Mated to the Cyborgs(41)

I woke to the sound of boots approaching, the sound traveling through the stone beneath me to rumble up into my ears. Whoever was coming was big, heavy, and an enemy. Next to me on the cold stone floor of our cell, Hunt blinked slowly, the reality of our situation jolting him awake.

We heard shouts, a fight, feet sliding over the hard floor. An ion blast. They were taking whoever was in the cell next to ours. They were going to torture him, integrate him. Make him fully Hive.

Anger roiled through me, but I had no outlet. We couldn’t save whoever it was. There was nothing we could do but hope they destroyed him quickly.

“They’ll be coming for us. Not right now, but soon.”

Yes, they would be busy for a little while.

“Fuck,” I breathed. “I know.” I twisted my fingers, popping the broken bones back into proper alignment so I could use them again. Pain wouldn’t stop me. No doubt Doctor Surnen would give me a hard time about it, but if we made it out of here alive, I was more than willing to take that verbal attack.

“We have to get out of here before any more get dragged away. Warn the others.” Hunt rolled his head around on his neck, stretching, waking up, getting ready to fight. “At least one of us,” he said, his words uttered through a clenched jaw.

I knew that, too. The warriors sent to the Colony had been made a promise, a promise that they would never again have to fear Hive Integration. That for them, the war was over. That they were safe.

Which was a lie. The Hive Soldiers who ambushed us had been on Base 3, walking the perimeter of Section 9 like they belonged there. No alarms went off, no guards yelled a warning. We’d even approached them with a casualness of new acquaintances, as fellow members of the community, not as the enemy. They circled and we’d been unprepared, weapons still in their holsters. Ambushed. Taken.

No wonder so many men were missing. There had been no warning. No gun fight. No battle. Nothing but surprise. And we’d fallen for it, too.

Fuck. The Hive shouldn’t be able to destroy us. We’d thought ourselves beyond all that. The Colony was a far-flung planet with very little to offer a conquering horde. We had no need to lock doors or fear attack. We were deep in Coalition space. We should have been safe.

We weren’t.

Down here in this pseudo prison, we’d discovered the truth about our missing warriors. They were gone, either dead or fully integrated into the Hive’s control system. Even now, Captain Perro paced in front of our prison cell, no expression in his eyes. The man he used to be was gone. Depending on how one wanted to look at it, the others, the dead men lining the halls, got off easier. At least they were free. Their suffering was over. They hadn’t been turned into the enemy, into everything we’d fought against.

We were honorable and being turned into the Hive was the cruelest of fates. Death was better.

We hadn’t been integrated yet as the other missing men had, but our time would come. The cut on Hunt’s head oozed and he wobbled a bit as he tried to sit up. No doubt he had a concussion. The way he was moving his arm, rotating it around, testing it, I figured he probably dislocated the joint. He’d done it once before, in a battle in Sector 17. They’d put him in the regeneration pod after for it to heal, but he still rubbed it once in a while, as if chasing a phantom ache.

I’d fared better today. I only had three broken fingers and a few broken ribs. I’d had worse. Much worse. I could still fight. Soon, that would be the only thing that mattered.

Our wounds were all easily healed by a ReGen wand, which we didn’t have.

They’d stripped us of everything. Ion pistols, comm units, healers. We still wore our armor, but otherwise we’d be naked. I wasn’t modest. I didn’t give a shit if the Hive and the traitors saw my naked ass. But I was grateful we still had our armor. From past experience I knew that once the armor was removed, the real pain began.

“This is wrong.” Hunt leaned his back against the wall with a sigh, and using the cold stone to steady him, he closed his eyes. “I refuse to believe fate would be so cruel.”

I knew, without asking I knew he was talking about out mate. We’d just found her, tasted her, made her ours. We’d just begun to heal and become whole again.

I sighed and leaned back next to him, shoulder to shoulder as we’d faced everything the last few years. “Maybe she was a final gift.” I’d been thinking about our mate, beyond grateful that she’d been mine, even if it was only for a short time. I didn’t care about anything but Kristin’s safety, her care. If we died, another would care for her. She was beautiful and perfect, impossible not to love. And thank fuck, she wasn’t here.