Claiming Cure (Dauntless Cyborgs #3)

Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Humanoid Alliance guard dropped with a thud to the self-contained safe chamber’s floor. Cure’s dagger had pierced the male’s nape with such force the tip stuck out of the front of his throat. The body gyrated. Blood pooled around the dead male.

“Cyborg.” The male that Cyra assumed was the commander reached with his one remaining hand for the gun placed on the floor next to him.

She kicked the weapon away from him. “He’s my cyborg.” She quickly opened the medic pack and removed the blue injector gun. “And I won’t allow anyone to harm him.”

Her male protected her. She protected him.

They were a team while on missions, in the medic bay, everywhere.

She injected the commander with a paralyzer. It was often used during medical procedures where the patient had to be motionless yet remain awake.

Normally it would be paired with a pain suppressor.

“No pain relief for you.” She returned the blue injector gun to the medic pack. “Your decisions have killed thousands of beings and condemned every other being on Cancri B to a lifespan of escalating agony. And that’s merely on this planet.”

He was a leader in the Humanoid Alliance. Forcing locals to handle toxic materials to build his superweapon wasn’t his first vicious decision. His kind was known for cruelty and terror.

Cure yanked his blade out of the dead guard’s neck, wiped it on the male’s uniform, and returned the weapon to its sheath.

“I’m giving myself remote access.” He placed his palm on the control panel. “And I’m crafting a communication from the commander, ordering all Humanoid Alliance beings to regroup here. It’ll be scheduled to give them sufficient time to arrive for the projected detonation, but they shouldn’t interfere with our departure.”

“That’s perfect.” Cyra returned her attention to the male sprawled on the floor. “Did you hear that, Commander? You and all your horrid cronies will be blasted into space.” The Humanoid Alliance couldn’t immediately start the construction of a new weapon if all their leaders on planet were dead. “But not before whatever you took for your pain wears off.”

The male must have taken something. There was an injector gun and a small rummaged-through medic pack by the commander’s booted feet.

And his right arm had been burned off up to the elbow. He wouldn’t be conscious without pain suppressors.

“You’ll get a taste of the agony your innocent targets felt and continue to feel.” Her smile contained no humor but much satisfaction.

A kinder, more ethical medic would treat her enemy. She would reduce his pain and make him feel comfortable.

Cyra wasn’t that type of medic. She had spent too many solar cycles seeing males, females, children, and babies die from the decisions the Humanoid Alliance and their commander had intentionally made to grant the male that leniency.

“His actions warrant that reprimand.” Cure squeezed her shoulder with one hand.

That contact with him firmed her resolve.

Her cyborg medic slipped the handheld out of the commander’s pocket. He pressed his fingertips against the tiny screen.

“I was incorrect.” Cure’s lips flattened. “He warrants a harsher reprimand.”

Cyra didn’t know of any harsher reprimand.

“The weapon the Humanoid Alliance was manufacturing has the projected ability to vaporize half the sector.” Her male must have accessed the commander’s communications. “And the first place they planned to test it was here.”

A chill fell over her. “They planned to vaporize Cancri B.”

“Cancri B. Syndiculous 5. Other planets.” Cure folded his fingers over the handheld.

Metal cracked. Pieces of the device fell to the floor.

Her male had crushed it with one hand.

“The fool had the weapon’s schematics on his device.” Cure’s eyes hardened. “I’ve sent those to Captain. Along with the male’s detailed notes on the covert meetings he attended. That chatter doesn’t appear anywhere else in the Humanoid Alliance databases.”

Cure had explained that his brethren had hacked into the enemy’s communications and records and were monitoring all activity.

“There’s other intel.” Judging by her male’s grim expression, very little of that intel boded well for the universe. “Everything on the device has been relayed.”

“Your secrets are out, Commander.” Cyra informed the immobilized male. “Every evil thing you’ve been plotting will fail.” Her lips lifted slightly. “And you’ll be the being responsible for that failure. That’ll be your legacy—failure and pain.”

The flicker in the male’s eyes told her he understood her message.

Cure searched the chamber.

Cyra tried to help but she moved at human speeds and her cyborg was much faster. More documents outlining unthinkable horrors were found.

When she uncovered an image of the commander with a group of other Humanoid Alliance males standing by a pile of mutilated humanoid bodies, grinning, she knew she couldn’t see more.

Not without losing a slice of her soul. “My Cure.”

“Place the explosives, my Cyra.” Nothing more needed to be said. Her cyborg medic understood she had reached her limits. “I’ve witnessed the full range of the Humanoid Alliance’s atrocities. You don’t need to view them too.”

“I don’t know how you deal with it.” She removed the explosives from the medic pack. They resembled tubes of pain suppressors. “You’re a much-stronger being than I am.”

She should be able to handle the revelations also. Guilt jabbed at her.

He needed her assistance searching the chamber.

And she couldn’t help him.

She had failed him in that way.

“The opposite is true.” Cure removed what appeared to be bloodstained children’s garments from a compartment in the metal horizontal support. “I can deal with it because I’m half machine. I utilize that part of me for tasks like this.” He dropped the garments to the floor. “My organic half can’t deal with it. At all.”

“Your organic half would deal with the little I saw.” Which was enough but wasn’t much.

“No, it couldn’t.” Her male surprised her with that admission. “You’re much stronger emotionally than I am, my female. Never doubt that.”

If Cure was any other being, she’d believe he was just being kind.

But her cyborg couldn’t lie.

He truly thought she was stronger emotionally than he was.

“I love you.” Those heartfelt words burst out of her.

“I love you too, my female.” Cure met her gaze. His eyes glowed with caring.

They were in the middle of a dangerous mission. Beings had died. More beings would die. Fates, they could die.

Yet the moment was encased with tenderness, with devotion, with meaning.

Her cyborg brushed against her as he reached for an explosive.

She trembled with awareness and had to force herself to focus on the task.

They twisted each tube as they placed it. That action started the slow mixing of the volatile compounds. Once it reached a certain state, it would detonate.

Everything in the safe chamber should be decimated.

They’d hopefully be far from the site when that happened.

But before they left, she had one more task to complete.

Cyra returned to the commander. “I have to ensure you die.”

She had never deliberately killed a being. But they couldn’t allow the male to live. He was too dangerous, too powerful, knew too much about the weapon and them and the Cancris.

“I can do this.” She squared her shoulders and retrieved one of the red injector guns from the medic pack.

They’d planned for every scenario, including one similar to the current situation.

“I’ll do it, my female.” Cure held out his right hand. The wrist decoration Kritalin had crafted for him was visible. Barely. It had been tucked inside the arm of his body armor.

They both sought vengeance for the lives lost on Cancri B.

And they would both find it.

“This death is mine, my male.” She didn’t have the skill with weapons of war as her cyborg did. But she could wield an injector gun. “You can have the rest.”

She pressed the nuzzle against the commander’s neck and pressed the trigger.

The commander’s eyes glazed…with pain. The compound would eat him from the inside out.

As the tumors ate his victims from the inside out.

Only faster.

But his agony wouldn’t last that long.

“We have to go, my female.” Cure scooped her into his arms and carried her to the doors.

She reached upward and linked her fingers at his nape, securing herself to him as she had practiced during their training.

That freed her male’s hands.

He drew his guns, holding one in each hand.

The doors opened.

Her cyborg ran with her at a speed she didn’t realize he was capable of attaining. He shot every Humanoid Alliance being Cyra saw and many she didn’t see.

Cure downed the male waiting outside the chamber, the males returning with the floating support, the beings supervising the digging.

And others.

She wasn’t quite certain how many. Their surroundings were a bit of a blur.

Projectiles whizzed around them. Her male weaved with her.

A projectile grazed his shoulder, shaving off some of his body armor.

Cyra inhaled sharply.

Cure didn’t slow. He blew that shooter’s head off and continued running.

More and more Humanoid Alliance beings moved toward them. Her cyborg killed them all. His speed and accuracy with his weapons were mind spinning.

He’d told her he was manufactured to be a warrior, but she thought of him as a medic first. And no medic she knew could move and shoot like he did.

It eased her guilt about not helping with the killing.

Both of her hands were needed merely to hold onto him.

And she doubted she could hit any of the beings if they were standing still in front of her. As she’d discovered during their training, shooting a target, any target, wasn’t a skill she had.

“Fraggin’ hole.” Cure cursed. “I’ll have to kill him quickly.”

She then saw who he was referring to.

The Investigator was striding toward them. His guns were drawn.

But that didn’t help the male.

Cure put a bullet through his right eyeball before the Investigator realized they were there.

The male fell. Cure carried her over him, stepping, she suspected deliberately, on the Investigator’s groin.

Her cyborg’s thrillingly fast pace didn’t alter.

He downed the two Humanoid Alliance males that had been stationed at the first checkpoint.

Then the killing eased. Every Humanoid Alliance male must have responded to the order they believed their Commander had sent.

A loud boom sounded in the distance. The loosened bits of solidified sand around them violently gyrated.

The explosives had detonated.

“It’s done,” she murmured.

“98.2536 of the humans within the range of my lifeform scans have vanished.” Cure said that for her hearing only.

The Cancris could deal with the remaining Humanoid Alliance males.

The locals had been peaceful beings before the Invaders had landed on their planet. But the torment and death of loved ones had changed many of them.

They would want their vengeance also.

Cure carried her past the group of medics. No one was guarding them.

She wanted to yell at them to go back to their medic bays. But they likely wouldn’t listen to her. They were too scared of the Humanoid Alliance and the possible repercussions to themselves, their practices, and their patients.

Cure finally reached the land transport with her.

The doors were already open. Her cyborg must have accessed them remotely.

He plopped her into the captain’s seat, circled the vessel, and claimed the seat beside hers.

She flew the ship as fast it would go, away from the site.

Moments passed.

They weren’t pursued. They detected no other ships, no other beings.

The two of them were…not safe. The danger wouldn’t completely pass until every Humanoid Alliance male was ejected from the planet. But they were safer.

Cyra’s heart rate slowed. Her breathing leveled.

She thought about everything they’d done. When she became a medic, she would have never predicted she’d, some planet rotation in the future, be helping a cyborg medic hottie free a planet from the forces of evil.

That was…a lot to absorb.

“They had to be killed, my female.” Cure must have misinterpreted her introspection. “I process if this modifies how you view me.” He gazed up at her from his reclined seat.

“This mission did modify how I view you,” she admitted.

Her cyborg, usually so covert with his feelings, winced.

Her reply had caused him that level of pain.

“ For the better , my male.” She rushed to clarify. “It modified the way I view you for the better . And Fates. It modified how I view myself also. We defeated our enemies, you and I.” She grinned. “Two medics saving the world.” She reached over with one hand and squeezed his fingers. “Who would have thought that would happen?”

Cure captured her hand between both of his. “It modified the way you viewed me for the better .” Some but not all of the stiffness in his form eased.

“For the better.” She’d repeat that as often as she needed to repeat it to reassure him. “You killed to protect me, our patients, and all the beings on Cancri B and in the entire sector, my medic hottie. And you did that with speed and accuracy and skill.” That had impressed the shit out of her. “I am honored to be your mate.”

“You’re honored to be my mate.” His previously grimly set lips lifted ever-so-slightly. And the rest of his rigidity dissipated.

“I’m honored to be your mate.” She nodded. “I love you, my Cure.”

Cure’s blue eyes blazed with energy.

“I love you, my Cyra.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You’re the best female in the universe.”

Cyra smiled.

That must be true. Her cyborg medic didn’t lie.

* * *

They returned to the medic bay.

There was no one in the structure. Zorelle had left Cyra and Cure a message, however. She told them to communicate with her as soon as they could do so or she would expire from worry.

Expire had been circled and underlined.

Cyra grinned at Cure and then followed her friend’s instructions.

She told Zorelle they couldn’t chatter about the situation, but both of them were healthy and whole.

When Cyra ended the communication, she returned her full attention to the hottie by her side.

“We’ve saved another lifespan.” She laughed. “Now that she no longer has to worry about us, Zorelle says she plans to communicate with your brethren, Yum, well into the rest cycle.”

“I plan to communicate with you well into the rest cycle.” Cure hooked his arms around Cyra’s waist and pulled her closer to his big form. “Not every relay will involve words.”

He covered her lips with his, and she opened eagerly to him. Their tongues twined. Their bodies pressed together. His nanocybotics met hers in an explosion of sensation.

The embrace was a celebration of life.

They had survived.

The mission had been successfully completed, and the Humanoid Alliance’s presence on Cancri B would soon be nonexistent. If it wasn’t already.

The testing and the manufacturing of the enemy’s superweapon had been stopped. Permanently.

The babies born in the future would be devoid of tumors.

There was hope for a cure for the beings now afflicted by them.

And they were loved. She loved her medic cyborg. He loved her.

Cyra’s lips curled upward against Cure’s.

The future looked as bright as her D model’s eyes.