Assessing Survival Read online

  She walked behind the gurney, and when she looked into Nikolai’s eyes, she darted a quick look toward Keenan. Damn. Brothers. It was bad enough for one member of a family to be out on the front lines, let alone two.

  “Nikolai, he needs to rest. His readings are stable, and the grafts have taken. He will be up and running soon.”

  She walked over and put her hand on Nikolai’s arm, feeling the metal and tissue flex under her touch.

  “I promised him I would look out for him.”

  “You did. He is alive.”

  Nikolai looked at his brother, lying still and silent under the sheet with the metal limbs extending. “Is alive enough?”

  She patted him with her silver hand. “It is for me.”

  With nothing left to say, she turned and left him to stare at his brother. She had to order some mods to her own body so that she could move comfortably. With the men waiting for active implants, she would have to get in line, but it was better that she did it now. Who knew what tomorrow was going to bring?

  Chapter Four

  After she finished the paperwork for the parts she had ordered for the repairs on the men, her own requisitions needed the commanding officer’s authorization.

  She gathered the documents in her reader; she smiled at the use of the word paperwork. Paper hadn’t been used for one hundred seventy-three years, and yet, it was still a reference for the tools of bureaucracy.

  Stitch headed to the commanding officer’s office and knocked on the door.

  “Come in.”

  She stepped inside and was struck by the familiarity of the face that greeted her. “Nikolai?”

  “Come in, Stitch.”

  She scowled. “How are you the base commander if you are a captain?”

  “Scarcity. Alpha Base is on the front lines. When the satellites warn us, it is all hands to the ships. This place is a ghost town with the exception of the medical staff. They don’t need an officer if there is no one to work on.”

  He waved for her to come in and sit. “Technically, you outrank me, so you can have command if you want it.”

  She scowled. “Give me a week.”

  He laughed.

  She moved to the chair opposite the desk, and she sat. “I have the reports for the recent repairs and the new implants on your brother.”

  She opened her reader and flicked the report onto his desk.

  He sighed. “I hate paperwork.”

  She laughed. “Right. Well, here is the requisition for some alterations to me.”

  When she flicked the information over, he stared at it. “What?”

  “I need some ballast in my left arm; I have put in a requisition for reinforcement coils around my lower skeletal structure.”

  He frowned. “You want to go in again?”

  “In?”

  “To surgery.”

  “No, not particularly, but I wasn’t assessing me when the parts were put in. The few ounces of unbalanced weight in my arms throw me off when I walk. The new organs have changed the structural integrity of my body, and my legs require reinforcement to compensate for the less efficient mineralization offered by the new organs.”

  He blinked. “So, what do you need?”

  “You are the commander. You have to authorize my non-emergent alterations.”

  He looked down at the forms, including the outline of the female body with the marks on the necessary portions. “Is there anything else?”

  “No. I mean, I wish I could run this past Cracker, but she isn’t listed as being on active duty.”

  He chuckled. “Did you check your own status? You are still on medical leave. Cracker is awake, aware and designing new implants every week.”

  “Holy shit.” Stitch leaned forward eagerly. “Can I contact her?”

  He shook his head. “No, but you can send the request to her and see what she thinks. We will bounce it through a dozen satellites, and she will reply. A burst is the only way we can communicate with Omega Base.”

  Stitch nodded and pulled the file back onto her screen, working quickly to send as much information as she could. She hummed quickly and sent the file back to Nikolai. “There. We will see what she can do with that.”

  He nodded and sent the file using a series of codes that she tried not to notice. Her analytical mind was already recording them before she thought to look away.

  Nikolai smiled. “How long do you think she will need?”

  “If she came through the explosion without brain damage? She will call back in three hours.”

  He nodded. “Would you like some lunch? It is time for a break.”

  “Sure.” She got to her feet, and he got up and rounded his desk.

  They walked in silence to the dining hall and didn’t speak again until they were seated.

  “So, Captain Lukai, how did you end up here?”

  He smiled and forked up his meal. “Same way as everyone else. I went to the front line, and now, I am here. When the call comes, we go out, and if we are lucky, we come back.”

  “How did your brother get here?”

  “He was a new assignment. They send them to us now and then. I had no idea he was coming. I tried to protect him, but he is a fighter and there was no stopping him.” He shuddered. “Just as there was no stopping me.”

  “You survived.”

  “I wanted more from life than endless war. I wanted to return home a hero.” He looked at her with his piercing gaze, and she was left speechless.

  “You still can.”

  Surprise filled his gaze. “Didn’t they tell you? They locked Earth against us. There is no going home.”

  Her fork clattered to the table. “I thought they just put up shields.”

  “They did. They are safe as long as we keep the Splice from gaining momentum. That is our duty. We are the first line of defense, the barking dog on the outside of the perimeter.”

  “My family...”

  He looked surprised. “You have children?”

  “No. Parents, siblings. Can we send messages?”

  Nikolai nodded. “We can. It is the same batch sending that we used to send the message to Omega Base.”

  She ran her hands through her hair. “Do they even know I am alive? Holy hells. This is...”

  “Eat your lunch.”

  She couldn’t eat. Couldn’t think. She clutched at her head as her heart pounded. Her home. Gone. She had been kicked out, locked out, and no one had even bothered telling her.

  Her mind sent her back to the moment where everything changed.

  She saw the tag and read it; her mind went back to news vids of the last terrorist actions on Earth. The last three had all had a tag that read, From Your Secret Admirer.

  Stitch heard herself yelling, and it was too late. Her mind recorded every moment of the bow being pulled, the flare of light, the glow of the explosion and then the wave of destruction as it spilled toward her.

  She screamed as her friends were torn apart, and she was helpless to save them. The wave continued until it hit her and spun her backward. Her arm tore and shattered before she slammed into the wall. Her lower body went numb.

  She heard Cracker calling for help, and she tried to crawl forward, but her arm wouldn’t hold her.

  “Stitch!” A hand was shaking her hard.

  “Ow. What?”

  She looked up at Nikolai, and he was standing next to her with concern on his face.

  She was shaking violently, so she turned to her stone-cold food. The fork wouldn’t hold her meal with her hand shaking, so fingers were put on food-acquisition duty.

  Every face in the dining hall was turned toward her.

  “What?”

  “Stitch, you were screaming.”

  She nodded. “Probably. It was not a nice memory to get stuck in.”

  She finished shovelling the cold food into her mouth and washed it down with a glass of water. At least the water
was already cold.

  She wiped her hands on her napkin and dabbed at her lips. Nikolai was still standing next to her.

  “If you are waiting for me to blow you, I just ate.”

  He jerked slightly and tension left him. “Oh, good. You are still in there.”

  He sat across from her again. “That was disturbing. I have heard of others reliving their injuries, but I haven’t seen it before. It was two years ago.”

  She smiled weakly. “It was the day before yesterday.”

  He smiled at her. “I will take a rain check on the blowjob.”

  “Good. How often does it rain here?”

  Nikolai blinked rapidly. “Every few weeks.”

  “Good to know.” She winked and looked around the dining hall. “Is this everyone?”

  “It is. When the base was first up and running, we had fifteen hundred men here. Now, we are down to one hundred and thirty-six, including support staff. We have more attack vessels here than we have pilots to fly them.”

  She smiled slightly. Her wish list to Cracker had included a control unit and software to fill up the storage inside it. She doubted that Nikolai had known the product codes or the software titles. If she was stuck on the front lines, she was not going to be helpless if the Splice came calling.

  Stitch smiled. “Well, with lunch done, do you mind if I check on Keenan?”

  He frowned. “You never checked on me after my surgery.”

  She tried not to smirk at his disappointed voice. “Sure I did; I just never entered the room. I had to check on my charges via their reports.”

  “I will come with you. He is my brother, after all.”

  She shrugged and got to her feet. “Come on, then, Base Commander.”

  He sighed and followed her.

  The medics had Keenan on his feet. There was still a lot of tissue to grow in, and he was looking silvery but complete from hips to knees.

  “Stop staring at his butt, Stitch,” the dark murmur was whispered in her ear.

  She smirked. “It is such a nice butt. How did you know?”

  He stepped around her and headed for his brother. “I did some research on you after we met.”

  “You don’t say. Were you looking into my preferences?”

  Keenan looked at them and smiled. “If you two are here to visit me, you suck at it.”

  The medic grinned at them. “He is doing very well for his first.”

  Nikolai looked at his brother and scowled. “Why is he leaning?”

  The medic looked wary. “It is a side effect of the surgery.”

  “I didn’t have that.”

  Stitch stepped forward. “It is natural. He sees the difference in his limbs, and he moves to haul around a body with metal. His mind hasn’t caught on to the nanites yet.”

  Nikolai frowned. “Why wasn’t that an issue for me?”

  She gestured to his hands. “You lost both and your lungs at the same time. You had more time to recover. A day makes a difference.”

  Keenan flexed his fingers and looked at the tissue that was creeping up his new hand. “It is starting to feel like me again. Why is it silver?”

  Stitch looked at the medic, and the medic gave her a nod.

  “The nanites want to build the tissue and keep it functioning, but they can’t graft to the metal work. They are programmed to build a bridge between the two structures. Basically, they are building metal skin and muscles as well as tendons. The connection in the jack point carries the nerve impulses from your new skin. You can feel like you did before, but you will have increased grip strength, faster reflexes with your fingers and your legs will be able to carry you for amazing distances without aching or breaking. If they are injured, a replacement can be plugged in in a matter of a few minutes, and your body will graft to it in a few hours. No more surgeries unless there are new, larger, injuries.”

  Keenan smiled. “Great. What is a jack point?”

  She walked over to him and took his arm in her hands, feeling upward until the connector cuff was under her fingers. “The surgeons are needed to connect your existing body to the graft point, here. It has to have a solid foundation, and it is usually wired to additional spines that have been added to reinforce your body. Just because you have new limbs doesn’t mean your original structure can handle what you can do with it.”

  “So, I can blast right out of my new skin?”

  “Not your skin, but dislocated hips used to be a problem with the original structures. That is why I have a job. I have to check and double check that you are going to come out in one large, sturdy piece.”

  He grinned. “You are shorter than I thought.”

  Stitch smiled at him. “I made you two inches taller.”

  Nikolai growled. “Are you authorized to do that?”

  She realized that she was still groping his brother’s shoulder. “Touch your brother or make him taller? Either way, the answer is yes, I am authorized.”

  She patted Keenan and stepped away.

  Nikolai put his hand on her shoulder. “Come on, soldier, you need a workout.”

  Stitch blinked and laughed. “Oh, please, let it involve getting naked.”

  He growled and shoved her out of his brother’s vicinity. “Save something for the rain check, Stitch.”

  Chapter Five

  Her arms trembled, she grunted and Nikolai’s whisper encouraged her to push harder. Sweat made her grip slick, and she adjusted her grip on the column.

  She pulled, and she made it to the top of the bar. “Fifty.”

  She dropped slowly and glared at him as she dangled from the bar. “You know that only one of my arms was replaced, right?”

  He put his hands on her legs and nodded to her. “Drop.”

  Stitch slammed into his arms, and he caught her by the waist. Her breasts were even with his face. She saw his nostrils flare as he slowly lowered her down his body.

  “Isn’t this harassment or something?”

  “Well, neither of us is fully human anymore, so do the rules still apply?” He held her against him, and he pulled her in flush with his body.

  The workout gear she was wearing was no defense against the heat from his hands. His breath mixed with hers as she was slowly lowered to the floor. She smelled mint, and it made her smile before she wrapped her shaking arms around his neck. “I think that the rules can be bent a little.”

  She brushed her lips against his and whispered, “Just a little. I don’t like things bending. I prefer them a little more rigid.”

  He smiled and brushed his lips against hers. “Perhaps another day. I just got confirmation that we have a burst from Omega Base.”

  She pushed against him and excitement burned in her. “Where? Where can I get it?”

  “It has been sent to requisitions. I have to admit, I am really curious as to what all of that equipment is for.”

  “Don’t worry. It will be made clear soon enough. Your guys have been limping along for a while. Haven’t you noticed that the new cyborgs are less graceful than you are? It isn’t because this is an outlier base; it was because you didn’t have someone like me helping you out. I know all of the equipment, and now that I can communicate with Cracker, I can get all kinds of upgrades for the men installed in a matter of hours. The doctors do the work, but they don’t look much beyond saving the patient. I can see the big picture.”

  He let her go, and the path they were taking led to his office.

  “If you don’t see us as patients who need saving, what do you see us as?” He held his door open for her.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I see all of us as weapons. I try to make us as effective as possible.” Stitch smiled brightly and sat in the spare chair in his office.

  “Weapons?”

  “Yes. We are. Even me, the doctors and the support staff that work on the base. All of us can be used as weapons. We just need to know how to pull the trigger.”

  “Y
ou are not here to be a weapon.”

  She cocked her head and wrinkled her nose. “Last night, I caught up to the news reports and what they are willing to give to us. No new staff. Only the frozen volunteers who were ejected from the Earth before they locked it. No communications in or out for civilians. The weekly updates that you send are not answered. They want to forget about us, and if the Splice get past us, we will be a stain on human history. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen, one warrior at a time.”

  He blinked. “You figured all that out last night?”

  “Well, I was woken up by my own screams a few times, so I decided to do some research on what I have missed.”

  Nikolai leaned forward. “You are still having nightmares?”

  “Memories. The last thing I remember. All those women lying in pieces, my friends bleeding and we were just having a birthday party. It took so much effort to get us all together, and there we were for the first time in months. They planned it so carefully for maximum damage. I am pretty sure I am angry. Very, very angry.”

  Understanding dawned on his face. “And it was all taken care of while you were sleeping.”

  “Sleeping, dead. Whatever. Apparently, I did my fair share of both.” She shrugged. “So, I am all caught up, and I even have a good idea of the parts that are in stock as well as a list of replacements that are needed. If you authorize me to communicate with Cracker, I can put in an order and see what she can come up with.”

  “You know that your friend had a brain injury.”

  “It wasn’t obvious, but I am not surprised. All of the survivors have had extreme damage, but there are only five more ladies who survived that party.”

  She flicked out her reader and glanced at him. “Why are we still listed as on medical leave?”

  “The administration doesn’t want any live female cyborgs on record.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah; they want us to pretend you don’t exist.”

  “Why?”

  “I wish I knew.” He shrugged. “Nothing in the briefing bursts has stated why you are to remain camouflaged on the rosters.”

  “As long as I can find ways to contact the ladies from my station, I can live with being a hidden secret.”