“What about a local? We could do that right?” She looked to Brak, then Torc.
“That should work,” Torc told her.
Kim blew out a breath. Thank fuck for that! Ok then. “Can he turn off any pain receptors?” Torc nodded.
“Some, he turned them on for us.” Ok. Kim looked at C. He was looking expectantly at her. Her gut turned over. She patted his arm.
“We are going to try. Turn off every sensor you have.”
“Torc,” she pointed to the area she wanted him to work on. “Local all around this area.” She showed him her data pad then went over to the medical tools. There was a laser cutter. A spreader, some pins, and screwdrivers. A pair of pinchers, some clips and other materials Kim didn’t want to know about. She held in another shudder. “Take that lot and put them through sterilization, then bring them back.” Torc picked them up and moved off.
“How come you guys don’t have regen med beds on board? And where the hell is your medic?” She turned back to Brak for an answer.
“Cybernetics don’t work well with the beds. They are not programmed to work on Cyborgs.” Jesus. It was the dark ages, thought Kim. She’d fix that before she left. There was no way she was leaving them with no med bed that worked.
“And the medic?”
“Didn’t make it,” he told her with no emotion. “Ready,” Brak told her looking up. Kim swallowed, her mouth suddenly very dry. Torc came back with the tools.
“Right.” She told herself as much as them. She grabbed the gloves and slipped them on. Covered them with sterilized wash and picked up the laser scalpel. “Bring those over please.”
Kim spent the next couple of hours being as gentle as she could. She started by cutting and peeling the hair and scalp, back from the injured area. She felt sick and held it back. C didn’t move at all. She could do this for him, she told herself.
It had been immediately obvious where the damage had occurred, and it mirrored the scans. It was one hell of a mess. Whoever did this didn’t care how it went down. Kim held onto her anger. So much of this could have been avoided if someone had taken a bit more care. Much of the skin was trying to repair itself and the hair was re-growing. The plate was screwed in and covered in damaged tissue. It was badly mixed up in skin and hair inside his skull. It was sickening that they had done this.
It was far worse than she’d thought. Someone should be shot for this. Kim had looked at it and couldn’t think and froze. Then she remembered she was working on an engine and it needed her. She took a deep breath, pushed everything else to one side and got to work. First things first…..
She wasn’t sure how long she’d worked. Time had no meaning as she moved from one problem to another, cleaning it up or cutting it out or mended what she could. Damaged connections were re-wired. Damaged blackened tissue was cut out. Foreign objects that had no place, were removed with care and Kim stitched and cleaned her way through.
Slowly it came together. Links connected, damage removed. Eventually, Kim took a couple of deep breaths. She nodded. “Ok, that’s it.” She told them having pulled out the last piece of shrapnel and skull, that had embedded itself between tissue, severing the last of the defective connective wiring. Something else that should have been removed when the injury occurred. Kim held onto her anger. She did another scan and looked at it. It looked right.
“I don’t know who did this crap work, but I’d like to meet him and say hi with Mr. Sparky. Plate please.” Kim sterilized the area and put the newly sterilized plate back. Then released the skin. Eventually, she leaned back exhausted, having put the plate back, cutting the tissue away that had previously been interfering with it and the healing process began. Stapling it together, she watched as the skin already looked healthier and started to mend.
“Depending on how quickly you guys heal, those can come out when the skin knits cleanly together. Keep him medicated and pain receptors off till tomorrow. Then turn it all back on and give it a go.”
She slumped into a nearby chair and pulled her gloves off. “He should lay down and rest. Not on that injury.” She watched Brak and Torc help C to lay down on his front. Kim felt mentally drained. Dragging herself up, she walked over to the wash area and cleaned up. Without looking back she headed to the kitchen, not sure she had the will or energy to eat anymore……
Galactic Cyborg Heat Series Book 13. C.
Chapter One
Elenor looked across the landing area towards medical. Seeing her mother, the Doctor of their community, give a piece of her mind to her mate who stood there, looking like he was indulging her. That only made it worse. Her mother lost it on that as well. Elenor tried not to smile. Her mother was a good woman. She’d kept this community going for over 30 years, through all the fights and raids…..
Her mother had arrived on this world with so much hope. All the originals had, on a seeding ship from Earth Corp. A group of like-minded men and women who’d been in stasis for many years to get here. Their mission, to build a community in what was ‘the promised land’. And it had been good for many many years thereafter. Hard work and determination to build something had spurred them all on. The new world empty of life had made it easy for them to call it their own.
They’d gathered a formula of farmers, craftsman, soldiers, builders and her mother and father who were doctors and built this community from nothing. It’s attraction, the freedom of land and space no longer available to the average human back on Old Earth. Using the resources sent out with them and the subsequent deliveries in those first 10 years, to build up an extensive farming and productive lifestyles. Originally Earth Corp had ideas of generating food, finding resources that could be transported and utilize it in their other holdings. The community had thrived against all the odds of being out in the fringes of space and alone.
It had been idyllic her mother had told her. Coming from an overcrowded and polluted Old Earth. Fresh air and water had been amazing. With no major predators, the animals and farming had flourished. Then Earth Corp stopped coming and they’d realized they were on their own. But they didn’t mind. By then, they were well established. The second of their generation was being born and things were going well. They had built houses and a community. That was until the pirates found them. Then, things went to shit fast.
Her mother had buried too many, mended and patched all that she could, in the most traumatic of circumstances, giving them hope and keeping them alive. How she’d kept going had been a constant reminder to Elenor of her mother’s strength. Her own seemed a pale comparison.
But it had been the arrival of the Cyborgs in the moment of their greatest need, on that fateful day that had changed all that. The Cyborgs had been searching for the pirates in space and followed them to their world. Killing most and taking prisoners of the rest. She’d been told they had crimes on many other worlds to answer for. Having been born into this one, she could well believe it.
The pirate raids over, at 58 her mother had made it known she was ready to settle down to council life and some plain old Doctoring. With the influx of medics, she wanted to take things a little more easily, wanted to reflect on her life and be thankful that they had made it. And no one could blame her. She’d carried leading the community and the burden of it alone for a very long time.
Until her mate had made himself known. Shock had set in, denial, refusal. She kept telling him she was too old. He had laughed and told her his actual age. Her mother had stood there open mouthed looking at him disbelievingly and he’d touched her face gently telling her he’d waited for her his entire life. He understood her loss and would not lessen it but was grateful for the chance of a future. He was determined he’d told her and wouldn’t give up. And the battle of wills had started.
Elenor shook her head and smiled at the memory. Her mother now looked ten years younger and had more life in her than Elenor had seen for years and still, her mother struggled to accept that the universe had given her a second chance at love. Against all logic, her m
other refused to accept what was right in front of her face. He would only have her.
She was one of the lucky ones. If that was what you wanted.
He might look younger by a couple of generations in looks but Elenor noticed that gap seemed to be getting less. In fact, he was older by some 10 years. Cyborgs. They reached their optimum or programmed age and kept it a very long time. No one knew how long that would be exactly, but their Doctor was working on that. Information was, they somehow ‘gave’ life changing nanos to their mate and not only could they heal injuries and stopped the aging process, but started to reverse it.
Her mother was proof that was working. Her complexion was clear and lines that had been there recently were reducing. Disappearing. Her mother as a scientist and Doctor, and equally been interested and horrified at the same time. She was her own test subject!
Elenor watched as her mother’s mate tried to appease her, gave up and hugged her. Her mother objected for moments then gave in and hugged him back. He kissed her deeply. There was no doubt they loved each other.
Elenor smiled. An unexpected yearning flooded her. Did she want that too? she didn’t think so. At 26, she didn’t feel the pull or the interest. Even though they had a reputation for being deliciously male and sexual gods? crossed her mind. Her mother certainly had a smile on her face in the mornings. Then would feel embarrassed by it and try to hide it from her. Elenor sighed shaking her head. Her father would have wanted her to have a life, she’d been on her own for over 20 years, but she struggled to move on and her mate was unbelievably patient with her.
Elenor had wondered at first if things would have been different if her father had still been alive. How her mate would have looked on her then? Would the DNA link have connected, or would he have moved on without ever triggering it. Now she knew they were not attracted to female’s that carried a male scent and that did seem to be the case. They could sense it and they rejected the female as a possible mate from that moment. So it was possible, if her father had been alive her mate would have moved on and her mother have never known this kind of passion. Elenor frowned, her memories of her parents together were from being a young child but she couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother this much in love. Possibly she was at the beginning, the years before she was born but truthfully, she didn’t know and it didn’t seem right to ask her mother.
Was her mate her soul mate? Had her father been? Only her mother would know that. But she was sure her mother had loved him.
Fate. Circumstances. Choices made. So many odds. So many possibilities. The calculations in the Cyborgs finding a mate had to be immeasurable. Their Doctor seemed to think there were varying DNA combinations that could now be tracked from the different seeded worlds created by Earth Corp and others, throughout the human race and universe. That Cyborgs had that knowledge buried deep in their data banks and would look until they found another that matches them. It seemed such a long shot to her. But then, she knew Cyborgs had generations to look and engines that brought huge distances much closer. It didn’t take decades to get anywhere now.
Elenor gazed at her mother again. Love came with a price, she reminded herself. Sadness hit her and weighed her down. All those couples broken by loss, the children gone. The friends. Elenor shook her head and dug in, she’d lost too much already thank you very much. Everything was too fragile. Gone in the blink of an eye. She wasn’t sure she could survive another. Her chest tightened.
She’d seen first-hand what a Cyborg could be like if his mate was in danger or worse. They were frightening to behold. They would go through armies to get to them. To make sure they were safe. Deadly killers, without remorse. One focus, their mate at any cost, including their own life. Such devotion… was a burden she didn’t want.
She knew now, months on from that fateful day. To have survived herself had been a shock. It dawned on her on rising early one morning, that she didn’t have to check how long before the pirates were back. Didn’t have to worry if they would catch her this time. She’d sat for a long while, taking it all in. Letting it wash over her. And afterward, she’d realized she hadn’t expected to survive at all. Hadn’t expected any of them too. Not really. She'd gone to the cemetery then and spent time with her father. Talked about what had happened, about the possible future and told him, he’d not given his life in vain, it had got them here and how much she loved and missed him.
Elenor felt the need to tell him about how hard it had been. Day after day going through the motions. Trying to keep her spirits up and those of her friends, knowing what was coming each time. Wondering if they would survive the next visit or who would be taken or die when they did. Supporting her mother and the council as best she could. Taking the children to hide when the pirates came, with the other young people. Pretending it was all good, in the face of everything so bad. Not really believing it and then suddenly it was over. Not that she believed it even now.
She went around for days after their rescue thinking there was more to come, that it couldn’t finally be over. And it wasn’t, small pockets of pirates that had gone unnoticed making a stand, attacking a farm or fighting their way out. Her new best friend Laura had helped save them that last day, only to be caught up in it again. It had been a stark reminder. It would never truly be over for her. There would always be some out there that wanted what they had. They lived in a dangerous place and people died, that was how it was.
Elenor smiled thinking of Laura. The fact that she’d made it to the planet against all odds, was a miracle that she’d survived. She’d been sent out in a container in stasis unknown to anyone that she was there and injured, slowly recovering from severe wounds. When she’d arrived, on one of the last shipments, the crates had been stored away thinking someone else was coming for them. They’d been forgotten. No one knew she was there until decades later, when her med bed came back online and finally woke her up and they’d found the signal.
It had been a huge shock to Laura. She’d lost decades. Everyone she knew was gone and she was in a strange place on a strange world she’d never wanted. She’d rallied well and had been a bonus to the community they hadn’t expected. She had skills they needed and been the miracle they needed to defend their world in those last months against the pirates, until the Cyborgs came to their rescue.
And then by another miracle or fate, Laura knew them. She’d help rescue them decades before from captivity. Their leader Kane had put her in stasis to save her, as they were on the run. Not knowing she was his mate, hoping she’d survive. They married and Laura was now on the community Council as was Kane who ran the Cyborg Compound. He was also a Cyborg Empire Councilman too. A very important one.
Not that seeing so many huge men had been anything other than a thrill. The Cyborgs had the community in turmoil. After so long with no hope of replacing their men, suddenly they had hundreds. All tall, good looking and oozing sex appeal. It had been a shock and unsurprisingly, the women saw each of them as potential husbands. What else would they think?
The noise of the off-worlder grabbed her attention from her musings. She’d been lost for a while, not knowing how she fitted into this new dynamic and then found she naturally migrated to helping those that came to their world. It was Cyborg Rotation Day. Once a month, the warriors rotated. Several hundred left unless mated, then they camped at the compound until they moved in with their mate. Or they decided to go to the Space Station and be based there or somewhere else.
Another couple of hundred arrived to take their place. Cyborgs by arrangement now policed their space and planet. It gave them a security they’d not had before. They also supported the outlying farms helping to bring in crops, sent men out on patrols of the fields, fixed what was broken and replaced it if they had to. They had strong arms and technology to bring in new provisions from other worlds and took all their surplus food for sale and supplied their contracts. They traversed the lands they did not use and made sure no more pirates or anyone else was hiding out there. It was a lar
ge planet and they only used a small portion of it.
It had been little less than a year since that fateful day, but it still seemed amazing what you could get used to after so long alone. Elenor stepped forward with her datapad listing all the new settlers that were making a new life on her world.
As the ramp lowered, she checked her pad. 154 Women and children were arriving to start new lives. Their previous world decimated. Elenor didn’t understand how people could do that to their own. Her people had lost so much fighting for the right to live, it made no sense to her, that some would endanger their own deliberately. Scientists on their world had created a virus and bomb that had nearly killed the entire community, the planet was now a no-go area, only dead things lived on it.
Elenor sighed saddened by so much loss. Just a handful of the population had survived by warnings given to them by loved ones. They had managed to find refuge in the original underground sealed tunnels until help arrived. Her world had them too. It was an Earth Corp design for all colony worlds. A safety net in case things weren’t as they seemed and somewhere to live until the new worlds were built above ground. The Cyborgs had found those few still alive, and her community offered them sanctuary and a new start.
C- Sizzling Page 2
