Page 17 of A Cyborg for the Alien Mercenary

The screen was bulletproof.

“How do I get out?” she screamed at the voice in her head, no longer caring about keeping her internal dialogue silent.

Kick the door at the highlighted point.

Her vision was overlaid with a schematic of the car door, a specific spot glowing red. It was as if she had some kind of built-in heads-up display. Another time, she might have marveled at this discovery. Not now. She needed to get out of this fucking car before it went through those gates.

Bracing herself against the unconscious Amanda, she drew back her legs and slammed her feet into the highlighted area as hard as she could. The door exploded outward in a scream of metal, the rush of wind whipping her hair across her face.

The car hurtled toward the compound gates, tires screeching against asphalt. Alarms wailed, their piercing shrieks assaulting her ears. She squinted against the sudden onslaught of flashing red lights, her pupils dilating to compensate.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted movement. Sleek, black vehicles roared down the road toward her, converging on her position from all directions. Like sharks circling their prey, they closed in, the whine of their engines growing louder by the second.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she counted—one, two, five, eight pursuers. Each second brought them closer, their hulking forms growing larger in the windows. She could almost feel the net tightening around her as she looked at the speeding asphalt through the ruined door, her time running out with every passing second.

Hostiles incoming,the voice warned, unnecessarily.

“I know!” she screamed and then threw herself from the vehicle, automatically tucking into a roll as she hit the ground. The world spun around her in a jumble of color and motion before she found her feet and took off running as though she leapt from speeding cars every day of her life.

It wasn’t until she was through the closing gate, the sounds of pursuit fading behind her, that she realized she should bein agony. The fall from the car, the impact with the ground—it should have left her battered and bruised, if not worse.

But there she felt no pain.

She glanced down at her arm as she ran. Her skin was torn and bloody, but she couldn’t feel it. It might as well have been a tear in her jacket sleeve. As she watched, the wound began to close from the edges inward.

Why doesn’t it hurt?she asked the voice.

Pain responses are offline,came the matter-of-fact reply. Then, as if this were perfectly normal, the voice continued,Escape route due north.

A glowing path appeared in Jesh’s vision, overlaying the real world like an augmented reality game.

She didn’t think. She just ran, her feet pounding the pavement in a steady rhythm. Behind her, she could hear the shouts of her pursuers, the whine of electro-car engines, and the thump of boots on concrete. But she was faster, her body pushing beyond normal human limits.

The cityscape blurred around her as she ran, her mind racing even faster than her feet. Who was she? What was she? And most importantly, what the hell did she do now?

6

“Entering atmosphere in three… two… one…” Ryke’s gravelly voice sounded over the comm.

Covak virtually vibrated with anticipation as the combat shuttle detached from theLady’s Dreamand dropped through the atmosphere like a stone. Through the viewport, he watched as the cerulean orb of the human planet raced to meet them, its swirling cloud patterns reminding him of the creamy froth atop a mug of Vorrtan ale.

“I fucking hate these drops,” Davis muttered.

Covak grinned, baring razor-sharp fangs as he gripped a nearby support strut. The G-forces pressed against him, but his Vorrtan physiology was hardier than any of the more squishable beings in the shuttle, easily withstanding the pressure.

“Whoohoo!” he bellowed. “Nothing like a little death-defying descent to get the blood pumping, eh?”

Davis shot him a withering glare. “Speak for yourself, you overgrown adrenaline junkie,” he muttered, his knuckles white as he clung to the strap above his head.

“Yeah, some of us prefer our internal organs to remain internal,” Anson grumbled.

The Vorrtan chuckled, the sound rumbling in his chest. “Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”

As they hurtled toward the surface, the shuttle’s ancient hull groaned in protest. Covak ran a hand along the worn bulkhead next to him, feeling every dent and scratch. This old bird had seen better days, but she was still kicking. She was an older imperial model they’d salvaged from a scrapyard and updated. Despite her age, the basic design hadn’t changed in years. The Lathar were still using an updated version of the same design. And by updated, they’d just switched out the engines.

The Lathar.

Bitterness twisted his gut. His people had suffered because of the frexxing Lathar. They’d been created as soldiers to use in a war the empire couldn’t win, treated as little more than weapons to be aimed at an unbeatable enemy. Yet… the shuttle’s responsiveness, its ability to withstand the rigors of atmospheric entry, all part of a war machine that had kept the Lathar on top for millennia. He hated to admit it, but when it came to combat, the frexxing bastards knew their shit.

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