Vyken Dark: Cyborg Awakenings Book One

by Christine Myers

  Vyken was going with them on their first mission, more to observe than to command. His team leaders were more than capable of handling the task without him. Vyken needed to determine which of the newbies might be candidates to replace them. They had served their time with the Federation. After eighty years of war, the five of them wanted their freedom to choose their battles.

  Their strategy was simple: divide the city into sectors, scan the buildings for human life signs and get them out friend or foe. Each sector was generally a city block or adjacent blocks, depending on how many building ruins were on each one. Once a building was cleared, they would set charges and blow it down.

  Most of the buildings were no longer safe or fit for human habitation because they had structural damage that made them unsound. Even so, many had basements and one or more stories that provided shelter where people could hide and build fires for warmth. They split into teams and entered the buildings in full combat armor and heavily armed.

  While ordinary bullets were more of an annoyance than a danger, their armor would also protect them should their movements within the damaged structure cause heavy debris to fall on them.

  Their first day out, they took intermittent fire at various locations, but no real show of force as they cleared the buildings. The approach of the massive cyborgs in full armor terrified a couple of the small families they found as they cleared the structures. Once the group leader opened his combat helmet and offered them sanctuary at the Enclave, they willing went with them.

  Where they found structures with salvageable materials, they recorded the coordinates to send a recovery team with the supply shuttle from the Starfire to collect the material later. Used to ferry supplies to the ship in space, it was the only transport big enough to haul building materials back to the Enclave.

  Their first day out, Vyken was pleased with the newbies’ performance overall. They rescued thirty-four innocents---men, women, and children---and didn’t kill any of them by mistake. Each team had cleared one city block and taken down the buildings. It appeared there were enough salvageable bricks to build a house for a small family. The salvage team would go after them the next day.

  The Federation supply ship wasn’t due to arrive for another two weeks with the farm machinery, weapons and relief supplies Vyken had ordered for the Enclave. He would have the new medic team activate more of the three hundred cyborgs on their ship

  So far one hundred fifty of them were active plus the thirty females from level four. The Enclave had plans for the town they would build around the old hidden cyborg conception facility. Now he needed builders and construction crews to bring that project to fruition.

  The new residents that had been at the Enclave for a while were growing strong enough to help with planting the food crops and building the town, but they were mostly uneducated and many unable to read and write. They would need to learn the skills to do any of that work, even simple cleaning tasks in the underground living spaces.

  Starfire Nemesis had all the latest cyborg protocols and programming for most of the occupations needed for the project as well as for military warrior skills stored in Star, the ships AI database. They could be downloaded into the cyborg memory banks in seconds. Although scientists were working on biochips that would work similarly for natural humans, they were still in the development stage.

  Having an internal connection with all of the active cyborgs in the vicinity made relaying his orders quick and easy. Vyken’s cybernetics allowed him to multitask in ways that natural humans could not. Because while he was passing out orders, he was also conferring with his core team Kydel, Matix, Jolt and Brekar on which of the newbies they should groom to take their leadership roles.

  In the months since he had arrived, the countryside had gone from snow covered to green and verdant. Away from the city ruins, the landscape was reverting to its natural state. After all the work he had put in and the changes that were beginning to unfold, Vyken Dark was having second thoughts about leaving Earth for good.

  He still wanted to see Phantom one day, but there was still so much to do to help the home world of humanity restore itself. Danya would probably go with him anywhere he asked her to go with him, but did he really want to take her from the only world she had ever known as well as her father?

  There was really no reason why he couldn’t be free here to build a home and make a family. As the weather had changed from early spring to summer, Vyken enjoyed the leisurely walks he took with Danya around the countryside in the early evening. He could easily see the potential of building more Enclaves to help restore civilization around the planet.

  Space travel was something he did to get to the battles ground side on whatever planet they needed to defend. It was not a way of life for him. Danya’s feelings would play heavily into his decision. They would talk eventually but talking wasn’t what he had in mind at the moment. Vyken just wanted her in his arms. He wanted to love her slowly and tenderly and somehow find words to make her understand what she meant to him.

  He could find her easily now that Kydel had placed a microdot under her skin that he could ping with his cybernetics. Danya was at the Enclave having dinner with her father after she had helped teach reading to the residents. James Hill actually taught the classes and Danya gave extra help to individually. When she wasn’t working at the enclave or helping in the food garden, she was studying things she would have learned in school before civilization had fallen on Earth.

  As soon as Vyken strode into the dining hall in the Enclave, Danya looked up at him and smiled. She pushed her chair out and bent to kiss her father’s cheek then came to meet Vyken near the open doorway of the crowded room. Although he wished he would jump into his arms and wrap herself around him like she did when they were alone in their quarters, it wasn’t something they did in public.

  Danya came up to him and casually reached for his hand. She had finished eating and was ready to go back to the ship with him.

  “How did it go, today,” she asked him as they took the elevator took them to the surface.

  Once they got outside, they walked for a while and Vyken went through his day with her and she shared hers.

  “Things were pretty quiet after the news of Jacob’s eviction got around,” she told him. “The women who he was harassing the most were thrilled that he was taken out of his position. Evicting him is the right decision because otherwise, he would still be after them. A few people felt sorry for him, and the one he made pregnant, Penny, doesn’t want him kicked out. She’s in love with him.”

  “That’s unfortunate for her, but the Enclave will still take care of her and her child,” Vyken assured her.

  “The new administrator came to her personally and told her that. But Penny figured that. She really wants to be with him, but she’s afraid to go out in the wilderness with him alone because of the baby.”

  “Was she okay with sharing him with the others?”

  “No, but she bought into his plan to father children with the others to increase the population,” she said. “But with the cyborgs, there are plenty of males, now that he is not ordering all the women to stay away from them.”

  “Exactly. Already some cyborgs have shown interest in the natural females. Cyborgs only seem to be attracted to female they can produce children with. They must be genetically compatible with their nanocybots, or they can’t produce children.”

  “Can’t they used some of the cyborg embryos to make babies for women who don’t have males?” Danya asked.

  “Jacob was dead set against it because they are genetically modified, but our stock is genetically diversified and among the best human stock available anywhere. Cyborgs are made in the artificial wombs not during in vitro fertilization,” Vyken explained.

  “So, our children won’t be cyborgs.”

  “Not exactly, but they will be born with nanocybots. They will give them my in-utero enhancements, then they can decide when they are older if they want the cybernetic enhance
ments,” he said.

  “Could I get an implant so I can hear you in my head like the other cyborgs do?” she asked.

  He smiled down at her. “I would like that, but we don’t have any of them in stock. We could eventually order some.”

  Now that they were out of sight of the other, Vyken took her into his arms and kissed her in a way that told her exactly what was on his mind for later in the evening. That was more than all right with her.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The sun was just starting to set when Vyken and Danya returned to the Starfire. The air was growing cooler as the clouds over the western horizon turned pink. They were still holding hands as they went into the ship and took the lift to level one where their quarters were located.

  Going straight to the bedroom they stood beside the bed and stripped off their clothing. Vyken had scented her desire for him before they had finished that long slow kiss in the back field. Danya had felt the hardness of his desire against her belly as their bodies pressed together.

  When they were both naked, they paused to admire each other’s bodies in the midst of their arousal. Vyken had been thinking all day about how he wanted to make love to her, savoring her delightful body. She had filled out some in the months since he had rescued her and her father. Her breasts were fuller, and her ribs were no longer prominent beneath them. It was a healthy weight gain as she had been undernourished for a long time before she came to the Enclave.

  Her hair was longer, and she wore it in a single braid down her back. It was also thicker and shinier. Before Vykan pulled Danya against him again, he reached out and cupped her breasts in his large hands, flicking his thumbs over her taut nipples, eliciting a soft hum of pleasure. He changed his mind about what he wanted to do next as she leaned her head back, pressing those lovely breasts into his hands.

  Vyken scooped her up and laid her on their bed, spreading her legs apart so he could kneel between them. From the scent of her musk, he could have taken her immediately as he had other times, but that wasn’t the plan. He leaned over her and started kissing her in the middle of her forehead then planted butterfly kisses over her eyes, her cheeks, her chin and finally fastened his mouth to hers and slipped his tongue between them to slow dance sensually with hers.

  Danya made that sweet little mewing sound in her throat, caressing his face and running her fingers through his hair which had also grown out a little from his severe military cut. He kissed her at length before he finally went on working his way down her body to pleasure her breasts, kissing them, massaging one while he sucked on the other nipple. She continued caressing him as he pleasured her.

  He was telling her with his kisses and caresses that he loved her. He loved her, and she had taught him how by her loving him. She had only told him with words a couple times in the heat of passion, she had told him without words many more ways---most often by how happy she seemed just to be with him.

  “Vyken, please,” she whispered, squirming beneath him. “I need you inside me.”

  He lifted his lips from her breast and moved to comply because tonight was all about pleasing her. She pulled up her knees and opened her legs wider to welcome him into her warmth. She murmured a long, “Ooooh,” as he filled her and pressed his weight onto her.

  Framing her face in his hands, he looked into her eyes and whispered, “Danya, I love you. I never really understood what I was missing until I found you. I love you and always want you with me. We will have a home where we can live together with the children we will make.”

  “And I love you. I loved you almost from the beginning…”

  Vyken claimed her mouth with his lips and his tongue, staking his claim with his mouth and his cock. Mine! My female!

  His plan to take her long and slow escaped from him as desire drove them into a frenzied crescendo; she asked for more, harder and faster, and it wasn’t in him to deny her anything he could possibly give her.

  Vyken had grown weary of his life of making war with pleasures few and far between. Now, he had known pleasure every day he’d had with Danya, and it was far more than the hours spent in carnal pursuits. Just her presence lightened his mood. She brought pleasure back to his life, and he realized he could be happy wherever they could be together.

  They made love for hours, and Danya finally fell asleep wrapped in Vyken’s arms spooned against him. He didn’t care that sleep didn’t come for him. Holding her in his arms took away his stress and frustrations of the day. Thinking back over the last few hours he rested his cheek against her sweet smelling hair and smiled, something he rarely did before Danya came into his life.

  Not one to evade the distasteful jobs, Vyken made sure he was on hand for Jacob Black’s eviction from the enclave community. He and Agare Jax were taking the dart to carry the former administrator to a site they had located 100 miles from the Enclave.

  With Black under round the clock guard, Vyken had felt comfortable letting Danya come without a cyborg bodyguard to the Enclave to assist her father in helping the incoming refugees adjust to the change in their circumstances and the culture of the community. Because of his experience living in the city and being one of the those rescued by the enclave and the way he pitched in to help the newcomers adjust, the Council voted to have James Hill join them. James graciously accepted.

  The council woman and Assistant Administrator Gwen Fielder, who had questioned Vyken on calling Danya his female, was made Administrator and James Hill filled her spot as a member of the council. Unlike Jacob Black, Gwen admired the cyborgs and their superior capabilities, as well as the fact that they were probably the best looking males around.

  No one suspected anything was amiss until they opened the door to Jacob Black’s apartment and discovered it empty. A thorough search of his quarters revealed a secret passage, not on the blueprints of the underground facility. The bottom of his shower stall lifted up to reveal a vertical tunnel with a ladder that led to level three opening into the lab where the three hundred cyborgs in stasis were found. From that point, he could access all four levels of the building.

  Vyken immediately pinged Danya’s microdot to locate her. She was on level three on her way to show a new family one of the apartments there. He jumped into the passage in Black’s apartment half sliding and half jumping down the metal ladder from the first level to the third. It led into an occupied space, and a woman screamed at his sudden emergence from their bathroom.

  “I’m sorry,” Vyken said in a deceivingly calm tone. “Did you see another man come out of here?”

  “Y-yes. It was Mr. Black. He had a gun, and he ran out the door,” she told him.

  “Thanks.” Vyken rushed out the door after him. He ran out into the hallway just in time to hear Jacob call Danya by name. “Nooo!” he roared.

  Danya turned around, Jacob shot her in the chest, and she went down. Hearing Vyken behind him, Black pivoted and emptied the conventional 9mm Glock at Vyken hitting the cyborg at least five times. The hits didn’t slow Vyken’s advance at all. He reached Black before he could load another clip. Grabbing Jacob by the head, Vyken twisted it with such force he ripped it from his body.

  Spattered with blood from the kill and his wounds, Vyken threw down the head as the body fell to the floor and ran to Danya who was on the floor gasping for breath in a pool of her own blood. Vyken scooped her up and ran to the elevator to the surface. It wasn’t there, so he carried her up six flights of stairs signaling Kydel what had happened. He met Vyken in the block building with a hover-stretcher and an injection of packed nanocybots to repair her injuries. As soon as Vyken laid her on the stretcher, Kydel injected them directly into her jugular vein. These were made specifically for Vyken to augment the healing process should he ever become gravely injured. They were the same strain as the nanocybots that Vyken shared with her in his semen and saliva when they kissed and mated.

  The bullet had nicked her heart and exited through her right side via her lung. Were it not for the nanites Vyken had shared w
ith her over the past weeks, she would have bled out before Kydel could inject her with enough to repair the damage---if he’d done so in time. They would know in a few hours.

  Vyken and Kydel accompanied the stretcher to sickbay. Her bleeding is already slowing, but her volume is down.

  Even with five bullets in him, Vyken held out his arm and open a skin flap in his forearm. Give her mine.

  They both already knew it was compatible. It would weaken Vyken temporarily, but he would risk death to save her. She meant that much to him.

  Even with all the advanced tech at their disposal, the only way to make the transfusion was to run a tube from Vyken’s access through intravenous needle access into Danya. Because of her depleted fluid volume, Kydel had to go deep, but with his onboard scanner, it only took one attempt.

  Vyken wouldn’t let Kydel stop the transfusion until he had completely replenished Danya’s blood, almost two liters. Once the transfusion was finished, he stayed at Danya’s side, holding her hand and sipping large energy drink to replenish his fluid level. Finally, Kydel convinced him to go back to his quarters to shower and change because he was splattered with blood from head to foot. He didn’t want Vyken to shock her with his appearance after her grave injury.

  He was back in ten minutes showered and dressed in clean clothes, with a set of fresh clothes for Danya. Kydel got him a second drink and left him sitting with Danya as her father arrived. She was out of danger, and Kydel assured James she would make a full recovery.

  James knew as well as Vyken that Jacob Black shot Danya to get even for being evicted and removed from his position. He just didn’t count on Vyken getting to him before he could escape. After the fact, Vyken thought however grisly Jacob’s came too quickly.