Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
She also downloaded the specs for the internal power source onto a portable drive she’d brought. That was to appease the Company. They could make their own internal power sources now if they wanted to—they didn’t need to cut K-lx open to find the secret of his limitless energy.
Finally, when she felt like she’d gotten enough to keep the big Cyborg safe, she closed down the computer she’d been working on and turned to him.
“All right—I think I have everything I need. What about you?”
K-lix had been busy scanning a rapidly flickering screen. Charts and maps and graphs and tables were passing over it so quickly she barely had time to make one out before the next one arrived on screen.
“Huh? Oh sure, Mistress,” he said when she asked him again if he was ready to go. “Yeah, I got it—I know where the Kindred went and how to get to them. Let’s get back to the station.” He raised an eyebrow. “If that’s really where we’re going?”
“Yes, it is,” Corinne said firmly. “I have enough to keep the Company happy now and to keep Silas from trying anything too. He can’t refute the facts.” She put the portable drive in her pocket and patted it with satisfaction. “Come on, K-lx—let’s go home.”
“Home to me is wherever you are,” he told her as he put an arm around her shoulders. “Do you think we’ll get into trouble for stealing a hopper to take this little field trip, though?”
“I doubt it,” Corinne said. “I have enough information on the Kindred Cybernetics program now to keep the Company happy. They won’t care about me taking a hopper for the trip back and forth to get it. As for Silas, he won’t have a leg to stand on when I explain what I’ve found.”
K-lx looked uncertain but then he shrugged.
“Well, if you’re sure.”
“I am,” Corinne said with certainty, as they stepped into the elevator for the ride up. “Everything is going to be fine now.”
And she honestly believed it was true…until they got back to the ship.
29
CORINNE
“There it is.” Corinne couldn’t keep the relief out of her voice. She’d been worried that the hopper might have been stolen or broken into, despite the locking mechanism. But the squat, silver vehicle was still where they had landed it—in a clear space which might have been a park before all the buildings had been destroyed.
“Let’s go—I’ll pilot,” K-lx offered.
“Sure—you’re definitely better at it than I am.” Corinne smiled at him. “As long as you don’t—”
But the words died in her throat as someone stepped out from behind the hopper. Several someones, in fact, she saw. It was Silas and he had a whole security force with him from the station.
“I thought I might find you here, Virelle,” he sneered at her.
K-lx stepped forward, a growl rising in his throat but she put a hand on his arm and shook her head.
“No, stand down, K-lx,” she ordered. “Let me deal with this.”
Since it was a direct order, the big Cyborg did as he was told, but he didn’t look happy about it.
Corinne took a step forward, eyeing Silas warily. He was armed and so were the rest of the guards he’d brought with him.
“Look, I can explain,” she said, raising her hands.
“Explain what?” Silas sneered. “Explain how you decided to steal a hopper and then make off with millions of credits worth of Company property?” He nodded at K-lx and Corinne understood, with a sinking heart, that he was going to try and frame her for theft.
“I didn’t steal K-lx—I just brought him with me for security,” she explained evenly. “I wanted to get more insight into his specs—-which I did. I also learned some valuable information the Company is going to love. I doubt they’ll care that I had to take a hopper to get it once they find out what it is. It’s all right here.”
She reached into her pocket and held up the drive as proof.
Silas’s eyes widened…then narrowed greedily.
“Very good, Virelle. That’s an excellent find—probably worthy of a bounty fee,” he remarked. He stepped forward, holding out his free hand—the one not gripping a blaster. “Hand it over now so I can collect it.”
“What? I don’t think so!” Corinne put the drive back in her pocket as K-lx, who had been standing silently and watching the confrontation, stepped up.
“Just let us go back to the station in the hopper,” he growled. “And don’t threaten my Mistress with any of your bullshit or you’re going to be fucking sorry—all of you.”
“Well, that sounds like a threat to me,” Silas remarked, raising his blaster. Only it wasn’t a regular blaster, Corinne saw with horror. It was an EMP hand-cannon!
“K-lx no—stand back—get away!” she cried.
But it was too late. Silas squeezed the trigger and a silent but deadly pulse of electromagnetic energy surged from the muzzle of the hand cannon and hit the big Cyborg right in the solar plexus. It didn’t damage his body—it didn’t have to. It wiped his programming and cut his power in a single instant.