Chasing Mayhem (12 page)

“Giving us time if our rescue attempt isn’t successful.” Her eyes gleamed with respect.

Mayhem stood straighter. “It will be successful, my female.” He grinned at her, his merriment feigned. “Do you have pain inhibitors?” He didn’t want to hurt his female.

“I store them in my chamber.” She reluctantly got to her feet. “The ship--”

“Remains on course to the retrieval battle station.” He’d change its direction after he removed the tracking device. “I’ll be notified if anyone or anything approaches us.”

He was now connected to her ship’s systems.

“The tracking device is in my wrist, by one of my main veins.” Imee’s slow pace communicated her lack of enthusiasm for the operation.

“I know where it is, my female.” He grasped her hand. Her palm was calloused, the hand of a warrior. “I removed both of mine.” He hadn’t had pain inhibitors during his operation. “Menace removed the tracking device attached to my spine.”

Her exhale was ragged. “They put tracking devices in both of your wrists?”

He shrugged. “If we lost a hand in battle, they could still track us.”

The Humanoid Alliance decommissioned damaged cyborg warriors, killing them in the most painful way possible. A one-handed cyborg held no value, except as a source of parts.

Imee spread her fingers, linking them with his. “They must have assumed we would die.”

That was a valid assumption. Unless the area was cauterized immediately, minimizing blood loss, very few of her kind would survive such a wound. 

“Your damage from the removal will be minor, my female.” He reassured both Imee and himself. “The incision will be small. I won’t damage your veins. And you have my nanocybotics. You’ll repair quickly.”

They entered her chamber. The space, like the bridge, had its walls covered with images of her mom, sister, brother, visual reminders of the beings she loved.

Had those images been fabricated also?

His female retrieved a large bloodstained medic pack. He breathed deeply. The blood was hers, a remnant of past danger. He’d protect her in the future.

“What do you need?” She opened the pack.

“Pain inhibitors, an injector gun, a laser scalpel, grippers, a cleaning cloth and medic tape.” That was what Rage, the first cyborg to locate his human female, had used on his Joan. The couple now had two offspring.

Mayhem took the supplies from Imee. He looked forward to having offspring with her, visualized newly manufactured cyborgs with her beautiful eyes, black hair, courage, and loyalty.

She sat on the edge of the sleeping support and held out her right wrist. “This is my good arm. If you injure it, I’ll be useless to you.” Her laugh was nervous.

His always-serious female had made a joke. Mayhem grinned. “You could lose both of your arms and I’d still consider myself the most fortunate of warriors.” He rubbed the cleaning cloth over her golden skin, sanitizing the spot. “But I won’t damage you permanently.” He loaded the injector gun with a tube of pain inhibitor and applied it to her wrist.

She jerked.

“Did that damage you?” He frowned. It shouldn’t have.

“No.” Pink pigment flowed up her neck. “It surprised me. That’s all.”

Mayhem swirled his thumbs into her skin. “Tell me when you no longer feel my touch.”

“I’ll feel your touch until the planet rotation my lifespan ends.” Her voice was soft. “That’s why I’m choosing to save my family this way.”

“What are your other choices?” What plans had his resourceful female crafted?

“The area is numb.” She didn’t answer his question.

Mayhem gazed down at her wrist, so tiny, so fragile, so easily damaged. He had to cut into his female. His fingers shook. His stomach heaved.

His organic side was unable to complete the task. He allowed his machine side to take over the process, disconnecting from his emotional system.

“Look at me, my female.” He didn’t want her to see her wound. That damaged even the strongest of warriors.

She gazed up at him. “I’m trusting you, Mayhem.”

That was a gift. His little female didn’t trust easily. He would cherish her faith in him, keep her safe.

Mayhem made a tiny incision in her wrist with the laser scalpel and switched that medical device for the grippers. Blood oozed from the cut as he located the tracking device.

His humanlike brain felt lightheaded. His machine operated without hesitation. Never had he been more grateful to have been manufactured a cyborg.

Mayhem removed the device, set it to the side, bent his head and licked her wound. The metallic taste of blood coated his tongue.

She threaded her fingers through his hair and massaged his scalp with her left hand. He laved her right wrist once, twice, three, four times more, bathing her in his healing nanocybotics.

The flow of blood stopped. Skin, a shade lighter than the rest, fragile and new, pulled the edges of the cut together. Mayhem pressed his lips against the heel of her hand, skimmed his thumbs along her forearm, above the damage.

“I’m still alive.” Imee wiggled her fingers, tapping her fingertips against his jaw. “My hand works.”

“And the pain?”

“There’s none.” She reclined on the sleeping support.

Mayhem wanted to protect her from every kind of damage, including the emotional damage she’d feel if her family were no longer alive. He slid his body over hers, bracing himself upward with his arms.

“Cyborgs have only one purpose, according to the Humanoid Alliance. We’re weapons of war.” Normally he’d insert a joke there, lightening the mood, employing his defensive mechanism of choice against the darkness. He suppressed that urge. His Imee needed a glimpse of his damage, a warning of how the Humanoid Alliance operated. “If we survive the grueling training program, we’re sent into battle.”

“You survived the training.” Her eyes shone with pride.

“I did.” Others didn’t. He’d lost many good friends that solar cycle. “During one battle, we surrounded a walled settlement similar to the Refuge.”

The land outside those walls had been green and lush with vegetation. Rivers flowed. Crops grew. Animals foraged for nutrition.

“The rebels didn’t have a being like Kralj safeguarding them and they weren’t as strong or as skilled as you are.” He kissed the tip of her nose and she blinked, her eyelashes fluttering. “They were agri lot workers, humanoids with no knowledge of warfare.”

“They were no match for cyborg warriors.”

“They realized that yet they resisted, defending their settlement with every resource they had.” Mayhem admired that bravery. “To scale the walls would have taken time and might have resulted in causalities.” The Humanoid Alliance had been concerned about the human and humanoid warriors in their forces. They hadn’t cared about cyborg losses. “The Humanoid Alliance offered the rebels a deal—if their warriors surrendered, their females, offspring, elderly would be spared.”

“And the warriors who surrendered?” Imee placed her hands on his body armor-clad chest. “What would happen to them?”

“They’d be executed.” He scrubbed the emotion from his voice.

She winced. “They’d die to save their loved ones?”

He dipped his head. “Not trusting their enemies, the rebels didn’t agree to those terms at first. But the Commander of the Humanoid Alliance forces reassured them, giving them his word, telling them they needed their loved ones to work the land. It was useless if untended, he said.”

“Being agi lot workers, that explanation must have made sense to them.”

“It did.” The logic was sound, even to Mayhem’s processors. “The rebels agreed to the surrender. They laid down their weapons, opened the gates and strode out one by one, meeting their fate with honor and dignity.” They earned the respect of the watching cyborg warriors. “The rebels were executed.” The humanoids had performed that duty, joking and laughing as they slayed the unarmed beings. “They derived comfort in the knowledge that their loved ones were safe.”

“As they should.” Imee nodded. His courageous female would have made the same sacrifice, dying so her family could live.

“The Humanoid Alliance Commander marched us through the gates. He asked the remaining rebels, the offspring, the non-warrior females, the elderly, to stand before us.”

They had hurried to comply, offering no resistance. The humanoids had gazed at him and his cyborg brethren with wide, innocent eyes, their bodies small, unshielded by any armor, their hands empty of weapons. Females had held offspring to their breasts. An older female had offered the cyborgs beverages, treating them as beings, not weapons.

None of the humanoids had doubted they’d be safe, that they’d be spared. All of them had trusted their invaders to be honorable males.

They’d viewed Mayhem as one of those honorable males.

His female dug her fingertips into his body armor, waiting for the conclusion of his recounting.

“The Commander ordered us to attack.” The cyborgs hadn’t been excluded from that order.

She inhaled sharply. “He vowed to spare the warriors’ families.”

“He told the warriors what they needed to hear to surrender.” The male had no honor. “He had no intention of keeping his vow.”

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“To the Humanoid Alliance, cyborgs are unthinking, unfeeling machines.” Mayhem’s lips flattened. “What could we do? If we had resisted, refused, showed emotion or broken any of their rules…” Rules that he hated, rules that his soul fought against. “They would have viewed it as a malfunction and decommissioned all of the cyborgs on the battlefield. They might have decommissioned every cyborg located anywhere in the galaxy.”

“Decommissioned you?”

“The Humanoid Alliance would have killed us. They would have sliced us into pieces while we were alive, harvesting our parts. They wouldn’t have used pain inhibitors. We would have felt every wound.”

She winced. “You couldn’t refuse the Commander’s order.”

“I didn’t.” He had killed the humanoids quickly, seeking to minimize their pain, to prevent the humans from torturing them. Offspring, elderly, male, female, he hadn’t differentiated. They all died. The ground the rebels had fiercely fought for had been soaked in their blood.

His female stroked his face, attempting to comfort him.

He wanted to make a joke, to lighten the pressure on his shoulders, the heaviness in the air around them, but he had to ensure she received his message. “The Humanoid Alliance operates without honor, my female. They will tell you lies, deceive you, take any action possible to achieve their objectives.”

Imee stiffened under him. “Is that the goal of this story?” Her eyes flashed. “You’re
warning
me about the Humanoid Alliance, asking me to prepare for the worst?”

He said nothing. She was a clever female. She didn’t need any confirmation.

“Well, fuck you.” She cursed. He had noticed she always did that when she felt insecure, threatened in some way. “They killed my friends, extended family, neighbors, making me watch as they tortured them, as they ended their lives. I know what the Humanoid Alliance can do.”

She pushed against him. He didn’t move.

“But I also know what they haven’t done. Because they’re sadistic bastards and they’d tell me if they killed my mom, my sister, my brother. They’d send me the footage and make me view it again and again.”

They
would
do that except… “They want you to retrieve rebels for them.”

“Which is why they need my family. They’re leverage, a means to ensure I am a good little Retriever.” His female’s voice was edged with bitterness. “They didn’t kill your brethren, did they?”

“They killed some of them.”

“But not all, because they used your brethren to keep you in line. Just like they’re using my family to manipulate me. My mom, sister, brother are alive.” She stubbornly clung to that assumption.

Mayhem didn’t expect her to give up hope, not immediately.

Why would she relent? She was right. Her family
could
be alive. He didn’t have solid proof they weren’t. All he had was a faked transmission and a gut feeling. “You should be prepared if they’re not alive.”

“No, I shouldn’t.” She ducked under his arm and rolled off the sleeping support. Her boot heels clunked against the tiled floor. “They’re alive. They have to be.” Imee stomped toward the door. “They’re all I have.”

“You have me, my female.” Mayhem watched her retreat.

His female scowled over her shoulder at him and stormed away, her heavy tread fading with each step.

She hadn’t argued with his last statement, hadn’t told him she wasn’t his female, that she didn’t have him. Mayhem stripped off his restrictive body armor, preferring to be nude, as his design intended.

His female would return. Mayhem flipped onto his back and folded his arms behind his head, his mood lightening. Imee was a fighter. She had retreated but she would never surrender.

He’d wait, plan for the rescue mission, prepare for their next tumultuous confrontation. His lips curled upward.

His female wasn’t done with him yet.

Chapter Ten

Imee could deal with Mayhem’s doubts. Not being a trusting fool, she had her own. The Humanoid Alliance killed and tortured without hesitation and they certainly didn’t care about her or her feelings.

Mayhem did care and that was what scared her. There had been concern in his dark eyes when he told her she should be prepared for her mom’s, her sister’s, her baby brother’s death. He worried about her.

And he should worry. Imee raked her fingers through her hair, yanking at the strands. If her family was dead, she didn’t know what she would do.

She focused on the pain shooting across her scalp and not on the terror churning in her stomach, the fear that everything she’d done in her lifespan, all of those horrible actions she could never forget or escape, had been for nothing.

Mayhem wanted to prepare her? He should coach her on that.

He had the experience. There must have been babies, the elderly, the vulnerable in that settlement and he’d killed them. How had he dealt with those deaths?