Cyborg Seduction. Grace Goodwin
fighting.
The Senator loved his sister, and she loved her sons. The Brooks family was wealthy and powerful with a proud history of military service going all the way back to the Civil War. Mama Brooks had been furious when her sons volunteered for the Coalition Fleet. And now, with one still out there somewhere, and one dead under mysterious circumstances…well, she wanted answers.
And she was willing to pay to get them. Pay. Threaten. Cajole. Demand. She was willing to hurt my son to discover the truth about hers. I understood a mother’s love, the relentless ache of it. I’d agreed to take this assignment, not because I wanted to, but because refusing would cause Wyatt more pain. Success, however, would see his surgery paid for and performed by the very best doctors the Brooks family could afford.
And they could afford a lot.
And all I had to do was bring them the truth about the prison colony. The contaminated flesh of our warriors. The truth about what was happening to our military personnel.
Captain Brooks had served his country well, then volunteered to go into space as a Coalition fighter and battle the mysterious enemy no one had ever seen. The Hive. Rumors and conspiracy theories were everywhere. But these creatures were supposed to be terrifying beings straight out of Star Trek. Monsters so scary that the governments of Earth had agreed to the Coalition demand for brides and warriors to protect us from a Hive invasion.
A lot of people didn’t believe the Hive existed. That the whole thing was a government conspiracy, a cover-up, a way to sacrifice people to some strange alien force without raising alarm. Some thought our volunteers were nothing more than cattle being led to slaughter. The information shared on the news networks was vague. No pictures of these Hive were ever shared. They were just bad guys in space, far away, mythical things that could never hurt us. But that seemed to be just what the governments wanted us to know. People in power argued that if the truth of what was outside of our atmosphere, beyond our moon and the reaches of our space shuttles was shared, there would be pandemonium. Riots. Chaos in the streets.
They wanted the truth to remain hidden, it seemed, for our own good.
I didn’t care about any of that. I cared about Wyatt and my mom. If someone was willing to pay me money to get the truth, then I’d go. I wasn’t interested in the truth. I didn’t care about conspiracy theories or cover-ups. I was interested in the money this assignment would pay. The surgery Wyatt needed that this money would cover. I cared about healing my son.
And if I failed? Well, there was a price to be paid. They would hurt him. They would kill my mother and torture my boy. Those small details something they’d chosen not to share with me until the very end, of course.
But I believed the threat. Something in Mrs. Brooks’ fanatical gaze sent a shiver down my spine. She’d lost both of her sons and, apparently, her mind and sense of human decency. Too late to turn back now. The only thing I could focus on was getting back home to Wyatt, who was probably asleep under his Power Rangers comforter with a stuffed tiger named Roar snuggled under his sweet, innocent little chin at this very moment.
Space aliens weren’t my biggest fear. Wyatt not being able to walk normally, not grow, be forced to watch from the sidelines as the other boys run and play? That would break his little heart, and my baby hurting was not acceptable. Not to me.
And the threats made against him? I couldn’t bare to think about that. I simply would not fail.
I startled as the crate shifted under me and I realized it was moving, swinging a bit as if being lifted and carried through the air on the end of a crane.
Everything was happening exactly as they’d told me it would.
Two days on board the freighter, arrival at The Colony. We’d landed a few hours ago, the rumble of the ship’s engines nearly rattling my teeth out of my head as we’d landed. A slight jolt when it made contact with the planet’s surface. And now, a few hours later, I was being off-loaded, stacked in their new storage facilities. I was packed in with a shipment of seeds from the Salvard Global Seed Vault. I’d been staring at their logo for so long, I could draw it in my sleep.
Apparently, The Colony was working to terraform their new planet to make it more appealing. They were bringing in plants native to every Coalition home world. I’d been sleeping next to thirty-foot tall maple, elm and locust trees. Also in the hold were spruce and drought resistant shrubs of every variety. Huge trees, too big to send via their precious transport technology.
We were headed to Base 3, where the Governor had, according to my sources, recently been mated through the Interstellar Brides Program to a woman from Earth. All of this was for her, his devotion—or obsession, depending on who told the story—was so complete that he was creating an Earth garden just for her. I would be able to sneak onto the planet because of some woman named Rachel that I’d never met.
The ways onto the planet were limited. No one from Earth was allowed unless he or she was a Coalition fighter or a bride. I wasn’t the military type. I’d never even held a gun before. The other option was to volunteer for the Interstellar Brides Program, but I didn’t meet their requirements. I had Wyatt. I was a mother. Besides, I had zero interest in being a mate of a space alien, or in leaving Earth.
No. I just wanted to get the damn story and get home. And so I was being drop shipped with a bunch of Earth trees as if by FedEx.
How this was possible on a prison planet, I wasn’t sure. But then, that was the reason for my assignment. To discover the truth about The Colony. To expose it. To get word back to Earth about what was really going on here. The shipment really was of trees and shrubs, flowers and bulbs. There weren’t military-grade arms hidden away. I’d had two long travel days to have proof of that. So was the shipment really because a governor on the planet loved his Earth mate? If that was the case, why had I been dressed in armor and warned to avoid detection at all costs? This damn suit of armor recorded everything, every heartbeat and blink of my eye, every second of activity, everything I heard or saw. If it so dangerous on the prison planet, why the trees?
Didn’t matter. Didn’t matter. Get in, get the info. Get home to Wyatt.
Shit. The armor. Stupid people back on Earth would probably download the data from it and wonder why the hell I’d just had an orgasm. I hoped not. Please, no. There were some details better left alone.
Dreaming about hunky Greek gods shoving me up against a wall and making me scream? Yep. That was one of those private kinds of things.
The crate settled with a soft bang and I checked the timer. I was to wait exactly twenty minutes, use the tools they’d given me to remove the bolts, remove the side panel, replace it, and find somewhere to hide and observe. I was supposed to remain hidden and gather information. That’s it. I had to be back here, back inside the crate in three days for the trip home. I checked my wrist unit and sighed with relief when I saw the counter was functional. Seventy hours and five minutes until I got to go home.
I had a map of the base, but they’d warned me not to trust it. The information was at least five months old and things move. They change. Empty rooms might not be empty.
But I was sneaky, and small, and quick. I’d been a gymnast in high school. I could scale walls and hang from rafters if I needed to.
When the time showed twenty minutes and two seconds, I took two deep breaths and put on my helmet before lifting the small drill to the corners of the crate and getting to work. To say I was eager to get out of the crate was an understatement. I’d never been claustrophobic before, but I was ready for some fresh air, some windows even.
Five minutes later I was free, the side replaced. I took deep breaths to calm my racing heart. God, I was really doing this. I looked around. The main lights were off in the storage room, only a few emergency beacons gave the space a soft white glow. Every crate and tree were giant shadows looming above me.
I was alone on an alien world, but I felt hunted. Watched.
Even the trees seemed to be keeping an eye on me.
Shrugging off the feeling, I