Page 2 of Her Cyborg Commander
“You and I are going to grab lunch now. There will be carbs, and chocolate, and no claims you are too busy.”
River laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Skye’s expression softened, but she kept her hand planted on her hip. “Are you okay?”
It took her a moment to answer. “Sort of.” River tapped her chest and then her temple. “All of this stirred up everything again.”
“For me, too. How thefraxxare we supposed to heal and move on if those bastards won’t leave us alone?” Skye asked, her voice raw. “Haven’t they taken enough from us already?”
“Sometimes I wonder if they’ll ever stop. First, it was the corporations. Then we learned there was a faction called the Gray Men who called the shots. Now the Grays have evolved into the Shadows. Every time we think they’re gone, they come back as something worse.”
The two of them lapsed into silence for several seconds, both caught up in memories of the past. River and Skye had suffered some of the same abuses, and they’d both been used as involuntary sleeper agents.
“We’ll outlive every last one of the bastards,” Skye declared.
“And then we’ll dance on their graves,” River said.
Skye nodded sharply and gripped River’s shoulder. “Damn right we will. But first, we’re going to get something to eat. Theydon’t get to rob of us anything else… especially not Inet and Gali’s cooking.”
“Death first,” River agreed. “Does that mean we’re going to Earthly Delights? I love that place. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but their cheese toast is even better than the Bar None.” River’s stomach rumbled at the mention of one of her favorite comfort foods.
“Your secret is safe with me.”
Skye’s easy words settled something inside River. Her friend was right. They couldn’t live in fear all the time. If that happened, they had already lost the fight. That wasn’t how her story ended. It couldn’t be. But before she could start her new life, she had one more thing she needed to do. It was time to attend her last council meeting and hand back the responsibility she’d been given the day the others had chosen her to represent them. She’d found them a new home and a chance at a new life. Now, it was time she made a life of her own.
2
Why didleadership come with so manyfraxxingmeetings? Edge asked himself that question often, but so far he hadn’t come up with a satisfactory answer. His cynical side insisted it was so the bigwigs could hear themselves talk, but in his rare moments of generosity, he admitted that none of the colony’s leaders were much for grandstanding. There was so much work to do, and all of it required a nauseating amount of communication.
He sat in his usual place with his back to the wall furthest from the door. The table was round to allow everyone an equal position as well as a decent view of each other and anything displayed on the holo-projector that took up the center of the space.
The other members of the council arrived one or two at a time, claiming their seats without more than a few words of greeting. Exactly thirty seconds before the meeting was scheduled to start, River arrived. It was unusual for her to cut it so close. Normally, she was one of the first ones here, greeting the others with a smile and a bit of light banter before they gotdown to work. She never did that with him, though. Her smiles were reserved for other beings. The ones she wasn’t afraid of.
The thought stung, but it was an old, familiar pain, easily ignored. At least, that’s what he told himself. So what if she thought he was dangerous? She wasn’t wrong about that. Though he resented her for telling the humans not to wake him and the other male cyborgs until after they’d arrived at the colony. She’d made them out to be monsters, too violent and unstable to be allowed any say in their future. By the time he and the others woke from cryo, it was too late to do anything but go along with the deal she’d made with the Vardarians.
Edge’s gaze drifted to where Prince Tyran sat in quiet contemplation. In the beginning, he’d thought of the prince as the warden of the cyborgs’ new prison. Now, he knew differently. The cyborgs were as much a part of the colony as any other citizen. It still rankled him that River had taken the choice away from him and the others… even if she had found them a safe place to call home.
River took the last remaining chair, which put her directly across the table from him.
Her short, dark hair was pushed back from her face, and the shadows beneath her eyes and lines at the corners of her mouth told him she was pushing herself too hard. Even cyborgs needed downtime, but River never took time for herself. She was always too busy taking care of everyone else.
The first time he’d seen her was as he and several other cyborgs were dumped into the general population area of Reamus Research Station. They’d all been “re-acquired” by their former masters despite the promises to free every cyborg in existence. Angry, injured, and weakened by their minimal diet, it was all he and the others could manage to stay on their feet. River had been the first to approach. When she’d smiled at him, her brown eyes full of kindness and her voice as gentle as awhisper, he’d felt something so unexpected he’d almost laughed aloud—peace. For one brief, shining moment, she made him feel at peace.
He’d known then that she was the best of them, and he’d continued in that belief until he’d woken up on Haven and learned what she had done while he’d been asleep. After all the nights he’d guarded her, after all the beatings he’d endured to protect her and the other females from the predations of the guards… she’d sold them into a new kind of slavery.
At least, that’s what he’d thought back then, and his anger had made him say things he regretted. Not that he’d admit that to anyone. Especially not to her.
It was easier to leave things as they were.
It might sting that she was afraid of him… but that’s only because she didn’t know the truth. His soul was so much darker than she knew. If she had any inkling of the things he dreamed of doing to her? Stars above and below, she’d have fled the planet rather than risk staying anywhere near him.
His moment of reverie ended as Tyran rapped his knuckles three times on the table to call the meeting to order.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about today, and I know we’ve all got things we need to be doing to finish securing the colony,” the prince said. “We’ll go around the table. Everyone give a brief summary of what you’re doing and what you’ve learned. I’ll start.”
The Vardarian prince provided a concise report of what his spymaster had learned since their last meeting. It wasn’t much, but it did confirm the identity of the two Vardarians who had been murdered and replaced with what he thought of as infiltration units. Some of the others called them doppelgangers, but most referred to them as ghosts. He didn’t like either name. They added a sense of the supernatural to the situation, stoking everyone’s fears. A frightened population was prone to makingbad decisions. If that happened? Everything could go to hell in a rocket-powered handcart.
Around the table they went, each summarizing what they were working on and what they knew. Most of it he was already aware of, but he filed away every detail for later review, anyway. When Zanyr spoke, Edge gave the Vardarian his full attention. The male had been in the middle of the situation from the beginning. If anyone had anything new to add, it would be him.
