Page 27 of Her Cyborg Commander
“And how did they track me here? I don’t see how this is my fault,” Edge argued.
“Eddi is, or was, corporate property. Do you really think they didn’t have the means to track it down if they wanted to? And at the risk of repeating myself, this is why I told everyone not tofraxxingfollow me.”
Eddi interrupted before Edge could respond. “The vessel is positioning itself for orbital insertion. If I am to remain hidden, the position of this moon will put me in a communication blackout in forty-three minutes. Whatever you intend to do, it should be done quickly or I will not be able to assist.”
“We need to listen to the message. That’s the only source of information we have. Once we know what it says, we can make a plan.”
“No,” Edge snapped. “We are not listening to that message.Iwill, and you will not be in earshot when it happens.”
“That’s not your decision to make.” She couldn’t believe he’d do this to her. He knew why she had to face Jens and how important this was to her.
“Yeah. It is. You said it yourself. You can’t know that you haven’t been compromised somehow. I won’t let you risk yourself over a damned message. I’ll listen to it and then come back and tell you everything I heard. I’m not the one he’s obsessed with. Jens doesn’t even know I’m here.”
His words cut her deeply. Of all the beings she knew, he was the one she’d have sworn would never throw her own words back at her like that.Compromised. What’s worse, was the fact that he could be right. That didn’t make it hurt any less.
Her response came from her heart, unfiltered and raw. “Unless he followed you here,” she protested. “And even if you’re right, it’s still my choice. This is my battle, and you can’t tell me step back and let you handle it!”
“Damn it, River! I’m trying to protect you!”
She sat up and glared at him. Why couldn’t he understand that his idea of protection was as much a prison as Reamus Station had been. If she wasn’t free to make her own choices, she wasn’t free at all. “For the last time, I don’t need your protection. I never asked for it, and I don’t want it! It’s my life, Edge. You don’t get to tell me how to live it.”
They glowered at each other for several long seconds. Finally, Edge seemed to back down a little. “You’re as stubborn as abraxiandonkey. I’m going to take a walk. You do… whatever. Both of us agree not to do anything about the message until we’re calmer. Deal?”
“Fine.” She moved toward the opening that led to the lower floor. “I’ll grab a shower. I won’t listen to the message until we talk again. Maybe by then I’ll have figured out a way to make you see sense.”
“You’d be the first to manage it,” he joked. “We’ll talk. I promise.”
Trusting him was harder than she wanted it to be, but she nodded in reluctant agreement. “Don’t take too long. We’ve still got to make a plan and relay it to Eddi before they are out of contact.”
“I won’t go far.”
She went down the ladder first, slipping behind it to the sanitation cubby near the back of the shelter. Once inside, she shut the door and turned on the water. It was more of a drizzle than a proper flow, but the barely warm water washed away the sweat and dust of the day along with some of her anger.
As much as it pained her to admit it, Edge might have a point. How he’d made it, and what he’d said to her were another matter—one that threatened to derail any chance of a future between them. Ceding control to him in the bedroom was one thing, but if he expected her to obey him in all parts of their life, that wasn’t much of a life at all.
Sadness and doubt distracted her for longer than she should have allowed. When she stepped out of the cubby, she expected Edge to be back.
He wasn’t.
Maybe he was outside? Curious, she padded to the door and touched the panel to open it. The door mechanism whirred, but it didn’t budge.
She tried again. This time, the whirr was accompanied by a grinding noise and the panel flashed red.
“You asshole!” she yelled, her fist pounding on the door. “You promised me we’d talk first!”
14
Regrets gatheredaround Edge like a storm cloud as he ran across a string of sunbaked rocks that rose out of the desert. The rocks kept him safe from whatever predators moved beneath the sand, but not even his armor could shield him from the searing wind and unrelenting heat of this place.
It probably wouldn’t help much against River when she realized that he’d jammed the door, locking her inside the shelter while he listened to the message alone. He hadn’t done any permanent damage to the structure. The goal was to give him enough time to get clear and listen to whatever Jens had to say without putting River in harm’s way.
It wasn’t that he doubted her courage or her strength, but this wasn’t a risk she should take. Not when he could do it instead. Edge had never been one of Jens’ projects. He’d gone through his own hell at the hands of other researchers, but no one had messed withhismind.
It took him less than five minutes to reach a spot far enough from camp that River wouldn’t be able to catch up to him before he’d played the message. They still needed to work out a plan and fill Eddi in before they ran out of time, and he figured itwould take more than a few minutes for River to finish yelling at him for what he’d done. He didn’t feel good about what he’d done, but eventually she’d come to see that he’d made the right decision.
At least, that’s what he hoped. A small voice in the back of his mind was telling him it wouldn’t be that easy.
He took River’s comm unit out of his pocket, switched it on, and set it to scan for any incoming signals. It locked on to one almost immediately. That had to be it.
