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

  He concentrated on the two in the middle of the group, surrounded by the others like the petals of a flower. Hank Ayers—now Father Tr’Ayer—he recognized instantly, but the woman took a little more tracking down within the data-packets Peirce had given him. Yancy Burrows. A farm-colonist from the failed Jenas Four colony, she appeared to have fallen in with the Tr’Low cult shortly afterward. And… he was forced to use his metal half to control his reactions as he read her file… she’d even given her teenage daughter over to the cult.

  Terissa Burrows’ body had been found three years ago. An autopsy had revealed her system had simply given out under the weight of the breeding drugs and multiple pregnancies. She’d been thrown away, like a dog in a puppy mill who could no longer produce.

  Rich kept his expressions machine perfect and hard as he stepped through the airlock door and descended the short ramp onto the runway. Tr’Ayer and Yancy would pay for what they’d done… if it was the last thing he did.

  A ripple of excitement and awe washed through the welcoming committee, some of the nuns even breaking off their soft chanting as he walked toward them. He was making no effort to move like a human, letting his cyborg half have the lead. Each step of his metal feet raised small dust clouds off the perma-crete. If he’d wanted to, he could have cracked it, leaving a permanent mark of his arrival.

  “You are Tr’Ayer.” He leveled his gaze at the Tr’Low priest, amused to find that while he towered over the others assembled, he was still an inch or so shorter than Rich himself. “I am Unit 78, the metal man called here by your prophecy. Your god has demanded my presence here.”

  Okay… so claiming he was in touch with their god was pushing it a little far, but Rich really didn’t care. These assholes gave him the creeps and the thought of delicate little Kyrin Pierce in their clutches ate away at something deep inside him. Something that should have been long dead, killed in the mine attack that had given him a second life made of metal.

  “Tr’Low has spoken. Praise be! Welcome to Breeder One!” Yancy exclaimed, her face wreathed in smiles as she welcomed him with open arms. For a moment Rich thought she would actually embrace him but instead she quailed at the last moment and simply dropped a flower garland around his neck. Pink and white flowers… it went so well with his implants.

  He ignored the garland, watching the two impassively. Yancy turned to Tr’Ayer.

  “Isn’t it amazing, father? First the queen and now the metal man… our prayers really have been answered, and the days of the prophesy are at hand.”

  “Hmmm…” Father Tr’Ayer didn’t seem so convinced, studying Rich with a speculative eye. “He’s a cyborg—the Space Corps have many of them. How do we know this is the metal man of our prophesy?”

  Rich cocked an eyebrow, adding a slight quirk to his lips. “Are you questioning the will of Tr’Low? He spoke to me. Ordered me to leave my unit and travel here where you have a female in need of breeding.”

  All eyes in the group swiveled to Tr’Ayer, who seemed like he was going to argue for a moment.

  “Look at him, Father!” Yancy hissed in an undertone. “He’s perfectly half man, half machine.”

  “Forty-nine point nine nine percent machine to man,” Rich confirmed in a dry voice. He wasn’t lying. He was almost more machine than man.

  “See?” Yancy rounded on the priest with a wide smile. “How could he not be the metal man in the prophesy given to you by Tr’Low himself? The queen is intended for him, not you. Of course,” she added quickly, “there are many other fertile females who would be blessed to be bred by the great Father Tr’Ayer himself!”

  Ahhh… that’s where the rub lay. Rich hid his grin as Tr’Ayer turned a shade of scarlet. The good father had intended to breed the Pierce girl himself. Randy fucker.

  “Of course, Sister Yancy. We are blessed indeed. Praise be to Tr’Low.” Father Tr’Ayer smiled, but it was obviously forced. “I do have matters to attend to… holy books to consult regarding the upcoming breeding ceremonies, so if I can leave you to show our honored guest around and get him settled in?”

  “Of course, Father,” she inclined her head, her hands folded over her mid-section in what looked like a ritual response. “I would be delighted.”

  Tr’Ayer muttered a farewell, shooting Rich a hard look before stalking off across the landing strip. The black robes flapped around his sparse frame and his shock of silver hair made him look like a mad school professor from Old Earth. Unfortunately, he wasn’t anything quite so benign.

  Putting the priest out of his mind for now, Rich turned toward the nun in front of him. “Lead the way.”

  An hour later, disgust ran through every part of Rich’s body. He’d thought he’d been prepared for what he would likely face in the Tr’Low breeding compound.

  He’d been mistaken. Vastly mistaken.

  First Yancy had taken him to the labs, the pair looking through glass windows as nuns in white protective suits mixed the different chemicals into the drugs they used to turn their breeding males and females into mindless rutting machines.

  “We can’t risk the enlightened coming into contact with the breeding drugs,” she’d explained. “They’re not genetically pure. We can’t have them breeding as well.”

  “Oh?” He’d found himself asking, knowing he shouldn’t but not being able to stop himself. Would they meet the same fact as Yancy’s own daughter? Discarded like trash once their offspring were born? “Why? Surely offspring are offspring… all as capable of spreading Tr’Low’s breeding wisdom?”

  She’d given him a patronizing smile, as though he were a child who couldn’t possibly understand the complex issues she was speaking of. “Of course, all are technically capable of spreading Tr’Low’s word, but… we wish to breed only the best and most pure of children. We ensure all breeding males and females are of the purest genetic stock. All those produced by substandard stock are culled at birth, usually before, if the female is of pure stock… to free her womb up for a sacred child.”

  She’d said it in such a matter-of-fact and cold manner, like she was talking about disposing of clinical waste, that he’d been reeling internally through the rest of the tour. They’d walked through the breeding females’ dormitories, guarded by eunuchs and nuns robed like Yancy.

  He’d looked at the eunuchs and kept his wince to himself. It was all well and good to emasculate a man, but to make him wear open-crotch pants that revealed that mutilation to the world was a step beyond cruelty.

  “They’re here to ensure the safety and sanctity of our breeding females,” the nun explained at Rich’s raised eyebrow as they moved beyond the dormitory into a series of corridors. “From the breeding males.”

  She nodded toward an alcove a little further down the corridor. The sounds of hard and fast sex reached Rich’s ears, and as they approached he could see one of the breeding males had a smaller female pinned beneath him. Fucking was not the word for what they were doing. The male rammed his cock into his female partner so hard and fast that Rich was surprised she didn’t cry out in pain. Instead, she mewled and begged for more, shoving her ass back at the male as though she couldn’t get enough. Both their eyes were glassy and blank, cloudy with the drugs in their systems.

  “Occasionally one of the females manages to get loose,” Yancy said, her tone almost bored. “We’ll analyze the resultant fetus and if it’s a good genetic fit, we’ll allow her to carry to term. If not, she will be purged and rebred to a better male.”

  He felt sick. Then determined. One day he was going to throttle Sister Yancy with his bare hands.

  “Most males tend to congregate around the sensitivity training areas. We encourage them to watch. It adds an extra boost to the breeding compound and ensures they are ready to breed when the ceremonies are held.”

  She nodded to a few males that appeared to be loitering at a junction up ahead. The walls of the corridors fell away, replaced by security force fields. They were rooms, he realized as they approached. Two