by Cynthia Sax
Without control panels, they couldn’t access the Vault’s systems from inside the docking bay. That increased the mission’s difficulty level.
Female? Chuckles? He asked for their input.
There’s no remote access. Chuckles confirmed what Vector already suspected. We need those control panels.
There should be control panels outside the doors. The humans would require a way to access the space. Prepare to bust down the doors.
There will be multiple doors. Vector heard the apprehension in his female’s transmission. And I’ve uncovered an alarming number of terrain missile launchers on the acceptance forms.
The situation became worse with every passing heartbeat. Chuckles, open the warship doors. Vector’s processors whirred as he derived a plan.
The doors are open, Captain, the warrior reported.
Truth, prepare your team, Vector instructed. I’ll shoot a hole in the enemy’s doors. You lead twenty of your warriors through it. The rest are to disable any Humanoid Alliance weapons.
He would assist them, eliminate those threats to his female.
Female, work on remote access. Vector gave Kasia a task, knowing if he didn’t, she’d insist on joining one of the teams.
Yes, Captain. The warriors rushed through the warship, preparing to depart as soon as he blasted through the doors.
Vector studied the shot he had to take. His ship’s guns weren’t aimed at the docking bay’s interior doors. He would have to redirect the weapons and the Humanoid Alliance were watching the ship. He was certain of that. Any movement of the guns would signal his intentions to the enemy.
Stay where you are, female. He needed to speak to her one more time, reassure himself she was safe.
Be careful, warrior. Her voice was edged with concern.
For him, the male she loved.
Vector stood straighter. He wouldn’t fail her.
Shooting on three, two, one. He swung the guns and fired. Metal screamed as a C Model-sized hole was blown into the middle of the enemy’s doors.
The warriors streamed out of the Freedom, running at cyborg speed. Some of them raced for the doors. The others circled the warship.
Compartments in the walls of the docking bay opened. Guns extended from them, all of the weapons pointed at their warship.
Vector. His female warned.
I see them. He sprinted out of their warship, drawing his guns. Chuckles was positioned near the door and nodded to him as he passed. Projectiles zinged around them, pinging against the exterior panels of the Freedom.
Those panels would protect Kasia. The projectiles wouldn’t pierce them.
Vector rolled, shot, aiming for the muzzle of the Humanoid Alliance weapons, a vulnerability in their guns. Few human warriors had the skill to target that small an opening but he and his brethren were cyborgs. They were manufactured to be precise, to be the best.
Projectiles bounced off his body armor, chipping away at it. One ripped through his right hand, embedding in the gun’s handle. Pain streaked up his arm, sharp and intense.
Vector grimaced and continued shooting, deactivating the Humanoid Alliance weapons one by one. Blood streamed between his fingers.
He ran, shot, rolled, shot. The crack of gunfire echoed from every corner of the docking bay, loud and never ending. The acidic metal scent of battle burned his nostrils.
A projectile grazed Vector’s forehead, a sting he barely felt. Warmth streaked down his face.
Vector. His female sounded frantic. She must have been watching him on her handheld, had spotted that damage.
I’m okay. Skull is reinforced. He concentrated on his task, had no time to consider the pain. The noise in the docking bay decreased with each dead wall gun.
A projectile streamed along his neck and Vector gritted his teeth, sucking back that agony. Soon the space would be clear of threats.
He could then return to his female. She’d douse him with pain inhibitors, fussing over every scratch. And he would repair.
As though mocking those plans, missile launchers dropped from the ceilings.
“Fraggin’ hole,” Vector cursed, his circuits pulsing.
In a space battle, a missile would be deflected by a warship’s shields but landing required lowering those shields. A missile could rip an unprotected vessel apart.
Kasia was inside that unprotected vessel.
Warriors, Vector shouted through the transmission lines. Focus your efforts. Multiple projectiles would be required to deactivate the missile launchers.
We’ll down them, Captain. Chuckles assured him.
They had to. Failure was unthinkable.
Vector and his males eliminated one, two of the missile launchers. A low hum originated from the weapons.
Panic surged through Vector. The missile launchers were now aimed toward the Freedom.
Toward his female.
Projectiles whizzed around Vector. Any one of those could end his fragile human’s lifespan. She wore no body armor, the limited space inside the compartment not allowing that layer of protection.
He couldn’t tell her to leave the vessel. She’d die.
Faster, males. Vector heard the terror in his voice and didn’t care. He couldn’t lose her. She was the heart in his chest, the air in his lungs.
Another missile launcher’s barrel shattered into pieces. Satisfaction filled him. There was only one left. Vector turned to target it.
Saw it propel a missile into the air.
Vector shot at that spinning shell. It moved too quickly. He couldn’t lock on his mark, couldn’t stop it from reaching its destination.
Female, he bellowed, running toward the ship.
Light blazed, temporarily shorting his visual system. The boom took out his auditory capabilities. Shrapnel punctured his skin. Heat blasted against his face. Vector hurt all over.
The biggest pain centered around his big cyborg heart. It had detonated like the missile, agony radiating from the point of impact.
His female had been in that ship.
Vector’s visual and auditory systems flickered, torturing him with fleeting images of ship parts scattered over the previously clean docking bay, jagged pieces of metal shining under the lights, the lick of flames against a tattered chair.
The captain’s chair.
Kasia had been hidden in the compartment next to it. “Female,” Vector shouted, scrambling semi-blindly over the wreckage, not caring about damage to himself, thinking of her, only her.
“Captain.” Someone, it sounded like Chuckles, touched his arm. “It was a direct hit. Your female couldn’t have sur—”
“No.” He shrugged the warrior away from him. “She’s alive. I know she is.”
Vector lurched forward, unable to contemplate the alternative. His female would be scared, might be damaged.
His left knee collided with debris, the contact jarring his frame. Vector continued moving.
He had to find Kasia, repair his little human.
His systems returned online. The lack of gunfire and the mist of floating particles would have made him question reality if it weren’t for the pain in his form, in his soul.
His female. He couldn’t lose her.
His hands touched a side panel. He searched along it, seeking the door. Some of the unnatural fog cleared. There was no door. The entire front of the warship was gone, brutally ripped from its body.
Kasia had been on the bridge. Its fragments littered the floor.
Vector had witnessed thousands of explosions. He knew…he knew…
He tilted back his head and howled. Vector howled for his female, for the pain she must have felt, and he howled for his loss, that sorrow mixed with regret.
He had failed her, failed the only being he had ever cared to show his true self to, failed the only being he had loved, who had loved him, all of him.
“My female.” He dropped to his knees. Metal sliced through his right shin. Vector felt only despair, withdrawing inward, staring
into an abyss of nothingness, a never-ending lifespan filled with heartache and loneliness, devoid of hope.
Empty of his Kasia.
“Warrior.”
He blinked. The voice was faint. Were his processors malfunctioning? Had his grief-ravaged heart manufactured his female’s reply?
“Sorry.” The figment of his programming coughed once, twice. “Meant to obey.”
“Female?” He looked in the direction of her voice. She’d survived? His gaze returned to the space where the nose of the warship once was. How was that possible?
“Couldn’t.” She coughed again. “Ship. Large stationary target.”
His wonderfully reckless female hadn’t obeyed him. Vector jumped to his feet. She’d left the bridge.
She was alive.
He leaped, grasped the torn edge of his ship, pulled himself upward. The interior was chaotic. The force of the blast had toppled walls and pushed all of its contents toward the back. Live circuits hung from the tattered ceiling, snapping with energy.
“Talk to me, female.” He sniffed the air, trying to locate her.
“Have to talk.” She wheezed. “Handheld broken.”
His female and her devices. She was addicted to them.
He was addicted to her. “As long as you’re not broken.” Vector navigated through the rubble, moving carefully. “You have other handhelds.”
“I am.” She coughed. “Bit broken.”
He squeezed past a large chunk of wall. That partition between chambers had been sliced in half. The top section had fallen, folded toward the floor. The side facing the bridge had been riddled with projectiles.
Vector peered behind it and squelched another howl. A bit broken was minimalizing his female’s damage. Her face glistened with blood. A shard of metal was embedded in her side. Her feet disappeared under the wall.
She’d been protected by the brunt of the explosion but the little that had hit her had inflicted damage. His heart twisted. Possibly lifespan-ending damage.
Kasia glanced up at him. Her eyes widened. “You. Are. Mess.” Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe. Her skin was the color of ash.
His fragile little female must be in excruciating pain yet she was concerned about him, a warrior manufactured for the harshness of battle.
“Don’t worry about that mess.” Vector crouched beside her. “I’m a cyborg. I’m designed to survive damage.” She wasn’t. She was frighteningly human.
He touched her head. The skin was torn but her skull wasn’t cracked.
“Medical bay. On board.” Her fingers remained curled around the broken handheld. “You. Need it.”
She needed the medical bay on board the enemy ship. He gently pried the broken handheld from her fingers and set it aside. Her hands shook. His female was in shock.
“Can you move your feet?” He would carry her.
“Unfasten boots.” She winced as she grasped her legs. “You lift. I move. Maybe.” She sighed as though the effort of speaking had exhausted all of her energy.
Vector loosened her boots, spread them back from her ankles. When he pulled his fingers away, they glistened with freshly spilled blood.
His female wasn’t a cyborg. The nanocybotics he’d transferred to her in the past weren’t enough to stop the bleeding. She wasn’t repairing herself.
“Get ready.” Vector gripped the block, bent his knees, and hefted it upward, his muscles straining under the weight of it.
She pulled on her legs. Her feet slipped out of her boots.
They were flat, the skin split.
Every bone had to be broken. Vector dropped the block, the floor groaning under its mass. Kasia leaned back, resting against a piece of debris, her breathing fast and shallow.
“Female?” He hunkered down beside her.
“Need new feet.” She smiled at him, strain lines etching her quivering lips. “Got any?”
Only his female would make a joke at a time like this. Vector’s chest expanded with pride, with love. She was so beautiful, so strong.
“You will keep the feet you have, female.” He brushed some of the blood away from her cheeks. Her skin was cool to the touch. “I’ll repair them.”
“Thought would have to hack. Them off.” Her eyelids drifted closed, her eyelashes fluttering. “Should have known.” His determined female forced her eyes open again. “You’d save me.”
“You saved yourself.” Vector admitted.
He had tried to keep her safe by isolating her, by restricting her movements to their ship, by hiding her in the compartment, but that strategy had failed.
If it hadn’t been for her quick thinking, for her rebellious, reckless nature, she would have died.
“I’ll better protect you in the future.” He made her that solemn vow.
Wherever he went, whether it was into battle or in front of the cyborg council, his female would be by his side. He wouldn’t allow anything or anyone, including his own doubts, to part them.
Never again.
Chapter Sixteen
Pieces of shrapnel stuck out of her cyborg’s body armor. Chunks of flesh hung from his face, his silver metal frame visible through the deep gashes. He had a round hole in his right palm.
But he was alive. He had survived the confrontation with the docking bay guns, the missile attack.
Kasia had to focus on that.
Her state was much more precarious. Black circled her vision. Her energy lowered with every drop of blood she lost. Her feet were unusable. Her entire form throbbed with pain, that agony threatening to steal her last remaining moments with the male she loved.
Kasia wouldn’t allow that to happen. She clung to consciousness, determined to extend the remaining time they had together.
“Vector.” She gazed at him. “Kiss me.”
“Yes.” His eyes glittered, bright blue beacons in the darkness, stars shining in an endless void. “My nanocybotics will repair you.”
He covered her lips with his. She sighed, submitting to him. Every part of her ached but she focused on the kiss, on him. Their tongues tumbled, twined. She wanted to touch his face.
She couldn’t do that. His flesh was tattered and torn and she didn’t want to cause him, the male she loved, the warrior she adored, pain.
Instead, Kasia rested her hands on his shoulders, holding on to him. His nanocybotics fizzed and popped within her.
According to a transmission she overheard, giving his nanocybotics to her should increase the number he had. That should speed his healing.
The nanocybotics he transferred to her weren’t enough to offset her wounds, however. She fought to remain upright, to keep her eyes open.
“Stay with me, female.” Vector must have sensed her strain. He tore off his body armor, ripping the shrapnel from his fit physique. Blood ran down his gray skin, coloring it crimson.
“Don’t.” That was the only protest she could manage. Speaking required too much effort.
“I have to breed with you.” He lifted her to a portion of fallen ceiling, setting her carefully on that improvised horizontal support, the surface smooth, flat, stable under her ass. “There are more nanocybotics in my cum. They’ll repair your damage faster.”
They’d repair him faster. Kasia gazed at her determined cyborg. She no longer held hope for her recovery. Her life was slipping away from her.
Spending her last moments with the male she loved was all she could now ask for. Every heartbeat shared with him would be precious.
Vector shredded her flight suit, ripping the fabric into strips, baring her body to him. Although battered and aching, Kasia responded to his dominance as she always did, her pussy growing wet.
He spread her legs, gently repositioning her ruined feet. That care wasn’t needed. She was past the point of pain, her entire form numb, her brain floating.
“I’ll be quick.” Vector positioned himself between her legs. His legs brushed along the inside of her thighs. His tip pressed against her entrance.
He pushed inside her, her normally savage C Model moving cautiously. She couldn’t do anything other than watch him as he drove into her once, twice, three times. He groaned. A blast of nanocybotic-infused cum hit her, accompanied by the most exquisite pleasure coupled with the most intense pain.
Her inner walls clenched around his shaft. Her muscles flexed. Explosions of light burst in front of her eyes and the darkness encircling her vision receded.
“Give me a moment.” Vector caressed her hips, his rough fingertips massaging warmth into her skin. “That’s all I need and then I’ll breed with you again.”
“Are you.” She wet her parched lips, tasting blood and dust. “Stronger?”
“I’m always stronger after breeding with you.” He held up his right hand, showing her proof of that biological miracle. A layer of light-gray skin covered the hole in his palm. “You will be stronger soon also.”
Kasia felt stronger. Hope fluttered to life inside her. She might survive the aftermaths of the explosion, might have a future with her warrior.
He wouldn’t allow her to die.
True to his promise, Vector waited mere moments before breeding with her again, coming as quickly, as efficiently as the first time, his purpose transferring his essence to her, not granting either of them pleasure.
He bred with her a third, fourth, fifth time, flooding her form with nanocybotics, giving her all he had, his countenance stark, his handling of her tender. His wounds healed, the gashes on his face, his chest, pulling closed.
Kasia’s injuries mended also, her energy levels recovering. The pain didn’t diminish. It intensified as her broken bones realigned, shifting into place. She gritted her teeth, trying to hide her agony.
She must not have been successful. Vector came once more, saturating her body with bliss, and he pulled away from her,
“There will be pain inhibitors in the medical bay.” He retrieved his body armor and placed that protective garment on her. It was large and heavy and pushed against the shrapnel still piercing her flesh.
