Page 47 of A Cyborg for the Alien Mercenary

Odd, but a problem for later.

Together, they broke away from the rest of the Reapers and tore through their enemies, their enhanced strength and speed giving them the advantage. Her fists connected with flesh and bone, each impact sending shockwaves that would have stopped a human in their tracks, but she barely registered them. She reveled in the familiar sensation of combat, her body finally operating at its full potential after so long.

Energy bolts filled the air around them, their trajectories clearly visible to her enhanced senses. Through Anson’s eyes, she caught glimpses of herself in action—a blur of deadly efficiency even as he kept up with her.

On your left!she warned.

He reacted without hesitation, ducking low as a soldier swung an energy cannon toward him. In one fluid motion, he snatched the weapon and then swept the attacker’s legs out from under him as he broke it in two.

Thanks.

She smiled.

No worries.

Every circuit and neuron in her body hummed with energy as they fought. She processed multiple data streams with ease—her own sensory input, Anson’s perspective, and the constant flow of tactical information from her onboard.

As the last of the soldiers fell at her feet, she shook her head and looked over at Anson. She’d fought linked before, many times, but always with another cyborg trained to link with the group. And even then, it had been surface level, and she’d been fed data for her onboard to parse. She’d never linkedthatway before, but she had no time to dwell on that now.

The battle was won, but the war was far from over.

The roar of engines cut through the gunfire. She looked up to see the Reapers’ combat shuttle balanced precariously on the edge of the roof, its back ramp lowered invitingly.

“Come on!” Rann shouted over his shoulder from the pilot’s chair in the cockpit, his voice barely audible over the whine of the engines. “I’ve got heat incoming and we’re sitting ducks here!”

“Jesh!” Covak yelled, his massive form silhouetted against the shuttle’s interior lights as he stood on the edge of the ramp, his hand hooked around the hydraulics as he reached the other out to her. “We need to go now!”

But she wasn’t done. Her gaze locked on to Amanda Hargrove, who was crouched behind a ventilation unit on the other side of the roof, clutching her injured arm.

“Not yet,” she growled, her voice barely recognizable even to her own ears as she stormed across the roof toward her “mother.”

Anger fueled her, and she barely needed her enhanced strength to toss aside the heavy metal cover her prey cowered behind. Jesh’s lip curled back in disgust. The human had taken cover as soon as Jesh and Anson had torn into her soldiers, not willing to put herself on the line. Amanda scrambled backwardwith a gasp, her eyes wide with fear as she fumbled for her handgun.

Jesh reacted instantly, Amanda’s reflexes no match for hers. A single shot rang out, and Amanda’s arm went limp, the gun clattering to the ground.

“You fucking… machine!” Amanda spat, her face contorted with a mixture of pain and hatred.

Jesh snorted. “Yeah, yeah… believe me. I’ve heard it all before. And from assholes who actually know what I am,” she said as she pressed the barrel of her gun under Amanda’s jaw, feeling a surge of satisfaction as fear and the knowledge she was looking her own death in the face filled Amanda’s eyes. “Where is he? Where is Jex?”

Amanda’s laugh was bitter and broken. “What are you on about? Who is Jex?”

Jesh’s finger tightened reflexively on the trigger, but she held herself back. She needed to find out where Jex was… where they were holding him… whether they’d broken the encryption on his onboard and what information they’d managed to retrieve from it.

But before she could ask anything else or demand answers from the human, Amanda jerked violently, her spine bowing into a hard arc. Blood bloomed in a deadly scarlet flower in one of her eyes and she slumped to the floor. Lifeless.

“Shit!” Davis swore, looking over Jesh’s shoulder. “Intra-cranial explosive on a remote trigger. Someone didn’t want her talking. Come on!”

She stood frozen for a moment, staring down at the lifeless body. Shit. The answers she needed were in that dead brain. Covak’s hand on her shoulder jolted her back to reality.

“We need to go,” he said softly, his deep voice rumbling through her.

Nodding, she turned and ran for the shuttle with him. It was already starting to take off, the other Reapers already aboard, but she wasn’t worried. For her, the leap was nothing. Every circuit in her body hummed with energy as she landed on the ramp, Covak right next to her.

Surprise washed over the faces of the alien mercenaries as they looked at her, and she bit back a smile as she straightened up. No human could have made that leap.

But she wasn’t human.

She had finally remembered who—and what—she truly was. And nothing would ever be the same again.

---