Page 14 of A Cyborg for the Alien Mercenary

She shifted her balance slightly as the elevator came to a stop. She didn’t know who she was or what had been done to her, but she was damn well going to find out. But for now, she had to play along and pretend everything was normal.

They exited the building and walked to the car, Jesh trailing behind Amanda. She needed a plan, a way to gather information without alerting her captors. Because that’s what they were… Amanda, Dr. Lewis, all of them. They weren’t her family or her caregivers.

They were her jailers.

She just didn’t know why.

5

TheDream’sbriefing room was off the back of the bridge. Originally it had been storage space, but since it was the only room big enough to fit the entire crew, it had long since been retrofitted. Covak dropped into a sturdy chair opposite Ryke with a grunt.

“Boss.” He nodded, looking up as the rest of the crew filed in behind him, jostling for position as they all sat down.

“Alright, settle down, you lot, or I’ll put you two in time out,” Ryke growled when it looked like Rann and Anson were about to come to blows over the chair under the window. He had no idea why they both wanted the same chair. It was exactly the same as all the others in the room, reinforced metal and battered leather.

“Okay, we’ve crossed into human space and are running silent to avoid detection,” Ryke continued when Rann won the battle for the chair and Anson slunk off to take one in the corner, glaring daggers at their second in command. “Anson, stop sulking and tell me how we’re looking?”

The B’Kaar leaned forward, his brows knitting together in suspicion. “We’re looking exactly how we are. A mercenary ship hurtling through human-held space in violation of more treatiesthan I want to list, most of them with the Lathar. How, exactly, are we avoiding detection, Ryke? Humans might not be as advanced as the rest of the galaxy, but they’re not idiots.”

Ryke shrugged. “Human tech isn’t quite up to what we have packed onto theDream. And besides,” he added with a sly grin, “when Murphy, the human president, was aboard, he left us with a few… presents to help us navigate human space.”

Davis broke in. “What he’s not saying is that President Murphy gave us NOMAD access.”

Rann frowned. “What’s NOMAD access?”

Davis leaned back in his chair. “The NOMADs are the group I used to work for.”

The room dropped silent. It was the first time Tell had said anything about the ultra-secret human organization he worked for before joining the team. In all honesty, Covak wasn’t sure the male had everstoppedworking for them. He was just doing it aboard an alien mercenary ship now.

“Long story.” He waved dismissively. “And I won’t bore you with it now. But that access basically means we can go anywhere and do anything in human space, flash our NOMAD authorization, and we instantly become invisible.”

Covak blinked, his ears pricking up. “Ice cream stop?”

Deep chuckles filled the air, but Ryke waved the suggestion off, his expression turning serious.

“We have more intel on the compound where Jane is being held.” He gestured to the hologram in the middle of the table, which flickered to life and displayed the sprawling complex they’d seen before.

Davis leaned forward, his forearms resting lightly on the battered metal of the table in front of him. “I’ve reached out to my contacts, and from what I can gather, Jane—now going by the name Elena Hargrove—was an up-and-coming ace flyer pilot. She was winning races left, right, and center on theprofessional race circuit until she spun out on a course and had a bad accident. She’s been in medical care since then and has lost her memory.”

Covak frowned. “I’m not following. If she’s a human pilot, how does she know Zero from the Warborne? And where does the nonhuman DNA come from?”

Davis let the silence stretch out for a moment until Covak was ready to growl and threaten to rip his head off. Were all humans so draanthing dramatic?

“That’s just the thing,” Davis said. “Until three months ago Elena Hargrove didn’t exist. None of my contacts can find anything in the system older than that. And believe me, ifwecan’t find her, no one can.” He gestured at the image of Jane on the holo in front of them. “If I didn’t know any better, I would suspect she was NOMAD as well.”

Covak arched his eyebrow. “Could she be?”

Davis shook his head. “No. I got an update from Archer and Dr. Dallarosa on the Warborne. According to them, the project have had Jane for years, not months. It’s a cover identity, but for what reason, I don’t know. If she’s not human, she technically doesn’t exist…so there’s no need to hide her from a human family or anything like that.”

Ryke cut in. “Whatever the reason, we’re getting her out of there. We can figure everything else out later. Rann, what have you got?”

Rann slid his dataflex across the table under the holo-drive, and the view above it changed. Instead of the aerial view of the compound, they now had street-level views.

“The compound is heavily fortified, but we have several entry points marked. We’ll split into three teams—distraction, data control, and extraction.”

Covak grunted as he leaned forward. He was usually on the distraction team but for this one he’d better be on extraction.Jane washis,had been from the moment he’d seen her in that holo-recording. She just didn’t know it yet.

“Team one will create distractions at key points around the perimeter,” Rann continued, and several areas of the map lit up. “This will draw their security focus outward. Meanwhile Anson will dig into their surveillance network to make sure they don’t see us.”

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