Page 3 of A Mate For Matrix (Cyborg Protection Unit #1)

Chapter Two

T he woods that bordered the road were dense with trees very unlike what Matrix was used to on Zion: tall, silver-barked giants with leaves that shimmered like metal under the twin suns.

These trees were much shorter and thinner, with brown bark and green leaves.

Perhaps because this system only had one sun.

The particle field emitted by the pod’s unusual design had veered away from all known planets and into a distant, uncharted star system.

The mess Elaine Brim and her team of scientists had created would become a bigger mess if Matrix and K-Nine didn’t remain invisible to the local inhabitants, but as members of the Zion military’s elite Shadow Warriors, Matrix and K-Nine were used to operating unseen.

The Confederation Council was far more difficult to hide from than the primitive aliens on this planet, and they did that as a matter of course.

Matrix wasn’t worried about exposure. He was worried about K-Nine.

The air was thick with damp, earthy scents and the quiet hum of insect life, unfamiliar but oddly soothing. Matrix cautiously moved out of the woods and looked both ways along the hard, dark surface of the alien road that curved at opposite ends of the long, narrow stretch.

As savage as Crawlers were, they weren’t just predators.

They were tacticians. It had not taken Matrix and K-Nine long to locate the Crawler’s abandoned pod, but the creature had been underground most of the time since then.

That had severely limited the range of their sensors, and they didn’t have a way to make it surface.

Crawlers were programmed to destroy distress signals immediately, and Matrix and K-Nine did each have an emergency signal that could lure the Crawler, but they also knew the creature would smell a trap a planet away.

It would most likely only get close enough to watch them, waiting, and only approach when it was certain they were unprepared.

No, they needed the element of surprise for as long as they had it. They would probably only get one chance to kill it when a confrontation finally happened.

Elaine Brim’s interrogators hadn’t been able to get much information out of her, but once the surviving scientists on her team had been detained, they had readily supplied information for leniency.

They had even provided the notes and vidcoms kept off site from Brim’s destroyed lab.

Matrix’s superiors and the scientists involved had deduced that there were only two ways to kill a Crawler: blow them up with an energy charge or cut off their heads.

The first was the easiest, but anything within a fifty klick radius would be destroyed as well. That didn’t bode well for the warrior and his partner if they didn’t move fast enough. Matrix had a gun with a charge ready in his holster, but he wouldn’t use it unless there was truly no other way.

The second way was only slightly safer, as long as the two of them didn’t get too close to the creature, which was decidedly difficult when you needed to cut off its head.

Matrix shook his head in resignation. He was glad the insane scientists, particularly Brim, were safely locked away. There was no telling what else the deranged female would have come up with if she had remained unchecked.

Matrix studied the ground intently for evidence of what could have happened to his partner. His gaze followed the long, dark marks on the hard surface. After a long, searching moment, his focus narrowed in on a tuft of K-Nine’s blue fur at the edge of the road.

Matrix had not been too concerned at first when K-Nine and he had separated.

The Crawler they were hunting was quick, and splitting up meant they were more likely to stay ahead of it despite all the obstacles they might encounter in the unfamiliar terrain.

They had been approaching an area inhabited by the natives—and therefore closer to when the creature would likely surface—when Matrix had lost communication with K-Nine.

Since then, he had focused on reaching K-Nine’s last known whereabouts. They had both been warned that fighting one of these creatures one-on-one wasn’t advised—but that wasn’t the reason Matrix was putting his partner’s safety first. They were family.

Matrix glanced down at the scanner in his hand and drew in a deep breath as he pulled his thoughts back to the present.

He seriously doubted there was an issue with K-Nine’s cybernetics.

They had been in regular contact before this, and their communicator was designed specifically for their team—as resilient and stable as the rest of their enhancements.

At first, he had thought the unusually long silence was because of K-Nine’s intense focus, but K-Nine had failed to answer several hails on the communicator now, and Matrix knew that something more serious must have happened.

The coordinates of K-Nine’s location during his last check-in had turned out to be a wooded area close to a road.

“K-Nine, location,” Matrix demanded again.

His frown deepened when there was no response.

“Cyborg Unit K, Production Nine, report.”

Again, no response. Matrix couldn’t put it off any longer. There was no alternative. He entered the command to activate the emergency locator embedded in K-Nine.

It took several long minutes for the tracking device to lock onto K-Nine’s location. It was as he had feared when Matrix had seen the dark marks on the road’s hard surface. K-Nine had been captured, possibly moments after his last transmission.

The Crawlers didn’t take prisoners. They didn’t hide evidence. They shredded, consumed, and dissolved their targets with a precision born of malice and programming. If K-Nine had encountered the creature and lost, there would have been bloody body parts lying on the ground, not just a tuft of fur.

No, his friend and partner must have been captured by a local inhabitant.

While their directive was to remain invisible to the natives of this world, Matrix’s primary concern was that K-Nine was in trouble. He would do everything he could to free him, regardless of what it took.

“Initiate transport pickup. Lock on location,” Matrix growled into the comm device clipped to his ear.

A few minutes later, a sleek vessel appeared over the tall trees bordering the west side of the road. It landed a short distance away, and Matrix strode over to it and climbed in.

The hatch hissed shut behind him. The sleek interior pulsed with soft blue lights, wrapping around him like a second skin.

No co-pilot.

No backup.

Just him, the dark, and whatever waited at the end of the trail.

“This mission just got a hell of a lot more complicated,” Matrix muttered as the automatic straps engaged around his body.

“Stealth mode. Analyze the track residue and extrapolate the most likely scenario involving Cyborg Unit K, Production Nine.”

The computer informed him that the width and the number of marks made it probable they’d been created by a large transport skidding against the ground. The traces of K-Nine’s fur within the tracks led to the likely conclusion that K-Nine and the transport had collided.

The computer had provided nothing he didn’t already know.

Matrix grunted, took the controls, and the vessel surged forward.

A second signal appeared on the screen in front of him.

It was heading toward K-Nine too. A soft curse escaped him, and he shook his head.

It hadn’t taken the creature long to intercept the signal from the emergency beacon in K-Nine.

“Damn Crawler,” he muttered. “This could get very messy.”

Jana Dixon stumbled back from the door of the vet’s office when a large truck driver barged past her.

“What—?” she squeaked in surprise.

In his arms, he held an animal wrapped in a blanket.

From the sweat glistening on the man’s brow and red coloring his cheeks, the dog—at least that was what she assumed from the paw sticking out from under the blanket, must have been pretty heavy.

For the second time in as many minutes, she regretted answering the impatient banging on the door.

“I hit a wolf with my rig. I don’t want no trouble from the animal rights people or local government,” the man told her in a gruff voice.

“With the release of those wolves back into the area, I can just see it splattered all over the news. My bosses would fire me if it got out that I just left it lying in the road. Where can I put it down?”

“I… In the back, but—” Jana replied in frustration, impatiently pushing back a lock of dark brown hair that fell along her cheek as the man headed toward the back, “—you can’t leave it here. The doc isn’t in. The office is closed for the next two months!”

“Not my problem anymore,” the man replied, practically dropping the blanket-covered creature on the exam table. “That damn thing weighs a ton. Good luck.”

“But… You can’t just leave! What am I supposed to do with it?

The only animals here are mine. You need to take it to a different vet.

Doc Wilson left this morning for his vacation, and we’re closed!

” Jana growled in exasperation, following the man as he quickly headed back the way he’d come. “You’ll have to take it to Fairview.”

“Like I said, not my problem anymore,” the man replied with a wave of his hand. “I’m behind schedule as it is, and Fairview is in the opposite direction.”

“Argh!” Jana snarled as the man hurried out the door without a backward glance. “Jerk! If it dies, how am I supposed to take care of it? If you can barely carry the poor thing, how am I supposed to lift it?”

With a deep sigh, Jana returned to the exam room.

She paused in the doorway and stared at the still figure.

It always broke her heart when an animal got hit.

With a sigh, Jana walked over to the table and pulled back the blanket.

She tenderly stroked the thick fur of the dog.

A confused frown creased her brow as she studied it.