Chapter 6: Armor
I want her for myself. Esthi is mine. We have mated even if it was a half-awake, long overdue moment for both of us. But part of me secretly worries my Brothers will find her as intoxicating as I do. I do not want to fight them for her. But deep inside me, I know I will.
It’s the first time I’ve broken the Bond with my Brothers to think of something selfish. It’s not in me to take. My design was to sacrifice for others, to take the beating so they don’t have to.
But mating isn’t in my programming, yet I was not punished for burying myself in Esthi’s luscious heat. I don’t know what to do except protect her and keep her so close that no one else will try to take her from me.
I haven’t encountered a human, soldier, or civilian, who tried so hard to rescue Titans. But Esthi sits on the ground beside a Carver and wires up a long pigtail of cables from pieces she has in her pack. She strips a charging system that I assume is for her tablet and finishes the harness.
We were always tools, machines built to protect soft-bodied humans and fight the war against their descendants—the enemy Solcrue, who were once humans and fled the Sol System when it became toxic. Humans like Esthi, Narythins of Earth Minor, like to see things through and fight to preserve what’s important instead of throwing away what’s broken for something new.
The littleGrayfemale that’s saved me puts the same focus into healing my Brother. I just hope she doesn’t want to mate with him, too.
“We have to use a transformer,” she tells me. “Otherwise, the cables will only directly transfer your power, and you’ll be drained much faster. Solcrue might be shitty people, but they’reamazing with tech. Stole a lot of pieces from them since they throw away anything not perfect.”
I study her gear, the parts she’s spread out on the rock, and the tablet that scrolls through readouts from Carver.
“Where are you going to find more power?”
She looks up at me. “You. Just need a little. I’ll step it up with the transformer and give him more.”
“I am not a power unit.”
“Any one of you can be with the right harness.” She tosses me another protein bar and a small bottle of water. “We can get more food later.”
After consuming what she’s given me, a deep sense of guilt grips me. I am taking all of her best items. And based on everything I’ve heard thus far, I discover I have a question left unanswered.
Armor>>Clover: We lost the war, didn’t we?
Clover>>Armor: Our Tetrionic era was the most devastating. The Resistance held out for two more years. The Titans on Ellipsis fell here a year ago and spent two to three years sorting the salvaged parts of our Brothers on Hyperion before Poppy and Cara, the half-breed, broke them out.
She gives me the stats of the ships that were destroyed, the human lives lost, the destruction on Earth Minor, and the decommissioning plant on Hyperion where our active Brothers were held as prisoners. The longer she continues, telling me of the battles on Ellipsis, the Brothers lost during the jailbreak, and the devastating conditions human females endured on Solcrue ships as anaja sex slaves, the sicker I feel.
Esthi pauses and looks up at me. “Something wrong?”
“I need a minute.”
She offers me her handgun as I turn for the door. “Watch out for wolves. And stay close. I’ll need you soon.”
My ultromotor powers up in my chest as I take the gun and feel her soft fingers slip out from under mine. I like the sound of her needing me more than I want to admit.
I climb out to the entrance of the cave and look back at Esthi.She is tough for a human female. Was her sister a Gray or something else? An anaja, maybe? Why is she out here searching for her? The Solcrue must have her.
A sense of failure tenses my insides. I feel unworthy of Esthi’s help and affection. But I am also sluggish from dried-out synthfluids and reeling from the surge of action after being buried alive for so long.
I sit on the rock of the opening and savor the feeling of a gun in my hands again as I scan the trees on the slope below us. Mapping the shapes of the ignition chamber, barrel, and handle, I pull up a schematic. It overlays my view of the forest and distant desert.
Slicecypher nine-millimeter.
100 manufactured.
Cybertech weapon.
Cybertech?I glance back at Esthi, who’s fine-tuning the harness. She definitely acts like one: always focused, doesn’t want to take anything for herself, and her job is her life. So much about her suddenly makes sense.
We cannot lose again. I cannot fail to protect my charges, especially now that she’s one of them, whether she stays with me or not.
I did not protect them like I was supposed to...like I wasbuiltto do. My human name and past are a mystery, but not the sense of duty I have to safeguard my military family. That is as ingrained in me as my digibadge. Both are tied directly to my ultromotor.
