Free Assessing Survival by Viola Grace Page A

a small vehicle if you need to.”
    He gave her a sly smile. “What about the strike plates? Have you tried them?”
    Stitch crawled out of the pressure unit and stared at him. “You just want to watch, don’t you?”
    George shrugged. “Since you and Nikolai have focused on each other, watching you in action is the next best thing.”
    He helped her to her feet, and she wrinkled her nose at him. “Pervert.”
    “You have no idea. Okay, the strike plate.”
    The Alguth warriors were watching her, and when she cleared the pressure machine, they started taking turns.
    Apparently, knowing how much you could lift was a very important thing to the Alguth.
    She wrapped her knuckles and faced the strike plate. Thick gel was filled with sensors packed behind a skin-like structure, and the wires were designed to see how hard a cyborg or human could punch.
    “The machine is ready. Any time, Stitch.”
    She glanced over her shoulder, feeling Niko come in. The other cyborgs wandered in, all with their workout gear on. She made a fist and plowed her natural hand into the plate.
    George nodded. “Seventy-three kilonewtons. Excellent. Now try your natural hand.” He had slight condescension in his tone.
    “That was my natural hand.” She hit the reset with her knuckles and got ready. “This is my cyborg hand.”
    She slammed her hand forward, and the rig shuddered.
    The display blanked, and it slowly displayed the impact force if she put herself behind it.
    “Stitch, I am tempted to hack off my hand if that is the result.”
    She looked at the force recording and grinned. She couldn’t help it. The number six-six-six was displayed in bright numbers.
    Captain Blue came by and stared from the readout to her. “That should have shattered every bone in your body.”
    She smirked. “Probably. That is why I had the extra surgery.”
    Niko came up behind her and looked at the readout. He whispered in her ear. “You handled my cock with that?”
    She chuckled and turned until she was nearly kissing him. “Quit whining. It is still attached, isn’t it?”
    He kissed her quickly, and she smacked him on his butt. “Let’s see what you can do.”
    “Somehow, this is not the venue I thought you would say that in.”
    She watched George recalibrate the machine, and Niko took his shot. After him, Keenan wanted to try, but though Niko scored at one hundred fifty kilonewtons, no one else even managed to get close.
    Liakon came over and sat next to her on the bench. “Major Carter, how did you do that?”
    She smiled. “I designed myself.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “I told the engineers and programmers what I wanted my body to do, and they provided me with what I needed.”
    “Can we do that?”
    She shook her head. “No, you can probably punch at twice your species’ norms, but I only experimented on myself.”
    “So, what you did was dangerous.”
    “It could have been, but I am committed to my situation as a cyborg and no longer a proper member of my species. So, I decided to be the best cyborg I could be.”
    She unwrapped her hand as she felt the skin had recovered. “So, tell me about the Alguth.”
    He watched her examine her hand, but he spoke.
    “My world contained approximately two billion people. We had a very small standing military and were just at the point where peace had reigned for five decades when the Splice attacked.”
    “Did you have any kind of space fleet?”
    “No. We waged a ground defense. The cities were able to erect shields, but it has confined its citizens. For us, being caged is akin to being crippled.”
    It was a hard question, but she had to ask. “How many of your people survive?”
    “Less than half. A quarter of the populations encased succumbed to depression.” He looked grim.
    “So, how did you learn my language, because it is my language you shared with the rest of the guys.”
    “Our kind are adaptable. It is the reason that our people were hunted by the Splice. They want our