Cyborg Nation (24 page)

Gideon stared at him impatiently. “Well? What does it mean?”

“That she is angry … I think.”

Gideon gave him a look of disgust. “She did not have to say that to make me understand she was angry! She must have meant
something
when she said it!”

“I will shove it up your ass myself if she says she will not contract now!” Gabriel growled. “Then she will be happy again and contract with me!”

“You can try,” Gideon snarled. “Mayhap I will shove it up your ass!”

“I do not know why you had to order her at all!” Jerico said with rising anger.

Instead of stalking over to Jerico and planting his fist in his face, which was what he wanted to do, Gideon resumed his pacing. “Because we passed the outer rim of the system nigh an hour ago! Command center will have picked us up by now and we will not
get
the chance to have the contracts signed if we do not do something quickly!” he bellowed angrily.

“We must have several hours left!” Jerico said worriedly.

Discovering a ragged nail, Gideon began to gnaw on it as he paced. “Three … at most,” he acknowledged. Successfully removing the offending nail, he spat it out, and examined the others. He had already gnawed those to the tips of his fingers, though. Disgusted, he dropped his hands to his sides again. “That is only until we dock, however. Command center will contact us as soon as we are in range, and then they will
know
about Bronte. For you may be sure that they will ask about the success of our mission. And when I report, as I must, then they will begin to make plans for her that does not include
us
! Or worse, they will instantly realize that we would have used the tactical advantage of having her with us and order us
not
to contract! If we have already signed the contracts they can do no more than throw us in the brig for a few months.

“What is
taking
her so long?” he demanded of no one in particular, halting abruptly and swiveling toward the cabin door.

He’d barely gotten the question out when the door opened and Bronte stepped out. She gave him a look. “I was trying to find something to put on.
Some
one, naming no names, ripped the suit I was wearing!”

Gideon stared at her blankly. “You were not wearing....”

Jerico and Gabriel turned to glare at him accusingly.

“We do not have time to ‘discuss’ this now!” Gideon ground out surging forward to grasp Bronte’s arm and lead her to the table where he had set the tablet. He discovered when he had set up the vid to record the event that she was reading it. Swallowing the urge to point out that he had already read it to her, he settled on the bench beside her, drumming his fingers on the table top while he waited impatiently for her to finish. She threw him a frowning reproach, glared at his fingers for several moments and finally sighed.

He instantly had the uneasy feeling that sigh was somehow significant.

“This contract is for seven years. They’re usually only for five.”

He bared his teeth at her in the best approximation of a smile he could manage. “It is the standard contract.”

She frowned.

He felt a cold sweat pop from his pores and resisted the urge to glance toward the forward vid screen only by a supreme effort. Finally, she shrugged and reached for the stylus. Gabriel and Jerico, hovering on the opposite side of the table, leaned forward to watch.

Gideon glared at them. “You are blocking the vid,” he pointed out coldly.

Bronte slid the tablet to him. Grabbing the stylus with a sense of relief, he quickly scrawled his own name in the appropriate box—Gideon CS46721. He discovered when he replaced the stylus that Bronte was frowning at his signature. He sent her a questioning look as he handed the tablet over to Gabriel and Jerico to witness. “There is something wrong?”

He couldn’t quite interpret the look in her eyes when she met his gaze but it made his chest feel uncomfortably tight. She shook her head, turning to look at Gabriel and Jerico in much the same way.

It disturbed him that he couldn’t understand what that look meant but he resolutely dismissed it as Jerico handed the tablet back. “Now it is Gabriel’s turn,” he said, flipping to the next screen before he rose and changed places with Gabriel.

Jerico looked as if he would object, but when Gideon shook his head, he settled into fuming silence, glancing behind them at the forward vid as Bronte scanned the second contract.

They had just settled to sign Jerico’s contract when the communicator squawked. Bronte jumped and Gideon, Jerico, and Gabriel stiffened, their heads swiveling sharply in the direction of the speaker.

“Approaching craft, identify!”

There was a brief pause and then the command was repeated.

Gideon and Gabriel exchanged a speaking glance. “Finish!” Gideon said sharply getting up and striding quickly toward the bridge. “Command center!” Gideon hailed the speaker. “This is Black Hawk tango two bravo six niner zero!”

“Identify!”

“Lieutenant Gideon CS46721, Cyborg Forces.”

“Mission status?”

“Target extracted. ETA forty six minutes.” He paused. “Mark.”

“Target status?”

Gideon glanced toward the group at the table, meeting Bronte’s gaze briefly.

“Take….”

Before he could finish what he’d been about to say, the proximity alarms went off. “Proximity alert! Proximity alert!” the computer announced.

Gideon cut the alarm off. “Direction? Speed?”

“Starboard, sub light,” the computer responded.

Even as Gideon dove into the command seat and grabbed the controls, however, something slammed into the craft so hard it pitched Jerico off the bench and flung Bronte over him. He caught her, wrapping his arms tightly around her as he skidded along the floor with the pitch of the ship.

Bronte felt the shudder that rippled through the ship even perched on top of Jerico. Gabriel picked himself up and staggered toward the bridge, half falling into the communications seat as he reached the control center. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Home base. This is Black Hawk tango two bravo six niner zero! We have been damaged! I repeat, we have been damaged.”

He glanced at Gideon after a lengthy pause. “Communications are gone.”

Gideon gritted his teeth. “The whole fucking tail section is gone.” He glanced back at Jerico and Bronte. “Get her into the emergency seat before we hit the atmosphere. And then get back there and try to get the emergency lock down over that rear door. It is not responding.”

Gabriel bolted out of his seat. “Get the emergency lock. I will help Bronte.”

“Put her in my seat,” Jerico said as Gabriel dropped to his knees and opened a small hatch, pulling a fixed seat from beneath the floor—the one they’d strapped her in to when they’d blasted off from Earth, Bronte realized.

Gideon turned to look at Bronte. She saw the indecision in his eyes and she knew what it meant. The emergency seat wasn’t nearly as safe as the others. “I’ll be safer if Jerico is where he’s supposed to be,” she said quickly.

He didn’t argue with her and that scared her worse than she already was. She felt no better once Gabriel had strapped her into her seat. Even she could see that it wasn’t nearly as sturdy as the other chairs, and besides that she had the pit beneath her the thing had been pulled out of. It didn’t matter that Gabriel had shoved a floor plate over it and locked it down. She
knew
the hole was there and all she could think about was being sucked out of it.

She managed to smile at Gabriel weakly, however, when he finished strapping her in and briefly touched her cheek to reassure her before he went back to his own seat.

She
hoped
that was what he meant by it and not ‘good bye’.

“Atmosphere!” Gabriel barked. “In ten!”

“I have got it!” Jerico bellowed back at him to the tune of a sudden metallic bang that made Bronte’s belly clutch in terror. Whirling toward the sound, more than half expecting to see the ship disintegrating before her eyes, she felt a measure of relief when she saw that Jerico had pulled a pair of doors from the walls that looked far more substantial than the sliding door of the cabin and locked them together.

Or … where the cabin used to be. The wall and door were substantial or they would’ve crumpled already, she told herself.

Unless Gideon had been exaggerating, she thought hopefully.

She had a bad feeling that wasn’t a ‘trait’ Gideon had either. The entire ship was shaking so hard she had to clench her teeth to keep from biting her tongue and they hadn’t even hit the bad part yet.

She wondered what the chances were of actually managing to land the ship with nearly a third of it missing.

It probably didn’t matter where she was sitting.

“Three!” Gideon yelled. “Get up here!”

He didn’t have to announce when they hit atmosphere. The ship bucked so hard Bronte knew she would’ve gotten whiplash if she hadn’t been strapped in. She screamed before she could stop herself, her mind instantly equating the hard slamming motion with hitting the ground. Her stomach went weightless and lodged in her throat. The sensation of falling didn’t stop. She squeezed her eyes closed as the shaking intensified until her brain and eyeballs were rattling in her head. The pull of gravity felt as if it was going to crush her in her seat. Her heart, already laboring with terror, struggled, felt as if the weight pulling at her was going to make it explode.

She focused on trying to breathe and trying to regulate her heart, closing her mind to the screaming sound of metal around her and the men’s voices as they checked instruments, called out reading and fought the bucking bronco they were on trying to seize control.

They were dropping like a rock. The air around her grew hotter and hotter. Bronte squeezed her eyes more tightly together, focusing harder to block out the fear that they would burst into flames. Some force buffeted the ship so that it lifted and then dropped repeatedly. The air speed Gabriel had been quoting to Gideon began to drop. It was hardly reassuring. They were still moving way too fast and she knew it, but she began to feel a faint thread of hope, despite the fact that the ship began to tilt further and further forward.

“We are still dropping too fast!” Gabriel announced.

“On my mark, fire the forward thrusters!” Gideon bellowed.

Bronte opened one eye to see what was happening, too frightened to ask even if she hadn’t been worried about distracting them. In the forward vid, she saw a spiral of greens and blues that made her head swim. Glancing at Gideon, she saw his arm muscles bulging from his grip on the steering yoke, saw the hard edge of a clenched jaw. “Short burst … now!”

The ship bucked again as if it had hit something, the front end pitching upward. Bronte held her breath, trying to keep from throwing up.

Gabriel marked the air speed again.

“Again!” Gideon said. “Short burst only. Jerico, where are we?”

“Over the Darden sea.”

“I can see that!” Gideon ground out.

“Coming up on a land mass.”

“What have we got?”

“Sand … if you put it down fast.”

“I do not think we have a choice.”

“Dunes—starboard ten degrees,” Jerico announced.

Gideon threw him a quick glance and leaned against the yoke as he struggled to alter course.

“Three,” Jerico called out.

“Gabriel, fire all thrusters and see if we can slow this son-of-a-bitch down,” Gideon ground out.

The ship went wild, bucking and jolting so hard it jarred Bronte’s clenched jaws apart and then slammed her teeth down on her tongue. Blood filled her mouth.

“Impact in ten,” Gabriel announced.

Bronte sucked in a harsh breath, tensing all over.

“Five … coming in hard.”

“Hit the braking thrusts now!” Gideon bellowed.

The ship lurched, bucked. Abruptly they slammed into something. The ship roared like a live thing as it crumpled around them. Bronte screamed as pain speared through her and then blackness swarmed over her. When she surfaced again, her ears were still ringing from the last roar of sound she’d heard. Flickering light moved over her eyelids and she opened them with an effort. Around her was a tangle of metal and vegetation. A leafy frond, stirred by air, or still shuddering from their impact, was bobbing above her, she saw, causing the flickering of light as it filtered the sunlight pouring down through the canopy above her.

She closed her eyes again, searching for the pain she knew she should be feeling. As if she’d summoned it, it flickered to life, welled inside of her until it took an effort to breathe.

“Bronte!”

Her heart clutched at the sound of Gideon’s voice. “Here!” she tried to call out, but the word only emerged as a thread of sound. She tried again, managed to lift her voice a little louder. She flinched at a sudden noise close by and more pain flooded through her.

“Bronte!”

She struggled and managed to open her eyes again as she heard him advance toward her through the rubble and then felt his nearness. His face was taut as he stared down at her. After a long moment, he reached to grasp her restraints. Vaguely surprised to realize she was still strapped in her seat, she tried to lift her hands to help him but discovered her arms were just too heavy to lift them.

“Be still!” Gideon ground out, apparently having noticed her slight movement.

She subsided, too tired to argue with him. “I’m so tired,” she said, wondering why.

“Only a moment and I will have you loose.”

More movement around her roused her enough to open her eyes again. Relief flooded her when she glimpsed Jerico and Gabriel. “We made it,” she whispered.

Gideon crouched down in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders and easing her slowly toward him. She screamed at the pain that lanced through her.

He stopped instantly and Bronte gasped for breath as the pain slowly subsided. When she could open her eyes again, she searched for the source and discovered a piece of metal sticking into her. Mentally, she traced it. “I’m pinned to the seat,” she said in surprise.

Gideon gripped the piece of metal. “On the count of three I will pull.”