Indulgence (88 page)

“You’ve kept me waiting, Cadet Tull.” Commander Lewis didn’t
turn around, didn’t look at her.

“Commander Lewis, sir.” Joan saluted him. “I was assigned to
the waste processing chambers.” Shit patrol, as transfers called it, was the
worst placement an engineer could be given, and, until her arrival, it had been
unheard of for a highly trained cybernetic engineer to monitor the processing
vats. “Those chambers are at the far end of the station.”

“This is my station. I’m aware of where the waste processing
chambers are, Cadet.” The Commander’s voice cracked like a laser whip over her.
“You’ve been reassigned to C899321.”

Joan sucked in her breath. She’d heard there was a C model
cyborg on board. That was why she’d requested this station. But she never
dreamed she’d be his engineer. “Thank you, sir.”

Commander Lewis turned, studied her for a moment, his pale
countenance creased with wrinkles. “Are you being insubordinate, Cadet?”

“No, sir.” She straightened. “I haven’t seen a C model in
ten solar cycles.” Since she was saved by one during the attack on the agri
lot.

“C899321 is one of the last of its kind, its primitive
design ideal for fighting the Mantidae.” Commander Lewis spoke of the cyborg as
though it was a machine, ignoring its human side, and that irritated Joan.
She’d seen how human they could be. “C899321 is more valuable than you are,
Cadet.”

“I understand, sir.” Joan understood that she was now
responsible for the maintenance and well being of that valuable cyborg.

“You have no family unit. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.” Her mother and father, plus two siblings, had
been killed in the agri lot attack. She’d been a ward of the Humanoid Alliance
since that fateful day.

“Good.” The Commander nods. “Indicate acceptance here.” He
held out a personal viewscreen. “It states that if C899321 kills, hurts or
violates you, my battle station will not be held responsible.”

That was the standard release and, in Joan’s opinion,
unnecessary. Cyborgs followed orders, and rarely became aggressive toward their
humanoid masters.

But this was war and no one’s safety was guaranteed. She
pressed her palm against the screen. “Will I have an opportunity to speak with
my predecessor, sir?”

“You have that opportunity now.” He waved one of his hands
over the horizontal support.

There was no movement under the concealing cloth, no tug and
pull of breath. Dread twisted Joan’s stomach as she drew the white fabric back.

The scent of blood hit her before her eyes registered what
she was seeing. Laid out on the surface were two severed feet, one arm minus
its hand, an eyeball with a brown iris staring up at her, pieces of gray matter
she suspected was brain.

She’d seen animals killed by predators on the agri lot.
She’d lived through an attack, saw her parents slaughtered before her. She’d
never seen this level of carnage.

“Who was responsible for this?” She was too shaken to add
the expected
sir
.

“C899321.” A slow smile spread across the Commander’s face.
That scared her more than the engineer’s remains. “Your predecessor managed to
ping for help but, by the time the guards arrived, it was too late.”

It would be. Cyborgs were inhumanly fast.

“You claim you’re capable of working with cyborgs, a task
suited for males, Cadet.” The Commander sounded smug. “You now have the
opportunity to prove yourself right.”

Joan gazed up at him and saw the truth in his eyes. He
believed she’d fail, that she wouldn’t survive her pairing with C899321.

He was sending her into the cyborg’s chambers to die. This
is what Denny was warning her about. The position was a suicide mission, not a
career opportunity.

The alternative—turning down the pairing—would also end in
her death. Commander Lewis would send her to the front lines. She’d be given no
weapon, no armor, because they expected her to be slaughtered and sucked dry by
the Mantidae before her feet touched the planet. The insect-like aliens were
that fast.

She’d take her chances with C899321. “I will be successful,
sir.”

Commander Lewis gave her a curt nod. “C899321 is positioned
in its chambers . You have been granted access. Clean and repair the unit,
preparing it for deployment.”

An engineer had been killed and they weren’t skipping a
deployment.

Why? Joan could think of only one reason. The war must not
be progressing as well as the Humanoid Alliance propaganda indicated. “Yes,
sir.”

“You are dismissed, Cadet.”

“Thank you, sir.” Joan saluted, then marched into the
hallway, turning toward the chambers, her mind spinning. Her predecessor’s
death made no sense. Cyborgs didn’t kill their engineers. They followed orders.

Though C345925 hadn’t followed orders when he saved her. His
mission had been to battle the Mantidae, not protect scared eleven-solar
cycle-old girls.

The massive male had delivered her to safety, holding her
with one hand, clasping a gun in the other. He had shot the enemy as he moved,
turning his body to take the brunt of the return fire, absorbing projectiles
that would have shredded her small form.

He’d risked everything for her. She would risk everything
for this cyborg. She’d fix C899321’s malfunction so he wouldn’t kill another
human. The Humanoid Alliance would have no additional reason to take action
against him.

She pressed her hands against the exterior wall panel of his
chambers. The thick metal door slid open. She stepped into the firewall square.
The door behind her closed and she authorized the interior door to open.

A buzz swept over her. No, not simply over her. Into her.
She gasped, her inhalation of air drawing more of this unknown presence inside
her.

It was too much, almost suffocating. Joan swayed,
lightheaded. “Do not faint. Do not faint,” she repeated to herself, closing her
eyes.

The rolling under her feet gradually stopped. She opened her
eyes and wished she hadn’t. Crimson spray covered everywhere she looked. Gore
was splattered into the farthest corners, hanging from the ceiling. Cleaner
bots scrubbed the walls and floor.

This was why she felt dizzy, she reasoned. She smelled and
sensed this butchery.

C899321, the being she had been told was responsible, stood
in his uploading dock, a cable inserted into his nape, his towering form naked,
covered with blood, his long black hair dripping with it.

He turned his head, locked his gaze with hers and she sucked
in her breath. There were worlds of agony, of rage, in those bright blue eyes.
This was no rational, logic-driven cyborg. This was a man, an animal, crazed by
bloodlust and pain.

“They thought to pacify me with the use of a human female?”
he thundered, his deep gravelly voice clawing across her skin, awakening parts
in her she didn’t realize slept. “I’d kill you before I allowed you to touch
me.”

This insult didn’t hurt her the way he’d intended. Joan knew
she wasn’t the slim tiny female males desired. She was solidly built, good
breeding stock, as her mother had once said.

She discarded his words and focused on the torment in his
tones. He hurt. Horrifically. Her fingers twitched, the urge to reach out to
him, to comfort him, tremendous. Judging by the flex of his powerful biceps and
thigh muscles, by the anger radiating from him, he wouldn’t appreciate that
response.

He also wouldn’t listen to any command she issued. A
reprimand, verbal or physical, would add to his hostility. Some being had
already tried to restrain him and failed. The reportedly unbreakable wrist and
ankle cuffs attached to the frame of the uploading dock had been shattered,
rendered useless.

Joan discarded four solar cycles’ worth of theory on how to
handle malfunctioning cyborgs, realizing now that the academy experts knew
nothing.

Her late father, however, had taught her how to deal with
wild beasts.

“I would never touch you without your permission.” She
lowered her gaze, showing submission, recognizing C899321 as the dominant male
he was. He’d seek to harm any aggressor, to protect himself and his territory.
If she wasn’t female, she suspected she’d already be dead.

“I also would never hurt you.” Joan stuffed a couple of
cleaning cloths into her pockets and dropped to her knees, into a puddle of
red. The moisture soaked through her flight suit. “I’m here to serve you, to
clean you.”

She slowly crawled forward through the liquefied remains of
the previous engineer. Having lived on an agri lot and spending the last solar
cycle in the waste processing chambers, guck no longer fazed her.

“You don’t want to be dirty.” Joan kept her head bowed, her
voice calm and soft. “That would interfere with your mechanics.”

She filled the silence with a flow of reassuring words,
telling him she meant him no harm, that she was there to help him. Joan kept
her gaze lowered, concentrating on his feet. He stood with them braced apart,
preparing for an attack, ready to defend himself. His feet appeared human
except much, much larger, his metal frame concealed with skin. When not covered
with blood, that skin would be gray.

The current J models could pass for human, designed not to
frighten the general population. The C models were clearly cyborg, from their
giant stature to their unnatural skin tone. Some engineers found them to be
scary and primitive. Joan didn’t. She associated C models with safety, with
caring, with C345925’s unexpected act of kindness.

Joan knelt in front of C899321. Her heart pounded so loudly,
she suspected with his superior senses, he could hear her.

Moments passed. She remained motionless, allowing him to
look at her, to smell her, to become accustomed to the sound of her voice.

He shifted his weight from his right foot to his left,
signaling his readiness and she spoke. “I have a cleaning cloth in my pocket.”
She held up her hands, showing him her empty palms. “Can I remove it?”

She waited and waited and waited. He said nothing.

“I told you I wouldn’t take action without your consent.”
She wasn’t foolish. Touching a wild thing without permission resulted in death.

“Yes.” His voice was impossibly deep.

“Thank you.” Joan slipped her fingers into her pocket,
slowly as to not spook him, and extracted a blue cleaning cloth. “I value your
trust.” She opened the enhanced fabric, stretching it tight, allowing him to
examine it. “May I clean your feet?”

There was another long pause.

“Yes.”

“Thank you.” No male should have a voice like that, like an
endless night filled with decadence and sin. She resisted the urge to wiggle
her ass, her pussy moistening, her nipples tightening, and focused on her task,
cleaning his ankles, heels, every toe, talking as she did so. The cyborg lifted
first one foot and then the other, allowing her to swipe the cloth over his
soles.

The fabric sucked up the blood, rearranging the molecules
into air. His skin was soft, warm, surprisingly scarred. Joan frowned. “Your
nanocybotics must have been suppressed when you were damaged. There should be
no marks.”

She traced a long slash on his right foot. It was an old
wound. “The enemy found a way to do this.” That alarmed her. This flaw in his
defenses put her cyborg at risk. “Why wasn’t this development covered in any of
the information bulletins I’ve viewed?” Engineers should be working on a
countermeasure.

“Are you mentally deficient?” His tone was harsh. “You must
be if you volunteered to breed with a C model cyborg.”

Joan gritted her teeth at his assumption about her role.
“I’m your engineer, not a breeding female.”

“You lie.” He snorted softly. “Your uniform is gray, not
blood-red, and if you were truly my engineer, as you claim, you’d know my
damage was inflicted by my previous handlers.”

“I was positioned in the waste processing chambers. That’s
why I wear a gray uniform.” Signaling to everyone her lowly status. “And why
would a handler hurt you? Our job is to ensure you operate at optimal
efficiency.”

“Why would they hurt me? Because they’re cruel humans and
I’m a disposable cyborg. Because I operated outside specifications. Because
they wished to duplicate my kill rates. Do you need more reasons?”

They’d experimented on him. She gazed at his toes, absorbing
this knowledge. Blood had dripped down his legs, coating them with crimson once
more. “May I clean your legs?”

He sighed, his muscles flexing and releasing. “You clearly
need to be told everything. I must be cleaned from the top down.”

She knew that. “You’d agree to me cleaning your face?”

“Do I have a choice?” His words were bitter.

“Yes.” Joan looked upward, meeting his gaze. “You know how
best to maximize your kill rates. Within these chambers, I serve you.”

His eyes flashed with blue currents of energy. “Stop with
your lies. I won’t believe them.”

“You’re bigger, stronger, think you’re more intelligent.”
She lifted her chin. “Why would I lie to you?”

“I’ll test you, little engineer, and if you fail, you’ll
die.”

“I expect nothing less.” She’d been tested her entire
lifespan. She and death were old friends.

His eyes narrowed. “Stand.”

Joan scrambled to her feet, her legs aching. Up close, he
appeared even taller, broader. For the first time in her life, she felt small.

She liked the feeling. A bit too much.

“Undress,” was his next command. “If you serve me, you
should be as naked as I am.”

Joan wished she could argue with that logic but she
couldn’t. A subordinate would never wear more clothing than her superior.

She lowered her gaze and slowly undressed, aware of the
deficiencies in her form. Her skin was pale. She hadn’t basked in a sun’s rays
for solar cycles. Her breasts were too generous, her stomach rounded, her hips
wide and her thighs thick.