Page 16 of Her Cyborg Commander (The Drift: Haven Colony #9)

15

River ran faster than 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 obviously somewhere in 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 it back at the camp. “He probably hid the fraxxing thing 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 the fraxxing codes 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 the fraxx had 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 cybernetically enhanced 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 her fraxxing boots. 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?”

“The Maggie-May-Dance has 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 land within a two-kilometer radius of your position in approximately twenty-seven minutes.”

Veth . Jens had to be on that shuttle. Whatever had happened to Edge, the asshole doctor knew about it and was coming to collect his prize. Her .

She groaned as that realization led to another one. If Jens thought he’d captured her, he couldn’t know that Edge was here. Fraxx- to-the-max! The bastard had tracked her somehow. She wasn’t sure if she was more pissed off over the fact he’d managed to find her despite all her precautions or that Edge had been right all along.

“Eddi, how long until we’re back in contact if you stay where you are?”

“Three hours and eighteen minutes.”

Which meant either ordering Eddi come get them now despite the risk of the corvette in disguise blasting their only ride into oblivion or staying put and fighting. There was only one choice.

“Do everything you can to avoid detection and contact us again as soon as it’s possible.”

“I will do so. Stay safe. Pilot Rem would not be pleased of something happened to either of you.” The AI paused. “Or to me.”

“I’ll do my best to make sure all of us get home safely. I promise,” River said.

“Thank you for that reassurance. Communication blackout now commencing. Good luck.”

Something about Eddi was definitely odd. She’d never heard of an AI wishing anyone good luck before, and the program seemed to have a keen interest in its own survival. That hinted at a level of self-awareness no artificial intelligence was supposed to have.

If she survived this current cluster- fraxx , she’d have to ask Sevda about it.

Turning her attention back to the needs of the moment, she shifted positions so that she was between Edge and one of the cisterns. It was time to try and wake him up again. If she failed this time? Well, she’d have to find a safe place to stash him while she dealt with Jens and whoever else was in that shuttle.

River got to her knees and cradled Edge’s head in her hands. “I love you, you big stubborn idiot. Come back to me.”

Nothing. But she hadn’t really expected that would work.

“Okay then. Since romantic declarations of love aren’t getting through, let’s try something else.”

She reached back with one hand and groped for the tap she knew was embedded halfway up the container. Once she found it, she cranked it open and let a torrent of water wash over them both. The contents of the cistern weren’t chilled, but compared to the heat outside it was like being doused in ice water.

“Wake up!” she shouted at him, repeating the message at the same volume over their internal link.

She called to him several more times before accessing the file she’d hoped she’d never need. The one containing every piece of code she could find that pertained to putting the cyborgs into a dormant state along with the codes required to bring them back online. Countless hours of work had gone into this collection. It had started as a way of taking back control and had grown into a determined need to find some way to fight back if they ever came for one of her friends again.

She used their link to transfer it all to Edge. She didn’t even know if it could be done this way, but it was all she had left to try.

“Please work,” she whispered, not even sure who she was talking to. Maybe to the bits of code themselves, as if she could compel them by willpower alone.

A week ago, she’d wanted nothing more than to confront Jens on her own. To face her fears and the man who had inflicted them on her and make him pay. Now, things were different.

She still wanted revenge, but she didn’t want to do this alone. She wanted Edge at her side. Was he perfect? The idea made her laugh. Hardly. But neither was she. After her surviving batch-siblings had turned their backs on her without even trying to get her back, she’d stopped trusting everyone. Until now.

Minutes ticked past as she waited for Edge to wake up. Hope kept her at his side long past the time she should have given up and gone on without him.

Finally, she leaned over him again. First, she brushed a tender kiss to his lips. Then, she filled her lungs and shouted at him one last time. “Edge! Wake up. I need you.”

It was a foolish impulse that should never have worked.

But it did.