Assessing Survival (8 page)

“You don’t?”

“Well, they froze my ovaries, but it isn’t like they can be put back in. The nanites would seek out any genetic intruders and destroy them. My sister said she would try and have a daughter for me if I came back.”

He frowned. “I didn’t know that. I thought that they altered the programming to allow for children. That is what we were taught.”

She sighed and held up her silvered hand. “The would-be mothers don’t have to support an artificial skeletal structure. The introduction of the implants changes the entire situation.”

“So, they removed your ovaries.”

“Yup, and put them into cold storage.”

He smiled. “Well, they sterilized us before we left, after taking a working sample, so I hope that one day my popsicles can meet your popsicles.”

She laughed. “If my sister gets pregnant, it would be the weirdest three-way ever.”

He grinned and leaned toward her for a short kiss. “She means nothing to me.”

“Her husband will be delighted to hear it.”

She sighed and ran her hand down his chest. The silver skin had better senses than her other hand. Her left hand only felt the strength and heat of him and was currently wedged under her so had no opinion of his body’s texture.

“I was afraid that you wouldn’t want to touch me.” His confession came out against her lips.

“And I was worried that you would get nervous when I did this.” She trailed a hand down his chest, over the cobblestone abs, and she gripped his cock.

He tensed. “Oh. That.”

She stroked her fingers under his shaft and caressed his balls while he shivered. She kept her touch gentle, but he groaned when she finished cupping his balls and wrapped her fingers around his shaft.

“You see, there aren’t a lot of men on this base who would let me take my cybernetic hand and wrap it around his cock, let alone do this.”

She massaged him, tugging carefully as his erection grew again under her touch.

“I have always had less of a self-preservation instinct than I should have.” His eyes closed. “It has always worked out for the best.”

She laughed and continued to stroke him as she squirmed around until her lips were inches from the angry head of his cock.

Stitch took him into her mouth and sucked on him, pulling back and then moving forward, breathing in through her nose on the stroke toward him.

He muttered, and she felt his hands in her hair. She continued sucking at him until his fingers started to tighten. The moment he pushed down on her head, she pulled away and replaced her mouth with her hand.

There was some resistance to her backing away, but she pulled away with insistence.

She kept jerking him off while she shifted until they were face to face again. “The next time you are in the commissary, jam a whole cucumber down your throat, and then, we can discuss pushing my head down on your dick.”

He blushed and then grunted as he came. The cum struck her belly, and she sighed. Time for a shower.

Stitch patted his shoulder. “I am heading for a shower. You are welcome to join me.”

He looked at her with dazed eyes. “I think that would be a good idea.”

She crawled over him and dropped to the floor before straightening and walking to the bathroom. She fired up the shower and stepped under the hot spray, washing away the cum and easing the ache between her thighs. She was out of practice even before her two-year cold sleep.

He slipped in behind her and got his hands into the shampoo dispenser, lathering up her hair before she could even turn around. The scalp massage was worth any previous gaffes. He definitely had a skill when it came to rubbing her scalp.

“What is this?” He paused as his fingers pressed the new jack she had requested.

“Oh, that is my booster kit. If I ever have to go out in the field, I want to be able to fight, so it is an education jack that lets me learn combat very quickly. Or surgery or medical treatment. I already got the med library. I am just letting it settle.”

She turned and faced him; the water slowly rinsed her hair. With the flick of a lever, she started up the second showerhead, and he was pelted from behind.

“Wow. You got the fancy shower.”

“It matches mine on the old base. I wonder how it is doing?”

He wiggled to get the heat on his back and groaned. “It is still in operation, but it has been attacked twice by the Splice.”

“What do the Splice look for when they attack? How does the fighting go?”

“They come at us in a rush of stunners and blades. They cut us to bleed us, and their numbers are such that they drag off our wounded before we can stop them.”

She soaped her breasts and then between her thighs while he watched. “And is there a log or record of the attacks that I can see?”

“We archive all of the footage. Our battle suits all have a link to the battleship we arrive on, and it uploads to the base when we arrive.”

“What happens to the recording if they are captured?”

“The units are usually destroyed as soon as they are removed. Our men are kept naked to avoid hidden weapons.”

“Do they have a language?” She finished lathering between her thighs, and she turned to wash away the soap.

“They do, but we can’t understand it.”

He scrubbed her back and kissed her shoulder. “You shouldn’t think about it.”

“I have to. There has to be a way to end this. We have been at it for twelve years, and Earth is dumb enough to think that they can survive behind that shield. One crack in it and they are toast.”

He chuckled and paid attention to his own shower while she finished her scrubbing and headed out.

The wrap absorbed a lot of water, and when her hair was towelled dry, Stitch returned to her room to get dressed.

She had attack patterns to look into and an alien race to learn about. At least Niko hadn’t fought her for power.

She needed all the support she could get.

After a long, late night and early morning of looking at horrific battle vids, she understood a little more about the Splice. What she understood was that their ships’ systems were linked, and they could find out a lot about the Splice if they could just get into their computers.

Stitch needed a workout. The adjustments that she had installed needed to be tested.

She headed off to the gym and saw the aliens working out, in awe of their new body parts. George was wandering around and helping them with the equipment. It seemed that some of the military were all right with the newcomers.

She found an empty machine, strapped weights to her legs and started doing pullups.

When she finished with the pullups, she went to the bench press and dialled up what she figured she could move comfortably.

The two hundred pounds was too easy, so she went to the controls and turned the weight up to two-fifty then three hundred, three-fifty, and no matter what she was lifting, she could always lift more.

“Fuck.” She got out of the machine and went to the pressure station. She put her hands and feet in the slots, lowering the plate to her height to gradually take the weight.

“George, can you give me a reading?”

“Sure thing, Stitch.” He left the man he had been talking to and wandered over to watch as the pressure built on her hands and body.

She pressed upward and triggered the machine. The wide plate above her began to bear down on her, so she simply had to push back.

“Four hundred, four-fifty, five, five-fifty, six, six-fifty, seven, seven-fifty... close, so close. Come on, Stitch. You can do it.”

Her mind was going a little blind with the effort to keep the plate up. She gave one final shove and dropped to the floor. The plate dropped down a few inches before it stopped itself.

“Congratulations, Stitch. You pushed eight hundred kilos.”

She looked at him in horror. “I thought it was set to pounds.”

He looked at the machine and grinned. “Nope. Eight hundred kilos. You can lift a small vehicle if you need to.”

He gave her a sly smile. “What about the strike plates? Have you tried them?”

Stitch crawled out of the pressure unit and stared at him. “You just want to watch, don’t you?”

George shrugged. “Since you and Nikolai have focused on each other, watching you in action is the next best thing.”

He helped her to her feet, and she wrinkled her nose at him. “Pervert.”

“You have no idea. Okay, the strike plate.”

The Alguth warriors were watching her, and when she cleared the pressure machine, they started taking turns.

Apparently, knowing how much you could lift was a very important thing to the Alguth.

She wrapped her knuckles and faced the strike plate. Thick gel was filled with sensors packed behind a skin-like structure, and the wires were designed to see how hard a cyborg or human could punch.

“The machine is ready. Any time, Stitch.”

She glanced over her shoulder, feeling Niko come in. The other cyborgs wandered in, all with their workout gear on. She made a fist and plowed her natural hand into the plate.

George nodded. “Seventy-three kilonewtons. Excellent. Now try your natural hand.” He had slight condescension in his tone.

“That was my natural hand.” She hit the reset with her knuckles and got ready. “This is my cyborg hand.”

She slammed her hand forward, and the rig shuddered.

The display blanked, and it slowly displayed the impact force if she put herself behind it.

“Stitch, I am tempted to hack off my hand if that is the result.”

She looked at the force recording and grinned. She couldn’t help it. The number six-six-six was displayed in bright numbers.

Captain Blue came by and stared from the readout to her. “That should have shattered every bone in your body.”

She smirked. “Probably. That is why I had the extra surgery.”

Niko came up behind her and looked at the readout. He whispered in her ear. “You handled my cock with that?”

She chuckled and turned until she was nearly kissing him. “Quit whining. It is still attached, isn’t it?”

He kissed her quickly, and she smacked him on his butt. “Let’s see what you can do.”

“Somehow, this is not the venue I thought you would say that in.”

She watched George recalibrate the machine, and Niko took his shot. After him, Keenan wanted to try, but though Niko scored at one hundred fifty kilonewtons, no one else even managed to get close.

Liakon came over and sat next to her on the bench. “Major Carter, how did you do that?”

She smiled. “I designed myself.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I told the engineers and programmers what I wanted my body to do, and they provided me with what I needed.”

“Can we do that?”

She shook her head. “No, you can probably punch at twice your species’ norms, but I only experimented on myself.”

“So, what you did was dangerous.”

“It could have been, but I am committed to my situation as a cyborg and no longer a proper member of my species. So, I decided to be the best cyborg I could be.”

She unwrapped her hand as she felt the skin had recovered. “So, tell me about the Alguth.”

He watched her examine her hand, but he spoke.

“My world contained approximately two billion people. We had a very small standing military and were just at the point where peace had reigned for five decades when the Splice attacked.”

“Did you have any kind of space fleet?”

“No. We waged a ground defense. The cities were able to erect shields, but it has confined its citizens. For us, being caged is akin to being crippled.”

It was a hard question, but she had to ask. “How many of your people survive?”

“Less than half. A quarter of the populations encased succumbed to depression.” He looked grim.

“So, how did you learn my language, because it is
my
language you shared with the rest of the guys.”

“Our kind are adaptable. It is the reason that our people were hunted by the Splice. They want our camouflage and are trying to figure out how to get it.”

She chuckled grimly. “They want the human ability to store fat, as well as the grafting options available with our skin. When did they attack?”

“Five solar cycles ago. How long for you?”

“Twelve years. Our world is also sealed now.”

“How do you get supplies?”

She chuckled. “We ask very nicely.”

“Can Solouk draw the pattern later?”

“Sure. It will take a few hours to learn what we need to make it happen. It will mean that you have to go back into the machine again.”

“That is fine. I will be the first to go through it. None of my men will undergo the experiment until I have gained a set of working wings.”

“Right.” She unwrapped her metal hand and flexed her fist. “Well. I will get back into office and Solouk can meet me after he finishes playing with the strike plate.”

She tossed the wraps in the cleaner and headed to her office, positive that there was a lot of paperwork waiting for her.

As she sat and looked through the communications that had come in, she had to admit her instincts were on point.

She had never seen screaming in a communication before, but Earth Control was highly irritated with her taking over Alpha Base.

She replied to him that if he wanted to come out and take her place, he was welcome to it.

The grin on her face when she filed the note in the outgoing batch was pure evil.

Solouk was sitting in a corner of her office and drawing on a tablet, working on the dimensions and tensile strength of the wings.

She brought up the weight of the heaviest of the Alguth and asked, “How many of your own people can you carry with those wings?”

“Just ourselves.”

“Do you want to carry more?”

He looked up, “How much more?”

“One of your men?”

He smiled slowly. “That would be amazing. Our wings have simply been a means of transport.”

She nodded and set up the spec sheet for the alterations. “How is the schematic coming?”

“I feel it is pretty accurate.”

She extended her hand and beckoned to him. “Hand it over.”