Page 4 of True As Steel

As these paranoid thoughts proliferated in my mind, the Cyborg refocused on me.

“I suggest you remain here for an hour or so in order for the nanobots to mend you further before you leave this location,” Jarog said. He pointed in the distance to my left. “If you head in this direction, it will take you about three days of walking to reach Eraka, the closest town from here.”

“You meanwewill take three days?” I asked.

He shook his head, the same wretched neutral expression on his face. “I am heading in a different direction. My destination is Kuryn.”

I recoiled. “Kuryn is a bad idea. That city is a nest of vipers and way too crowded. With your uniform giving you away, not to mention that brand on your face, I don’t care how strong you Cyborgs are, you will not last five minutes. Every merc and their brother will be on your ass to collect some bounty off you.”

“I will find a way. It is my best bet off this rock,” Jarog said nonchalantly.

“I have some connections here,” I argued, suddenly panicking at the thought that he would leave me behind when only moments before I was fearing he’d brought me along as currency. “If we go to Satos, my friends there will help us get off-world.”

Once more, he shook his head. This time, however, a sliver of sympathy showed on his face.

“Satos is even farther than Kuryn. You could never make it to Kuryn, so forget about Satos,” Jarog said in an apologetic tone. “Truth be told, I am not even certain that you will make it to Eraka. You are in a weakened state, with little water, and no real food to speak of.”

“I would still rather take my chances going with you than traipsing about on my own to some unknown mercenary city,” I countered, staring at him in disbelief.

My stomach dropped at the sight of his closed off expression; an expression that declared this a done deal and non-negotiable.

“I am sorry, Tamryn, but even without your current condition, you would slow me down. You will not be able to keep up with my pace, and you will die of dehydration long before we reach our destination,” he said in a factual fashion. “In truth, unless I find food and water along the way, it will also be a close call for me on my own.”

Anger and helplessness washed over me as I heard the finality in his voice. Pushing myself up out of the escape pod I’d still been resting in, I stood before him, relieved to find myself somewhat steady. I glared at him, hiding none of the sense of betrayal bubbling within me.

“So, that’s it? You save me from an exploding ship just to abandon me here in the middle of bumfuck nowhere to either die of thirst and starvation, or be captured by some bastard merc? Why take me off the fucking ship if it was just to condemn me to an even worse death?” I hissed.

“We were supposed to land on Gorkon,” he said with a shrug. “You would have been safe there. The nav system’s failure changed that. I am sorry, but that cannot be helped. If you wish, I could mercy kill you. But you strike me as the type of female who will want to fight until the end.”

“Fuck that,” I said through my teeth, battling the urge to claw his face.

For a split second, a sliver of guilt flashed through his features before he regained his stoic expression.

“You may keep everything from the emergency care package of the pod,” he said, as if he was doing me some sort of huge favor. “I wish you the very best of luck.”

With this, the Cyborg merely turned around and started walking away. I stared at his receding back in disbelief. My every instinct yelled at me to hasten after him and tag along. What would he do? Knock my lights out? Nah, he’d simply ignore me and keep going. But even now, looking at his starting pace—which I knew he could maintain for hours on end—I’d never be able to keep up.

Distraught, I swallowed back the tears that pricked my eyes. I hated that he would do me like this. At the same time, I couldn’t deny his logic. Chances were, I wouldn’t make it to that city, not in this heat, not on foot, and not without proper food and water. But I was no helpless damsel in distress.

A quick look at the pale sky and the current position of the sun confirmed it was still morning here. But in a couple of hours, once the sun reached its zenith, the heat would quickly become unbearable. Around me, the landscape offered nothing but rocks, dried dirt, and the occasional half-dead twigs of a wannabe bush.

The pod appeared to be my only chance to live through this. The care package didn’t have tools, but it did contain a knife. It struck me as odd that Jarog would have left it for me. Flimsy though it was, it remained a weapon of sorts. But then, being a badass Cyborg, maybe he could do better on his own. Whatever his reasons, I felt grateful.

After a summary inspection of the pod, relief flooded through me to find both the propulsion and navigation systems intact. Contrary to what Jarog had assumed, it was the computer system that had glitched. A plan began forming in my mind. It was a crazy long shot, but it could be my only chance of making it in one piece. I had no intention of ending up as the latest addition to some seedy brothel, the flesh traders’ market, or worse, back in the clutches of Emperor Shui.

If I could modify the pod to glide—or even simply slide—over the surface of this mostly flat terrain, I could make it to Satos. Even if the pod died on me along the way, I’d still have a better chance if I at least got out of the desert and into a less hostile environment.

Worst case scenario, I would use the distress beacon that Jarog had cleverly turned off for now. I’d prefer not to deal with the locals except under my own terms.

Fighting the lingering headache, I got to work.

Chapter 3

Jarog

Contrary to popular belief, those like me who had volunteered for the Cyborg program were not stripped of our humanity by the procedure. Sometimes, like in this instance, I wished it were the case. We didn’t feel as intensely as we previously did, but we still had emotions. And right now, I could do without this guilt. However, logic dictated I had made the appropriate choice.

A part of me regretted not mercy killing her while she had still been unconscious. She would never know how seriously I had considered it when our pod had approached its landing destination. A quick survey of the map of Xyva, one of the many stored in the computer in my brain, allowed me to know her chances of survival were slim to none. Still, as a veteran member of the Cyborg Military Elite, and previously as a decorated operative of the Kirs Elite Planetary Defense Force, I had experienced my fair share of desperate situations that we somehow managed to overcome. Tamryn was a fighter. She had survived the explosion and therefore deserved a chance to survive this new ordeal.

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