Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 52529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
"My family had no funds for my care, so in order to pay for my treatments, I was indentured into the military. They gave me plas-skin to cover a great deal of my wounds, and prosthetics for my hands since they were burned off." His fingers trace a gentle pattern between my breasts. "The military spends credits according to how important you and your family are. Because mine were not, I was rebuilt with cheap parts, cheap plas-skin, and no one cared. To them, people are the same as bots—you find out what's broken, patch them up, and send them back to work."
Stroking his arm, I make a noise of sympathy. "Is that how you got your jaw? And your head piece?"
"No, actually." His mouth twitches in another almost-smile. "Those came later."
I go still. "You mean you had bad shit happen to you more than once?"
Zakoar makes a hmph of amusement. "Many, many times."
"What next?"
"You truly wish to hear all of this?" He lightly skates his fingertips over my breast, and my nipple puckers in response.
I nod, staying still as he caresses me. He seems to need touch, and I'm happy to be his outlet.
He shrugs and continues. "I served in the military until I was thirty, the ugliest, most scarred keffing bastard anyone had ever seen." When I make a sound of protest, he tweaks my nipple to silence me. "You did not see me back then. Trust me when I say it was not attractive. When other males visited brothels, I studied. I rose in military ranks and learned medicine, because very few were there to heal. Most just wanted to earn glory for their families." He hmphs again. "Honor. That's what they thought they were getting."
"And did they?"
Zakoar shakes his head slowly. "The last ten years of it were in the Threshian War, and I was on the front lines as a medic, doing what had been done to me. I patched up soldiers as they came in, and sent them right back out." His mouth flattens. "The Threshians did not fight like we expected. Back then, Homeworld had guidelines for how one could honorably conduct one's self upon the field of war, and what was appropriate and what wasn't. The Threshians thought only to win, so they did whatever they thought would cripple us. I remember times that they would fly over the trenches and drop metal bombs instead of just shooting us down."
"Metal bombs?" I echo. "I don't know what that is."
"They would drop a bomb that, once it hit the ground, it would explode and fling molten metal—or other chemicals—far and wide. One splash could sear a soldier's hand off—or take a fist-sized chunk out of his abdomen. Killing a soldier takes him out neatly, of course. But with a metal bomb, you burn holes into them. You destroy them just enough that they will be a drain on their military, because wounded soldiers must be healed. So I would spend my days and nights slapping synth-skin onto the faces of men, covering holes in their gut with whatever was available, or amputating limbs that were too far gone to be salvaged and replacing them with new ones."
"That's…awful." I picture men being shredded by hot liquid metal burning holes in them and want to vomit.
"It is. War is not pleasant. It's a good way of making the enemy bleed resources, if you don't care about the consequences or how it will affect the men." Zakoar's fingers lightly move over my skin, tracing little circles over my nipple. "I spent all my time patching up good men, young men with their lives in front of them, who just wanted to bring honor to their families. Instead, they were coming back in pieces. And then, of course, the enemy started to bomb the medic centers."
I swallow hard. "You mean…you?"
He nods. "When I wasn't patching them up, I patched myself up with what was available. I lost my jaw and a large chunk of my skull in one attack, and I was the only one of my regiment that survived." His eyes meet mine and he gives me a thin smile. "My many prosthetics saved me. And just like the others, I was patched up and sent back to the front lines to work. By that time, we were running low on parts, and so we patched men together with what we had available." He touches his jaw. "I am used to being ugly, so it didn't bother me. I know others that killed themselves when they saw what they had become."
I turn and burrow against his chest, wanting to hug him. I snuggle against him instead, hoping to comfort against bad memories that I've dredged up. "I'm so sorry."
"It was in one of the last battles that I broke my back," he continues, as if he needs to get all of the story out. "We were bombed again, and I was blown into a crater. At that point, we had been at war for so long that the entire planet surface just looked like it had been hacked to pieces. I landed on rocks, and I felt my back snap."