, heart and soul, it makes them hate you, down deep, forever.”

“And that was you helping?”

“Just my thoughts. Yes. It was. You know my kind’s history. I know slavery from the inside.”

Torgeir sighed, watching her turn in the bed toward him, her eyelashes fluttering. If she heard this and remembered...

“Your past is different. If I don’t do this, I might lose her completely. It’s worth it.”

Silence from Dresdek. He picked up the encryptor. The bot’s medical scans had showed her limbs were more cybernetic than elsewhere. The total percentage had surprised him but it was a plus. The encryptor liked to start with the cybernetics. When he pushed the sensing nub of the device to her wrist, the light blinked rapidly. After twenty or thirty seconds, the light went a solid red, then it slowly changed to blue. He kept it on her skin, sure that his hand was warming up. The light went green. He lifted the encryptor away and switched it off.

Done.
Every cybernetic part in her, every living cell in her body, now held his personal code.

Dresdek pushed himself away from the wall and stamped his boots, making them jingle. “Hope you don’t regret that.”

“I won’t.”

Knowing his code was inside her pleased him. Watching her sleeping aroused a fierce satisfaction. The soft curves where the sheet caressed her body, the rise and fall of her chest, the tumble of her hair over the pillow –
his.
He’d not take her until she said yes, but with this, she was his.

A man was looking down at her. Not an enemy, no. Her memory told her that.
Torgeir.

“Awake at last? You’ve been drifting in and out for hours.”

“I guess.” She frowned, feeling her forehead crease. “Where am I?”

A sheet covered her.
Phew.

Memory whiplashed in.

Oh god.
The last she remembered the captain had been beating her. The pain was gone. Her feet ached a little but there was nothing more that said she’d been hurt badly, and it had been bad. Even the sheet near her face had been smeared with blood spray.

Stop thinking about that.
It would go in circles in her head if she dwelled on it. Around and around and around. She knew her habits.

She propped herself up shakily on her side, using her elbow beneath her. The fixtures of the room were familiar.

“I’m still on the
Finatar
?”

Her trembling voice must’ve betrayed her fears, since he leaned in and said, “You’re safe. We caught them. They’re all in custody or dead and being taken back to Sicar by the police. The captain of this ship is dead.” She read sadness and knowledge in his eyes. He knew what had happened to her? “The
Finatar
is now mine under salvage law.”

All good then. Except for one thing.

“Why am I here with you?” She’d had enough of being taken places she didn’t want to go.

He paused before answering and she had time to register the strength in his jaw and the way the darker browns in his hair set off the blond colors. How his tousled hair fell over his ears. The size of the hand engulfing hers. He had such kind golden gray eyes too.

Like maybe he’d give her his last piece of bread when starving?

Uh-huh.
Let me spew now.
Was her natural soppiness coming out under the influence of drugs?

She struggled to sit up, finding yet again that her feet didn’t quite touch the ground. The bunks here were too high. The sheet had fallen away, revealing she had on shorts and top still, except this was her green pair.

Clean clothes.

She’d been changed? By who? Suspicious, she eyed him, then she swayed and had put her hand out to stop herself toppling. Torgeir caught her first, by her shoulder.

Damn
, he had nice biceps too.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine. Why am I here? On this ship?”

“I thought you’d rather be on a new planet. We’re going to Riptide.”

“Good.” Best be firm. “You can leave me there.”

“You think you can find work there, without even knowing what sort of place it is?”

She looked at the floor. Would her legs function? “Yes. You can tell me all about it. When do we arrive?”

“In about six days.”

At least he hadn’t tried to claim her again. “I never said thank you for what you did on Sicar, and now this... Thank you. I guess I owe you one, only not money.” She laughed without humor. “I don’t think I can afford that. Maybe one day I can pay you back?”