Cyborg Nation by Kaitlyn O'Connor (english readers TXT) 📗

announce when they hit atmosphere. The ship bucked so hard Bronte knew she would’ve gotten whiplash if she hadn’t been strapped in. She screamed before she could stop herself, her mind instantly equating the hard slamming motion with hitting the ground. Her stomach went weightless and lodged in her throat. The sensation of falling didn’t stop. She squeezed her eyes closed as the shaking intensified until her brain and eyeballs were rattling in her head. The pull of gravity felt as if it was going to crush her in her seat. Her heart, already laboring with terror, struggled, felt as if the weight pulling at her was going to make it explode.

She focused on trying to breathe and trying to regulate her heart, closing her mind to the screaming sound of metal around her and the men’s voices as they checked instruments, called out reading and fought the bucking bronco they were on trying to seize control.

They were dropping like a rock. The air around her grew hotter and hotter. Bronte squeezed her eyes more tightly together, focusing harder to block out the fear that they would burst into flames. Some force buffeted the ship so that it lifted and then dropped repeatedly. The air speed Gabriel had been quoting to Gideon began to drop. It was hardly reassuring. They were still moving way too fast and she knew it, but she began to feel a faint thread of hope, despite the fact that the ship began to tilt further and further forward.

“We are still dropping too fast!” Gabriel announced.

“On my mark, fire the forward thrusters!” Gideon bellowed.

Bronte opened one eye to see what was happening, too frightened to ask even if she hadn’t been worried about distracting them. In the forward vid, she saw a spiral of greens and blues that made her head swim. Glancing at Gideon, she saw his arm muscles bulging from his grip on the steering yoke, saw the hard edge of a clenched jaw. “Short burst … now!”

The ship bucked again as if it had hit something, the front end pitching upward. Bronte held her breath, trying to keep from throwing up.

Gabriel marked the air speed again.

“Again!” Gideon said. “Short burst only. Jerico, where are we?”

“Over the Darden sea.”

“I can see that!” Gideon ground out.

“Coming up on a land mass.”

“What have we got?”

“Sand … if you put it down fast.”

“I do not think we have a choice.”

“Dunes—starboard ten degrees,” Jerico announced.

Gideon threw him a quick glance and leaned against the yoke as he struggled to alter course.

“Three,” Jerico called out.

“Gabriel, fire all thrusters and see if we can slow this son-of-a-bitch down,” Gideon ground out.

The ship went wild, bucking and jolting so hard it jarred Bronte’s clenched jaws apart and then slammed her teeth down on her tongue. Blood filled her mouth.

“Impact in ten,” Gabriel announced.

Bronte sucked in a harsh breath, tensing all over.

“Five … coming in hard.”

“Hit the braking thrusts now!” Gideon bellowed.

The ship lurched, bucked. Abruptly they slammed into something. The ship roared like a live thing as it crumpled around them. Bronte screamed as pain speared through her and then blackness swarmed over her. When she surfaced again, her ears were still ringing from the last roar of sound she’d heard. Flickering light moved over her eyelids and she opened them with an effort. Around her was a tangle of metal and vegetation. A leafy frond, stirred by air, or still shuddering from their impact, was bobbing above her, she saw, causing the flickering of light as it filtered the sunlight pouring down through the canopy above her.

She closed her eyes again, searching for the pain she knew she should be feeling. As if she’d summoned it, it flickered to life, welled inside of her until it took an effort to breathe.

“Bronte!”

Her heart clutched at the sound of Gideon’s voice. “Here!” she tried to call out, but the word only emerged as a thread of sound. She tried again, managed to lift her voice a little louder. She flinched at a sudden noise close by and more pain flooded through her.

“Bronte!”

She struggled and managed to open her eyes again as she heard him advance toward her through the rubble and then felt his nearness. His face was taut as he stared down at her. After a long moment, he reached to grasp her restraints. Vaguely surprised to realize she was still strapped in her seat, she tried to lift her hands to help him but discovered her arms were just too heavy to lift them.

“Be still!” Gideon ground out, apparently having noticed her slight movement.

She subsided, too tired to argue with him. “I’m so tired,” she said, wondering why.

“Only a moment and I will have you loose.”

More movement around her roused her enough to open her eyes again. Relief flooded her when she glimpsed Jerico and Gabriel. “We made it,” she whispered.

Gideon crouched down in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders and easing her slowly toward him. She screamed at the pain that lanced through her.

He stopped instantly and Bronte gasped for breath as the pain slowly subsided. When she could open her eyes again, she searched for the source and discovered a piece of metal sticking into her. Mentally, she traced it. “I’m pinned to the seat,” she said in surprise.

Gideon gripped the piece of metal. “On the count of three I will pull.”

Bronte put her hand over his. “Leave it. I’m dying anyway,” she said, feeling oddly calm about it and yet as certain of it as she had ever been about anything in her life. Her suit was already soaked in blood. She was fairly certain the metal had severed major blood vessels if not an artery.

He caught her chin in a hard grip. “You will not die,” he said through clenched teeth. “On the count of three, Bronte.”

Too tired to argue with him, she sucked in her breath, trying to brace herself. He snatched it out on two, snatching her breath with it and,