UNIT 78: RESCUED (CyBRG Files Book 2) Read online

Rich followed Harper into the conference room, both of them sweating heavily after their workout. True to his word, Harper sure as hell had hit back, their sparring so fast and furious it had left Harper with a busted nose and Rich sporting a split lip and black eye. It was his non-organic one, thankfully, because the hit his processor had registered would have popped the organ like a grape had it not been an implant.

  “Emergency meeting,” Drew, standing at the window behind the doc, rumbled in his deep voice.

  Both wore unusually grave expressions. His gaze flicked to the doc’s hair. It was smooth and looked recently brushed. More importantly, Drew obviously hadn’t managed to get his hands in it yet. Rich’s frown deepened. Since Drew took every single opportunity he could to kiss the daylights out of the doc—and more, which had led to the rest of them being very careful about opening random doors—and that usually involved his hands in her hair… yeah, this was serious shit.

  He exchanged glances with 80—Wilkins—leaning against the wall by the door. The tall cyborg shrugged, his expression full of “I got no idea either, bud.” He moved further into the room, wariness wandering down his spine as he realized there were only a few of them in the conference area. Until he felt the pressure against the internal comms net and realized the rest of the crew wanted a looksee through the neural network. Taking a moment, he culled off a chunk of processing power and let them access his visual units.

  The chatter on the “line” said the other cyborgs in the room were doing the same, sharing the load across them all. Obviously this meeting was important enough that they all had to be present, even though they were doing other things like running the ship.

  “Rich,” the doc looked at him directly. “You might want to sit down.”

  A frown creased his brow and he looked down at himself in confusion. “Why? My leg implants are functioning perfectly.”

  Truth be told, after their escape from the tree base on Hast when he’d been immobile and forced to rely on others, he’d always preferred to stand. He liked to be independent. Move under his own steam.

  Before he knew it though, two hard hands on his shoulders, one belonging to Harper and one to Wilkins, shoved him down into the nearest seat.

  “Hey!” he protested, looking up at them. Harper just grumbled but Wilkins blew him a kiss before both stood upright.

  “Assholes,” he grumbled, facing the doc and their leader. “Okay, I’m sitting. What’s up?”

  “We got a message from Kyrin.”

  “WHAT?” He shot bolt upright. “When? Why didn’t you let me know? Did… Did she ask to talk to me?”

  “Sit!” Doc ordered, pointing at his seat. Fear hit him hard and fast, almost making his heart stop in the center of his chest. Shit. What if… “Is she okay? Is she… hurt?”

  “She’s fine.” The doc’s lips were pressed into a thin line for a second. “At least, for the moment, I think. But she won’t be for long.”

  He stilled, utterly calm as he looked at the doctor, but it wasn’t a good type of calm. It was the calm before the storm. If anyone had hurt Kyrin, they were going to deal with him. And he would bring hell and fury raining down on their fucking heads.

  “Rich, Kyrin is pregnant. And I think her father’s going to force her to get rid of it.”

  He’d been doing well. He’d been sitting there doing the breathing and the talking thing. The next instant he was doubled over, struggling for breath as Harper pounded at his back.

  Pregnant. Kyrin. His Kyrin was pregnant. With his baby.

  “Yeah. Harper, you can stop breaking my ribs now…” he wheezed, sitting upright. The three cyborgs in the room smiled down at him, Jake grabbing his hand to shake it.

  “Congrats, man. You’re gonna be a daddy!”

  “Thanks,” he said automatically, struggling to process the news himself, but almost instantly his gaze cut to the grim-faced doctor.

  “Where is she?” he demanded, panic filling him. If her father was making her get rid of the baby… would they even make it in time?

  She shook her head. “We don’t know at the moment. They cut the call before we could get a trace on it, but we have 89, 92 and 94 on figuring out their telemetry from the last position we have for the admiral’s ship.”

  “We’ll do everything we can, man,” Drew rumbled, his hand on the doc’s shoulder. “I promise you. We’ll get her back. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Shit. Rich ran a hand through his hair, scooping it back from his face. He knew the odds of managing to track the admiral’s ship that way and they weren’t good. His heart cracked, threatening to break at the thought of her alone and scared somewhere as her father’s people ripped their baby from her body. She’d go down fighting, he realized, knowing that without needing to think about it. She wouldn’t let them take her baby, their baby, without a fight.

  “It’s not going to be fast enough,” he hissed, panic threatening to overwhelm him.

  “Actually,” Harper piped up from where he was sitting in the corner, astride one of the conference chairs. “I might have a quicker way to find her.”

  “If we’re talking to Kyrin’s sister,” 80 raised his voice to argue over the noise. “I think I should be the one to do it.”

  “Fuck off, Wilkins,” Harper snarled, shoving him out of the way to plonk his ass down in the chair in front of the comms console. “It’s my contact.”

  Rich growled as the two squabbled, Wilkins trying to displace the bigger man from his perch in front of the tiny screen.

  “For gods’ sake, Wilkins, let Harper make the damn call!” he snarled, wanting to throttle the both of them for pissing about. “The quicker we find out where Kyrin is, the quicker we can get them back.”

  “Punching in the number now,” Harper’s voice was little more than a growl as he held a scrap of paper out of Wilkins’ reach with one hand, punching in the number with the other.

  The image of a woman appeared on the holoscreen on the desk in front of Harper and Wilkins as the call was picked up. Rich could see the reverse side of it, but she couldn’t see him, not yet.

  “Mars Times, Abby Pierce. How can I—”

  Her eyes widened as they flicked up to the screen and she got a look at the two cyborgs peering back at her. She was a stunningly beautiful redhead and in a glance, Rich could tell she was related to Kyrin. They had the same features and red hair, even if Abby’s was a brighter, more carrot-colored shade than her sisters.

  “My god,” she breathed, her glance flicking between the two cyborgs. It seemed to settle on Harper more, but then, he was the more visibly metal of the two. “You’re…”

  “Metal?” Harper rumbled, his voice way less growly than it usually was. “Yeah.”

  She smiled. “Well, I was going to say cyborgs, but yeah, you are metal…” She shifted forward in her seat, her expression fascinated as she looked him over.

  “Hi,” grinned Wilkins. “I’m Unit 80, Jake Wilkins.”

  Harper put a big hand out over the side of 80’s face and shoved him out of the shot. “Ignore him. He’s an asshole. I’m 85… Harper,” he added, managing to hold his ground as 80 slapped his hand away.

  “Hey,” she smiled. “You got a first name to go with that number, handsome, or should I just call you Harper?”

  “Josh.”

  “Hey, Josh,” she smiled. “Nice name.”

  Rich didn’t think he’d ever seen the big man blush before, but yes, there was a definite banner of color on his cheeks as he looked at the little reporter. If time wasn’t of the essence, he might even have smiled and teased the big guy. But Kyrin was out there somewhere, scared and possibly in pain. He needed to get to her.

  Clearing his throat pointedly got Harper’s attention.

  “Do you know where your sister is?” Harper blurted out, his voice blunt. “We need to find her.”

  Abby’s eyes narrowed a little. “You’re the group that father called in to find her. Aren’t you?”

  “We ar