Page 12 of Thruster (Hunted Relics #9)

My left side betrays me as I try to fight my captor. They grip me with a metal arm. In their other hand, they carry a large weapon that looks like a rifle that could fire rockets. The face of the augmented monster is definitely female, and it’s the only human thing about her.

Her eyes aren't eyes at all but rings upon rings of metal. Half of her head is covered in an array of cybernetic parts, shielded by unusually transparent synthskin. The other half has short black carbon fiber hair, cut in an angled line against her face to keep it from getting snagged in the metal joints that layer up in her shoulder and descend her neck to her low back. She doesn't wear armor or clothes, though whoever constructed her fitted her with a chest plate and a logo in its center.

She drags me through the forest without a word, eyes forward, scanning the area, then forward again. The female cyborg doesn't register as Titan. She doesn't show in my local area network. Her frequency isn't aligned with mine. I don't want to give her the chance and switch off.

The cyborg lugs me inside a rather new outpost built of concrete, not yet overgrown by nature. A metal gate closes behind us. She drags me into a room and slings me onto a table like I’m a simple sack of supplies.

The hit of hard steel pounds through me. She found me mere minutes after I landed as if she was just waiting for her opportunity.

But how did she escape my scanners? Why didn’t I see her?

“Finally, something worth a damn.” A Solcruean Captain enters, claps his hands, and steps aside so a guard squad can enter. One of them lifts a gun and shoots me.

A spray of magnetic beads taps my skin, then arcs with a net of yellow electricity that inundates me, sends my programs running erratically, and makes my vision cut in and out in lines. Searing needle-like prickles coat me in a deadly blanket.

Then silence. I slump on the table, exhausted, feeling like I've just been disconnected from the manufacturing line and am just waiting for someone to pick me up. I can't move. My power level has dropped to twelve percent.

“So…” The captain walks up to the table and leans against it without a care. He knows I am no threat to him in this condition.

He thinks.

My survival programs are embedded in backups all over my body. Even if he deprograms who I am so that I don’t remember the rebels or Kelta, I know I can still defy him.

“What do you think you’re doing out there?” he asks. “You killed a lot of good soldiers.”

I don’t respond because there’s no point. I already know which kind of Solcrue he is. He’ll talk at me, try to make me feel guilty for taking life, then try to bargain with me, say he won’t attack someone if I don’t attack his teams. But the truth is, they always attack. They never keep their word. Solcrue have no honor.

I’m going to save my breath and my energy.

"You're not going to find the lost Titan ship. So why don't you just keep to yourselves? We'll help you govern your more primitive Relic forms. Then we won't have a reason to kill you. You know, if you obey."

The female cyborg leans against the wall and crosses her arms. I can see the symbol on her chest clearer now. It is of a reaper's scythe with a star behind it.

“What about her?” I ask. “You make her obey?”

“You like our female?” he grins. “Good.”

I don’t. “I bet you took her freedom.”

“I willingly submit,” she says with a barely feminine, husky voice.

“I don’t think you do.”

Another arc of electricity lights up my body. This time, my survival program initiates, and ports open. I manage to catch an arc. My battery charges to fourteen percent.

The captain punches me in the face.

I take the hit and glare back at him. “I’m not telling you shit. I’m not falling for your good-guy narrative either. All you have done is destroy my Brothers and kill our humans.”

He backhands me this time, grabs me by the throat, and loses control. He squeezes, putting pressure on me even though he knows my kind doesn't need oxygen to operate. His hair flops wildly on his forehead as he bares his teeth and shakes me. Solcrue are stronger than humans, but not quite as strong as Titans.

I grab him and wrestle him off of me. The guards are quickly on me, shackling me in a radiant green collar and set of cuffs. They drag me down a flight of steps to a concrete cell underground.

When I turn around, the female cyborg is there, a strange glare on her face. Behind her, guards light up shock batons.

"Don't touch Captain Kezarro again." The cyborg throws a palm at my chest, knocking me to the back of my cell.

The world darkens to the sound of clanging metal.

Kelta… She'll never find me now. I fear that I have held her for the last time.