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wil do no such thing. She might be on board that vessel, as you wel know.”
“I do know and think you’re acting irrational y when the clear course is to destroy the enemy.”
“Destroy her for being what we overcame? Does she not deserve the same chance our brothers
received? I do not understand your dislike for her, Solus.”
“Dislike is not part of the equation. I am simply processing the situation for the most logical
conclusion.”
“Your logic is wrong. I love her, Solus. I know you don’t understand the emotion, but let me tel you, it
is powerful. One day you wil understand it and apologize for being such an android about my feelings
for Chloe. But in the meantime, you wil cease your negative diatribes and put al your effort into
helping me retrieve the pod and my female. Is that understood?”
“Or else what?” Solus muttered, his face a stubborn mask.
“Or else, despite our friendship, I just might have to kil you.” And he meant it too. Joe cared about
Solus, would die for him if his friend needed aide, but he loved Chloe more and would stop at
nothing to get her back.
Rubbing his neck, Solus regarded him solemnly. “Since you feel so strongly, I guess there is nothing
left to do then but retrieve her. However, she is to be kept under close watch until we can reprogram
her faulty BCI.”
A wave of relief swept through him. “Truly?”
“Truly. I might not understand your il ogical actions for the female, but I know you, and you wouldn’t
ask this of me without good reason.
Although, I stil think you should check yourself into the clinic for a ful systems diagnostic.”
“I doubt there’s a cure for what ails me,” Joe replied with a grin.
“And you would dare wish it on me?” Solus shook his head. “Never. We should get moving. Those
damned pods can move quite quickly and prove hard to locate if they come into proximity with any
large masses of ore. If my memory banks are up to date, there is an asteroid belt containing those very
qualities in this part of the galaxy.”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let us become like the knights of old and rescue the fair princess.”
“I’d prefer to be the dragon that ate them,” Solus grumbled, but he fol owed Joe in spite of his
misgivings.
As they tracked the missing vessel, fear made his heart heavy, and he did something new. Something
very human. He prayed to a god he didn’t believe in; please don’t let me arrive too late.
*
A part of Chloe remained aware as the general took her farther and farther away from Joe. Why she
retained a spark of consciousness this time and not any of the previous, she couldn’t have said. Was it
the jolt from the bars when she’d tried to kil herself? Her love for Joe? Her shuddering fear?
Whatever the reason for her mental clarity, she seesawed between thankfulness for her awareness and
wishing for ignorance. Awake, she understood how, once again, she betrayed the cyborg she loved.
Aware, she could hear only too clearly what the general intended to do once he got their pod into the
safety of a nearby asteroid belt. Petrified, she could only listen and feel her trepidation grow as al her
limbs remained frozen, control ed by a madman, one bent on hurting her.
An involuntary shiver managed to work its way down her spine when the general turned from the
pod’s control panel to view her with a leer.
“It’s just you and me now, C791. Your cyborg lover wil never catch us before we hit the asteroids.
And once in there, I don’t care how upgraded his hardware is; he’l never find us. Like a needle in a
haystack.” He laughed and took a step toward her. “Which means it’s just you and me, bitch. Just like
the good old days when you lived in the testing facility. But what’s a reunion without memories to go
with it?” A string of spoken numbers intermixed with letters, and a floodgate opened in her mind.
Horrifying memories poured into her conscious, and Chloe could only silently scream at the recol
ection of the abuse this man heaped on her. She remembered him now, al too clearly. His taunts. His
beatings. His use of her body…and then the loaning of it. He sadistical y broke her in body and spirit,
and al because he claimed they needed to test her.
Liar.
She saw, with a clarity she’d not owned in a few years, he did al those things because he enjoyed it.
Got off on being in control and fed on the fear he engendered.
But, as atrocities piled up in her mind, a remarkable thing happened. Instead of crushing her with fear,
instead of cowing her into submission, a spark of fury ignited in her. How dare he do those things to
me? What gives him the right to hurt me? Humiliate me?
She watched him approach through narrowed eyes. Listened as he spouted his threats in graphic
detail. Her spark of rage spun inside her, growing bigger and brighter. When he grabbed her with his
sweaty hands, his moist lips reaching, the spark exploded.
*
It took them two long hours of searching, and the use of fists and threats to keep the other cyborgs
looking, before they found the drifting pod.
Its engines dead, it rol ed in the void of space, and a fist clutched at his heart.
“Report.” He forced the word past lips gone numb.
While they’d searched, his crew worked hard to re-establish some of the basic systems that required
wireless capability so they were better prepared to deal with the pod when they found it.
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