Page 36 of True As Steel
“With Shalla. He has taken over the control of the lift, but the handful of guards they have left here are running up the stairs,” Jarog explained.
Loreus snorted and glanced at the control panel. We were flying through the eleven floors at breakneck speed. The elevator doors opened after what felt like ten seconds. Shalla’s shuttle seemed to appear out of thin air as she dropped her stealth shield. We raced inside, the vessel taking off even before the ramp had finished retracting and the door closing.
In the distance, a number of vessels were dashing towards our location. Having resumed our stealth mode, Shalla sped away from the development facility. Although our camouflage wouldn’t fool their radars for long, it would be enough to get us out of range. But that was only because most of their units had been dispatched to the spaceport. Yelena released a dozen stealth drones that would emit misleading signals, causing the radars to pick them up as camouflaged shuttles. They would serve as decoys that would further cover our escape. By the time they figured it all out, we’d be long gone.
As we settled into the passenger seats of the shuttle, I cast a glance out the window. Even from this distance, we could see the darkness that had overtaken half of the spaceport where power had gone down.
“Well, that was an interesting way of waking up,” Loreus said, turning his hazelnut eyes towards Jarog. “How the fuck did I end up on Xyva?”
His eyes were a shade lighter than his skin, the color of the desert’s sand. Just like Jarog, Loreus was broad-shouldered, lean and muscular, with a drool-worthy body, and short-cropped hair, military style. Except his was black. Where Jarog didn’t fit the classic canons of beauty, Loreus might as well have been a model. However, as much as the woman in me enjoyed the eye candy, he didn’t draw me the way my man did.
“You can thank the shockwave that sent us here as well,” Jarog replied with a shrug.
He proceeded to summarize the events of the past ten days to the Cyborg. I doubted I would ever get used to anyone taking such news with as much stoicism as Loreus did. He listened intently, only asking the occasional question here and there.
“While I appreciate the rescue, why did you come for me?” he asked, his gaze boring into Jarog’s.
“Because you’re a fellow soldier. Because the galaxy cannot afford for Grellik to have a Cyborg or the technology to make one in his hands. And because, for the time being, you’re the only other Cyborg that I know for a fact is still alive,” Jarog said.
Despite his neutral tone and expression, I’d grown to know my man well enough to perceive the underlying pain. But it was the haunted look that crossed Loreus’s handsome face that caught my attention.
“Your pod?” he whispered.
“Decimated,” Jarog said, matter-of-factly. “The last of my brothers isn’t exactly dead, but…”
“His presence is da… dimmed,” Loreus concluded on his behalf.
I suspected he had intended to say damaged instead of dimmed. Teeth clenched, Jarog nodded.
“I’ve lost two of mine,” Loreus said, a sliver of sadness audible in his tone. “I can only hope that the two remaining have made it to our rendezvous point and are together.”
Jarog nodded again, but this time, I could have sworn his shoulders slightly slouched. If Loreus still had pod brothers, he would seek to reunite with them and wouldn’t need him…theydidn’t need him. Jarog was once more all alone.
But their pod is incomplete now.
They could still technically take him in. A part of me rejoiced at that possibility, while the other selfishly hoped they wouldn’t. Jarog would leave me to be with his new family, which was only logical. And my man certainly rocked the whole logical-thinker role.
“Hopefully, you guys weren’t planning on rallying on Gorkon or Trija,” Jarog said cautiously.
Loreus narrowed his eyes. “We were not. Why?”
“Shui sent his troops to slaughter any of the rebels who had survived the explosion that sought refuge there,” I said angrily. “Apparently, the word spread that many Cyborgs were headed to one of those two planets.”
“I should have killed the bastard when I could,” Loreus said.
There was something incredibly creepy and terrifying in the calm and collected way, he spoke those words, his face neutral, but his golden eyes burning with hatred.
“Why didn’t you?” I couldn’t help asking.
He held my gaze for a moment, as if trying to decide how he would answer before turning to Jarog and locking eyes with him.
“Because it would have required killing some loyalists to get to him,” Loreus replied.
I felt myself blanch as my eyes flicked between the two men.
“Loyalists?” I repeated, playing dumb.
“Some Cyborgs remained faithful to their oaths of loyalty to the Emperor, all the way to the end,” Loreus said in a non-committal fashion, turning his attention back to me.