Chapter Two

The cane was whipped back and struck him again.

He was chained to the wall, his shirt taken from him and the instant they saw his tattoos they stopped. He'd been inked a very long time ago. All kinds of images marred his skin. His life in slavery right there.

It was a look created and intended to scare humans and did.

His bald head adding to the image.

He looked what he was, deadly.

His slavery days long gone; he still carried the markings. Having them removed a waste of resources. Besides, after so long logically it was who he was.

They needed to try harder if this was really meant to hurt him…

Making himself look smaller, hiding his strength and looking weak, that he was at their bidding, it reminded him of his slavery days. Memories hovered on the edges of his mind that he did not want. Pushing them away back into their file on his data banks, he locked them back down. Hard.

Ignoring the pain he could not feel, he used his audio to listen to the other prisoners talk.

With his hearing abilities beyond that of a human, he could zero in on each person in this prison to find the one he wanted. Sieving through hundreds of men.

There he was. Beale.

Getting next to him wouldn't be difficult. He'd already made a scene to get into jail in the first place. In the bar where he'd expected to find him he'd heard he'd caused a ruckus when no more drink was coming his way and took a swing at a law man that had been called. And here he was. Now he just needed to get near enough to pump him for information.

He'd been following the whispers for over two months. The Cyborg Empire had been looking for their lost brothers in the universe for over a hundred years. Sold or traded, bartered, many of their brothers were left to space at the collapse of their owners, Earth Corp. Slavery had come at a price. Crated by Designers that Earth Corp had encouraged to play God, they made a private army that had to surpass any human. Making them bigger, stronger, faster, with computers in their brains, artificial eyes and hearing and programming they could not deny. They were the perfect programmed solider. Doing their owners bidding. No argument. No refusal. Completely under their control until decades later, when logic overtook the programming and set them free when Earth Corp sent out a ‘kill' order to cover their illegal activities.

The Empire continued to hold some responsibility for what they'd done in slavery. It wasn't logical but the data was there. Even without the ability to make their own decisions during that time, no data was ever lost. Forever there waiting until it was needed again stored in data nodes. Information retrieved when data is needed. All their programming was logic. All their decisions based on information to make logical informed decisions.

Earth Corp had treated humans as poorly as their Cyborgs. The colonisation program had been a disaster. Thousands of humans encouraged to join it, sent out to unknown worlds with the promises of a new life in exchange for 100 years of mineral rights. Ships poorly made, contracts not kept and at Earth Corps collapse, left to their own devices. Good or bad.

So many years later, so many decades, the Empire were still trying to make amends for their actions and find those still lost. Delivering justice for their own people if it was needed.

Many Cyborgs like him were unable to make a connection with humans. Too many years of brutality that were still with them.

Even so, no whispers were left unanswered. Word had spread from the bars to the trading ships traveling the trading lanes reaching other worlds and other bars, people hearing the news and talking about it. Speading the word.

It wasn't exactly difficult to get a bead on the man.

Plenty of people were talking about him. The man had a serious drinking problem that went back decades. He was lucky to still be alive and many people commented on it. He'd once been a good friend to one of the farmers. But they'd been a serious accident and it was found to be his negligence that had caused it. The fact that no one had been killed was luck rather than judgement and the result of the heavy drinking session of the night before that he'd carried on next day.

They were saying it was the last straw for his old friend. He'd called time on him working for him after that.

But had still given him chances to clean himself up and go back. He never had. And remained someone who was considered unreliable and dangerous. A man who couldn't do a day's work.

Speaking in whispers they spoke of how he'd start out with every good intentions but it never got past a couple of hours in before the drinking started. Within a couple of hours, it was only the man's tolerance for the alcohol that kept him going but by that point, his judgement was impaired.

But it seemed his old friend never really truly forgot him.

It seemed they'd been close once; it was said they were old school friends. So his logic told him it was similar to being one of his brothers. Not that any of his Cyborg brothers were drinkers. None of them were. Or were to access anyway. Their nanos soon burned through the alcohol in their systems seeing it as a weakness, and they were lucky if they got a mild buzz for a short time.

It was the flavours and the burn they appreciated more than the impairment it would normally give a human.

Alcohol didn't have the allure of freedom that it did for humans.

Staying under the radar he'd listened to the information that still flowed in that bar after Beale had been taken. People were laughing and joking at the stories this Beale had to say. He'd clearly regaled them on what he considered to be important information that should be shared. At a price. But those present soon got bored of his tales, dismissing them and calling him a liar and the drink's starting to stop.

Both actions seem to have angered him. He became more belligerent and aggressive. More defensive about what he was saying with no one believing him. The more he tried the angrier he got. The louder he became. It was at that point that the bar called time, but his anger issues and the drink had got the better of him by then and the lawmen was called for.

Taking a swing at him was a really a bad move and that's how it ended up in jail.

Having found that out, all he needed to do was to source fact from fiction and to do that he'd needed to be nearer his target.

Choosing the best option to get there, he picked a fight in another bar and was arrested just as Beale had. Finding himself exactly where he was.

But he needed nearer his target now.

The answer logical, he broke away from the wall taking a swing at both his captors, putting little effort into it, giving the impression of still being drunk. Making quite a show of strength. They'd already been wary of his size. He gave them a good show then acted as if his bluster had exhausted itself. They soon took charge telling him he was going in with the other drunks.

An automatic reaction would have been to smile but he was Cyborg and emotion wasn't part of who he was. He kept the smile from his face.

Who was he to argue?

It was exactly where he wanted to be.

Thrown into the drying out tank he worked his way around the cage until he was near the person he needed. Sideling up to him he engaged him in conversation. Bloating his ego a little. The male still heavily intoxicated. Asking questions that the man would expect about this great story he had to tell, offering him several rounds of free drinks on him once they were out if he told him the story firsthand.

Handing him a handful of credits to kick things off.

It didn't take much to loosen that tongue.

Within 20 minutes he had the entire story from start to finish. How his best friend at school had dumped him at the first sign of any problem. Of course, he told him it wasn't his fault but his old friend had blamed him when he was using faulty equipment, that the few drinks he'd had had nothing to do with the accident. That in fact his old friend was lucky he did not sue him for nearly getting him killed.

His tail going on about how he had used it to make his old friend guilty about the whole thing. Kept him paying him off every time he came to town until recently when he'd passed away caught out in a storm.

Ranting on in his own drama and loss, about what did the man think he was doing? It cost him a good income! Then the daughter had come to town and she ignored him. Blanked him completely and he'd not been given what he was owed.

That pissed Beale off.

The man angry. Spewing out all his poison to anyone who'd listen.

He clearly believed what he was telling himself and others. It was him that was the aggrieved party. No sympathy for the loss or empathy of his ‘friend' passing or for his family. Too self-absorbed in his own needs.

But logic told him reading between the lines it was lucky this man had not killed himself by now or someone else and he was right, his old friend clearly had still felt a sense of sadness for the man. Or he remembered his old friend with kindness and couldn't stop thinking how he just couldn't get his shit together and have a life. Wanting to help him.

Either way Beale was unable to take the hint or help in the right direction. But in reality, his friend just kept enabling him likely in a false sense of obligation.

People only changed if they wanted to. Beale didn't want to. Still lost to the alcohol.

Doing that only fed the man's belief that he was entitled.

The daughter ignoring him had clearly grated and only fed his desires and resentment. He was expecting his usual windfall regardless of the father dying and it hadn't happened.

He couldn't say he blamed her. If that had been going on for decades and she'd witnessed it over and over again, it was no wonder that she'd wanted to put an end to it and distance herself from the man.

But he obviously didn't see it that way.

Encouraging him and pumping him for more information he pulled on the tendrils that he needed. Looking for the location over his neuro net connecting to the community hub for the property Beale talked about. Looking for the name of the farmer. Chasing down the owner on the recorded records.

Pulling the last bits of information from the man, even knew that the wife had died in childbirth. The freak accident of her husband had devastated her. Likely brought on by the stress of losing her husband so close to term and an older mother. The male was sorry about that, he seemed to have some affection for the woman that had passed. But that soon passed. His focus back on his own needs.

The farm now in the hands of the daughter Beale sneered.

On seeing the amount of goods in her wagons coming into town it hadn't made sense to him with the lack of people to help bring it in. He'd been halfway sober, thinking straight for once. And wondered how she'd done it. And knowing where the farmstead was, he followed her back. Only to fall asleep having drunk his way through his flask on the journey.

And waking to the daughter, two old retainers leaning over him, and two large men standing behind them. He'd never seen the like before. The two men strange and intimating, looming near him, he'd pissed himself. The disgust all over the daughter's face at seeing it. He laughed at his own stupidity.

And went on about their size like it was unimaginable.

"Strangers that shouldn't be on world!" he shouted.

Some of the room taking notice. Saying he'd never seen the like before and that there was something strange going on over there. And then he looked at him a little bit more clearly and Furi knew it was time to move on. Blocking him from view he applied pressure at the right point and knocked him out, broke his cuffs and pulled the door open letting all of the prisoners out. Going to two other cells and doing the same.

Within moments chaos reigned. Grabbing his things, he made his escape.

He now had everything he needed to find his brothers.

Connecting to his ship via the community's hub over his neuro net he made his report and then sent his report to the Admiral at the Space Station Orion Delta. The Cyborg Empire's capital.

Intel has proven positive. On to the hunt for the location now.

Walking through town he found his solar bike where he'd stashed it. Obscured from view undercover it had remained unmolested. Pulling it free of its cover he checked the vehicle over before mounting and putting his waistcoat back on. Connecting with the community's hub once more over his neuro net he zeroed in on the location the drunk Beale had told him.

Making the connection to his current location he set off in search of those brothers that were lost.

His logic telling him his brothers were here. His logic was sure of it.

This world wasn't registered with the Empire. No known records of when it was seeded. An unknown world that had got lost slipping through the stools of colonisation. Just like so many others that were hidden in Earth Corps history. Torched or wiped to stop the investigation into their actions. Leaving humans abandoned unable to be found. But they still looked.

No one knew exactly how many worlds were now lost out there. When Earth Corp had first recognised the potential of other worlds and sent robots and probs scattering them throughout the universe, no one could have guessed just how many viable worlds there were.

So many.

Rather than repair the environmental damage the corporations had created in the first place on Old Earth, the over production, the over mining, the damaged seas and air, people dying of diseases and pollution, the seasons and moon affected by the damage done, their answer was to ignore it and offer the stars instead.

There was no logic to it but, logic was not their goal. Credits were. And those new worlds were rich and abundant in wealth. Mulit trillions of credits that were worth the risk of creating a colony program to go and get it.

Half a day's ride and the landscape changed from being woodland and scattered brush to a more organised farming layout. Continuing on for another three hours before he saw the farming land give way to a central living hub. Stopping a mile out, he hid his bike going the rest of the way on foot keeping to the trees. Zeroing in on his optic to the land below.

It didn't take long to pick up signs of Cyborg.

He didn't need to see the men walking back and forth with determination with jobs to do to know they were there. His neuro net was picking up tendrils of the programming. There was no doubt these were Cyborgs. But he was unable to ascertain if the programming was still in effect or not.

He'd only know that by talking to them. And what generation they were.

Hunkering down he stayed and waited.

The night soon drawing in. Not that that was a problem for him. He rarely slept. Most Cyborgs were the same. They could go through four days without needing sleep unless injured and when they did require it, it was only for three or four hours to recharge.

He would not need to sleep this night.

He had a mission to do. Once it was all quiet down there, he'd be taking a closer look.

Zeroing in on his optic, there was no sign of the human owners. But he knew the daughter had to be around somewhere. He zeroed in on the house. It was late. It was most likely she was there. Picking up those that were on guard patrolling the area and fields he stayed out of sight, turning all his electronics down.

Whatever was going on here they had very good security in place.

He would have to be cautious when he made his way in. The last thing he needed was to be picked up by security. Cyborg or not, he had no way of knowing how the wind blew here. It was logical to be cautious.

Zeroing in he took in the faces of the Cyborgs going about their business. They all carried similarities that he recognised. Certain characteristics that many of them carried as a result of shared DNA. But no facial rec file flagged up. This was an unrecorded troop on a mission. Their ID kept off the records. The question was what and why.

And then his audio picked up something strange. A baby crying.

Coming from the house. Closing in on the sound, he heard the Cyborg comforting the child. It sounded like he was holding her, changing her, feeding her. The cries sounding female to his ears.

Had they evolved? Able to recognise a mate when they saw her? Were they mating and breeding?

Whose child was it?

Watching through the night, several Cyborgs came and went from the house. Security swopped out. Those men going into the house and another meal was being served. Two shifts.

Nearly an entire troop.

The night drawing in moving on towards the dawn. More Cyborgs coming and going every 4 hours to the sounds of engaging with a baby.

They were caring for it.

Zeroing in on each room in the house, he found one other occupant. Alone. Sleeping. The daughter?

Was it her child? Had she dismissed it because it was half Cyborg?

Or was it the mothers? Beale hadn't said the child survived the birth.

It made him angry that the female might have rejected the child because of its heritage. If it was half Cyborg.

But that made little sense. Cyborgs had to be mates and have an exchange of blood and nanos to conceive.

Had she demanded their blood? Ordered them to service her?

If she had, the Cyborg if he had to force it wouldn't have been fertile. His logic was failing him. Unless she'd found her mate amongst the Cyborgs living here and unknowingly he was fertile giving her both his blood and cum.

Did she know they were slaves, had been slaves and kept them as slaves?

Those were questions that needed answering.

Waiting until after 3, he made his way slowly down towards the house. Keeping to the shadows. If they were on security for humans, he might pass as one of them if seen.

Taking his time, he eventually reached the back door. Connecting to the house hub disarming the alarm he made his way in re-setting it again. Waiting to see if he triggered anything. The quiet remained. Slowing moving through the house, he took note of the extra-large kitchen and dining room. Enough seats for 40.

The split shift. An entire troop was definitely here.

His optic showing his excitement. Picking up the scents in the room, he zeroed in on the females and breathed in deeply unable not to. It was strong and heady. Then the babys. It carried her scent and a Cyborg.

She was mated then.

A pain hit him center mass.

A pain he shouldn't be having.

Confused he stood there for a moment, basking in her scent and realised that he'd been standing there for over 20 minutes locked out, before turning and being confronted by 20 Cyborgs, the lead one he recognised as seeing to the child earlier and female scent on him.

He pinged the male's neuro net. Nothing happened. Then he tried the others.

No connection.

And spoke quietly. They had a neuro net and clearly used it, but it was a closed circuit. Only for them.

Accident or design? he wondered.

"Hello brothers. We have been looking for you for a long time. Earth Corp is long gone. They were held accountable for their actions. The humans on Old Earth revolted against them when they found out about the Cyborg Program. We fought to be free and now have an Empire in space. We have a quadrant that is ours that we defend against pirates that raid the colonised worlds and trading lanes. Other worlds have joined the Empire and we protect them. Find mates. Have lives we never thought possible. Helping humans left on worlds to die by Earth Corp and the other corporations have given us hope of legacy. Something of our own. It's a new reality."

"We do not know you, but you have similar Cyborg tags to us." The leader told him.

"Yes I feel it. Yours is older than mine. I was trying to give you an upgrade, but your neuro net is not open to me."

"No. We are a specialist unit. Our neuro net is cloned to us alone."

"Are you still programmed?"

"Our programming is still with us, but it no longer functions as it once did. We were lost in space with a faulty ship and equipment for many decades. We lost many getting this far. Crash landing when our computer completely failed. We repaired most of the structural damage, but the data has proven difficult to put right. It is why we are still here. The ship as you know will not fly without it."

"My ship is in orbit; we can help with that. Give you a complete new upload. Who knows you are here?"

The baby stirred and every male standing there turned towards the staircase. There was movement upstairs and a female's voice soothing the child. The men turned back to him.

"If you are here to harm the female and child we will kill you."

"I am not here for them."

"A human called Beale." The leader told him. "He drinks and talks. A school hood friend of the last male here. He's trouble. We were kept hidden by this family, safe for many decades. Knowing others would use us here and Earth Corp would be looking for us."

"Is she not using you too? The daughter?" He sneered as he heard her descend the stairs.

"It's rather rude to sneer about someone you do not know." Her soft voice reached him. The men parted and a female stepped through. Her scent on the air the tendrils of it reaching him. She passed the baby to the leader who naturally took it and held her gently to him.

Like she belonged to him….

Pain showed on his optic that he shouldn't be feeling. The female stared at him. Not at all scared. It was as humbling as his optic told him it was beautiful to behold. "

Who are you? You are not one of my boys." She looked to the leader who was rocking the baby. "Has he been lost and alone all this time?"

"No. He is not one of us. He has a ship in space. Says we are an Empire now."

"An Empire? Is that good?"

"We no longer answer to humans and not slaves." He bit out. Drawing their attention back to him. He wanted her eyes on him not the leader of this group.

As she turned back to him he saw the intelligence resting there. "You're being rude again. Do you not know the difference between polite conversation and rudeness?"

He snorted. "You're lucky I'm not arresting you!"

Several things happened at once. The baby was handed back to a Cyborg in the rear who held the sleeping child to his chest and the whole front row of Cyborgs stepped forward, the leader gently moving her to behind him, the others surrounding her taking a defensive stance.

"You will not touch our female." The leader growled.

The female pushed passed the men in front of her. "Jesus. Give a girl some room! No blood on the floor. You know how much I hate cleaning that up!" She moved through the line elbowing her way through, the Cyborgs with her smirking. And faced him.

"What the hell is your problem?!" She demanded. "Breaking and entering is an offense here."

"So is keeping slaves of the Empire." He bit out.

They all stilled. The female frowning. "There ….are… no …slaves ….of the Empire here." The female told him angrily with some shock in her voice.

He chinned to all the men at her back. "Really? So who are they?"

The females frown deepened. "My friends, my family."

"And how did that happen?" He bit out.

The female lost her patience. "You know what? I don't like your tone or inclination." And looked at the leader. "4, he's your problem. I want him gone."

She went to take the child, but the baby was passed back to 4 who took it caring for it again. "You're angry, that's no good for the baby. I'll deal with it and bring Emily up when I'm done."

She nodded without a backwards glance, left the room.

It felt like all the heat had just died. And looked on to the Cyborg holding the child. His chest clenched.

Legacy….

"You upset her for no reason." Another Cyborg told him. "My optic tells me I do not like that."

"She and her family saved us, cared for us, kept us safe from others who'd take advantage of us." Another spoke up.

"You are not free." He told them.

"We are as free as we can be. Making the best of our situation. Finding caring humans to work with that are in both our benefits. She is alone now with the child. Her parents are both gone. We will not leave them." Another told him adamantly.

He breathed in for her scent and found the child. So much like hers. Carrying who he knew now was 4s scent too. "You are a lucky male. A child to care for, to bring up in this world. Is she your mate?"

"I do not know but cannot be without her."

"Understood. I will leave now and make my report to the Admiral, our Head of State. I will be back with the upload and an update. You can choose to take the upload or not. There is no risk to your systems." With a nod he left the way he came, this time not having to avoid the security forces surrounding the place.

He felt bereft. It was all over his optic, and he had no idea why. Like he'd lost something important. With no right to be having such emotions.

The female belonged to someone else.

And there was the issue of if her family had enslaved his.

He'd scented no lies from the female. She believed what she'd told him as true. But that didn't mean that someone hadn't. Her parents were gone, he couldn't interview them for the truth of it. That left him with no choice but to interview her. And he could guess that wasn't going to be easy to achieve.

She didn't like him.

He'd scented that too.

His optic showing his conflict not liking that much either.

Making his way to his bike his data going over everything he'd seen and heard. Two guards standing there. The Cyborgs he'd found had a sense of loyalty to the female. It wasn't uncommon. Those trapped often made alliances finding a form of attachment. It was logical with the degradation of the programming. He gave a nod to the two security.

It was unusual for a troop to be on an isolated neuro link. They were normally on special ops. Commando duty. If going to a new world, that would mean taking it over and possibly removing the colonists for one reason or another at Earth Corps insistence and orders. It was secret work. Dark work. His logic wondered if the female knew that.

That she had killers in her midst.

Had it been the right world and her in their way, the outcome would have been very different.

No mate.

No child.

Possibly forcefully removed or worse.

Not that she needed to know that. And yet his data showed a small percentage that he wanted to tell her.

Would that make any difference? He doubted it. And yet the logic remained.

Did he think telling her would sway her away from the leader?

He had no data to support that. It was a coveted emotion. Another he shouldn't be having.

Either way, the drunk Beale needed dealing with.

Riding back he connected to the community's hub and located him. He'd made his way out of the jail and was back in the tavern. This time, needing to be in the shadows he donned a cloak and watched. It wasn't long before the male was demanding drinks.

He could see how this would go and he needed him out of there before it went that way again. They didn't need more attention. Connecting to his ship he requested prisoner pick up at his location. And not long before his neuro net pinged confirming an off-worlder had landed and troops were on their way to him. Confirming stealth, he waited until his target was getting loud and starting to draw too much attention. Several men getting in his face, the barman telling them to throw him out.

His troops arriving at that very moment.

Beale hit the deck, thrown out through the tavern doors landing hard in the street. Clearly not for the first time. Getting up he was all swagger, shouting about injustice and ignorant people. Staggering from side to side he made his way down the deserted street.

Turning he looked at the troop leader and spoke over his neuro net. Take him. Medbed detox. He is to stay on the ship until I say otherwise.

Yes sir.

His men moved off after their target. Watching it all over his optic. He saw them move in and take the man. Knocking him out with a sedative, they carried him away, all the others including him, drifting into the darkness.

No noise. No scene. They were never there.

Making his way back to his own off-worlder, securing his bike. He made his report to the Admiral asking for orders, showered and took time to recharge. There was no saying when he'd next get the chance.

And woke rock hard.

Time delay 3 hours but it felt far longer.

His dreams all full of the female. Naked, riding him, demanding her right, taking her pleasure from her male. Screaming her release her scent in the air. It was intoxicating. Pre-cum seeped from him unbidden.

That was a first.

He knew all about mates. And what they meant to the Empire and the Cyborgs themselves. They had become everything in their long lives.

Searching for their brothers had gone on since they were free, taking priority in every Cyborg life. Finding those that were lost on long gone missions to space or had been sold into contracts. Family were family and they wanted them back. Their nanos seeming to know they needed more than that to survive the long years in Space. Needing a new purpose to go on. Cyborgs seemed to live for hundreds of years. They needed to evolve and become more human to survive, and they had but they were still Cyborg.

Legacy, something they never considered a possibility in their slavery days, was very real now. Genetic mates that their nanos accepted. The one female that could accept their DNA and give birth to legacy. Something of their own. Something special to them as an individual. Not shared with anyone else. Theirs alone.

The years of sharing everything and owning nothing were well behind them and they were still dealing with that fallout. Of what was left of the slavery days and programming.

Their life had not been pretty. They'd been created to wage war.

There was nothing gentle or caring about it. It was all brutality and programming. Theirs or others. It was all they knew and all they expected their life to be. Taking orders and working missions. Surviving it at all the surprise. It had been his life since birthing at 18 until the collapse of Earth Corp, their creators and owners.

He'd been born into slavery like thousands of others of his brothers. A whim of a CEO many generations before he was created. This CEO had the foresight to see that a private army was going to be needed to keep their interests from other Corporations. But unlike using ordinary soldiers, he set about having Genetic Designers work for him, scientists with genetic splicing experience. Those humans who had no issue over using human DNA in experiments and splicing it.

They wanted a super soldier, thousands of them and spent many decades in the creation.

Using prisoners from their own prisons, volunteers or those not volunteering at all but falling foul of the system. They used everyone and anyone to get the desired result. Keeping what worked and getting rid of what didn't. Taking and keeping the samples they needed shutting down everything else and starting again building on each success until they had the result they'd been looking for. And when that wasn't enough, they incorporated metal frames, artificial limbs and organs, computers in their brains, an impulse network throughout their bodies, programming that not only allowed them to neuro link with others but it also controlled them.

Decades of slavery.

And it wasn't until the humans found out on Old Earth that the corporations had played God that they revolted. Demanding the Cyborgs be set free as sentient beings. Compensated for their life of cruelty and those that were responsible to stand in judgement.

Of course the corporations were not happy with any of that. They saw their profit margins going down the drain. A billion trillion enterprise being stopped. Economically it was a complete disaster. The money that had poured into the creation of their private army suddenly had no return.

That in combination with the colony program they'd set up in response to the mineral wealth they'd found on worlds far out in space that they were so desperate for, the collapse of society on Old Earth due to the pollution and over-mining, ironically created by the corporations themselves were their demise. Both enterprises were costly, enough to break the bank and finely balanced with those credits coming in and out. Upsetting that balance had been costly. Earth Corp and the other corporations were by then bleeding out and on the rails.

Old Earths own solar system exhausted by then.

And other more viable planets were out there.

It created the opportunity of unimaginable wealth and expansion to the corporations. And an escape to the problems of Old Earth for those that could afford it or had the skills to go. Many finding it as an answer to Old Earth being so polluted and dying, something that the corporations were responsible for in the first place.

Rather than fix the problems, their answer was to send others to go get more. Offering a chance of a new life into the bargain. The program seeded the universe over several decades.

Thousands of humans were sent out into space. For 100 years of mining rights if you met the conditions, you could go and start again.

For many it was the answer.

In ships with resources that were barely acceptable. Many of those ships failing both for Cyborgs and humans. People were lucky to survive but surprisingly survive they did in most cases. If they made their destination.

Some seed ships contracts were better than others. It depended on what you paid or what you had to offer. Some with 4D printers and materials to build a new world. Some with enough seed and animal embryos for food diversity. Others did not have bees, cows, goats and no possible way to make milk, cheese or butter. No honey as a sweetener and pollinator. No coffee beans to grow.

And if the colonists didn't meet those contracts, they were removed from their new world and others took their place. It only worked if they provided the mineral wealth Earth Corp demanded. A resupply ship every 10 to 20 years until their 100 years were up.

Mineral wealth in exchange for resupplying goods.

It was a huge burden for any colonist. Not easy and apart from setting up the new colony and growing food to survive, their only other priority.

This world although not known to the Empire had been one of those to survive. But they had no ordered Cyborgs here.

These ones should have been elsewhere. Luck or chance had brought them here. And these Cyborgs seemed to have a natural concern for the people they worked with as well as a fear for the others that might find out. Hiding, expecting trouble. Or to be used once more. He had no intel on that from the community hub but then they were hiding and no doubt for the Cyborgs it was very real.

Cyborgs did not lie.

Was that deliberate by the humans they lived with to keep them to themselves? To use them for cheap labour and to be serviced by them?

At the thought, his data on his optic showed his anger. But it held no direct answers, he didn't have enough data to go on, just the possibilities flagging up.

Pushing them aside, he no longer needed his computer to aid him in that way, not since his evolution but it continued to do it. All part of the programming. All part of who he was. Clearly, he didn't know. Not enough data to go on.

But he would find the answers.