Cyborg
be--not the utter defeat of the hunters that had been dogging them for years, but the capture of--mates for the purpose of colonization.

Chapter Three
    The ship the cyborg led Amaryllis into was a modified commercial freighter.
    Under the circumstances, one wouldn’t expect luxury. It was as well she hadn’t, for the ship looked more like some medieval dungeon than a passenger craft, even of the lowest order. Amaryllis’ tension built as it slowly, but inevitably, sank in upon her that nothing short of a suicidal attempt would win her more than a few moments of freedom. Even the sliver of a chance vanished as the cyborg forced her up the gangway and into the freighter, towing her along one dimly lit, dank passageway after another until at last they reached a large cabin that had been converted into a sickbay. It was already beginning to fill with the injured and the medics attending them. After leading her to a gurney, the cyborg ordered her to undress and climb onto it.
    As stunned as she was by everything else that had happened, Amaryllis felt still another jolt. “ You’re going to examine me?”
    He eyed her speculatively. “You would prefer another?” he responded coolly.
    “I’d prefer a medic,” Amaryllis said tartly.
    “I have the programming needed.”
    There didn’t seem much she could say to that. She didn’t know why she didn’t want him in particular to examine her. It shouldn’t have mattered one way or another.
    It did, though.
    Despite the fact that it occurred to her that she was really far better off to have a cyborg not completely programmed in medicine to examine her, she wasn’t at all keen on having him touch her.
    She reminded herself, again, that she had no choice in the matter. She was a trained soldier. She knew when the odds were stacked against her and resistance was futile. After a moment, she removed her uniform, climbed onto the gurney and lay back, staring up at the lights on the ceiling, her teeth gritted to prevent them from chattering with reaction, trying her level best to empty her mind of any thoughts at all.
    “I am called Dante.”
    She didn’t care what fucking name he’d been given. In fact, she didn’t want to know anything that would make it any more difficult for her to remember what he was.
    She preferred to simply think of him as ‘the cyborg’, a machine.
    When she glanced at him, she saw that he was holding a scanner. Her heart slammed into her ribcage and she swallowed audibly. It looked pretty antiquated, but she had a bad feeling it was functional enough to give her away.

    Her mind instantly began to flutter frantically in search of possibilities--and came upon one dead end after another. Short of leaping from the gurney and fighting her way to the door, fighting her way out of the ship and across a field swarming with cyborgs, there seemed no escape. She was a realist. Whatever advantage her cybernetic limbs gave her, it wasn’t nearly enough to overcome those kind of odds.
    “What name are you known by?”
    “Amanda Rios.” Brain malfunction. The moment the words were out of her mouth Amaryllis wondered if the head injury--or pure fear--had taken her wits completely. She’d been designated Amaryllis VH600 from the time she’d joined the militia. What had prompted her to regress to the childhood name her family had given her? Watching her life flash before her eyes? No one--except backwards terra farmers--even used such names anymore. The population in the ‘civilized’ universe had reached such proportions that it only made sense to use the codes issued by the government.
    It was too much to hope he wouldn’t notice the slip.
    He went still. “Rios?”
    Amaryllis could’ve bitten her tongue off. Try though she might, however, she couldn’t think of any way to retrieve the blunder that she thought would be the least bit believable. She should have simply given him her military designation.
    That’s what came of allowing oneself to become
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