Avion (Cyborgs: More Than Machines, #7) (5 page)

Anastasia, Seth’s wife and ultimate weakness, stood before a massive view screen, which spanned more than twenty feet. Currently on display was a map of their current surroundings within a few thousand miles. Anastasia bore an intense look of concentration as she zoomed in and out of sections for closer peeks of the galactic space between them and the enemy ships.

Targets spotted. Mission: destroy the enemy.

How his hands itched to grip the controls of a fighter jet, manipulating the tight loops and arcs as he chased the enemy down and, with precisely fired shots, took them out. He was ready to run out of here, suit up, and go on the attack! But all good soldiers needed permission to fly, and on this ship, that came from one person: the commander.

Avion let his gaze finally track over to Aramus, who lounged in his seat, arguing with a woman who could be only Lilith.

Her appearance hit him like Seth’s always perfectly aimed fist. Air whooshed from him. His heart stalled. And he might have wavered on his feet. She definitely caused an impact.

She’s an angel.
At least that was his first impression. There she stood, her head slightly cocked, an ethereal presence in her form-fitting silver jumpsuit with her platinum tresses hanging around her shoulders in a long, smooth expanse with jagged ends. Neat and yet untended. A strange dichotomy, much like the rest of her.

Petite compared to him, slim of build, so delicate appearing and yet the toughest woman, make that person, he’d ever met.

So much power in that tiny body. He didn’t just refer to power and control over the functions of her body and the elements around her, though. He meant more a strange hold over his emotions.

She’s mine.
He saw her, and he wanted her. Not just because she was beautiful. He’d already suspected that even when he was blind. He wanted her, now, with a terrible fierceness because he no longer died. He could now entertain the possibility of seduction. The possibility of a future with this fascinating female. Something he’d never imagined before but now wanted.

Bright eyes met his. He might have gasped at the celestial storm clouds brewing in her gaze, less a color than an impression of many hues.

Some think my eyes are uncanny,
she mind-whispered, having caught his stray thought.

He’d have to watch that. They were closely connected. He didn’t want to frighten her with any of his more intense emotions—or desires.

“Lilith, you are a vision of loveliness,” he said out loud. Cyborg cool card be damned. This declaration fell under the heading of,
I’m claiming this woman, hands off, or you’ll need robotic replacements.

A small smile graced her lips. “Your vision has returned. That is pleasing news.”

“It is. In no time at all I will be back to my regular self.”

“Blah, blah, so glad to hear it and all that other sentimental crap. While it’s great you got your lazy ass out of bed, even an idiot could see you’re not at one hundred percent capacity. You should head to your quarters and rest until you’re at full strength,” Aramus ordered. “I’ve got a feeling we’re going to have a bumpy journey, so I need everyone in tiptop shape.”

Aramus wanted to banish him? Like hell. “It shouldn’t be long before my damage is repaired. You, however, need me now. The enemy has been sighted and is begging for some TCL.” Tough cyborg love. “Let me take a jet out for a spin and see if I can’t punch us a hole in that line of aliens.”
Just let me get my hands on the controls to a fighter plane.
Nothing like executing daring maneuvers for a pilot to feel truly alive again.

Aramus said, “No. Did your brain turn to fucking mush while your nanos were malfunctioning? Less than half an hour ago you were dying and practically a vegetable.”

Lilith’s nose wrinkled in confusion. Utterly adorable. He could have kissed it. “Why do you compare him to a herbaceous plant? He is flesh-based.”

“I meant vegetable as in no brain waves. Almost dead.”

“That makes no rational sense.”

“I can see her confusion,” interjected Kentry at his console. “I mean, given we are cyborg, and that we have a rather hefty ratio of metal, shouldn’t we instead say he was practically a mineral?”

A funny noise left Lilith. Then another. She giggled. But apparently she didn’t mean to.

Avion wasn’t the only one staring as she slapped a hand over her mouth.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“My mouth won’t obey,” she said between snorts. “It is stuck in a loop of mirth.” She cackled. “A mineral instead of a vegetable.”

The fact that she couldn’t help herself twitched Avion’s lips. Aramus guffawed.

“You know. It’s true. I always knew you had a rock for a brain. Look at this insane idea of yours to confront the enemy, which outnumbers you eight to one.”

“I might have a rock for a brain instead of a potato, but I know how to fly,” grumbled Avion.

“No one said you didn’t, but what if you relapse? What if they take you down? Or capture you?

“You make it sound so negative. What about the possibility I could disable a few and find us a spot to slide through?”

“With his help, we have an increase of success that rises from twenty-three percent to thirty-seven,” Lilith announced in a smooth monotone.

“See, I could make a difference.”

“Maybe you could, but what are you gonna do if you don’t make it back to the ship before your girlfriend here sends us slingshotting from a forming black hole using some freaky physics-based theory that might kill us all?”

“Probability says the odds of utter destruction of this craft are only seven percent.”

“I’d say those are great odds,” Avion enthused. “Come on, Aramus. You heard the girl. I raise our odds to thirty-seven.”

“The answer is still no. But, since you think you’re so hot on a gun, you can join Adam here on weapons.”

Not quite the fun he’d hoped for but better than nothing. It didn’t mean he didn’t sulk. In a manly way of course, by cursing aloud, “Fucking killjoy.”

“I heard that.”

“I should hope so, else I’d have you demoted for being defective,” Avion muttered.

“The captain is operating without glitch, although not at full capacity. None of you are because of the neural inhibitors.” Lilith’s announcement met with many inquiring gazes.

Since their escape, there’d been too much happening to really question Lilith. It was, however, becoming more and more apparent that there was a wealth of knowledge tucked in her head. She proved a fascinating puzzle he wanted to unravel.

“The neural what? Forget it. I’m sure you’ll just make me want to find the nearest compactor so I can stick my head in it and squeeze. You can explain later, once we’ve made it out of here and I’ve located copious amounts of alcohol. Right now, we’ve got a battle to plan. Other than sending our resident rock on a suicide mission, what ideas do we have for avoiding the mess up ahead?”

“What if we veered and headed the other way?” Adam asked.

“That will bring us back too close to Earth and its ships. Not to mention the other side of the solar system leads into that empty abyss. We’d have nowhere to hide, no place to land, nothing at all to sustain us for years.”

“According to my history, a very large black hole swallowed most of those galactic systems before folding in on itself and wiping out the rest,” Lilith explained.

“So, in other words, avoid that direction,” Kentry summarized. “What if we dove into the crust on Pluto and tunneled at a random angle through the frozen gas layers and popped out, hopefully away from them enough we could outrun them.”

“That would only work if we could be sure they couldn’t detect us, which, given we’re dealing with unknown alien technology, isn’t a given.”

Anastasia whirled from the screen, but she had a question rather than a concrete suggestion. “Lilith, that thing you did back at the Earth base, where you put up that weird shield that deflected and redirected the enemies’ fire, can you repeat that? But on a larger scale with this ship?”

“Let me evaluate.” Lilith cocked her head, and her eyes went slightly out of focus. “The mass I’d have to defend is too vast, and our speed too great. It requires much expended energy and neural capacity to focus for such a task.”

“So, in other words, you can’t do it.”

“I can provide some defense, just not in the fashion you described. What I can do, for a short amount of time, is erect some additional kinetic shielding on the areas of the ship that are most likely to get damaged. If Avion and Adam can provide accurate and steady fire and eliminate some of the threats, then, while I hold the shielding, we should, barring unforeseen scenarios, make it through the alien’s defensive line. Once clear, the commander must boost the ship’s speed to four times our current level and aim for the following coordinates.” She rattled off a stream of numbers.

“Four times the speed? Are you freaking nuts?”

“According to the psychiatrists, yes. Certifiably so and a danger to those around me.”

Lilith’s stark announcement had them all gaping at her.

Only Avion caught the sad undercurrent of her mind.

Aramus guffawed. “Girl, you might be freaky, but I think you’re going to fit in just fine.”

Insanity wasn’t a flaw when among cyborgs. It just made her one of them.

F
it in? Had someone actually said she could belong?

A cartwheel was unseemly, as was a mad giggle. Those kinds of actions weren’t appropriate, so Lilith stifled them. She allowed herself to only utter a poised, “Thank you.”

Remember your manners.
Someone used to say that to her a long, long time ago, but she could never picture the face behind the words. Just an impression it came from a woman.

Mother.

You have no mother.
Said by her father, who seemed to ignore the reality that human organisms required opposing sexes to procreate.

Lilith locked that debate away with the other parts of herself that weren’t allowed to surface. Logical minds did not dwell on thoughts that did not advance their cause.

But crazy ones do.
Giggle.

She ignored the other voice and concentrated on the screen. While those around her prepared for battle, she cast her senses out, or tried to. The fabric of her jumpsuit continued to dull her senses. That wouldn’t do at all, not with the task ahead of her.

Since the specially fabricated material refused to become absorbed by her skin like most other basic elements, she had to resort to unzipping it, then tugging her arms out of the sleeves and—

“What the hell is she doing? Can someone explain to me why Avion’s girlfriend is stripping?”

Again, she pointed out the obvious. These poor cyborgs had so much to learn. “The material is inhibiting my abilities.”

“And your lack of modesty is causing our indomitable commander to blush,” Anastasia said with a snicker.

Casting a glance around, Lilith noted Aramus pointedly stared at the ceiling, Kentry did not glance her way, but a smile curved his lips. Adam didn’t veer from his screen, but Avion had swiveled in his seat to stare.

How odd. Her skin heated at his perusal, and yet, she’d not known he possessed the ability to transform kinetic ambient energy into warmth. He stood and moved toward her. For the first time, she noted his imposing physical height and then the impressive musculature of his chest as he removed his upper garment.

“Put this on.”

She took the outstretched fabric, still bearing the heat and scent of Avion. “Is my nudity so disturbing?”

“More like distracting,” he murmured.
You are very attractive, Lilith. If I am to function at all, then you need to hide your lovely assets.

The pigmentation in her cheeks blossomed. A blush? How utterly unexpected and human of her.
It’s what a normal woman does when complimented,
her inner voice explained.

She dressed in Avion’s shirt. The largeness of it covered her entire upper body and fell to mid-thigh. Attired in a fashion so as to please her current allies, she removed her jumpsuit entirely, the hidden part of her reveling in the air, which could now touch her skin.

How long since she’d last enjoyed the fullness of all her senses? She cast them out, soaring on particle wings, riding the motes of dust and energy that existed all around her.

Everything came into sharper focus. Including Avion, who still stood close. So close.

His callused thumb rubbed the edge of her jaw. “Ready to kick some alien butt?”

For once, an analytical dissection of his words didn’t occur. She understood the expression, and a smile came to her lips as she replied with an inane, “Totally, dude.”

And, for some reason, everyone found that funny.

Unfettered this time, Lilith cast out her senses and netted a wealth of information. The ship hummed and spoke to her, the electrical currents coursing through it relaying their speed, direction, and general condition. The ship’s long-range radar option fed her even more stats, from the layout of the enemy vessels to their current state—armed and ready to fire.

The male on the navigation and communication console, Kentry—whose personnel file listed as a crew member bearing advanced communication hardware and enhanced wireless capability—counted down.

“Ten seconds until firing range is achieved.”

After that, no one needed to hear it aloud. They counted themselves.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

Adam and Avion gripped joysticks, which would swivel the outer guns. Locking their sights onto enemy targets, they fired, the bright specks of the missiles startling against the dark space they traversed.

Their ship wasn’t the only one to attack. The
D’zpi
sent a volley of their own, white flashes of light, which streaked at them, rapid and on a perfectly plotted course meant to disable their engines.

Lilith held herself ready. No need to tax her strength until necessary.

“Um, freaky girl... Anytime now.”

Analysis said the commander displayed nervousness.

“I’m sure she won’t let those nasty missiles hurt your precious,” Anastasia teased.