Claiming Cure (Dauntless Cyborgs #3)

Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

You do it.

Cure looked down at his female.

Her breathing was deep. Her eyes were closed. Her body was still.

She was sound asleep.

She was also dangerously dirty. If she was a cyborg, he would leave her as she was. Her nanocybotics would ward off any disease or infection.

But she was a fragile human. Human immune systems often malfunctioned. And her garments were covered with other beings’ blood. There was a high probability the fabrics were coated with other dried bodily fluids.

He was a medic…and her genetic match. He couldn’t leave her in that state.

“I’m removing your boots.” He told her before he did exactly that. “If you object to anything I plan to do, relay that and I’ll stop.” He set her footwear on the floor.

They were dirty also. He’d polish them after he tended to her.

“I’m tidying your feet.” He searched in wall compartments, found a cleaning cloth, flicked it to renew it, and then applied it to her soles.

Her toes wiggled and she murmured something. Cure couldn’t decipher that communication, but it didn’t sound like stop.

He meticulously cleaned her toes and arches, heels and ankles, and every stretch of skin in between those points. His female had no toenails.

He projected he processed what that meant.

Toenail, fingernail, and hair loss were side effects of the pill she’d developed to treat the tumors afflicting beings on Cancri B. As was the ability to consume solid nourishment.

The substance in the beverage container had resembled liquified nourishment.

His female was a human residing on Cancri B. It was improbable that she’d be spared from the impact of the Humanoid Alliance’s weapon fabrication.

He would process that implication on her, him, and their futures later.

His goal at the moment was to clean her.

“I’m removing your simulated hair.” That accessory was filthy.

He set it aside. That would be tidied also. Later.

He flicked the cleaning cloth and ran it over his female’s smooth skull. As he progressed, he felt for lumps or any other damage.

There was none. Except for the dark circles under her closed eyelids, the rest of her appeared to be fully functional. Perfect. Beautiful.

The skin over the back of her neck, however, continued to feel out of spec. He prodded it gently with his fingertips. The lack of yield he’d noted during his first examination hadn’t dissipated.

It was…wrong.

A tumor located there would be extremely painful. His nourishment-processing system twisted violently. His female was a medic. She would prescribe pain suppressors for herself.

But those would only be effective up to a certain stage of tumor development.

She could be approaching that stage.

If she had a tumor. She might not have one.

He couldn’t diagnose her based on touch alone.

Especially as his experience tending entirely organic beings was limited.

Cleaning, however, was a task he excelled in completing.

He gazed down at his female’s jacket. It was a symbol of her medic role, but he had to remove it. The garment was coated with dried blood.

His female murmured her unhappiness as he extracted her arms from the jacket. Her eyes didn’t open, however, and she didn’t say no.

He carefully folded the jacket and placed it on the floor. That would be cleaned later also.

The flight suit she had worn under the jacket appeared to be…not clean. He leaned closer and inhaled deeply. It smelled of her. But its state was…tolerable.

His female was a medic. Medics were accustomed to seeing other beings naked. It was part of a thorough physical examination.

But he had learned, from interactions with some of his brethren’s genetic matches, that humans could be particular about who saw them naked.

Cyborgs had been stored without garments while they were under Humanoid Alliance control. They didn’t have those unusual qualms.

He left his female’s flight suit on and cleaned as much of her as possible, delving as far as he could reach inside her garment with the cleaning cloth.

There were no other unprojected unyielding patches on her.

If she was a cyborg, he’d scan her. The urge to complete that medical procedure strained his control. But he had learned that humans were touchy about unauthorized scans also.

His female had trusted him with her vulnerable form and with her medic bay. He didn’t want to do anything to damage her faith in him.

Cure found a covering cloth and draped it over his female.

* * *

He cleaned his female’s removed garments and boots and simulated hair. Then he retrieved the head covering from the land transport to meticulously tidy that also.

The accessory was impractical and thoroughly stained. His lips twisted. But his female, for some illogical reason, valued it.

He bent over the head covering and worked. Removing every bit of grime from the barbs of the feathers and all drops of dried fluids from the numerous creases in the fabric required significant effort, but he managed to restore the frivolous accessory to near-mint condition.

Cure placed the head covering on the horizontal support nearest to his female. He put the refreshed cleaning cloth back into the wall compartment.

Then he slipped out of the tiny chamber and returned to the land transport for a second time that planet rotation.

Unloading the cargo hold took mere moments. He transferred all of the medical equipment and supplies to a medic-bay hallway.

Finding more optimal placements for those items required more processing.

When Cure first opened the doors, he had given himself remote access to the medic bay’s systems. In the database, there were diagrams for the space.

Some of the details on those diagrams had been modified. It took him a few attempts, but he located the storage chambers for the various medical supplies, flight suits, and his allocation of excess nourishment bars.

The medical equipment was more challenging to situate. But he found adequate locations for those pieces.

The Rayan Skin Restorer was moved to a space he projected was his female’s research laboratory. It smelled like her. He roamed around the chamber. The containers were neatly labeled. The files set on the main horizontal support were thorough. Even his conversations with her had been noted.

That pleased him more than he would have ever projected it would.

She valued his communications, his insights, his processors, and his organic brain.

He opened some of the wall compartments.

One contained seven large containers of a compound utilized in sterilizing wounds. Another held five equally massive containers of a substance utilized for preserving corpses. There were also an excessive number of energy conduits and treatment-timing devices stored in the wall compartments. And one sealed-closed medic pack.

All of that would be needed by a medic bay. The quantity of some of those supplies, however, was illogical.

But entirely organic beings were often illogical.

Having completed his exploring, Cure sat on the chair he projected was his female’s, judging by the scent, and plugged a wire into his left wrist socket to restore his energy levels.

He perused the documentation regarding the tumor treatments and testing, seeking information she might not have relayed to him. If she had that damage, as he projected she had, and he uncovered a repair for it, he wouldn’t have to claim her, breed with her, or transfer his nanocybotics to her.

They would have options.

Because once his mission on Cancri B was completed, he was leaving the planet.

There was no medic role for him in any place dominated by humanoids. As his female had pointed out, numerous times, he couldn’t offer the entirely organic beings the empathy they required, not without compromising his decision-making.

And he wasn’t willing to do that. He wouldn’t be a subpar medic.

He projected his female also wouldn’t be willing to leave her role on Cancri B. She loved her patients, loved the humanoids, was proud of her medic bay.

No, as much as he wanted her, it was best if they didn’t breed.

And he did want her, with every nanocybotic in his form. His organics screamed at him to return to her side. His processors were monitoring all activity in and around her private chamber. As he sat on a chair in her laboratory, he inhaled her scent and he leaned slightly toward her.

He pressed his lips together. It would be a long assignment.

Cure threw himself into the research. And hoped to find a repair.

* * *

74.2563 percent of the rest cycle passed. Cure hadn’t yet found a solution for his and his female’s problem. And he wouldn’t locate it that shift.

There was movement in his female’s private chamber. He removed the wire from his wrist socket, put the files back in their original positions, grabbed the beverage container he’d prepared, and returned to his female’s side.

She was seated on the sleeping support and staring at her handheld. “Why didn’t you wake me, system?”

“I deactivated your notifications.” Cure crossed his arms in front of his body armor- and jacket-covered chest. “You needed to restore your energy levels.”

“Oh Fates.” She jumped. “You’re real.” His female gaped up at him. “And you’re here. In my private chambers. Looking cute and rested and…large.” She swept her right hand over her eyes. “I thought I had dreamed you.”

His female believed him worthy of her subconscious. He straightened. “I’m here and I’m real. You transported me to your medic bay 8.2353 percent into the rest cycle.”

“I remember meeting up with you.” She looked around the chamber. “And some of the trip back to the settlement.” She grabbed her now-gleaming white jacket and donned it. “But after that, it’s a bit fuzzy.”

“I carried you here.” He could increase her intel of the shift. “You consumed liquid nourishment. Then you fell asleep.”

“Well, that was a waste of a hunky male.” She muttered that comment under her breath.

Cure was a cyborg. He heard her.

But they had a higher-priority issue.

According to his calculations and the specs he’d found on humans in the cyborg databases, his female’s rest cycle hadn’t been a sufficiently long duration.

“Your energy levels were dangerously depleted.” He leveled a stern look on her. She had to take better care of herself. “You should continue to restore them.”

“I can’t sleep all planet rotation.” She stuffed her feet into her boots and fastened them. “I have patients to see.”

He projected the long line that had formed outside of the medic bay were some of those patients she had to see. “Consume this.” He opened the container of beverage he’d prepared and held it out to her.

She took it from him. “What is it?” She peered into the container.

“It’s liquified nourishment combined with a pain suppressor and the latest version of the tumor growth suppressing pill.” He’d duplicated the concoction she’d taken before she fell asleep.

“Oh.” Her shoulders sagged. “You know about the tumors. I had hoped…” She blew out her breath. “It doesn’t matter now.” The smile she gave him didn’t reach her eyes. “Thank you.”

She consumed the liquid.

“You’re testing the repairs on yourself.” He processed why she would do that. She wanted to repair her own damage. And she would have access to the results at all times. But he didn’t like it.

His female stood. “I don’t roll the latest cures out to other patients until I’m certain the pills won’t harm them…more than those patients are already being harmed.” She set the container on a nearby horizontal support. “Their lifespans will be shortened too much already.”

“The repairs are stable.” He had run the formulas through simulations. “I’ve devised a new repair.”

“Does it have promise?” She skimmed her fingertips over his body armor-covered stomach as she passed him.

He shuddered with need. “I wouldn’t have told you about the repair if it didn’t have promise.” He covered up his desire with curtness.

Another being might be emotionally damaged by his tone.

His female laughed. “That’s true.” She touched the back of her neck. “Oh. I forgot my head covering.” She rushed back to retrieve that now-clean impractical accessory. “I wouldn’t want to scare the patients.” Her laugh was shaky.

“How would not wearing a head covering scare your patients?” One possible reason occurred to Cure. “Are head coverings required by their culture?” He touched his head. “I’ll wear one too.”

He didn’t want to scare her patients.

Cure was determined to master the skill of treating entirely organic beings. He refused to process why that suddenly was important to him.

But it had become a goal.

“Head coverings aren’t required.” His female looked at him. “I wouldn’t want to scare the patients with my bald head. It’s…” She grimaced. “Not cute.”

He stared at her. “You’re malfunctioning.” His cock was as hard as an injector gun, and she was chattering about her appearance scaring beings. “You’re the cutest being in the universe.”

He used her word for attractive.

She blinked once, twice. “You like my bald head?”

He nodded.

A smile spread across her beautiful face. “I was cuter with hair.”

“Then seeing you with hair would have caused me to malfunction.” He scrubbed the emotion from his voice. “Because your current cuteness level threatens to down my visual system.”

“Your visual system would have been shredded.” She laughed. Her brown eyes sparkled with joy. “If we didn’t have patients waiting for us, I’d kiss you senseless.”

His cock twitched. His organic side liked the prospect of being kissed senseless by her. The machine side processed that was improbable. “I’m a cyborg. We don’t malfunction like that.”

“You would malfunction like that if I kissed you.” She looked down at the head covering in her hands. “I’ll wear this anyway.” She plopped it on her head. “It somehow cleaned itself over the rest cycle.” Her glance at him relayed she processed he was responsible for the head covering’s state. “And my patients are used to seeing me in a head covering.”

They didn’t view all of her. Only he did.

That pleased Cure.

“We can’t flirt like this in front of them, unfortunately.” She glided her fingers over his chest as she moved toward the door.

And he, a cyborg fabricated for durability and strength, shamelessly quivered with wanting.

“They’re ill and scared and looking to us for reassurance. We have to be…serious.” She wrinkled her nose. “So serious. Most of the time. It’s…draining.”

Cure didn’t realize he wasn’t being serious.

He touched his face. His emotionless mask remained in place.

“When I first arrived on Cancri B, my patients came to me for a variety of reasons. Some of them were sad. Yes.” She nodded. “But some of them were happy. They were having babies, babies they never once thought would die. Or they were seeing me for a checkup, and nothing at all was wrong with them.”

Cure processed her.

He, also, scanned the beings on the Dauntless whether they were damaged or not.

And, with multiple matched pairs on board the battle station, there was a non-zero probability of offspring in the future.

“But now, it’s the tumors.” She sighed. “They…we…all have them. And everyone is scared.”

Everyone was scared. Cure studied his female. That included her.

He wanted to tell her she would live. But he had seen sufficient improbable events occur to process he couldn’t guarantee that.

“So, no flirting—” She summoned a smile. “—while we’re with patients.” She laughed. “You can flirt with me all you want when we’re alone. Okay, hottie?”

Two planet rotations ago, he would have said with 100.0000 percent certainty that would never happen, whether they were alone or not.

But now, he liked the idea of flirting with his female. Very much.

And he was growing accustomed to being referred to as hottie. It wasn’t as dignified as being called medic. But it was…pleasant.

“Are you ready?” His female met his gaze.

Cure projected that question was asked as much of herself as it was of him.

He nodded.

“Then let’s do this.” She squared her shoulders and strode through the door.

He followed her, determined to observe and learn, and if she requested it, to advise. But most of all, he wanted to make the visits with the patients as emotionally undamaging for his female as possible.

Cure hadn’t liked the sadness he’d seen in her eyes when she’d talked about them.

Not at all.

It made him want to kill beings, not repair them.

His mission could wait.

He had a female to support.