Page 8 of Her Cyborg Commander (The Drift: Haven Colony #9)

7

Two hours of combat drills and sparring hadn’t done much to improve Edge’s mood. He would have gone for another round, but he’d already faced off against most of the others present. The ones left were all too young or inexperienced to go up against him. The last thing he wanted was to seriously injure someone because he wasn’t at the top of his mental game.

He might be a killer, but he still refused to do harm to anyone who wasn’t his enemy. That hadn’t always been possible while they’d been imprisoned. The guards had forced them to fight each other. Sometimes to test their abilities and others, he suspected, purely for the assholes’ entertainment.

Now that he could make his own choices, he preferred to use violence only as a last resort. The practice arenas, this one in particular, were one of his favorite places in the colony. Day or night, at least a few beings were always working on their technique or just blowing off some steam. This was one of the few places he could go to avoid feeling alone without having to be sociable. Comradery was offered without judgment.

As a result, he’d learned several new fighting styles. Some of the moves were more theoretical than practical, given his lack of wings, but knowing them ensured he’d be prepared against a winged enemy. Not that he expected war with the Vardarians. They had a warrior ethos he could appreciate, even if he didn’t understand some of the nuances of their culture.

He wasn’t a nuance kind of male. Never had been, never would be.

He grabbed a towel from a nearby shelf and wiped the sweat from his face. He’d done all he could for his state of mind. Maybe now he was calm enough to get some serious thinking done and figure out where the fraxx River had disappeared to.

When she’d thrown down her challenge that she could take care of herself, he hadn’t really believed it. Now he did. River wasn’t the same female he’d known on Reamus. That cyborg had lived in a constant state of anxiety and an all-consuming compulsion to please others.

The plan she’d put together had been bold, clever, and done right under their vething noses. He was definitely not pleased with her right now, but he wasn’t happy with himself, either. He hadn’t truly seen how much she’d changed. He’d sworn to be there for her, to protect her…and he’d failed to do that. Again.

“Where did you go, you little minx?” he muttered to himself. Edge was almost certain she wasn’t anywhere on Liberty anymore. They’d scoured the planet and found no trace of her. The human government would be thrilled when they learned that tidbit of information. For now, they were continuing on the assumption she hadn’t broken the rules, but all of them suspected she’d done exactly that.

He walked around the edge of the sand-covered floor of the arena, keeping a respectful distance from any sparring matches in progress. Partway there, he spotted three familiar figures. Wreckage and Ruin came into Haven more often since finding their mate, but they still weren’t a common sight around the practice arena unless it was practice day for the rangers. The male cyborg with them was one he saw far more often. Thrash. He was one of the ones being considered for a council position and had sat in on several meetings. The male was brash and occasionally thoughtless, though he had settled down somewhat in the last few months.

When Ruin spotted him, he nodded and turned in his direction. All three of them wore grim expressions, but Thrash looked like he was considering an emergency extraction for himself. Reinforcing that impression was the way Ruin kept one hand firmly clamped on the younger cyborg’s shoulder.

Wreckage spoke over their internal channel. “Got a second? Thrash has some news I think you need to hear.”

The tone of Wreckage’s message made Edge think it wouldn’t be good news, but at this point, he’d take what he could get. It’s not like the rest of them had made any progress.

“ Walk with me ,” he said and gestured toward one of the communal rooms each arena had. Each location was more than a place to train. They were community hubs with large-scale kitchens, meeting rooms, and the capacity to become whatever was needed—from emergency shelters to celebration halls and even large-scale medical clinics.

They crossed the sand-covered floor, met up, and continued to walk the rest of the way together. They all kept a wary eye overhead, aware that the Vardarians fought as many aerial battles as ground-based ones. That led to the potential for both weapons and combatants hitting the ground without warning.

Once inside the relatively spartan room, Ruin closed the door and took up a guard position inside. That confirmed it. Whatever Thrash was about to say wasn’t good. Edge waited for someone to speak up, but the silence stretched on until what little calm he’d managed to reclaim during his workout evaporated. “Spill it.”

Thrash leaned against the side of one of the tables stacked around the walls. “It’s about River. I mean, I think so, but I can’t be sure.” Thrash never sounded uncertain, even when he was wrong. Edge didn’t have time for the other cyborg to waffle his way through an explanation.

Edge squared his shoulders, locked eyes with Thrash, and activated a subprogram he rarely used. “Sit-rep. Now, soldier.”

Thrash might never have been in combat, but he’d been programmed to respond to anyone coded as a senior officer. He snapped to attention, his next words coming without hesitation.

“Yes, sir. The night River vanished, I was working. Nothing out of the ordinary, just bringing cargo to the orbital platform. I got a request from an inbound freighter pilot to bring up a crate that wasn’t on my manifest. This isn’t uncommon, but it’s not exactly procedure.”

“Uh-huh.” Thrash had held a few jobs around the colony, but he seemed to have settled into his most recent job of flying cargo shuttles up to the orbital platform. “We’ll discuss how often you and the others break the security protocols that protect this place at another time. Why do you think this has anything to do with River’s disappearance?”

“The timing, sir. I mean, Edge.” Thrash shook his head and relaxed his stance a little. “And the cargo wasn’t typical. Usually, last-minute additions are small items. This was a large metal crate, totally locked down. It was a heavy bitch, too. Big enough I burned some extra fuel getting off the planet.”

“How large?” Edge made a note to find out how often these “last-minute, small items” were being smuggled on and off planet, but that was an issue for another time.

“Two meters long and about a meter-and-a-half high.” Thrash demonstrated the dimensions by holding out his hands.

“What do you think was inside?” Edge pressed.

“I don’t know. But it was big enough for someone to hide in. I mean, that’s not likely, because all cargo is scanned for that kind of thing before it’s allowed into the warehouse, but…”

“And you only now thought to say anything?” Edge was ready to tear his hair out. Or possibly kick Thrash’s ass from here to the nearest asteroid belt.

“I ran into some mechanical issues and had to stay on the plat for a few days. I got back a few hours ago. I’d heard some gossip that someone was missing from the colony, but no details. As soon as I learned the rest of the story, I talked to these two. They hauled me over here to tell you what I knew.” Thrash gave Ruin and Wreckage a baleful look. “I could have told him all this over a voice channel and saved us some time.”

Edge was about to ask for more information, but something about Thrash’s continuing discomfort set off alarm bells. Why wouldn’t he want to tell him everything in person? The answer was obvious. Because there was something Thrash didn’t want to admit, especially if he was within striking distance.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he didn’t bother hiding his growing irritation.

Wreckage and Ruin both looked at their companion with dawning comprehension. “You fraxxing idiot. What have you gotten yourself involved in?” Wreckage demanded.

“Nothing!” Thrash raised both hands. “Nothing serious. I just…” He deflated with a long sigh. “Sometimes I run cargo that’s not on the manifest. Nothing dangerous!” he added hastily. “This is my home, too. I’m not going to do anything to endanger us. My contact buys hard-to-find items from the local shops and then has me deliver them so she—uh, so they can resell it to folks who don’t have the same access to Vardarian goods.”

“So someone who has permission to land here and leave their ship to shop in the colony has been skirting the rules about exporting goods?” He didn’t have to guess who that would be. “How long has Hezza B. been doing this?”

To his credit, Thrash didn’t try to deny anything. “I have no idea. I got involved a couple of months ago, and like I said, it’s never anything dangerous. Hezza would never endanger her own daughter.

Ruin chuckled softly. “And Anya would kill her if she did anything that stupid.”

“So, you delivered this mysterious crate to Hezza?” Edge prompted him for more information.

“I did.”

Edge spun on his heel and walked toward the door, gesturing Ruin to get out of his way. “We’ll table the rest of this conversation for another time. I need to track down a certain freight jockey and find out where the hell she took our wayward citizen.”

And once he found said citizen, he was going to spank River’s ass red. The thought popped into his head, complete with a visual that had his cock surging to life. Not. Now.

And not ever , he added the afterthought out of habit. Every time he thought about River that way, he shut it down immediately. She deserved so much better than someone like him.

The thought gave him pause. He’d told himself that since the beginning, and maybe back then it was true. But now? When it came to River, he couldn’t be certain about anything. He’d been wrong too many times already.

He contacted several cyborgs at the space port and the orbital platform, instructing them to track down Hezza B. and put him in contact with her as soon as possible. One advantage to living in a Vardarian colony was access to their tech. The aliens’ communication abilities were far better than what even the human military used. Once they found the freighter pilot, he’d be able to converse with her in something close to real time, despite the differences in their comm systems.

While he waited, he accessed the flight plan the female had filed before departing. River was either still on board or had gotten off somewhere along the way. Finally, he had a place to start looking.

She might have told him she could take care of herself, but that didn’t mean she had to be alone. “I’m coming, River,” he murmured as he made his way through the nearly empty streets and back to his residence. “Whether you want my help or not.”