After the distasteful task of bringing down Jacob Black, Vyken wanted nothing more than to take Danya back to their quarters and make love to her for hours. But he needed to meet with primary team leaders Matix, Jolt, and Brekar. Each of them had taken charge of one of the three companies they were preparing to sweep through old Chicago in the coming days to root out the overlords and their gangs to bring back order and make it safe for repopulation.
The armor was ready, and the recently activated cyborgs had been uploaded with the records of their excursions into the city. They’d spent a week familiarizing them with their weapons and equipment hands on. For naturals, a week would not have been near enough, but the cyborgs came preprogrammed with military protocols, strategy and weapons functions. Their databanks were upgraded, and they trained physically to build their strength after being in stasis for so many years.
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 enhancements,” 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.