MeltingIron Read online

  Iron stopped walking and stared down at her. “Are you well?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You looked frightened. I won’t allow anyone to harm you, Dawn. Do you doubt my ability to protect you?”

  “You said something about the life pod and I was thinking how stupid it would be to take one, if you want the truth. I’m guessing we’re pretty far off the beaten paths of travel routes so there have to be a lot of pirates out this way.”

  “Yes. There are. They like to stay far from the travel routes because they know the standard is to shoot at them upon sensor detection. You need not worry about the Star being attacked. The Rally and the Star are a team, both ship and shuttle travel together. It dissuades even the more aggressive pirates from attacking.”

  She nodded. “You’re smart. Unfortunately those crazy bastards rarely do the sane thing. They’ve attacked the Vonder a few times over the past year.”

  A frown marred Iron’s lips as he hit the button to call for the lift. “The Vonder is a large station. It would be suicide for them to attack it. We wouldn’t even do that.”

  “Yeah, well, nobody said pirates were bright. We have a kick-ass defense system but its slow getting parts out to us from Earth sometimes. We had four of our lasers go down after we took some fragment hits from a passing comet so we had a blind side that one of their ships slid through before we could turn the station. We were in spin mode, enabling us to continuously fire at them.”

  Iron watched her with that same frown on his face as the lift doors opened and he led her inside. “Did they breach the Vonder?”

  “Uh, no, not in the way you’d think.” Dawn sighed. “I was outside in a space suit repairing hull dents we’d sustained from those same fragment hits we took when they attacked. I barely made it into the docking doors before they were hooking up and blowing out the hatch I’d just come through, to gain entry. You know what I did to the Rally’s docking room? Think bigger. I blew out a section of hull after they boarded that area of the station to keep them from reaching the living areas with my crew.”

  Iron looked stunned as he stared mutely at her.

  “I watched them die, heard them screaming until the air was gone. It was hell. I had to vent their remains before I started to patch the hole so I could seal it up and reestablish oxygen. I had less than twenty minutes of air in my tanks by the time I was done. If the patch hadn’t held I would have suffocated too. I couldn’t walk outside to the docking port on the other side of the station since we were spinning to keep those bastards off us. My tether wouldn’t have been strong enough. My ass would have been tossed out into space.”

  Full lips pressed tightly together. “Your job was very dangerous, Dawn. I am glad you will never do it again.”

  She wasn’t about to tell him that once she escaped from him that going back to the Vonder was exactly what she’d do. It was her home now and they needed her. Other mechanics had come and gone in the past eight years to assist her but they never stayed. It was a lonely, shitty job with too many hours and too many repairs to keep up with but the pay was too damn good to walk away from.

  The lift doors slid open when it stopped. Dawn peered out into the large cargo area and to her stunned disbelief saw over a dozen cyborg males in skimpy, thin outfits tossing each other around on thick mats on the floor. Iron gripped her arm again to tug her out of the lift.

  “We exercise here to keep physically maintained. Do not be alarmed. The fighting is not genuine.”

  The men stopped what they were doing as Dawn was pulled into the room. All attention focused on her and she glanced at each male, seeing their open interest instantly. Iron muttered something so softly she missed his words.

  “What?”

  “I was hoping that none of them would be working out at this hour.”

  “You’re going to give me a tattoo in here? Seriously?”

  Iron jerked his head. “Look.”

  She followed his gaze and saw that in the far corner a Med area had been set up. She was shocked when a human older man walked into the room. His white hair put him at over fifty in age—a thin-framed man in good physical shape from the firmness of his muscular arms. A scar was evident, which had her guessing someone had sliced open his face with a thick blade once. The guy openly stared at Dawn for a few seconds before he shot a dirty look at Iron.

  “Another one? Seriously? I’m going to run out of magnetic ink, damn it. I told Flint I’m low on it after I branded the last woman brought to me.”

  “Is there enough?” Iron tensed. “It’s important to me.”

  The doctor hesitated. “Yeah.” The man turned his attention on Dawn, studying her.

  She stared back at him. “You are owned by them too?”

  The man shook his head before he turned away, going to a cupboard along the wall. “No. I was rescued and freed by them. I was assigned to the Star when she left Earth’s orbit after she was cleared for flight. I was one of three medical staff members assigned to her.” He rummaged and pulled out a few things. “The Star was taken by pirates and they killed most of the crew, ransomed some of the lucky ones back to Earth, or sold them to some of the outer posts as sex workers.” He set four cases on one of the only two med beds. “I’m the only one they kept aboard since I’m a medic. They kept me pretty damn busy, considering how messed up they are physically.”

  Surprise tore through Dawn. “Pirates were able to take this thing? How the hell did they do that?” Dawn frowned at Iron. “You said this was a Class-A ship. That means it’s fully armored, has state-of-the-art defensive weapons and it’s not that old. As far as ships go it’s a damn baby so it’s got to be pretty impressive technology. How were pirates able to get control of it?”

  The medic cleared his throat. “Our captain was straight out of the academy. His father was some big shot who got his precious boy assigned.” He glanced at Dawn. “Call me Doc. You both need to remove your shirts.” He opened another case. “As I was saying, the captain was green and an idiot. We ran into a group of pirates with four ships docked together in a cluster who instantly surrendered as we approached them claiming they were dead in space with mechanical failures. Captain Tillis wouldn’t listen when the crew tried to tell him to just kill them. Instead he docked the Star directly to them, thinking he was saving lives, and of course they attacked the second they were aboard. They’d had more of their ships hiding behind a moon, had filled those four linked ships over capacity from all the men from the hidden ships so at least fifty of those bastards were able to walk right onto the Star.”

  “Shit.” Dawn shook her head. “Didn’t your captain scan for life signs first or have security teams ready to open fire on them if it was a trick?”

  “Obviously not. I said you both need to remove your shirts.”

  Dawn turned her head to look at Iron, seeing that he’d removed his shirt. He frowned at her, waiting for her to comply but instead Dawn turned to glance at the other cyborgs across the large room, silently staring directly at her. She swallowed.

  “Um, isn’t there somewhere private we can do this?” She looked back at Iron, her voice lowering. “They are watching me.”

  “It’s a public area.” Iron shrugged his broad shoulders. “I can’t make them leave and this is where Med is set up. The original Med was destroyed in the battle that took place when the Star was taken over by pirates. We offered to restore it but Doc says he likes working here better because he always has company with the men using this area for training.”

  “And I’m right on hand if they get a little rough with each other.” Doc chuckled. “No way in hell do I want to be stuck spending my days staring at nothing but walls.”

  Dread filled Dawn as she carefully removed her shirt while she made sure that her breasts remained covered. If she was on the Vonder she would have shucked all her clothes in a heartbeat but those weren’t other women staring at her. She glanced back at Iron to see that he was silently watching her.

  “You