Discovered (A Galactic Battle Series Book 2) Read online

  Discovered

  A Galactic Battle Series Book 2

  L. H. Whitlock

  Copyright © 2017 by Lyndsay Whitlock

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Lyndsay Whitlock

  All rights reserved.

  I am so blessed for having amazing fans who have been patient and understanding. Thank you for hanging in there with me.

  A special thanks to my support group. I wouldn’t have been able to finish writing Brock’s story without amazing friends and family who support me, fantastic beta readers, and my wonderful editors.

  Cover design: Lori Jackson

  Cover model: Nicholas Natt

  Body art: Alisia Silliman

  I dedicate this book to my loving husband, Joe Whitlock, who has given me my beautiful daughter, Hayley, and always reminds me to follow my dreams.

  Prologue

  Brock stared at the Developer’s ship. His chest tightened and he brought a trembling hand up to cover his mouth. How could this be happening? Why are they turning on us?

  A tingling sensation wafted over Brock’s body, making his stomach roll and his head spin. He looked down at his hands and squinted just to be sure he was really seeing what he thought he saw. His hands seemed faded, not entirely whole or real.

  “What the fuck!” he murmured, staggering back. His boots felt like they were being lifted off the floor and his body yanked upward. He was de-materializing, he realized with bone-tingling horror. Panic gripped him as his body faded once again. “They’re taking me!” he yelled desperately to the rest of his team.

  Lily sprinted across the bridge. Her aqua eyes narrowed with determination and her messy white-blonde hair fell over her face. She was going to grab him. He could tell just from the look on her face.

  “Lily, no!” Brock demanded. “Don’t you fucking dare!” He couldn’t handle the thought of her going wherever he was going. He didn’t know what the Developers’ plan was, but they obviously had their own agenda, and the Hilians, and probably the Renegade, were not a part of it.

  She continued running. Fuck. She was going to get there in time. He glanced around the room in a panic, trying to find a way to stop her. His eyes settled on Ulrick. He hated that man, but he would help. Ulrick loved Lily and would never allow her to be taken.

  “Ulrick!” Brock bit out. The Hilian moved immediately, knowing what Brock needed. In a blur, the man closed the space between himself and Lily and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him. Lily reached out for Brock and yelled, tears streaming down her face.

  But her words didn’t find their way to Brock’s ears. His head spun and spots filled his vision. He crossed his arm over his chest, a universal sign of respect. Ulrick nodded in response. Maybe the man’s not half bad. Brock laughed to himself. Who was he kidding? The Hilian was still an asshole, even if he did have a few redeeming qualities.

  Brock looked down at his fading body and before he could do anything more darkness overtook him.

  1

  Alyssa walked down the hallway of the HBDS-009, the Developers’ most advanced warship, and thought of how she was going to get herself out of this wretched mess. She would be questioned yet again tomorrow and she knew no matter how hard she pleaded for another chance she wouldn’t be given one.

  Alyssa tossed her long, blue-black hair over her shoulder and sighed, then smacked her lips together. Damn! I keep doing it! She kept showing emotion. Even with all her warnings. ‘Emotional displays are a weakness of the flesh and will not be tolerated. Those who succumb will be terminated.’ She shuddered. Hiding emotion had always been hard for her, but it was becoming increasingly so the older she got. Not to mention her life was becoming even more isolated as she realized that no matter what she did she would never fit in.

  She was nearly twenty-six, seven years older than the startup age. It was at this point when the Developers slowly got rid of their flesh body and upgraded it to an android form. She kept getting held back because she showed emotion and broke the rules. Why do I have such a hard time? Her mentors had the same problem and were eventually thrown into the planet’s core. But she had been so young, surely she should be over whatever influence they had on her by now.

  The click of her heels filled the hallway, and she stalled when she got to the threshold of the medical room. The Developers had just de-materialized all their undercover agents from within the Hilian ranks and she had been assigned to help with the advancements. Many had painfully old models that needed to be replaced with the latest technology. She wasn’t sure why she had been entrusted with this task, considering all of her violations. Maybe the higher-ups appreciated her talent as a mechanic? It was the only explanation for her being assigned to give an advancement to a war hero. What an honor. Or maybe this was a test... one with deadly consequences.

  She stepped into the medical room. Like the rest of the ship, it was designed with simple steel floors and walls, with cyborg limbs covering the back wall. There were no artwork or design features. Then again, if there were, they would be for pleasure, which was strictly forbidden. Ironic, she thought, as the Developers decorated themselves in elaborate adornments to showcase status.

  A single steel medical table sat in the center of the room with the unconscious war hero splayed out over the top. His dark brown skin clashed against the cold steel, offering a warmth she didn’t come by often. His right arm had a very old attachment, one that could transform into a machine gun but still utilized gears to help it morph instead of liquid gyrostem—an alloy of cornaform, titanium, and a half dozen other metals. It must be old… not decades old, but centuries old. She wondered if the higher-ups had noticed as well.

  Besides the tarnished metal arm, his body was molded and corded with muscle. His shoulders were broad, so much so that they filled the table, and his thick thighs stretched the fabric of his black boxers. What she found most interesting was that his chest was covered in a dusting of tight black curls, the color matching his hair and beard.

  She tilted her head and brought her pointer to her mouth, biting it in thought. A beard. The Developers didn’t have beards; they were impractical. Unable to control her curiosity, she brushed her fingers through it and drew away quickly with a slight giggle. The hair was coarse and she imagined it would tickle if it rubbed against her, though that would be rather awkward and a social violation.

  She studied his chart for a moment. His name had three different possibilities. Hmmm, maybe some records were lost? She didn’t give it much more thought. When she scanned his old attachment it would be registered to him and she would be able to clarify his identity then.

  Rust covered the old attachment and it was welded in place. Strange. Whoever his mechanic had been did not use the usual attachment method either. It was simply barbaric. She gathered her tools and quickly detached it. The metal plate covered what was left of his right arm and was bolted right into the flesh just past his shoulder and beneath his collarbone. Painful, she imagined, and holy blastos was it heavy! So heavy she had a hard time lifting it and turning it over so that she could scan the item number inside. She touched her finger to the code, allowing the scanner in her pointer to read the number, b
ut all that showed up on her RAB, her computerized armband, was an error message.

  She peered inside the mechanical arm. Most of it was full of gears and equipment that helped it morph, but the top was hollowed out. The numbers etched inside were worn with age, but she was able to make out six digits: 783-99-1. Strange. Developer attachments always utilized a nine digit code. This wasn’t registered. An illegal.

  There had been instances within history where supply ships had been stolen and attachments lost, which was why they didn’t give the extra three digits until it was issued. Had this man come across the arm in some sort of black market? Or, had whoever gave him the advancement simply forgotten to code it to him?

  She gnawed on her bottom lip, her eyes never straying from the code. She should report it but something stopped her. Is this another one of my failures to conform? She didn’t know. For some reason all she could think about was how this man had gotten this arm and what would happen to him if she reported him. She had gone through a lot of punishment for her behavior and she couldn’t imagine putting anyone else in the same position. Not until she knew more, that is.

  Gnawing on her lip, she studied the available names—she wouldn’t be able to install the attachment without registering it to someone: Ricky, Aster, or Aldridge. None of them fit his description and who knew where these missing people were? They were supposed to be included in the de-materialization. Had they just not been registered yet? Or, did they somehow perish? She released an anxious breath and picked one, hoping it was at least a little believable.

  2

  A cold, white light penetrated the serenity of sleep. Reality came to Brock in a wave of panic. Where the hell am I? He opened his eyes, but quickly closed them against the photonic onslaught. Groaning, Brock rolled and fell to the cold, hard floor. His arm took the brunt of the fall but, oddly enough, there was no pain.

  “Motherfucker,” Brock mumbled as he rolled to his hands and knees. Another bout of panic hit and he reached up, using the medical table he had been lying on to help pull himself to his feet.

  After a quick examination, he found that he still had all of his limbs. That was reassuring. What was slightly less reassuring was that his cyborg arm was no longer the same. This arm was all shiny chrome, brand spankin’ new, and it no longer pinched his nerves. In fact, he felt much stronger. He slammed his fist into the exam table. He didn’t feel a thing, but the table cratered from the impact.

  He stared at his palm; there were no seams, and everything was smooth. He willed the appendage to morph into his machine gun. His breath hitched as the arm seamlessly took the shape that he held in his mind. That’s fucking cool. With another simple thought he morphed his arm into a blade, the metal taking shape like liquid.

  He stood in some sort of examination room. An assortment of mechanical arms hung across one wall. Some were large, some short, and others were shaped into claws or blades. The floor was a solid panel, the walls a smooth silver, and paneled lights covered the ceiling.

  This isn’t my fucking ship. He rubbed his eyes in frustration. Come on, think! Where am I? What happened? Then the answers rushed into his memory and fear seized him. He had been with the Hilians. They were ambushed by Golan’s fleet, but then the Developers arrived. He cursed. Those damned cyborgs. At first he had thought they were allies; they were supposed to be, but the Developers turned their weapons on the Hilian ranks and destroyed the Hilian refugee planet, Aray.

  He thought hard. What happened next? How was he here? He vaguely remembered Lily, his best friend and teammate, running at him and his body tingling as it faded away. Oh gods! Is she here? His head snapped back and forth as he searched the cold medical room, but she wasn’t there. He released an anxious breath as he remembered Ulrick pulling Lily away from him. Thank the gods. His stomached lurched. He must have de-materialized, which sucked balls, he decided. He remembered the Hilian on the Comm saying that others were disappearing as well. But they had been cyborgs… so why… He bit out another curse. My damned mechanical arm! He had always hated that bloody thing but now it had actually caused him to be mistaken for the enemy.

  Well, I can take this one of two ways. I can find out as much as possible about the Developers and use it to my advantage or I can hightail it to the Dock and hope they have an escape pod.

  A female voice cut through the air. “Do you like it? We gave you the top of the line. Don’t worry ’bout the bill; consider it our thanks for going undercover with the Hilians.”

  Instinctively Brock spun around, his arm taking the shape of his familiar machine gun. He was going to get some answers; this bitch would be sorry she abducted him.

  Upon seeing his captor his aggression melted into embarrassment. As he stared at the tall, thin, gorgeous form in front of him he became regretfully aware that he was nearly naked. He had been so worried about his damn arm that he hadn’t realized he was only wearing tight black boxers. Considering that he remembered wearing a different color underwear, the change in his undergarments was also a little distressing, but he had much more to worry about at the moment. His hands dropped to cover his crotch, his cheeks heated and his stomach lifted with nerves. Could this goddess really be a Developer? No, she’s much too pretty.

  “You okay there, big guy?” The woman’s head tilted, and her black hair cascaded over her shoulders and down to her waist. It looked silky soft and shimmered navy blue against the light. Her eyes, which were almost too big for her face, were a striking emerald. Her skin-tight jumpsuit hugged her slender legs, gripped the slight curve of her hips, showed off a flat stomach, and clung to every inch of her delicious breasts.

  He swallowed hard. Pull yourself together, bub. “Uh, where am I?” To Brock’s displeasure his voice came out hoarse.

  The goddess strutted past him and sat a pile of clothing on the medical bed. Eyeing the dent, she smirked and said, “Trying out the upgrades, huh? Can’t believe you had that piece of junk for so long.”

  Brock, realizing his arm was still a rapid-fire weapon, transformed it back into a humanoid form. “What?”

  “They haven’t had that advancement in commission for, like, at least two hundred years. It was time for an upgrade, old man.” She flicked her blue-black hair over her shoulder. “I’m going to get some advancements too. I just have to wait a few more weeks until I come of age.”

  Brock raised an eyebrow. Old man? Shaking off the insult, he repeated the question, hoping this long-legged beauty would give him an answer that made sense. “Sorry, where am I?”

  “Oh yes, I forgot that some of you are a little loopy after de-materializing. Don’t worry; you’re on the HB-Dred-slayer-Double-oh-nine.” The blue-haired goddess raised her hands in the air giving him a ‘ta-da’ stance. “This is a state-of-the-art battleship with planet destruction features. You gonna get dressed? It’s indecent to expose yourself.”

  Brock never thought of himself as the bashful type, but his face flushed and he quickly grabbed the garment she had previously placed on the medical table. He stuck one leg into the thin pant leg and frowned as the spandex clung to him like a second skin. “You got a bigger size, honey?”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. It’s slender, it morphs to your body.” The heels on her jumpsuit brushed across the ground as she made her way over to the wall filled with mechanical arms. She bit her lip as she studied them.

  Stifling a curse, Brock shoved his limbs in the impossibly tight child-sized suit. Surprisingly, the material stretched until it encompassed his entire body. It was oddly comfortable too, though Brock felt like he might as well be naked as it really didn’t leave anything up for thought. In fact, he could nearly make out the outline of his balls.

  She held out a RAB and Brock eagerly grabbed it and secured it onto his arm. He knew he should wait until she wasn’t there, but panic had him pressing at the buttons to call Lily. It didn’t matter which button he tried, none seemed to work.

  “You sure got a good seat for the Mass Beam Weapon. How rad was
that?” A grin stretched the goddess’s lush, full lips and a twinkle of excitement lit up her eyes.

  Was she talking about the weapon that annihilated Golan’s fleet? The memory of the Developers’ ship attacking his crew flashed in his mind once more and a mixture of anger and fear overtook him. While he supposed it was ‘rad,’ it was also some seriously fucked up shit, especially when you were on the receiving end. This psycho, albeit a gorgeous psycho, was out of her bloody mind.

  “I’m sorry, who are you?” he asked. It was clear that she thought he was on her side and some sort of war hero, but he didn’t have a clue who she was.

  Her emerald eyes, still alight with a mischievous sparkle, turned their full attention to him. His stomach fluttered.

  “I’m Alyssa. I’m the mechanic responsible for your totally cool upgrade. Don’t worry; we’ll get you caught up with the others in no time. Then, you won’t be so far behind. At your age you should be close to perfection. What’s your name? We didn’t have you in our records, though the man in charge of that was useless so quite a few of our undercover operatives were left off the list.”

  Brock’s eye twitched. Why does she keep calling me old? I’m in my prime. He rubbed his face. His beard was thicker than normal, nearly matching his hair in length. He didn’t have to look in the mirror to know he looked a little grungy. But didn’t he deserve a break? He had been teleported into an enemy ship for cryin’ out loud! Surely that earned him some pity points.

  He thought for a moment. If he used his real name, would he be caught? He supposed not. And he also figured that whatever fake name he gave wouldn’t matter, unless he somehow lucked out and came up with one of the missing Developers’s names. Shit, who was he kidding? He didn’t have that type of luck. He had the type of luck that got him teleported into an enemy ship and mistaken as a war hero.