Cyborg Nation Kaitlyn O'Connor (books to get back into reading TXT) 📖

Jerico distracted her from her thoughts when he approached her and settled beside her with a steaming cup. It smelled like chicken broth. It was probably something they’d ‘invented’ from the dehydrated foods they’d brought along, but it smelled wonderful. Even though she hadn’t thought she was hungry, Bronte’s stomach immediately began to beg for food.

Setting the cup down, Jerico lifted her shoulders and settled her on his extended leg for support. Bronte looked at him questioningly.

“You will be able to drink this better in this way, I think,” he responded to the question in her expression.

Not a lot better, she thought wryly, but she certainly couldn’t drink lying flat of her back and she was afraid to try to sit up on her own when every previous attempt to use her stomach muscles to sit up had resulted in agony. On the other hand, he hadn’t eaten anything. She pointed that out.

“I will eat when you have drunk this.”

She nearly dropped the cup when she tried to pick it up. She didn’t know how he’d managed to bring it to her without burning himself, but she knew if the contents was as hot as the container it would burn all the way to her stomach if it didn’t burn a hole in the bottom. “It’s too hot. Why don’t you go eat and come back and help me when it’s cooled?”

He ignored the suggestion, blowing on it to cool it instead.

She watched him surreptitiously, her mind still on what she’d just discovered, wrestling with the temptation to ask more.

“There is something distressing you?” he asked finally.

She frowned. “I knew that you were soldiers and that all of you had been involved in a good bit of fighting. I just hadn’t considered what battles you might have been involved in.”

She saw he was frowning faintly, but she couldn’t tell what thoughts might be running through his mind.

“We have much fighting experience,” he said finally, offering the cooled soup to her. “Three years fighting for the Confederation in the Ho-Shu galaxy war on the moons of Galpo in the Neavia system—Ralo and Ben-Tavo. Two years on Xeno-12. For one year after we had left the forces of the Confederation, we remained on Xeno-12 with the resistance army. We fought as mercenaries in the army of Juda-Fal in the Maccan system for another four years, SEY (standard earth years) and then when the hunters began to stalk us, personal skirmishes with death squads on many worlds in the years after that, until we joined the Cyborg Forces—now two years ago.

“You should not have been frightened that we could not protect you from the trogs. It is true that they attack in large numbers, but we are far stronger and far more skilled and experienced fighters, fully cognizant of effective battle strategy and cool headed enough in battle to carry out the execution of proven tactics, whereas they are disorganized and too crazed with blood lust in the heat of battle to use their heads.

“Not that they are equal in intelligence with us anyway, but they can not even use the intelligence they have when they allow themselves to be blinded by such chaotic emotions as rage and excitement.”

Bronte was so unsettled by his calm recital of the horrors they had lived through that it was several moments before she realized that he’d completely misinterpreted the reason for her curiosity and the reason she’d struggled so hard to get away from the fighting earlier.

It explained so much that she hadn’t really understood before—especially their propensity for violence. No wonder they were so prone to settle disagreements with their fists! They had never known anything else. The wonder of it was that they were sane at all! Or capable of any kind of gentleness—and they were. Even at their roughest, they’d never hurt her when they could easily have done so inadvertently if they hadn’t been very careful with her.

It also explained why Gabriel and Jerico, as capable as they seemed of making their own decisions, inevitably bowed to Gideon. Gideon had led them through innumerable battles, earning not just implicit trust, but forming a bond between the three that had been forged in blood and could not be broken.

Except by her, she realized. Gideon had wanted her badly enough he had been willing to break that bond if she was bent on breaking it. She didn’t know that Gabriel and Jerico had been equally willing, but the fighting among them certainly seemed to suggest that. And she was suddenly very glad that she hadn’t been put in the position of coming between them. Nothing good could come of breaking that kind of bond.

“I wasn’t afraid that you couldn’t protect me,” she told him finally. “I suppose I should have been, and probably would have been except that I was in no condition to focus on much besides the pain.

“It’s hard to be afraid of dying when you’re in that much pain,” she added wryly. “All I could think about was that if one of you tripped over me and fell you could be overwhelmed and killed before you could get up to protect yourself. I was just trying to stay out of the way.”

He frowned thoughtfully and finally nodded. “There was the possibility. I had not considered that, but the fighting was close. You still should not have concerned yourself and tried to move. That part was not wise when your risked damage to yourself. If one of us had fallen, the others would have been warned and would have adjusted their stance accordingly.”

She stared at him sadly, feeling her chest tighten. “Jerico—I didn’t do it because it was a ‘wise’ decision. I didn’t want any of you to be hurt.”

He nodded. “Yes. I understand, but even if only two had been left, you would have been safe. We had slain many by then.”

Bronte bit her lip, but shook her head. “No, Jerico,” she said