Page 29 of Her Cyborg Commander
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River ran fasterthan she had in her life, determined to reach Edge before he had time to decode the message. Getting through the door had been relatively straightforward once she found the emergency override switch. In her agitated state she’d read the instructions wrong and spent an embarrassing amount of time looking in the wrong place. That was Edge’s fault, too. Yelling at him had distracted her.
At least this time she’d taken the extra seconds needed to gear up properly. She was in full body armor with her pulse rifle slung over her shoulder and a blaster on her hip. The only thing she hadn’t had time for was shoes. They were obviouslysomewherein the camp, but she’d kicked them off right before he’d ordered her upstairs for another round of mind-melting sex, and they weren’t on the floor after he locked her inside. Had Edge hidden them? Probably.
He must have taken both comm units, too, because she hadn’t found that either. Without either device, she had no way to contact Eddi.
“Stupid. Stubborn. Argh!” she ranted as she ran. The wind blasted the words away as soon as she said them, leaving her with a mouth full of dust in exchange.
She’d used their internal channel to ping him, so she knew which direction to go. That didn’t tell her how far he’d gone in the time it had taken her to finish her shower and break herself free, though.
By now, her feet were probably in bad shape, but she couldn’t feel them. She’d used one of her innate abilities to block the pain while still letting her feel enough to keep her footing as she ran.
She reached the top of yet another outcropping, slowing down slightly so she could scan the area for any sign of Edge. She spotted him easily enough, his dark armor standing out among the orange rocks.
She’d tried to reach him through their link several times already, but she did it again as she approached his location.
Still no response.
River stopped to assess the situation carefully. Edge lay face down, one arm trapped beneath him and the other splayed out to the side with the shattered remains of her comm unit lying nearby. Not a good sign.
She increased the magnification of her vision, looking desperately for some indication he was alive.
“Thank the stars. You’re still breathing,” she said, relief easing some of the tightness in her chest once she spotted the almost imperceptible movement.
If Edge heard her, he gave no sign. Nothing around gave her any hint as to what had happened, but she already had a theory.
Kneeling beside him, she checked for a pulse and found one, slow but steady. He had no obvious injuries other than a bruise on his cheek where he’d hit the rocks when he fell. Her check also failed to turn up the second comm unit. He must have left itback at the camp. “He probably hid thefraxxingthing inside my boots. Wherever they are.”
There was a lot she didn’t know for certain, but the situation reminded her of what the Grays had done to Skye. They’d used a spoken command to knock her unconscious. It wasn’t one of the ones they’d known about, and it had led to the discovery that Skye, River, and Talia, were all implanted with thefraxxingcodes and behavior mods that made them sleeper agents.
But every cyborg in Haven had been scanned and any unidentified codes were scrubbed from their operating systems. That’s why she’d been so paranoid and had used every opportunity to check herself. She was clean. So was Edge. She’d been there both times he’d been scanned. So what thefraxxhad done this to him and how did she snap him out of it?
She moved beside his head, leaning over him so her lips were by his ear. “Wake up!” she yelled, feeling equal parts afraid and foolish.
When he didn’t stir, she tried everything she could think of. She talked to him. Shouted at him. Shook him. When none of that worked, she tried various pain stimuli to try and wake him.
Tears of frustration and worry soaked her cheeks as she did everything she could think of to rouse him, but in the end, she had to give up. She was out of time.
She got to her feet and then crouched down again and hauled Edge’s unconscious body over her shoulders. “You owe me for this,” she grunted as she strained to stand again. “And I will take my payment by telling you that I told you so every day for a month!”
The trip back to camp took longer than her mad dash to find Edge, but she still managed a decent speed. Keeping Edge balanced over her shoulders while jogging over the uneven rocks demanded her full attention and taxed her cyberneticallyenhanced body to limits she hadn’t reached since she’d last been in combat.
When she finally made it back to camp, she was sweating and too tired to continue the tirade of curses she’d kept up the first half of the trek. Streaks of blood marked her footprints as she carried Edge into the storage tent. It wasn’t as cool or as comfortable as the shelter, but the tent was large enough for her to set the big cyborg down and still be able to move around him.
It only took a few seconds to check his vitals again. No change. Which she took as an indication she was right about what had happened. As far as she could tell, Edge wasn’t in immediate danger.
That done, River scoured the campsite, looking for the other comm device. And herfraxxingboots. She found them all in the same place. Edge had tucked them between the two cisterns of water sitting in the back of the storage tent, less than a meter from where she’d set him down.
She sat beside Edge, taking the weight off her injured feet and grabbing a few minutes of rest. The way things were going, she might not get another chance to catch her breath.
Hoping Eddi hadn’t miscalculated the amount of time it would be in range, she activated the unit and spoke. “Eddi. This is River. Are you receiving?”
“I am. Expected time until we lose contact is one hundred seconds. What do you require?”
Despite the need to hurry, she couldn’t help but bark out a short, bitter laugh. “I need a lot more than you can provide, but I’m glad to hear from you, anyway. What’s the situation up there?”
“TheMaggie-May-Dancehas entered orbit. A shuttle departed from that vessel and is on its way to the planet’s surface. Based on its current speed and trajectory, it should landwithin a two-kilometer radius of your position in approximately twenty-seven minutes.”
