Vyken Dark

By Christine Myers

Cyborg Vyken Dark is back on Earth after fighting for eighty years in the Procyon War against the Mesaarkans. He came to help restore order out of chaos in old Chicago, USA. Every major city on Earth is in ruins. Most are now run by gangs of thugs ruled by overlords who take everything of value and prey on those who are just trying to survive. Vyken and his four brother cyborgs are all that's left of their starship crew of three hundred.
He didn't want the job, but when his old mentor Admiral Carson Gregor asked, Vyken Dark could not refuse. If he could have chosen a man to call father, it would have been Carson Gregor.
Vyken chose the name Dark because the darkness in his soul drove him to kill the enemies of the Federation with a ruthlessness that few natural humans possessed. Sometimes that darkness overwhelmed his humanity and made him weary of his life... Until he came back to Earth and found her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christine Myers
• Release date: Oct 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798201905668

Christine Myers

Chris Myers has been a science fiction fan since seeing the original “Day the Earth Stood Still” at age eight. Her favorite subgenre is space opera romance. Among the most influential in her work are the Lazarus Long novels by Robert Heinlein including “Time Enough for Love”, Marta Randall’s “Journey” and of course “Star Wars”, everything “Star Trek” and “Fire Fly”.A lifelong resident of Silver Lake, NY she wrote her first novella at age fifteen. She has a BA in Cultural Studies from Empire State College majoring in creative writing. She writes a regular column in the local weekly newspaper “Perry Herald”. Chris has written four novels in The Aledan Series:

Book preview

Vyken Dark

Cyborg Awakenings Book One

Christine Myers

Contact me: [e-mail]

Copyright © 2024 by Christine Myers

All rights reserved

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Vyken Dark /Christine Myers – 3rd ed.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE END

About the Author

Books By Christine Myers,                    a.k.a. Clarissa Lake

CHAPTER ONE

The city was in ruins, as the cyborg Vyken Dark expected as he walked down what was left of the street.  He had been walking for about ten minutes when he heard a woman screaming. It took him only seconds to pinpoint the source.  Stopping at the corner of the building, using it as a shield, he peeked around the corner.

There were five men and a woman. One man held the woman, and two held a middle-aged man while the other punched him repeatedly. The woman was thin but wiry with long brown hair tied back with a strip of rag. A smaller man couldn’t have held her as she tried to wrench herself from his grasp, stomping at his feet and trying to smash her head into his face. She was screaming at them for hurting the man.

Vyken strolled out from behind the building with his rifle aimed.

Let them go, said the pale bronze-skinned hulk with platinum blond hair barely cut an inch from his scalp. Two meters tall with muscles rippling beneath his tight black shirt, Vyken Dark would have been formidable even without his ion rifle pointed in their direction. Don’t do it! he warned as the puncher drew back his fist to hit the older man again.

Vyken fired a shot over his head. The next time, I won’t miss. Let them go.

The puncher stopped and turned to face the interloper, then his eyes widened as the armed cyborg approached.

Vyken stopped about ten feet from the group. Let them go! I won’t tell you again. Vyken growled.

They took our stuff, and they won’t tell us where they put it, the puncher complained.

And what would that be worth beating a man twice your age?

We didn’t take it, the woman said, moving away from the man. She paused, rubbing her upper arms where the bigger man had held her too tightly. We were looking for our food stash and scavenging. They think we took their crystal bliss.

What is crystal bliss? Vyken asked while his databank searched for information. It sounded like a mind-altering substance that would probably be illegal if there were still laws and people to enforce them. That’s why Vyken and his cohorts came back to Earth. The woman speaks the truth.

How the hell do you know that? asked the punching man.

I know, Vyken said. Leave!

The punching man, who seemed to be the leader, looked at Vyken, apparently calculating their chances---five of them against an armed cyborg. His cronies shook their heads. Unarmed, they knew the cyborg could take them all effortlessly. That convinced them, and the thugs left, letting the older man fall to the ground on his hands and knees.  The woman ran to him and squatted down beside him.

Dad! Are you okay? she asked.

Vyken lowered his weapon and walked over to them. Sir, do you require medical treatment?

I don’t know, he groaned. I’m a little battered, but I think I will be okay.

Vyken looked at him and ran a scan from his internal computer. You should let me help you. You have a concussion and an injury to your liver. We have a Medic on our ship. Come with us, and we will help you.

Cyborg, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be fighting the alien war? the woman asked.

What is your name, female? Vyken asked.

I’m Danya Hill, and that’s my father, James Hill, she said.

But you didn’t answer my question, said James.

The war is over.  My team was requested to return to Earth to restore law and order. I am Vyken Dark. He gave his chosen name. His original designation was VKD-8463. Our ship is just outside the city. My brother will bring our transport to take you both there. We have food and a medic.

I didn’t know cyborgs had brothers, Danya said.

We are of the same genetic line, thus brothers, Vyken said.

Looking down at Danya’s face into her solemn green eyes, something stirred in him. He realized she aroused him as his cock stiffened. He hadn’t seen a female in a long time, but this one was different. No other female had ever caused him spontaneous sexual awareness.

Vyken breathed in her scent as he got closer. Amid the smells of sweat, there was an underlying subtle sweetness. She reminded him of his avatar mate, who groomed him in relationship skills while he was in stasis. She wasn’t real.

Everything about Danya touched off a primal attraction in Vyken that shouted: Mate! Then, he understood; she was his genetic mate.

Vyken could only stare at her as she squatted beside her father, now sitting on the ground. She had her arms around his shoulders and leaned her forehead against his. She evidently cared very much for the man like Vyken had cared for his friend and mentor, Admiral Gregor.

A few minutes later, his team’s hover transport arrived, landing in the street at the end of the alley. Vyken slung his rifle over his shoulder, helped Danya get her father on his feet, and walked him to the vehicle. His team had collected two females with four children already in the transport.

Two team members were sitting in the front, and the third was in the last seat in the back of the passenger section. The transport hover bus could carry up to twenty-five people, but the four cyborgs were all that was left of their team. Vyken sat in the back with his second in command, Jolt Somber. His skin color was more tan than bronze, and he had close-cropped brown hair.

Matix Tell piloted the craft, lifting it high above the tattered city that had once been Chicago. Vyken wondered if the city could be salvaged, but that was not his job. His job was to retrieve the people to rebuild the civilization and eradicate those hindering the process. Other teams had been sent to cities worldwide, but Chicago was the city of his birth.

The city may have been ruined, but the cyborg project center was still intact underground on a former dairy farm outside a small town south of the old Chicago. That’s where they would establish the enclave for those who wished to revive civilization in that part of North America. It was a massive facility with four levels. The small-block building that resembled an ancient milk house still stood. Inside was the elevator that led to three of the lower levels.

It was almost an underground city, big enough to hold a small town of people. This was where they would create a pocket of civilization. The cyborgs would find individuals who would come there voluntarily. Those people would build a community using the ancient founding principles of what used to be the USA.

Most of the tech in the center was old, but their AI still worked. It was filled with the knowledge humanity collected before some overzealous planet surveyors got stupid and tried to take a colonized planet from aliens. It was akin to how the Europeans took North and South America from the natives in an earlier age.

Even though the incident was not Federation sanctioned, the Mesaarkan Confederation was wholly unforgiving for the massacre of their people on New Procyon Three. Because the corporation responsible was based on Earth, the Mesaarkans wreaked destruction over the whole planet in a war that lasted over a hundred years.

Two dozen planets in the United Galactic Federation were left in ruin. If not for the Wholaskans, an ancient alien race negotiating peace, the war might still be going on. A few hundred Mesaarkan people were killed on New Procyon 3. The Mesaarkans killed billions. The Wholaskans had a way of making them see their dead had been avenged millions of times over.

The only space force Earth had left was the cyborgs. But with the Mesaarkans peace treaty, no one was left for them to fight. Earth wasn’t a place Vyken thought he wanted to stay forever, just until he had carried out the Admiral’s last wishes.

The cyborg forces had officially been released from duty by the Federation. Vyken and his team were on their own, with Cyborg Command following their activities. Most of the cyborgs released were already on their way to settling a world they found in their travels during the war. There would be room for Vyken and his brothers if they decided to actually go there. There was time to decide on that later.

CHAPTER TWO

The cyborg transport hovered in front of the landing bay of their starship, sitting in a field nearby the secret entrance to the Human Enhancement Center. They used it as their base of operations on Earth because all their supplies, weapons, and transport vehicles were contained within. Otherwise, they would have left it in orbit because it took up an old football field’s space. The ancient cow pasture was more than big enough to accommodate it.

Matix had signaled ahead, so a bot stretcher was waiting in the landing bay for Mr. Hill. When Vyken had relayed his scan to the medic, he agreed with Vyken that the man should not be walking around until they injected him with nanites to repair the damage. Vyken accompanied Danya and her father to the sickbay. At the same time, the other cyborgs went to the mess hall to give the other women and children something to eat.

Their medic, Kydel Bar, was also a cyborg but was well-versed in human physiology, as cyborgs were also human. However, many random-bred humans didn’t think of them as such. Even though they carried a fully integrated biocomputer within their bodies and nanocybots in their bloodstreams, they were human beings. Unenhanced humans didn’t always see them that way.

The bot stretcher transferred James Hill onto the treatment lounger. Kydel then shooed Vyken and Danya out into the waiting room. The two stood looking each other over for a few moments. Danya wasn’t the first female he had seen in the last few years, but the only one who had sparked an attraction that stirred his loins. Even dirty and disheveled,