Blown Away (Cyborg Force Book 1)

  Blown Away

  Cyborg Force 1

  By

  Cara Bristol

  Blown Away (Cyborg Force 1)

  Copyright © April 2022 by Cara Bristol

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  eISBN: 978-1-947203-42-6

  Editor: Kate Richards

  Copy Editor: Nanette Sipe

  Cover Artist: Croco Designs

  Formatting by Wizards in Publishing

  Published in the United States of America

  Cara Bristol Website: http://carabristol.com

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Epilogue

  Other Titles by Cara Bristol

  About Cara Bristol

  Acknowledgements

  Trapped together in a sandstorm, they’ll battle passion and danger…

  Breeze O’Day

  Windswept, sandblasted Sajave isn’t every astrogeologist’s dream assignment, but it’s been my safe zone from a dangerous past, and now I’m about to announce a game-changing discovery. But on the way to finalize my research, my hovercraft gets caught in a violent sandstorm and crashes. Unfortunately, my rescuer is Tack Grayson, an ill-mannered, bad-tempered mammoth of a man who’s made it perfectly clear saving me is a huge imposition. Well, no worries. I’ll soon be on my way to finish my top-secret project, and our paths need never cross again.

  Tack Grayson

  If I had wanted company, I wouldn’t be living in a cabin hundreds of miles from nowhere. But I’m a cyborg with C-Force, and rescuing people is what I do, even if they are idiots who should know better than to venture out in a sandstorm. Now I’m stuck with Breeze O’Day until this storm blows over.

  But as I learn more about Breeze and her research, I begin to worry our association won’t end anytime soon. She’s in danger. Serious danger.

  Chapter One

  Tack

  “I lost a bet because of you.” Axel glared at me on the screen. This was why I rarely did face-to-face vidcoms.

  “And what bet was that?” I asked.

  “The one where I said you wouldn’t last three months in that godforsaken kitty litter box,” my C-Force teammate said.

  I tipped my beer back and took a drink. “Then you’re a dumbass. I’ve been here six months.”

  He scowled. “What do you do all day?”

  “This and that. Mostly that,” I hedged. “Take Bandit for a walk among the dunes. Well, I walk. He runs.”

  “How is that mutt?”

  “Smart.” With an excellent sense of time. I could set a clock by my dog. Conditions permitting, I took him for a run twice a day. If I was off by more than a couple of minutes, he’d bark at the door. But when dust devils scoured the land, he didn’t do that. He seemed to be able to read the sand as well as I could.

  I’d named him Bandit because he’d stolen away on my ship. Enroute to Sajave, I’d stopped at a space station for supplies and later discovered the filthy, half-starved stowaway. Somebody had abandoned him, but I preferred to think of Bandit as a vagabond hitchhiking across the galaxy. “You can stay with me,” I’d told him. “But you’re not going to like where we’re going.”

  I was wrong. Bandit loved it here.

  “How much longer are you going to stay on Sajave?” Axel asked.

  “Until Bandit gets tired of it,” I parried.

  Axel rubbed a hand across his chin and drew his brows together. He had the worst damn poker face of any cyborg I knew. No wonder he got his ass handed to him when the team played cards. “Seriously, Tack, how are you doing?” he asked.

  I took a gulp of beer. Beer kept me busy—brewing it, not drinking it, although I did a fair share of that, too. I crafted my own beer. Maybe I should have mentioned my brew operation to Axel. Maybe he wouldn’t be so concerned. “I’m okay. Better.”

  Axel pursed his lips. He didn’t believe me.

  “Before you place any more bets, you should be aware I asked Quint to extend my furlough out to a full a year—and he granted it,” I announced. Following “work-related traumas” as delineated in Section 4, Subsection 5A of the C-Force Personnel and Operations Manual, employees were required to take a three-month mental health leave. Six months was optional. With commander approval, leave could be extended another six for a full year.

  The C-Force manual didn’t list being forced to kill one’s wife in the line of duty as one of the work-related traumas, but I’d had no problem getting my “mental health” extension okayed.

  May as well drop the next bomb on Axel and get it over with. “I applied for a permanent homestead on Sajave.” While not official, the granting of the homestead was pretty much a fait accompli. Desperate for people to settle on Sajave, the government would give you anything you asked for: a section of prime sand dune, a house to live in, an outbuilding in which to brew your beer, and a hover transport so you could fly your ass to one of the five cities for supplies.

  “Shit, you’re not coming back at all, are you?” Axel said.

  I’d informed my commander I intended to separate from C-Force permanently, but Quint had flat-out refused to approve it until I’d waited a full year. I could initiate separation proceedings without his approval, but I’d have to go over his head.

  “I promised Quint I’d take a year to think about it, but I won’t come back until I’m not a danger to the team,” I told Axel.

  It wasn’t a complete lie. I’d lost my ability to concentrate. I’d become jumpy and hyper-cautious, which was another way of saying paranoid. A C-Force team member had to distinguish between real threats and improbable or imaginary ones. I struggled with discernment, viewing everybody with suspicion—not that I encountered many people.

  On bad days, only Bandit’s barking to go outside got me out of bed.

  “Have you spoken to anybody?” Axel asked.

  “You mean like the C-force headshrinker?”

  “Yes. Or someone else. Sajave must have counselors.”

  “No one since the mandatory sessions.” In accordance with standard operating procedure, I’d been sent to counseling after “the incident.” C-Force headshrinkers didn’t just listen to a lot of weird shit; they often accompanied the team on missions to better understand what we dealt with. However, at the time, I’d still been processing and had been disinclined to chat.

  A Sajave counselor whose “experience” came from a book would have no fucking clue.

  “
It wasn’t Sarah. It wasn’t your wife,” Axel said quietly.

  “I know.” But I didn’t know. That was the problem. Had Sarah, the beautiful, vivacious, kind human woman I’d fallen in love with ever existed? Had the Tyranian shapeshifter killed my wife and assumed her identity after we’d married, or had Sarah been a Tyranian all along? Was I right to mourn the loss of my wife, or had I loved a monster?

  Axel, Quint, my C-Force teammates, the headshrinker—none of them could help me because none of them had the answer to those questions. With a single thought, I could armor my body or switch to telescopic or infrared vision, but emotions weren’t like cyborg enhancements. They couldn’t be flipped on and off.

  Who had I loved? What had I loved?

  Assuming Sarah had been Sarah when I married her, at some point, she’d been killed by a Tyranian who’d taken her place, and I never knew it. I was a member of the most elite intelligence and fighting force in the galaxy, and my wife had been something entirely different than what I’d thought. Could anything be what it seemed?

  “Woof! Woof!” Downstairs, Bandit started to bark. My gaze flew to the chronometer on the vid-screen. Sure enough. Walk time. “Woof! Woof!”

  “Hey, man, I’d better take Bandit for his walk, or he’ll never stop barking. Don’t worry about me. Eventually I’ll get my head screwed on straight.”

  “You listen,” Axel said. “I love you, brother—”

  “Oh hell, you’re not going to get all mushy on me, are you?”

  “Shut the fuck up and listen—”

  “Woof! Woof! Woof!”

  “We all love you. We worry about you. You’ve become a hermit with nobody to talk to but a dog.”

  “I like being alone.” I wasn’t fit company for anybody. I suspected Bandit could barely tolerate me.

  “All I’m saying is check in once in a while. Ping me—or Gunner or Patton or Bane. Quint.”

  “I talked to Quint the other day.”

  “Probably only to extend your furlough.”

  “Woof! WOOF!”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “The next time I feel in need of company or conversation, I’ll contact you and chew your ear off.”

  “You’re full of shit. I know you’re lying.”

  “Well, yeah, but you love me anyway, right?” I love you, too, Axel.

  “Go walk your dog,” he said, but it sounded a lot like fuck you.

  The screen went dark. I downed the dregs of my warm beer and descended the spiral staircase to the main part of the cabin. Bandit waited at the front door.

  “Thanks for the save, buddy!” I ruffled his fur and slipped his helmet over his head. I snapped on my sandshoes while he barked excitedly, the sound somewhat muffled by his head covering. He knew sandshoes and a helmet meant a walk.

  I opened the door, sand spilled into the room, and Bandit bounded outside.

  * * * *

  A streak of black and white, Bandit flew across the dunes. He raced so fast, his paws only grazed the sand. His speed and relative lightness enabled him to stay on top of it rather than sinking in the way I would have, except for the sandshoes distributing my weight over a wider area. I shuffled along, snapped a filter mask over my nose and mouth, and donned my goggles. The latter served a dual purpose: it cut the glare from the blinding white dunes and protected my eyes if a dust devil kicked up.

  Dust devils looked like mini tornados, but, whirling at 200 miles per hour, the grit would strip your skin off within minutes. Activating my armor would protect my body, but my eyes, despite their enhancements, remained vulnerable. I could be blinded like an ordinary human.

  If a dust devil did materialize, I would have to grab Bandit and run. The helmet kept him from inhaling lung-damaging microscopic particles and protected his eyes, but the rest of him was exposed. I’d been caught in a sandstorm once. It wasn’t an experience I cared to repeat. Fortunately, Bandit hadn’t been with me.

  My dog disappeared over a dune only to race back moments later. That’s the way he rolled: he ran forward and back, forward and back, never straying too far from my side. I headed toward the perimeter of my property to inspect the motion detectors. Bandit liked to run; I liked to keep tabs on security.

  Originally, I’d installed cameras, but blowing sand quickly clouded the lenses, and the constant need for replacement became a pain in the ass, so I swapped them out for motion detectors. A motion detector didn’t need a clear lens to emit a beam of light and then shoot a signal to the cabin.

  Per my instructions, the government had deposited my cabin smack dab in the middle of a section of sand. The property, which would be mine free and clear when my homestead application got approved, measured one square mile. Beyond the boundaries of my little slice of heaven, there was only sand, sand, and more sand. There wasn’t a city or way station within hundreds of miles. I had no neighbors. Most folks tended to be more social than me and preferred to live in one of the five established cities.

  Once, an official from the Department of Colonization and Homesteading had dropped in unexpectedly. Quint, my former commander, had come by. I hadn’t been polite to either of them. So, you could say visitors were rare, but if someone did trespass on my property, I wanted to know about it.

  Did I mention I’d become paranoid?

  I’m fucked up, but I can’t help it.

  I had loved that woman. She was my other half; we’d clicked the moment we met. We’d dated for six months, and then we married. We had laughed together, talked about everything and nothing, and made mad passionate love. I’d opened my heart and shared secrets I’d never told another human being.

  Except at some point, my wife had stopped being human. Or maybe she never had been. My skin crawled to know I’d slept with a Tyranian. I wish that was the least of it. Sarah-not-Sarah could have killed me in my sleep—except she preferred to use me for access.

  C-Force assignments could be dirty, gritty, but we also got hired to protect dignitaries and planetary leaders at diplomatic events. We called it tuxedo duty. Sometimes spouses could accompany us, especially if a client insisted on a low-key, unobtrusive detail. Attending with a spouse enabled us to blend with the guests.

  I didn’t connect the dots from our attendance at various dinners and galas to the disappearance of people from those venues.

  On duty, I hadn’t been at Sarah’s side every minute. She’d been free to mingle.

  Free to kill.

  And I’d aided and abetted her.

  If Sarah had been human at the start of our relationship, then most likely, I’d introduced her to the Tyranian who’d killed her and assumed her identity. I’d been responsible for my wife’s death and then introduced the imposter to other people, whom she’d murdered.

  I’d joined C-Force to save lives, not help aliens take them.

  Bandit galloped toward me. His tongue lolled out of his mouth, and I swear he had a grin on his face. He kicked up sand as he did a hard U-turn and raced away again. “You’re such a goofball,” I said.

  C-Force had an unofficial motto. You wouldn’t find it in the manual, but every team member took it to heart: “A cyborg never gives up.”

  If not for Bandit, I might have given up.

  I loved the mongrel. He was a border collie mix, but I sometimes wondered, mixed with what? I had a hunch it wasn’t another dog breed. Just as long as he wasn’t Tyranian…

  I switched on the infrared sensors in my eyes and spotted the glowing motion sensor beams. The sending units were attached to ultrathin rods staked into solid rock beneath the dunes. Against the white, the rods all but disappeared, although the transmitter boxes were more visible, seeming to hover in thin air. But since the units were widely spaced, unless someone happened upon one in the exact right spot, they wouldn’t notice they were there. If not for the GPS chip in my brain, I’d have trouble locating them.

  I hiked along the perimeter toward the next unit. Every time I took Bandit for a run, I checked a different side of my property.
In twice-daily walks over two days, I covered the entire perimeter.

  Bandit raced in front of me and crashed through the motion sensor beam. When I got back to the cabin, the alarm would be pinging. Bandit did his part to test the system. He came running back, breaking through the beam again.

  “Good boy,” I said.

  The next two units were operational, too, although the third was almost buried. Little could be done about that. Some days, the unit would be several feet off the ground, other days, like today, it barely cleared the surface. Sand would go where the sand would go.

  You’d think the sand would be miles deep, but it wasn’t—maybe a meter or two at most—but precise measurement was elusive because the dunes shifted.

  Not always by the wind.

  The individual grains moved. Normal humans couldn’t see it, but, with my visual mods, I could detect the movement. It looked like a slow migration of billions of tiny insects. Some might find that creepy, but compared to other shit I’d seen in the galaxy, it didn’t come close.

  Turning to head back, I paused to study the glistening snow-white terrain. When I first arrived, it used to be a shock to step out of my cabin and find the temperature pleasant and not winter-cold.

  As I stood there, it hit me that the dunes Bandit and I had crossed minutes ago had altered already. I narrowed my eyes and zoomed in. Yep, the sand was moving. I mean, hustling. I switched off the enhancements. Even with normal 20/20 vision I could see it.

  Shit. “Bandit—we gotta go!” I lifted my mask and let out a shrill whistle. “Come on, boy!”

  He bounded up beside me then stopped dead. Ears flattening, hackles rising, he hunkered low to the ground and growled. Even the dog could see it.

  Every major sandstorm I’d witnessed had begun with locomotion. Then the wind would blow, and whirling dust devils would scour everything for miles. Way stations and cities hundreds of miles away would feel the effects.

  A storm could start in minutes and last for days. The longest one I’d experienced had blasted Sajave for a week.