Page 3 of True As Steel

Tamryn

Asudden impact snapped me out of my slumber. No, not slumber... The memory of the brutish man violently punching me and then of my head brutally striking the floor came back to me. The mild headache I currently felt should have been alotworse. My entire body should also be hurting a great deal more. I blinked as everything shook around me. It then dawned on me that whatever confined space I was currently trapped in had landed somewhere, and that the impact had awakened me.

It took me a second to realize I was inside an escape pod slowly coming to a halt, and that the hard, yet cushiony surface beneath me belonged to a man. My eyes snapped open, and I tried to lift my head, but the glass door of the pod didn’t give me much wiggle room. My heart skipped a beat when my gaze connected with the steely gray eyes of a stern-looking male. The CR letters branded on his cheek gave him away as one of the Cyborg Rebels.

Why did he save me?

“Good, you’re awake,” the man said in a deep voice. Typical to his kind, his tone was factual, devoid of any particular emotion. “We have landed.”

“Where… where are we?” I asked, surprised I could even form words.

“By my calculations, we are on Xyva,” he responded, just as the pod came to a full stop.

Seconds later, the door opened with a soft hiss. A wave of fresh air, accompanied by a noticeable heat, washed over us. Giving the Cyborg an apologetic look, I gingerly pushed myself up off his muscular chest, looking to disembark the pod lying horizontally on the ground. A wave of dizziness swept through me. Startled, I gasped when the man simply wrapped his arms around my body and stood up while carrying me. The effortless way in which he did it reminded me yet again of the insane strength of the Cyborgs. As soon as he got out, he sat me back down inside the pod.

He then reached for the emergency med kit inside the pod and pulled out the small handheld scanner.

“Stay still,” he ordered in a tone that brooked no argument.

I didn’t particularly like being bossed around, but in this instance, I held my tongue and complied.

“My name is Tamryn,” I said.

He didn’t respond at first, content to run the baton-like device around my head, shoulders, and spine.

“Jarog,” he said at last, when I thought he wouldn’t reciprocate.

I seized the opportunity to discreetly study him. At least 6’4, broad-shouldered, muscular like all the Cyborgs, dark brown hair with stunning gray eyes, and a ruggedly handsome face, he might have been my type if not for the total absence of emotion in his gaze. I’d always thought that the Cyborgs looked like serial killers in the way they stared at you blankly seconds before they crushed your skull with a single blow of their fist.

Like with Jarog, the Emperor had his minions brand my face with a letter. Whereas Cyborgs had two—C and R for Cyborg Rebel—normal people like me had the single letter R for Rebel. However, that did not make us friends or allies. All Cyborgs had been indiscriminately branded as rebels since that paranoid piece of shit, Emperor Shui, had decided to eliminate them all rather than risk having a single ‘traitor’ amidst his ranks. But not all Cyborgs had turned on him when he had launched his mad plans of conquering our neighboring planet Bionus. I had witnessed the genocides, abusive arrests, torture, and kidnappings of those who had opposed the Emperor by the Cyborgs that had remained loyal to him.

Which side had Jarog stood with? If he’d been a loyalist, was he still devoted to the man who had turned on him and his brothers?

“Between knocking your head on the floor and getting trampled by the people fleeing, you suffered a severe concussion,” Jarog suddenly said, snapping me out of my musings. “The first nanobot injection I gave you has taken care of most of the swelling during our journey here. I will give you the second and last injection available now. It should help mend your remaining injuries. There are two bottles of water and two energy bars. I suggest you consume them parsimoniously.”

“Thank you,” I said, stretching my neck to give him better access when he leaned forward to perform the injection.

It slightly stung, and I rolled my shoulders to release some of the stress knotting my muscles.

“Thank you for saving me,” I said. “But why did you?”

He tilted his head to the side, giving me that dead, unnerving look that made me feel like a strange insect being observed under a microscope.

“Honestly, it was an impulse,” he said with a shrug, although his tone seemed to imply his own action had confused him.

“I see. Well, thanks anyway,” I replied before casting a glance around us. “I’m not seeing any other escape pods or survivors. I’m assuming the ship got wrecked?”

He nodded. “It blew up moments after our escape pod shot out. Many did not make it off the vessel. We barely escaped.”

I nodded and swallowed hard. My big brother Damian, my Uncle Cedric, and many members of our rebel group had been on board but scattered in the various cells of the ship. I had no idea whether they or the others had made it. I could only pray that, like me, they had found a way out or someone had rescued them.

“May I ask why you brought us here? Xyva is a mercenary planet. With our branded faces, everyone will want to capture us and turn us in for the bounties that will inevitably be set on surviving rebels.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” Jarog said matter-of-factly. “Debris damaged the pod’s nav system.”

His eyes went out of focus, and I realized he was currently using the computer in his brain. My sense of unease came back to the fore. Was he trying to communicate with someone on his neural network or busy trying to assess our current location in this desert we landed in? For all I knew, he took me from the ship not out of mercy but to use me as currency to trade for his needs.

When the Emperor had us rounded up by the army before condemning us to a life sentence on the prison colony of Tyurma, Kirs’ moon, they stripped us of our belongings, except for the clothes on our backs. Jarog had his dark grey uniform with black accents, but no weapons. Although his enhanced body constituted a lethal weapon in and of itself, he could easily trade me for some nice weapons and a means of transportation.

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