***

WITHIN DAYS OF BEING caught, Gunner had enough power restored in his systems to spy through the cameras, leaving an indiscernible trail behind him. It wasn’t his forte, being in digital space, but he had enough knowledge to overpower outdated, non-governmental systems.

Gunner spent a fair amount of time watching the guards throughout the ship, although he quickly grew bored and his focus returned to the bridge where the main security feeds ended and a new security feed began.

The bridge was going to give him trouble.

He thrummed the currents with his own and learned what he could with what he had.

Patience was something he struggled with, and now he had a means to get what he wanted. He wanted his ship back and he wanted it now.

He scanned the area, his eyes landing on each of the prisoners within his immediate surroundings. The world was quiet to his ears, and the heavy huffs of sleep, uncomfortable but distinct, filled them. The men were all in a state of rest, triggered from years of being programmed to relax when the lights were dim overhead.

He’d been out for three days and his body shook from being caged for that long. He had to wait—patiently—for the lead he needed.

There was a dozen camera feeds embedded in the lights of the brig, above and behind barriers he couldn’t reach physically, all placed in areas outside of the rows of cells.

His gaze settled on Ely and his attention zeroed in on his person. Gunner still couldn’t decide if Ely was a man or a woman.

Any time, Gunner could grab him, rip off his clothing and find out, but even he knew that was a terrible idea.

If he really was a she and he exposed her while in such a vulnerable space, she’d be fucked because he wouldn’t be sticking around long enough to do anything about it. My ship comes first, my gunner girls, my guns, and my AI. That’s what’s important to me. A few other thoughts came to mind, like his EPED acquisitions and the plants, animals, and monsters housed in his laboratory, but he wasn’t entirely worried about them. Not yet.

He was confident in his security systems, electronic and cybernetic.

Ely shivered under his perusal and hacked out a dry cough but his eyes remained closed tight.

He’d returned to the middle of his cell to rest and Gunner couldn’t blame him. It was the safest course of action even if he proved to truly have a cock between his legs. The guy is small. Easy to overpower. Smaller than most, and tall, Gunner gathered from the short instances he’d seen Ely standing up, but wiry, willowy if he actually was a she.

There was a hint of muscle definition outlined by Ely’s fraying, dirty clothes. At least, there had been muscle before being locked up in a cell for weeks without regular food and water.

There was also scarring on his hands and arms where flesh was exposed. Those scars signified hard, possibly dangerous work; maybe a welder, a builder, possibly even a cook. Whatever he did, there was a chance of damage.

Strike male?

Ely was on his side, curled in on himself to shield away the cold and encapsulate as much heat as possible. It was the same position Gunner had seen him in when he was brought back from interrogation,  Many of the men around him rested the same way.

When there was no hope, no one really gave a damn what they looked like.

Gunner quietly clasped his hands together. He appreciated the internal heat from his mainframe that always kept him comfortable. He pressed his hands over his nose and breathed in his own scent, sighing from the familiarity and comfort it brought.

With his hands still poised over his face, he returned to the task at hand and moved to the center of his cell.

Where oh where can my little dog be? He weeded out long tendrils of electricity, powered from deep inside his hardware, looking for the closest connection—one that was within reach—to his cell. The electrical panel drew him but he ignored it, knowing he needed something closer... Something inside his space that he could touch at will and without pretending to break his arm to get at the lock.

The stream of lights overhead came next, and the mechanism that released the restraints soon after. His eyes shifted upward to the ceiling that was still several feet outside his reach. The old chrome sheen met his gaze.

Still too far.

Gunner crouched on the vents that ran across and under his feet, but felt nothing close at hand. The hole in the middle was no bigger than several inches in diameter, and under that, there was a grate system he spied with suction vents along the walls of it.

So it catches the crap and then sucks it into the walls.

With the continuous sounds of bad sleep filling his ears, Gunner stepped away and meticulously ran his hands over the walls, floors, and bars of his enclosure, finding little zaps of energy beneath the metal. When all was said and done, his attention returned to the crap chute.

Why the fuck was I made to be a goddamned jackal?

He crouched before the vent again and regarded it with disgust. Flexing his fingers, his claws elongated into razor sharp points. He ran the pad of his thumb over one of them until the skin sliced open and pulled away, dripping partial synthetic blood.

Gunner cut deeper, exposing the tip of his thumb bone and the sheen of uncorroded metal that made up his frame.

A movement to his left stopped him. He retracted his nails and closed his fingers over the cut that had already begun to heal. Ely appeared at his side and stared at his hand.

Gunner opened his fist and showed it healed anew. “Nothing to see here,” he whispered, but his focus was undeterred and once again zeroed in on Ely’s eyes, the way his hair fell, and the shape of his lips. Although the lights were low and hazy, he could see Ely’s face more clearly than he had any time before.

He had a straight nose, almond eyes, strong, high cheekbones, and a tapered jaw. All covered in layers of dirt, but there were also slithers of ghostly pale skin beneath the grime. The kind of pale that meant years of taking Vitamin D pills because it never saw sunlight.

His hair is blonde, or light brown. He couldn’t tell. It fell in thick strands over his ears and the sides of his face, pushed to the side, obscuring some of his features.

A pretty boy...or a beautiful girl.

“How long have you been in here?” Gunner asked, low enough for only the two of them to hear. He didn’t want to wake anyone up. Especially Kallan.

If Kallan wakes up, I’m going to kill him.

Ely had been just about to say something to him earlier before Kallan interrupted. Gunner had seen his lips part.

If it happened again, there was going to be even more death then he’d planned. Quietly, Ely moved back to his place at the wall and dropped his head on his knee, facing his direction.

Gunner turned back to the vent, sliced down the center of his thumb and snipped off the metal, wires, and tech that made it work, dropping it in to land on the grate within. A moment passed before it was sucked into the deeper systems of the ship.

He sensed it move through the ship’s systems.

Gunner shielded his impromptu surgery but still felt eyes on his back. He gritted his teeth against the pain of his hand starting the long, arduous process of rebuilding his thumb, and the uncomfortable sensation of excess energy being used to repair the damage.

Unfortunately, it fixed the rest of him at the same time: his dislocated shoulder, the bruises on his face, and the rest of his fake human-self under his clothes.

He knew the moment his detached thumb was separated from the ship waste and recycled, broken down and created into something new for the man-made ecosystem to use. Thrown into a machine where the ship’s power was abundant.

His lips perked up into a satisfied grin. Directly connected. He siphoned and fed.

Gunner willed the lights to flicker softly overhead and they did.

He willed the panel on his cell door to silently unlock and it did.

He left his body and connected with the ship’s security, turning off the hallway visual feeds. Gunner suppressed the sirens. They powered back on a second later.

Power. Power was better than patience.

He leaned his head back and groaned. Although in pain, his body had become a beacon, a lodestone, and he could give or take as much as he wanted.

If it came down to a race of who got what they wanted first, him or the pricks who took his ship, he was damn sure he was going to win. Even if how he won was unconventional.

He rose to his feet, feeling good, and unzipped his pants. His ears pricked to the snore and grunts of those around him, his focus on full alert as he released his cock and pissed.

Your ship’s mine now.

Gunner watched the stream vanish to wherever it would go, knowing that his scent was marking the vessel from the inside out. He flicked his flaccid thumb, finding enjoyment in the discomfort of his swollen and weak skin while his scent overpowered all others.

He looked over his shoulder at Ely who had clenched his eyes shut.

Strike for female.

Gunner moved around his cell and marked every corner, spraying what was now his—the hallway beyond and the cell door, putting special attention into the handle. He continued until his smell bled into Royce’s unit and the spaces outside but stopped at the bars he shared with Ely. When his water stores were depleted, and the nanocells he had distributed throughout dried, cleaned up, and claimed, he zipped up his fly and sat up against the bars nearest his own little entertainment.

“You can open your eyes now,” he said.

Sagging forward, Ely sighed and frowned, but ultimately opened his eyes and looked back at him. His lips pursed and moved though no words came out. Gunner couldn’t stop his grin from growing, and the larger it got, the more Ely responded. Nostrils flared and back upright, Ely searched his cell and grimaced.

“Do you want to know why I pissed all over everything?” he goaded under his breath.

Ely looked his way, brow furrowed. He’s angry.

Why is he angry? His entertainment got a little more entertaining.

His mouth opened, closed, and opened again, and a long whistle of air blew out between his lips. Speak Ely, speak. Gunner felt like a canine giving a kitten commands, and unlike his Canis mesomelas DNA, he knew a cat couldn’t be commanded. A human could.

“Why?” Ely breathed out.

The word flooded his ears like a triumphant cleansing and he gripped the bars between them. He pressed forward, his nose pushing into Ely’s space, making him startle back. Why? A single syllable, gruff and low, hidden underneath practice and intrigue. Gunner was intrigued. That word went right to his head and embedded into his systems. It replayed, again and again, the tone, hue, and context and it all...

Screamed feminine.

You’ve outed yourself, woman.

Gunner sucked in the newly scented air of the brig, trying to smell only her, but found his own scent overpowering it. His hold on the bars wrenched, annoyed, thwarted again in his effort for answers. His healing thumb ached and burned under the pressure and the metal beneath his fingers bent.

‘Why?’ Ely’s voice had been feminine and angry. Ely went from possibly being a man in his head to unquestionably being a woman.

Prove me wrong, he thought to himself, demanding his own technology to do so and silently demanding her.

Gunner regained control and released the bars. I need her to get closer, need to smell what’s really her. Suddenly, the power he had attained melted into the past and impatience reclaimed its spot on the throne of his central mainframe.

His focus returned in a blink of the eye and he answered her, “I was marking my territory.”

Her wide-eyed exhausted fear dimmed ever-so-slightly.

Please...

Ely parted her cracked and dirty lips.

Please speak again.

“It’s not yours,” she said.

His mouth curved into a lopsided smile as he added her words to the rest he now owned.

“Are you so sure about that?”

She briefly glanced around his space again, the anger from before flaring back up. “Yes.”

“Everything I touch is mine. For as long as I want it to be,” he stated.

“No, it’s not. That cell isn’t yours. You’re a dead man and just don’t realize it yet. We all know that you’re different and they want something from you that they don’t want from us. That cell,” she pointed, “belongs to someone else.”

“Who?”

She clamped her lips.

“Who?” he asked again, feeling oddly threatened.

Gunner didn’t want her to stop talking; he hadn’t collected enough of her words. It was hard enough prying information out of her, but if she stopped speaking now, there was a chance she might not speak to him again.

He pointedly looked behind her at Kallan’s sleeping lump.

Ely got his drift when she interceded. “Don’t.”

“I won’t.” Neither of them wanted Kallan to awaken. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

Ely didn’t answer and Gunner wondered what she was thinking. Hell, he wondered how she even got herself stuck in a brig filled with scum. Even he was considered scum. Scum of the Earth. Scum of the universe. Scum of a thousand Cyborgs because he forcibly destroyed the control that often sustained their decisions to be lost deep within himself. He had no time for restraint and because of that, he was a malfunctioning, untrustworthy piece of technology as far as the Earthian government was concerned.

When she continued to stare at him, her eyes lost, her thoughts somewhere else, Gunner kept going.

“Talk to me,” he said, unsure why, but he knew he wanted more from her. “Just talk to me and pass the time. If I’m going to be dragged out and killed at any hour, how can a little conversation hurt?”

The glazed look in her eyes vanished and she focused on him again. “I’m not a woman,” she said unexpectedly. “I have a dick, I like women, I don’t like men. If you’re trying to play some idiotic game with me, let me give you the truth straight up. There’s no game here.” Ely gripped her shirt and let it go. “I’ll talk to you if you answer my questions and... I’ll answer yours. With the truth. But If we’re going to start off then we should get that out between us now because I’ve had enough of Kallan’s shit and,” she narrowed her eyes. “I’d like to make a deal.”

Strike... Damn it. Gunner pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth to stop from bursting out with laughter.

A question for a question. A lie for a lie. His eyes roamed from Ely’s face to slither over her body. She adjusted her crotch in an effort to throw him off. But you adjusted it wrong. It’s to the left or right. There’s no space to go center.

“I never thought you were a woman,” he pseudo lied and looked back at her face. “And you’re not my type. Even pretty boys don’t do it for me.” Gunner shrugged. “I personally like a nice, clean pussy, preferably wet and clenching because it can’t wait to be fed my cock. The kind accompanied by a pretty face and a nice body. Yeah. You know what I mean.” He closed his eyes as if he were picturing it. “Submissive little thing that’ll writhe at my touch and’ll take it any way I give it to her.” He moved so that his back was to the wall and settled in. “Damn. I could go for cunt right now.”

“I know what you mean...” she said, voice strained.

Gunner sniffed the air and came up with nothing but his own scent, damning himself for adding more obstacles to smell through. “When’s the last time you had a woman? A real woman. Not one of those overused sexbots?”

He peered her way but couldn’t spy a blush under the dirt on her cheeks.

“Is this what you really want to talk about? I have terms to my deal.”

“Sure. What’re your terms? Mine’s conversation.”

Gunner stiffened when she did something he hadn’t expected. Ely shifted closer to him and sat on the other side of the bars. He sniffed again. He could just discern light, faded tendrils of her smell and he realized it was that strange, alluring scent he had encountered when he first arrived.

He shifted a little closer to her and when she didn’t move back, he wanted to howl in satisfaction because if he were right...

This was the first time a woman, a real female, willingly chose to get closer to him. That not only was he in the presence of real one—brought by a bad twist of fate—but one who wanted to be in his presence.

“This is my territory. This right here. You won’t touch me, won’t reach through my bars, won’t try to hurt me in any way while I’m right here. If you want to try and claim your space then I want to claim mine. And this spot is my safe spot.”

“Fine,” he said. “Deal.”

“I’m not done. Just because you say deal doesn’t mean I’ll ever trust you. The moment you break the terms is the moment this conversation ends.”

Gunner suppressed a grin.

***

SHE WAS BEING BOLDER than she ever had been before and it felt good. Elodie knew not all the men imprisoned with her were bad. The verdict was still out with Gunner, but she could pretend to let her guard down—at least until he let down his own. Get what she wanted from him and then let him rot if the time ever came.

She leaned her shoulder into the bars erected between them and rested her forehead against them like she had so many times in the past with her dad. It felt good to do so. When he made no move to touch her, hurt her, do anything to her, an itch of unease bloomed in her stomach.

“I want to know what you saw when they took you outside the brig,” she whispered. “Who you saw.”

He rolled his head in her direction. “You planning on trying to escape?”

It crossed her mind constantly but telling him may not be such a good idea. Elodie mulled over what to say when the lights brightened above her signaling the end to yet another rest cycle.

She blinked back the light from her eyes until she could see clearly again. Some of the men around her groaned and sat up. Tension filled the brig as it did with each new morning-cycle as everyone’s thoughts briefly aligned—would they receive a morning ration?

She lifted her head from the bars and moved slightly away, not wanting anyone in the cells around her to know she’d gotten closer to Gunner.

Close enough to lean on the bars at least.

Her stomach tightened as she joined the masses watching the door. In the fake day-cycle light, her situational weariness returned, and with it, her choice to bridge the gap between her and her new cell neighbor.

“Are. You. Trying. To escape?” The harsh words rasped in her ear.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Then why do you want to know what’s happening outside those doors?”

Elodie stuck out her chin.

“Well?”

She willed the door to open and reveal her dad—her dad and the morning meal—but the stranger next to her kept interrupting her fantasies.

“If you’re trying to escape, you’re going to fail. Trust me, you’d fail.”

No, I won’t. No, I wouldn’t. Her heart beat a little faster at the prospect. The door remained shut and her stomach caved in a little more. Of course, I would, she sighed. Wait for the opportunity...

“I already know how to escape,” she said, suddenly filled with anger and sadness, but most of all hunger. She noticed him lean closer from the corner of her eye.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“Someone,” she gritted out.

“Who?”

This time she could almost feel the heat of his breath rush across her cheek. Elodie glanced his way and she wished she hadn’t, finding his bleeding red eyes in place of his dead ones. Why are they red again? A shiver ran through her with the energy of a half-starved woman.

“I have one more term for our deal,” she said instead of answering him.

Gunner gave her the grim-reaper of all smiles. “What?”

She cocked her head and looked at Royce. She whispered, “I want your jacket.” How much is her voice worth?

Gunner looked over at Royce. He stayed in that position for an uncomfortable amount of time.

Elodie was happy she couldn’t see his face.

Silence fell between them and things slowly returned to normal.

And to her surprise—after she had given up on food that morning—she heard the brig door opening. As usual, a guard walked through, followed by an android. They stopped one by one at every cell and distributed the rations. And like every day, the guard would peer in and stare at each prisoner, acting a king.

She hated it, hated their eyes on her, hated always being afraid that somehow, someday, they’d look at her and really see her.

It made her heart race time and time again as the outcome of that nightmare played out. If she gave up her secret, it would be because it was her choice, not because someone took it from her.

Elodie dropped her head and let her hair fall forward. She raised one knee to her chest, hunching her back, all while trying to make her body look smaller; small enough to disappear, small enough to hide behind the thin rails of the bars.

The guard stepped up to Gunner’s cell and grunted.

“Thought the boss’d do more to you than that,” he said. “Never seen a man leave him without eyes swollen shut and blood vessels popped.”

“He and I came to an arrangement,” Gunner replied.

Elodie tilted her head to watch the exchange. The guard had realized something she hadn’t...

His bruises are gone.

She pulled her knee closer to her chest. How?

“What kind of arrangement would that be?”

“You might want to ask him. Not sure if he’d appreciate me telling the delivery boy.”

The guard shot his arm out before the android could drop the rations into his cell, stopping it. “Ah, too bad for you then.” He smirked. “I heard going hungry is a real pain, not the kind of pain a man chooses if otherwise possible, but that’s okay, maybe you’ll choose better next time.”

He moved toward her cell.

“You might want to rethink that.” Gunner’s voice rose louder than before, making her heart skip a beat, remembering what he sounded like moments prior, just above a whisper.

“What’d you say?” the guard asked, facing Gunner again.

He stood.

Elodie was going to vomit bile as he approached the guard.

“The new guy’s got a death wish,” Kallan breathed on the other side of her.

“I said you might want to rethink that,” Gunner said, his voice filled with eerie warning.

“Rethink what?”

He motioned toward the rations. “That.”

“The food, you little fuck?”

“You got it. I knew someone on this ship had to be intelligent,” Gunner taunted. The guard tensed, his hand falling on the rod hanging from his side. “That’s right. Beat the crap out of me, don’t give me my rations, and when I speak to your captain again and come back without a wound, I’ll tell him all about this. Tell him all about his peon overstepping himself.”

He was lying. She’d seen how greatly wounded he’d been the day before. She glanced around at the other prisoners but they all looked on with morbid curiosity. Did no one else notice his bruises yesterday?

Her attention returned to Gunner. She didn’t want to see him beaten, didn’t want any violence to take place. And she realized something else that infuriated her...

She cared.

The guard backed up a step but his smile stayed in place until he began to laugh. He gripped the handle of his prod and bellowed. The hoarse glee was forced and strained and sinister and it went on and on. The more he laughed, the more it pained to her eardrums. Each hiccup and grunt became a punch to the gut and it felt like an eternity had passed before it finally stopped and the insanity he created died back into silence.

Elodie lifted her palms from her ears without realizing she’d placed them there to begin with.

“You’re funny. You’re real fucking funny,” the guard wheezed through chuckles. His horrible laughter picked up again and she truly thought she’d dropped down into wonderland.

“Please make it stop,” she whispered.

And suddenly, it did. Gunner’s voice boomed through the sound, “You never know.” He shrugged, his lips twisted into a smile. “But you really should think about your own skin a little more. You might not be wearing it tomorrow.”

Without tossing Gunner his ration, the guard humphed and moved on to her cell with a smirk on his face. Her food was dropped, and then Kallan’s, and then everyone else’s down her row until he had finished his circuit and returned to Gunner’s cell. He leisurely ate the rest of the rations in front of him—in front of all of them—and made a show of it.

With one last horrible laugh, he left.

Elodie looked down at her portion not feeling hungry for the first time in weeks.