Burn nodded. “That is possible.”

  Angel ran over the possibilities of such a machine. They were endless. The door opened and two of her suppliers came in clearly looking for her. Her shop hadn’t been open for a couple of weeks so she wasn’t that surprised to see them. They knew she’d be here or one of her other places. Angel smiled waving them over. Burn didn’t seem to like her attention taken away from him as he scowled. Too bad, thought Angel. She had a life to live here.

  Burn got up, moving from opposite her to beside her. They both came hurriedly over, a little wary of her new ‘friend’ hovering on her shoulder. Who could blame them?

  She often did business in various places, she never turned someone away. “Petrea, Keith, nice to see you what do you have for me?” She pushed the plates out of their way. They both laid out the pieces that would be of interest to her. Her shadow watched as she inspected each piece in turn. Took out her magnifier that was always in her pocket and her electrical connector. She tested each piece, looked at the designs and saw how they would work in other pieces. Taking a pad from her pocket she added up the value of each man’s cache. They were both good suppliers and she added 20%and passed both papers back to their new owners. Who grinned, happy with their trade. “Shops open in 20, come and cash them in.”

  Both men smiled wider and bowed. “Thank you Zhitech,” they both told her. Then they looked passed her at Burn and their smiled dropped. Both men backed away as she opened a bag and deposited the items.

  “You, are Zhitech?” Burn asked, the voice was suddenly cold, distant. Angel nodded closing up her things wondering what was his problem now. “You buy and sell tech, whatever it is?” he asked. Angel nodded again then realised his hand was no longer on her shoulder. The voice harder. She looked her shoulder at him. “You were one selling Cyborg parts…..”

  Angel stared at him suddenly feeling chilled. The deadly soldier had arrived. He was beyond angry. For a being who could control his emotions, he was all that and more right now and that just pissed her off again. “This,” she told him pointing to the bag, “is life or death for some people on this planet. I did not know it was Cyborg tech until I got on that ship and then I tried to help them. Had I known, I would have refused to deal in it.”

  To her disappointment Burn backed up. “You will have to answer to the Empire,” he told her. Angel stared up at him. There was no fucking way that was happening.

  “You can try.” She sneered as the shots rang out across the café.

  Angel felt the impacts in her chest. She looked down as her blood started oozing from her body, her clothes turning red as it spread. He had distracted her, and she’d not been prepared. Her father will be angry with her. A childish move. She looked up at Burn with disbelief, not understanding what had just happened. “You’ve killed me,” she whispered as she fell onto the table.

  The most majestic roar she’d ever heard, filtered into her mind as she fell into unconsciousness. That was an animal set to kill…..

  Chapter Six

  ‘You’ve killed me’ ran around and around in his mind. Had he been responsible for this? He’d rushed to her, but it was too late. The damage was done. He had drawn her attention like a diversion and an assassin had stuck. In his anger, he’d allowed her to be injured. He’d not been there, where he should have been, shielding her. He grabbed his injector giving her another dose of his nano’s. He watched as her human body stilled and bled out before his eyes. Questions plagued him. Why had he backed away from her? Why had he not put guards on her? Why had he not placed men at the café door? Why had he not shielded her? Protected her. He’d allowed this to happen….

  In his anguish and despair, he’d called on his brothers for assistance and they came quickly to his aid. He could not leave her and yet, every instinct in him told him to go after his enemy and bring hell and vengeance down on him.

  Leaping aboard the off-worlder holding tightly on to her, he knew time was not on their side. Her body was failing and in desperation, he injected her again in a desolate effort to stabilise her. Unsure if it was working or not.

  Jace placed a hand on his arm, warning him he could overload her human system and she could die anyway. Burn couldn’t hear him, didn’t want to and didn’t care what he was saying. He had to do something, and this was all he had, he’d told him. And to his shame and against his logic, he’d done it anyway in his need to save her. Clinging to any hope. His anguish more than he could bear. His roar of desperation rode him. Had he lost her before he’d had a chance at life?

  Burn could feel her life fading before his eyes. His body, too easily able to pick up all the signs of a human life passing and he couldn’t bear it. Lashing out, he stuck the craft and the hull impacted and buckled. Such pain as never before assaulted his body but not from the impact, but from the tiny human held in his arms. He couldn’t think passed holding her closely to his body and willing her to live. There was no logic any longer, just her. Rocking back and forth clinging to her, his suffering, silent screams in the air choking him. His systems stuttered under the stress. It started to fail. Warnings lit up his optics and still, he wouldn’t let her go. Jace tried to pull him back but he couldn’t hear him and finally, Jace shot him.

  The laser pulse cut through his despair and that got through to him. He was harming her more because he couldn’t function, Jace told him honestly. Burn had shakily pulled it back then and shut his emotions off. A cold calm settled over his body and once more, he could breathe passed it. His logic taking over gave him the one thing he needed at that moment. He was no good to her if he couldn’t function.

  And instantly the pain was gone. Logic reigned once more, and he could move passed it. His nano’s worked on his leg injury. And when they’d docked, he’d carried her from the off-worlder onto his ship and finally let her go to the medics. Knowing they would do their best and tell him if she survived or not. Do all they could for her and still, his logic told him as he thought it, she was only human and that might not be enough.

  He turned to the Cyborgs amassed in the landing bay, both old and new. They had the lost Cyborgs all on board and a crew looking to tow their ship out of this planet. D838 stepped forward with several of his men. His logic told him they were concerned for the female. Burn was suddenly conscious that he was covered in his mates’ blood and had not dealt with the assassin. Now was the time. His data registered emotion he shouldn’t be feeling but he couldn’t hold it back.

  “Find him.” He roared uncontrollably wanting the vengeance due to him.

  ***

  Angel felt weird. Was she dreaming? She’d never been so tired. It was warm and cosy and she didn’t want to wake up yet. It was quiet here, in her dreams. No worries, no pain….. Pain. She’d been in agony, hadn’t she? Been close to dying? She couldn’t feel any pain now. Was this, what death had to offer? A place to feel safe? She felt confused, her father and mother should be here waiting for her, but she couldn’t feel them. And she wasn’t alone, she could sense that. He’d been angry with her. Maybe he’d been right to be. She’d been angry too. Ready to fight again to stay alive. But not today, she was so very tired. Maybe she could just let it all go….

  “She is not responding to treatment. The damage was severe. Major internal organs have failed. Her life signs are dropping again.” The medic stood over the med bed, listing things like it didn’t matter.

  Burn struggled to keep his breathing under control. Even with his emotions turned off, he was finding difficulty in controlling his responses. It was not logical, he didn’t understand it, but it persisted where this female was concerned. His data fought with his responses. Burn looked at his medic. His anger close to braking free. “Find something that will work,” he demanded.

  The medic turned towards him. “The female lost a great deal of blood Commander. A transfusion at the time of injury would have helped but not fixed this. Your nano’s were the only thing that kept her alive at that point, but you know it came at a cost. They burnt through much of what was left damaging other organs and her circulatory system.”

  She’d been right, thought Burn through his anger, not for the first time. His anguish swamping him. How could he still feel such incapacitating sadness? His emotions were off. He brushed the thought aside. Had he killed her? In his desperation to save her, had he done this? His skin suddenly felt too tight, like the air had been sucked from the room. Stepping forward he looked down on the female through the clear lid of the med bed. She seemed to mean a great deal to him and instinctively he touched it trying to connect with her. “You need to fight Angel. People depend on you. Don’t you give up now,” he demanded of her, but she didn’t stir. His logic told him she wouldn’t, and it pained him more. “Will she live?” he asked his medic barely above a whisper.

  “We have all seen humans do remarkable things. If she wants to live badly enough and if we can stabilise and fix her? It is not a logical outcome but possible.” He told him.

  It was something to hope for. A lump formed in his throat. Analysis told him it was not a foreign object. Burn frowned. There was something very wrong with his systems. Things did not compute as they should. He gazed on her, looking for the slightest change and saw nothing. “What does she need?” he asked eventually. A desperate ache existed inside his chest and he instinctively rubbed at it. His internal systems telling him there was no logical fault for its existence.

  “Time, a complete shutdown and the med bed left to do its job. She’ll survive or not but it’s her best chance.”

  Burn suddenly couldn’t stand being there a moment longer. He couldn’t seem to think passed looking at her. Shutting her down, an unbearable decision. But this wasn’t about what he wanted. He needed some air, some space. He turned and headed for the door, stopping before he walked through. “Do it.”

  ***

  Angel blinked her eyes. They felt a little dry and she couldn’t remember why that would be. A cooling wet cloth was wiped over them. That felt better. Angel tried to lift her arms, but they felt heavy. She blinked again, and things started to become clearer around her. The haze in her eyes gradually faded and everything slowly came into focus. “Well hello.” Angel fixed on the face that appeared above her.

  She was holding a cup out to her lips. “Some ice chips. It will help.” Angel opened her mouth and took some. The woman was right, it did help. Her throat became a little easier as the ice melted as she took in the room. She didn’t recognise it or the woman and realised she didn’t recognise anything about the room or what was in it. Her world didn’t look like this.

  Angel started to panic. Where the hell was she? “You need to take calming slow breaths.” The woman told her. “Focus on me. There’s a logical reason why you are here, and you are safe. I know this is all a little strange, but you are safe and well and with the Cyborg Empire.” The woman pulled a stool over and sat on it. “You were badly injured. Do you remember that?” she asked.

  Angel frowned and thought back. Her memory seemed a little hazy on everything. Her brain struggled to focus and then she remembered being shot and nodded. “Shot,” she whispered.

  The woman nodded sadly at her. “That’s right you were. A bit old school for us but just as effective. You were in a café doing business talking with Burn. Do you remember that too?” Angel nodded. “You were shot twice by a male who came looking for you. Your injuries were life threatening. Both impacts affected major organs. Heart and lungs with one, liver and right kidney with the other. You should have bled out on the spot but luckily for you, you already had some of Burn’s nano’s already in your system, from him helping you with a hangover that day.” Angel gave a nod again. She remembered being plastered and him helping her.

  “It helped to stop more damage and kickstarted the rapid healing process. But, that on its own wasn’t enough. He had to give you more in transit, so they could work faster to keep you alive and in doing so, it depleted what was left of your blood cells and affected the rest of your body. Against the odds, you were still alive when he got you onboard his ship and into medical. His quick thinking saved you but because the damage was so bad, severe they had to put you in a coma shutting down all your systems and placing you in a med bed to try and put you back together. It was a last resort with no other options. Without the coma, we couldn’t fix you fast enough, you were close to dying several times. It was the only option if you were to have a chance at living.”

  “Where’s here?” Angel asked, her voice a little stronger.

  The woman smiled at her. Angel thought she must be a care giver, she looked so kindly. “I’m Doctor Navarille, I’m the lead Doctor here and you are on the Cyborg Empires Space Station. I was alerted to you waking and came straight here. We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”

  Angel realised the woman, a ‘Doctor’ was giving her small bits of information leading to a bigger picture. She’d barely heard of the Space Station, she thought Burn might have mentioned it once, but she couldn’t be sure, and it wasn’t where she lived so they’d moved her. It was a very long way away from her home. She thought of Burn. Why had he done this, had he been that angry with her? Why would he go to all this trouble? And then she remembered what he’d told her. She had to answer to the Empire.

  The Doctor tapped her arm. Angel looked up at her. “I can see you’re trying to work it all out. I’m empathic, it means I can read emotions, feelings, sometimes even reach people when in a coma, like you were.”

  Angel nodded. “Am I a prisoner?”

  The Doctor frowned. “No, why would you think that?”

  “Burn told me before being shot, I’d have to answer to the Empire for trading Cyborg parts.”

  The shook her head. “That was a mistake, one that was dealt with quickly after this happened.”

  Angel was relieved to hear it. “How long has it been?”

  The Doctor held her hand. “You were out for nearly eighteen years Angel. I know that’s a big shock right now, but we had no choice but to slow the healing process right down. As I said, in those early days, the med bed burnt through so many nano’s trying to fix you, that they shut down other parts of your body trying to preserve you but that made things worse in other ways. We simply couldn’t pump enough nutrients in to sustain it. We were losing the battle and Burn wouldn’t give up. Then Kane’s mate, who’d been through a similar experience heard what had happened and reminded us that she’d only survived such catastrophic injuries because the med bed was on survivor mode and nothing more. We switched it over and it took a while, but things started to improve. It just took a very long time.”

  Nearly eighteen years? Was that possible? It didn’t seem real. It kept rolling around in her mind. Her business would be gone. Some of her friends would be nearly twenty years older…. She realised there was nothing to be done about it. The time was gone and someone would have taken over her business, filled the gap she’d left. It was how it worked on her world. Too many people relied on it, for it to just disappear. She was for the first time in her life, glad her mother hadn’t lived to see this. It would have devastated her. Angel comforted herself with having at least saved her from that experience.

  “Your interests on your home world have been safeguarded. A manager was installed in your place and your home was secured for your return. All your accounts and records are documented and ready for you to take up any time you want.” The Doctor told her cutting into her thoughts.

  Angel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. They’d done that? “You saved it for me?”

  The Doctor shook her head. “No, not us. Burn did.”

  “He here?” she asked, not truly sure she wanted the answer but needing to thank him. Most people wouldn’t have done that. Certainly not someone she hardly knew. It was the kind of thing a …. loved one did. Angle frowned. Why had he done it? She’d said some things to him she regretted. She hadn’t meant to upset him or accuse him of killing her. It had been in the heat of the moment, she wasn’t thinking clearly, shocked by what Bertl had done.

  Burn had merely stepped away in confusion at their argument. She remembered it all so clearly now. In doing so, he’d left the space empty that he’d been in only moments before. The shots found her easily with nothing to prevent them. It could have happened to anyone. It just happened to be him. Angel knew she’d been unfair to accuse him.

  The Doctor smiled at her and nodded. “Yes, he’s here. He’s been waiting all this time for you to wake.” She gave her some more ice chips.

  “He still angry?” she asked around the pieces of ice in her mouth. Not sure she was ready to hear the answer.

  “I doubt it,” she told her. “He is more likely to be ecstatic you are awake and talking. Probably be over bearing as they all are. Be tip toeing all around you, driving you crazy, fetching and carrying mainly you. Making sure you have everything you could possibly need.” The Doctor lost her smile a little bit. “Those early days were hard on him. He blamed himself.”

  “Wasn’t his fault.” She told her suddenly feeling exhausted.

  “I agree but Cyborg men, they tend to take a lot on themselves. You’re tired. Get some rest.” She held an injector to her arm and Angel let go of holding onto consciousness. “We will all be here when you wake next. You have nothing to fear. All will be well….”

 

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