Taken by the Cyborg (Galactic Pirate Brides Book 4) Read online

  “I can try hacking it the old-fashioned way,” Twobit said, sitting in front of the nearest computer. His fingers danced over the keyboard and the door’s security code flowed across the screen.

  Doug hadn’t sat in front of a computer to manually hack something for more than a decade, but it was worth a try. He sat in front of another console and began typing. Perhaps he could find Dollard this way. Multiple firewalls forced him down a maze of programming into one dead end after another. The data exchange was hundreds of times slower than he was used to, and frustratingly clumsy. He felt like an infant learning to roll over for the first time.

  “Ha! Got it!” Twobit shouted.

  Everyone in the room, including Doug, swiveled to face the opening door. He wasn’t used to someone else beating him at hacking, but he also would not complain.

  Rust aimed his laser into the empty space. “No one’s there.”

  The cyborgs pushed toward the open doorway, filing into the hallway with Rust in the lead. Overhead, the security camera tracked their movement. Was anyone watching them? The door to the security office at the end of the short hallway was closed.

  Doug called over his shoulder to Twobit, who had remained behind at the computer. “Open the next door. The one to the security office.”

  “Already on it.”

  Brix moved up to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Rust.

  “Here.” Rust shoved a laser into the tall blonde cyborg’s hand. “Better to burn out than fade away, right?”

  The door opened with a whoosh. A beam shot across the office from Brix’s weapon, scorching a black mark into the wall. The office was empty.

  Rust grimaced and pried the weapon from his hand. “Fuck, be careful.” He passed the laser to Benjy. “That could’ve been a bulkhead, man.”

  Benjy stepped inside the room. “Where is everyone?”

  Following, Doug checked the corners of the office. It was strange that there wasn’t a single guard here, even if Dollard was pulling together the troops for an all-out attack.

  The doors to the other labs were closed. “Watch the doors,” Doug said. “There could still be guards in the other rooms.”

  He moved to the bank of computers on the desk, reaching out to touch the nearest monitor. This one had access to the ship, but Twerp’s program had overwritten multiple pathways in his circuits, and his old algorithms no longer synced. He was going to have to rebuild from the ground up. Start simple, he told himself, trying not to think about how many years it had taken him to learn to piece the lines of code together.

  The easiest hack for him had always been cameras, so he started there, his cybernetic hand clamped on the nearby computer monitor. After a few dead-ends, he managed to access the ship’s hallway camera feeds. Where the hell is Dollard? He envisioned the doctor’s shiny black hair and white lab coat. Feed after feed rolled through his mind, but no sign of the doctor.

  Twobit slid into the desk chair next to him and began attempting to hack open the exit to the lift.

  Drilling down, Doug found the lab’s security feeds behind another set of firewalls. It took him a few minutes, but he got through and scanned the footage. There’d been a flurry of activity here in the security office less than an hour ago; two guards pushed a mag-lift holding a cryopod toward the lift while Dollard stood by watching.

  “What the hell is that?” asked Benjy, looking over Doug’s shoulder. “Did he find the tech?”

  Doug hadn’t realized he was broadcasting the images onto the monitor he was touching. But it wasn’t as if it mattered. He no longer had reason to hide anything. These cyborgs were in this together. “I don’t think so. It came from the cloning lab.”

  Twobit added, “He’s salvaging what he can before Syndicorp slags the Icarus to space dust.”

  Rust gaped, the hand holding the laser sagging to his side. “They wouldn’t obliterate an entire flagship just to get rid of us, would they?”

  A sinking feeling filled Doug. “Don’t underestimate how much the corp’ wants Dollard’s projects to remain secret. There’s probably a battle cruiser bearing down on us right now.”

  “Fuck, get this door open!” Rust spun to face the door like a puppy waiting to be let out.

  “Tia’s in one of these labs. I need to get her out, too.” Esben headed to one of the unmarked doors, veins glowing with lavender light as he touched a biometric panel. The door shuddered, opened a crack, and slid closed again.

  Doug understood Esben’s panic. Attie might still be on the ship. He had to make certain she escaped before shit went down. He closed his eyes and concentrated, locating the feed to the flight deck. The shuttle was still in the bay. His stomach turned over. Attie’s still on board.

  He quickly switched to the feed in her quarters, but she wasn’t there, either. He rolled the footage back until he saw her leaving, a bag over her shoulder, then followed her path down the hall toward the lift. Two armed guards got in behind her.

  His cybernetic heart nearly skipped a beat.

  Just then, Esben called, “Uh, Doug, isn’t this your Consort?”

  He turned in time to catch a small figure running toward him.

  “Doug!” Arms wrapped around his middle and her rose scent wafted toward him.

  His arms automatically encircled her shoulders. “Attie? Where did you come from?”

  “That horrible doctor locked me in there,” she said.

  One of the doors had slid partway open, a mess of dangling wires hanging from the biometric lock. Esben and Brix were prying the next door control loose as he watched.

  “I’m so glad you’re alive!” Attie tilted her chin to look up at him. “Twerp couldn’t tell me what had happened to you.”

  Dollard had left Attie behind, but wasn’t likely to have done the same with Twerp. Throat tight, Doug asked, “Did he take the AI?”

  “Yes,” Attie said. “I couldn’t stop him.” She released her grip around his waist and took a step back. “But that’s not important right now. He set the ship’s self-destruct sequence! You need to turn it off!”

  Doug growled. The only one who could authorize the self-destruct was the admiral. “I can’t hack those codes, and even if I could, I couldn’t stop things from here. I’d need the admiral’s keycard.”

  Benjy pointed to the video of the hallway near the lift that Doug had left running in real time. “If we’re set to self-destruct, why isn’t the crew evacuating?”

  Attie shook her head, one hand clutching Doug’s arm in a death grip. “He wants everyone dead. We need to sound the alarm.”

  “Fuck that,” Rust grated. “We need to get out of here.” He grabbed the tool Esben had dropped and started prying at the lock.

  Esben got another door open and disappeared down a hallway, shouting, “Tia!”

  Attie turned pleading eyes to Doug. “There are hundreds of innocent people on this ship. Families with children.”

  Doug sighed. He wasn’t used to giving a netorpok’s ass about anyone except Lisa, but Attie somehow made him want to be a hero. “Twobit, try to hack the alarm system. Rust and I’ll work on the door.”

  Twobit nodded grimly and resumed typing.

  Stepping toward the exit, Doug placed his hand flat against lock mechanism. In a surge of effort that made his nanites heat to almost unbearable levels, he burned out the door code mechanism. The smell of hot metal and melted polymer filled the room. His nanites were not meant for brute force, and he swayed from the effort, but his work paid off. The door slid open.

  A backup security shield barred the way.

  “Can you disable it?” Attie asked.

  Clenching his teeth, Doug raised his hand again, preparing to burn his way through that mechanism, too. It might kill him, but at least Attie and the others would stand a chance.

  Before he could start, Rust raised his laser and fired a single shot at a spot on the doorjamb.

  The security shield winked out of existence.

  “How…” Doug blin
ked at Rust barreling toward the lift.

  Rust called over his shoulder, “Those things have always been useless.”

  These cyborgs never ceased to surprise him. Shaking his head, Doug pushed Attie through the door ahead of him. They moved toward the lift with the other cyborgs close behind them.

  Doug would track Dollard to the ends of the galaxy to put an end to his horrific experiments.

  But first, he had to get everyone off this ship.

  Chapter 20

  Heart pounding, Attie stepped into the lift, keeping Doug between her and Rust. The red-headed cyborg’s attempted rape was still on her mind, but he barely acknowledged her presence. More cyborgs crammed inside, forcing Attie back against the wall.

  The cyborg with the silvering hair called, “Twobit, Esben, you coming?”

  “I’ll catch up,” Twobit answered. “I’m hacking the emergency alarm system.”

  “Close the doors, Benjy,” Rust demanded. “We need to hit them before they know we’re coming.”

  Benjy pushed the button for the shuttle bay.

  Attie laced her fingers with Doug’s, suctioned to his side as the car lurched downward. He squeezed her hand back and gave her a reassuring glance. “We’ll get you out of here.”

  The tall blonde cyborg looked longingly at the surgical laser in Rust’s hand. “Wish we had more weapons.”

  “You’re an accountant, Brix. You’d probably shoot your eye out,” Rust replied.

  Brix straightened his shoulders. “I worked mining lasers for six years before I moved to the office, asshole. I think I could manage.”

  The overhead lights suddenly flashed red, followed by the rolling wail of the evacuation siren. A calm, automated voice intoned, “Please proceed to the nearest evacuation pod. The ship will self-destruct in thirty-six minutes.”

  Attie’s fingers tightened around Doug’s as sickening relief flooded her. Her friends and crew-mates at least had a chance to escape now. But that still didn’t mean she and Doug would get out of this alive.

  “Damn,” said the dark-skinned enayshuan cyborg. “I was hoping we’d reach the shuttles before the alarm started. We’ll have to fight the crew for a ship, now.”

  “We were going to have to fight no matter what, Emilryde,” said Benjy.

  The car doors slid open, revealing the broad expanse of the shuttle bay. At the far end, the bulkhead doors were sliding open, the ship’s atmosphere held in only by a hazy energy field. The din of frantic shouting and roaring engines was nearly deafening.

  “What about Twobit and Esben?” asked Brix.

  “They’ll catch up.” Doug stepped off the lift, watching a crew member run past with a heavy piece of equipment clutched against his chest.

  The flushed crewman did a double-take at the sight of the massive cyborg, but continued running.

  Attie looked nervously around. The cavernous room teemed with people carrying belongings and careening toward various-sized ships. How were they going to find the doctor and get Twerp back in this chaos?

  Doug pointed to a large shuttle where a man with blue officer’s epaulets was ushering passengers on board. “That’s the vessel I arranged for Attie. It will provide ample space for a sustained journey. We just need to secure it for ourselves.”

  Small streaks of light shot across the star-studded blackness beyond the bulkhead doorway as evacuation pods from the other levels began departing.

  Attie looked around the crowded floor. “If we take that shuttle for ourselves, there may not be enough left to evacuate everyone else.”

  “It’s us or them,” Rust said, wading into the crowd with Brix close behind.

  As if to prove his point, a flash of pulse fire lit the air near a ship that looked like a blowfish prickling with sensors, followed by a blood curdling scream.

  “Rust’s right.” Doug put a hand on the small of her back, nudging her to follow the cyborgs. When she resisted, he frowned and pushed her more firmly. “I need you off this ship. Go with the guys and let me look for Twerp.”

  No way was Attie getting on a ship alone with those cyborgs, let alone abandoning Twerp and Doug. She said, “When we find the doctor, we can take his shuttle.”

  “Self-destruct in twenty-nine minutes.” The automated voice could barely be heard over the cacophony filling the bay. “Please proceed to the evacuation pods and move to minimum safe distance.”

  Brix and Rust had their heads together, plotting something. Attie didn’t have time to wonder what. She searched the milling crowd for anyone in a white lab coat. People seemed to be avoiding an area on the far side of one shuttle. She thought she caught a glimpse of shiny black hair and a pristine white coat before he disappeared behind the parked vessel.

  “I think he’s over there!” Without waiting for Doug, she darted forward, weaving between the crowd.

  Behind her, Doug shouted, “Dammit, woman!”

  Attie dodged an abandoned tool cart and shoved past a crewman carrying an armful of food rations. Mylar pouches scattered everywhere. She nearly slipped on the slick packages underfoot and had to slow. Doug zipped past her, obviously on target for the shuttle. Crewmen who saw him coming stepped out of the way, opening a path for Attie to follow in his wake.

  She pounded after him, breathing hard and wishing she’d kept up on her PT exercises. Benjy and Emilryde caught up and kept pace with her. A two-man fighter passed overhead toward the open bay doors, followed closely by the ship that resembled a blowfish. Displaced air whipped her hair into her face and sent debris swirling through the air around her.

  Rounding the nose of the shuttle, she spotted Doug shoving through the thinning crowd amidst cries of protest. Near the shuttle’s loading ramp, the doctor bent over a cryopod, adjusting dials on its front. One end of the unit floated on a mag-lift, while the other end rested on the floor where a second man in a white coat crouched making repairs. Two guards with reflective faceplates flanked the shuttle’s doorway.

  A pair of crewmen shouted curses after Doug, and the doctor looked up. Eyes widening, he barked an order at a tech, then moved to the floating end of the cryopod and grabbed the handle.

  The tech toppled backward when he realized what was headed their way and crab crawled toward the shuttle.

  “Come back here!” shouted Dollard, straining to pull the unit. He glowered at the nearby guards. “Help me!”

  In unison, the guards raised their pistols toward the oncoming cyborg.

  Doug continued forward as pulse-fire sliced the air, scattering the remaining crowd. Benjy fired his makeshift laser gun, scorching a line through the nearest guard’s faceplate. The guard fell back against the side of the shuttle and slid to the deck like a rag doll.

  Emilryde grabbed Attie’s arm and pulled her toward a low stack of containers. “Over here!”

  Attie winced, feeling the rush of air from a near miss. Emilryde grunted, his grip on her arm tightening as he toppled forward. He dragged her down on top of him. The smell of burned flesh filled her nose. Nebulas, he’s hit!

  His eyelids fluttered and his body twitched. Enayshuan physiology wasn’t familiar to her, but she was certain she felt him breathing. She needed to drag him to safety. Rolling off him, she crouched low, hoping to avoid any more fire as she looked for cover. Benjy was behind an abandoned crate twenty meters away, firing at the guard; she couldn’t gain his attention, and Emilryde was too big for her to pull alone.

  Doug was only a few meters away from the doctor now. A blast caught him in the thigh, spinning him and sending him crashing flat against the deck.

  “Doug!” Attie screamed.

  Laser blasts lit the air as Benjy continued firing. The guard turned away from Doug to fire that direction. Ignoring the crossfire, Dollard continued tugging the cryopod toward the ship. Who is in that thing? Attie wondered.

  Doug rolled over and began army crawling, dragging his legs behind him. The doctor was now only five meters from the shuttle’s ramp.

  There was no on
e guarding the shuttle door now, just the downed guard slumped against the hull. If she could retrieve his weapon, she could stop the doctor and secure the ship for their escape. Keeping her head down, she darted in, skidding to a stop between the guard’s splayed legs. She reached for the pistol gripped loosely against his thigh.

  His free hand snaked out and clamped onto her arm.

  “Oh, shit!” She broke away, realizing he was about to shoot her point blank, and kicked him right between the legs.

  He crumpled forward, pulse pistol flying from his hand. It skittered under the shuttle and out of sight.

  “No!” She dropped to her hands and knees to search for the weapon. Beneath the craft, the floor opened into a maintenance pit. The gun must’ve fallen in.

  “Self-destruct in fifteen minutes,” the emergency warning system intoned. “All ships must depart now to achieve minimum safe distance before detonation.”

  With a rumble, the shuttle’s engine started in preparation for takeoff.

  The guard Attie’d kicked was still bent over himself. It looked as if he wasn’t breathing, but Attie wasn’t about to take that for granted and kept her distance. A second guard now lay on his back against the deck. Doug dragged himself relentlessly forward.

  Still towing the pod, the doctor had reached the base of the ramp. Sweat streamed down his reddened face, and he glanced toward Attie as he leaned into his effort, lips curled into a snarl.

  Could she take him? More likely he’d take her hostage and force Doug to let him go. But if that ever-loving coffin was so damned important to him, she could at least slow him down. Doug was only about ten meters away now. Even without use of his legs, she guessed he could overpower the doctor. But only if he could reach him. She had to give him time to catch up. Never taking her eyes from the doctor, she edged sideways and grabbed the other end of the unit.

  “Let go, you bitch!” He had one foot inside the shuttle, his face nearly purple with strain.

  A tech peered around the edge of the open door, and after a moment of hesitation, grabbed the handle alongside the doctor. Together they heaved, dragging Attie along the deck as another shuttle passed overhead.