Her Cyborg Champion (The Drift Haven Colony #2) - Susan Hayes

1

Maggie looked down at the empty seat beside her and felt a pang of worry. Jade should be here. This was supposed to be their adventure, but her best friend had vanished the night before they were due to report for their flight, leaving her to make the voyage to Haven colony on her own.

The shuttle bounced and rocked a little as they descended into the planet’s atmosphere. Some of the others stirred uneasily in their seats, but over the last few weeks Maggie had come to trust Vardarian technology more than anything put together by human hands.

All the tech had operated perfectly, which was a new experience for her. From the air purifiers to the food dispensers, everything had performed its tasks quickly, quietly, and with no malfunctions. As far as she was concerned, any crew who could keep an entire ship running that smoothly could be trusted to bring her safely to her new home. She leaned back in her comfortable chair and enjoyed the ride.

“We’ll be through the clouds shortly. If you select the forward view on your screens, you should get your first look at the planet Liberty any moment now,” N’tash, their Vardarian pilot, announced from the flight deck.

The energy in the shuttle’s cabin quickly shifted from worry to anticipation. Everyone not already watching their monitors activated them and stared at the thick white clouds still obscuring the view. A buzz of excited chatter filled the air. Maggie shared in the sentiment, but she had no one to talk to, so she stayed quiet and kept her eyes locked on her viewscreen.

She’d expected the clouds to thin out gradually. They didn’t. One moment everything was gray and the next she saw a breathtaking expanse of blue. Water. No, she realized as her mind absorbed the scale of what she was looking at. An ocean. A vast, glorious stretch of unpolluted water. The reality of what was happening finally hit her.

She’d made it.

No more recycled air for her. She could bask in real daylight, and the water she drank would be so fresh it might have never been inside another being. If the price for that freedom was a lifetime bond with a pair of alien strangers? She’d gladly pay it.

Again, she looked over at the empty seat beside her and wished Jade was here. This had been her idea. Where was she?

Leaving her best friend behind had been the hardest decision of Maggie’s life, but in the end, she’d stuck to their plan. It was how they’d made it this far. No matter how fraxxed up things got, they got through it by sticking to the plan. So when she’d read Jade’s last message, she’d known exactly what she had to do, even if she didn’t want to do it.

Haul ass. You know the drill. See you when I see you. Stay safe. J.

P.S. Peaches.

The last line was a code word. It meant Jade had sent something to Maggie’s implant. It was black market tech—undetectable to most scans and completely inaccessible to the one carrying it. Whatever data she was carrying, she couldn’t read it.

No other details were in the message, not even a hint as to what had gone wrong. But that was by design. The less the other knew, the less they could give away if they were caught. So instead of going looking for Jade, Maggie had downed her drink, dropped some corporate vouchers on the table, and gone to do the job they were supposed to do together—visit every secret cache they’d set up over the years and take what they needed. New clothes. Hard currency. Food. She’d gathered up enough for both of them. She’d still had hope Jade would find a way to join her at the last minute.

That hope was gone now. They were about to land at the colony, and she hadn’t heard from Jade again.

The shuttle had barely touched down before she unbuckled her harness and was on her feet, ready to go. She’d attended every class, worked out daily to build up the muscles she’d need for the higher gravity, and she’d spent as much time as she could in the sims to get over her brain’s distrust of open spaces.

It didn’t bother her as much as it did some of the other women. She guessed it was because she’d spent a little time near the outer walls. As a kid, she’d snuck out a few times to play in the small gaps between the buildings