Page 65 of A Cyborg for the Alien Mercenary

Hold on, Jesh.I’m coming for you. And this time, I won’t fail.

As theLady’sDreamsurged through space, Covak felt the distance between him and Jesh like a physical ache. He tried to focus on the mission prep, but his mind kept drifting back to their last moments together. The determination in Jesh’s eyes as she faced down their attackers. The way she’d looked at him… he should have known then that she wouldn’t betray them. He should have trusted her.

“Covak,” Ryke’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. “You’re growling again.”

He blinked, realizing he’d been staring at the same tactical readout for several minutes, a low rumble building in his chest. He took a deep breath, trying to center himself.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I can’t stop thinking about what they might be doing to her.”

Ryke’s expression softened a little. “I know. But torturing yourself won’t help Jesh. We need you focused if we’re going to get her back.”

He nodded. Ryke was right. But the fear and guilt still gnawed at him, threatening to overwhelm his rational mind. He turned back to his console, forcing himself to concentrate on the data scrolling across the screen.

“Talk me through what you’re seeing,” Ryke suggested. “Sometimes verbalizing helps.”

“The main problem is gonna be these automated turrets here and here,” Covak said, pointing at the holo-map. As he spoke, some of the tension left his body. This was familiar territory.This was something he could do. “They’ve got a 360-degree firing arc and enough firepower to take down a small shuttle.”

Ryke leaned in, his eyes narrowing. “What about blind spots?”

“Minimal,” Covak replied as he zoomed in on the facility schematics. It was a space platform very like the storage facility they’d been trying to recover Jex from. Just… bigger and way more armed. “But there’s a maintenance access point here that might work. It’s gonna be tight, though.”

“How tight?”

Covak grimaced. “Let’s just say I hope you’ve been keeping up with your yoga, boss.”

Ryke snorted. “Great. What about inside? Any idea where they might be keeping her?”

“If I had to guess?” Covak highlighted a section near the center of the complex. “High-security section at the center of the facility. Next to engineering, it has lots of shielding, minimal access points.”

“Good,” Ryke nodded approvingly. “Now, what’s our biggest obstacle?”

Covak frowned. “Those fucking Scorperio suits. We don’t know how many they have or what other enhancements they might have. They’re a wild card. We don’t know their full capabilities or how many we’re up against. It’s like fighting ghosts.”

“Davis,” Ryke called out, “you’re our resident expert on human tech. What can you tell us about these Scorperios?”

“Are you saying that because I’m literally the only human on the crew?” Davis asked as he joined them. “The Scorperio program… that’s ancient history. They were developed for a war decades ago, but it didn’t end well for the pilots. The authorities kept it on the down-low, but most of the pilots ended up crippled, their nervous systems burned out by the tech.”

Covak’s eyes widened. “Burned out? So how the hell are we facing them now?”

“That’s what worries me,” Davis continued, running a hand through his hair. “If they’ve got functional Scorperios, it means they’ve made some serious advances in the tech. Back in the day, these things were basically walking tanks. Heavily armed, nearly impenetrable armor, and damned hard to kill.”

Ryke leaned forward. “Give us specifics, Davis. What kind of firepower are we talking about?”

The human shrugged.

“Depends what they were built for. They had different types for different missions. So they could carry everything from high-caliber ballistics to energy weapons,” he replied, his voice grim. “They were designed to take on small armies single-handedly. And their defense systems… conventional weapons barely scratched them. You needed a shit-ton of ammo and a minor miracle to bring one of these things down.”

Covak growled around his fangs. “So how the frexx do we stop them?”

“That’s the million-credit question,” Davis said bluntly. “We’ll need to get creative, find weak points in their armor. Maybe exploit the connection between the suit and the pilot.”

“ETA thirty minutes,” Anson’s voice cut through the tense silence on the bridge.

Covak’s head snapped up, every nerve in his body suddenly on high alert. “Covak,” Ryke’s steady voice grounded him. “You good?”

He met his captain’s eyes, seeing the concern there. Taking a deep breath, he centered himself.

“I’m good,” he replied, his voice low and determined. “Let’s bring her home.”

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