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

  “Well…” The admiral’s face had gone from dull brick red to a slightly less apoplectic pink. “As long as we understand each other.”

  “We do.” Rich nodded. “Except for one thing. I do not understand why you expect me to go on this mission for you.”

  “What?” Pierce exploded. “You will do as I say, soldier! I am your admiral!”

  “Not anymore,” Rich said calmly. He and Drew had discussed this at length—how to handle orders from higher-ups they no longer considered their superiors. When their company had gone rogue, they had left the Space Corps behind. They intended to establish autonomy from the organization that had fucked them up and fucked them over so badly, and there would be no exceptions.

  “You will do as I say! You will retrieve my daughter!” Admiral Pierce barked at him.

  Rich regarded him calmly.

  “Yes, I will,” he said in a low, measured tone. “For a price. Complete autonomy and separation from the Space Corps for myself and the other cyborgs in my group and one of your older Carry-all ships, fully equipped and provisioned, to use as our base.”

  “You…I…I can’t just give away a multi-trillion credit piece of equipment like a Carry-all!” Pierce sputtered. “Especially not fully stocked!”

  “Too bad.” Rich shrugged. “Then I guess maybe you can send one of the other cyborgs you made—one of the ones that was really brain-dead before he was cyberized. Oh but wait…” He frowned, pretending to consider. “Those aren’t very smart. Are they? Seems like the Tr’Low cultists might get suspicious if you were trying to remote-control the thing you sent in to rescue your daughter. Not to mention that no brain-dead cyborg you might get has anywhere near my hostage extraction expertise.”

  He could see by the admiral’s face that he had thought this exact same thing—sending a regular Space Corps-controlled cyborg had probably been his first plan. But the brain-dead cyborgs were nothing but fancy half-human robots, incapable of free will or independent thought. There was no way such a creature could successfully carry out a delicate and dangerous mission like the one Pierce wanted him to undertake. If someone else was held hostage, the admiral might have risked it. But it was his own daughter, and no matter what kind of a bastard he might be, Rich could tell he loved her with his whole heart.

  His own heart twisted a little in his chest. The poor girl, trapped down there with that fucking evil cult. Everything in him wanted to go to her now, and if Pierce refused their request, he would still go and do everything in his power to set her free. But he wanted to put on a brave face and get as much as he could out of this. It was important for their whole group.

  So he kept a stony expression on his features as he waited for Admiral Pierce’s answer.

  “Very well, cyborg,” Pierce said at last, his face going red again. “You appear to have the upper hand—for now, anyway. I will agree to your demands, only get my daughter home safe and unmolested.”

  Rich wanted to point out that they had no idea what had already been done to the poor girl, but again he bit his tongue. The admiral might hate him and his kind but he was still a grieving father. Rich could respect that, even if Pierce didn’t respect him.

  “Agreed,” he said, nodding to the admiral. “I will do my utmost to bring your daughter home safely.”

  “Without touching her sexually in any way,” Pierce emphasized.

  “I have told you—no human woman would want me as I am,” Rich reminded him.

  “Yes, but you haven’t said if you still want human women or not,” the admiral growled. “It goes both ways, cyborg.”

  Rich simply gave him a level look.

  “I will not touch her. Now let me get back to my ship. There is much to be done.”

  Chapter Two

  “Place the suction cups on your nipples, Novice Kyrin. Do it now or it will be done for you.”

  Kyrin Pierce glared at Sister Yancy, but the older woman’s face was stern and implacable. She could tell there would be no getting out of the daily sensitivity training session this time. The day before she’d pretended to be sick and the day before that, she’d faked an ankle injury. But the Tr’Low nun was onto her now. She had taken over Kyrin’s case herself and had sworn to have her ready for the Breeding Ceremony coming at the end of this solar week.

  “Suction cups, Novice Kyrin,” she said again, frowning. “Now.”

  Gritting her teeth, Kyrin opened the long silver robe they had dressed her in—the robe of a novice in the Tr’Low Breeding Cult—and bared her full breasts. She seated herself in the sensitivity chair and reached for the cups, which were hooked to one side of the chair and attached to long, black hoses that reminded her of snakes from Old Earth.

  She didn’t want to do this—didn’t want to place the damn cups over her nipples, which were already way too sensitive from the hormones and drugs the Tr’Low nuns had been pumping into her. But she would much rather do it herself than let one of the nuns do it. Or worse, one of the breeding males that were always hanging around the sensitivity training area, drooling at her through the shimmery touch-me-not shield that surrounded the novices’ quarters.

  “They have to be able to see you,” Sister Yancy had explained primly when Kyrin had protested the gawking going on only a few feet from where she was exposed. “One of them may have the honor of breeding you during the ceremony. Although, I rather doubt it.” She had given Kyrin an appraising look. “Considering your attributes, my dear, I’m almost certain you will have the honor of being bred by Father Tr’Ayer himself. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”

  Kyrin thought it would be horrible but then, everything that had happened to her since her ship had been taken by the cult members had been horrible.

  My fault, she thought grimly as she fitted the round, clear cup over her nipple and watched as it began to suck, making her tight pink point even tighter and pinker. What happened to my ship…my crew…it’s all my fault. If it wasn’t for the way I look, they never would have taken us, never would have killed the crew and taken me into their damn Breeding Compound…

  Kyrin was petite but curvy—barely five feet tall in her stocking feet with full breasts and hips that she often tried to disguise with bulky business clothing. As a Peace Maker—one of the Intergalactic consultants who went from planet to planet arbitrating disputes between different cultures—she had to look professional.

  But it wasn’t her full breasts or even her wide, baby-making hips the Tr’Low Breeders had been interested in when they lured her down to their planet and took her ship. It was her long waterfall of silky, flame-red hair.

  The Breeders had some kind of a prophesy that she didn’t fully understand—something about a child being born with hair the color of flame. Supposedly this child would lead their cult in overtaking the rest of the known galaxy, which was their ultimate plan—to spread the light of Tr’Low and his breeding wisdom to all the worlds and take them over as they had taken over their own world, once known as Beacon Five.

  Kyrin, of course, was to be the mother of this miracle child. The very thought made her sick, but she was trapped here, surrounded by the Tr’Low nuns as well as the breeding males and the eunuch guards, who were not considered fit for breeding due to genetic imperfections but were still quick to punish any of the fertile females who were caught trying to escape.

  As the second suction cup latched on to her left nipple and began its mindless sucking, Kyrin wished again that she had never taken the assignment to Beacon Five. IPKA, the Intergalactic Peace Keeping Association, hadn’t had any idea that the Tr’Low cult had taken over the small, blue-green planet. They only knew that a conflict had been reported and a Peace Keeper had been requested to mediate the situation.

  The minute her ship, the Tranquility, had set down in the space port and Kyrin had stepped outside to greet the delegation that had come to meet her, she had sensed something was wrong.

  The Tr’Low nuns and priests were all shaved bald with only a single strip of hair left,